Transcript of #616 - Retired Boston Detective

It was even bad in America.

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That's helixsleep. Com/thio. Make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know that we sent you. If you're running a business- Before we begin, I'd like to say that some of the conversation from today is graphic in nature. We're talking about police work and detective work, and some of it's intense. If those types of conversations are not for you, then please make that choice for yourself. Thank you. Today's guest is a retired Boston police officer and detective. She had over 20 years on the force before she joined the Human Trafficking Unit and fought criminals in that world. We learned a lot about what it's really like out there, and I want to thank her for her service. Today's guest is Ms. Cara Connolly.

I love this stuff. I love this stuff.

Yeah, I've been losing some hair because of stress.

Yeah, it happens. Sucks. You just go in the sink and you got handfuls.

Yeah, you just wake up and it looks like you look back and you're like, Oh, who was-On your pillow?

Yeah, it's gross.

Yeah, your pillow's got side burns on it or something. Your pillow is using a curling eye.

It's a mess. Yeah, same.

That's way too much. You've dealt with it?

Yeah, in the past. Yeah.

Was it stress from work?

Yeah, and other things. But the Minoxidil definitely helps because I called my doctor and like, Oh, she can't see you for nine months. I was like, Oh, my fucking hair's fallen out. They're like, Well, you could see the nurse practitioner in two months. I was like, No. I went to one of those online things, and they sent me Minoxidil. In three months, I had little bald baby hair sprung out and came back. It does help.

Yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm realizing. I just got to... Yeah, just taking some time just to enjoy, do things just that I enjoy. That's what I'm... That's my focus right now is just to do things that I enjoy because I'll let added stress stay on me as well. Yeah, of course. That's what I'll do. It builds up. Yeah, and not realizing that everything's going to be okay.

That's what my boyfriend's here with us, and when I was nervous about today, and he's like, It's all going to be okay.

Yeah. It really is.

Like, no platitudes.

Yeah, everything's going to be okay. Cara Connolly, thank you so much for joining us. You are a retired police officer and detective from Boston. That's correct. You were on the forces for 30…

31 years.

31 years. Yeah. You started out in Dorchester, I think?

Yeah. When I graduated the Police Academy, they send you to a couple of different places till you're on probation or whatever. I went to a part of the city called Dorchester.

Wait, probation?

So when you join the Police Department, you go through the Police Academy. Then when you get out, now Well, they do it for a year, but when I did graduate it, it was six months. Basically, it's probationary period to see if you're good enough, behave enough, or do the right thing for six months. They send you to a couple of different places, one busy district, one quiet district.

They start you a probationary period somewhere? Yes.

You might stay there, they might move you, but that's how you're on probation for six months, and then you're a full-time police officer after that.

Okay. What were those first years on the force in South Boston was it?

Yeah. I was actually born in South Boston. I was in Dorchester, and I was in South Boston. South Boston at the time was a quieter district. Dorchester was very, very busy. In the '90s, in Boston was a ton of shootings and gang stuff going on. So comparatively speaking, South Boston was a quieter place to end up for several years.

What were the demographics of that area where you were servicing?

Kind of everywhere. Dorchester is a different demographic than South Boston, population-wise. Now, South Boston is very hip and it's all young kids. But at the time, obviously, it was all just families. Pretty quiet place at the time compared to other districts where shooting every couple of days.

Is it mostly white, black, Latino, Asian?

Dorchester at the time when I was first there was a lot of Black, some white, some Asian. South Boston at the time was mostly White, but some Black and Latinos.

Got it. Who are the people they call Salthies? Because you hear that a lot.

Salthies is not a thing. You could say you're from Southerners, but it's not pluralized. There's no S on the end of it. I'm from Salthies, but I never said that growing up. We always said South Boston. But most people said I'm from Salthies. It's just a nickname for the part of town.

Right. But do other people call you Southerners or the Southerners?

No. People from out of the city who hear about it became popular because it was in Goodwill hunting, was in South Austin. That's what put it on the map. When people started moving there and didn't know any better, that's they would say it. But people who grew up there back in '70s, '80s, whatever, didn't say it like that. That pub that they filmed in became a big thing, Elstree Tavern. That was around the corner from where I grew up.

Were the people there distrustful of police at the time? What was the relationship between-No.

People insult me like the cops compared to other parts of the city, I think, in my experience. I mean, it was a quiet place when I worked there. Most of the stuff, good stuff that happened or whatever, crazy or calls I've been on happened when I was a detective. Patrolman was pretty quiet.

Do you remember one of your first big calls as a patrolman that was like, Oh, this is real? Do you remember that first moment where you were like, This is pretty real?

Well, a lot of the calls, that's funny. A lot of the calls when it comes in, person with the gun call. I still remember my first person with the gun call. I was shit in my pants because I was like, Oh, my God. It turned out to be bullshit. It wasn't even real. A lot of the calls are like that. You don't know they're fake until you get there. You're like your adrenaline dump in the car and you're like, Oh, my God, this is real. I being like, What am I going to do? Nothing. It was a big nothing burger.

Were you putting lipstick on or what?

What do you even do? No, there was no lipstick when I was a patrolman. No.

Would you powder up your face a little bit or something?

No, no one powder their face on the way to a call. That wasn't it. No, that wasn't a thing.

That's just in Charlie's Angels, huh? Yeah. What was it like being an officer in the '90s in that time period? Was that way different than you think it is now?

Yes, I think so. I mean, obviously, the rate of shootings in Boston was much higher than... I forget what that highest homicide rate was in the early '90s. It might have been 150, 160 people. Now, Boston has 35 a year. So it was a big difference. It's become much safer whether When the gangs aged out and they all went to jail or got shot or moved on in life, whatever happened, it became much safer, I'd say.

There's no money in being in a gang either. I think a lot of people were like, Oh, this is a shitty business. This says, 1990, Homicide Peak. Boston's Homicide Count hit an all-time high of 152 cases with much of the violence concentrated among youth and involving firearms. The spike was driven by gang violence, crack, cocaine epidemic, and easy access to handguns.

Yeah. So '90s are a little different than now, for sure.

Compared to then, how do you feel police work is different between now and then? Do you have any thoughts on that?

I don't know. The whole community policing aspect started when I was new, so that's still progressed along.

I think they're going-What does that mean, community policing?

Well, that's what they call it. At the time, they had walking beats. So when I got on, you wouldn't be in a cruiser. You'd walk the neighborhood, like they do in New York City. They have people walking around. There's not a lot of cruisers. They would put people in certain parts of the city. When I got on, for example, and I worked in Dorchester, I think there were seven or eight walking beats up and down the main street in the town. Now, excuse me, there's only a couple, and they just put those on again. They're trying to get back to that. That was very different. People who did the walking beats full-time knew everyone in the neighborhood. That was the whole purpose, is to get people into the neighborhood so people feel comfortable speaking to the police. Except the neighborhoods where they put the walking beats were usually the worst neighborhoods, and people didn't give a shit. They didn't want to talk to us.

Oh, it didn't matter anyway.

No, not the parts of the city where they had them. Now it's different. They don't have as many walking beats at all. They push a lot of the social media stuff like the dancing cops is the fucking worst. Cringey. The department, all police departments do that. They put it out to try to be like, Look, we're accessible. See, it's so embarrassing.

I haven't even seen this.

It's so goddamn cringey.

Are these real cops?

That's usually I don't know about them. Yeah, it says they are.

Oh, my God.

Well, at least they can dance. When our department puts it out, it's like, she's like, right, a cop is like, We're playing basketball with the kids. Let's all do, especially during COVID, it's so cringy. They just pulled on the other day for a female woman law enforcement day, and they had women dancing. Some of my girlfriends and I sent it back and forth. This is so.

Who wants to see? Dude, the last thing I want is my cop dancing over there.

Is that What are you looking for when you call for help? Someone to show up and start dancing? You want someone who's going to give you a hand? I know they're trying to soften their image. They don't want to look like paramilitary anymore. They want to look friendly and not scary and whatever. Whether it works or not long term, I don't know.

You get promoted to a detective in 2005?

2007.

2007. 2007, yeah. Okay. What does it mean to become a detective? What does that mean exactly?

To become a detective, back then, you had to take an exam. It's like a six-month to year-long process. You have to study for several months, and there's six or seven textbooks you have to read. You take the exam, and then they do an oral interview, depending on how you score in the test. Then they combine your years of training and experience, your test score in your interview to say, Okay, these people have been high enough score to get made detective. Then you do a month's worth of training back at the police academy. Because being a detective and it first is a patrolman, it's very, very different. First of all, you don't wear a uniform, which is my favorite part. But it's just a completely different job. You're now responsible. A cop gets a call, they go to the call, they write a report, and that's the end of it until they have to go to court. If the report that the cop writes about, it gets assigned to a detective, and now you own that. You have to follow through, you have to follow up and go to court take all criminal charges or whatever.

It's a very different job.

Is there a lot of lobbying to become a detective? Whenever you're on the force or people like, I want to be detective, and then do people... Is there any way to manipulate things so it betters your changes of becoming a detective? Or is it not like that?

Not like that. If anyone's a patrolman, doesn't want to be a patrolman for long. I was a patrolman for 13 years, which was a long time. Usually, they do the detective's exam every two or three years. For some reason, we had a seven-year break because I take it. I just had a child, and I was like, I'll take the next one in a couple of years. It was seven years. I was a patrolman for a long time.

It was seven years to the next promotion?

Yeah, till the next exam. It was a long wait. But people want it just because it's better than being a patrolman. Some people love being a patrolman, and will do that their entire life. But most people either want to take an exam and become a supervisor, like a sergeant, a lieutenant, and keep going up the chain, or people are interested in being a detective. It's definitely desirable.

Do you remember an early case as a detective that really stood out to you?

Yeah, I had a good arm robbery once. That sounds like a good arm robbery. That's great.

A little good arm robbery.

It was on Halloween, which is always one of the worst days of the year to work. Fourth of July, Halloween sucks. They were always crazy. But we had an arm robbery. It was a cell phone store. It was in the morning. It was like 9: 30 in the morning. The store just opened up, and these two dudes went in. There was some young girl, early 20s, working there by herself. It was in a shitty part of town. And they literally tied her up with telephone cord around her wrists and her ankles. And they stole, it was like 800 bucks or $785, whatever it was. But the feds ended up taking it because it was a T-Mobile. And they can loop in the Commerce Act. Like by saying it because commerce was halted with other states, it becomes like a federal case. But the guys ran off and the girl, it was like something out of a movie. It It was all in video. She literally hopped over to the phone, all tied up with her ankles, and they put a gun to her head and everything. It was two got firearms. And she was terrified.

And she hopped over to the phone and knocked it off with her head and was calling for help.

At least she's It was a phone store, though.

But she was able to do that. Then it came in quick. A couple of the guys from work, I worked with the best people on Earth in Dorchester. They really were great cops. They just flood the area right away, and their descriptions going out. One of the officers, is actually one of my police academy classmates, ends up seeing these two guys walking down the street, and a description had been given out to clothing. They left a trail of clothing down the street. They tried to drop everything and change their appearance.

It's hard to run and change at the same time.

They were just walking down the street. Really, it's actually a little teeny. It's a nice neighborhood in this bad section of town. They stuck out. But then he sees the trail of clothing, jackets and hats and left behind. So he called it in. These guys, one of them had on gloves, but the other one had bandaids and tape around his fingers, so he wouldn't leave any fingerprints. And as the guys, everyone went up there, the patrolmen were talking to him, he notices them, only they're picking away to try to get the bandaids and tape off their hands. And then another officer in the area was searching, she's looking in trash cans, and she found the guns. And then someone found the box, the money box. So that was a pretty good one.

It was an exciting one.

Yeah, it was just it came together nicely. Everyone worked, did so well together. Everyone was there at the right time to do the right thing. Then the feds took it, and they had serious criminal records, both of them. One of them been doing armed robberies all over the city. It was like the same guy hit five or six places. We were glad to get him. They got, because it was federal, they got like 20 something years each. One of their brothers was a truck driver, and that's how they got the guns. He was a cross country truck driver, and he bought guns in Arizona and then brought them back here. That's what made it federal?

Is that there were transporting guns across state lines?

I think they didn't end up prosecuting him because he basically testified against his brother.

But what made it such a big... What made the sentencing so severe?

Because the way the feds do it in federal court is they basically add up. It's a point system, and depending on how many charges or cases, how many times you've been found guilty, then you're considered an armed career criminal, and you get extra time added on. Got it. But for 785 bucks, they to jail for 20 something years each. It was crazy.

It's idiots.

Yeah, pretty much. That poor girl was terrified. I always felt bad for her.

Yeah. Oh, that would be so scary, dude. I don't know what I would do if someone did something like that, pulled She didn't even want to identify them.

We were trying to do a bring back or show up your bring because we brought them to, say, have her identify them. She was like, hiding behind the blinds in the store. Usually, they'll have them go out in the sidewalk and the person will look through a car window, but was literally hiding. She was absolutely terrified. She's crying and everything.

How important are fingerprints? Is that a real thing? How important is that when you were a detective?

Well, that's a real thing because everyone's a different. So if you get found at a scene, whether it's a break in or a robbery or something like that, and they find your fingerprints, well, what other excuse do you have for being there? So it's a pretty good, especially now people, like in court, when cases go to court, they don't want witness identification. They want Because all the CSI shows, they think we all have this bags of evidence to show when it comes to court. So juries want to see forensics. They want fingerprints. They want like, cell phone records. They want DNA left behind because of the TV shows makes it look like that's left at every scene. But these guys covered their fingerprints. They had masks on. They put bandanas around their face. But the girl identified them from the clothes. One of them didn't have a mask on. But so fingerprints are definitely very important.

And what's the process of actually lifting fingerprints What is that? You hear the term lifting fingerprints.

Different surfaces use different tools. This surface, the grain of the wood would be no good. You need a smooth surface. They train us on granite countertops.

Oh, yeah. Granite's nice.

It's very smooth. It's shiny. If someone leaves a fingerprint, whether you have dry or oily hands, you're leaving oil behind. You could take your powder and you spin the little powder on a smooth surface, and literally the fingerprint pops. Then you just take this clear square of sticky tape and then press it down and then lift it up so it transfers onto the outline transfers onto. There you go.

Can there be fingerprints in a place? Could you look at a counter or something and see nothing and there could actually be fingerprints there?

Yeah, you can use a flashlight, sometimes you can see it if it's a clean surface, if it's like a shithole house or filled like bank robberies, we don't do fingerprints because so many people go up to every teller. Even if a bank robber comes in and puts his hands down, there's 10,000 the fingerprints there from the people that came before you. We don't bother with something like that because you have to be able to show it's a suspect, so they won't put it into the system to see who it even belongs to.

Could a surface be so dirty that then the print itself actually makes it clean in that? You know what I'm saying?

Yes, on dirty windows, we get those on a break-in. When they push up a window and leave them behind, and you can literally see them because you could see, sometimes they'll smear the dirt. Sometimes it's so dirty, though, the dust won't adhere to it.

Got What's a person who picks up the fingerprints? What do they call that person?

Well, we do it. Detectives do it. Detectives do it? They do it in Boston, yeah. Some in other places, like the crime scene tech will come out in other departments, but we do it ourselves. Unless it's a major incident, like a homicide, then the Homicide Unit will call the forensic unit. Those are civilians. They're not police officers, but they have gone to school for that. If it's a major, like I said, a homicid, they'll call in the crime scene tech to do it. They don't want to mess with us.

You ever have a day where it's just busy? You're like, Oh, shit, I got to get to my kid's birthday, whatever. I'm going to fucking just, We'll hope for the best of this when you take off.

Yeah, it sucks. You could be your shift ends at four o'clock if you work days, and at 3: 45, a person is stabbed. All right, I won't be home until midnight.

Oh, so you stay- You stay. Oh, yeah. I was saying, if you ever had a thing where it's like, I got to get out of here. Instead of dusting for these fingerprints, I'm going to hit the road. You can't do that.

You can't. No, it's on you. If it's your case. If you're on call, we call it catch day in Boston. But detectives, like certain squads, are in charge of all those calls that day. Five things could come in. We could get a shooting, a stabbing, an armed robbery, and a missing person, and they're all It's fine to you. But it's not that busy, but it can be. They might have a day, you don't even go pee, you don't even eat lunch. It's few and far between, but it definitely happens.

Wow. So you're just cruising like that? Yeah. You mentioned television a little bit ago. How much has television and what people think and expect, how much has that affected the prosecution of cases?

Ruined it. Absolutely destroyed it. Yeah. Really? Because everyone has such high expectations. If they watch CSI Miami or whatever the hell it is and see they solve everything instantly and they have cooperative witnesses or they have all these piles of evidence. And like I said, because of that, people in regular juries and regular court cases expect, oh, they literally come back with notes saying, Why don't you have fingerprints? Why don't you have DNA? Why don't you have that? Well, not every case has that. Like I said, a bank robbie comes in. They don't touch the content. We have no DNA. We have no fingerprints.

We have no semen either, surely.

We have to go on an eyewitness identification and videos now everywhere. Video is huge. Video is a huge help. But it's definitely the shows have been a detriment to prosecuting cases for sure.

You think the shows have made it harder to prosecute cases?

Absolutely, because people have higher expectations.

The juries do. The juries do. They're like, Oh, there's not enough here. Yes.

They'll be like, You don't have anything. Where is everything? They're like, Well, we've got the video and we've got this and that. I'm like, No. So it's tricky. Yeah. It's not been our friend.

It's fascinating. Yeah, it's fascinating because it glorifies the sport of being a detective, but at the same I ruined it.

Yeah.

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We do. Sometimes you're waiting on video. Obviously, if you don't have a suspect right away, but if you work at it, sometimes the evidence is out, you just have to find it. It might not slap you in the face 10 minutes after the incident. Right.

But do you really only have 48 hours?

No, we have all the time you need, except it gets busy. If I have three cases that day, and if I got to work on it, and then two days from now, I get another big one, like a shooting or stabbing or whatever, now your attention is split. So time is of the essence because something else is always going to happen. It's going to happen. Something's coming, and whether you have a leisurely amount of time to work on the case, because then you're working overtime, then you're working a double to try to stay and work on this case because another one could come in tomorrow. So it is this point to it, like the four days are important, but I think more so because something else is coming, so it's going to take the attention away. Then you can only be in so many places at once. You know what I mean? You can't.

Yeah, I never thought about that part of it. How do you prioritize what cases are most important?

I mean, obviously, if someone gets shot or stabbed, that's a violent crime, and you want that person who... It's more defendant-based. The person that's going to do that, you want them-Off the streets. Right. Right. Understood. If compared to Identity fraud. Well, that's not an emergency. That can wait. You know what I mean? Because we get a ton of fraud. That check fraud and all that shit, bang fraud, it's a nightmare because a lot of the times it's not even taking place. We have our victims in our city, but suspects are all over the country or all over the world. You can't prosecute them. It's hard to chase down. To the victim, it's not a lower priority. They're the one that had their money stolen or whatever. But it's not the same as being shot or stabbed.

Or having a criminal that's out there.

Violent armed robbery or something like that.

You got to find this guy now because obviously, they're in heat for crime.

Yes, exactly.

Wow. So are there days when you get to the end of your shift almost and you look and you're like, Oh, my God, there's still that one missing person I didn't reach out about. It's still this one thing.

It's always a pile.

And now I have to go do that.

Yeah. You very rarely get to go home at the end of your shift. You're always staying.

What's that effect on your home life? Were you able to have a home life? What was that like for you?

It makes it trickier for sure. You need help at home. It definitely makes it more difficult.

Were you able to have a family, except do you have children?

Yeah. Nice.

Oh, your daughter's here. My dad is here. Oh, nice. I forgot. I didn't forget, but I think I just didn't know if she wanted to say it or not, maybe, too. How do you manage that?

It's tricky. It was difficult. It was. Not a lie. It was hard, yeah. Because you expected to come home, I got to help them with that project or just got to make supper. You have to call and be like, I'm not going to make it. Someone got stabbed or I got to stay late. A lot of times you know you're going to be like, Okay, those days I know I can stay late because I have coverage with the kids or whatever. But it's not easy.

But at least you had a good excuse.

Yeah. I wasn't getting my nails done or getting shit-face.

I'm getting my nails done or I'm getting...

I'm working. Yeah.

At least it wasn't like, I'm drinking or something or Eucalus is on third base. I'm not going to be home on time. Do you start to see where family life suffers? Do you see it? Because that's also a common theme in a lot of police serial programming and films and stuff where the detective is working late and then there's the family thing starts to suffer.

I'm sure it did. But like I said, you figure it out. You make it work. You can. I was a detective in a busy part of the city. That's why I transferred to the human trafficking unit because that was a Monday Friday job, not a rotating schedule. Because I worked holidays. We worked every Christmas. You got a holiday off every six years. But you'd get all the holidays off that year. That year, you're getting Easter, excuse me, please, Thanksgiving, Christmas. It's New Year's. You'll get all the biggies off. But then it's six more years until you get another one. I went to human trafficking.

I went to human trafficking. I need some water real quick if you don't mind. You're good. I said, Horrific. Sorry, miss. I don't want to tell you what to do anything. Thank you for your That's what I'm saying. It's six. Wow, that's wild. That time you get to spend with your family, it's really crucial.

Yeah, especially holidays. But if you're working different shifts, if you're working the midnight shift, you can go home and just sleep for a couple hours and then meet everybody at Thanksgiving. That's how Boston worked. Obviously, different cities do different things. We just had six squads rotating days off. But some units, like the human trafficking unit, is Monday through Friday. It's a little more normal if you have young kids or a family and you want to be in a regular person, as I call it, and have Saturday and Sunday off like everybody else, those units are better for something like that.

Got it. I know you ended up in that unit. I want to talk to you about that in just a second. Take me through a couple more detective calls that were interesting to you or that really stood out.

I'd say my joke was always going to be that I was going to write a book, and the name of it was going to be Dick on the Sidewalk and Other Stories from the Street. The last few years, I was a detective. I got three of the craziest cases of my life in the year '31. We had some guy cut off his own dick and threw it on the sidewalk. Oh, for what? Because he was crazy. He was mentally ill, but we don't know any of this. So the call came in in the morning. I was on the way in. It was early in the morning. It was cold out. I remember that. Oh, yeah. I have the radio on, and I hit the dispatcher, call a car, and then start to laugh. And then she says, Disregard. We don't know what's happening. So I'm driving to the station, and then a call comes in again, sending a different car because it was like the midnight shift ending. Sending a different car. Hey, can you go to this location? Someone said this is a piece of male anatomy on the sidewalk. We were all laughing.

We thought it was a dildo. We thought it was a joke. That's why the dispatcher was laughing.

He just thought it was like a WMBA game or whatever.

Exactly. It wasn't green. Call comes in 10 minutes later, and my detective that I was working with the time looked it up on the computer to see the text of the call. What does this actually say? Then we saw that the collar was from a a nearby health center, and it just said, it appears to be a penis on the ground. There's blood everywhere. We're like, Oh, shit, that's not fake. The patrolman go up there. That's our starting point. We don't know anything else. And literally there it is. I wasn't there yet. The patrolman see it on the sidewalk and there's a blood trail. So they start following the blood trail. And it went a long way, several hundred yards. And it gets worse and worse. So that's how it starts. So that's our starting point. And the patrolman followed the blood trail, and then they're following it up the stairs of this three-family house. It's like three apartments, one house, and the blood gets bigger and bigger. They knock on the door. This guy opens the door completely naked, a hole where his dick used to be, and he's just standing there not talking.

They're like, Hey, bud, are you okay? He's just like, he doesn't speak. He just stares at them. They were newer guys. I felt so bad for them. That's a tough call. They weren't brand new, obviously, but that's a lot for a young guys to see this, right?

Oh, yeah. Just see some cock down the street or whatever.

They're like, Hey, why don't you come in and sit down? It turns out it was like a group home for mentally ill people, but there was no staff members or anything. There's three people in the house. It is a blood bath. There's blood everywhere. In the bedroom, the floor, the sink was full of it. So they find that and they get on the radio and they're like, get us an ambulance, whatever, because we don't know how does someone alive, right? So he's alive. I got called and me and another detective, my boss, went down and it's on the sidewalk and they're taking photographs or whatever. And they call once the ambulance find out he's alive, they just assume somebody had blood out somewhere and was dead or someone did it to somebody else. He's like, no, I did it. Like, Oh, shit. Okay.

So he's being honest.

Yeah. He's just completely and mentally mentally at some other point, he'd caught off his own nipples. He said to let the devil out. So the poor thing was very mentally ill. He was young, early 20s. So Once the EMTs find out this person's alive, now they want to try to collect it to see if they can reattach it at the hospital. So we had done our photos. I actually have a video of this whole thing. I pulled video from the street, nearby surveillance video. That's how I know everything after the fact. They come down to reattach it, and we had just done the photos. I didn't look directly at it. I can do-Oh, you never stare into it. I know that. You do a weird blurring. It's almost like when someone blurs out somebody's face and that's what your brain does. You're like, I don't want to see I don't want to see all of it. It was big. It was nasty. They try to come down to take it off the sidewalk. They goes to pick it up.

What are they using, a spatular or whatever?

No, he had gloves on. He was using his hand. He had this weird-Oh my God. That guy's a pervert. Clear cylinder. He was an EMT. He had this cylinder thing he was going to put in it.

One of those bank. Remember at the bank, you would put that check in the thing and send it back up through there?

Yeah, literally like that. Oh my God, dude. He goes to pick it up, and it's been so cold. He's tugging it, and it was frozen to the sidewalk.

No way. Like that guy from Christmas Story, bring that up.

It's like his tongue. That's what happened to the poor guy's- Bring that up real quick because people forget that that can happen.

Oh, yeah. Let's get it. Just Just to give us a descriptive visual, what wiener are we talking about? And if you're wieners, I don't know if it's still... What wiener? Because that's just a sidewalk wiener. What wiener are we talking about? It's big. Was.

It was big and it looked purple. Yeah, it was a black guy, and it almost looked purple. But he went to tug it, and because it froze, he gave it a second tug. And then he didn't let go, but it went in the air. And this thing came out. I don't know if it was urethra. I don't know what the fuck it was. I compared later to a balloon streamer. It came flying out the end.

That's some party confetti, baby.

And I just turned and dryheaved into the street. I've never thrown up at the job. I've never done it. I dryheaved into the street. I was What the fuck? Some young patrolman who was there, and this is all on video, he's in his uniform, and he does this little kicky uncomfortable dance because he's like, Oh, my God, that was horrific.

He couldn't handle like that?

No, exactly. Then later, I pulled the video from the street. We're like, How did this get there? How did this guy get back to the house? He had cut it off several hours before in the house, walked down the street, and he's completely naked. Nobody called police. This is the best part. There's people going to work. It's like three or four in the morning. Busy, busy street. Driving down the street, he's completely naked, what no one called 911. He's walking down the street, and I have a video of it. He'd cut it, but it wasn't off altogether. Oh, wow, bro.

So he leans down, tugs it, and then threw it on the sidewalk.

No.

Oh. Wait, tell me that part again. He what?

I'm watching this video.

So he leans. Tell me that part again.

I'm watching the video and try to find him, like what time did this happened. And you just see this form. It's dark, and he's completely naked walking down the street. And all of a sudden, he leans over. I'm like, What's he doing? And he's in the direction. It's from the side, direction of his crotch. You see his arm move like a tug. Then he just fucking threw it. I remember when I pulled the video, I didn't know this had happened. I watched it and I pushed my chair back from the desk and screamed. I was like, What the fuck? The worst part is he came. If you could believe something's worse, he came back about a half an hour later. He walked like a mile. They said that's what saved him, why he didn't bleed to death. It was so cold. It coagulated the blood, so he didn't bleed to death. He came back and he's walking down the street. As he sees it, he walks over to it and gets down on all fours and leaned over and kissed it. Then got up and walked away. I thought he was going to eat it like a dog bone.

Honest to God. I was like, What is happening? What is happening? He bent down, gave it a smooch, and got up and walked home. It was fucking crazy.

Oh, my God.

The poor bastard.

Let me tell, because I got to go through a couple of beats of that story. And, dear God, let me just say that out loud so God knows that we're just alarmed by this. First of all, the fact that he cut it and it was just hanging there.

He didn't do the job.

Just like a piece of Memphis mistletoe just hanging there. That's so wild.

Yeah, it was nuts.

Like mistletoe at a ditty party or something, dude. It's crazy. And then he tugged it off. I can't even imagine. He gives it a tug. Because you've read a little hangnail when you pull it off?

Kills. And this is a lot of nerve endings down there.

That's the ultimate hangnail. Yeah. That's the most hanging- That should be the name of my chapter, not Digg on the Sidewalk, the ultimate hangnail. That's the most hangiest nail that there is. When you said that, it got so visceral, I think, for me, and I'm sure for anybody listening.

Most men get the same reaction when you tell them.

Then I wonder what flew out of it. Pull that up on perplexity because I'm thinking that's just a little- You know what it looked like in the photo when I saw it come out, you know what sausage casing looks like before there's a sausage in it?

It's almost like skinny, opaque, almost... I don't know how else to describe it? It's gray and translucent. It was a little smaller than my pinkie, and this thing just flew out. I just could not even...

Yeah, that's just a little wiener funfetti, homie. Let's look at... No, give me a gander at it, man. I'm trying to get a gander. But let's look at the parts here because it's fascinating to know what is that.

Yeah, I don't know what the fuck it was.

That's a vagina. No, that's a wiener. Sorry. Come on, man. These days, you can't tell. The other day, my buddy showed me a picture of his naked wife She has a wiener, and I was like, All right, well, that's a surprise.

Yeah, maybe it's a urethra. Yes, because see, the urethral opening goes down to the end. That's what it was. God, boy. Yeah, it was dicey. I remember when we got the call and I remember standing over it thinking, Where did I go wrong in my fucking life that it's 7: 45 in the morning and I'm looking at someone's dick on the goddamn sidewalk? I was like, What did I do? What did I do to deserve this?

It's a question as old as time. It really is.

It's a poor bastard.

I think a lot of women have asked themselves things like that overall. In high tech, how does that even follow up? Do you guys keep that in evidence?

No, they tried to reattach it at the hospital. They rushed him to the hospital with it, and they did attach it, but it didn't take. It was like a month later they had to take it off.

Imagine that month. Oh, my God.

It's funny because of the group home, we were trying to find out what is this kid's story? What's his name? Because the other kid in the house was not with it at all. He was just sitting there playing video games. It was like a blood bath.

It's hard to get the kids off the games.

Right. But these guys, they're like 20. I called the supervisor of the group home, and I was trying to get some information. He's like, Oh, we're trying to find him a placement in a hospital or a psych ward because he's been exposing his peanuts in group classes or whatever in group meetings. I said, Well, you're late. You're a little late because he cut it off and threw on the side of the guy. He's like, What? You could shit himself because that's how someone's supposed to be supervising.

Yes, so obviously somebody's supposed to be there. Making sure at the very least someone's not lopping off their own wiener. I can't even imagine the month wait to know if it's going to take or not.

I don't think he cared.

But still, just as- Because he cut it off.

He was obviously crazy. I know that's not the technical- But you don't think he cared why? He cut off to begin with. He said he was letting the devil out. He's just extremely mentally ill, and I don't think he even- Kind of.

I think there's a It's part of a lot of people that think the devil lives inside of their genitalia for some people.

Like I said, he cut his nipples off. He carved something in his forehead. This poor kid was really messed up.

It's heartbreaking that people go through so much. I just But I can't imagine that month where you're waiting to see, right? Like the bandage is on. I can't imagine doing it.

How do you sit there and saw it off? Did he use a saw now? No, it's just a big long kitchen knife. But you know it was dull as dishwater. It was in some A shitty group home. Was it? It's not some nice Henkels knife. You know what I mean? I'm sure.

Well, it's not like hands of scissors. He was using something.

It was like some plastic handled, shitty kitchen knife. It was like this long.

You got to see the knife?

Yeah, we were up in the apartment.

Was it a basically knife you get? If you made your kids dinner, you give them a knife for your husband dinner?

No, It was a steak knife, a little bit longer. It would come in your knife block for carving or whatever.

Serrated or whatever?

I don't remember that. God, please. I don't think it was serrated.

I hope it was. Otherwise-serrated might be more jagged. But I think you would get it done pretty I don't know if we can...

The more we talk about this- God only knows how long he was working at it because the whole bedroom, the kid I was working with, thank God, he had been in the crime scene unit. He would go into scenes all the time. He put on a Tyvek suit to go in because there was so much blood. We were stepping through it.

Oh, the wiener holds a lot, baby. That's the Lord's spiget.

The Lord of Lots that day.

God, boy. Definitely. God. Who was the other kid? Just some honky sitting there playing Double Dragon or something?

He He was sitting there. It was like a grown man with his legs crossed. You know that's weird, the criss-cross apples. He's sitting there. We were talking like, Hey, do you know what happened? He's just trying to look past us because we're in the way of his game. To play the game? All right, this guy ain't...

I was not going to help. What game was it? Do you remember it all? I don't know.

I was concentrating on other shit.

Wow.

Yeah, he was just trying to look around us.

I bet it was one player. They didn't have a lot of two-player games at that time. Wow. Oh, my God. But the worst... Imagine you're waiting, they wrap your wiener, they the repackaging, and I bet at that point, it's almost like the Massinger. You're just waiting, they take it off, and you're seeing like, Okay, what do we have here?

Did this work? Yeah. What's the result?

Yeah. Do we have a Shaquille O'Neill here? Do we have a Mugsy Buggs here? It's tenting. I think you're just waiting to see.

What you're going to end up with.

Oh, that must have been horrible. The big reveal, and they're like, Move that bus. And then the bus takes off, and your cog doesn't work, dude. That's the freaking worst.

God, I hate that. That was That's a day. I hate that.

That's harrowing.

Yeah, that was one.

That's harrowing. And it's cold. Was it so cold outside? Was it hard to stand outside? Was it that cold?

Because it'd be crazy. We weren't outside that long once we took the photos and when the EMT came down and collected it, there wasn't else much to do that that scene. Then we went up to the house, and it wasn't cold in there. We were outside for maybe an hour, 45 minutes. I don't even remember. Because the- It wasn't like 20 below.

Right. But it was chilly, right? Yeah, it was cold. But the part for me, I think that would be the wildest is, say you're so cold, you run out there, you're looking at the cock, and then it gets too cold, you got to run back into your car and warm up.

No, there was no running back in to get warm.

You're texting like, All right, let's meet out there again in 30 seconds. You know what I'm saying? You're having to battle the cold so much.

No, not at that case.

You're like, Oh, yes. It's a black cock, and you have to go sit back in your car. That's the part that we get, having to build up the... Just to stay warm out there. God, that's insane.

Yeah, it was fucking crazy.

It is. That's the shit. It's like you're sitting there and then you're watching your kiddo blow out some birthday candles or something.

You go from that to something else. That was the day. We went out for drinks after work that day. Oh, yeah. We were like, We're going out tonight.

Yeah, off a black and tan. That's what I'm saying, dude. I love some Johnny walk out. There was another story to pivot. I know that you had mentioned whenever Our producer, nick, had reached out to you. And thank you so much for coming. Of course. I want to say thank you so much. You look lovely today, too. It's a really great outfit. Who chose that? You did? I did. Yeah, you did a great job.

Thank you.

There was a story you talked about finding someone had left a child.

Someone put a baby in a trash can. I preface this right away by saying the baby lived, the baby was fine. But that call came in for There was a senior housing on our district, and there was a gentleman who lived there, an elderly man, and he had someone who used to come and clean his house for him. He called 911 because he said someone just had a baby in his house and then left with it in a bag, and it was crying. The patrolman goes to the call, and he goes up and talks to him. The apartment is pristine. There's no sign of a baby being born. He said she was in the bathroom. He's like, it's... Nothing happened.

Nobody had a baby in here.

The officer called an ambulance for a psych eval, saying, Is this guy, the old man, something's wrong, or he maybe has dementia. I just wanted to check on and make sure he's okay. As the ambulance is pulling up, Again, I have this on video. That's how I remember the sequence. The ambulance pulls up and pulls in. It was like a horseshoe driveway, and they pull in the driveway. Just as they're doing that, a girl is walking down the street, maybe 50, 60 feet away, maybe a little more from the apartment. It's a very busy street in Dorchester. It's Dorchester Ave. She's walking on the street and there's a brought on trash can in the street. She walks by and she hears something. She thought it was like someone put puppies or something in the trash. She hears something crying. She sees the ambulance, goes running over and waves them down and says, I think there's a baby or something in the trash can. The EMT comes walking down the street. You could tell he thinks she's full of shit by the way he's walking. There's no urgency.

But everybody in this neighborhood is full of shit.

There's no urgency to his gate. He's just like, okay, because they're inundated with calls. They are buried all day long. He's like, all right, we're here for this, but okay. You got a haunted trash can or whatever. It's typical shit.

He goes walking over and he goes in The typical haunted trash can in Dorchester.

He goes in and you can see his reaction. He picks it out and then it's crazy activity. He puts it on. You could see, this was all in the video, but you can't see exactly. You could see insane movement. All of a sudden, he's on the air. At the same time, the officer was up in the house said, What's the ETA in my ambulance? He never showed up. At the same time, the girl had called 911 and said, There's a baby crying in a trash can. This is all happening at once. Then we all go lying up there when they're like, Yeah, there's a baby. We don't have a mother. We don't know what's going on. The woman, I spoke to the gentleman in the house. He said it was his cleaning woman. He had a different name for her that wasn't her real name because we're trying to track her down. Is she bleeding out somewhere? Is she hurt? Does she need help? What is the story?

She just had a child, maybe.

He said she was in the bathroom for a couple of hours. He thought she had stomach problems. Then she asked him, Do you have a pair of scissors? Then she asked him for a bag. Because I interviewed him, me and my partner, and he said she walked out of the bathroom and she had a big tote bag with her, like her purse. The baby was in the bag and he could hear her crying. He's like, What's that? Is that a baby crying? She's like, Oh, this is nothing. Yeah, I just took a crazy dump.

And then walked out the door.

That's crazy. Then on the video, you can see her walking down the street and there's people coming toward her. There's a gentleman passing her just as she gets to the trash can. She waits for him. As he goes past, she looks around, pulls it out, goes right in the trash can. It turns out she had gone in there, had the baby. She was at a 30. She wasn't a kid. She wasn't not mentally ill. She just didn't plan on keeping the baby. She had the baby. How alone? I do not know. And then clean the bathroom. That's why it was so pristine.

When people think of women, that's the power. I mean, women, it's just like- How she did that?

I do not know. She sat in the tub and had a baby with no help.

Women are powerful, man. Then to clean up the bathroom, that's the biggest thing. Clean it up. But she also is a cleaning lady. I can understand.

That's why it was so nice.

But also, she, I guess, has to hide her, I guess. Did you determine that she's mentally unwell? No, she was fine. What do you determine? She was so heartbreaking.

She just didn't want the baby. She did not want the baby. But we don't I don't know any of this at the time. So all we have is a phone number. She signed in on the log at the senior housing, and she put a phone number down. And one of the patrolmen working at the scene, they blocked off the street. They were like, Helicopters overhead. This was like It was on the news. It was on the news. And one of the officers who was blocking the street, the traffic, we all get the phone number, and he starts looking through reports because he's sitting there blocking the street. He starts looking through reports because we don't have the right name. That guy gave us the wrong name, the wrong age. He said she's a girl. She was in her 30s. To him, she was a girl because he's in his 80s.

He's a pervert, too.

I'm not judging him. I don't know him. He said she's a good-looking girl, so maybe you're right. The officer, the patrolman, starts looking through reports and finds a phone number attached to a different name. So then we start looking for and we find the driver's light. It's like, this, again, all took over an hour because there's a lot going on and headquarters is calling and everybody's like, This is huge. So this kid finds the woman's real name and phone number and they start pinging the phone. So it turned out after she put the baby in the can, walked down the street and got on the trolley, took the tea back to like to Mattapan, the train station, and then got on a train or a bus and went to her house in Milton. So we knew what her address was while she's in transit. We're following the following the pain and she's like moving through the city. And then my supervisor and a couple of detectives, at least one, met her at the house with an ambulance. So like this lady, we don't know what's going on with her. So they met her at house and said, Hey, you got to go to the hospital.

Are you okay? What's going on? They went in the house. She had rented a small in-law or something in the house. They said there were no baby items. It was a full-term baby. There was no crib, there was no diapers. It was nothing. So she did not plan on keeping this baby. She had no intentions of doing that. Obviously, she didn't have a single thing in the house, but they took her to the hospital. She was fine. They kept her in the hospital for a few days. But she literally tied the bag in a knot. She tried to kill the baby. That The girl walking by, it saved it because it was cold that day. She saved that. She saved that baby.

That's unbelievable.

It might never been found. Like, the city comes and dumps those trash cans. That baby's gone.

The odds that the girl haven't been walking by and hear it?

Yeah.

Do they repartner that child and that mother?

Well, I think she tried to kill it, so I don't know. The Homicide Unit came and took the case. Why? I don't know because the baby lived, but it's obviously a biggie. They ended up taking it. It took four years to go through court. It was during COVID. I remember people wearing masks when it was on the news. But it took four years to wind its way through court. No jail time. I'm like, That's attempted murder. She tried to kill that baby. There's nothing wrong with her. She wasn't scared, 16-year-old. You know what I mean? She was just... Her defense attorney tried to say that it was cultural. I'm like, Do people throw babies in trash cans in her culture? What the fuck?

Was it a Black or Asian-Mexican girl?

She was Haitian. She was from Haiti. Like, that's not cultural. Oh, shit. There she is.

Mother who allegedly abandoned, newborn, and trashed, being in door touch is charged with attempted murder.

Yeah, that's her. She didn't serve any time. No way. She got probation. Yeah, none of we weren't very happy with that.

Well, yeah, because you just like the psychology of that person that's out in the world, how could they value life?

Yeah, she doesn't. At least not that life.

Yeah, and how could you probably value one of the most precious lives? Unless maybe there was some… I wonder if it was an extreme circumstance of how she had that child.

We weren't told. We were in communication with the DA. They never told us, other than it being cultural. We're like, What the fuck culture is that? That's not a culture anywhere. Yeah.

Well, the media likes to make it easier.

Yeah, but I think it took so long because court cases were just dragging on because nobody worked during COVID except us or whatever. Everyone just gets tired of it and wants to go away. I don't know. Crazy.

Yeah. I mean, stuff like that's harrowing. I don't know how you can... I don't think there's a way to shed that skin. If you're a police officer or a detective, even though it may seem superficial, in some ways, you could just move on and finish your day. There's got to be a part of you inside of you that stores a lot of that discomfort and illness.

It's got to be- I'd say you learn how to deal with it. I dealt with things better years on my job than I did when I was new. The stuff that used to upset me, you have to. It's It's your brain safety mechanism so you don't lose your goddamn mind. You learn how to... That's why cops laugh at murder scenes. It's tension release. We're not laughing at a murder scene. People are trying to talk and say, Okay, everything's normal here. You know what I mean?

When Brad White was in, he was saying- His brain's on the street and you're like, So what are you going to get for lunch later?

We have to do something to distract your brain, and you get better at it.

Yeah, this officer that we had who came in was talking about... He worked in Los Angeles, and he worked in Los Los Angeles. He talked about this one story where a mother had a mother. He called her son was going to commit suicide. She was worried. And he gets there, and the mother comes out to greet him, tell him what's going on. My son's inside. While they're outside talking, the son steps into the doorway, behind a screen door, and takes his own life with a shotgun.

Oh, shit. Shotgun's messy, man.

Now, he's standing out here with the mother. We have to console the mother at the same time, and now we'll go approach this situation. Right.

You have to do many... You're like, Oh, shit. I just saw someone blow their head off with a shotgun, and the mother's screaming it on the ground, I'm sure. But yet it's still not a crime scene. But it's an active situation. It's an active scene. You have to lock it down. There's a lot. They're chaotic. Especially if you're alone. It's only one or two, and there's a lot going on. They're very chaotic.

Yeah. I can't even imagine how things go from seeming real and normal to absolutely surreal. In a moment, almost like you're in a movie or a video game. I remember he said he walked into the... He had to push the door wouldn't open all the way because the body was right there.

The body is too heavy. Yeah, you have to push them out of the way.

So he's pushing this, and then he steps inside, and part of the brain matter had hit the ceiling, and it fell down the back of his shirt.

Oh, I think this is a Vegas guy. This was the Vegas sergeant. I think I saw that on your podcast.

Well, I think Brad, he may have done... He may have been in Vegas for a bit. He may have been in LA, I believe. But just- It's gross.

I've stepped in that. Like you said, how do you- Really?

There he is. Oh, no, it wasn't him. That was Chris Curtis. This other guy was Brad White. But just fascinating, fascinating story. But just hear it like, I don't think nobody else goes to work and has this horror movie that can happen once in a while.

Yeah, play CMTs, fire. That's it.

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Yes.

Leadership? Yeah. They do? What's that whole relationship like? Break it down for me what that's like.

Well, obviously, things are very politically charged right now, more so than they've been in the past, I think, in my experience. It depends on if your mayor is supportive or not. Historically, I had several mayors on in 31 years as a police officer, and some are more supportive than others. Some DAs get elected that are just like, Oh, we're not going to make vandalism is no longer a crime. Larcony is no longer crime. Shofflifting is no longer a crime. Well, the people in the stores are still calling us when someone's stealing $10,000 worth of shit, but the DA is not prosecuting. So now that's why shit's locked up in all these stores. It's the DAs who are like, whether it's the Soros, DAs or whoever the fuck they are that got elected that are softer on crime or whatever. That's your job as a district attorney to prosecute crimes. And those are state laws on the books. So if those laws are still on the books, then why are you prosecuting it? So that's why shit is locked up in CVS, because people can indiscriminately steal all over the country. They did not get prosecuted.

We had one guy. It was him and his brother doing it. They were like two man recing team. Every CVS and Walmart, Walgreens, we added up just like one kid in one month. It was like 30,000 $1,000 worth of shit he stole. Now, how is Target or CVS recouping that? They're not. That's gone. But the DA doesn't care. If you have a... Right now, there's a good DA in Boston, I think, and he's doing more to make working with the officers as a team. We're on the same team here. We're just trying to prosecute criminals and help victims. If the DA is not supportive of that, what about all those victims whose houses are getting broken into or their property is vandalized? The DA is like, Yeah, we're not going to prosecute that crime anymore. What about the people who shit's getting stolen and ruined or whatever? Don't you care about them? Right.

And don't you care about how they feel then about their city and about their country? It's very invasive. Then you guys are the ones that have to deal with it on the At a street level.

Everyone hates us.

They take it out on you. But still, if someone hates them, they take it out on the police. You know what I'm saying? It's like, and you guys can't probably speak up on it sometimes because you're in a position where you're working under that regime. I think about that about the border, too, sometimes with people illegally coming across the border. Then people can have whatever thoughts they want about people coming over. I think everybody needs to be legally documented that's here, however they figure that out. But the people that matter, whose opinion matters most to me, are the people who live. What about the guy right there- What about the border town? Who's trying to put his kids to sleep at night, and they want to be able to feel safe just because they bought a house somewhere, that there's not people running through their neighborhoods, whether those people have good intentions or bad, but just with the fear- It shouldn't happen. The fear that it puts in their families. Yes, exactly.

It's all quality of life stuff. It's all quality of life issues, and they don't seem to get that because it doesn't bother them if they're living in some multi a million dollar house somewhere of a nicer part of the city or state. It's not happening around them. Like you said, the people in the border towns, they don't have a choice.

Yeah, especially if there's... What about the guy who's worked at CVS for 20 years and he loves it, right? He loves seeing people come in and he loves that's something he knows some of the older people. He's watched them get older and come in and get their medicine. He's watched one of them lose their spouse over the years, and now they come in alone. But he's like a smile in their life once in a while when they come in. Now has to be a deterrent to crime.

They come in with trash bags.

It's unbelievable.

And literally just clear the shop. They go and still sell all their stolen shit at the smaller bodegas and convenience stores. When they steal all the detergent and all that, they still baby formula that's been locked up for years, they go and sell it to somebody else. The bodegas is buying it off them. They know it's stolen shit, so they're a fault, too. But like you said, the employee, what about him? He doesn't want to do that when he goes to work.

No.

And then he has to- He's not a cop. He I just want to do that. He's not a cop. Yeah. He doesn't want to chase people.

Yeah, that's the thing. They've made it so that almost every person has to feel like a cop, and then also that there's not a lot of support out there. That's a sick thing. Our government does that from the top down, and I believe that there is a reason they do that. They want to erode a sense of community, and they want to erode a sense of normalcy, and they're doing it. Who's the mayor that they have now over there that's been supportive?

Do you feel like, We haven't had a supportive mayor. That's the DA, Kevin Hayden. He's supportive. Our mayor, I don't- K.

Hay, boy, out of Newton. What's Newton like? Is it good over there?

Newton's a very nice city outside. It's a different city than Boston.

Down in Newton over there. I definitely caught some- Newton's high-end. Newton is? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Not Newton. It's big money to live in Newton.

Fig Newton, they call it.

It was big money to live there.

Oh, God. Look at that. Bunch of people He's from there.

I think he lives in the city now. He's Suffolk County. He's not attached to the city. He's Suffolk County. But our prior DA was atrocious.

I bet every kid over there has a signed Tom braided football.

That's that place. He lived in Chesnut Hill, which is part of Brooklyn and Newton. It's all sandwiched right in that neighborhood there. He lived in Chesnut Hill.

Yeah, I bet all those kids have that, dude. How has the DA support been over the years? This is the district's turning now? Yeah, he's good. Was he during your term?

He was there when I retired, yeah.

He was appointed by Charlie Baker, proceeded by Rachel Rawlins.

Yeah. Thumbs down on her.

Oh, she was another district attorney? Yeah.

Now, so she- She became a US attorney under Biden, and then she was I believe, fired from US attorney with some ethics violation or some such.

Biden would hire anybody to sleep. You fucking dude. He was fucking, yeah. He would hire Fred Flintstone to fucking sing him to bed at night.

Well, someone on his staff thought She was a good fit. I'm sorry, she resigned before she was canned.

Rachel Wallings was not formerly fired, but resigned from a position in May 2023 following multiple ethics investigations. I don't know exactly what happened here, but what's it like from one DA to another?

How can a DA affect- She's the one that decided we weren't going to prosecute larcenies, shoplifting, vandalism, the minor crimes. Fuck that. She used to say those aren't... I forget what verbiage was used. It was like, they're not victimless crime, but they're trying to say that. No, they're not. Even if it's CVS or Target, a big corporation, they're still losing millions of dollars. It's totally victim. It was her. She was one of the ones that was not supportive.

Do you think it's a DA in that space? Do you think she's making her own choices, or do you think that's coming down from a higher... Allegedly, do you think it's coming... Because it just seems crazy to say we're not going to prosecute crime. How do you do that?

It's a state law. How do you decide what your- During her campaign, Rollins pledged to decriminalize certain offenses such as shoplifting, drug possession, wanton.

Oh, wanton or malicious destruction. Wanton, malicious, yeah. Or property. Drug possession is intended to distribute. What?

Yeah, it's crazy. That's why Mass & Cast, you've heard of the part of Boston? I don't know if you heard of the part of Boston called Mass & Cast. It is a disaster down there. There's drug addicts everywhere. They're all over the streets. They're destroying property. There's needles all over the city in South End, in that area. It was focused there, and now they've tried to break it up the last few years because It was insane. Now they pushed it out. Yeah, there was 10 cities down there. Look at this shit.

Yeah. Look, and some people say this is just a build.

They have safe shoot-up zones there. They're letting them shoot up heroine in safe places. Oh, So now the needles are all over the South end, and the poor people in the South end, they pay a lot of money to live there. These are beautiful brownstones. Now there's people shitting in their front yards, throwing needles everywhere, breaking it. Say, when that guy was breaking into a house while people was under construction, on floor. This was just a few weeks ago. And there's a guy's family there with his kids, and they had an old key or something, and they were breaking in and going to shit in the floor on the second floor that was under construction. He went up and there's a pile of human shit in his house. He's like, What is going on? They put up cameras. The guy was going in and out every night to sleep on the floor in this house under construction and then shit on the floor.

It was like the emoji or whatever.

Yeah, like, What is wrong with you? What? That part of the city, I feel bad for people who live down there. That's Atkinson Street. Yeah. It's where is it? It's Atkinson Street. It's near the jail.

Yeah. Well, and look, a lot of people say this is just a Bill's tailgate or something over here. I'm not saying that. Some people say this is a Pinto tailgate. I'm not saying that. What we're saying is that this is a lot of drug use that's happening over there in this town in Boston. But here's another thing, though. They have this everywhere now. Oh, it's everywhere. Every city has this.

Every democratically run city, I think. It could be run.

Well, we don't have one I know that. I hope not anyway. I don't know.

Austin got ruined. Austin was a blast. I took my daughter there several years. I had been there 10 years ago, and I was like, This is a coolest place. Reminds me of here a little bit, like sixth Street where all the bars used to be. Then I went back a few years later because my daughter's way into music. I wanted to take her. She was afraid to get out of the car. There were homeless people sleeping in hammocks strung from street signs in the street, and it was just rampant. Before, if you were homeless, you got arrested there, which isn't the best thing, but you got to do something. They're throwing bricks through all the windows that have been there a long time. Austin got ruined. Seattle is a shithole. Portland.

Yeah. I don't have to sneeze, but Portland is a shithole, but also it's awesome. I will say this.

Yeah, I was up there when I do landscape photography as a hobby or used to, and I went up to Oregon and Washington. It's the coolest place. It's such a cool vibe. It's just getting ruined.

But I do think that element that's out there, it's like, why are we at...

I don't know their end game. What is the point of ruining all these cities.

I think they want us to deteriorate. They want us to have no sense of purpose. They want us to not have any pride in the places where we are because they've been so riddled. They get people addicted. The opioid epidemic was put on America and was allowed to occur.

It wasn't like that when I was young.

No, they want this to happen. It's no doubt to me that this is an organized agenda.

Yeah, I don't get it.

But I believe that people can fight back, and I believe I think it started a little bit. I think so, and I hope so. Also, it gives you a sense of purpose in the world. It's like, you're here to defeat evil, and we all can be a part of that. I think it's something that makes us feel that way. Let's pivot a little. You ended up in the... Oh, quick question. Did you ever see Irish Mickey Ward? Did you ever run across him when you were running around? No, I didn't. Over there? Did you ever hear about him or anything? Oh, yeah.

He's a boxer. Yeah. I never ran across him.

That's cool. I was just watching the fighter the other day.

That's about It's the same, right? About him, yeah. Wasn't he in it? Did he play as the coach or something? No. I thought they gave him a part.

He was in it at the end.

Okay.

Christian Bale, Mark Wauber.

That's when he got all skinny for it.

Such a great movie. And all the sisters and stuff. They did such a great job in that film. I got to go to watch Lanie Wilson last night.

Oh, that's right. The concert. How was it?

I should have got you all tickets. I didn't even know we were here.

Oh, no. Goodness.

That's okay. I forgot. It was so great. It was so great. Jolly Roll was there, so I got to see him. Ella Langley, I got to meet her. She has a beautiful voice. It was just great. It was like a special time. Nice. Yeah. And Lanie is just a boss. She's just turned into a... Some people start to step into whatever gift they were given in the world, and some people meander around the outside of it, I think. And no way is a Vic is better than the other, really. I think it's all by person, but she has just really embraced this role of just being like this on stage presence. It was really powerful to watch. She does a great job. Pivoting, anyway, you ended up in the human trafficking unit.

Yes.

Is that the safe term or how does that work?

I was in a district detective at Dorchester, and then I went for several years, five years or so to the human trafficking unit, and then I went back to Dorchester. But yes, I had a five-year stint in the human trafficking unit as a detective.

What is your definition of human trafficking? Let's just get that clear, because you hear so much. A few years ago, you would hear this social kickball that was big. This was big four years ago, and everybody notices it's gone now. Notice how the kickballs fly. It's like, Oh, that's the big thing. Everybody's commenting on it online, and now it's gone. It's really out of the zeitgeist. I know there's still things happening, but notice how that happens, right? Everybody's like, you'd see memes online. It's like, tonight, while you sleep, one and a half million children will be taken on trains across America being human human traffics. You're like, What in the shit, dude? What did you really see? What were you expecting when you got into that space?

I didn't know, like everybody else, I didn't really know what that meant. I knew someone asked me if I wanted to join the unit, and I didn't know a lot about it. I thought it was just like the movies, people being snatched off the street and forced to be prostituted. In my experience, at least when I did it, that was not the case. I guess human trafficking is like when someone's trafficked for the purpose to sell sex, right, against their will through coercion or force or threats or whatever. But when I got there, a lot of the cases we had, it's funny, there were just several pimps that ran the city that were involved. You always came back to the same six or seven guys who always had all these different women working for them. And it was always girls, not always, I shouldn't say that, mostly it was girls from the neighborhood or just outside the city, like the suburbs or whatever, and something in their life was fucked up, whether it was a parent situation where they had one parent or they'd been sexually abused as kids themselves, or there was a DCF, which is Department of Children and Families, like they were foster kids.

It was always something missing. It could just be they weren't getting attention at home or they weren't happy. And the pimps, a lot of them could be very charming. And they would meet these girls. They just meet them in the street to go to the train station. They hang at the tea in Boston. I wonder if it was a guy walking I'm talking to when she's walking down the street and like, Oh, you're pretty. You want to be in a music video? And she's like, She's like a teenage girl. Yeah, that'd be cool. And she went like, They shot the video. And then let's say, We have to finish the video. And then they make her go to another state and like, Oh, we're going to take pictures of you and put you online and you're going to have sex with these guys for money. They don't get any of the money. The pims get all the money. That was a situation where it was she was not willing. That was a quick one, like over week or two. But a lot of them, they groom the girls for a long time. They, Oh, you don't have any money?

I'll give you some money. I'll take you to get your nails done, honey. I had one guy. I literally had text messages for a month's worth, and you could see him grooming her. She worked in a store. I think her dad, her mother was deceased, and her dad now wanted to be a woman, and it was like, fucking with her head. And he changed his name to Susan or something. And then she met this guy working in a store, and he was like, Oh, you're working today, honey. I'll bring you a tuna sandwich, and I don't want you hungry. And you could see it was this progression of a relationship. And a month later, she was like, Oh, that's my boyfriend. A lot of things this pimps their boyfriend. And a month later, you could see the messages. He's like, All right, we have seven guys coming in, and you're going to do all seven of them at a party. There's a bachelor party or some shit. And then she's like, Can I keep a hundred bucks for the piggy bank? And he's like, No, it's all mine. It was like $1,000. So it's like they see something missing in their lives and they just manipulate them or they're a little messed up to begin with.

They're in a bad situation. They don't know how to get out of it. They think these guys are boyfriend. You'll do this if you love me.

That was a lot of the sex trafficking that you saw, huh?

Yeah, that was in my experience. Yes, there wasn't a lot of people being snatched off the street. No one's being shipped in a shipping container from Russia. All these girls getting... The nail salon, the spas are a little bit different. The Asian women, they were moving them around.

Yeah, that's more like Jackie Jack.

Yeah. But those were tough because the second we try to go in and-They move. They're gone. They're gone to New York, New Jersey. It's different women. They're gone. They don't know their names. There's like, how many different dialects have been- Can't pronounce their name. Chinese. They're trying to get our Chinese offices, Hey, can you translate this? They're like, it's a different dialect. It was a disaster. Those were tough.

Yeah, you don't even know. You're like, we're looking for a.

We did those.

Yeah, that's crazy. That shit's wild. I don't like those places. I'll say that. I walk into one of those salons or whatever. I say, if anybody jerks me off, I'm jerking them off. That's what I tell them. No homo. I'm just saying. But you know what I'm saying? I put the pressure on everybody in the building.

Just so everyone knows what you're going to do when you get in there.

Don't even jerk me off. If somebody tries to even sneak up on me and jerk me off.

Some of these girls were sleeping there. They would sleep on the bed that night when it closed.

Yeah, they sleep and then they wake up and jerk you off.

That's the problem. But one of them had... We went in one, there was a sink. There were baby turtles in the sink, filled with water, swimming around. I'm like, what the fuck is it?

They liked the animalia in there. They love aqua animals, a lot of aquarium.

I don't know if they're going to make soup out of it. I don't know what the hell they were doing. I don't know what they were doing with those things. We're like, what the fuck? I don't know. We also did part of human trafficking, and we did what we call John Stings. You target the sex buyer rather than... It was a European model that they found to be more effective rather than copies to arrest the prostitute. Well, what about the guy paying for it? Of course, yeah. Then you target that angle of it. We're going to tell you, if you don't have buyers, then no one's going to be selling it. They tried to do it backwards that way. We We would do what we call John Stings, and we'd put ads online. Backpage doesn't exist anymore, but we put them on that. It was Craigslist first, and then it was Backpage. I don't know how they're doing it now, whether it's on Insta or TikTok. I don't know where the hell they're doing now. I've been out of the unit for about six years now.

You'd have parties, and people would find people on back page and invite them over. They would hire strippers and stuff like that to come and dance or hang out. It was definitely a place where people were eliciting illegal activities.

Oh, yeah, that was there. When you put an ad in, could pay extra to bump it at the top. So it was so prevalent when we were doing it. We put an ad in the morning. Say I put my ad on, three or four of us in the office would do fake ads, and you'd have to do real photos because the guys who were doing it all the time, we'll do reverse Google image search to find out, did this picture appear someplace else? So they know if it's a fake photo, because then maybe you're a cop or you're not going to look like who you're pretending you look like. So we'd all put our ads up. And then you put on at 8: 30, your phone's ringing. It's crazy. 8: 30 in the morning, they're already starting to call, and we'd set up our dates for the day. We'd have a hotel room, and we'd be waiting in the hotel room, and we'd have dates set up every half an hour to show up.

And were you hiding under the bed?

No, no, it's hiding under the bed. I would have to open the door and there'd be guys in the bathroom, officers in the bathroom behind the wall. So my trick was, I was at like 45, 46 when I was doing it. And my Adam is supposed to be 34. I didn't fucking look 34, but I opened the door, I'd have my hair.

You would be the girl?

I was a prostitute. Yeah. What? Yeah. What? Were you- So I'd have to talk to them on the phone.

Were we all understaffed or something? They just shouldn't have you also the detective.

Well, no, you have to have... You're the one establishing probable cause. So if someone else is doing it and then you have to go testify in court, well, you're not the one that had the interaction with them. What we do, we put our out online. You'd put your photos and some stupid saying like what you're offering and how much it costs. It causes acronyms for everything. That's what I didn't know anything about this before I started about GFE, which is Girlfriend Experience, which means she'll kiss you. Full service means sex and a blow job. Then there's like Russian and Greek, and there's all these stupid acronyms for everything else. They thought they were being clever by saying, Oh, I want GFE. So they're not asking for sex. Oh, I see. So by them saying, I want GFE, or I want Russian, or I want this, they think they're being clever, except you can say, Well, based on my training experience, I know Russian means titty job, or whatever. And then so they call you on the phone. A titty job. Yeah, that's a Russian, by the way. I didn't know that.

I'll take it. I mean, whatever they're getting. I mean, it is. I'm sorry. Yeah, that's okay.

So you'd basically talk to them on the phone. They call you, and some of them are real nervous, obviously. You could tell them a long time, or say you got right to business. And some of them want to flirt with you on the phone or whatever. Can you send pictures of your eyes or your feet. The foot fetish guys are out there big time. Then the more you do it, I don't have time for this shit. Do you want to come? Are you showing up or not? You'd basically make the arrangement. Once they showed up, you already had a probable cause. They already agreed to pay you for sex before they ever showed up. Then by them showing up at the hotel, they're basically completing the entire... The elements of the crime. They showed up, they already agreed to pay you for such and such, so then you can arrest them.

Right when they get there, really? Yeah.

But depending on where we do it, if we did it, like downtown parts of the high-end hotels would let us use their rooms. Oh, yeah.

High-end hotels would let us use their rooms. Oh, yeah. High-end hotels would have to do anything in there.

Every time we did it, we got a doctor. Every fucking time. Really? The Brigham Hospital, one of the best hospitals in the world, allegedly. The Beth Israel. One guy showed up in scrubs with Beth Israel hospital on it. What the fuck? You're on lunch break? It was crazy. We got a doctor every time.

Why, you think?

I don't know. Too busy? Too busy to get a girlfriend? I don't know. I don't know. That could be it. I don't know.

I wonder what that is.

It's just interesting. I don't know. When we did it in the not-so-nice parts of town, then we'd get the cable guys and the plasterers. For some reason, I always felt bad for them. They didn't have any money, but it's the same crime, so I shouldn't have felt bad for them. They were just... But I did. The rich guys, because they got very arrogant when you tried to arrest them. They were all arrogant. We had one guy who was a Northeastern University professor, and he was on the phone with me saying, I'm a professor, and he was trying to talk me down on my prices. I don't make a lot of money.

That's what I would do. I would text him. I was like, Look, how about this? $70. Some lady's coming over for $70. I'm like, Jesus. Now I'm like, I was like, He was bargaining with me.

I don't make a lot of money. Meanwhile, I made more money than me. But I always laughed. He wanted me. He's like, Will you put me in yoga positions? That's what he wanted. He's a fucking freak. I'm like, Yeah, I got my lulus on. Come on over. He wanted to be in yoga positions, me to put them in them, and then aggressive kissing.

And when you get some weird request or anything like that? Yeah. Anything pretty wild? Were there any people want you to enjoy them and their wife, like join something like that?

No, nothing. We never got those. We got a lot of... Almost Almost everybody was married. One of them we did. We met him in a bar. He said it was the end of the night. He was too nervous to come to a hotel. He said, I've never done this before, whatever. So we agreed to meet him downstairs. The hotel had a bar downstairs. I was just sitting there. And now, again, I'm supposed to be 34. And even 10 years ago, I didn't look 34. I think you look great. I don't fucking look 34, but thank you. But so I'm sitting at the bar waiting and the signal is for me to touch my hair. And there's two cops down the end of the bar. And he comes in. I see him walk past. He comes in. The bar is crowded. I see this guy walk in. I said, That's I knew it was him. You could tell his face was... He wasn't like, Hey, I just got to a bar, and he's all chilled. He was intense. He walked right past me and went to the men's room. I looked at them like, That's him.

He's got his fucking Burberry scarf on and his $400 jacket. He came over and approached me. A librarians son. He tapped me and said, Oh, my name, or whatever. Then when they came up to arrest him, he fainted. We had so many guys faint or plaques on the bed. His face, he was white as a ghost, and he just went down. So the officer is like, Drag him out to the vestibule of the bar. We got to call Scott in the ambulance. But he's snapped to it and he's crying and shit. And he's like, Oh, he's like 30 years old. I'm like, Dude, he's like, I'm so anxious all the time. I'm trying to get my wife pregnant. I was like, You think you're going Are you going to get a pregnant by fucking a prostitute? What is wrong with you?

I mean, it's worth a shot. I'm not saying that, but I'm just saying- But you're bringing a disease.

You go fuck a stranger. And none of them, nobody wants to use a condom. That was bareback. That was another code.

Oh, they were doing barebacks.

Yeah, that was a code. B-b-b-j is bareback.

Oh my God, honey.

So they didn't want to... Oh, there you go.

Oh, shit. Here you go, bareback, sex without condom. Yeah.

And they'll ask you, How much extra? How much will you charge me for a bareback? So none of them wanted to use a condom. So they're all going home to their families after fucking some randos who's having sex with five people that day. Yeah.

How many disease-Not to mention, what township is it in?

It's Boston.

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

So this guy's bringing, Oh, I'm trying to get my wife pregnant. What are you bringing home? Yeah. Bottom bitch. That's the pimp's main girl. She's the one who runs it for him. I see that in the terminology. Yeah.

Let's see some more terms here. The in-call, the escort.

That's only B. See? They go on forever.

Were people ever asked? I'm trying to think of anything. Were people ever asking for golden showers, urination type of things?

I never got asked for those. One thing they asked me for, the guy's like, Will you do a handy? I was like, Is that a quick hand job? I had no idea what the fuck it was. My My partner at the time is googling on the Urban Dictionary, what's that? It was some crazy thing about choking, and she's on top, and then you flip, and he's on. I was like, How the fuck do they come up with these names? What does that even mean?

That's all that cirque de soleil shit people are doing now.

It's crazy. How is that a handy? Because I was like, what is that?

That's all that welterweight stuff, I think. I don't know what it is. Was there a lot of stuff people want you to touch the hole in their butt or anything like that? Like any weird stuff like that?

No, they never got that specific on the phone, but they would ask for anal. That was great. They were like, What are you doing? One of them, their clever way. They're like, Oh, do you speak any languages? Then I'm supposed to say, Yeah, I speak Greek and Russian. That's what I mean. They think they're clever. They have all these weird online forms where they talk about the prostitutes. They rate them. I forget with the page they used to rate them on. That's why we had to change up our photos and use real stuff because these guys all talk to each other, the guys that do it all the time, not the one-timers. The lifers. Yes, or dabblers like yourself.

Dabblers, yeah. In and out.

In and out. Yeah, they talk to each other and rate the girls. It's crazy. It's a crazy life.

When would a night like that for you guys end? Was there a certain point where you guys-Yeah, we call it.

We call it. The calls would start coming in the morning and we'd have higher overtime to transport all because they'd be showing up. Sometimes they show up at the same time like, Oh, shit, they come into the same room. We try to stagger the dates. We have them schedule the area hour, every half hour, whatever. After 8 or 10 hours, a boss would call it. We always did a Super Bowl weekend. It was Cook County in Illinois did a big funding thing for it. They got money from the feds, and they all agreed to do it. So at certain times of the year, Super Bowl is always when we did it. So we call it a night after we arrested 12, 14 people or whatever. She'd be like, All right, that's enough.

Stop answering the phone. So on Super Bowl weekend, you guys So on most Super Bowl weekends, you guys are doing that?

We were when we were in the human trafficking unit, yeah. But we got one guy. I was talking to him on the phone. I'm like, This guy is so fucking old. Now, I'm laughing. I was very shy about it when I first started doing it. I don't know who the hell. I'm not I don't talk to these people. I'd be all anxious, like hiding in the bathroom. So it's just eight cops in there. I don't want them listening to me like, Yeah, you could stick in my house for an extra 50. I was embarrassed. Then I got more comfortable and they would just be laughing. I'd just be like, Yeah, this is what you want. Okay. And everybody He's laughing.

One guy- Yeah, come on my fore arms or whatever for 30 bucks.

This guy sounded so old. He's like, I'm an older gentleman. I remember saying, That's all right. I'll take it easy on you. Then he shows up. He's shorter than me. Turns out he's multimillion Millionaire philanthropist from Beacon Hill on the boards of Children's Hospital and all this crazy. He laughed. He burst out laughing when he got arrested. He was a tiny little guy with glasses. He laughed. Everyone else shits himself or gets angry. But he laughed. He's the only one. He didn't give a shit. He said, I'll pay the fine. I don't care. Just get my phone back. We take all their phones. I remember I was doing a detail at Fenway Park, and he was in contact. He's like, I paid my fine. Can I get my phone back? Because we take their phones as evidence. We have to show their text messages or whatever. If they pay the fine or plead out, they get their property back because the case is done. But if they're fighting it, then we keep the evidence because we have to do a search warrant on the phone and all this stuff. He's like, Yeah, I paid my fine.

He literally showed up at the red. I'm like, I'm working in detail. You can come and get it. So I was in uniform that day because normally I'm not uniform. And he showed up and he's laughing in the car. I'm like, here's your phone. I'm like, What's the matter with you? We got money. Go get a girlfriend. He's like, it's not worth the trouble. I was like, all right, have a good day. He did not give a shit. Wow. Yeah.

Gosh, dude. Did you ever just accidentally just hook up with one of them? Did that ever happen?

No, that didn't happen.

Did one of her show up and you were like, Oh, this guy it's cute. I wish it wasn't like this.

No, I never thought, I wish it wasn't like this. But some of them weren't... That's what we say. Some of them are good-looking. You're like, What's wrong with you? We used to say, You're a good-looking dude. You can get a girlfriend. Some of them are fucking grotesque. You could see why they're paying for it. Like I said, the doctors don't have time. Maybe, I don't know, they don't want the commitment, but some of them be good-looking dudes.

Like, What's wrong with you? I think for some guys, they have their sexual experience, especially if it starts off with pornography, a lot of times, is really skewed.

Well, that's an issue. Now, they don't know what's real life.

But then if it starts off with pornography, it's very skewed, because this is an environment that's like, you can get exactly what you want out of pornography. You can just put the terms in, you get what you want, and that It's your intimacy. So that's how you build it, right? So then it almost makes... It's not right. It doesn't make anything right or anything like that. And some people will agree, prostitution is one of the oldest businesses in the universe, right? It's always been there. But some people, the next, the closest way they can get somebody is almost just trying to create the same thing, but in real life, right? So I need to create the same thing where it's like, I can get what I would like. These are my Google terms. These are the things that I like, and I'm going to pay for that.

They don't want to waste time, maybe. I don't know.

Oh, I think some people for sure it's time. It's like, I don't want to have a big relationship. I just want to have some sex.

I don't want to take someone out to dinner twice a week and spend hundreds.

And there's a lot of that that goes on, and I don't look down upon any of it. I just think it's interesting that... But yeah, the laws are the laws in those. And that's just what your experience was like with them. Yeah.

So what I learned, it's like, Hey, if a girl wants to do it, but in reality, I think 99% of the time, they're not making a dime. So they're doing it all, and the pimp is taking all the money. So that's why I was like, Well, that sucks. I had one girl who was like, No, this is how much I make. And she does what's something called sissy play. I was like, What's guys who not want to get hurt, but close to? Not like, say, to masochism or whatever. But she made a lot of money. She's like, I make $500 an hour or whatever. That's weird, I guess. I was like, Shit. My partner be like, We need a new job when we retire. Like, what the hell?

I know a dude like that.

She kept her own money, but literally out of everyone else I ever met, they didn't keep it. They had to hand it over. So guys think, When we tried to do it as an education thing, we tell the guys when we rest them, We're not doing this to her because they're always like, Don't tell my wife. Everyone would panic. For sure. Say, Look, it was supposed to be at the time like an education thing. We're trying to make you aware. These girls, you think if you're doing something, you're paying for the service, they're giving you the service, and everyone leaves happy. But the girls weren't getting the money. They were getting the shit kicked out of them half the time.

That's heartbreaking. Oh, yeah.

Happy stuff. I hate it telling people I work there because it was like a conversation killer. You'd see people's shoulders just droop. You're like, Oh, you work in the interview? They're like, Oh. So nothing good there. Nothing good happening there.

Well, it's just interesting how perverse sexuality can get and the things that cause it in our world. It's another thing why they even allow pornography to exist. I don't know if we need it as readily available as it is. We had a woman come on named Laila McElwate, and she was telling us that a lot of the pornography you see online, it's non-consensual. And so a A lot of times, you could have somebody basically masturbating or watching and enjoying a crime, and they don't even know it. They don't know. Just the whole circle of it all is depressed.

It's the same thing. It's the same thing.

But then I have friends that do sex work, and they work for themselves, and they're masterful at it.

Fair enough. If they're working for themselves and they want to do that and they're making the money, that is victimless.

Yeah. People may have issues with people on both sides of the transaction, probably have some issues, and may or may not. It could be different. But anyway, that would just be... But yeah, some people are in a weird stuff. I had a buddy, he would hire a woman just to tickle him until he shit himself.

Oh, fuck. This is some weird shit out there. There's a lot of fetishes, man. That's why I found out I started putting my feet in the photos because I was like, I got to get the foot fetish guy. Because people want them. The guy wanted me to put him in yoga positions. How does that do it for you? It's bizarre. Like you said, the guy wanted to tickle till he got to tell his shit. That's a really specific specific wish.

How do you get there?

How do you get there? Were you tickled as a kid? And we're like, Oh, no, I'm going to shit myself. And then as an adult, that's what does it for you?

Probably. I don't know where you watch a funny movie and then you have to pee. I don't know how you start.

I don't know how you get there.

But yeah, if somebody tickled me in the last shit, I would be upset. I think overall.

I think most would.

Did you ever feel like you had to be a protector for these women, or did a lot of them feel like they were in their own space and that's what they wanted, and it's not something you can really help with? A lot of the women that were in sex were.

It was a lot of the case. A lot of... I felt like you just bang and head off the wall, going nowhere. You help somebody, you get them away from somebody, you get them into a safe home. There was a woman who ran a nonprofit, a place to put these people, get them some clothes. They'd steal their shoes and their IDs and their phones or whatever, so they couldn't run away. You find them a place to stay and get them target gift cards. They can go buy a toothbrush and some soap. Then in the middle of the night, they jump out the fucking window. You're getting called out of your house at 10: 00 o'clock at night to go help somebody, and then they're like, Oh, well, she's gone. So many of them ended that way. Or they just disappeared. They wouldn't testify against them, so the cases went nowhere. So it was a little frustrating.

Yeah, I think you can't help people until they are ready for some help.

No, exactly.

What about anywhere? Is there Was there any gay pimps out there? Was it that thing? I don't know. Or did a guy ever lie and say, when you busted him, say you set him up with a female prostitute and he was like, I'm gay. I'm just joking. Happy Halloween or whatever.

No, they never tried I mean, the jigs up as soon as they show up. Most of them knew it. They'd fall on the bed. A couple of them cry. Like, really?

Yeah.

But no, none of them. No one ever tried to show the gay card and be like, It wasn't me. I'm just here for fun.

Yeah, I was just joking.

Just fucking with you.

You had a three-year investigation that you worked on?

Yeah, that was a human trafficking case that I did with with someone from Home and Security Investigations.

Okay, and what was that? Take me through some of that story. You had a three-year investigation.

That actually started with the one I told you the Girl, the music video. Okay. That's how it started. We got a call to Children's Hospital in Boston. I'm saying this girl there said she was raped in Rhode Island. I think she was 15, maybe, or 16. That's how that case started. Then we found out all she had was a nickname. It wasn't even a guy's real name. She had his Facebook page and a nickname.

Like, Smoky or something?

Yeah. I don't want to say it. Okay. Sorry. Never mind. No, the guy.

I was just guessing if it was Smoky.

No, it wasn't Smoky. Okay. She has a nickname, and we worked backwards from that. One of the Homeland Security agents drove the girl. She's like, Oh, this woman drove me to Rhode Island, but she wasn't involved, but she drove me. This is where she lived. She lived in this neighborhood. That's where I had to meet her. The Homeland Security guy started driving around, and we saw the car in the neighborhood and got the license plate. Then I started looking on my end because he doesn't have access to Boston Police Reports. I start looking for the license plate and a car that matches her description because we don't know if it's exact. I find a car, but it's a guy's name. But then I start looking for reports with someone for that last name. Then I found a woman with that last name and with her first name because she told me the girls, she knew the woman's first name. All we have is a first name and a red car. Then I find the last name in the car registration. I find old reports with this woman with their first name, the same last name, and we're like, Oh, shit.

Then we pull up the... We did a photo, Ray, to show the girl, and she's like, That's her. Then we start talking to her, and we end up going... It was like a spider web. These two guys, there were two guys who pimped her out in Rhode Island, where she did get raped by some guy. The guy in Rhode Island, I got seven years for the rape or something because she did not go willingly. Those two guys worked for another pimp. He had women all... I think he was in his late 20s, and he had, I think, 11 baby mamas and 17 kids or 14 kids, something crazy. But he had 27, 28 victims, girls that worked for him over a period of time, including a bottom bitch. She's the girl that works for him who recruits girls and is basically in charge of everything, collecting the money, whatever. She works herself, too, usually the bottom bitch. But that took three years because we were in Maine, New York. These girls went to New Jersey. They went to Vegas, California. They would drive. They would drive to Vegas and work and then drive back. But he had all these women working for him.

He was very, very violent. He would beat the shit out of the girls. He would pee on them, stole their shoes, their licenses, their cell phones, so they couldn't call home. Like I said, some of these girls came from messed up places, and it took three years to get enough people, too, because every time we found somebody, we found somebody else. That took a long time. God. That I think he got 33 years in jail because that went federal because of all the different states. That was a biggie.

Well, thank you for that. Thank you for that work.

I liked going back to the district. I liked it at the time, the schedule work, but the district is great people, like the patrolman. Because when you were in the human trafficking, there's no patrolman. It's just detectives. It's like four or five detectives and a supervisor. When you go back to the district, there's 100, 200 people there. It's a lot more fun. Yeah, you're part of life. We laugh all day and stuff like that. I was happy to go back.

I realized that stuff. I go hang out with the football team around here sometimes. It's just some of the best parts of my week because there's just people around. It's like, otherwise, my life is very much by myself. Not by myself, but it's a limited amount.

Yeah, it got old. Again, all the cases, most of them are doing nowhere. That's frustrating. I just wanted to go back to the district, and it's great people. They're the best people on Earth, and you just had a laugh all day. When it's real shitty, like the one with the guy, two women stabbed, and the dog was stabbed in the stomach or whatever. We work with really good people.

You're all there together? Yeah. You won Detective of the Year for that, right?

Yeah, for the three year. Yeah.

Let's go, Cara.

That was It's funny. Mark Wallberg was at the ceremony for the Boston Police Foundation, gave me the award. The Detectives Union did, too, but the Boston Police Foundation did it. It's like a nonprofit. At the time, they were promoting the movie Patriots Day. Peter Berg, the director, Mark Wauberg, were there for the award ceremony, gave me a picture with them or whatever. You did? Yeah.

That's cool. I'm going to have to...

I will- Yeah, they were promoting that.

I'll text Mark and send him our picture. I don't know if he probably doesn't even know who I am, but I think I accidentally snuck his number off of a sheet once.

Mark Wollberg? Yeah. Because he's from Dorchester, where I was a detective. Oh, really? Yes. Then I'll make sure to- That's where he and his brothers, the family's from.

Not even in a briquet. We always be like, Hey, this is awesome. I just wanted to let you know I met one of Dorchester's finest today right here. But congratulations. That's so cool. Thank you. Did that make you feel a sense of accomplishment?

Yeah, I worked hard. Again, it was with a homeless security agent. She did a shit ton of work more than me. She was great. We worked together on it. Like I said, it was a long investigation, so I was very happy to have it resolved. In the process of it, someone, the pimp who was in charge, who thought the first two pimps that got caught with a girl in Rhode Island that I found through a nickname or whatever, they thought one of them was ratting to the feds. So he had someone shoot one of them in the head. He lived, but not good. It was like a piece of pie was missing from his head. He could sing, but he couldn't talk. He could no longer speak. That's when I found that they said in the brain, oh, it's different parts of the brain. He could sing the alphabet and Happy birthday, but he couldn't speak. And he was not ratting to the Vets. He was nobody. He was like a way in New Jersey with some girl.

Not at that point. You're like, Who did? And he's like, DEFG?

Yeah, I was in court on something else, and one of the I'm an OP. Did you hear this guy got shot? I was like, What's his name? I was like, Oh, shit. We're looking for him. We have an arrest warrant for him. But that guy had him shot.

Man, to get caught up in such depths of darkness.

Yeah. I was glad to be done with that one.

Is most of your social life with police officers and cops and stuff? It is.

It was until I moved. Move where? I moved out of Boston. I moved to South Carolina. You did? Yes.

No way. What part are you live in?

Yeah, I lived just outside at Charleston.

Dude, I used to go to College of Charleston for one semester. Nice. Yeah. I used to live around King Street above my buddy's apartment for a while.

King Street's the shit.

It was pretty neat. It was a little bit different, but it was fun. It's beautiful over there. It's gorgeous.

Are you enjoying it? I don't want to be cold, and I'm not a Florida person.

And your daughter lives over there? Yeah. You guys got Folly Beach. That's right there.

Yeah. Iop, Palm Solvents Island. Yeah, but we live just north of Charleston. We moved there. Right before I moved, I forget where we're going with this.

What does that say? Is it most of your social life with the big socials?

Oh, yeah. Until I moved, yes. It's weird. Everyone's like, Oh, you got to have friends that aren't cops. I have friends that I'm so friends with from high school that I've been friends with for 40 years. I have a core group of girls, a few girls that I've known since high school. But it's weird when you become a cop, it's hard to talk to regular people. It's only because I always said I felt like a party trick. If you're out in a large group and someone's like, Oh, they're a cop. You got any stories? Did you ever shoot anybody? No, I didn't fucking shoot anybody. If I did, it was a bad day. Maybe I don't want to talk about it. I think that's why we all just end up hanging together because we get it, whether it's cops or nurses or whatever. They get it because you don't want to feel… You don't want to be performing all the time. I don't want to talk about it. It sucks. Some of it's funny.

Just handcuffs sex jokes and stuff.

Dick on the sidewalk sounds funny, but that was a suck morning. You know what I mean? More for that kid than me. But in a trash can and all this other shit. It's hard.

First of all, a lot of these sound like baby shower party games, too. I do want to say that. That's not what we're doing here today, guys. It's just the way things sound.

Yes. Those are what I call my chapter, my titles of my chapters of the alleged book I'm going to write. I love it. That's why I shortened it like that. But you don't want to feel like you're on all the time. That's why we hang together because we all get it and we have a weird sense of humor. We're different people. When we have Christmas, I used to run the Christmas parties for our district. They'd be like, Oh, we can section off a part of the bar. We're like, No, we have to be in our own space. We are not FIFA Public Society, I used to say, because we say shit that is not funny. It's funny to us, but if random normal people who just go about their business heard some of the shit that we'd say, they'd be horrified.

Oh, I've had very recent experience with some of that, and I feel you 100%. Wow. Was it hard to move away then?

No, I was ready. You were? Yeah, I was done, and I wanted to be warm. My daughter was already down here.

Oh, your daughter lives in Charleston? Yeah.

Oh, that's great. So I wanted to come down.

Is that your only child? Yeah. Oh, she's beautiful.

Thank you.

And are you still married or no?

No, it was. Years.

And is it hard to keep them? Are a lot of officers married? And is there a lot of dating on the force? What's that life like for- It's a little- It seems very tough.

We spend a lot of time together, so there's always a lot of relationships form in the police Department. Cops end up married to each other. I'm divorced. I've been divorced for years. It's funny, my ex-husband and his new... He's remarried a wife. They moved down here, too. Oh, nice. Yeah. So we all get along. So they could be near my daughter, and they have a child as well. So she has a brother with him. But it's hard. It seems easier now. For some reason, cops now, in my experience that I've seen, are more family-oriented than they were when I was young. There was a lot more drinking going on then. Guys would stay late in the parking lot and no one will go home. Now everyone's all about their family. I think it's morphed, whether it's who they're choosing or who wants. No one wants the job, first of all, by the way. When I took the police exam, 10,000 people took it, and now they can't even get 800 people to take the test. No one wants. It's terrible. They all hate us.

When your district attorney is not supporting you, when your government isn't supporting you.

And all over the country. No, we're not the fire department. Everyone in America's heroes. It's a joke. We laughed that no one wants to see us coming. It's just gotten worse and worse over time because we're not politically supported, even nationally. Weren't in the past. It's changed. It's hard to maintain relationships. Because we're with each other. We all work 12, 14, 16 hours a day. I can't even imagine. That's how a lot of them end up together, I think. Then again, because they understand it, it's hard for a non police person to understand what's going through our crazy heads because we're all crazy. We would have taken the job, I think, if it didn't make you crazy.

I can't even imagine. You have to drive in a car that has a siren on it, first of all, that comes time, sometimes it's aggravating. Then when you get there, you might have to shoot somebody or get shot.

I'm out. Yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot for a regular person to live with someone who's dealing with that, I think.

Yeah. Is it hard to keep the work at work for a lot of people, or is it not?

I mean, it varies by person. Some people can shut it off. They don't give a shit. They just go home and shut it off. And some people get really fucked up over it and drink too much or they're too meant to depression or whatever.

What did you think about Trump utilizing the National Guard to help out in some of these cities?

I thought it was fucking great.

I did, too.

I mean, if the mayor's not going to fix it, you can't have that much chaos in the streets. Do something. I agree. The fact that they're fighting it like, Oh, how dare you clean up my city? Are you insane?

I would love if there's military in it, especially if it helps us get to a point where we don't need that, where there's a bit of where it solves the problem.

People want it. It's funny when everyone was hating on us a few years ago, bad after George Lloyd and stuff. Everyone hate us, videotaping you everywhere you go. Cameras, every radio call you're at, the phone's out in your face. They're waiting for something to happen and they're cursing at you. They spit on you when they talk. You can't react to that. You can't be like, you can't get into it with people. What pieces of shit can do that? Everyone. That's who does it. Everyone. Every piece of shit does it. But then you find out the normal people in the neighborhoods, they want us there. They come out, they're like, Thank you. Thank you for But that doesn't happen as often as you'd like.

It is interesting. I think it is a nice reminder to find ways to stop by our police and fire departments and be supportive. One thing that's fun about fire departments, I'll say, is you can walk by and see the guys right there sometimes, right by the truck. You know what I'm saying? You can go up and say, Hey, you can go up and- Yeah, it's not like walking into a police station.

You're right.

Yeah, there you're like, Okay.

Well, it has to be secure because there's prisoners inside and there's firearms. That's true. It's different.

It can't be as open and welcoming as a fire department. At a fire department, it's just a crockpot full of freaking ballpark Franks going on. So it's a different... Now, they'll guard those with their life, some of those guys.

It's a different atmosphere.

Yeah. And there's the one guy that's afraid to slide on the pool. He just waits where everybody else goes, and then he just takes the stairs real fast. But none of that's any judgment. These guys are heroes. But that's one thing that's nice. We were in New York the other day, and they were even doing a call, and we took my buddy's son up, and he will wear his little fire jacket around town, and he'll just go get into the fire truck and shit. They come back and we're just like, this kid's in their truck.

Kids love fire trucks. Oh, they love it. That's in cruisers. They like the noise, the noise and the lights. It's exciting. I think it's cool.

Look at this. Here we go. Sean Did he come sentencing? Live updates. Comes gets 50 months in prison.

That's actually not that much. Four years.

For his conviction on two prostitution-related offenses. What were the offenses? Can you let me know?

He must have been sex trafficking of a minor, maybe.

He got acquitted of the most serious charges faced, rackettering, conspiracy, and sex trafficking, found him guilty on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. I personally thought that this whole thing was something they were trying to create during the election I don't know how they were trying to use it, but I thought they were trying to- He did some crazy shit. Oh, for sure. But do you think he was just a freak that got really addicted to what he was doing and a power hungry? From what I hear, he's a very power Controlling type of person.

I obviously don't know the gist of the cases why they charge him with conspiracy and sex trafficking with their miners involved. I don't know why. We got what just over four years. I don't know what he... I mean, you can't get them for sex party. There's obviously something there.

That's a good point. Who knows what they kept back? Who knows what got behind closed doors?

Yeah, stuff got suppressed. Yeah. There were victims don't want to testify. Was he the one with the girl he was kicking the shit out of in the hallway at the elevator?

That was It's pretty bad to watch. Yeah, never mind. You know what? Fuck that. Give him fucking 10 more years. I am. I'm sorry. You know what's messed up? I forgot about that. There's so much evil shit out there sometimes.

It's nonstop. Every week there's something else. Every day, something else comes out.

But do you think... Okay, so going back to that. So that statement, and I agree with it a lot. But if we go back to working the beats on the indoor chest when you were starting, there's a There's a better way to do it, right? There's a better way we can be.

Yeah, people have to be human beings, but there's a lot of people that aren't. That's a piece of shit for whatever reason, whether it's poverty or their upbringing or drugs, mess of fucks up families to know it. I don't know. I don't know what the answer is. It's not what we're doing.

Right. I wonder if it's what we are doing or what is being done to us that's having more of an effect on us or probably some- When we can't control it, people are going to be a piece of shit and bad.

That's not our fault. That's not your fault. We didn't do anything. We're just going about our business, having a job, getting up in the morning, going to work or whatever. The people that choose to, I'm just going to fucking rob this person. Some people are just bad people. Some people end up that way because of the way they're raised, and some people are just fucking bad.

They really are.

Just the way they are.

I think sometimes we do get caught in this space of like, Oh, we have to recuperate everybody and we got to save everybody. Yeah, they're not all victims.

There's real victims out there. It's not them.

It's not those guys. That's a good point. When it When it came to the prostitution, the pimps and everything like that, is there a certain ethnicity? Is it Asian? Is it black? Is it white? Is it Mexican? The pims? Is that whole universe of a certain world? Because you always hear Asian prostitution. Was it a certain... Or was it anybody? It depends.

The spas were Asian. Their pims were Asian. But the ones, in my experience, in all of my cases, whether they were male or female pims, because we had a couple of females, they were black. They're African-American.

Really? Really? Black female pimps, too?

They worked, yes. They ended like the bottom bitch. They ended up working on their own.

The most common ethnicities of pimps in the United States, according to available arrest data and research, are predominantly Black African-American, making up about two-thirds of identified or arrested pimps, followed by a smaller proportion of Latino-white, multiracial, mixed people. They'll pretty much do anything, and Asian individuals.

Yeah, the spas were... The people running those were Asian.

That's crazy. I'm wondering, well, maybe it has a lot to do with that music that's that culture, too, just the way that some of that music is so vulgar and bitch, pimp, and that- Yeah, stuff's glorified. Yeah, that's a good point. I think that culture has the most glorification of the music of the performers. Now, a lot of the A lot of the producers and agents of that group are white, so certainly just as much- Yeah, they're involved, too. Responsibility. Yeah. Thank you so much for hanging out. I want to know, what do you like to do now? Are you retired now?

I just retired three months ago. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Very happy. You're supposed to put in 32 years to get your full pension, but I gave up after 31. What? Yeah, 32 years.

But you still get a pension?

No, I get my pension. It's just not... The most you're going to get is 80% of your salary after 32 years. I stayed till 31 years, and I get like 77% or something. That's fair. Yeah, I'm down south now. I go to the beach. I paint. I do all the painting as a hobby. You do? Yeah.

Would you do us a little bitty painting and we could put it in here?

No, I'm fucking terrible. I'm just learning. I copy artists that I like. That's how I'm learning. It's mixed colors and stuff like that. I copy artists' paintings that I appreciate, and I try to recreate them just in the learning process. I'm terrible. I'm brand new.

If you ever do want to do something even small, it can even be years from now, you want to-I'll send you a little painting.

Yeah. My niece is an actual painter, and I told her I was coming. She's like, Bring Theo a painting.

That's cool. That's sweet of you. I'm glad that I asked. That would be really nice to have because then I can tell people who it's from. All right. Thankthank you so much for your service.

Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Oh, yeah. Thank you for having normal people on and not just... It's nice to have someone who gives a shit what we're doing instead of...

Yeah, well, I think I'm learning more that that's just so much more important to me sometimes, I think. I don't know. This whole thing has been interesting, just talking to people and stuff like that. Because I'm not really the best interviewer, but I am curious about people.

Well, that's what makes a good interview. You ask people questions. You're a great interviewer. Come on.

Well, that's good of you.

Thank You're welcome. I love the Amish kid interview. That was great.

Oh, he was good?

He was great. He was so funny. He was very well-spun. He was just very direct. He seemed so natural at it. He really did.

I know.

I see your hat there. I like your remit. Oh, yeah. That's he gave that.

That's really him. Louis C. K. Just gave me his new book. I'll give it to your daughter, but it's for boys.

It's a boy book. Is it a novel?

It is. He did a really great job writing his special- He's funny.

He's funny shit. I know he had trouble in the past, but he's a funny bastard.

Yeah, he is. I'm so glad he had trouble in the past because that's how he and I got to know each other because we've all had trouble in that. So it's good. That's great. Yeah. And in the spirit of service, we got a picture of our... This is our Jim Jeffries. He was a comedian that was on. That's his nephew. Oh, nice. Lieutenant Max Nugent. Yeah. Who was an officer in the Australian Army, and he passed away in a helicopter crash. So he's our hero. So we're excited to have him.

Nice to have him there.

Yeah, it's nice. Yeah, he's cool. He seems like a neat guy. So I'm sure we'll get to know, channel some thoughts and feelings and energy from him over the years. But anyway, thank you both for your service. Congratulations on your move. You look lovely, and I wish you a beautiful second half of your life as it evolves. Thank you so much. Thank you for bringing your daughter. We got you guys set up for dinner, and I know we're at 12: 30 Club. That'll be fun.

That's lovely. Thank you so much.

Yeah, I appreciate you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah.

Lovely to meet you. Now, I'm just floating on the breeze, and I feel I'm falling like these leaves I must be cornerstone. Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this peace of mind I found I can feel it in my bones. But it's going to take...