A Word on Words; 2220; Jan Golab

i mean the word and words the program building into the world of books and there are there is this week and the lab talks about the dark side of the force i'm your host for word on words mr johnson chairman of the freedom forum's first amendment center at vanderbilt university and on guns involved in looking toward own words today's story is about police corruption the los angeles police department and i guess the author can go and welcome to a world where agree to be in your book is the dark side of the force it's a true story and about two police officers who turn out of the killer's robbers these bandits the worst that's right what was so amazing about this story jones at these are to supercuts and they're like thirteen fifteen year that's detective foreign office above and the worst ever really thought they were great guys he had stacks of commendations worked above and beyond the call of duty and they were

eventually our arrested for attempted murder murder for hire of the armed robbery of a jewelry store on day on robert bales is still very bold they also were running and i'll call prostitution service dealing automatic weapons committing insurance fraud they're like a two man crime wave and nobody had a clue you know the whole nation now i'm not about to go on dates rodney king has made him famous of that infamous case brought him down in effect that meant that it's fair to say you open the story without gates in his office listening to tape recordings that he simply does not wobbly i mean it is so shocked so stunned by the tapes one of the results of richard ford time for talking with the unlikely hero exactly or you know the rodney king case with the officers can plow

got all that worldwide media attention because of the videotape that this was the case that really was the worst criminals family history the lapd it happened just prior to a number of foreign bundles were arrested nineteen eighty three and these guys were cold blooded killers and which never it happened in the year of one hundred and seven year history the only outlet had a number of you pointed out they've had a number of scandals in the police firemen the so called red squads the officers who were surveilling surveillance on private citizens and then they had the hand me a hollywood or hollywood parties and then than they had the year this count the girl scouts gamble thanks for scouts gamble with which were all like nothing in their first really compared to volunteers and onboard on those and ford were well we set our staff they really were below and also what was so amazing is that these were such good about seemingly good cops and that's also we're

calling on it that the case also had a great deal of resonance you know the itch it revealed as he says his tape recordings of that detective for one of the big themes of this book is the legacy of vietnam as was the culture of the lapd and the universal elements because a cop to really descended into fall from grace let's talk about let's talk about forty long seemed to me that when you have a lot to live on those the community thinks that he is a good and he got older he was incredibly was a hero of the bob ought to call them officer bob he was on juvenile officer in the san fernando valley and he was probably the most high profile cop in the whole valley old business leaders and politicians whom he would work above and beyond the call of duty to set up big luncheons for the hell's police athletic league or the dance the deputy auxiliary police who was a friend of celebrities after david soul and robert fuller from wagon train and nobody was to recall he had the best you know

our everyday everybody i interviewed and everybody who heard a trial winston said he was in the upper one percent they'll use the word gifted to talk and a gifted police officer he had extraordinary people skills he could talk a guy into jail he and he had just had a way with them away with kids like nobody can believe he was like the pied piper and all the kids loved him all the principled would call that the school anytime they had a problem and but meanwhile he was also this incredible businessman they call them the division scrounge or because he was always selling something out of the back of his car he was making for building condos are playing the stock market he owned a horse ranch they call them the simi valley cowboy a cozy lived in simi valley where i had a horse ranch in and he boarded other people's horses he owned a blacksmith shop and it was a land award and it was also a world class womanizer i'm the guy was just aren't as it's a real piece of work now is that an interesting profile of him and now let's take a look at at richard forty years

and you're the other side of the colon well detected for an eye you hear about police stress cases he was like the hall of fame stress case this is a guy who want head up psychological promise from his childhood a mother like abused and neglected and he was wounded terrible violence in vietnam the war ii was a war hero and was wounded and adults suffer from delayed stressing that he was shot and almost killed was a police officer suffered from stress and that and then his wife who was an arty the bus driver was brutally raped while honorable basra late at night in this like triggered additional all about problems with the way the stress and he was abusing substances and drinking and he had a just thought as one of the psychiatry is set at their death penalty phase this was a guy had like four cases stress cases all it wants but what's interesting is that detective ford was a world class actor his public persona was that he was the most popular and cordial police detective ed denture division which was like this nice suburban home the vision and he lied really do get into that vision exactly

he wanted only was under such great stress they've afraid of the christian coalition in an epidemic that one of the things that he was and then he had to get out of there it was going to do something violent on the streets he was in the er in central division real high crime area and he wanted to get out say one and told a pre shrink and shrink that has been a shooting on the next oprah be saw you know that he had this attitude that what was so amazing about this at a later he was heard bragging that that he did this to get himself put it in a desk and in this nightclub they're they called the major division demonstrate emotion was an upscale some as an urban community and therefore he lived and died in a nice home nice wife did both these guys have looked like in the san fernando valley businessman you know the interesting thing about him is the first will you bring up finely in the trial you learn about his childhood goes that's when his mother and father come testify and talk about his stepmother about that stress early in his life the vietnam experience runs all through the book

primarily because he needs bruce a very early on and bruises as wide though is that unlikely he really was bruce adams worst debris detective ford had this public persona of being very together was a great actor bruce adams was the opposite he was like a poster boy for ptsd he looked like he looked like a stress case he was like that dustin hoffman character rachel rizzo and we have a simple answer when photographs and perhaps we'd take a look at those photographs were talking about both the officers and about bruce fein the other outlets and the low sunlight on the right and forth on the left as the arraignment photo from eighty three when they were gone they arrested like i said they're not well dressed there but banville a summer when he was our uniformed officer speaking polish she was like the view could any of our police officer speaking polish perfection detective for nora's of the asean been detected were nice business suit usually

and then you have a bruce aside are likely years adams was an auto mechanic who would say senile very heavy combat and it was plagued by nightmares terrible stress you know he had he had all the limp because he had a pin in his leg and in his hands would shake the small and his problem was he would not recognize that he had a problem with the late stress he had this real macho john wayne attitude that you know those guys who said the arabs are stressed world or bomb scammers you know trying to get up and the whole settlement or something and he finally had an accident that almost cost his life because of his city would guess out you know because of history there such anxiety attacks that he wanted in the va hospital where he met detective for who was also there for these group meetings they would have a stress and color of vietnam stress case encounter group and bruce met detective for their and football became his friend and then eventually ford and bundle us said bruce up in his own auto show and they

called it the chatsworth international automotive coming right like an international automotive and then bruises as the prosecutor later said it was like every citizen's worst nightmare years the dream of his life in his own auto shop and all the sudden he discovers these two cops wanna use it as their tapering headquartered at savannah and the kapor is that they damage than automotive shop antibodies mechanical jobs a night i had an escort service was really was a prostitute that they set up an escort service in the backroom folded classy ladies and so they'd pour bruce there he's fixing cars by day and drive and jokers around town at night and you know he couldn't believe it and then they also seasoned bring in that that that they're using it as a charter bring in stolen cars they're doing insurance canceled the dump and cars down the ravines of people can collect on insurance or no automatic weapons one case he is required to go out and rip up your card so that a fellow author and collect on insurance ayatollah's had a cop buddy marijuana and cari one of the clock on the insurance

so that you know and anything is bruce you know bruce was struggling he had four kids on and he didn't eat the waiter at the trials that brought up that he was a sleazy character and there was an element element to that he was he would look the other way or it could make a buck doing something like this but then he got wind of that he started overhearing conversations we got wind of some very heavy parts including murder for hire well it brings in young woman we also have joe low literacy are angela garcia is now joan she was identified in press accounts as this exotic dancer hooker but the truth is she was really a housewife was vanna what she was like lincoln early thirties she had three kids going through a nasty divorce she was gonna lose her house and she met officer bob the hero of the san fernando valley who helped find one of her kids when he ran away from home and good old officer bob help her refinance her home so that she wouldn't lose that he is their savior like her brother and

naturally project involving second vault officer bob header sign a joint mortgage insurance policy for a hundred dollars undoubtedly eurostar the other is protected not exactly and so then the plot became to have his buddy detective for his henchmen your kidnapper rape or torture thumper body in hollywood make it look like a sex crime so cool it's a spectacle officer bob i thought no let's let's go back just a moment because bruce our unlikely hero is not the innocent they've been the woods by this point that that the other euro should be coming he had been on a typical job with richard ford where they won over the car i think it's an automatic weapons yes well he wasn't really a willing participant in fort invited that's when he first found out they were dirty cops ford says rights and to go out on a hunting trip to colorado and at water halfway there driving eakins him a badge and adam says what's this if anybody stops you you know your officer eric

adams you know what an undercover operation and enforces were really going to get some automatic weapons you were a weapons expert numbers certainly didn't expect them now now about this time about the same time bruce is why other mothers your shirt visits richard ford widely l williams says paul vi when shirley says that the rebels are nicer addictive vipers out to colorado and williams's oh surely are so naive he's a little younger than on their lives she was live and she knew where it was coming from iraq or you know what's interesting both these guys lived it up they had beautiful homes my schindler's nice clothes nice could afford at a cadillac are they like to go out and what was nobody suspected anything though because on in the san fernando valley a lot of cops would moonlight and have businesses on the side of a security firms or this or that and ford told everybody that williams family had money and end up and dove on false of course are such a hustler nobody was surprised to know that

you're there and lilian lillian ellison from herself and she worked hard and boyd associate and to this day i understand the sort of feel some semi responsible for the downfall of her husband who she did suffer this horrible brutal attack an end and she went through a long period of recovery or she was so traumatized she would literally i have a scene in the book review she says would sleep enough in their closet with a doberman synagogue with a gun in her hand you know she was so uptight aunt and this could and she would that store you know yellen and her husband richard ford to go out and find the rapist to an end and richard forget all right people including bruce well i am taking care of the wheel the way we did it would be probably didn't but that the perpetrator was never found another it's become san fernando valley for glory now there's the story of the prettier while a bus up our tv bus driver whose brutally raped honor our route and little did the perpetrator know that her husband was that killer cop from the valley who

found them and tell them that that story is often told and done liz good reason to believe that there was a puzzle element is quite possible for bragged that he got to hear the guy that they've never been able to prove it and it may be some reason that may be some innocent fellow just fit the description and it varied know him in the desert somewhere that's true well let's talk about a body that was good now that doesn't well allegedly never found his body they know that big they'd heard and also we're told though was overheard by bruce and that you know there's a lot of desert between here in las vegas and a lot of this was another case again or bruce overheard these phone conversations there was a woman named jenna lily who had op op then she was going through a bad divorce but let's talk about how how can only comes into the story that i found that fascinating well it is again bob and those had this thing about helping women in distress he was for it he would make friends with all the police with those but he made no i didn't bring them together club of christmas parties and picnics and barbeques and things like this and the

same way he befriended joan literacy all he befriended a woman named joyce reynolds who was a police will and he became like a godfather to her daughter julie raible and aren't actually worked for this woman dr janna will be she had all on a blood testing clinic where she would test blood for allergies and she worked for her end up in her husband tom lead on old ollie and we were married but it was one of these modern she didn't use his name and they were terrible terrible divorce analysis is there as like a staff of some twenty people at this lab and they would yell and scream at each other and throw things at each other with a very loud messy divorce and channel movie was worried that time we'd was gonna try to take care for business and this divorce and doc so literally juliet at some point and joyce who got to be good friends with on dr overby says it wanted to fire hit man in an informal way and at some point they want a turning her onto officer bob banville us and he then ordered your shopper's overheard

phone conversation they combined those and this woman joanna lovely and are talking up you know what i don't wanna way in texas at some seminar you know and this this and that and then later russo also heard find those telling her you know you owe me another fifteen thousand though the war ii there's a lot of desert between here and all this is sort of programming into his head this auto mechanic escort service operator and above in vietnam vet and one thing about bruce is he's not stupid and another thing about that whatever he had done down deep inside there was a basic decent instinct and when it suddenly dawned on him that they're afforded failed to kill joni that first night now he's talking to bruce and says were looted heather i give you twelve five and after a profile and will culler there was like like a savior greece when it when they really came to the point where he knew they were killers knew we had to

do something would happen with low as you mentioned detective for disguise himself as a result the sky dr ana teresa de a professional wigs and makeup done by hollywood cosmetologist for some other papers aided this armed robbery looking forward and wearing these disguises a detective for want to rejoin the curse your work as an eyes of an exotic dancer ended or three hundred dollars and wrote a note and said meet me at the hollywood glen motel art and joey backing of all real looker was nervous and she asked her body bob on fellas to checked this guy out never been good old buddy officer bob and he did me so he got decades ago for joining is a bridge pharmaceutical had a lot of ferment he's he's safe he's ok she met him at this motel and during their motel encounter bob grant know united center to remember when we came in and this at all noble really turns me on the way you do my wife doesn't understand me and a latina and so they had heated small of making going on and during the course of this

week is she season coming down on her we're ever with some object in his hand which she went she sees it quickly hides it under the covers and mojo a tour and she gets all uptight and grams are close and leaves it turns out he had a drop show getting into michoacan and so then she called her seventies she had become friends with and and i told him the story and immediately bruce knew when she describes the death before dishonor military tattoo with a skull and crossed the new was detected fourteen and he knew within view from he knew about the insurance policy and he now knew what the plot was and he's the only one who knew and he had a good thing to go to federally out was to killer and to collect the internet to look like a sex let alone a dozen all insured so the profile that he's been the bruce is going to get out is out another tunnel entrance off states the kinetic and after he was acquired by atf agents alcohol tobacco firearms they convince him he the only way to get these guys the goal on with the plot you have an interesting job of an interesting aspect of this first floor he does not trust the lapd for

good reason so know and so we go see are called back a farm family i says look some become an ally in a day about this and he talks to these two federal agents well a fellow agents do trust the lapd and then the big own internal affairs division lapd and they say the sun trust you we do and they bring lapd into a bruce is hearts club jared and then an n and the truth of that is this whole thing started ten years ago he's hinted that the day is still as i call bruce the unprotected witness this went through us six years after they were arrested in nineteen eighty three there were six years of hearings and trials two yearlong murder trials took longer to remote to select a jury in this case than it did in the hole can call trials and bruce wasn't his life was uprooted he lost his business his family had to be relocated to his symptoms jump and one from cheap motel which involve all the investigations and trials and

testimony when i enter and then after it was all over in nineteen eighty nine they were on the convicted so in a way the folsom prison they just cut him loose the problem was that it it wasn't tried in federal court so he didn't get into one of these federal witness protection program where they have all these resources to relocate you it is your identity theft and high heat headed dude on self relocate himself finds establish a new identity get new employment move his family and he's still out there on the zone under new identity worried that these as a protocol now when you hear from a new uk call him he can do it on the warriors' he called me occasionally and and and he doesn't want anybody to no worries you know i mean maybe i'll add up to play the first really writes a well known in the story is a thrill it is a suspenseful if it were fiction you mean when i you know i didn't know what the cause of it reads like a novel in the fact is stranger than fiction writers and that and you eat well the historic from chief

gates hearing that tape right through the trial right through the sentencing life without without the pro a probation and let's get to those tapes that it was with the people whose homes and richard ford playing on not often that not yet what was so appalling about these tapes at library journal interview that referred to call the unparalleled depravity and it and it really is what you have is bruce adams and attack before who are bodies from the delayed stress group their ninth and for adams is acting like he's going along the killer and they spent three hours driving around in a van in the streets of the san fernando valley plodding rehearsing this sex torture mutilation murder and attack and they're like two guys in a foxhole a lot of talking and they are acting like their own of operation in vietnam and a critic of free associate in back to your horse in atrocities in vietnam raging north vietnamese nurses training commanding officers all kinds of horrible killings and an anchor chain smoking cigarettes and pumped up to a feverish

pitch and in the languages as you can all imagine my guys in a foxhole as is as blue as you can imagine it's you know what guys in a foxhole do they they get sober frame that they laugh about her faith is also racist oh yes well you know detective for make some very racist statements he talks about wanting a loyalist to shoot and shoot niggers and as the stadium with a knife because of the advent of what i remember when daryl gates except express it shocked will run again matter as if you never heard anything like this before but by the los angeles police department and the us oppose it but it may be unfair on the park not only one to the other but clearly the red flag did not go up for what it said there was even a better red flag went up in the trials of this case there was no videotape in this case of people one thing they were paying attention to the crime story they didn't pay attention to the revelations about the lapd that came out in the trials here and one of them was that this us versus them mentality was

widespread as we mentioned earlier detective ford went into shelters please reconsider and i'm assured the next crew nice if you don't know the streets they spot what you need to know that there's this mentality it was it was while well known in the department that this attitude happened a cushy job and there's not a club yeah exactly now i know what i think bob lewis would say in a minute that lapd in this case cleanup of song last week had that internal affairs division moved in and they did the irs both ford and bongos the same night as soon as the state was sure was made adam fleets of the car today rice or just as they were pulling up at midnight to where joan rivers who was working a lot of these guys are talking in this horrific dialogue like i said the police swooped down dishes or reform was hiding under cover blankets in the back of the van which was in the thick of joanie shoes limited immunity mcgregor by the neck of color in the back you know and i'm going to drive off into the sunset diseases in and do work on but they were arrested and yesterday i had to

be off very fair once the lapd got on the case they did a very thorough job of the singing every officer that knew these guys as a marvelously were wehrle joni see the room for the first time in custody because he's in kodiak like the us or hold the rooms was only when they were given his family out of town and didn't find out to a few days later she starts to attack and what you were going to do the mayor maryland the top so funny perspective yeah later in a room he says this man to say that there's a gentle and your life in a very touching it on thursday to by the fact that you had your own tapes later on during interviews with the whispers that members and ford and von miller's lawyers both tried to get it you they wanted those tapes as a defense in the court would let him how exactly it out of rwanda believed over a six year period of one of the leading to a landmark

decision in the california supreme court which were granted protection to all freelance writers i what happened was i had done eight hours of tape interviews i did two men using stories on this case i was the only one who had interviewed bruce adams the star witness and so the democrat there would they arrest him the death penalty in this case they're like you're a dessert or four years of hearings and the criminal defense attorneys for foreign bundle us are they were subpoenaing everything going on they subpoenaed my tapes and they dragged me into court and says well we won't hear tapes of bruce because they wanted it showed discrepancies between what he told me what he had told atf lapd two i add in every noble bruce was interviewed by everybody you know the fbi and you name it the da and i refused and i thought the most protected under the view among former editor for playboy contributing editor of los angeles magazine had been writing stories for twenty years i feel who's the shield law for you know and the judge do inform me that the brits are you know you're not the list of freelance writers are not

covered under the california shield law he said to show up tomorrow with a good boy or new toothbrush because women are taught in jail but the sprinkler california healthy youth they did judge ruled my favor and it won over a period of years it went to the hotel apartment filed into the supreme court and they rule that freelancers should indeed be covered under the shield law when you write what's your regiment salaam the morning right through the day i do i try to i find that as a man nearing completion of a private i wrote that role like a train you know and it and i'd start working pretty much around the clock they've become sort of been dry years as it as it builds you know with that with this book towards the end in a couple months there it was like being in a field putting all the pieces together an unknown working around the clock that's a rough one do you do you look at the aptly a finnish thought before you send an interview this diffuse admitted into syria and juliet published not by concrete welcome the first

half jindal abdo author of the dark side of the force as then our guest on a word on where your host ben johnson involve chairman of the freedom forum's first amendment center at vanderbilt university this program was produced in the studios of the bbc in nashville