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Murder Sheet
The Future of Crime Solving: A Conversation with Former Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives Deputy Assistant Director Bernard J. Zapor on Mass Shootings, Egyptian Artifacts, and Undercover Work
01:15:10
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A
Okay, I know it's kind of cliche, but I really, really love fall. I just do. Partly because I get to break out my fall wardrobe. And this year I know I'm going to be leaning on my favorite clothing brand, Quince. They're going to help me refresh my wardrobe, get some new pieces and help me feel a little bit more luxurious.
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A
It is. It just frankly is. And I'm excited to look into getting some more Mongolian cashmere sweaters, maybe some new colors. We're going to mix it up and I'd like to add those to my Quince collection. They start at just $50, so it's a steal. All Quint's pieces are like half the cost of similar brands, so check them out today. Quince saves you money by cutting out the middlemen.
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Keep it classic and cozy this fall with long lasting staples from quince. Go to quince.com msheet for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com msheet to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com msheet content warning this episode contains discussion of violence and murder. It also includes some discussion of mental health and some profanity.
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A
As true crime podcasters, certain questions linger in our minds. Why do perpetrators carry out mass shootings? Why do people who seem all right on the surface suddenly commit horrible violence? What's it really like to adopt a false identity and go undercover with violent, dangerous criminals? Today, we'll be learning about all of that and more, thanks to our conversation with Bernard J. Zaper. Bernard spent 25 years working for the United States Department of Justice's agency, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, commonly known as atf.
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B
Our interview with him is part of our new occasional recurring segment, the Future of Crime Solving. It's a series where we talk to different figures associated with E Sleuth AI. E Sleuth AI offers a suite of new tools crafted to help eliminate backlogs and get cases solved cold and otherwise. It employs artificial intelligence and machine learning technology and its systems our Federal Bureau of Investigation Criminal Justice Information System compliant.
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Basically what E Sleuth does is it takes in case files and then provides suggestions on steps investigators may have missed or further tasks they need to complete in order to get closer to a conclusion.
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To help convince law enforcement departments around the country that E. Sluth is the future of crime solving, the company is working with an impressive array of former law enforcement officials and they're willing to talk with us.
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A
In these interviews. We'll get into their lives and careers. We'll also check in with how their efforts to implement this technology in real world cases is going. Just as a note, E. Sleuth is not sponsoring us. We just thought they'd be great to talk to because they universally have extensive backgrounds in crime solving that they're now trying to implement in a new way. We're also interested in sort of following along live with a company that's seeking to introduce its technology to law enforcement agencies. It's an interesting opportunity to see their trajectory up close.
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B
As we mentioned today, we'll be talking with Bernard J. Zapier. These days he's a consultant, expert witness and media figure who appears regularly on national news programs. He also teaches. He's a faculty associated Arizona State University School of Criminology and Justice. During his time with the ATF, he served as a leader in his offices in St. Paul, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Phoenix. He eventually became a deputy assistant director in Washington, D.C. he also did a lot of undercover work seeking to take down violent criminals, including white supremacist extremist groups and an outlaw motorcycle gang.
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A
This is a really wide ranging conversation that I enjoyed very much. I asked Bernard about his thoughts on recent high profile violent crimes as well as topics like stopping mass shootings. He talked about his views on how the lack of help for people in crisis, whether that's due to family issues, budding sociopathy or mental ill, is a big factor in some of these cases. He also got into some of his fascinating undercover work for the atf. He talked about how he began his career journey at the age of 10 when he witnessed a shocking attempted assassination. And we also talked about why he thinks E. Sleuth AI can help police prevent as well as solve crimes. My name is Anya Cain. I'm a journalist and I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney and this is the Murder Sheet.
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B
We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives. Into murder cases. We're the murder sheet.
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A
And this is the future of crime solving. A conversation with former Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Deputy Assistant Director Bernard J. Zapor on mass shootings, Egyptian artifacts and undercover work.
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C
It.
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A
First of all, Bernard, I just want to say thank you so much for coming on the murder sheet. We really appreciate you taking the time.
- [06:14]
C
Absolutely.
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A
I guess to start off with, you've had such a. I was on newspapers.com sort of looking at sort of the trajectory of your career a bit and some of the cases you were sort of quoted in the newspapers as, you know, talking about and some of the offices that you sort of held during your time with the atf. But I was wondering, could you just give us sort of a nutshell version of your career and trajectory within law enforcement? You know, specifically, obviously focusing on the etf.
- [06:42]
C
Sure. You know, a nutshell I will get. I'm gonna go back to when I was 10 years old.
- [06:48]
A
Yes, yes.
- [06:49]
C
Just because we, you know, I was a military brat and we had some very unique experiences because of that. And one of which was my father was exposed to a breach nuclear weapon from an airplane crash B52 crash and was dying of radiation exposure. And as he deteriorated, the oncology for the military was at the Presidio in San Francisco. So in 1975, when I was 10 and my brother was 17, they flew us out to San Francisco to say goodbye to my dad. And we couldn't be in the ICU during the daytime. So we were just tearing around San Francisco and my brother saw the news that the President was in town. So he said, let's go to the hotel and see if we can see the President. As a result, and as a result of being an obnoxious 10 year old who pushed our way to the very front. My brother and I witnessed the attempted assassination of President Ford in September of 75. And that had an impact on me because I asked my brother who were those guys running around and what was that all about? And he had told me about the Secret Service. And then fast forward. I did a some my last semester in undergrad I did an internship with, with Treasury Enforcement, which was Customs Enforcement, which is Customs Investigation that preceded ICE before the Homeland Security Act. Secret Service. And so I did a joint internship with them and I found out about this exam he had to take to become a federal agent in the Treasury Department. I had an opportunity with multiple agencies. ATF had the fastest hiring date. So I jumped to them. It. I remember in my interview that I was told That I had the personal acumen that was going to fit best with their agency anyway versus Secret Service because they did a lot of undercover work. They liked athletes. And I. The interviewer told me he actually they particularly like big ugly people. So he wasn't wrong back then. But when I started with atf, I spent the first eight years primarily doing undercover. That was my investigative strength and my natural acumen. It took me into some really weird and unusual situations because you end up doing undercover for other agencies as well. I did murder for hires. I did every type of narcotics thing you could think of. Every, bought every weapon. I did a case of stolen Egyptian antiquities, a crazy case of saguaro cactuses being dug up and shipped to Japan where they were selling in Tokyo for a million dollars apiece through the Japanese organized crime. But mostly a lot of dealing with violent gangs, prison gangs, the Aryan Brotherhood, the white nationalist separatists, the Aryan nations, the neo Nazis in the US and then a biker gang as well. After those eight years, then I went into leadership and went through the ranks of a first line leader and then middle management and executive leadership in the field and executive leadership and ATF headquarters. But I will say through all of that there were two things that had an impact on me personally and professionally, beyond anything else. So obviously if you are an atf, particularly back then, you were exposed to, I call it the human evil business because you're on the very tail end of the deterioration of self and one's separation from the higher purpose of our being on this planet. You know, you're exposed to human tragedy and the continuation of that through generations and all the things that go with it. But you also have a very strong sense of victimization because you know, if one person gets, one person gets murdered, that has a ripple effect through family and friends and companies. And it goes on for years and years akin to like dropping a pebble in a still pond. Those ripples have an unbelievable impact and they go on in perpetuity. And I had a lot of exposure to homicides, most of which were drug and gang related homicide. But I got exposed to mass casualty events, active shooter events, two of them that my agency. We worked, we served a very odd purpose there at both of them. We did primarily dealing with the, with the bodies for the medical examiner. Because if you have a mass shooting event, say for example, the local police department, if you have a lot of people that are killed, you know, women, children, kids, there's probably a connection. There's less than one degree of separation between the local Law enforcement and these victims. And so it takes the, the service of that agency kind of out of the game. I mean, they get exhausted pretty quickly. So, you know, us offering to help, we end up getting some strange roles and those are one of them. But that exposure to people that were non criminal in nature. And I'm not saying that every victim I had exposure with before that, but there was, you know, the contextual thing of drugs and gangs. This case was people going to a movie and the other one was people going to a place of worship. And it had a massive dramatic impact on me that I have been an advocate of active shooter preparation and doing everything we can to stop victimization, which means stopping the ongoing nature of, of criminal activity. And unfortunately, you know, that starts in a very obvious place. And that is, and this is just my opinion, you know, we're raised as human beings and if we're not in an environment where promises are kept and there's a demonstration of love, there's a problem. And the problem is going to manifest itself in behavior that's contrary to society. Because I mean, in my estimation, we're the only organism on the planet that has choice. You know, animals have hierarchy and instinct. We have choice. So therefore there's, there's no bottom to human evil and nor is there any ceiling to human goodness. And the absence of those things, the promises kept, the demonstration of love, you're going to have the, you're going to have the former, you'll have human evil.
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A
I want to, I want to jump in and maybe jump into some of those topics before we sort of get started talking about what you've been doing. Now to start with this origin story, like this moment where you're seeing this attempted assassination of a president. What do you remember about that? Did you realize what was going on as was happening, or was this something where the weight hit you later?
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C
No, I mean, you know, it's a really weird time. I mean, I was aware of my father dying.
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A
Yeah.
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C
You know, so it was a really stressful time. And you know, seeing the condition my mom was in and my brother and being in this foreign place at this army medical center and in San Francisco and all that just had a really heaviness to it. And you know, in 1975 in San Francisco, it was still very much the hate aspect. Hate Asbury hippie era. I'm saying it wrong, no offense to Those that are 20 years older than me, but you know, there was still Vietnam protests even though Vietnam had wrapped up and you know, our country was in a weird spot then. And I just couldn't believe that. It was shocking to me that people would be angry about the President being there. That was amazing to me at the time. But when the whole thing went down, you know, I remember recognizing the professionalism of how things happen like bam, bam, bam in the aftermath. And of course the people that were protesting the loudest were the ones that were trying to get away the fastest or really not knowing what's happening because it's wasn't overly dramatic. I mean, could I, I mean I can remember hearing like one shot which the noise level was so high there. It doesn't have the same drama as, you know, other city shooting type things or whatever. But yeah, I was aware of it. I was just perplexed that people wouldn't be honored to be there and support their country just because I was raised in a military environment where especially my mother being an immigrant. I mean, we just, we had a love of country above all, you know, love of church, love of God, love of church, love of country. But I do remember that shining a.
- [15:07]
A
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- [18:26]
A
Yeah, it's, that's, that's remarkable. And it's also especially disturbing given, you know, it seems like political violence is once again on the rise.
- [18:34]
C
We have something going on now that is far more ominous in my estimation. I've responded to many of the mass shooting events we've had in contemporary history in terms of the media. And there's a couple takeaways I have that one is, as human beings, we want to have context to why somebody does something. People are almost relieved to find out that somebody is anti Islamic or anti Christian or they hate black people, or they hate Mexican people or they hate white people. They want context so they can feel better and put that type of equal in a category. The Las Vegas shooter who still has the highest body count in contemporary history. He never pontificated anything. He, he worked hard, he researched, he rehearsed. He turned down two opportunities to do this. He just had a straight out intention to kill as many people as Possible. Now in terms of context, you know, we'll never have it, but we shouldn't. And I argue too that if you take all these like mass casualty active shooter types and you can strip all that nonsense off, you could even go the Middle east and strip off the terrorist nonsense. And they're really the same person underneath, in my opinion. And that person is somebody who is obsessed with self. They are narcissistic, they lack empathy, they're sociopathic and whatever jacket they can put on themselves because nobody wants to be the bad guy even in the face of killing a bunch of people. They want to be notorious but not the bad guy. And I think we have successfully, although that's not that there's a good connotation to this unraveled the framework of society and family and an adherence to us being a constitutional Republican. But that is all anchored in a family and a faith, whatever it is. So we've unraveled like the most important thing because you know, we used to talk about sometimes amongst ourselves, you know, does it. Is it really laws that keep people squared away or is it something else? I would argue it's something else. The laws help. But if there's nothing holding me here, like for example, if this is it, if it's just like living, breathing, trying to get your next meal, look out because I'm a werewolf and I'm going to do whatever I got to do to, to get what I want or take what I want. But you know, I'm not, I'm not here for that. You know, I'm an agent of something greater than myself. And I think we've as a society and the world is trending that way. We've lost our connection to value of the whole and value to something higher than ourselves. And so social media, not to, you know, not to do the typical pointing to social media, but social media perpetuates the isolationism of people and we're fragmented from our fellow person, human being. And I mean just as people can be as vicious, for example online because they can do it anonymously and they're also just being inundated with these images of people having this amazing life and they have amazing resources, but they don't work. So somehow, somehow they're not going to a job, but they're living this life to people that are more vulnerable because they have not had an environment of promises kept and love demonstrated. Look out. Because what fills that space is that you get your the yourself and so obsession with self become sociopathic. And I'm not A psychologist. This will always piss them off when I talk about these things. But I've been through enough training to say I'm comfortable with saying this, but we're in a really dangerous thing. It has nothing to do with political violence or religious beliefs or any of these other things. It's just we don't have something greater than ourselves. Because if you look at like what would, what would take a 22 year old kid who lives in Utah that seemingly had a family and probably friends, a young man, to radicalize himself to an extent that he felt completely justified to go and murder a father, a husband and I mean, we're in a seriously dangerous situation when somebody 22 years old who comes from a family and has an environment can radicalize himself to the point of feeling justified to do this, enthusiastic, in fact, to do it. And so we're on a new level beyond traditional crime. We're on a new level of violence that is unprecedented in terms of its reason.
- [23:29]
A
I do want to ask you about this aspect of it because this is something we've struggled with as people who cover crime, right? And we've tried to look at the research and look at what is happening with some of these mass shootings. Because I love what you said, it's like you can dress it up as whatever ideology, whatever political viewpoint, whatever religious viewpoint, whatever you want, anti women, anti gay, anti, you know, anti Christian, what have you. But ultimately you're seeing commonalities between these people. Is there is, is and is the media fueling this by almost. Listen, I'm not, I'm a reporter, I'm not trying to vilify reporters in this necessarily and say they're trying to prop up the shooters. But when you have wall to wall coverage of every aspect of every shooter's life and you're seeing, oh my gosh, you know, look, look, here's a, you know, here's their manifesto and here's them posing with guns and here's a video they shot and here's their ideology. Are we giving them what they want, which is notoriety? Perhaps when we're doing that, is there, is there a benefit to perhaps putting out information in a way that doesn't necessarily do that, but still might answer some questions, but perhaps puts the victims first?
- [24:49]
C
Yeah, maybe. I always go back in response to that question and say the Beatles launched a thousand rock and roll bands. I mean, including some really humongous successful acts, some rock bands, because they were just awesome and inspiring and they created a bunch of things that happen. And so you Know these things that are so, I don't know, notorious or inflammatory or whatever. I mean, it touches people in different ways. And so I don't blame this on the media. I blame it on the fact that we are absent the things that we need as a human being with choice. And we are starting to see the manifestation of the lack of the things that would keep us together. And that's, you know, a love for each other or have responsibility to your community or all those kind of things. Because in the French, you know, the breadcrumbs always go back to the deterioration of this, this person's upbringing. Like they suffered a lot of them, they suffered immensely, they suffered abuse or again, lack of demonstration of love, which means promise keeping, etc. But now we're happening, we're doing this at the varsity level and you know, it's hard not to cover these things. And of course, yes, there have been active shooters perpetuated because of the, the knowledge of it. And, and you know, it'd be interesting if in thesis, if you took like say for example, there was never a Columbine shooting. That was a tough one for people because there had been mass shootings before that wasn't new, but this was like two high school kids who, you know, look there, there's probably a million kids that would have traded places for them. Oh, wait a minute, you live in a house where you have like meals and food every day and you go to this really beautiful high school in Colorado and oh, I'm sorry, you're not like the popular kid. Who cares? Nobody's shooting at me, nobody's trying, nobody's beating me up. You know, there's a lot of people would trade places for them. So it was astonishing to see these guys go through what they went through to kill people and, and how they did it and all those things. So, I mean, if there wasn't a Columbine, would there be the next one and the next one and the next one and the next one? You know, probably a lot less. That's very possible.
- [27:04]
A
It seems like some of them are in conversation with one another or absolutely modern day mass shooters who are mimicking previous ones. And it's like, I don't know, it's.
- [27:15]
C
The same thing with, if you didn't have Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, you don't have isis, you don't have, you know, I don't know what the answer to that is, but again, the Beatles launched a thousand rock bands. That's the danger of all of this stuff really.
- [27:32]
A
Yeah, love the Beatles. But yeah, you're right. We're, we're as a species. We, you know, we are inspired by other humans doing something that we res. That resonates with us. And that's just as true for good things as it is for bad things.
- [27:48]
C
Yeah, I mean, not to keep putting this, I guess, spiritual thing on it, but again, it's like if you don't believe in something greater than yourself, and specifically, let's say that, you know, you're called to account for everything you do in this life and it might be in the afterlife or that there is an afterlife, you know, that alone kept people in check for a long time, I would say not always, but that they do the right thing even if their life is not going the way they want. They do the best they can. They have a commitment to some type of ethos that involves that's opposite of the ego. You know, the ego is the devil's favorite costume. And we can direct ourselves to do a lot of things that we think we're righteous. It's very easy for somebody to feel like when they get on the bandwagon of, you know, they hate Hispanics. So therefore they're going to go shoot up a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. They're giving themselves justification. And of course, it only takes a simple review of human history to see the most atrocious things we've ever done to each other has been in the name of God. They all adapted to it and did it because they didn't want to be the bad guy. Like, they gave themselves justification for these horrible things. And we have that going on the individual level. I often use this example. You know, if you and I saw a child getting run over by a car, we're going to be scarred by that. It's going to cause like, I mean, you could very well have post traumatic stress disorder from it. You're going to be traumatized from that for the rest of your life. The image is not going to go away. It might fade, but it's not going to go away. But there are people out there that if they saw that, it wouldn't affect them at all. And that's the sociopathy. It can be. You can be socialized that way. You can get a genetically and I think there's organizations and groups that are sociopathic and perpetuate it. But it's like that human consciousness, you know, of, of having something that feels the right way. Because I would say if somebody has even a little bit of that, they know what feels Right. And doesn't feel right. The scarier thing is when you go down to, you know, people that are absolutely self serving. Right. Lack of anything other than the. They live like a dog, they're in the first like five. No, no insult to dogs, by the way, but I love dogs. But you know, they're living in the, they're living 90 seconds at a time. And you know, that's why the golden retriever, who's the most awesome thing in the world to you, will make a decision to wolf down your pizza as soon as you turn your head because it's driven that way. That's the instinct. And there's human beings that operate like that and, but apart from them, you know, we all have a feeling about the right and wrong thing. I, I think quite obviously we have been disenfranchised from a collective and whatever regular criminality we have, we have this new thing and it's affecting people. Like a 22 year old kid in Utah. Yeah.
- [30:58]
A
I mean when people talk about that shooter, like it's one of those things where, you know, I mean, people say maybe got radicalized in college, but it's like he was there for a semester. You know, people are saying he's in these discords and online and whatnot. I mean, with someone like him who seems to have an outwardly stable family life and sort of who seems like he had some strong family unit, he had family members who were in law enforcement and so law abiding that they actually, you know, pushed him to turn himself in at the end of the day. So I mean, obviously, you know, he's not being raised to not, you know, not be pro social. I mean that's as pro social as it gets. Truly. How do we, how do we kind of try to stop that form of mass shooting? Is there, are there things that we could be doing in your mind and as a society when it comes to, you know, I dare I say it, legislation around guns, legislation around mental health issues, online activity, maybe being monitored with younger people. I mean, where do we start?
- [32:05]
C
You know, I, I, obviously we've all had to think about this, you know, because what is a pragmatic tool that could help? Well, it keeps going back to the one thing and that is we do not have a behavioral health, mental health system in the United States. We really don't. You know, there's a court system where people can be adjudicated as mentally deficient, but it's rarely ever used and those records are rarely ever kept. And you know, there's Actually a form that would go to the FBI because it's a prohibitive category, for example, for purchasing firearms. But, you know, our streets in most major cities are filled with people who should be in institutional care because they're not able to take care of themselves. They're living in a, a horrible alter reality of schizophrenia, bipolarism, a number of different ailments. They're being victimized by each other. And it's, I mean, it really to me is an affront to our society to have that in our cities, to have people suffering like that. Now I think, and this is, again, this is all my opinion, we have had a snapback from the atrocities that happened up until the 1970s in behavioral health care, where people were forced into mental institutions and they became victimized and they were tortured and a husband could institutionalize his wife and all these horrible things where now we have no system because we're not going to incarcerate somebody and force them into a system against their will if they're a functional adult. I don't know what the exact answer to that is because I'm not a professional in that field. But I think we should be pouring a lot of academic, societal research funding into that to find a pipeline. Because basically what you have is you have people who are obviously clinically diagnosed or could be clinically diagnosed with things that make them non functional or harm to self and others. So there's those categories. You have people that are the victims of abuse and the horrible situation they were in where they can't function normally because, you know, they're the scraps of the human being that they should have been through being loved and cared and raised. And you have that category. Well, they all end up nothing, but that's what ends up on the street. And politically, people call this a homelessness issue, not a homelessness issue. You do have people who are obviously struggling. And you can't live in a place like Los Angeles or New York and be able to afford it if you've, you know, you're getting 800amonth in state care or whatever it is. That is like the other thing, which is a housing issue. But the other part of, is just the fact that we have adults that are not truly functional and we are unwilling to force them into a situation against their will because they still demonstrate cognitive abilities or whatever. You know, that whole system not being there allows for somebody who's recognized, say they're seventh grade and they're doing things that are really problematic and they keep trying to do the discipline route. When in fact you have somebody that this poor kid is seeing people and things that don't really exist because he or she has schizophrenia earlier, schizophrenia and is acting against that world or that opposition with no real care because they go the discipline route or the isolation route or whatever. But I think we require an infrastructure that would actually treat people that could be treated, confine people who are dangerous self and others, but we have to confine them in a way that is rehabilitative to the best of our ability and, and that they are safe and they don't become victimized in that situation, whatever that is, and that it's, you're proactively going on the streets of America, get those people off. But more importantly, we have some system or chain when it goes through. Because when you look at, when you look at violent crime in the US and you look at these anomalous but increasing, say active assailant type cases or this, the assassination type case, there's breadcrumbs there, there's things that are happening and you know, we just don't have any viable alternative at the moment that identifies and provides this stuff. And it would be a very hard thing as a country. And of course we're so polarized right now legislatively. I don't see how that could ever happen. We lack that and we're suffering for it because the lack of that infrastructure is we have nothing serving us when our society is going into a disenfranchised people lacking a calling to something greater than themselves. And it's, it just creates more and more victimization.
- [37:11]
A
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I do agree it's so polarized, but I do think, you know, people in the middle or people who are perhaps, you know, not as polarized. I mean, when I talk to people regardless of their political stripes and it gets into some of this stuff, I think there's a pretty unified view that this is hurting people. It's not compassionate, it's, it's leading to more adverse outcomes for society and for individuals. And there's no support for very little support for families who find themselves trying to help a loved one in these situations. And I, I, I think there's political polarization, but I actually think when it comes to the political will from just the public, that's there. But it's a question of, you know, how do you do it legally and how do you have the finances to do it properly that you're not crimping on the budget. And then it has, you know, it's just basically Awful Asylums part two. And, you know, and what you say, it makes sense where, you know, you have these people who, you know, maybe the. The. The homeless man dealing with something on the street who's there because of his mental illness, and he's not necessarily a mass shooter. But if you had an overall pipeline and you had somebody exhibiting red flags, say, in. In high school, perhaps, and they were able to get help quicker, maybe you could defuse that situation before it became a mass shooting incident. Maybe not due to their mental illness, but maybe due to some sociopathic traits that you could try to treat before it's too late.
- [38:42]
C
True. Because, you know, there are functioning sociopaths in this world, and they do wine, and they're not harming other people.
- [38:51]
A
Oh, you can. You can help people, give people the tools to put that into a less harmful way. Or if it's more of a spectrum, if it's like they're kind of sliding towards one end based on some stressors, maybe you're helping to not have that go to the far end. So it's a really good point. I do want to ask you about some of your undercover work, though, because that is fascinating. So I do want to ask you, like, when it comes to that, you mentioned they kind of pegged you as somebody who would be good at undercover work. What makes one good at undercover work with the atf, and how do you ensure you're doing it in a way that, you know you're not? I mean, obviously, it's an inherently risky job, I imagine, so how do you play that part in a way to keep yourself safe?
- [39:39]
C
I was really lucky because I got paired up with a couple of Phoenix police officers that do that. We're doing undercover all the time, and they gave me something I never learned in any undercover school or training, which was you have to be yourself. And it just worked out well because I'm a giant, overfed juvenile delinquent. And so, you know, I've never. You can't pretend to be somebody else. You can't be some college educated person with clean fingernails and start talking, trying to talk tough or be stupid or whatever. You just got to be yourself. I. You know, honestly, unlike the dramatized undercover stuff, I didn't go live with a gang day in and day out, you know, and, like, make roast turkeys with them or. No, this. You know, it's. In reality, it's transactional. Right. I want to buy a machine gun. You want to sell it to me? You know, I want to buy 2 pounds of methamphetamine you want to sell it to me? I want to kill my brother. I'll kill him for you. You know, so you have a purpose for being together. Because in reality, you know, most people. I. I don't know if I would say most people, we are. We are given a couple things instinctually as an organism, and that is survival and perpetuation. And all of our hormones and all of our things function around those two things. It's all of our attractions and repulsions and our survival thing, or survival and perpetuation. And most people will have a feeling of somebody's lying to them. It just doesn't. It comes off now out of politeness or the fact that we still want them to be somebody we hope they are, will ignore that. But you want to do everything you can in that job not to lie to people. Plus, it's. It's disrespectful. They can just feel it. So, you know, you're kind of weaving an edge. But really, it's transactional, and that's the reason why the two people are together. You know, I'm not, like, here to be your buddy. I'm not trying to get in and be in your party club, you know, and so it worked out like that. And of course, people that are out there looking for somebody to solve a problem for them, they want them to buy something or do something or whatever, and you show up, you know, you're just the plumber. You know, you need a pipe fixed. I'm the plumber guy. Right. So a little less dramatic than is perpetuated on TV and all this stuff, and. And whatever. But, yeah, the. The problem is they don't know that you're a federal agent. And so you're out there swinging with the rest of the criminals and dirtbags, and so you're extinguishable. You have a better chance, them knowing that you're a federal agent when that comes loose, than they think that you're just an informant or another criminal. Because then it's when you're really vulnerable, because particularly career criminals, when they know that you're an officer, federal agent, whatever, they know that you come with a ginormous army that's coming. And so. But if they don't know that, like, for example, you know, ATF had an awesome. I never participated in this. This was after my time, after my time on the street. But they had developed a couple really advanced undercover techniques which were super effective, and I don't want to get into them too much, but One of which was a home invasion scenario that involved an undercover agent in on the home invasion scenario. And if I recall, it's like almost every single time when the undercover agent got away from the other four or five or six people that were going to do the home invasion, they were all talking about as soon as this is done, we're going to kill him. We're going to kill that mother effort because he's from the outside, he's not part of our group, we don't want him to know this. So we're just going to kill him at the time. So when we go in there, we're going to jack this house and we're going to drop him right there every time. So I mean, you know, that's something that would, you would have to anticipate that that is what is always around the corner. And the fact that you could be getting set up for a robbery, that's the biggest fear for undercover, for any agency or organization is that if it's too good to be true, it probably is. And that's why like large quantity narcotics exchanges are so dangerous. Because a lot of times it's total, it's just there for robbery purposes. And agents or undercover operatives and their agency, their supervisor and their group, they have to do everything they can not to get infatuated with what the possibility is. And they have to think as adversarial all the time and that it's too good to be true. It's because it is. Or you know, the guy wants me to not to go this location last minute, he wants me to go this location. No, we're not doing that. You know, there's just, there's lessons that have been learned. If you ignore those lessons, you're doing it at your own peril.
- [44:39]
A
And that, that makes a lot of sense. And, and I saw that you just from some of my research into some of the cases you covered, you worked your way up to being a special agent in, in charge of a field division, is that right?
- [44:54]
C
Yes.
- [44:54]
A
What's that role like?
- [44:57]
C
So the, the, the, the SAC or the sac, specially in charge runs a field division. It's like your field executive field commander. They'd kind of be like the Chief of police. If it was the military division, they'd probably be a colonel or up to a two star depending on the size of the division. So the first one I was the special agent in charge was St. Paul Field Division, which I mean, you know, only the government can love you this way. I was in Los Angeles as an Assistant Special Agent in charge where I worked for a, a sack that was a Vietnam veteran, Green Beret, Vietnam veteran. And he was just tough. He was tough as nails. His nickname was the Tin man because he had no heart. But. And I felt very much like Mickey Mouse as the Apprentice to the Sorcerer because I was constantly like knocking or get, you know, getting the, the mops to be dancing around down in the basement and getting myself in trouble. But I learned so much from him in terms of leadership and, you know, everything that was happening. We had crisis at critical, critical, critical. I mean, the first week I was in la, we had a horrible thing happen to my contemporary that I don't want to mention, but then he had a heart attack from it and, and then it wasn't like maybe four weeks later we had a mass shootout with a guy that ultimately killed a LA county sheriff's deputy that was responding to help us. It was horrific. And then 911 happened. And of course 911 happened. We were. None of us came home for a couple months because the FBI had a list of like 1800 Arabic men in Southern California that needed to have contact interviews. I mean, it was just, it was all hands on deck. But anyway, I was in Los Angeles and, and by that point I was the acting Special Agent in charge there because the, my boss had retired and I was told I was going to Lyon, France to Interpol, which was going to be a really cool assignment in. And ATF doesn't go overseas much, but that was going to be really amazing. And my family and I at the time were kind of gearing up for that possibility. And then I got a call saying I was going to St. Paul, Minnesota as the sack. It was a fourth promotion, I think. I had to take painkillers for two days so I could sleep. I was so bummed out. And of course the irony was the other ASAC in there and I used to kid around with each other like, you know, what would be worse? Like just like two little kids, would you eat vomit or dog crap? You know, if you if in your little kid, what would be worse? St. Paul or New Orleans? That's what we saw each other. So the irony of me getting St. Paul was just karma come home. But I went to St. Paul. It was the best leadership experience I had. It was the best living experience I had because the people there had a tremendous work ethic and they were making cases, they just hadn't been supported. The division was empty. There was probably six positions that had never been filled. It was kind of treated like flyover country. But it was, at the time, it was the judicial districts that covered Montana, north and South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin. There were a lot of people that wanted to come back to those areas. And I was able to get a lot of people transferred back. And then we filled positions. They didn't have division council, they didn't have public Information Officer, they didn't have a division tactical advisor, all this stuff. And we built up this division and very fortunate, nothing to do with me. There were probably three agents that transferred in the division that were incredible forward thinkers and built an intelligence program that was the best in the country. And they ended up leading OCDEF region in cases. And we actually had the largest firearms trafficking case. It wasn't even in down the border. It was guns to Mexico, but it was from dealing with Minnesota. So we had tremendous success there because I just really had the benefit of people that wanted to work. And we built it into a really awesome division. Then it was, you know, I was there for a long time because if nobody wanted to transfer me because somebody would have had to fill my place. So I got to stay there for a long time and not go to headquarters. Eventually I went to DC at the end as a deputy assistant director. And then, you know, I had been bugging them forever trying to get back to Phoenix. My wife at the time was sick and was being treated at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona. We finally got to go back, and then I was going to get transferred. I hadn't even been there a year. And so I retired, you know, and I was hoping to build the same thing in Phoenix because it was coming out of the Fast and Furious thing a couple years back, and I had, I had a great vision for what the division could be. But those, those field experiences, I mean, you know, it's leadership from the front, and you have to do everything you can to empower people there in every way possible. And that's, that's the satisfying thing. I mean, you know, they. You got agents out in the. I would say in the middle of nowhere. I mean, agents that were out working cases is 30 below zero in northern North Dakota. They're out doing stuff and I mean, they're just crushing it wherever they're at and making the place safe. And they cared and they, they had a big impact on, on people have been victims of crime and it's hard not to do everything you can to serve them. And that's what that job is. It's all about servant leadership. And, you know, I was very Very, very fortunate to, and privileged to be able to do any of those kind of jobs.
- [50:19]
A
You know, I did want to ask you, you talk about, like, working with these amazing agents and other law enforcement. You know, I, I'm. How would you describe the culture of the ATF to, to those who may not be super familiar with it? And maybe if you could talk about some misconceptions about the ATF that are sort of widely out there that may not be true.
- [50:42]
C
Well, first I want to say that I'm an old brown bruised banana because I've been out of it for 10 years. But, you know, the thing is there's no, there's no agency that can do anything completely by itself. And so, you know, there was a tremendous amount of partnering. All agency, all the federal agencies partner. And you, you have to lean into each other for your strengths. And it's always more effective when you have cooperation and you do things together. I mean, some of the task forces and some of the cooperative groups and the joint investigations were really the most effective. Of course, at the end, it gets into the who's getting credit kind of nonsense. And that's, you know, that can be difficult because, you know, I know of one agency that was really a vacuum, was a credit vacuum, would suck up all the credit whenever possible. ATF was interesting because when I first got into it, it was very much a cowboy outfit. You have firearms regulation, people that are professional inspectors, but the actual law enforcement officers, the special agents, it was really kind of a rogue cowboy type outfit compared to other more buttoned up agencies. But law enforcement loved us and felons hated us. And I thought that was a great place to be because I was always told the charter of that agency was to serve state and local law enforcement, period. And so, you know, particularly if you're a leader, whatever level, you never go to a police department or sheriff's office and with your hands open, you go and bring something to them. And, you know, it's, it's meant to be that way. I remember when I first went to Las Vegas, the first meeting I went to in Las Vegas was a joint meeting of the security services of all the casinos and law enforcement. I'm sitting next to a couple command people from Las Vegas Metropolitan pd And there was a guy, and he was venting about it, a guy that they had arrested like seven times. And the last time he got a big chase and a shootout and whatever, and the county attorney, they didn't oppose him being bailed out. And he got out. They went through this, all this stuff. And the guy got out and I'm sitting there listening. I said what? I said, let's go get that guy tonight. We literally wrote a case for convict or for a multi convicted felon armed career criminal case on him. Got the U.S. attorney's office in Las Vegas who were super supportive to bless it. We went to a grand jury and got the guy indicted like within two days. And then we ambushed him and he got arrested by us. The marshals took him. He ended up going to federal penitentiary in Atlanta. People, the Las Vegas cops will never see that guy again. You know, that's a. And I told them when that was a great way to start. It's like that's a tool that belongs to you. And so really it's a sharp tool for violent crime and it's supposed to be used by the police departments in cooperation. That's how it was supposed to work and to great effect. It's always disheartening when you hear people politically love to attack the atf. In reality, one ATF special agent produces more criminal defendants than any of the other agencies combined in terms of 1811 investigators, or that used to be the case. There's also been the most number of ATF special agents killed in the line of duty, although the Marshal service is getting more and more unfortunately. And of course Border Patrol, they have a tremendous amount of un. I mean, any loss is bad. But so anyway, I, in my opinion, there's no single agency that's greater than any of the others. And the further they, the more they work together, the better they all are. That's just the reality of it. You know, I think there's certain cultures in some that make it better. I, I fit there pretty good. Although, you know, I had. There's a lot of. And there was the time, a lot of cannibalism because you had people inside the agency that wanted to destroy the agency or hated people and worked hard to, you know, ruin their careers or trip them up or whatever. I mean, there was a lot of that stuff that I don't miss at all. Pretty vicious.
- [54:57]
A
I did want to ask you, you know, like just going back a little bit and then I want to go to sort of what you've been working on lately. But I have to ask this because I'm a history major, I'm a huge history nerd. Tell me more about these Egyptian scrolls that you worked on, because that sounds like something out of a novel.
- [55:16]
C
Yeah, there was some organized crime involved with stealing these. They were funeral head things If I think that's because I don't know any about it. They were priceless. And they belonged to Egypt. They didn't belong to anybody else. And there was funeral masks was one of the things. There was part of a sarcophagus. I mean, all these things were absolutely priceless. And they were being traded around. Organized crime was helping them, trying to hide them. They made it to the United States, which was a whole big C, you know, route. And of course, ultimately somebody's going to pay to have this in their private collection. That's the purpose of it. And just like, I guess, you know, stolen art is a real interesting and dirty world out there. And so I was doing a case that involved machine guns going to, from Phoenix, Arizona to Miami and cocaine coming back, which, you know, Phoenix itself as a trafficking hub, it was at that time, but cocaine coming from Miami. And in the process of that, I was introduced to a guy because the whole case started, ironically with FBI. They thought FBI got involved because it was supposedly stolen military M16s, which is stolen military weapons is a FBI jurisdiction. But they were not stolen military M16s. They were converted AR15s converted into machine guns, which is ATF. And so through my ATF relationships, I got brought in there as a UC and I'm working this case now for ATF. FBI wanted to keep a finger on it in case there was something. And then we got this bigger thing going where these guys were making these machine guns in Phoenix, converting AR15s and the machine guns to take down to Florida and bring all this cocaine back. Well, in the process of that, I was exposed to actually east coast organized crime family member, and for whatever reason, him and I hit it off. And I remember FBI, I'm not kidding you. FBI wanted me to wear this like, shiny silver kind of suit. I'm like, I'm not wearing that. I'm like, I'm not dressing like that. I'm not wearing that. I mean, you know, that's not happening. They. They had given me the suit, like, got me fitted, gave me this stupid suit. I remember I still have somewhere in my stuff, the little yellow inner office thing saying, I must return the suit, the silver suit. I never wore it, I wouldn't wear it. But anyway, I got introduced to this organized crime guy, and I don't really know in that side of it what his, how big of whatever, but this guy and I hit it off just because we hit it off, you know. And I never tried to act like something more than I was, which is like Look, I'm here to make money. I'm, I'm, you know, I once I'm giving them money, so they make some for me and all that other, I just want a piece, blah, blah, blah. And then he started, somehow he opened up about this Egyptian art stuff. And when he started telling me about it, I mean, you know, unfortunately, if I hadn't zero experience, I wouldn't recognize that that was a thing. But everything that we talked about was transcribed and whatever and whatever. I thought, who the hell could I call and ask about this Egyptian stuff because I don't know anything about it. And so I went back to the FBI and I said, you know anybody that has dealt with this stuff? And they actually had, this is really interesting. A guy in the Department of. Department of Commerce, they have, they had an IG with some special agents. And there was a guy in the Department of Commerce that had done some big case that involved interpolation how it ended up with them on stolen Egyptian antiquities. And as soon as I got a hold of him and I started talking about it, he flipped out because it was like part of this whole missing components. And he got me turned on to everybody that was involved in it. So it ended up being a consortium of custom special agents, this commerce guy, FBI, US. And so now they really wanted me to work. And the DAC trajectory while keeping this, the machine guns, converted rifles, going to Miami, the drugs thing, we got that part chopped off pretty quick. And then it went into the Egyptian thing. And I, I mean, this guy, the organized crime guy, we went back to two locations on the east coast and met with people. And we finally planned this operation. And we finally planned this operation. He didn't know that. And it was going to be a delivery by bus because what I was essentially promising them is that I have secured storage location in the mountain thing. We'll, we'll keep it there. They'll have access. In fact, we'll go in, only they will have the codes for it. And we had a real place, and the real place was, it was a private armory that was built into the side of a cave. And it looked like total like James Bond stuff. So we had the bad guys all came out, they saw it, said, look, we're going to change all this. Only you'll have access. You just have to pay me the storage. I don't want to know what you're putting in there. Which they really like. That ended up being in a ruse and a by bust operation. And I mean people from the Egyptian national government flew over because they had to identify. And they were very sensitive. They didn't want any, like, university people or Egyptian anthropologist type involved in this. They wanted the people from Egyptian national government to come over. And. And so it was a. It was a huge deal. And then, of course, you know, we had to fight. We didn't have to fight. They had to fight that, you know, if you see something for an evidentiary purpose, it could be locked up there for 10 years. It could be stuck in this whole process. And Egypt wanted it back. And so they. I remember they had worked with two different district, two different judicial districts, federal districts to get the US Attorney's office in the court to relinquish letting this stuff go back to the country of origin. So they did get it back, which was cool. And it was just a. It was a complete side thing. I'm just glad that it caught my attention because, you know, I was doing transcripts and other people were helping me with transcripts. Nobody really caught this thing. And I said, I better follow up on this. And that was just by luck. And then luckily the FBI guy knew, the commerce guy, who knew about the whole thing. So it was just one of those very odd things. I. And things would happen like that because you're just down in the element. I remember there was one where customs and FBI back then used to do the. The interstate transportation or international transportation of child pornography. It's federal offense. And there was a guy that was a known pedophile, child pornographer guy who owned a gym. And of course, because I like gym, back then it was more uncommon. They wanted me go in there and try to befriend this guy. And I said, look, I'm not talking any pedophile stuff. I'm just not doing that. So I talk steroid stuff instead. And I started buying steroids from him. And then they. They started telling me the stuff that would. They have their own, like, secret code, those creeps about things they say to each other. So I started dropping some of that. And. And of course, then the guy, he recognized, then he opened up and he was dumb enough to tell me that what he. He had kept. He had stuff at his house and at the gym and that got them two search warrants. They went there and got all this stuff, and off he went.
- [62:51]
A
Just. You had such a diversity of experience with the undercover work. I just think that's so fascinating, actually. But first, can I ask you, why did they want you to wear the silver suit?
- [63:02]
C
They thought that it was going to warm me up to The Italian mobster guy. And I said, I can't play that part. I mean, I'm just not, you know, because he's. These guys would dress and we'd always want to. They always want to go these fancy dinners, you know, and all this. But I said, man, I'm not. There's no way.
- [63:18]
A
So tell me about what you've been doing lately with E. Sleuth, how you got involved in that and sort of what, you know, you're sort of thinking about right now with that.
- [63:26]
C
Well, so, you know, as I mentioned, my. I was changed personally and professionally because of my exposure to mass casualty events. Two big active shooter events that, you know, if they had an impact on me. And I have known Scott Obviously for 20 or 30 years, I guess, but since I retired, him and I have partnered on a number of different enterprises. And Bob Batty, who's the CEO of eastleuth, we had done some different things before like the Leap Network and whatnot. And Scott was telling me early on about this potential use for AI in a really positive way, specifically to solve cold case homicide, serial sexual assault, violent crime in general. And I mean, that's all I needed to hear. And it's like, you know, I. I'd say this is like DNA took probably 40 years to be really effective because in the early part of it, right, just to be able to identify DNA and then to identify DNA and match it and there was an exemplars and da, da, da. This is going to be more profound than DNA in my opinion. And it's happening instantaneously because it's like the equivalent if I went to a police department and gave them a thousand seasoned homicide investigators, a thousand seasoned sexual assault investigators, a thousand criminal analysts. They never took lunch, they never got sick, they never went on leave. They're going 247 and they're all instantaneously communicating to each other. Nothing is missed. So the impact on investigations is going to be immeasurable in that particularly the fact that E Sleuth uses a solvability matrix. So once, once it digests all the data from the police reports, the intelligence division, every single thing that has. Can get access to. And it's putting this stuff together. The investigators are presented with, hey, look, here's five cases. You're 85% away from solving this or completing it. And then under each solubility, nature says you need to do these seven things immediately. And you know, when you look at it, you're like, why wasn't this done already? It's. And the reason why it wasn't done already is because the case went quiet for a couple weeks and four more horrible things happened, and they had to move on. And so there was an assumption that somebody was going to pick up the lab results and take them over here and have this compared. And it stopped, for example. So East Luther's telling me need to do these seven things immediately, some of which they can knock off right away, one of which might say, you need to search for DNA. This red Corvette with this VIN number that's showing right now, it's in a salvage yard in Canton, Ohio, and here's a search warrant for it. And it writes the search warrant affidavit. Okay, that's saving investigator tremendous amount of time. They pull it off, they sign it, take it to the judge, and off they go. And then they grab that DNA from that junked Corvette and they're making comparisons. And now it comes back and says, you're 96% away from completing this case, and this guy's your subject, and here's your affidavit for a criminal complaint for arrest based on all these things that came back. I mean, that kind of work would take legions of people to do it. And more importantly, it completely removes the lack of communications because there's no formal structures between, like getting a license plate reader and having it checked with this thing. And it's getting errant pieces of information that would not normally be considered by investigators. And it's boom. Now the AI is not making any decisions. It's doing what a human would do. And more importantly, it's not generative AI. It's being walled off in a way that the AI is not making anything independently of for its own benefit or coming to conclusions. It's not acting like a human being. It's using the speed of light, essentially the digital speed, to make all these connections and put this stuff together and organize it. And it's. You're going to have cases closing, you're going to have homicide solved, you're going to have current ongoing sexual assault serials. Stopping it is, like I said, there's not a bigger word than profound for what's going to happen with this thing. It's just we're in the beginning stages of rolling it out. One of the big challenges, of course, is, you know, the police investigative files, in whatever form of digitization that has taken, or even if it's in paper boxes, is absolutely sensitive, critical. You can't get it in the wrong hands. You can't get the investigative techniques in the Wrong hands. And it's arduous because there's so much of it. And so this is going to collapse the technology gaps, it's going to collapse communication gaps and it's going to collapse, I would say, investigative acumen gaps, the whole purpose of which is again going back to victimization. It's like rings in a pond from dropping a rock. It just keeps going on in perpetuity. This stops it because you'll have people held accountable for whatever happened. You'll have families that have information as to what happened. You'll have something happening faster than the speed of, let's say bureaucracy, faster than the speed of evil people, faster than the speed of volume overtaking investigators. And it's the perfect thing in the face of dwindling law enforcement numbers in terms of officers, you have so much expertise retiring out of the system. You know, part of the problem is if you don't, if you have somebody who's been doing homicide investigations for three years versus somebody who's been doing homicide investigations for 19 years, is the 19 year person has anecdotal knowledge because they've seen and learned lessons 15 times over that the three year person has it. This is going to negate that issue because you're going to have the thousand year seasoned homicide investigator right there with them on their stuff. And so, I mean, it's actually unknown what's going to happen down the road in terms of the proficiency of solving violent crime cases with this. And it's using it in a way that it's protected because it's not generative AI. I mean, one of the challenges too is that there's a company that I don't want to mention, it's a massive company that's offering what they're professing to be AI to help them in their investigations. And that it's CJIS compliant, which means it's compliant in the way of that the information that you're certified to be able to have access to the investigative information. In reality it's a way of data mining and it's a way of data mining, I think in a way that is so potentially dangerous. So we have to get, you know, past that. And I, I mean I think most agencies are smart enough that if it's too good to be true, as in they're trying to give it away free, there's a reason behind it for them. But this is, like I said, the safeguards are the fact that the AI is not operating like a human, it's operating at the speed of capacity. But we, the AI is not in a way of making self serving decisions.
- [71:06]
A
Right. It can't hallucinate in a sense. I mean if something goes wrong or it misinterprets something and there is no red Corvette, then police aren't going to go do it and they're going to see that. Or I think that's good also for individual rights where you never want to have a situation where it's like go arrest John Smith.
- [71:24]
C
And again, everything that it's doing is doing what an investigator would do. It's just doing it faster, just suggesting things like go do it more efficiently too. It's like, you know, in, in terms of like producing these affidavits. It's taking the same information that an investigator would take and type up. It's typed it up for them. There's no different. The AI is actually not generating anything. It is doing what an investigator does, which is just like a, say an academic researcher. They have to go out there and if they can't find it then they have to set up the research and do triple blind studies and comparative pools of whatever. In this case, the AI is acting like a hyper detective that is performing a level of efficiency that is really immeasurable to this point based on what's.
- [72:12]
A
Already in the case file that needs to still be done.
- [72:15]
C
And it'll, you'll have glowingly saying you're, you haven't done this. You know, this is something that would be available. You have to go and obtain this. It's not going and obtaining it saying this is something you've got to go do.
- [72:26]
A
In your capacity at eastleuth, are you actually going and pitching to different institutions in law enforcement?
- [72:32]
C
Yes, for sure. Leaning into the network to, to some extent, you know, initially it's to get charter to show the charter members and have them have the courage to do this. But there will be a day where they're standing up in front of like major city chiefs organization and saying this is what's happening and it's going to be a snowball after that. But they have to be aware of this tool. I mean I feel a moral obligation that they know about this and, and that it's not clouded up where they, it gets lost in the, the AI scare or you know, cities blankly saying, you know, all new technology needs to go through us or whatever. It's like no, no, no, no. I mean, you know, your staffing is down 27% and you have an opportunity to have like 1000% staffing in the investigative Realm by using this. For me, this thing's a higher calling because it's just going to be so impactful in a way that's again, stopping victimization, giving families closure and actually preventing crimes. I mean, preventing them, not responding to, and finding who done it, that's one gigantic part of it. But also it's going to stop things.
- [73:41]
A
Because it can identify some of those emerging trends.
- [73:44]
C
Yes, because it's going to stop somebody who's currently predating on other people.
- [73:47]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [73:49]
C
You know, that's, that's immeasurably valuable.
- [73:51]
A
So it's cold cases, but it's also like this person starting a rape spree.
- [73:57]
C
Yeah. Because you know, we like for example, if you have a sexual assault where the victim didn't know the assaulted assaultee, it's rarely ever going to be a singular event that's going on more and more. I mean, it's not going to be just a one time thing. That person is doing it. If they're, if that person assault them as a complete stranger, they're still doing it.
- [74:19]
A
Have you met with enthusiasm or skepticism or somewhere in between?
- [74:24]
C
Are people only enthusiasm? I mean, yeah, the challenges are, you know, every, every police agency has an IT and it is a FDOM that's led by IT people. And they have to, you know, they're the vanguards of the information, of literally the digitized information and whatnot. And so, you know, it's always a challenge to bring in a technology or something because a police leader can say, oh my God, we want this. We can see it, the IT people saying, well, you know, but luckily our CEO Bob Addy has been in that space because he's an IT person who also knows the law enforcement space and he's able to speak the language that makes us palatable. And so. Yeah, but it's been nothing but enthusiasm. I would say for the most part artic, we're articulating a very simple way too. But this is only in the beginning that we even have to do this because again, once the cases start coming out and getting closed, it's going to speak for itself.
- [75:27]
A
Yes. Then, then the case use will be very much.
- [75:30]
C
You know, then everybody's going to, they'll have to have it. I mean, because you know, if you've got Agency X over here that just closed 10% of their cold case homicides and they stop like for ongoing sexual assaults and you've got a number, a neighboring agency that's not using it, I mean, even your constituency is going to say, hey, what what the hell, right?
- [75:52]
A
So, yeah, absolutely. Is there. Is there anything about it that, you know, you. You want to talk more about or. Or that I didn't ask you about or just kind of to get more in the weeds with or anything like that about E. Sleuth and its capabilities?
- [76:06]
C
I think one of the things that has been very impressive to me, besides what it actually does and what it. It's made for the investigator on the street. It's not like something that sits at the intelligence bureau and they're working it back there quietly. It's like all the investigators, they have access to it and they're seeing all their stuff live, what's happening as they do things. And everything is affecting something else. And it's a right now thing, but more importantly, it's telling them, hey, this is right now and this one could be tomorrow, but you got to do this one right now. I mean, anybody's going to love to have that because that's literally a management thing. But the other thing is East Luth has gone in with one particular, I would say one particular agency that's massive, that was very shockingly had paper homicide investigations on paper that it wasn't part of like a digitized process, which is shocking. But East Luthor is going to go in there and digitize their entire investigative paper, World Forum, as part of this because it has to be. I mean, it just has to be. And the agency is so big that, you know, everything that happens there is going to be affect other parts of the country. So they were willing to step up and do this, which, I mean, I'm sure it's going to cost. It's. It's going to cost east loose money. It's not a profitable thing to do that, but it's part of the. I would say the ethos of its purpose.
- [77:31]
A
So for that agency, they're so big that you guys are almost throwing in digitizing stuff for them just to kind of be able to show them, right?
- [77:39]
C
Yes.
- [77:40]
A
Wow. That's. That's incredible.
- [77:42]
C
Yeah.
- [77:43]
A
We'll be eagerly watching to see what happens next with that and sort of start seeing some of these cases roll in.
- [77:49]
C
Yes, for sure. There'll be lots.
- [77:51]
A
Yeah. I imagine it seems like a pretty massive development. I guess this has been so delightful talking with you, Bernard. I. I wonder is. Is there anything I didn't ask about with anything with eastleuth, with your time at the atf, anything else that you wanted to get into or sort of leave the audience with nothing else for me.
- [78:10]
C
And I'm I'm like fatigued of talking in the first person.
- [78:16]
A
Well, I'm not. I could hear you talk all day. So we just, we want to say we really appreciate you coming.
- [78:20]
C
Yes. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Tell your husband that book collection is amazing.
- [78:26]
A
Thank you. I will. He's, he's a genius. I'm sorry. Like, I, I, I've been trying to catch up by reading some of these myself, but I just like, he's read pretty much all of them and I'm like, yeah. Thanks so much to Bernard for taking the time to talk to us. We'll be including more information about eastleuth in our show notes.
- [78:45]
B
Thanks so much for listening to the Murder Sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us@murdersheetmail.com if you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.
- [79:06]
A
If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at www.patreon.com. if you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests, you can do so at www.buymeacoffee.com murdersheet. We very much appreciate any support.
- [79:29]
B
Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for the Murder Sheet and who you can find on the web@kevintg.com if you're looking to talk with.
- [79:41]
A
Other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join the Murder Sheet Discussion group on Facebook. We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much. We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages. Thanks again for listening.