No Angel feat. Jay Dobyns

Summary

The Antihero Podcast: "No Angel" Featuring Jay Dobbins
Released: June 9, 2025

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of The Antihero Podcast, hosts Tyler and Brent Tucker engage in an in-depth conversation with Jay Dobbins, former Delta Force operator and undercover ATF agent. Jay shares his harrowing experiences infiltrating the notorious Hells Angels motorcycle gang, offering listeners a raw and unfiltered glimpse into the realities of undercover law enforcement.

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Early Life and Football Dreams

Jay begins by recounting his early aspirations and how they were tragically derailed.

Jay Dobbins [00:00]: "We went back to the Skull Valley clubhouse, and I told my partner, dude, this is the moment of truth. We have now implicated these guys in a murder. They're aware of this murder. Like, they're either going to patch us or they're going to kill us."

Jay played as a wide receiver for the University of Arizona from 1981 to 1984. His sole ambition was to enter professional football, but his dreams were crushed during the 1985 NFL Combine.

Jay Dobbins [07:05]: "Like, without knowing really who they were, I was comparing myself to two of the greatest pass-catching machines in the history of helmets and shoulder pads."

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Transition to Law Enforcement

Facing the end of his football aspirations, Jay sought a new purpose influenced heavily by TV portrayals of law enforcement.

Jay Dobbins [25:18]: "Weirdly enough, I found an opportunity to answer your question, a whole 15 years after I came on the job."

He joined the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) aiming to emulate the glamorous image seen on shows like Miami Vice. However, reality starkly contrasted with these fantasies.

Jay Dobbins [26:41]: "So I got, I fell in love with the profession based on a television show."

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Undercover Operations with ATF

Jay's initiation into undercover work was abrupt and fraught with danger. Just four days into his ATF career, he found himself confronting life-threatening violence.

Jay Dobbins [34:18]: "So, like, four days on the job, like, the violence is out there and as you're hunting the violence, the violence is hunting you."

During an arrest operation, Jay was taken hostage and shot, narrowly escaping death.

Jay Dobbins [37:56]: "My partners ventilated his ass. Yeah, right. They freaking, they hit him a dozen times, right. But he shot me in the back, point blank."

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Infiltration of the Hells Angels

Determined to prove himself, Jay volunteered to lead an undercover operation against the Hells Angels, one of the most violent and disciplined motorcycle gangs.

Jay Dobbins [55:19]: "I'd bought narcotics from street dope, from dimebags and eight balls to cartel level dope... I had 15 years of experience when I was approached on the Hell's Angels case, so I thought I was prepared. I really wasn't ready."

Jay employed innovative "street theater" tactics, fabricating criminal activities to gain the trust of the Hells Angels.

Jay Dobbins [76:57]: "We took a member of our task force... We put one of the Mongol cuts on him... We executed him in a shallow grave... It was a giant skit."

His bold approach initially gained him credibility but ultimately led to catastrophic consequences.

Jay Dobbins [80:27]: "We go to the Skull Valley clubhouse, and the president says, congratulations, brother. Welcome to the gang."

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Challenges and Mistakes

Jay candidly discusses the critical errors he made during his undercover work, including isolating himself and underestimating the adversaries.

Jay Dobbins [48:10]: "If I get one of those things right, just one of the two. Right, all I got to do is shoot 50% and I don't get shot. Yeah, I blew it on both."

These mistakes not only endangered his life but also strained his relationships with his family and colleagues.

Jay Dobbins [74:23]: "My son had to teach me what my job was. An eight-year-old boy had to teach his father what my job was. That's such a shameful story, such a humiliating story to tell."

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Consequences and Aftermath

After successfully implicating members of the Hells Angels in a murder, Jay faced severe retaliation from both the gang and his own agency. His house was burned down, and he received numerous death threats.

Jay Dobbins [122:52]: "They put a contract on me through an MS.13 member... threats against my wife, threats against my kids, death threats on me."

Jay's legal battle against the Department of Justice exposed internal corruption within the ATF, leading to his house being destroyed by arsonists and a smear campaign against him.

Jay Dobbins [126:08]: "I've never one day in my life been against the United States. That was so humiliating to see that."

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Reflections and Insights

Despite the immense personal and professional costs, Jay believes the sacrifices were justified.

Jay Dobbins [134:53]: "I've considered myself a Hell's Angel. We, we went from being side by side agents to being infiltrators, but I never lost sight of my mission."

He emphasizes the importance of preparation, mental fortitude, and the heavy toll such work takes on personal relationships.

Jay Dobbins [132:43]: "Any individual you can choose to be average. And average is okay. The world spins around people that are average. You can be great, you can be excellent. But there's a handful of people that strive to be elite."

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Notable Quotes

• Jay Dobbins [02:06]: “The secret of lighting a cigar is how slow can you light it? Not how fast.”

• Jay Dobbins [14:15]: “Those life lessons that we learn sometimes the hard way, on an athletic field, they do translate to life 100.”

• Jay Dobbins [42:08]: “Short of meeting my wife and short of my kids being born, this was the best thing that ever happened to me in my life.”

• Jay Dobbins [97:53]: “I'm not looking for a problem. I don't expect forgiveness. But I've got a pistol on my hip and I've got God's hand on my shoulder. And like, we'll, I'll figure it out.”

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Conclusion

Jay Dobbins' story is a powerful testament to the complexities and sacrifices inherent in undercover law enforcement work. His candid revelations shed light on the hidden struggles, ethical dilemmas, and personal costs that come with such a perilous career. Listeners gain invaluable insights into the true nature of fighting organized crime from someone who has lived it firsthand.

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Key Takeaways:

• Reality vs. Perception: Jay contrasts the glamorized depiction of law enforcement in media with the harsh realities faced by undercover agents.

• Preparation and Mistakes: Emphasizes the critical importance of preparation and how even well-intentioned mistakes can have life-altering consequences.

• Personal Sacrifice: Highlights the profound personal costs, including strained family relationships and emotional turmoil.

• Brotherhood and Isolation: Discusses the dual nature of brotherhood in both law enforcement and criminal organizations, and how true loyalty is tested in high-stakes situations.

• Agency Corruption: Exposes internal challenges within law enforcement agencies, including lack of support and retaliation against agents who expose wrongdoing.

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Jay Dobbins’ account serves not only as a gripping narrative but also as an instructive lesson for aspiring law enforcement professionals. His experiences underscore the fine line between duty and personal life, and the unwavering commitment required to uphold justice in the most challenging of circumstances.

Transcript

[Jay Dobbins]

We went back to the Skull Valley clubhouse, and I told my partner, dude, this is the moment of truth. We have now implicated these guys in a murder. They're aware of this murder. Like, they're either going to patch us or they're going to kill us.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, that's right.

[Jay Dobbins]

Right.

[Tyler]

Hold on.

[Jay Dobbins]

We're not recording.

[Tyler]

Do you want to buy a shirt to support military people? Want to see their sausage get made.

[Brent Tucker]

An appropriate level of inappropriateness. Something happens in my family, Ton. Delta Force isn't coming to rescue my. My family.

[Jay Dobbins]

My kids.

[Brent Tucker]

Like, it is. First responders. Yeah. That are. That are going to save my family.

[Tyler]

They want the culture to be down. They want people to not want to be cops. And the people that do want to be cops are now walking into the job, scared to do the job.

[Brent Tucker]

I'm going to try to act like it didn't happen, although we. We all know it did.

[Tyler]

JV team for life.

[Brent Tucker]

Need a cigar. You good?

[Jay Dobbins]

Can I have one?

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Tyler]

I have got to buy a box. I'm such a freeloader. Know what's funny is I have a.

[Brent Tucker]

Half to his way. You want one?

[Jay Dobbins]

Yeah. I'm not a cigar smoker, but you guys will coach me through it.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, sure.

[Jay Dobbins]

Is that the proper grip? Is that the proper cigar grip?

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

Be freaking holding it like a chick saying, like, what audience? Like, look at those.

[Tyler]

They'll wait until Brent holds it goofy one time.

[Jay Dobbins]

They're just. They're waiting.

[Tyler]

Our fans are. Our fans are ball busters, but they're good people.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. So the secret of lighting a cigar is. Is this. How slow can you light a cigar? Not how fast.

[Jay Dobbins]

Okay.

[Brent Tucker]

Because if you get really close up on it, it'll burn it, like, really deep, and you're really overly char the ends, and then you'll bring that burnt end all the way through the body. And it really, really messes with the true. The true flavor of it. So.

[Jay Dobbins]

And what is the backstory on this one you gave me?

[Brent Tucker]

That one's called Our Delta, and obviously it has a multiple wrap to it. Some cigars are lighter, some cigars are darker. But the wrapping on that cigar has all the different flavors of cigars. Maduro, Habano, Connecticut.

[Jay Dobbins]

That enough?

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. Yeah. You got it. Good. Now. Now keep it on there and then just give it a couple puffs. Yep, you got it.

[Tyler]

One thing no one told me is you're on it. You're. You don't really inhale it. Kind of like, just like a taste, Right.

[Jay Dobbins]

I'll probably be Gagging here, choking a little bit because I'm used to smoking cigarettes. So I'm like, I've already taken a couple lungfuls.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay. Get a couple. Get a couple practice puffs in. You'll be good.

[Tyler]

We learned how to blow rings.

[Brent Tucker]

I still haven't.

[Tyler]

That was cool.

[Jay Dobbins]

Still can't.

[Tyler]

Welcome back to the Anti Hero podcast. Part delta Force, part street cop. All truth. I'm Tyler, owner of Counterculture, Inc. Go to Counterculture Inc. Threads.com use promo code ANTI HERO and get 15 off. The best. And outsider culture, graphic tees, stickers, hats, flags, ranger panties, hoodies. You name it, we have it. Counterculture incthreads.com promo code ANTIHERO15OFF.

[Brent Tucker]

And I'm Brent Tucker, owner of FRCC, that's first responder cigar company and first responder coffee company and soon to be first responder cast company. When the bourbon line comes out in just a few short weeks, go to our website and use promo code FRCC15. That's FRCC15. To get 15% off the world's best coffee, cigars and bourbon. Soon and soon to be bourbon.

[Tyler]

I thought you forgot your line for a second.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, I gotta try. I gotta try out a new line as we're adding a third. A third product line.

[Tyler]

It's like putting weights on your feet while you're sinking. We make this harder, of course. This episode is brought to you by HPTRT Human Performance. It's actually going to be hp-trt.com use promo code HERO and get 20% off your testosterone. But not just your first month. It's every single month. You'll get 20% off your testosterone if you've had blood work done in the last six months. If you are like the VA or you have your own personal doctor, you upload that blood work to the website and they'll waive the blood work fees. You get. You get seen by a doctor and boom, you have testosterone right at your door. So go to hp testosterone-trt.com use promo code HERO and get 20 off your testosterone.

[Brent Tucker]

And don't forget our Patreon if you want to continue to support us. Keep the lights on, keep the rent paid. That is one way to do it. We have two levels in our Patreon. The highest level, though, gets you access to everything. Direct messages to us. Everyone gets discounts. Everyone gets insight into past and future episodes. And so please consider joining our Patreon and supporting us. And don't forget our Thursday Night Live every Thursday night, 8pm to 10pm Eastern Standard Time, the squad cast. That one's for the boys. It's not a lot. I'm. I don't mean to put you on the spot. I'm sure. I'm sure you don't need any more pressure, but there's not. I want to say there's not a lot. I guess there's several guests I'm excited for and for different reasons. This is. This is.

[Tyler]

This is.

[Brent Tucker]

This is what I should say for different reasons. And we do have a lot of, you know, reoccurring theme guests, you know, whether it be, like, special operations or. Yeah. Police officers school. But this one. This one's unique. And I think you guys. You guys about to find out, if you don't already know who Jay Dobbins is, why this one is so unique. What a wild story. So wild. It had to be. It had to be a book. No angel, which. Which you authored, and that's. That is your story. It'll go much deeper into the. That they're gonna be talking about it. But, Jay, thanks so much for coming on the show, and I'm looking very, very much forward to picking your brain about this and listening to your story.

[Jay Dobbins]

Yeah. Right on. Thank you for having me, both you guys.

[Tyler]

Yeah. So you started off. I mean, you're. You're. I know your book kind of starts off with talking about your. Your college football. You played for University of Arizona.

[Jay Dobbins]

I did. I was a wide receiver at the University of Arizona from 1981 to 1984.

[Tyler]

And then did you know you wanted to get into law enforcement or were the pros something that.

[Jay Dobbins]

No, you know what? I really. I only had a plan A, which was to play pro football. And when the opportunity came, I wasn't as good as I thought I was. I went to the 1985 NFL combine.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Jay Dobbins]

Which, like, if you're not a football fan, like, the Combine is the NFL's meat market. All the prospects come in. There's coaches and scouts and general managers there to evaluate you, and they put you through all kinds of tests, and they are deciding whether you are worthy of being a part of their organization. So I went in. You know, I was an All Pac 10 wide receiver at Arizona, and I went in with a lot of confidence. Yeah. And very sure of myself. And this was my opportunity to show off. This was my opportunity. This was my plan A coming true. And so the first guy I run into is the owner of the Oakland Raiders, a guy named Al Davis.

[Brent Tucker]

Legendary, right? Yeah, I've heard of her.

[Jay Dobbins]

So. So I Go up to coach Davis. I said like, coach, how am I doing? And he finds my name on the score sheet. Dobbins, there you are. He said, you're the fastest slow guy I've seen today. Like, it didn't matter, man. Wasn't going to kill my buzz. Right? So where they group you together, a bunch of players. And I'm shaking hands and meeting people. I meet a guy my size, my build. We were all look. Kind of looked about the same guy from Cutstown University, right? And I'm like, shake hands with them. And I'm like, dude, where's your school at? I'd never heard of his school, you know. And he's like, hey, we're in Pennsylvania. And I'm shaking hands with them and saying, hey, good luck. And I'm thinking to myself internally, like, I'm going to whip your ass today. Right? Yeah. Meet another guy from a little school in Mississippi. 10 minutes, 10 minutes into the drills, my dream crashed. I realized I wasn't going to play pro football. These dudes that I never heard of, I couldn't do what they do. They were faster and stronger and more explosive and could jump higher and more. More athletic. In the end, it turns out that the guy from Kutztown University was Andre reed, who played 15 years in the league, played in four Super Bowls. Yeah, right. The guy from the little school in Mississippi was Jerry Rice. He went to Mississippi.

[Brent Tucker]

That's right.

[Jay Dobbins]

So, like, without knowing really who they were, I was comparing myself to two of the greatest pass catching machines in the history of helmets and shoulder pads.

[Brent Tucker]

Wow.

[Jay Dobbins]

But that is where the dream died. And like a lot of young people, like, I didn't know what was next. I had never planned for what was next.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

So you know Ed o' Neill, right? He's Al Bundy with Married With Children. He was on Modern Family. He was a big football player, which is ironic because. And Married With Children. He is a. He's a washed up, you know, football, high school football player. He was legit. And he actually got a chance to try out for the Pittsburgh Steelers. And as he tells the story, he was like. Because he came in with a bunch of confidence and he. He gets hit like one time, he's like, no, I'm not. This is a different league. This is a different. This is different brand of football. He's like, I've never been hit so hard in my life. He's like. And I couldn't imagine a life of getting hit like this.

[Jay Dobbins]

I'll tell you what, if you find Whatever is the worst team in the NFL. And I don't know who that is, but whoever that. Whatever that team is. And then you look at their practice squad guys, the guys that aren't good enough to make their 53 man every Sunday roster, you look at their practice squad and then you find the worst player on the practice squad of the worst team in the NFL. That cat is an amazing football player. Yeah, that dude is a freak show.

[Tyler]

Competitive, huh?

[Jay Dobbins]

Oh, it's like. And when you. And when you touch it and when you see it and when you feel it, like with your own eyes and ears and experience, it's. Television does not do it justice to how good those. How big they are and how fast they are and how nasty they are.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, actually that's. That's a good point. I mean their worst is the still better than anything. Or that. Or that. That television doesn't do it justice. Like it's one thing you see it from the tv, which is, you know, you know, the, the viewpoint could be hundreds of meters away or even, or even, you know, in the stadium, you know, watching it from a distance. It's very different when you're on the field. Yeah. Yeah. When you're on the field right next to those players, running next to those players.

[Jay Dobbins]

200 pounds, hitting 220 pounds, the violence that they create, the collisions that they create. And like I played like in college, I saw some of the. Was on the field with some of the greatest football players of all time. I played against Eric Dickerson when he was at smu.

[Brent Tucker]

Oh, yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

Played against Mike Singletary when he was at Baylor. Played against John Elway at Stanford. So like I had the best seat in the house to see some of the best players to ever put on a pair of shoulder pads.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. Here's a good comparison. The. In what, like what TV does or doesn't do for you. The NBA. Sure. Been to an NBA game. Six foot six, six foot seven. You know, shooting guards look normal size on tv.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

You get. You go to an NBA game and you get anywhere near the floor and you're like, oh my gosh, there's just giants running around this basketball court.

[Jay Dobbins]

Yeah. And then for the rest of us that have a trouble standing still, driven, dribbling a basketball pass and sh. Yes, they're absolute freaks.

[Tyler]

Did. So you coach high school football now?

[Jay Dobbins]

I do.

[Tyler]

All right.

[Brent Tucker]

Oh, that's awesome.

[Tyler]

Yeah. What do you tell. Because I have. My son is in Pop Warner. He's a preteen. And the hardest part about being A father is being supportive, but also being real, because you're the last line of defense for your children. You know, people might tell them, like, oh, you can do anything. And. Oh, and when you tell. When you talk to youth that their goals are like yours, I want to play in the league, what do you tell them?

[Jay Dobbins]

Well, two parts to that. There are what I call the TNTs, which means takes no talent. You don't have to be big or fast or strong or athletic, but effort, energy, enthusiasm, attitude. Like, you control those. Like, your athleticism. Like, you're in control that. Your athleticism doesn't dictate that. But, like, as a coach, and I. And I learned this as a player, and then as a coach, like, we lie to our athletes as coaches. We lie to them. We tell them, if you will work hard, if you will be dedicated, and if you will be resilient, there is a pot of gold at the end of it for you. There's a payday for that. There's no guarantee of that. Like, hard work and dedication and all those things. And putting your time in and effort, energy and enthusiasm, all those things, they don't promise you anything more than the opportunity when your chance comes.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

That's all. That's all it guarantees you. Like, we want to sell them that there's a payday for them at the end of if they'll be that kid. And that's a lie. It's just. It creates your best opportunity.

[Brent Tucker]

But, you know, there. And kids don't want to hear this, and. And I get it. It's easier to be 45, you know, and look back and say this, but. But there is a payday waiting for you. It may not. It may not be the NFL, which they don't. They don't want to hear that. But those TNT attributes are talking about life. Life. That's right. You will go on and you will do something, and the government will never have to support you.

[Jay Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

You will be a supporter of your family and you. And you will go on to be a man.

[Jay Dobbins]

Those. Those life lessons that we learn sometimes the hard way, on an athletic field, they do Translate to Life 100. They translate into. Into what you did for a living and what you do for a living. Absolutely, they do. And, you know, I tell kids, you want something that you've never had before, you're gonna have to do things you've never done to get it.

[Tyler]

Dude, that's so true.

[Jay Dobbins]

You want people to remember your name, you have to do something they can't forget.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Tyler]

Well, look at like, you know, when somebody says just like in the military, someone's like, oh, he was in use the Marines, he was in the Army. And people go, oh, they already have a different understanding because of the culture that the type of people they are. Look at how many times someone says, dude, he was a D1 athlete. I'm working with him. Like, you know, like that already being in that already sets the caliber for traditionally who those people are.

[Jay Dobbins]

I can't speak to the, to the military world, but I can speak from a law enforcement perspective is that the people, men and women, who were involved in team sports are successful in law enforcement. I'm going to assume that they're also successful in the military because they understand that it's that they're participating in something that's bigger than themselves. And you have a role to play and you don't always love your role, you don't always embrace your role, but you have a role to play and you have to do. You have to play out that role the very best you can play it out to contribute to the big picture.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. You know, it's funny, we talk about D1 athletes if, I mean, if you think about it, there's a lot of D1 schools, right? I mean there are. And there's a lot of different sports for, for D1 schools. So there are a lot of D1 athletes. I only personally know a few.

[Tyler]

Yeah. Isn't that crazy?

[Brent Tucker]

You know, I mean there's. There's a ton of them out there. But you know, with the. And sample size of the population, it is. Not many people are D1 athletes.

[Tyler]

I don't think I know any, to.

[Brent Tucker]

Be honest with you, when I say like, yeah, outside of like meeting them randomly, like, like truly, no, I think only two. I think I only know two D1 athletes that were that. That I, that are friends of mine. You know, that's just crazy. That's crazy when you think of how many athletes. But it shows you how, how rare like what really is.

[Tyler]

Sometimes you talk about like he just asked you, hey, in the unit, did you know so and so. And you were like, I never heard of it. So already in that the units a lot bigger than what people think. I think a lot of people think Delta force is about 25 guys running around the world. But then you look at how many Delta Force guys do you know? I mean, I'm lucky my co host is one, but I go around ask anybody. You'd probably be the one they know, you know, because it's just A small sample size.

[Jay Dobbins]

In the world of athletics, I think the statistics are 1% of high school football players have an opportunity to play at some level of college play on the next level. 1% of that 1% have an opportunity to play professionally. So, man, it's a tough way to make a living.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Well, when that. When the rug got pulled under your feet on that one sounds pretty, you know, somewhat abruptly, but it also sounds like you accepted it. Did it make it easier the way you felt like, this is not going to sound flattering, but the way you felt like you were outclassed in a weird way, I almost feel like it makes it easier because you're like, okay, well, I know that's not for me because if you just barely don't make it, like in your mind, you almost feel like it's a, you know, it's back. Yeah. Yeah. Like it was unfinished business. Like I could have done it. Like, how.

[Jay Dobbins]

How'd you.

[Brent Tucker]

How did you deal with that? And how did you had it was what I'm explaining. Is that how it felt or it still felt that way?

[Jay Dobbins]

Absolutely. I had this. This doesn't sound right, but I had a clear conscience about my failure because I didn't leave anything on the field. Like, I had reached my pinnacle that was. I was as good as I could be. It wasn't good enough.

[Tyler]

And you knew it. You could.

[Jay Dobbins]

But I was. I had a clear conscience there was. Left me to do.

[Tyler]

Left it on the.

[Jay Dobbins]

To be any better than I was.

[Brent Tucker]

Yep. I love that. And which also goes to preparedness. You knew you were prepared. You know, you gave it on the field. There's nothing you could look back on that is on you.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

To say, ah, I. You know, when I look back at training up to this, maybe I didn't take it as serious as. As I did. And. And you did. That's just another reason to take everything that you want to do in life serious because of the mental consequences that you will put yourself through if you don't.

[Jay Dobbins]

I was a hard worker and I played recklessly. I played violently. Like, being a hard worker and being reckless only takes you so far when you're dealing with the best athletes on the planet. Because you know what? They work hard and they play reckless, too.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

And they. And they separate themselves.

[Tyler]

JV team for life.

[Brent Tucker]

Tyler, how many critical incidents do you think we've covered so far in this podcast, man?

[Tyler]

At least five, six.

[Brent Tucker]

And they're not going to stop. You know, there's you. You cannot stop them all. So they're going to happen. And you really have, you know, two charters of that. Obviously, one is to stop them from happening, but since you can't stop them all from happening, you owe it to the people that you protect and depend on you to react to those situations in the most effective and efficient manner. And right now, really, whether you know, you're a fire department, ems, law enforcement, you're stuck with essentially radios.

[Tyler]

And Apollo is the best way to manage resources during these events because it's designed by first responders for first responders.

[Brent Tucker]

It gives first responders a common operating picture which allows them to see where everybody is in real time, overlaid onto a map to see where they are. You can drop pinpoints and let them know where they need to go. And without constant talking on the radio, everybody knows where the incident is, where it's happening and where they need to be.

[Tyler]

Nepal is an app based application. This is just download and go.

[Brent Tucker]

It's an app and so it works with Androids, it works with iPhones.

[Tyler]

Apollo makes sure on the back end everything works and you can just plug and go. They handle all the licensing, all the encryption compliance, all the security, it's all handled by Apollo. It's crucial to know where everyone is and what they are doing in order to effectively control chaos in one of these, either natural disasters or shootings or anything like that.

[Brent Tucker]

So if you want to learn more about Apollo, scan the QR code and ensure your department is ready to react to any crisis in its most effective and efficient manner possible.

[Tyler]

As you guys know, we drink way too many energy drinks on the Antihero podcast. That's why we partnered with Tasty gains in this. One container of 30 gummies is over a hundred cans of pre workout. This is our new replacement for energy drinks. It's a lot more convenient. Obviously energy drinks you have to keep cold. They taste like shit warm. I keep these in my gym bag and in my, my, my duffel at work with all my meals in it. And it's just, I mean, it's bright colors. You see it, you take it right before your workout. It's perfect. These things taste like candy, so be careful. Listen guys, we wouldn't be suggesting things that we don't recommend and take ourselves, like the creatine gummies. No one really knows how creatine works. It's the most confusing thing in the world, but yet it's the safest supplement to take and the most effective supplement. Creatine helps your endurance levels and it helps traumatically with recovery. Creat though is powdery and tastes like and is really annoying to when you're loading it and have to do all this stuff and mix it in your water and then of course if your water is not warm then it doesn't mix well. These things are the definition of convenience right there. Bright colors. Put them in your gym bag, put them in your lunchbox. Creatine gummies. This one's blue raspberry. I prefer the, my favorite's the strawberry creamsicle. These are a no brainer. Tasty Gaines is a no brainer. Pre workout and creatine. The things you need to lift and get big. Go to tastygains.com use promo code antihero and get 20% off your order. Oh, the boys over at Ghostbed did it again. They lowered everything on their website, more than half the cost. Now you're gonna get even more savings because they took each item, they lowered it more than half and then they're still giving anti hero 10% off. So it used to be 50% off and then they were like, hey, we're just going to cut our prices down. So now when you go on the website, Anti Hero promo code Antihero will give you 10 off ridiculously reduced [e-mail] so go to ghostped.com forward/antihero and get 10 off the extremely reduced prices. These guys are awesome. These guys have been, they were our first sponsor. I talk with them all the time. They're big supporters in what we do, what we stand for. Just like all the other podcasts that they, that they help out and they support. If it's, if you got to replace a mattress in the house, if you got to buy new sheets, if you got to buy a new pillow, go with Ghostbed because you're going to save money. And they help us out so much. They're part of the Anti Hero family, just like me and just like you are ghostbed.com Anti Hero or use promo code antihero at checkout and get 10% off your order. JV Team for Life is. So what did you do like after, after you left the combine? Was it just back to the drawing board or.

[Jay Dobbins]

I'll tell you, this is kind of a hokey story as well. So like I said, I was lost. I didn't have any plans. I never thought about anything other than playing football. My life rotated around and everything I did was centered on catching footballs. And so at the time were in the mid-80s and all we had ever seen as an audience was these Procedural television shows. We'd seen cops in uniform on patrol. We'd seen detectives responding to crime scenes, right? And then Miami Vice hits, right? And Sonny Crockett is rolling around south beach and he's in a Ferrari, he's in a white Hugo Boss suit, right? And he's got his pistols out and he's going to these narco mansions and he's meeting with kingpins.

[Brent Tucker]

Yes.

[Jay Dobbins]

And there's tons of cocain. And he's got these stripper models bringing a mojitos. And I remember watching that show and I was like, man, you know what? Like, I'm not going to be a football player, but I wonder if I could do that. I wonder if I could. So I got. I fell in love with the profession based on a television show.

[Tyler]

To be honest with you, most military and cop people do. Yeah, yours was.

[Brent Tucker]

Well. Do you know how many people after Top Gun signed up to be fighter pilots? You. It goes all across the board, from special op to Rambo and special operation movies to Top Gun to Miami Vice. It does. It has an effect on young, impressionable dude.

[Jay Dobbins]

I watched Top Gun Maverick, Top Gun 2.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

And I'm 63 years old and I'm thinking, I wonder if I could learn how to fly a jet. I wonder if they can still teach me how to fly one of those. Possible, right?

[Brent Tucker]

It's possible. I'll trade up.

[Jay Dobbins]

I'll be a good dog fighter.

[Brent Tucker]

If you think about it, maybe the older you get, you know, you got. You got less to live for, so you fly a little bit more on edge. You know, I mean, there's something. Maybe there's something to that. Maybe we should re. Look at the. At the age restriction of fighter pilots.

[Tyler]

Yeah. I mean, did you. Did you know, once law enforcement came into the spectrum with that, did you know what type of law enforcement you wanted to do?

[Jay Dobbins]

I did. I. I knew that I wanted to work undercover. And I'll be honest with you, I didn't know if I'd be any good at it.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

I knew that I could absorb punishment. And when I jumped in, I had three rules for myself that were like, not scripted, not mentored to me. I knew that I wasn't going to watch someone be murdered in my presence. I wasn't going to watch a woman be raped in my presence. And I wasn't going to watch a kid be beaten in my presence without knowing anything about the job. I was like, those are my three hard personal rules that if I have to come out a role, I will come out A role to try to cap off that situation if it's taking place in my presence. Everything else, I'm going to have to learn how to figure it out on the fly.

[Tyler]

Yeah, that's impressive, too.

[Brent Tucker]

But I love what you're doing. You're already putting yourself in scenarios, and by doing that, you're already walking through. I'm. I'm sure. Because if you're walking through this, you either walk through, okay, well, then how's the best way I can stop this from happening? How? Well, you know, what's. What's something I can do that I don't have to completely make up on the spot, which is. And we talk about this all the time. Whether. Whether it be police officer work, whether it be special operations or unique situations like this, you have. Your mind has to wander all the time about the what ifs, and you have to read books and you have to hear stories, and you have to go, what would I do if I was in that situation? Because if you don't, you'll be making it up on the fly. And that is not the time to start playing.

[Jay Dobbins]

You know, like, I grew up in very much a white picket fence childhood. I had a happy days childhood. My folks were together. My folks are 100% solid. I had a baseball glove and a bike and had a very simple, peaceful, safe childhood. So when I entered that world, my life had not prepared me for the streets, had not prepared me for what was out there. And right off the bat, I started going to the jail and interviewing inmates and talking to inmates. And I was not chasing an investigation. I was chasing that mentality, like, how do they think? How do they talk? How do they communicate with each other, what kind of language they use? I had to train myself.

[Tyler]

This is before you had the job.

[Jay Dobbins]

Like, right when I started. Okay, right when I started. Yeah. I. I was. I. I had to teach myself the streets. And there's nobody nowhere better to learn it than the people who've lived it.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

And who are sometimes paying the price for that lifestyle.

[Brent Tucker]

So when you said it's at the beginning. So you joined the atf. Why the atf?

[Jay Dobbins]

ATF was a very simple choice for me. They had and still have the premier undercover program in federal law enforcement. Amazing, amazing history of undercover operations and phenomenal operators that did amazing cases and amazing work, and they embraced undercover work. They valued it. They understood what could be accomplished by taking a living, breathing, sworn law enforcement officer, a man or a woman, and inserting them into a crime scheme or getting them next to A criminal like that, it. I'm biased towards it because I love undercover work. But it's so much better than a wiretap. It's so much better than surveillance or a historical investigation. You're taking someone and you're inserting them into the middle of a crime scheme and then that person can come out and report back either to a case agent, a handler, ultimately, if you make a case to a jury and to a judge of what you saw and touched and smelled and heard and said and all those things and your credibility in a courtroom is huge.

[Brent Tucker]

And a wiretap can't ask follow up questions and can't turn and ask someone else who isn't speaking a question.

[Jay Dobbins]

And many times it's open to interpretation. Did what he just said, what did that mean? Well, if you're there in person, you can follow up on that. You can ask the question. What do you mean by that?

[Brent Tucker]

So I'm. It's not a question more. Is it just a maybe, is this true or, or a statement? I have several friends throughout my career that were FBI, you know, on FBI counter drug teams. And whenever I'd ask them about the atf, it's a small sample size, but they all did have the same answer. They viewed the ATF as very cowboyish. And which is odd because when they said that, it seemed like they were trying to make it a little bit derogatory. It's like, ah, you know, they're, they're a little bit cowboyish. And I was, that's cool. Yeah. I was like, well, it sounds like I don't want to be in the atf.

[Jay Dobbins]

I understand, like the vibe to that answer.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

And like, like, I was always flattered by that. Like, you know, like, like ATF in federal law enforcement was where you went. If you wanted to get down in the weeds.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

If you wanted to get dirt underneath your fingernails, that's where you went. They were like, I didn't have any law enforcement experience, but the agency typically, at least back in the day, was recruiting cops. They weren't looking at college students. They wanted. And not just cops, they wanted guys and gals that knew how to run, informants that knew how to conduct an investigation. And so much of our work was grassroots work, street work. I love that. I loved it.

[Brent Tucker]

So how do you think you got the job?

[Jay Dobbins]

Oh, you know what, that's a good question. I think if they were asking themselves that thing, I think like the executives at ATF are saying, how did he get that job?

[Brent Tucker]

One slipped through the Cracks.

[Jay Dobbins]

Yes.

[Tyler]

So you had a significant event as a brand new guy, correct?

[Jay Dobbins]

I did, yeah.

[Tyler]

I love the way he says it. This happened before he got his first paycheck.

[Jay Dobbins]

I did. I got hired on a Monday. I got hired on November 16, 1987. So I got sworn in, raised my right hand, took my oath, and I was so honored. And I felt like it was such a privilege to be asked to stand up for the good and innocent people in the community that I worked in against the predators and against the violence. So that takes place on a Monday, on a Thursday, four days later, I am part of an arrest operation. I know nothing from nothing. Right. My. My badge is. Doesn't have a scratch on it. You know, my pistol has never been fired other than like a handful of rounds down the range. Right. Just to make sure you can hit paper. Right.

[Brent Tucker]

For some reason, like bring Dobbins.

[Jay Dobbins]

So I'm a part of this arrest operation, and I'm so far removed from the point of contact that, like, I could. It would be impossible to get involved in it. Right.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Jay Dobbins]

So the suspect. We're. We're set up at the suspect's house. He arrives, sees the arrest team closing in on him, and the dude takes off on the run. And instantly, from the far distance, I see this guy running. And I was like, man, like, it kicked in. Like, without any common sense or even understanding what.

[Tyler]

I was reckless.

[Jay Dobbins]

I'm going to go get this dude. I'm going to go get him. Now, I wasn't fast by NFL standards, but in Copland, I could fly, right?

[Tyler]

I could fly.

[Jay Dobbins]

I was. I was passengers. You know, I was passing the donut eaters, right? So this. This suspect who's. Who's a kid, he's a young man, he escapes and. And. And we're in his neighborhood. It was in, like, a pretty rough area of town. This is in Tucson, south of the Tucson airport. Like, lots of single wide trailers and very ranchy and very rural. Like, he knew all the hiding spots. We didn't know any of them, Right. So we had, for the most part, given up like. Like, hey, look, he beat us today. Yeah, he got away. We'll get him tomorrow or next week or next month or, you know, we'll. At some point, we'll. We'll catch him. So going back to Top Gun, what I didn't know is don't leave your wingman, right? You don't leave your. I didn't understand. Don't leave your wingman. I get separated and. And this. This kid was hiding in some weeds. And I walked past him and he came up out of the weeds with his pistol out on me and, and took me hostage. Four days on the job, right? And he's got his arm around my neck and he's got a pistol to my head and he's walking me towards a, like one of the government vehicles that we use to, to deliver ourselves to the arrest.

[Brent Tucker]

Old maneuver, Cotton.

[Jay Dobbins]

Yeah, right. Let's see how this place, he's screaming at me like, you know, I'm his, I'm gonna be the means for escape. Like I'm his hostage. He's going to stuff me in this car. It was an old Monte Carlo, two door Monte Carlo. Pushes me in the driver's seat, pushes the seat up, climbs in the seat behind me. Now I see my partner, see what's going on. They're starting to close in and he's screaming at me like to get him out of there. And so my, my first thought, like, this was obviously a really bad situation. I see this telephone pole, like probably 30, 40 yards up in front of us. And I was like, I'm going to ram this car into this telephone pole as fast as I can get it going over these next 30 yards. Because I was convinced even in those ignoseconds that like, this is going to turn out bad for me. But I'd rather have it turn out bad where I've got my partners here versus like rolling this dude down the highway and being executed in a ditch somewhere, right? I wasn't going out on my knees. So I reach for the keys and then plan B hits. And I pulled the keys out of the ignition and dropped them to the, to the floor. To the, to the floorboard.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

And I told him, I said, dude, I dropped the keys. And as I'm reaching forward for the keys, like he's trying to roll forward with me, he comes off me, his gun comes off my head and is in my back. And then like at this point, my partners have arrived and it is like this 10 second lead and glass storm, like worse than you could imagine in a Quentin Tarantino movie, right? It was just like, it felt like hundreds of gunshots and glass shattering and, and everything's chaos.

[Tyler]

Yeah, Right.

[Jay Dobbins]

So in the, in this process, I mean, this cat that had taken me hostage.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

My partners ventilated his ass. Yeah, right. They freaking, they hit him a dozen times, right. But he shot me in the back, point blank. The bullet went in my back, between my spine and my shoulder blade. It, it went through my lung, it Narrowly missed my heart and it exited my chest.

[Tyler]

Oh.

[Jay Dobbins]

And so like, like I'm sitting in the, in the driver's seat of this car and now the door is open. They pull me out, they pull the suspect out from the back seat. And there was blood coming out of my chest. Like you're holding your thumb over the end of a garden nose. Really? There was blood squirt. I could see it squirting out. And I've got this big pool of blood growing around me. And this crinkled up old bag of potato chips, like that was garbage blew through the mud, the, the blood puddle and kind of stuck and blew past. And like, you know, four days on the job, like I was bleeding to death. Like you said with the feds, we get paid every two weeks. I hadn't gotten a paycheck yet. That, that was on the house. Yeah, it was a test drive. So I brought the, this prop to show you guys for that story because I knew you'd ask me that story.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

So I'll see if I can show your camera. That, that hole right there, that's where the bullet went in my back. And there's a hole right here. It's a little bit ripped up, but that hole right there is where the, the bullet came out of my chest. And so, you know, that was like, like talking about being prepared and mentally prepared. Like that was a huge lesson learned for me. Like four days on the job as, like the violence is out there and as you're hunting the violence, the violence is hunting you.

[Brent Tucker]

That's right. The violence gets a vote.

[Jay Dobbins]

If, if you're not mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually prepared to encounter violence and then use an equal or greater amount of violence, whatever it takes to contain that situation. Man, you know what? Today's a good day to go sell used cars, man. Go back to school.

[Brent Tucker]

I'm telling you, this happens in all world of tactics, whether it be military or law enforcement, it just does. I think there are people out there wearing uniforms, playing a game. Essentially, when I say playing a game, they understand to some degree that it's dangerous, but they don't really think it's going to happen to them. And that's. And that's dangerous.

[Jay Dobbins]

Short of, short of meeting my wife and short of my kids being born, this was the best thing that ever happened to me in my life. Right. Because like right off the bat and like, like, this ain't a game. This isn't Miami Vice. Yeah, right. You know what? It like that Miami Vice vibe, right? That, that glamorous sexy vibe that drew me into it. I was convinced that undercover law enforcement smelled like hibiscus flowers. Right? It smelled like South Beach. Right. The reality of it is, is that it's a nasty, dirty, bloody, vomit covered scab of a life. It didn't smell like hibiscus flowers. It smelled like dirty diapers and stale cigarettes. When I realized that, when I realized that the illusion that Hollywood had created for me was counterfeit. Yeah, I loved it, man. I still loved it. You know, that Ferrari, it was a beat up Monte Carlo. That Hugo Boss suit that Sonny was wearing, it was a wife beater, T shirt and camos and flip flops, you know, the tons of cocaine, it was an eight ball, so stepped on with baby laxative. You'd shit before you'd get high off of it. It, Right, the, the stripper models that, you know, that were sitting on Sonny's lap when, when he's like doing his drug deals in Miami Vice. Straight skanks with three teeth in their head and tits like sweatsocks with rocks in the toes. Right. It was, it was a, it was a up world. Yeah. And I loved it. I, I, I had a purpose. I stood for something.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

It wasn't what I thought it was going to be, but when I found out the truth, man, it was. I think there's people that are lucky to find something they want to do, and then I think there's much less of us in the population that are blessed to find something that you have to do. And I felt like I have to do this.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, man, I love that.

[Tyler]

I, I do, I love how I did it.

[Brent Tucker]

That part of the story.

[Tyler]

Most people would have asked for a retirement, at least asked for a lighter gig like, whoa, you know, or, and, and you, you wanted more.

[Jay Dobbins]

Well, I'll tell you, I'm in the hospital and actually I had an amazing trauma surgeon, a young, spectacular doctor named Richard Carmona, who ultimately became the Surgeon General, United States. Okay. And so he patched me up. I had a sucking chest wound, which, you know, for your audience, sucking chest wound. Like you're sucking air into your chest cavity through these artificial holes that have been created by a bullet. So your chest cavity's filling up with blood and you can't breathe, you're suffocating. They also call it a sucking chest wound just because it sucks to have one. So I'm recovering and I'm in the hospital and they had ventilated my chest, put the chest tube in and all the stuff that goes with a sucking chest Wound. There's liability attorneys literally lining up in the hallway, like, giving me business cards, saying, like, tell me how much money do you want? Like, you've been on the job four days. You were not prepared for this. You were not trained for this. The government has assumed a huge liability here. Tell me how many zeros you want on that check and I'll go get it for you. They want you and this story to go away. And all I could think of was, man, like, you need to get out of here. Like, anybody who's ever. That I've known, that's ever taken a badge or a gun did not take it with the intentions of getting rich.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Jay Dobbins]

You're not taking. You don't take that job because you think you're going to be wealthy. You take that job for other moral, ethical reasons. And, like, I didn't want the money. I didn't want another job. I wanted another chance. I wanted an opportunity to show my partners and show my agency that I could do this without fucking it up.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, that's. That's. That's a. You pretty much just alluded to it right there. But ironically enough, I think when most good dudes get shot, the thing they wrestle with the most is feeling like. Like they let their. Their teammates down and that. That they did something wrong and having some sort of drive. So I can't wait to get back to work, and I can't wait to, you know, prove everyone, like, hey, like, that was a mistake. Like, I'm not the weak link here. Which is crazy because like you said, I mean, the bad guys get a vote, you know, and it's not always your fault, but that's how. That's how good. Ironically enough, it's a bad thought process. That's not correct. But that's how good guys think.

[Jay Dobbins]

Yeah, I was embarrassed, and I wanted to prove to my partners and to my agency that, that, that, that. That I could be counted on. And, like, it was a great opportunity because, like, everybody loves a comeback. Yeah, right. So I get. I get shot just before Thanksgiving in 87. And I came back to the office just before Christmas. Like, like Christmas season was starting. And my boss said, what are you doing here? Like, do you not understand how work comp. Work? Like, you got an easy 90 days. You can extend that to 180. You can extend it for as long as you want. And I was like, I didn't take this job to, like, lay on the couch at home and feel sorry for myself.

[Brent Tucker]

I worked four days.

[Jay Dobbins]

Yeah, I know that There's. I'm limited with what I can do right now physically, but I, like, let me, like, find something for me to do.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. Coming back to work isn't what's going to kill me. Keep me away from work is what's good is what's slowly killing me. Like, I got to get back to what I was meant.

[Jay Dobbins]

And I also realized, dude, if you don't jump right back in right now, if you don't climb back on the horse, man, you're never going to do it.

[Brent Tucker]

And the longer we talk about this a lot, the longer you stay away from the job. The brain is. Is not your friend. Your thoughts are not your friend. The longer you're away from it, the long. The more the second guessing continues to go in your. In your mind. An idle mind and idle hands. For a man that. That has purpose in life, and he's not doing that purpose. No good can come from that. No good can come from it.

[Jay Dobbins]

Get back to work. I was humiliated. I was. I was embarrassed and. And rightfully so. I, like, I made a dozen stupid mistake mistakes all within microseconds.

[Brent Tucker]

I'll be being honest with yourself. Being completely honest with yourself. What. What is it that you think you did wrong?

[Jay Dobbins]

First off, I had no business, like, coming from the back of the pack and putting myself in the point that, like, that was never the design. It was never the way we had orchestrated anything. That. That whole plan and the whole operational plan went out the window as soon as I saw the guy run. So mistake one, mistake two is I had a bunch of other agents there with me. Like, what's wrong with staying on someone's shoulder and going on the search for this guy with a partner? Okay, like, so I. So I unintentionally isolated myself. And so, like, those two things right there, if I get one of those things right, just one of the two. Right, all I got to do is shoot 50% and I. And I don't get shot. Yeah, I blew it on both.

[Brent Tucker]

You know, we have a. Sorry. We have a. Usually when we look at things that. That went wrong over my career, when something goes catastrophically wrong, we can usually find three things that went wrong before it went catastrophic. It's almost never one. Rarely is it two. Like, it'll go all the way to three things that went wrong before it goes catastrophic. So that's why I was asking it again. Odd life happens and sometimes can be one thing, but odd randomly. Randomly as it ever.

[Jay Dobbins]

It didn't help that I didn't know what I was doing it didn't help at all.

[Tyler]

Do you think that they were like. Like, it kind of like you. That cowboy thing that obviously they're not going to say we want cowboys, but if they're looking for that type of guy for the atf, do you think they were like, damn, dude, Jay gets after it?

[Jay Dobbins]

Well, I hoped ultimately to at least convince them of that. You know, on my second chance in today's world, if I had a body cam on or if we had surveillance camera and we were now critiquing that event tactically, we would chew it up, we would go through. Why did you do this? Why did you do this? What was your thought process? All those things. We would eat that event alive with all the mistakes that I made.

[Brent Tucker]

Well, you should have known better. You were four days in. You really should have known better.

[Jay Dobbins]

I tell that story. Story with a happy face. It was such a blessing. And it. And it opened doors for me. And it. You know, to be honest with you, it. It gave me some privilege within the agency. Like, this is the dude who got shot his fourth day at work. It opened some doors for me. And I'll tell you what, like, ultimately, ultimately, it worked against me a little bit because, like, I enjoyed that privilege and. And I enjoyed some of the doors that had opened for me that like, like, not necessarily earned the right way.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

And like, like, I. I had this attitude that I was bulletproof, that I was invincible. I was like, man, like, like my fourth day on the job, I had a bullet go through my chest and I came right back to work. Here I am, man. Let's go. Let's fight. Let's go. Get it on. I'm not sure that that portion of it. Well, I am sure that that portion of it wasn't healthy, but nonetheless, it, you know, 26 years old, man, I just wanted to get back in the slugfest.

[Brent Tucker]

Well, again, it's just something else we say all the time, and it's worth repeating. It's not about the mistakes you make in life. It's easy for you to tell that story and tell it with. Really. With no. With no remorse of sorts of. Is because of how you handled it. You didn't go get a paycheck and you didn't. You didn't leave. Guess what? If you'd have done that, you'd have spent all that money by now, and you'd look back going, why'd I take that money? I could have had a life I was proud of. I could have been going after bad Guys and I. And. But yet something bad happened to you. You handled it the right way, and you had a whole career of things that you did that you did right that eclipsed your mistake. It's always about how you handle your mistakes.

[Jay Dobbins]

Well, there is a part two to the story. So, like, I had notoriety in town from football, and then this shooting comes, and there's a lot of publicity around it. And like, I immediately asked for a transfer. I was like, I am not going to be able to work undercover in this town. Right. It's just not going to happen right now. And the agency cooperated with me. I was transferred to Chicago. Twelve months later, I was in another shooting in Chicago.

[Brent Tucker]

That.

[Jay Dobbins]

That wasn't all that much different. We had done a machine gun reverse to some gang bangers. They, they. We knew that there were kids buying these machine guns, and we were going to transfer these guns to them and then surveil them to where, you know, they were taking them to the kingpins. Yeah, we knew they weren't buying them for themselves. So in the process of this surveillance, these kids start running heat. And we're thinking like, man, we got to knock these kids down. Like, we're going to lose our guns. If we don't knock these kids down, we're going to have put machine guns out on the street. So we need to knock these kids down. In this arrest scenario, in this traffic stop scenario, me and my partner end up in a blocking position in front of them to keep them from trying to dash off when they see the lights turning behind us. Him. And one thing led to another, and we got. We got too much separation in the. With our blocking technique. The lights come on behind these gangsters and they're gonna make a run for it. And they ran right over the top of me. I had. I had jumped out of my car and confronted them. I had my pistol out right from the vehicle I was in. We were next to a cornfield. This took place in Joliet, Illinois. There wasn't.

[Brent Tucker]

Where that's at.

[Jay Dobbins]

There wasn't a whole lot of room to work. So I was sliding closer and closer to this cornfield, trying to, like, give the gangsters a path to escape. Right. Came right at me. Very intentional as I got hit by the car. I shot the driver in the shoulder, got hit by the car. Flipped up over the top of the car. The dynamics of vehicle contact like that at high velocity. It blew my shoes off. I.

[Tyler]

Everybody that gets hit by cars, their.

[Jay Dobbins]

Shoes are always still sitting in the road. It blew my Shoes off. And so I'm continuing, like, the car's escaping. I'm continuing to fire rounds into, like, into the back window of this escape. No, I was like, shooting from the ground. I was shooting like, like sucking my thumb, feeling sorry for myself. Turns into a vehicle chase. They end up catching the kids. But I remember sitting in the middle of this. This, basically this cornfield on the side of the road. And now the pursuit has gone after the escaping suspects. I'm there, I'm by myself with my shoes blown off and my legs blown out in an empty pistol. And this kid rides up on this like, Schwinn with, with ape hanger handlebars. And he's like, are you okay? I said, you know, I think so. He's like, that was awesome. He saw the whole thing go down.

[Brent Tucker]

Tell me that's how you got the nickname Shoeless J. Dobbins.

[Jay Dobbins]

If it had been my nickname, I would have earned it.

[Brent Tucker]

What sounds like a baseball player from the 30s.

[Tyler]

Yeah, what, what, what got you into the. The biker gang life or. I don't say lifestyle, but the whole investigation.

[Jay Dobbins]

Yeah, well, you know, when. When the opportunity for the Hell's Angels investigation was presented, like, I had already had 15 years of undercover experience behind my gun.

[Tyler]

Okay, okay, yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

That wasn't something that, like, I had bought guns on the street, from handguns to shoulder launched rockets.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

I'd bought narcotics from street dope, from dimebags and eight balls to cartel level dope. I bought explosives from homemade PVC pipe bombs that some tweaker was making in his mom's garage up to servo activated remote control C4 devices.

[Tyler]

Wow.

[Jay Dobbins]

I had infiltrated home invasion crews, like narcotics robbery crews. I had played a hitman in murder for hire schemes, which is like two completely, like, really trippy worlds, you know, like those home invaders, they're not robbers that are willing to murder. They're murderers who are looking to rob. Right? So that's a dangerous game, right? In the murder for hire game, you're negotiating and you're dealing with people who somehow have convinced themselves that they have the right to decide who lives and who dies and how much it's worth. Right? So, like, I had 15 years of experience when I was approached on the Hell's Angels case, so I thought I was prepared. I believed I was, like, historically prepared. Like, I had the experience. I really wasn't ready. But, yeah, the opportunity came to answer your question, a whole 15 years after I came on the job.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay, who we. Where were you working when this did you end up going back to Arizona.

[Jay Dobbins]

I ended up going back to Arizona.

[Brent Tucker]

This opportunity presents itself when you're back in Arizona, and it's got to be like, how. How do you even. How do you hear about it? Or. Or something. You volunteer for some, like, a handful of people get nominated. Like, hey, this is the pool that we're looking at.

[Jay Dobbins]

There was a case agent in Arizona named Joe Slatella, an absolute, like, dog on a bone investigator. This dude has, like, a forensic brain that can, like, memorize suspects and intelligence and. And all. Like, he, like, he's a. Like a supercomputer. Yeah, Right. So the. The angels in Arizona are operating, like, violently with impunity. No one's really checking out, really. So he wants to make a run at him, and he approaches me, you know, Joe approaches me and says, hey, I'd like you to lead this. This undercover operation. Let's, like, get next to these guys. My first response was, I don't think I'm the right guy to be the lead on this. I would love to participate, but, like, I have partners and friends who've spent their career specializing in outlaw biker gangs.

[Tyler]

Yeah, yeah, right.

[Jay Dobbins]

Like, like, like, let's. Let's pick one of these dozen guys who's better at this. This than I am. The advantage I had is that I was working a case of bounty hunters in Bullhead City, Arizona. That these bounty hunters were out of control as well and doing all kinds of crazy stuff. But in this bounty hunter investigation, I had started crossing paths with members of the Hell's Angels. And so Joe's argument was like, dude, you got a head start. Yeah, you might not be the perfect guy, but you've already got a criminal reputation established with some of these guys. So let's jumpstart that. We'll bring these other guys in. We'll get help. And so it wasn't a lack of enthusiasm for the investigation. It was just like, I think that maybe some of my partners that we can go to might be better as the lead. But Joe was like, you know what, dude? You're very good at figuring things out. Like, you'll figure it out. You'll figure it out. And so, like, we dove in.

[Brent Tucker]

It's easy for you to say, buddy. You're not the one that has to Google. You're not gonna go hang out with these guys. In love your confidence, though.

[Jay Dobbins]

In my research, like, and. And. And, you know, if from your world and. And from our world, knowledge is power, the more that you know about your adversary, the. The. The. That you're creating advantage. So like doing my research and, and trying to figure out who's who in the zoo with the Hell's Angels. There was probably 180 Hells Angels in Arizona at this point. Like six or seven different charters. They had 6,000 members, 600 charters. They were in 60 different countries. They were, you know, classified as an international organized crime syndicate. But the one thing that kept jumping out at me as I was doing my research is that they kill their own if they feel compromised, if they feel deceived or betrayed. They had a pattern and practice and a history of killing their own members. And that like forever lived in my head during the entire two year investigation. Like if these dudes figure it out, if you slip up, if you make a mistake, they're not going to ask you not to come around anymore, man. You're going to get hit on the back of the head with a baseball bat or have a straight razor dragged across your throat. That's how they handle business.

[Tyler]

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[Jay Dobbins]

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[Tyler]

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[Brent Tucker]

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[Tyler]

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[Brent Tucker]

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[Tyler]

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[Brent Tucker]

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[Tyler]

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[Brent Tucker]

And in a weird way, it goes back to what you said, you know, earlier. Like this, this isn't a TV show. Like this is real. There's, there's no actor that just go play on another show. It's not all roses. It is, it is real life dirty. And one mistake could cost your life.

[Jay Dobbins]

These were some of the baddest cats on the planet and they were proud of it. You know, they, they promote and through their propaganda that they're just like these fun loving rascals who have this brotherhood love of riding motorcycles together and they simply don't want to live by society's rules. They don't want to live by society's laws. And, and that, that, that is true, that is true. But there's so much more to it, so much more that man, they are a dangerous, dangerous group of men.

[Brent Tucker]

I'm sure it ran through your mind the type of notoriety within the gang one of those members could, could get by sniffing out a fed and.

[Jay Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

And killing them. Oh, you're a made man.

[Tyler]

Yeah, yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

I mean they would love nothing more than to find you.

[Jay Dobbins]

You know, and I think we touched on it earlier. I was a salesman and my product was me. I was, I had to sell myself to them. And so they wanted someone who could be violent and make money. And I showed them that I had money in my pocket and could be violent. And it was a non stop 2 year sales pitch of Jaybird. And my partners. And I do need to say this, like we had an entire task force assembled for this case. Every conceivable investigative job and talent was in that task force. And so the people on that task force, they made every bit the sacrifice that I did. They were there every hour I was there. They were away from their family and their kids and away from home and working and grinding and you know, like, you guys know this success is best when it's shared success. Like, like, like success is truly enjoyable when you can share it with your partners and with other people. And so like any accomplishment we had, typically in law enforcement, there's someone left standing at the end that gets the credit sometimes gets the Blame sometimes gets the blame. Right.

[Tyler]

Double edged sword.

[Jay Dobbins]

But that, that was not the case. In what we had deemed Operation Black Biscuit, which was the Hell's Angels case, there was a whole task force of people that, that were amazing, amazing investigators that, that I worked side by side with.

[Brent Tucker]

Do you, do you remember the first time that you're there and you know, and their team house or whatever, or you're with them and you're like, okay, this, this is. I, I knew this time was coming, and now I know this time is here. Like I am here with them. I'm in too deep. Well, the beginning of, you know, I say I'm in too deep. Yeah, I'm in it. I'm in it at this point.

[Jay Dobbins]

There's, there's a couple parts to that answer. We, we focused our initial attention on the Mesa charter of the Hells Angels, which Mesa is a suburb of Phoenix, a very successful charter there, 25 plus members, affluent. You go in that, that in, in the Mesa Hells Angels clubhouse is like a museum of history and paraphernalia and just everywhere like it. It's impressive. Yeah, it's impressive. Within the Mesa clubhouse, they had a party one night. They invite this woman who was like kind of a party girl named Cynthia Garcia. Cynthia comes to the party and she's there, like, intrigued by the mystique of the Hell's Angels. Cynthia says the wrong thing at the wrong time in the wrong place. She insults the Hell's Angels and they. Do you know what she said? Yeah, I don't know word for word what she said, but it was something that, like, like you don't insult a Hell's Angel. You don't insult when there's a bunch of them together and you don't insult them at their house. Right? That like bad. Talk about three mistakes. Right. They boot stomped her to the brink of death on the floor of the Mesa clubhouse. They stuffed her in the trunk of a car, they drove her out to the desert in Apache Junction, and they cut her head off like. And, and the plan was that they didn't completely sever the head, but, but they were gonna cut her head off and stick it on a, on a fence post. Like Dracula.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

Right. So that is the charter that we had targeted to try to start with.

[Tyler]

Oh, that's a good one.

[Jay Dobbins]

And the president of the Mesa Hells Angels was a legit shot caller. So I knew if I could befriend him, if I could win his loyalty, he could open doors for me that I couldn't Open myself. There was nothing I was going to do or say that would trump anything that he would say on my behalf. So we get invited to come to the. To the Mesa Hells Angels clubhouse. Me and a few of my partners roll up. We're met on the street by five or six Hells Angels, all like either armed with pistols or they. They were carrying like these three foot sections of like three quarter inch rebar. Okay. Like just like pipes. Yeah, right. And they're like, all right, boys, like, come on in. Let's. Let's see what you guys are about. And they're. They're walking us in the front. In the front door. My partners go in and I carried. I had twin Glocks. I had a. I had a shoulder rig. Yeah, that had a. I carried a Glock.

[Tyler]

Miami Vice.

[Jay Dobbins]

I was still in my sunny Crockett mode, right? That's right. And so I'm getting ready to step in, and Hell's angel puts his arm across the door. He goes, you can't come in here with those pistols on, man. That, like, that's against our rules. And I knew, like, right off the bat, this is a moment of truth. Like, this is. This is going to carry for as long as this goes. And I said, like, you know what? I don't take my pistols off for anybody. Not even the Hell's Angels. You guys got guys that you don't. That. That don't like you. Guess what? So do I. Yeah, I got people that don't like me. And if something breaks bad, like, you want me to have these pistols with me? You want me armed like I'm on your team?

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

Yeah. And there was a standoff at the door, and then this president that we were trying to win over steps out and he's like, I make the rules. He comes in and I was like, like, baby, baby, victory, like a very small victory. Like, I was like, oh. I was thinking to myself, that's a win. That's a win. You stood up for yourself.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

You didn't buckle under. You didn't let your knees shake. Because as you guys know from the life you lived and from what you do for a living, there's times when your heart is beating a million miles an hour, but your hand can't shake. You can't let anybody see you're scared shitless, but you can't let anybody see it.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. Yeah, I'm. I'm sure you know, getting this later when it comes, like, to the end, but I'm sure at some point you you and the boys get together and they're like, I can't believe you didn't take those guns off. They're like, yeah, they're back there going.

[Jay Dobbins]

Just take the guns off. Just take the guns off.

[Brent Tucker]

And they're like a good thing you didn't take the guns off.

[Jay Dobbins]

You know, Right. One funny like jumping ahead and I know there's more to the story. When we, when we ultimately took these guys down, when they were making some, some post arrest statements, the guys are in handcuffs now. Two of the guys are, are bannering with each other, two of the angels are in handcuffs and they're said we should have known like birds teeth were straight. How many of us have nice teeth? That was a dead giveaway.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, that's true. I mean that's true in a weird way. That's true.

[Jay Dobbins]

Right?

[Brent Tucker]

They. So after that the, like, at what, at what point did they ever make you. At what point where did you start to feel. Because I read some of your book where you're like that you started to, you realize not all of them are bad. And if I remember that, if I quote the book correctly, but not, but not all of you is good.

[Jay Dobbins]

Yeah, you know like 100% was that.

[Brent Tucker]

And here's a follow up question of that. Do you think that's something that you. I know it's a weird question, but something you kind of always were that this allowed to manifest or something you became during this investigation?

[Jay Dobbins]

Well, the short answer to that is that as I was infiltrating the Hells Angels, they were infiltrating me.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Jay Dobbins]

And I, and I think that's the honest truth. I wasn't intrigued by that world. I always knew what team I was playing for. I never lost sight of it. I never liked. Oh, I, you know what? I made a bad choice in life. I should have been a biker. I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have survived.

[Brent Tucker]

But.

[Jay Dobbins]

They operate with paranoia and it's justified and it's well placed paranoia. Everything you do, everything you say, how you walk your motorcycle, how you ride it, your house, what your house looks like, how you dress, everything's being scrutinized. They're looking for something to set them off and saying there's something not right about this dude. And you're constantly under scrutiny, you're constantly being evaluated. And so that was a massive challenge. And then you're working like I was working with a team of undercovers. So you're not only responsible for yourself, I'm responsible for you and for you. And our cover story's better match. And when we're questioned on them, like I better give the same answers that you give and you give and you two better give the same answers.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. At this point, like when you're doing this, I mean there it's, there are no off days. I mean, is this, is this just the life you are into at for an unknown amount of time until it's done? Because really, I mean, I'm assuming there's just, there's no going home and playing with the kids at night.

[Jay Dobbins]

Not much. It was a two year investigation. You know, 16, 18, 18, 20 hour days. I was smoking three packs of cigarettes a day. I was drinking Red Bulls, I was popping pills like I was a train wreck. There's at one point in the case, like you talked about not being able to get home enough. I would go home and I would do the bare minimum I had to do to keep my family functioning. I'd mow the grass, pay the bills, pat the kids on the head, have a cup of coffee with my wife. I couldn't wait to get back and be smoking and joking with the gangst. So I'd been gone for an extended period of time and I come home and my wife confronts me and she says, you cannot be gone and walk in this house and speak to me and the kids like we're gangsters. Because that was like that. That's who I had become. Right. And in my defense, I'm arguing with her. I said, I'm not a light switch. I can't turn this on and off. I have to be on. People that treat what I do for a living like a hobby. They end up dead or the people around them end up dead.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

And then her response was, I understand that, but when you come to this house, you better install a dimmer switch on that attitude. You better dial it down. If you can't dial that attitude down with me and the kids, don't come home because you're not welcome here like this, man. And you know what?

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

As fucked up as this is, that was my hall pass. I was like, you just told me, don't come home until like, until I'm cool, you won't see me again.

[Brent Tucker]

I already knew which way you, you were falling on, on, on that. But out of necessity, out of necessity, I don't think. Hey, I don't. People aren't going to want to hear this or not. Not everyone, but, but it's true. That's what it takes to dedication to a dangerous job, to Win. And when, when the stakes are life and death, then. Then the answer is don't come home. Because I have to be dialed in during this period. And there's some wives out there and some girlfriends aren't there that aren't going to want to hear that answer. But that is the, that is the.

[Tyler]

Truth to some extent. To some extent. It's the life they chose to. And it's very, very hard on.

[Brent Tucker]

It's true.

[Tyler]

On the person operating to. To have to fight that, you know, especially when it's life and death.

[Jay Dobbins]

Well, and, and this is, this is flawed reasoning, but my mentality was like, I'm out here saving the world and your job is to support me. Yep.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

And. And I had twisted that to be like, like a truth in my own mind that, like, I didn't want to make a mistake. I didn't want to be the weak link. I had partners that were operating side by side with me. I didn't want to get us hurt. And in the end, like, I made a very tragic mistake in trying so hard not to get it wrong. We initially started the investigation as a side by side. We had infiltrated a biker gang out of Tijuana, Mexico, called the Solo Angels. Angels for the sole purpose of wearing that solo angel cut in the presence of the Hell's Angels. So we could have street cred in that world.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Jay Dobbins]

So that was rolling. We were doing great. We, like, we were believed that was.

[Tyler]

Actually a club that existed.

[Jay Dobbins]

Yeah, you know, it was, it was, it was innovative, man. It hadn't been done before. We infiltrated one gang purely for credibility in the eyes of another gang.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

So there was two infiltrations within the one investigation.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. You gotta have a backstory.

[Jay Dobbins]

So we make our way with the Solo Angels. We're wearing the Solo Angels patch. This, this Tijuana patch in. In Arizona.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Jay Dobbins]

We're believed, we're credible. And, and so here was one of the biggest mistakes I made on the case. And this is not a flattering statement to make. After we got that Solo angel patch, I stopped servicing that account. Like that was a. That was a business account. I needed to keep that alive. I needed to keep those guys as my friends. Once I got what I needed from them, I ignored them and they started reporting back to the Angels. These dudes never come down here anymore. These dudes that are running with you guys in Arizona, man. You know what? I don't know if. Who they are, who they say they are. They're wearing our patch. We never see them All I had to do was keep that alive. All I had to do was put some fingerprints that on occasion and keep those guys happy. I got what I wanted. I ignored them and got confronted on it. And that was. That was a sketchy, sketchy time when. When the COVID story is blowing up.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

And I got summons to a meeting with the president of the. Of the MESA charter. And I knew through back channels that that cover story was. Was compromised.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Jay Dobbins]

And he says, like, hey, we got to get together. We got to talk. We got some problems. And I'm thinking, we're all thinking, everybody on the task force, we're done. Yeah, we're done. This is. We're over. Like, how many people can we arrest right now? Because I said, like, give me one chance to see if I can save this. So I go to this meeting with this president, and I was convinced that. That I was being. Setting up, being set up for an assassination. I thought, like, like, the COVID story's blown and these. This dude's gonna freaking smoke me, man. I was waiting for a drive by, so I get with him and then I fell back as my explanation on this history that. That I had built with him and the things that we had done together. And he heard my explanation. He got on the phone and he. He called off. There were some Angels waiting in the parking lot. He called off the dogs, right? And said, hey, man, look, like, I just sat with him. I believe him. But at that point, that was the night when he said, you're no longer solo Angels. You want to be with us. You want to be in Arizona? Take those cuts off, turn them back in, and you're with us. And if you don't want to be with us, and if you don't want to turn your solo angel shit back in, get out of this state, and I better never see your face again. So this side by side investigation now became an infiltration, which was not the design as a side by side. When we were the Solo Angels, we could be where we wanted to be when we wanted to be there. We could leave when we wanted to. We had independence when we started.

[Tyler]

Was it never to infiltrate the Hell's Angels?

[Jay Dobbins]

Initially, that was not the plan. Joe Slotella, the case agent's plan was just to be side by side with him so that we could have control. When we were leveraged to join the Hell's Angels, we lost all control. Yeah. So it's both now.

[Brent Tucker]

Both a gift and a curse.

[Jay Dobbins]

Right? Like, like I became a step and fetch. Like now when they Call. When the phone ring, I better answer it and I better be ready to go where they send me. How they send me with the attitude. They send me there.

[Brent Tucker]

All right, I got, I got questions. So at, at some point, like what? What is it? I'm sure that, I'm sure they have this talk with you. What are you, like, allowed to do? Because they're, I mean, they're gonna want you to drink. You're probably gonna have to. I'm just, you're gonna have to drink and drive, you know, you. You're gonna have to do drugs. Like, you're going to have to do illegal activities, you know, to, to, to earn, you know, their respect. So what, you know, you know, when, when those things come up. I'm sure that came up, like in planning. What's the guidelines for that?

[Jay Dobbins]

That's a great question. And so, like, we did so many outside the box innovative, cutting edge things. In this case, my answer is the answer to your question. Like, we knew we were constantly going to be mud checked by these guys. Like, we're going to be tested. Like through that paranoia, we were constantly going to be tested. So we ran an elaborate scheme of what we call street theater. Street theater is inaccurate conclusions formed under or behind accurate observations. So I was constantly inviting the Hells Angels to participate with me, be present with me for drug deals, for gun deals, for debt collections. I introduced them to mafiosos, traditional organized crime mafia members. All these crime events was constantly including them in my crime. What they didn't know is that the people that were, that we were interacting with in these crime schemes were other undercover agents. I was buying and selling drugs from other undercover agents. Guns. Machine guns. Hey. All I need you to do is sit across the street. Dude's gonna pull up, he's gonna open his trunk. I'm gonna put a bunch of AK47s in my trunk. He's gonna pay me. Stay out of my business. If something breaks bad, come out blazing. Until then, that's all I need from you. But street theater, if you're sucked into the street theater. Yeah, you just saw me do a machine gun deal and now you tell all your boys I was with a man. Dude cashed me out. Yeah, we went and did a debt collection. Because my cover story was that I was a gun runner and a debt collector. We did a debt collector, a debt collection. We invited a Hell's Angels. A Hell's angel to come with, with me as, as backup, as support. Going to this restaurant, I see this guy and this Girl sitting at a table, just having lunch, right? I slide in next to the guy. The angel slides in next to the girl. I took his plate. I pull his plate of food in front of me. I start cutting up his steak. I'm eating his steak. I grab his glass of wine. I'm drinking his wine. Dude's looking at me. He's like, man, do I know you? I was like, you're about to know me. But today's your lucky day. Normally when I introduce myself, I hit you on the back of the head with a baseball bat. But I'm being nice. You owe money. You owe money to Mr. Big. To my mafioso guy. So it's payday, dude. Empty your pockets. Take his wallet, take his cash. Take his credit card. Take your jewelry off. Takes his watch off. Takes his rings off. Take his car keys. He's like, dude, not my Porsche. Like, dude, give me the damn car keys. Right? This doesn't get you even where you're close, but you still owe some money. I'm going to come back in a week. You better have the balance of what you owe, plus the vig, right? To get right, or else you're going to end up in the hospital. I don't want to put you in the hospital because how are you going to pay your debt if you're locked up? If you're. If you got a cast on your arm, right? So let's just do this the easy way, man. Get straight with me, right? I'm trying to work with you, right? Go out to the parking lot, cash out the Hell's Angel. That's how easy it is for you to make money with me. All you had to do was sit there and be scary. That dude told everybody that he was on this debt collection. The guy we collected from and the girl that he was with were undercover operators. It was a giant skit.

[Tyler]

That's awesome, dude. That's so cool.

[Jay Dobbins]

Inaccurate conclusions. Inaccurately concluded. He's a debt collector. From an accurate observation. I was there. I saw him do the debt collection.

[Brent Tucker]

But what happens? Maybe it, you know, you were lucky enough that it didn't happen. Where they see you a part of these street theater deals, and they're like, well, we have these own deals that are real, and they're like, well, you have a history in this. We want you to be a part of this as well as they try to maybe bring you in. Into their side of things.

[Jay Dobbins]

Tell you a good story on that. Ultimately, when we are prospecting, we were focused on mesa, right? Ultimately, when we're prospecting now, we're under their control. They assign us to the. The Skull Valley charter, which is a tiny, small charter that needed to increase their manpower.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Jay Dobbins]

I told the Mesa guys, I'm like, man, I don't want to go to Skull Valley. I want to be with. I've been hanging out with you dudes. They're like, you think you have choice? You think you can decide what team you plan? You're going to Skull Valley, dude, and you better have a good attitude about it.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

So we're in Skull Valley, we're prospecting there. I get a call from one of the leaders in Skull Valley. Get to the clubhouse and bring all your hardware. Click, PHONE HANGS UP. I don't know, I'm. I'm speculating on what that means. Show up at the Skull Valley clubhouse and I get briefed. The banditos are coming through Las Vegas. The Angels felt like Nevada was their state. They own that state. The bandidos are going to be coming through Las Vegas and they haven't asked us for a hall pass. Right, right. So we're going to confront them more specifically. You're going to confront them. And they gave me the landing spot. It was like some VFW lounge or something where these guys were going to gather up and, and probably like, like just eat and get some beers. And yeah, they told me, like, we're gonna get there. You're gonna confront them. If you don't shoot them before they get their kickstands down, we're sitting right behind you. We're gonna shoot you.

[Tyler]

Really.

[Jay Dobbins]

So we're, we're going from Skull Valley, which is basically Prescott, Arizona, to Las Vegas, which is maybe a three or four hour trip. I get on the phone with Joe Slatella, give him this, like, quick briefing, like, dude, this thing's breaking bad, man, and I need a save.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Jay Dobbins]

Slatella organizes some uniform guys with the Las Vegas Metro Police Department. They find this pack of banditos. They traffic stop this pack of banditos. But, like, I'm at the. I'm at the contact point. I'm where I'm supposed to be. Yeah, the angels are watching. They don't know that. That we circumvented this and had the bandito stopped. All they know is that their dude, Bird was there on point and at least gave the impression that I was there to take care of business. Now, were you?

[Tyler]

A hundred. One hundred. That your boys had stopped them.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

Good, Good question. And like, always trying to, like, like, think of the worst case scenario.

[Brent Tucker]

Man's game.

[Jay Dobbins]

I thought, like, if these dudes sneak through and if they actually get here, like, I'm gonna bust some rounds into the dirt. Like, I'm gonna let some rounds fly, right? And then when they bust my balls and say, what the. I'm gonna say, like, you know what? You sent me here. I didn't tell you that I was a good shot.

[Brent Tucker]

Yep.

[Jay Dobbins]

Right. But I wanted to try to keep the story alive.

[Brent Tucker]

Always, Always going down the what ifs.

[Jay Dobbins]

Now, was that a proper solution? Would I have gotten chewed up for that had it taken place? Like, that would have gotten absolutely destroyed for that. But at that time and at that place, that was my answer.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. I don't think people understand the amount of thinking that goes on during this. We talked about this before the episode. You can go to any school you want. You can have. You can. You know, you can go. You can have all the experience you want at some level. But when it comes to undercover work, you are either wired for that or you're not. Some training can make you a little bit better, but you. That's the type of person you are. And then, you know, I'm not doing too much about things like cover for status and cover for action. But, like, when. When you're in. In this cover work, it's not just, hey, all right, well, this is the COVID I have now. Like, it's. It's just all day long. Okay, what's my cover now? And if this happens? What's my cover now? And if this happens, you know, what am I going to do now? You are what ifing all day long to make sure that you don't have to make a decision on the fly, because that's. It'll never be the best decision.

[Jay Dobbins]

Yeah, you. You. You're giving me a perfect opportunity to brag on my friends and brag on my peers and my personal partners. This cadre of undercover agents are. And many of them I value higher than myself. I rate higher than myself. Were better at the job than I was. Are some of the smartest, most intellectual investigators that you'll cross paths with. They might not look at. They might look like you guys. They might give a first impression. They're absolutely brilliant. Like before, earlier in my career, before the Hell's Angels case, I was working a quasi biker case in Macon, Georgia, and I had this old outlaws business card that I had gotten from an outlaw in Joliet when I was working in Joliet in Chicago from that shooting, from that era. Right. And it was just. It Was a great piece of pocket litter. I had it in my undercover wallet. This is again, this is pre hell's angels. So we're working this biker case in macon, and I intentionally drop my undercover wallet in their bar. I wanted them to find it. I wanted them to pick through it and accelerate my credibility process. I wanted them to see my driver's license. I wanted them to see all my pocket litter. So I dropped my wallet. It's got this outlaw card in it. And I call him the next day and said, man, last night was the last place I can remember my wallet. At your bar. Did you find it? Yeah, I found it coming back. Come and get it. Go to this tattoo shop. Me and my partner show up. I'm there to recover my wallet. I know he's dug through it. I know that he saw everything I wanted him to see. And he brings me into his office, and he keeps my partner in the hallway. He's like, nope, just Burt locks the door. And his door on his office door Had a hinge and a flap that he could padlock from the inside. He padlocks the door, right? And he puts my. Pushes my wallet across the table to me. We're sitting at his desk, and I take my wallet back up. Dude, thanks, man. Thanks for finding it. You know, I knew I'd lost it here. And he was holding on to that outlaw's business card. He's like, what can you tell me about this? I had my story right, and it wasn't a lie. I was like, man, I used to live in Chicago. I used to run around in joliet. I ran into some outlaws in joliet, and they gave me a business card, and they said, hey, man, if you ever have a problem, give us a call. Right? There was no fabrication to it. He's like, look closer at it. And I'm looking at this business card, and he goes, what can you tell me about it? No answer. Which is the worst thing you can have in undercover work Is not have an answer, Especially for something that's on your person. Yeah, you better have an ex. I didn't know what he was looking for.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

He slides this jeweler's magnifying glass in front of me with the big dome in it. You know that. That jewelers use to look at diamonds, right?

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

I put the card underneath it, and I'm. And I'm looking at the card, and when I look back up at him, he's got a pistol bipod on his elbows are bipartite on the desk, and he's like, now answer me the fucking question on that business card. I don't know what answer he's looking for.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

In the corner was a tiny, tiny pinhole, like a little rip.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Jay Dobbins]

He's like, do you see that? You see that pinhole there? Like, yeah. He's like, you know what that looks like to me? It looks like some cop had this pinned on his bulletin board behind his desk as a trophy. And I'm thinking to myself, he's right. That's exactly what it was. That's exactly what it was. Like, I, the, the worst answer you can have in undercover work is, I don't know.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

Yeah. Where you been? I don't know. Where you going? I don't know.

[Brent Tucker]

Right? Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

Like, why is this card in your wallet? I don't know. Right. I, I didn't have an escape. I just stuck to it. I said, dude, I don't have an explanation for you if that's what you think. I, I, I don't even know what to say to that. And, and he, he let me off the hook. But that was a fail. Yeah, that was a fail, man. That was a fail. I, I made one of the worst decisions you can make as an undercover agent. Very unflattering statement to make. I underestimated my adversary.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

I underestimated this guy's intelligence. I underestimated his attention to detail. I took for granted that he was just going to find my stuff and it was going to all work out beautifully for me, and it didn't. And it was no one's fault but mine.

[Brent Tucker]

Time, man, they were paranoid. They were paranoid.

[Jay Dobbins]

This dude probably had a sixth grade education and he was smarter on the street than I was.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, the, it's, it's a, you just reminded me this. I'll tell you this super random story. I'll leave, I'll leave the, the biker gang out, but me and a couple Delta Force buddies for down here in Florida, we go to a rock concert, an event, sevenfold concert. And, and we, we, and in this concert, like, there's a biker gang like, in, like right behind us. And we're just being, we're just being who we are, silly, whatever. And we befriend him. Like, man, you guys some cool dudes. He's like, you guys, see, you're a military. They don't run the Delta Force. So, yeah. He goes, tell you what, man, because you from Florida. Yeah, I'm from Florida. We can do that for the military. I'm like, I don't have any plans? Like. Like, we. Like you guys. Here's our card. We're gonna have it. We're gonna throw an after party at our. At our clubhouse. You guys should come. And my buddy's like, that sounds like a fun after party. I'm like, I'm the senior guy. I'm like, that sounds like a horrible idea. But he gives me his business card, and it just says this. It has a phone number, and underneath it, it says our business. Dot, dot, dot. I'm like, all right. I didn't even look at it in front of him. I got. Thanks. Yeah, we'll give you a call. I'll look at it later. And on the back of the card, it says, is none of your business. And I was like, that's the coolest business card anyone's ever given me.

[Jay Dobbins]

Yeah, don't spoil our fun by dialing 9, 1, 1.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, they're. I don't want to. I don't want to, you know, paint them in a. In a good light, you know, because they are who they are, but, man, they're. I can see the attraction to it.

[Jay Dobbins]

I shortchanged you on one of your questions. Talking about this, you know, meeting all these. These members worldwide, members from across the United States. Not every guy that had a Hell's Angels cut on. Not everybody guy. Not every guy that had a Hell's angel top rocker with a death head was a murderer or a rapist or a drug dealer or a gun runner or. There were dudes who were part of that organization that weren't in trouble. There were guys that were, like, actually pretty fun to spend time with.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

And for me, like, they don't really accept this explanation, and I understand why. It was never personal for me. I never said, I'm gonna make sure this guy gets a long prison sentence. I'm gonna make sure that I ruin this guy's life. It was never personal. I had a job to do, which was to go out and gather intelligence and gather information and then report that back out to my handler. It wasn't personal.

[Brent Tucker]

How does it not get personal? Even in my job, when I had much less of a interaction with the bad guys, it gets personal. I think you said it in your answer. He just kept it business. But. But you're telling me when you find out what some of these guys do, it doesn't. It doesn't pull on that personal string a little bit?

[Jay Dobbins]

No, you corrected me. There is a personal element to it because there's. There's people that you. That you like. It's human nature. There's people that you grow affection for.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

Like, I wasn't constantly in some violent or treacherous situation with these guys. I saw them, like, with their families. You know, they slept at my house. I slept at their house. I held their babies.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

There were guys, when the case came to an end, that were going to get arrested, and I was like, man, I hope this guy doesn't do something stupid.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

When the SWAT team hits, like, I'm thinking, like, I'm praying, like, don't reach for that pistol in the nightstand. I didn't want to see this guy get hurt, man. He doesn't deserve to get hurt. And if the SWAT team comes in and you reach for your. It's. It's gonna freaking be a bad ending for you, man. I don't want that to happen.

[Brent Tucker]

I. I really didn't think about that. That side of it at all when we were talking about this. You know, I only get focused on, you know, on the bad guys and the bad things. I didn't even think about the other side of actually, you know, making friends with some of these guys, because they're.

[Jay Dobbins]

Not all bad dudes. Guys that love their kids, love their families, and then, you know, you're gonna put a lick on them that's gonna separate them from their. From their wives and their kids. And I'm thinking, like, man, you know, what if someone, good or bad, right or wrong, was separating me from my wife and my kids?

[Brent Tucker]

That's right.

[Jay Dobbins]

Would I have hatred for him? Would I have resentment for him? Damn right I would. I get it.

[Tyler]

Did you. Did you have to ingest narcotics? Well, because that's the cliche. Everybody wonders that when you're undercover and you have a gun pointed at you and they're like, do this line of cocaine gain. Did you ever have to do anything like that?

[Jay Dobbins]

That's a. That's a good question. That's a fair question. Drugs were always prevalent. And you, like, I. I'll tell you this. I didn't see a lot of needles. I. I didn't. I didn't see, like. Like, guys injecting, but, like, lots of cocaine, lots of meth at that point. Fentanyl, like, hadn't made its way yet. You know, they were still at that point, like, we're talking about the late. Or the early, early 2000s. Like, guys were still cooking bathtub meth. Yeah, right. Guys were cooking meth batches in their kitchen sink. So it was. It was always there. And I will say this, like, along the Lines of what I said about not every one of these guys was a criminal. Not. I found that they didn't fit the stereotype. A lot of them didn't fit the stereotype. Like, like we have this vision of, of what a biker is, right? Long stringy hair and crappy tattoos and D. And yeah, like, there were dudes who like got plenty of rest, went to the gym twice a day, like, ate good, like, took care of their nutrition, you know, were fitness freaks. Right. Who didn't play in that. I had escapes, tradecraft, escapes to avoid narcotics use. Right. Like, and I don't want to like volunteer a bunch of tradecraft, you know, like on a podcast of, of what I use to avoid it. But I'll say this. Someone cuts a line out and says it's your turn to hit that line and you go through your, your, your tradecraft, all your tradecraft excuses. And when they say, you know what, like, okay, I understand all that, and they have a gun to your head and say, like, you hit that line or I'm gonna splash your ass. You know what? I, I ain't dying for these dudes. Yeah, like, you know what? Like, yeah. One of the very first questions I asked myself when I was approached by Joe Slatella was, how far are you willing to go?

[Brent Tucker]

Yep.

[Jay Dobbins]

How far? You know, and, and I, I'm not sure that I had an answer for myself, but I asked myself that question. How far are you willing to go? What are you willing to do? And, and really my answers were much simpler at that time. What are you willing to do? Well, are you willing to like, isolate yourself from your family and your kids? And like, they were much bigger, like a bigger scope of answer for myself. They weren't that finite. But I think that, that anybody that, that involves themselves in anything that's extraordinary, like, like, what are you willing to do? And how far are you willing to go to accomplish the mission? And I don't think everybody necessarily has the same answer.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

But I think he kind of said it without saying it, but I think, think what you were alluding to is, but at the end of the day, like, you can have this idea of who you think everybody in this biker gang is, but that's, I'm sure there's the cliche bikers in there that are. But they're not all drunks and they're not all druggies.

[Jay Dobbins]

I'll say this, and, and this is with 100 honesty of the hundreds of Hell's Angels that I met over that two year period. There Was very few that I, I didn't like. Yeah, they, they, there were like, as long as they believed who I was purporting myself to be. Like, like, like I, I didn't, I didn't not enjoy being in their presence. Some like, some were super dangerous. There were. Some was like, man, don't turn your back to this dude.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

Because this like, it could pop off that quick with this guy. But even those guys, like, like I found enjoyment in being around them.

[Brent Tucker]

Them.

[Jay Dobbins]

If I don't know if that makes sense or not. It does actually, which is like in the end when the case comes down, like, like I didn't jump up and down and throw myself a parade and, and mock anybody. Like, okay, mission accomplished. Hahaha. I got you.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

I was like, man, you know what? I had a job to do and you know what I was the source and responsibility for, for some people, for the worst day of some people's lives.

[Tyler]

I mean, and we've, we talked a little bit offline about like comparing the brotherhood. You know, you had a different taste in another brotherhood that, yeah, most people are never going to come close to. Now granted, most people would never come close to it, like be involved in a law enforcement brotherhood or you know, or even a specialized unit in the military. That bond. But you know, was it different? Was it better? Was it the same?

[Jay Dobbins]

This is, this is my like now having stepped back perspective on, on brotherhoods, the, the world of brotherhood, whether it be the thin blue line cop land, whether it be the military brotherhood, whether it be the Hells Angels brotherhood in theory. There's this gigantic brotherhood, right, which, which we want to believe in. Like when you're a part of it, when you're under that umbrella, you, you want to believe that. The reality of it is, is when it push comes to shove and you're truly on the point for something critical, something dangerous, something that's challenging, that brotherhood shrinks down and it gets pretty small. You get in trouble. Like we, we have this brotherhood. You get in trouble, you find out that like you might have thought that you had hundreds of brothers. You have hundreds of acquaintances.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

You have a handful of brothers who are like good or bad, right or wrong. Dude, I'm rolling with you.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

And so, you know, the angels are no different. They promote their brotherhood. Their brotherhood is real. But our guys put in position where they're compromised and they're looking at a prison sentence. We're saying like, you know what? I think I'm gonna step away from the brotherhood and do what's right for me? Yeah, there are, there's also guys who are saying, like, I'm a true believer in the religion of the Hell's Angels. No matter what situation you put me in, I will never break. I will take the lick. I will take the lick for everybody. I'll take the lick for things that I didn't do to uphold the brotherhood. That's. I, I think that's universal though.

[Tyler]

Yeah, it's true.

[Brent Tucker]

At one, at what point says this whole investigation, it was a little shy of two years, right? When you guys, Was it a pre planned end state? Like, when we, when we get this, it's over. And that took 21 months, or was it 21 months into this, we're like, okay, this is what we have. You know, what, what do we want to do? Is it enough or do we want to go forward? What, what kind of caused the. The it to wrap up?

[Jay Dobbins]

Yes and no. Both sides of that the investigation was coming to a conclusion. We, you know, we were approaching two years. We had.

[Brent Tucker]

That's a long time. Yeah, that's a long time.

[Jay Dobbins]

We had a bunch of defendants ready to be indicted. The case was kind of built. And, and so again, like, I'm telling these unflattering stories of myself and I'm trying to be transparent because I, if, if I don't tell the bad side of the story, then how do you believe the good side? Right. So the case has come to an end. And I was determined to get that patch. I was determined to get a membership. Right. That, that was a selfish decision to make. That was never part of the plan. Part of the plan was never like, hey, we're going to get a member inside the Hells Angels. That was my selfish drive.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Jay Dobbins]

I did not want to exit this investigation, like, having almost gotten that close.

[Brent Tucker]

Close.

[Jay Dobbins]

Right. So by becoming a member, it did not, it didn't advance our prosecution. It didn't make our case any better in the eyes of the court because, oh, this guy got a patch or he didn't get a patch. Like our case was our case. Yeah, Right. So for the entire two years, the Hells Angels had constantly been promoting how they're at war with the Mongols. The Mongols motorcycle gang predominant in California. Big rival, like historical bloodbath rivalry with these guys. Guys, they'd been mixing it up for years and years. Lots of dead bodies behind this rivalry. And I was constantly being told, we kill Mongols, case is coming to an end. I don't have my patch. I go to the Skull Valley leadership And said, there's a Mongol in Mexico. I've been hearing about him from my old gun, Running contacts with the Solo Angels. Make sense to him who's running his mouth down there. There and badmouthing us. I want to prove myself to you guys. I want to go down there and kill that Mongol.

[Tyler]

Oh.

[Jay Dobbins]

I say that to any common man, and they're running the other direction while they're dialing 91 1. Right?

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

They gave me the pistol. They gave me the instructions. They gave. They sanctioned it, like, go take care of business. So what we did in reality was I led him to believe that I was going to Mexico to find this Mongol and kill him. We did is we went outside of Phoenix. We took a member of our task force. We took a Mongol vest that had been seized in Billy Queen's under an alone Mongol investigation.

[Brent Tucker]

It's like a crossover street theater.

[Jay Dobbins]

Continues. Right? We took a member of our task force. We put one of the Mongol cuts on him. We dug a shallow grave in the desert. We duct taped his ankles. We duct taped his feet. And then we had a homicide detective that had gotten some cow parts from the butcher shop, a bag of blood and a lung.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

We put our suspect in the ground. The homicide detective built a. A crime scene to my specs. I said, here is the story that I'm going to tell behind this. Make it look like I'm. So that it fits.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

So I said, I'm going to tell them that we found these guys at a. That we found this Mongol at a tavern. I cracked him in the head with my baseball bat. We drug him out to the desert.

[Brent Tucker]

Oh, give me that.

[Jay Dobbins]

Right. We drug him out to the desert, and we executed him in a shallow grave. So this homicide detective, who's a master investigator, built a crime scene to fit my specs. We took pictures of the crime scene. We cut the bloody Mongol vest off of our victim, and then we went back and sold the Hell's Angels, Sold murderers that we had committed a murder. It was the most audacious play that. That I've ever heard of in undercover work. I mean, you're trying to sell a murder to murderers, and it's fabricated. It's all made up. It's fictitious. So we deliver the evidence to him, and it's in a FedEx box. And the FedEx box is addressed out of Mexico. Sent it back to myself. So I hand him the FedEx box, and I'm like, take a look in here. I wasn't crossing the border with this in the Trunk of my car. There's no way I'm taking a lick for that. This, you know, because I get a customs check. They open up the FedEx box. They see the label. It's. It's addressed out of Mexico. One of the Hell's Angels pulls the Mongol cutout, and he's kind of got his back to everybody, and. And you see him pull the, the cutout and he sees the blood trickles on it, and he's like, whoa. And then one of the Hell's Angels says, well, what is it? And he turns around and he's like, it's a Mongol cut. It's got blood on it. And they start looking through the pictures, and you got this guy in the ground and he's duct taped and he's got his head caved in and there. Brains all over in the dirt. And we went from there, we went back to the Skull Valley clubhouse and I, I told my partner, dude, this is the moment of truth. We have now implicated these guys in a murder. They're aware of this murder. Like, they're either going to patch us or they're going to kill us.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, that's right.

[Jay Dobbins]

Right. And so I was like, dude, whatever you do do, don't let anybody get behind us. Don't let anybody. Like, I don't want to freaking take a.22 in behind my ear, you know?

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

And so we go to the Skull Valley clubhouse and the president says, congratulations, brother. Welcome to the gang. I don't think he said the gang. Like, welcome to the club. They never refer to it as a gang. That's, that's in, that, that's insulting to them. I'm not intentionally being insulting. They, they, they fit the definition of a gang, but welcome to the club. And I was, I said, like, I kind of shook my head like, like what? And he's like, yeah, you guys showed. You take care of business. Welcome to the club. And an angel put his cut on the back of my shoulders. Put it on like a, like almost like a robe. Yeah, right. And he said, look, consider yourself a Hell's Angel. We still have to get a national vote for you. We have to get this big picture vote. But as far as we're concerned, you're a Hell's Angel. Like, no more step and fetch. No more washing bikes. No more running errands. No more dirty work. But let us get this vote, which the case came down. We never got to the vote. There was a world run that was taking place like, in another month or six weeks in laconia. New Hampshire. That's where they were going to, like, ask for this vote. But they were going around the West Coast. They were starting to politic for us. They were like, there's politics in the Angels. Like there's politics in anything.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

They were politicking for us to get our. To get our own cuts. I ended up giving the loaner cut back. I was like, you know what? Here's the thing. I earned this. But, man, I don't want to wear another man's cut. Yeah, I don't want to wear your cut. Yeah, like, I want my own cut. And then ultimately, the case came down, like, fairly quickly after that. So there's this big dispute between my version and the Hells Angels version. The Hell's Angels say he never was a member. He never got the vote. That is true. I've never disputed that. I've never argued that with them. I never got to the point. We never got to the point where we got this worldwide or national vote for our membership. All I've ever said is that the leadership of the Skull Valley Charter put a cut on our back and said, you're in. You're Hell's Angels.

[Brent Tucker]

It's good enough for me.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

You know, so did we get there? We kind of got there. Technicality.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

But realistically, you know, but.

[Jay Dobbins]

But I. I've never. I've never said publicly or privately anything other than that. Yeah, but then the case ends in a very traditional way. Indictments, arrests, search warrants, raids like, Like, Like, Like. Like a common man would expect, a law enforcement investigation. And it just ended with a. With a big series of raids.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. How many people ended up getting rolled up into this with indictments?

[Jay Dobbins]

I believe the numbers. I believe we indicted 55. Who. I think there was 16 that were indicted on RICO charges. There was some capital murder charges. The guys that. That killed Cynthia Garcia and cut her head off.

[Tyler]

Even that. That alone, justice for that is enough.

[Jay Dobbins]

There was, you know, there was a but. So to continue the story and to be entirely truthful and honest, the prosecution turned out to be something much less than what I believe that we earned. The prosecutors get the case, and they cannot decide on how they want to bring the case into the courtroom. There's other investigations going on across the country. They felt like we have to expose all these other investigations and all the intelligence that's coming out of that to, like, further this case. Joe. Joe was like, look, we're not compromising our informants. We're not giving up our informants. We're not giving up our case. The good guys, the government, like we. There was this internal war on how to prosecute the case. We were our own worst enemy about the.

[Brent Tucker]

The chess game of. Of this.

[Jay Dobbins]

Which is super frustrating from. From my perspective, from Joe's perspective, in that when you commit that much time and blood, sweat and tears and energy to see it actually get to the point where it's going to be prosecuted, and then it crumbles. Oh, heartbreaking. It's like, what are we doing? What did I do this for?

[Brent Tucker]

Right. It's good.

[Jay Dobbins]

I haven't seen my kids. I haven't seen my wife. They freaking hate me right now. And now everything that we are working for falls apart too. That's the end game.

[Tyler]

Yeah. That seems like cop work worldwide.

[Jay Dobbins]

Well, I'll say this, and you know this. I've never met an investigator who didn't feel like he could do a better job of prosecuting a case than the attorney can. I've never met an attorney who didn't feel like he could do a better job of investigating a case than the investigator could.

[Brent Tucker]

How long did it take before they knew it was you?

[Jay Dobbins]

That was exposed relatively quickly in a very innocent and very proper way. The beauty of being in the United States, in the United States is that you get to confront your accusers. So in that is the discovery portion of an investigation where the government is forced to reveal their reports, their evidence, their testimony, their witnesses. So the Hells Angels very quickly found out that Jay Bird Davis, the gun runner, debt collector, hitman, was actually Jay Dobbins, an ATF agent. And, you know, the tiger does not change his stripes. Yeah, these guys are violent dudes. They have their PhDs in intimidation, and, man, it's hit the fan.

[Tyler]

So before we get into the aftermath, post investigation, I have a question I've wondered for probably 15 years. Wait, were you on the show Gangland?

[Jay Dobbins]

I was.

[Tyler]

Is it true that this is could be a huge urban legend that Gangland was produced solely for everyone to snitch on themselves so they can make more arrests? Because I remember watching that back in, like, 0708. I'm like, you put a mic and a camera in front of some of these egos, and they just start talking. And somebody told me that they were able to use more than able to use. They was actually constructed to get information on that. And I didn't know that was true.

[Jay Dobbins]

I had never. I've never heard that theory. But I'm a conspiracy theorist, so I'm like, hey, man, you know What? Thank you.

[Tyler]

Yeah, that was it. That was my good question.

[Brent Tucker]

So when. When they got their PhD in.

[Jay Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Intimidation.

[Jay Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

I'm sure they. They let you know they weren't real happy with you.

[Jay Dobbins]

Oh. The death and violence threats started hitting. We actually found out that. That the Angels had put a contract on me through an MS.13 member. An MS.13 member was interviewed and was like, you know what? You guys need to pull your head out of your house because your boy has been greenlit. And not only are the Angels behind it, like, he was an MS.13 member, he goes, it's being shopped to us. It's being shopped to The Aryan Brotherhood. 18th street in Los Angeles is sniffing around it. There's lone wolves that are saying, like, hey, man, I'll cash in on this. Oh, my goodness. The. The. The. The threats and the violence. Violence was.

[Brent Tucker]

I'm assuming there was. Was there a plan already in place for when this investigation is over, knowing that you'll be outed, how they're going to protect you? Or. Or is that plan not really set in and you guys were gonna figure it out as you go there?

[Jay Dobbins]

There wasn't. And that was a huge frustration for me, and I was naive to think that we were prepared to, as an agency, to handle that. Like, I assumed that we were. We weren't. So here's an example. Joe Pistone, Donnie Brasco, right? When. When. When that case ends, the FBI goes face to face with the heads of the five families in New York and says, our guy is off limits. If anything happens to him. If anything happens to his family, the blue wave that hits you will be unlike anything you've ever experienced.

[Brent Tucker]

Yes. Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

They did the same thing for Jackie Garcia. When he completed his infiltration, there was a Hell's Angels hitman named Kent Roden who was part of the Stockholm, Sweden charter, who was found in Arizona. Like, ATF says, hey, man, there's a Hells Angels hitman sniffing around Southern Arizona that crossed the border from Mexico, from Stockholm, Sweden. And I'm like, is. Does that not mean anything to you guys? Like, what is this cat from Sweden who's a documented contract killer.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

Doing in Arizona?

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

Didn't do anything about it. The guys that. That cut Cynthia Garcia, One of the guys that cut Cynthia Garcia's head off in the desert had written a letter outside of the prison to other members of the Hell's Angels saying, why are you guys being so obvious in your. In your threats against this dude?

[Brent Tucker]

Right?

[Jay Dobbins]

Like, yeah, like, get a syringe with The AIDS virus on it. Stick him with a, with a dirty needle. He's gonna die a slow, miserable death and we're never going to be held accountable for it. All these plans you're putting in place, we're going to be on the hook for this. If this guy gets hit by a bus, they're going to come looking at us. If we were driving the bus. I'm on a flight. I'm on a Southwest flight from the East Coast, Arizona. I get in a full blown knockdown, drag out fist fight on a Southwest Airlines flight with three Hells Angels that had recognized me.

[Tyler]

Oh, shit.

[Jay Dobbins]

Threats to. Threats against my wife, threats against my kids, death threats on me. And no one wanted to do anything about it. It. Their answer was, well, we're going to relocate you. And like, they were bouncing me, I was bouncing around to different places and I was like, you can't hide from these dudes. Like, no one can hide in today's world. This was 20 years ago. But you can't hide. You can't just run away. I was like. My point was, I'm not even saying that these death threats are valid. What I'm saying is you owe it to me to chase these to the ground. And if you can't find resolution for it, you owe it to me, me to confront these people and say, back off. This is not the way it's going to go down. Yeah, they wouldn't do it. And when they didn't do it, and I complained about it, like, now I got isolated. Like, like a smear campaign started. They were, they were what? They wiretapped me. They were, they were. They were shredding documents. They were shredding evidence. They were hiring evidence. I ultimately filed a lawsuit. Like, yes, to stick up for myself, to defend myself, but also beyond that, to stick up for everybody in the future down the road, saying, like, you cannot do this.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

And I need to, I do need to say this. Like, it's not the entire agency that did that to me. It was a handful of, of not only corrupt bosses, but criminal bosses that were behind it. So the most, one of the most humiliating elements of this is when I filed this lawsuit and I saw the COVID page of the document. The title on it was J. Dobbins versus The United States Department of Justice. And I was like, I have never one day in my life been against the United States.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Jay Dobbins]

That was, was so humiliating to see that. But everything that I claimed, every allegation that I made about the mistreatment was proven true. At a trial, all of it was proven true. But in retaliation, these. These bosses, these dirty bosses, in the first and only time in the history of atf, they withdrew all my backstopping. Everything that was used to protect location of my house, my personal information, they forced into the public record and made it open source. Three months after I was exposed, after I was unmasked, they found me. My house was burned to the ground by arsonists. And you know what? In a weird way, like, my house was burned to the ground. And I actually had some weird satisfaction in it because I was like, guess what? Now you can't ignore this anymore. Now you can't pretend like this isn't real anymore. And you know what those dudes did? They doubled down on me and they built a task force designed to frame me as the arsonist. My bosses that were. That were making these not only corrupt, but criminal decisions were the same ones that. That were behind Operation Fast and Furious. Allowing machine guns and.50 cals to be trafficked to the cartels in Mexico. Same exact dudes, same guys that were responsible for the murder of Brian Terry, Border patrolman Brian Terry, which kicked off the exposure of Fast and Furious. This is all going on at the same time. These dudes were operating, like, above the law. They weren't playing by the rules. No one was checking them. And I'll tell you what was frustrating about them trying to frame me as the arsonist of my house. In essence, what they were saying is that I was willing to kill my own family by fire.

[Brent Tucker]

That's right.

[Jay Dobbins]

And I'll tell you what, like, through that phase of my career, it caused me to question every single thing that I thought I believed in.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

It caused me to question what I thought I stood for. Talking about a brotherhood. Yeah. I'll tell you what, when you're on the point and when they're coming at you with both barrels, you find out who your friends are real fast. Yeah. You find out who's got your back and who's going to stick with you or who's going to take the safe path and. And stay neutral on the sidelines. You find out.

[Tyler]

Yeah. They got to worry about their career.

[Jay Dobbins]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's people who are like, dude, like, this is so up. But, like, I have to keep my mouth shut because guess what? I still got a mortgage to pay. I got to feed my kids. If I pick your side, they're gonna come after me.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Tyler]

Sometimes you gotta have a backbone. You gotta be able to look yourself in the mirror. That's what my dad always said. He's like, when I was growing up, he was like, if you can wake up every day and look yourself in the mirror, you're doing things right.

[Brent Tucker]

This is what, when it comes to people like that, that I don't understand, that are kind of your brothers to your left and right.

[Jay Dobbins]

Right.

[Brent Tucker]

Which means they're still on the job. They're still willing to raise their hand and go after bad guys and put everything on the line, but they won't stand up to, to a toxic boss. Like, where's. Just be consistent with your bravery. Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

You know, and I, I did have some guys that stood up and, and, and bucked the system and said, this is wrong, wrong. And I'm not going to stand by and watch it go down. There was an arson investigator who tipped me off and said, dude, have you ever heard the bug in the windshield analogy? You better buckle up because you're about ready to be the bug. Dude, these dudes are coming for you and they're going to run right through you. There was an investigator who got to the bottom of what truly took place, that, that paid the price for it, that was retaliated against. Joe Slatella had my back and, and tried to like resolve some of these threats on his own as best he could.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Jay Dobbins]

But there was a lot of people that I was counting on that, like, you know what, the phone stopped ringing. There were no messages left.

[Brent Tucker]

Could you, could you imagine what they could have done if they sent. If they'd have given the same bandwidth to trying to, to try and frame you? That's as they would have and should have to protect you. I mean, it's just, it's, it's criminal, you know, really, it's absolutely criminal. It's almost an unfair question to ask you because it's rhetorical, obviously, and it can only stir up. Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

Well, when I talk about the, the, the causing me to, to question myself and my beliefs. My house is smoldering. I'm at my house. My house is, it's still smoldering. Right. And my son, who is about 8 years old. Old, he's walking around in the yard with a framing, a carpenter's hammer, a framing hammer. And I said, jack, I said, what's up with the hammer, dude? And he looked at me, stopped in front of me and he said, what happens if they come back? Who's going to take care of mom? Because you're never here. It's an eight year old boy. I got a story on Jackie, my son, during the case during, like, not just the Hells Angels case cases before that. Like, he had been born into me working undercover. That's. That. That's the only life that he'd ever known for his dad, right? So I'd go out on these adventures, and every time I'd get ready to leave the house, he'd run out in the yard and go grab a rock out of the yard. Dad, don't leave yet. And he'd give me these rocks. And, like, for years, I'd collected all these good luck charms. I was handing them out when, like, during the Hell's Angels case, I was handing out Jack's rocks to my partners, to the people on the task force. I was like, we're in the midst of all this violence and turmoil and death and destruction and murder, and we're thriving. We're surviving, man. Hang on to Jackie's rocks. These things have a special blessing on they. I don't know what it is, but they work, right? So right before we're getting ready to go execute this. This Mongol murder street theater, her same routine. I'm getting ready to leave home. Jackie runs out in the yard. Don't leave yet. Dad comes running out, and he. And he. And I. He hands me this rock. I've held on to this for 20 plus years now. He goes, dad, I've been saving this one for you. It's special. It's shaped like a heart. And hearts mean love. And so I'm trying to comfort my son, and I told him, dude, I'm almost done. And all those things that I've been neglecting, we're gonna. I'm gonna do, like, we're gonna read books, and we're gonna wrestle and play catch, and we're gonna go swimming and we're gonna go to the movies, and it's all because of your good luck charms, dude, these things work so good. I've been handing them to everybody. I've given one to Joe and all my task force partners, dude, and it's because of you, this little boy standing on my driveway, and tears start running down his cheeks, and he's like, dad, they're not good luck charms. And they were only for you. You never should have given them to anybody else. They were only for you. And my brain stopped. Like, for years, I thought he'd been giving me good luck charms. And he's like, those are for you to put in your pocket. And every time you think someone was going to hurt you, you could put your hand in there and touch it, and that'd be like me being there to help you fight them. That is what I had done to my family. I had absolutely failed my family. I had sacrificed my family and abandoned my family and betrayed my family for this case. And you know, parenthood is teaching people that you can't live without how to live without you.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

My son had to teach me what my job was. An eight year old boy had to teach his father what my job was. That's such a shameful story, such a humiliating story to tell like, you know, to this open audience. But it's like I said, if, if I don't tell the downsides of this, if I don't tell, then how do you believe the good sides? I've, I've. And just throughout the course of my life, throughout the course of my career, I've made a million mistakes. I've done a million things wrong. I carry regret and shame and humiliation with me. But between God and Gwen and my kids and my friends, they've me given, given me a million and one second chances to try to get it right. And, and that ultimately that's the blessing.

[Brent Tucker]

I think what's so important about telling the, you know, the ups with the downs is we talked about earlier, you know, people, people join to be fighter pilots because of Top Gun. You know, I mean, tens of thousands on all of our platforms, if not hundreds of thousands are going to hear this story. Let me tell you, someone's going, there are several people right now deciding what they're going to do with their life. Someone's going to become an ATF agent because of this story. But what's super important is them knowing what they sign up for and when they come across the good times and the bad times. It's a lot easier to deal with the bad times when, when you know what you signed up for.

[Jay Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Because you know it's coming and so it doesn't sideswipe you, you know, like it, like it's like it does other people.

[Jay Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

And so it's powerful to tell them the, you know, the good side and that, and that that's all those bad times. And I'm not going to, you know, it's up to you to decide. You know, I'll just, so I'll just say for me, all the bad times were worth it. You know, it was, it was worth it. But it doesn't come without, but it doesn't come without a price.

[Jay Dobbins]

Well, you know, I think for all of us, I think from our world and from your world, any individual you can choose to be average. And average is okay. The world spins around people that are average. You can be great, you can be excellent. But there's a handful of people that strive to be elite. And to be elite at anything, you have to be obsessed. You have to have obsession to be elite. And obsession has, is a double edged sword. And that obsession, many times in our pursuit of greatness, in our pursuit of being elite, our families pay the price for our obsession session.

[Brent Tucker]

Absolutely. Yeah. Do you think, I mean, you're on this podcast, you wrote a book, the Hell's Angels are, are still around. You know, is it still something in the back of your mind that you have to live with to say, hey, like it's, it's, it's never after a job like that, it's, it's never completely over, you know?

[Jay Dobbins]

Yeah, I think there's truth to that. I think, you know, there's a saying, God forgives. The Hell's Angels don't. I think they'll always be pissed off. I try to not put myself in a bad situation. Try to not put myself in a bad environment. I don't want a problem. I will walk away from a problem if I'm given the opportunity. I'll run away from a problem if I have to. But my attitude is like, I had a job to do. I did it the best I could. It wasn't personal. I didn't try to crash the Hell's Angels or crash any members of it. And so, you know, if I get cornered or if you corner my family, like it's, it's like we're all going to the hospital. Yeah, it's, it's, you know, I'm not looking for a problem. I don't want a problem. I don't expect forgiveness. But I've got a pistol on my hip and I got God's hand on my shoulder. And like, we'll, I'll figure it out.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, man, it's, it's a powerful story. And I'm so glad you know that, that, that you're willing to tell it.

[Jay Dobbins]

You know what?

[Brent Tucker]

I love the way you tell it. Just be honest.

[Jay Dobbins]

And I'm like, I'm not a tough guy. I'm no hero. My story has a hero. Actually, it's not me. I'd be counterfeit to try to tell it in a heroic way. The. I've, I've met heroes. I've walked side by side with heroes. I know some heroes. The hero of my story is my wife.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Tyler]

Always is. When is the hero she Sounds like a trooper.

[Jay Dobbins]

She is. She is.

[Tyler]

To deal with you and then deal with that.

[Jay Dobbins]

There's a thousand different occasions when I could have came home and everything I own should have been thrown in the front yard, and the locks were taken, changed, and she just hung in there, and I gave her no reason to. I failed as a father. I failed as a husband. I failed as a friend and as a partner many times. But like you said, that little core of people that hang in there with you is my blessing.

[Tyler]

They get it all now.

[Brent Tucker]

Well, another. Got a couple of these. Now another heavy episode, and I have one question.

[Jay Dobbins]

Yeah, what you got?

[Tyler]

All right, we've talked about this, and I've always been a huge fan of yours. And then I saw probably the best piece of cinematic history, which was the movie Den of Thieves, And I remember I was so excited, I went to the movie theater, and then I saw your cameo in it.

[Jay Dobbins]

Right.

[Tyler]

And I was like, holy. And then I was like, most likely you did some kind of. What do you call that? Consult Consulting.

[Jay Dobbins]

Yeah.

[Tyler]

And I want to know what that was like, because the reason why I like. Because first off, it's a bank robber movie. So to me, it's up there with Heat. It's up there with. What's your Keanu Reeves movie he puts up there?

[Jay Dobbins]

I don't. Point Break Point. Right.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Tyler]

And Johnny Utah.

[Brent Tucker]

That's right.

[Tyler]

And I think the reason why I loved it so much was because I watched. I. I watched the documentary on it when I was super bored one day, and it said that they wanted so much realism that they trained the bad guy Marines in a special operations environment, and they trained the cops in a tactical police environment. And you really do get to see the difference when they have their gunfights. Like, those guys are training, like, soft. And these guys are training, like, the. You know, the tactical police work. And I thought it was so cool.

[Jay Dobbins]

So the writer director is a man named Christian Gudegast, who I became friends with. I was asked to consult on the film and help train the cop element of the story. And you're exactly right. They trained the bank robbers. And this will make more sense to you guys than to me. The bank robbers backstory is that they were MARSOC Marines and that these guys were pipe hitters and they were going to knock off the Federal Reserve. And they trained those guys, like, in heavy weapons and in and in military tactics on how to move and how to communicate and all those things. And they. Tens of thousands of rounds were fired on the training range, getting These guys ready to look right on film. Less training and less firepower was used with the cop actor, which was designed, like, as part of the story. And the cop actors were frustrated, like, why isn't. Why aren't our guns as cool as the. As the bad guy's guns? I'm like, because you don't have those.

[Brent Tucker]

Because they're not.

[Jay Dobbins]

And guess what? How come we don't get to move the way they move? Because they train for this their entire life. Cops don't.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

So let's. Like, this is authentic.

[Tyler]

It is.

[Brent Tucker]

Love that.

[Jay Dobbins]

The. I got that cameo. Cameo role in it. There's kind of a funny backstory to it. There's a character in the story named Wolfgang who. Wolfgang is. He. He gets his. He loses his id, which is used as part of the entrance for the. The Federal Reserve. And so we're in a production meeting and the actor that was going to play Wolfgang has departed the set. He, like, took another job, a better paying job or some other acting gig. Right. So we're in this script review with the producers, and we're like, who are we going to replace Wolfgang with? And we start reading the script and we're like, well, Wolfgang is a drunk and he's a misfit and he's a up. And I was like, I don't even need to act. I can just play me. I can just be myself. And so that was the beginning and the ending of my Hollywood career.

[Tyler]

Nailed it.

[Brent Tucker]

Well, I know. You almost beat me to it.

[Jay Dobbins]

Actually.

[Brent Tucker]

I was about to say, you know, we usually end our episodes on A Funny Story, but yeah, that was. Yeah, he kind of just gave us one.

[Tyler]

I'll.

[Brent Tucker]

I'll take another if there's any that jump out to you, you know, either between. I mean, you know, between your college football playing days, you're undercover, or, you know, or. Or, you know, ATF days are all the way leading up to your undercover. You get any funny stories that jump out to you?

[Jay Dobbins]

I've got so many. So many funny stories, like. But I. But I feel like I've maybe humiliated myself enough for one session. Maybe if we do this again, somewhere down the road, we could probably do a whole episode on me freaking making an ass out of myself and getting in trouble for it.

[Brent Tucker]

I love the funny story part because as serious as. As this episode was and all of our episodes that generally are very serious, I, you know, for, you know, for the young men looking to do jobs like this, you know, we talk about the highs and the lows, but I don't think people understand how funny the people, the guys are. You work with some of the funniest people I've ever met and the situations you get and like books, real books and, and reality or sometimes even movies even. Not can't really grasp how crazy reality could be. Sometimes it's just. It's just a crazy life.

[Jay Dobbins]

And it's that. That funny element is a lot of times it's really dark.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

A lot of times the common man, like what we laugh about and belly laugh about and double over and get a watery eyes over.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jay Dobbins]

People like the common man would be shaking his head and I don't see anywhere in that.

[Brent Tucker]

You know, I'm gonna butcher this, but someone sent me a clip of basically, you know, a doctor talking about a study that they'd done on. On. On dark humor. And dark humor is actually therapeutic, you know, essentially and a necessity for these types of jobs. And what it does is. Not only does it, you know, it does. Has something. It coats your, you know, your brain cells as far as like desensitizing things because you have to be. You cannot be an overly sensitive person person and do jobs, you know, like the three of us have. Have done. And the other thing it does is, is in your mind, if you're like this is too serious to joke about, then it becomes off limits and something too. But if you can joke about it, then it's. Then it's reality. It's something you can digest, it's something you can handle. And dark humor is absolutely a necessity for. For jobs like that.

[Jay Dobbins]

Makes sense. I think it really. I think it lightens the weight of some things that are super heavy.

[Tyler]

Yeah.