L.O.G. 195 Why would the perpetrator call 911

Alright, Greg, well, a happy Groundhog Day on this February 2nd when we're recording this in the morning. So, I don't know if you guys do anything. I went to the bathroom, and it was a number one, and I saw my shadow. So, oh, that's it: six more weeks of gastric distention. I don't know, it's 14 below here, so of course, the winter. That's exactly, exactly. That's my IQ for today. Yeah, yeah.

Alright, so for everyone listening, we appreciate you tuning in and checking us out today. We have a sort of a listener question we're going to get to. We love when we get these. This was a great one. I'd go through and kind of sterilize some of it, but it's from a case a little while ago. So, I'll kind of read this off, and then we'll jump into what it is.

So, here is the case from a police officer, and so here's how it goes:

Dispatch received a call in the late night, early morning, from a male stating that his girlfriend had been jumped and needed medical attention. Officers arrived on the scene and saw that the female was naked on the bed, severely beaten, and having a hard time breathing. The caller, who is the boyfriend, told officers on the scene that he and his girlfriend were at a party earlier in the day and that he wanted to stay at the party longer, so his girlfriend walked home, which was several miles away from where the party was at. The suspect said when he got home, he found his girlfriend that way. So, this suspect kind of gave a visual description of the person, said tattoos, including on his face, that looked or appeared to be like criminal or gang member tattoos. And then, when they did a quick history check, he said he was on probation and recently released from prison just a few months prior to this event, and he had nearly a dozen domestic violence restraining orders.

So, even though this was all observed at the scene, for some reason, no one thought they had enough evidence to detain him for further questioning. And just as a caveat to that, he's not armchair quarterbacking this, neither are we. These types of things happen all the time, which is why we're going to get into this discussion of, you know, we have to have evidence to arrest a human being, right? We live in the United States still. So, it just just wanted a kind of caveat there.

But then he said the suspect did agree to come to the station to answer questions and was brought in with a Beheler admonition, which we'll get to. And detectives interviewed him. They noticed he had a swollen hand and complained about it while they interviewed him. However, he was eventually released. So, after the victim — the victim survived — came out of emergency surgery and then gave the statement that her boyfriend, that suspect, had beat her and stabbed her in a jealous rage. Now, the suspect is now on the run.

So, the question that the listener was asking is, you know, what can you look for? So, this was all there, but how do I articulate this? What can I look for in an interview, in a situation, talking to someone, that kind of will help you detain a suspect in the situation? And he also is, you know, is anything about the behavior, what can we articulate, what's legal, more and ethical, right, in this situation? What can you prove? And then you also wanted to know, why did the guy call the cops?

So, that was the ask from one of the listeners, which we appreciate in reaching out. And so, I'm going to throw it to you to start off. I just want to give those facts of the case.

Yeah, and so let's do this non-sequitur. Let's not follow a pattern, Brian, okay? Because there's so much here. Yeah, yeah, there's a bunch, okay? And I want to kind of jump around.

The first thing is, I want to get back to why this person would call 9-1-1. But look, you're a copper, you're a trained investigator. I don't care if you work HR or if you're a parent. Here's the idea: you're a suspect. First of all, you're not sure he's a suspect, okay? But, but hold on, you kind of have that inkling, right? Because even when you wrote to us, you said, "Well, hey, this person looks like what I've seen," and that's a good point because you use the term suspect, but we know that now, right? That's now, you know it now. At the time, it would be the reporting party, right? Or, yeah, a witness, whatever. Exactly.

But if you're thinking of both sides of the issue, like, for example, you and I both disagree with this, "Hey, you can tell on the voice of the 9-1-1 call." You can't tell shit. But now you've got a situation where I have to start thinking this person is grievously injured and might die. He's thinking the same thing. And when I say "he," it's he or she or whatever. Yeah, whoever calls. Yeah, he doesn't know if she's going to live or die, and so he's already working the alibi. Why? Because he went to jail last time. Why? Because there were witnesses. Why? Because this witness is either going to finger him for the suspect or she's going to die. And so, I need some distance, I need to give the time and distance.

The most common legal challenge is identification. That means that in court they say, "Well, it wasn't me," or, "You couldn't have told it was me," or, "There's nothing linking me." Right? You're saying, "Wow, what a big chance to link yourself." Now he already knows that there's going to be DNA evidence all over the place. He already knows if she dies, he's going to be the number one suspect. Suspect, yeah. So what he's trying to do is he's trying to get his, his version of the truth and timetable out on the table.

And you're going to say, "Brian, you're not," but an average human that hasn't had the training experience that we've had is going to say, "Who would risk that?" And I would tell you, anybody. So, anybody that's got a lot to lose is going to look at this and go, "Holy crap, the stakes are very high. I'd rather be in charge of these next few hours and days than have you in charge of it." That's why he did it.

And that's a, that's a great explanation, not just for this case, but for other ones, right? Because you always get your kids, "Why would they suspect do that?" Or, "I would never do that, what they would do." And the people try to, and that's horseshit. It's horrible commentation. Somebody takes it.

So, so he, like he said, he wanted his version of the truth, he wanted his story. He wanted it to be out there first. It's a lead, right? And he wanted to buy himself the time. So, I've got a swab, and I'm going to do an oral swab for DNA. And I go, "Would you voluntarily submit?" Yeah. "Well, why would you voluntarily submit?" "Well, because I know that you're never going to find my DNA because I have been at the scene." And then they find the DNA, and now the person's on the run. It happens all the time. Why? Because humans lie. Why? Because humans have been given the innate ability to communicate with other humans and sometimes to lie during those meetings because it's in your best interest as a survival mechanism. So, however your brain equates survival to a situation is how that interview is going to go. So now, that's why I wanted to start there, Brian. So, let me know.

Tied lying to the survival mechanism, which is exactly what it is, which is sometimes why you can tell deception because your brain is trying to keep you in, your brain thinks you're in a survival situation. It's arguing, like your prefrontal cortex, your prefrontal cortex knows what's coming out of your mouth is complete BS. So, that sort of cognitive dissonance right there. So, you're trying to manifest yourself physiologically and biometrically. Yeah. So, go ahead, sorry.

So, so no, no, but that's, that's a key point, because sometimes I forget we're on a podcast, and I think it's just you and I talk. What I'm trying to say here. No, I, have you ever done that where we're going like that? We do that all the time. I apologize to everyone when we don't explain something because Greg and I get lost in our own company because we're having a ball, you know?

So, so police interviews are used to obtain evidence or to determine the relevance of evidence that you might have found through a conversation. And that conversation can include questioning. So, so that's why Miranda didn't apply here, and we'll get to that in a few minutes. But Miranda is a four-point standard that comes up when you have two things: you have to have custody and you have to have interrogation. Now, you can't interrogate somebody unless they're in custody. And you say, "Yeah, they're giving them the third degree." Well, if you're not in custody, it doesn't apply. That's just an intense interview, right?

Yeah.

And so, the idea here is, I want you to think about it. Okay, we always think the worst, and you coppers got to stop doing this. You're always thinking in there that it's some kind of chess match. Not a chess match, it's not a chess match. Checkers at best. And it's, it's a weak game of checkers too, because, and I take it back, and I wrote you this just this morning before we came on, yeah, the role of the scout sniper is to support the intelligence preparation of the battle space. You know that, I know that. Not just long-range precision fire, but gathering information for intelligence purposes. Why? Because, and I'm speaking from somebody that's not a sniper that uses snipers, I use snipers because snipers are great at getting into places and look, listening, smelling, tasting, and giving me the feel. That's underground. Now, if they got a kill, of course, they're trained amazing killers. So, coppers, that's your role too. Your role is to take a look at what the evidence is telling you, not try to put it together in a way like a chess match. So, it behooves you because the evidence tells the story. And guess who else tells the story? The suspect and the witnesses.

So, rule number one: SDFF. Okay, shut the fuck up and listen. So, when you get in the interview room, and there's so many books and, oh my God, so many methods, and some that we completely patently disagree with, and the number one thing is, if the person is talking, you know what you do? You keep them talking. So, let's think, you're Hippocratic. If the person's breathing, first thing we don't want to do is jam a dirty sock in her mouth. She brought their airway for students. No harm, right?

Yeah, exactly.

This person wants to tell you a story. Great. In that story, there may be some elements of truth. It may be a total fabrication from the word one. But if they're voluntarily and freely giving it to you, then you know what, Brian, start taking notes and start jotting down. And use a pregnant pause. "Go on." And you know what I'm trying to say, Brian's favorite, "Go on." Why? Because I cannot impeach your testimony if you don't give testimony.

Yeah.

And by the time you get on the stand in a legal trial, okay, or I have an arrest warrant for you, the rules change, change. Now it's, it's back to that checkers game that you said. But the, the rules to the checker game are so imposing that, like, now you waited too long. "What?" "Okay, yeah, you touched your check, so you have to use that one." "What?" And, and now you're going to be playing catch-up. So, the idea is the person that was on the ground. Well, first of all, Brian, we know that witnesses are generally the worst witnesses. You know their way. Second thing is, sometimes victims. I've known people that were victims of a crime that made what appeared to be a deathbed confession, and it was all hogwash because they were under what? They were under duress and they were under gas. They think, where, you know, somebody had pumped them full of a bunch of drugs and they said, "Oh, yeah, I was raped." And you go, "Wait, you're here for a car accident." They don't even know what the heck is going on, right? So, the idea is that we don't want to be led around by the nose. We want to sit down calmly across from a person when they'll allow it and we want to say, "Listen, I'm here because I need to hear your story. Okay, what happened?"

Yeah. So, that's it, that ball rolling. That, that's, that's always a good place to start, and in a number of situations, any type of interviews, questioning, talking to someone on the street. You know, how many times have we done that? Whatever. Walking into a business that we're going to work with, and someone strikes up a conversation, starts talking. I try to keep that going as long as I can and find out what, what's on their mind, right? "Oh, why do you think?" You know, let them talk, let them have their say.

So, you know, because, because he did ask, you know, "What, what can we, what can you do in those situations?" So, obviously, one, if someone's talking, you let them talk. You let them keep going and keep talking. So, you know, the other thing is then, like you said, you could obviously impeach that testimony later, right, when you have other facts to prove that, that thing exactly. "Wait, you said you were here at this time, but you know this security camera here shows you leaving at this time." And then now you have some discrepancy in there, and so you can, you can sort of impeach their testimony in a sense. And then let's say they clam up.

But go there just a little further. If you want to impeach their child testimony, let's say that they clam up and they invoke the right to an attorney. They don't have that right when it's a voluntary interview, of course. And you can, in other words, unless you're in custody and there's an interrogation, the four-pronged standards doesn't apply. You could just get up and play. You don't need an attorney.

Yeah, and the court understands that, right? Yeah.

So, but the idea is, the idea is that you don't even have to impeach their testimony if they walk off. Imagine the power of a bench trial or a jury trial where you go, "Well, he was talking to me voluntarily, and he set up this timeline. Here's the interview, here's the video, here's his words, and now he appears before he. So, is his memory better today or was it better when, when he was in there hours after the victim?" Do you see how that can work to your benefit? So, the idea is you, you sometimes don't know the relevance of the piece of information that you have, right? And this is why I keep using that sniper example, Brian. Do you think that all snipers, every time they saw something new, knew the value of the intelligence that they were developing back? Sometimes they don't know at all.

Yeah, it's the smallest thing that for someone else it was, "There's one fighter," somebody comes up. Yeah, you got it.

So, so, and I'll give you the example here. You and I know this conference, you and I know the situation that he was faced with. So, you and I know that there were people that were at the scene, and there were people at the hospital. And this guy is voluntarily, who called 9-1-1, is now voluntarily accompanying them to conduct an interview. This is the perfect storm for good or evil. One, if you don't have communication, cross-communication, you're going to miss a vital cue. "Hey, guess what? We found high-impact blood spatter." Well, that certainly doesn't go with what we're talking about. "Or is there another suspect, or was he what's up?" Right? So, that information is only as valuable. Like, probable cause never dissipates, Brian. It can withstand the test of time, but evidence is very different. Evidence, if not you, like, for example, in this case, we know that the, some of the first investigators on the scene thought that the female victim was not going to live. They didn't think that she was going to make it. That changes the timeline. The other thing is during this investigation, with the transport to the emergency room, they found stab wounds. That changes the entire dynamic of the situation, right? But if I'm in the interview room, and I'm going to go on, and I'm just taking notes, and I don't understand that there's been a change. Yes, I don't understand the change in the relationship between me and the person, person I'm talking.

And that comes into just, you know, you're talking about like updating your hypothesis here. You know, you're doing any information. Now, this is the time that OODA Loop actually applies. Yes. So, you're, you're, you, because you'll start going on that trajectory and you're going down this path, right? And if you stay on that path without taking in new incoming information, you're going to get off, you're going to be off, right? So, now I'm going, "Okay, well, I got to talk to him. This is what he said happened." And then, "Well, wait a minute, there's stab wounds." "Uh oh, we didn't," you know, if I don't know that at the time. So, part of that, it's a communication issue, which, which is going to happen, right? Yeah. You have the most relevant information before talking to this individual, right?

And I, I remember one time, and it's just popped in my head, but it's a perfect story. As I was sitting at, I was hanging out with a couple of my buddies, and we're at this bar near my buddy's place, and we're having a beer. And at the time, my buddy was, he was, he was seeing, he was dating the waitress that worked there. So, we all knew her, like, we were friends. My other buddy who just came in had no idea about that relationship. So, when she's coming up, like, hanging over us and, like, you know, talking this. You know, she walks away, and my buddy just immediately goes, "Oh my God, that girl is so into you! He wants a blah, blah, blah." And he's going on and on. My buddy goes, "Yeah, I'm, I'm dating her." And he's like, "Okay, okay, oh my God, one, gather all the facts." "Knowing what we know now," what movie was that in? Do you remember? Yeah, it's such a, "Knowing what we know now." I can't remember. Completely different. But that's, that's the idea is you, you have to do that. But those communication things are going to happen. So, it's, here, here, let's, let's put a point on that.

You, you come up with that great thing. Don't walk away from it. Know who you're interviewing. Is this a suspect? Is this a witness? Could it be a little of both? Okay, was this person even at the scene? Could they be, be a mentally challenged person who wants to insinuate themselves into an investigation? What you don't know is what's going to screw up your, your ultimate testimony in your court case, right?

Well, and that, that's to the point of, okay, well, wait a minute, you know, you're sitting here and saying he had all of these arrests. He for domestic violence, he was on probation, just literally just released out of prison a few months prior, and this happened. Now he's a likely suspect, right?

So, you know what you do as a copper, you look at him and you go, "Hey, I love that you came down to talk to us. I hope everything's going to be okay with your girlfriend. Obviously, we're as interested in you and what happened. Got to tell you, somebody just told me they know you from being in lockup, and it was for domestic violence. So, yeah, that, that kind of makes me think that what's going on here. But I'm not going to, I'm not going to take a side. I just want to hear the story." You know, you don't hide the fact, you know what I'm trying to say. And then if the person's going, "Oh, you're going to make me go," "I'm not making you do shit. I want to hear your story. Tell me what happened." Right?

Well, and, and so this is, and I just to everyone listening, alright, you know, I want us to be careful in this because when you get into different interview and interrogation techniques, there's all kinds of stuff out there. Some of them will probably sue if I keep saying what I keep saying about them, so I should stop. But, absolutely, agree in some are hogwash, some are really good, but they're very context and relevant-space. Yes. So, that's the point on all of them. They're all heavily dependent on specific contexts. Whereas what we're talking about is a general approach to any conversation, interview, interrogation, whether that's even with your kids. Yeah, that's what you say, right? You know, the grocer checking you out at the grocery store, you know, as they're ringing you up. You know what I mean? Those type of conversations. So, we keep it very, very general because some of those things that are out there have led to people giving false confessions. So, I'll, I'll leave it at that.

So, let's throw this, the, the Beheler. You, you talked about the Beheler warnings earlier on, the admonition, right? But it's a warning, and the warning is like, "Look, you're not under arrest, and you're free to leave whenever you want." That's all you got to say.

Yep. And, and the idea is that when you, when you're a cop, sometimes you go too far because you're, you're trying to outthink the suspect. I would tell you to take a knee here, and I don't mean the Copernican knee, I mean a metaphoric knee. It's not important that you tell the suspect or the person being interviewed any substantial facts. And cops can lie. They can create a ruse, going, "Well, you know, they just lifted your thumbprint off of the headboard." You can throw something out there. But why would you want to in this specific set of circumstances? Okay, because you could screw up a substantive due process by telling this person that, "Hey, listen, confide in me, we're not going to arrest you." You get what I'm saying? "Well, no matter what happens, you're walking out of here tonight." You don't know that, Brian, you don't know that. So, doing that is, is violating a sacred trust. So, my thing is, before anything, think of Hippocrates and say to the person, "Listen, I want to hear your story," and shut up. Now, if it's relevant to say, if the person starts saying, "Now you're not going to listen to me because I've been in jail for domestic violence," and you go, "Yeah, that's not me, man. I didn't put you in jail for domestic violence. I need to know the story, and the more we know, the better we can help out your girlfriend." Right? So, you can say things like that to keep the conversation going, but limit the scope, because if not, the person's going to go, "I see what you're doing." You get what I'm saying? "I'm not stupid." So, don't be stupid. Go back to that checkers. "So, hey, it's your move." Well, that's your move. That opens up a whole conversation, right?

And that's what I was getting into. It's another point about some of the different techniques or tactics I see people using or teaching or talking about. And again, maybe in some specific context that might work, but a lot of them are parlor tricks. And I don't always mean that, I don't always mean that in a negative way, because there are sometimes we use parlor trick kind of things as an example, like in class, when we talk about like some handshakes and how to get someone to move from one place. They're like, "It's a trick." But here's the thing, if I know the trick and you use it on me, well, that changes the, that changes things drastically. I've had that on calls before where someone was doing, I forget which one of those was like, where they repeat back part of what you said, and then they use it in their word. And they, and like, I'm like, "Hey, you might want to fucking stop doing that right now, because you look like an asshole right now. I know exactly what you're doing. You're trying to manipulate the conversation, which means you're not being genuine with me, which means you can fuck off." And they're like, "What does that do to your trust level?" Because they do not try to stop the window. And are you going to build it? Are you going to build it after that? Well, that's right. You know, this one's a good one, like you said, to notice something, okay? Like he's talking about his hand being hurt or something like that. You know, it's like, "Okay, we'll do stuff like that." I, and we've both done it, and there was one that used where I think it was a guy was limping and you're like, "Oh man, you must have slipped on that ice back there. Me too, I'm kind of limping too." And the guy was like, "Yeah, yeah." And it's like, "Oh, oh, you're just going to fall in line with my story. We just happen to have the same exact thing." Or, "Or they're going to go, 'Oh no, man, actually I was working on my farm,' and you know what I mean?" Like there's a reason for it when you do that stuff.

So, the leading question, the leading question can get you into trouble. Yeah. So, the idea, and again, this is so context-dependent, right? Yeah. So, I, I will tell you that in this situation, and you know me, Brian's worked with me for a long time. So, Shelley and Sean, and when they see me do an interview, you would be convinced that I got hit in the head really hard. Yeah, because I'm forgetting stuff, I'm asking the suspect for a job, yeah, ridiculous stuff. And why am I doing it? Because I'm trying to distract them that this guy's a buffoon and he has no idea where he's going. And so, I would hold up my own hand and I would go, and hold up the wrong hand, you know me. And I would go, "Hey, so what's with the hand?" And the person would say, "Yeah, it's really hurting now." And because you want them to tell you about the hand, why? Because sooner or later, you're going to have evidence again to impeach or compare.

And look, anytime you're creating a new conversation with a human you don't previously know, because that changes everything too, if you'd arrested this person before, or if you know this person casually or intimately. Okay? So, but you're meeting a person for the first time, so what you don't have is a baseline for comparison. So, the first thing you're doing is the BAD test: Baseline Plus Anomaly Equals Decision. So, I'm never going to get to the decision in this interview. I may, after the interview, walk out and go, "I have enough for an arrest warrant or search warrant," or, "You know, this guy's the wrong guy," right? That's going to happen afterwards. So, what do I have to do inside? I have to develop a baseline. Baselines change with new and incoming information.

The point of OODA Loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act), write it down and stop using it, okay? But if you're going to use it, separate, right? Because I hear that on, the guy asked that question the other day when we were on a podcast, "Well, it's just like the OODA Loop." Shut up, because it's not. So, observe, orient, are something, and the decision action are something. So, there's two different steps, right?

Yeah.

And the decision-action phase is ongoing. Why? Based on the observe and orient. So, you have two types of information. You have the new and incoming information that's changing your perception, but you also have the baseline information upon which you're drawing reasonable conclusions. So, when you're in a firefight, a dogfight with an airplane, by the way, Charlie and I the other night had popcorn and watched that new Top Gun: Maverick. I'm ripped compared to some of those folks. Ripping my shorts, maybe. But the idea is, I thought it was a great, it was a great romp. You could put your brain on a shelf. Yeah, no, it wasn't, but they didn't, I didn't, you know, they didn't go into any weird, you know, it was just a good action movie. There was no message, we're having fun, right? So, so it felt good. It was a feel-good. And afterwards, you know, I made passionate love alone again, yeah, you know.

But the idea, though, that I'm getting at here is everybody tries to misapply John Boyd to a setting, "Oh, it's great in the business world now." Now, unless you're in a business where a bunch of fighter pilots. Okay? And again, the idea of it is this applies in this situation. Ask a pointed question. Okay, for example, "Hey, I've hurt my hand before, and I know how bad that feels." Okay? What you're doing is you're telling your story. Stop for a minute, think about it. Whose story do you want to get? You want to get a baseline, so you want to get his or her story. So, "Have you hurt that hand before?" That's a valid question. Do you get what I'm trying to say? "Did you hurt that tonight?" "Now, it's on the way home, I slipped on the ice," like you said, right?

Okay, the idea is that I don't want to start asking. Your first instinct as a copper or a parent or a teacher or HR is you're going to want to stop. "I caught you in a lie right there." The minute you do that, Brian, you might as well throw the rest of the interview out the window, because now the person's going to go, "Hey, I, I'm, I'm under the gun." Don't do that. What you got to do is you got to make sure you're not under arrest, you're free to leave whenever you want. "But I'd love to talk to you. I'd love to listen to your story." "Well, you're not going to take me seriously." "I'm taking everything you say seriously. I'll write it down. You don't want me to write it down, I'll record it. I don't record it, you're in charge here. So, the next few minutes or a few hours, you're in charge. Tell me what happened, buddy." You, you know, and when a person, "Don't call me buddy." "Well, you tell me what to call you. You want me to call you Frank? I'm going to shut up and sit here. You state your story," right? You know, "Tell me your story," because without a baseline, Brian, you have nothing for comparison. And go, go get a warrant on conjecture, right? Yeah. You've got to speak to judges before many times, both sides that are bad. But the idea is, boys will be boys, only deal with facts. You can only swear to what you know. And people go, "Well, cops can use a ruse." Yeah, you can use a ruse. Try to use a ruse in front of a judge. Can't be in a federal prison.

Yeah, there's things, is if you know that becomes uncovered, some, and this deck goes back to some of the tactics or techniques I see people use. And even if they, they work, it's like, "Yeah, they work because that guy had a shitty defense attorney." That's why, because if they had a good attorney, you created, you would have got this, created a carbuncle.

Yeah, and, and that's okay. It doesn't become successful because someone goes, "Oh, I used this before," and then you get to the one where it didn't, didn't work, and now that's the actual person who did the crime, and your case got thrown out. Equate that as being a Marine. I'm going to take you back, okay? This is regression. Have you ever gone into an AO (Area of Operations) where your unit has to do the, the, the left seat, right seat, and change out? And before you do the swap and the, the thing, you start looking at the ground truth and figure out that you're going to have a harder time getting into this AO because the previous unit screwed up a lot of stuff. They booted a lot of the wrong doors. They were a little heavy-handed. Off, right? Okay? And, and guess what? You don't want to be that investigator because every time Tommy gets in there, "Hey, that started as a disorderly arrest, and there was a bunch of them." And then the next thing you know, he got a full confession. Listen, an admission or a confession is fantastic, but do you need one? No, you don't need it because more cases are solved on circumstantial evidence than any other factor. And if the person's talking to you, and their story doesn't add up, and you have evidence to corroborate your claim, you don't need them because they're probably not going to take the stand anyway, right?

Right.

So, you must have your case in chief strong enough to go ahead. And what we're trying to say is, stop like, do you remember My Cousin Vinny? How many times have I testified a line in my country? But you remember when that Macchio is standing there and the guy says, "Uh, uh, uh, you know, you said at that time to me, the sheriff, that I killed the guy at the Second Suds." And he goes, "I said that?" And he goes, "Yeah, you said right here, I killed the guy in the Second Suds." And what he said is, "I killed the guy at the Sexists." I, he was in disbelief. But the idea is taken out of context, Brian, right? First of all, hilarious film, yeah. But, and that was D-Day, the guy from Animal House, that was a sheriff. Yeah. But, but second of all, Brian, those are the types of things that can happen. So, if the person wants to tell their story, let him tell the story. Same thing is you better serialize that 9-1-1 tape, and you better save it for a good long time. Why? Because it's going to be important to show that there was no coercion when they called 9-1-1.

Yeah, from the police. So, that starts building your baseline, where, well, before you were actually interviewed. Well, and that's the thing is it, too. And then it adds to, "Hey, look, I'd love to come and talk to you. You don't have to come down. It's on you. You're not under arrest. You're not being detained. You're free to leave at any time." Like that, those things are like, okay, they went on their own free will. And, and, you know, with everything that we're talking about, a lot of it's not just dependent on the context, but it's dependent on you, the person asking the questions, right? So, sometimes I see people try to learn a style or use a method, but it doesn't really work for their personality. So, what you have to do is take, take what, even what we're talking about, or someone teaches you, go, "Well, how would this work for me?" Because your approach is different than my approach, which is different than someone else. But that's personality dependent. That's because of how we are. Like, I can't do what you do. That would be, it would look, it would look so ridiculous if I was doing the same thing you were, because people, like, I don't know, because I would be awkward. So, you have, you have to be sort of genuine and authentic anytime you're doing this. So, you have to really want to know, and you have to seem genuine, right? And so, that's the biggest thing is taking all of these different things that we're talking about and putting in.

And to go back to the, even specifically this case, you know, we're talking about getting someone to talk and drawing that out and getting it go as long as possible. Because what happened in this specific case that we're talking about was they did find more evidence, sort of after the fact, that after the person had been released. And then when the, the victim came out of, you know, the emergency surgery and said, "Yeah, this is, he's the guy that did it." So, now he was gone. Now he's on the run. So, the idea is it's, it's a time thing. And then you can see that build in their head, like, you know what I mean? So, it's, there, there's ways to do that, and I don't want to get too specific, but it's, it's more learning about your own approach and how to do that. And that's why when we do those different, like, you know, exercises, sometimes it's, you know, in a shopping mall, we'll go ask, go find out, "What did you find? You observed something, did you go, go up and conduct a street interview on someone? How would you approach that person?" Right? "What's that? How do we start that street interview?" You've seen me do it, I've seen you do it.

Well, the best way to do it is walk up and go, "Hey, how did that start?" And when the person goes, "Hey, it's none of your business," then you go, "No, I'm actually a film student, this, whatever else," like that. But, but how many times has somebody told us, "Go mind our own business"? I don't remember. Very rare. I don't remember. They don't want people to know about it.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's more evidence in support of whatever it was we thought it was. But yeah, everybody wants to tell their story, right?

And so, and I will equate it this way. Let's look at the other side of this coin. I want everybody to think of this. We're going to do a mental exercise right now, whether you're driving, whether you're watching us on Yoo-hoo, or whatever the hell you're doing right now. And it's Groundhog Day, so look for your shadow while you're answering. Do you remember the first time that you got punched or slapped and you never even thought to bring your arms up? The very first time that someone hit you when you're completely unprepared. Okay, that's what it's like.

Yeah, well, listen.

That's what it's like being unprepared when you go in for an interview, and you're getting to like that person, and all of a sudden somebody comes in in your ear and goes, "She died at the ER," or, "That guy's got two extra stab wounds," or, "Hey, did you search this guy because we're missing a gun?" Yeah. Okay, all of a sudden you get that. But, or now there's another side of that coin, that's when you think you've got the person on the ropes, and you're there with your Streamlight and you're wrestling around on the ground, and the person smiles at you, even with the broken nose and the black eye, and goes, "You think you're the first person to hit me that hard?" Okay, the idea is that you going in with your preconceived notions is the absolute worst, because your biases will start taking over, and you'll start thinking that you're clever.

If you go in with the intent to conduct an interview and get as much information as possible, and less is more, you talk less. Like even the word "and," "Well then what happened?" "Oh, and where were you guys?" "Oh, okay." Doing those type of things just to keep the person rolling down the hill is going to be a much better strategy. If you notice, think, if you noticed a hand, the fingernails, all that other stuff, you can say, "Hey, I got to throw a fist. You got a minute?" And the person will say, "Yeah, yeah, go ahead." That's a normal thing. That person then when you come back, come back with two coats or something. But when you step out, go, "Hey, this guy's hand swelling up. He looks like a lefty because he signed the waiver of notifications with his left hand." You get what I'm trying to say? "Hey, call the scene and find out if there's any whatever." Because what happens, again, it's your point, that central communication layer, I need to know updates along that. "Did she die? Do I need to stop at this point and say, 'At this time, you're not free to leave, you're under arrest,' right? Because something has been divulged.

But most of the time, and specifically in an interview like this, you're going to underestimate your opponent. You're going to think, "Oh, I'm more clever than this person," because they're thinking they're outthinking you right now. That's why they didn't invoke an attorney. Is they're thinking, "Hey, I got everybody but the judge." Nobody tries to outthink a judge, but everybody tries to outthink a prosecutor or defense attorney. Everybody tries to think that I'll outthink that copper, right? Like, if they didn't, why do people hide stuff? Hiding is a demonstration of intent. Why do people hide stuff in their house? Because they think they're smarter than the SWAT team. Yeah, go to white belt, stop thinking black belt. Go to white belt and go to the simplest rules of my line in my search warrant. The, the idea that you hid this stuff is going to figure prominently in your prosecution. "Well, he didn't know the stuff was illegal." Yeah, that's why he went nine steps to hide it, right? You know, with the smell and behind the wall and the thing. Right, right, right. This is one of those times I'm telling you that the person that's across from you is smarter than the average bear. And if you start being condescending or trying to outthink them or use some parlor trick on them, they're going to resent it.

So, when I walk up to a person on the street, I never lie to him. I tell him, you know, "We're doing scripting for a college course that we're doing around the corner, and it looks like you guys were arguing about something. You mind if I ask you about that?" And what do they normally say? "Well, I guess so," right? And then you go, "Okay, what just happened?" And then they start talking, and then the next thing you're sitting down and they go, "Billy was there and Tommy was there," and they're pouring out their heart to you. You've seen that. Yeah. So, so why do we want to potentially disrupt that or violate due process or lie to a person that we don't need to, right? A ruse and a lie are a little different to me. A ruse is to get you to say more. "But it's funny because she's got an injury that is pretty consistent with the ring on your left finger there," you know. And then the person goes, "Well, that's bullshit, because I didn't slap her, I choked her," or whatever, right? Okay, but if you're thinking that, that you're thinking Hollywood scripting, you're not thinking real life, right? Because the res gestae (spontaneous statements or actions) and excited utterance principle of arrest is where a person makes an excited utterance and tells you or shows you something that they weren't thinking they were going to divulge. And that happens when what? Divided attention.

So, Brian and I, folks, we create a lot of flack, a lot of useless, go-nowhere information. So, you're a little bit off-center when we're doing the interview. But we still let you talk. What we mean is, we prepare the room. For example, we make sure that you're facing the door. Facing the door means that you know there's a way out. Yeah. You make sure the door is open, so you know those little tricks of the trade, which we won't go into further here, but on Patreon, we'd be glad to. Are those types of things that can change it? And some jerk in the room wants to be a sniper, and they're saying, "Well, yeah, but it's an officer safety issue." Look, if you have an officer safety issue, the person's a suspect, and maybe they should be in handcuffs.

Yeah.

And this is no longer a consensual interview. Yeah, I mean, come on, Brian, if I'm afraid of the person, you know, or you're a real dick, and it's a witness, and they want to punch your lights out because you're being a jerk.

Yeah, and no, and it's so rare, it's got hen's teeth, right? It is. And it's, and that's why kind of it goes back to there is no, you know, magic trick, there is no hidden piece of the puzzle, there is no golden puzzle piece, there is no any of that. It's, it's just getting people to talk, right? And especially situations like this, where the guy came up, okay, you know, he's used to, he's used to beating up women, okay? So, that's, that's his go-to. He has no problem with physically, being physically violent with women. So, what does he do? Okay, he does it. Now, this time, "Oh man, this went pretty far. I better get her some help. I can't have this happen. I need some distance. I gotta come up with a story now. Okay, maybe if I call them and say this," got it. So, that stuff is, is thought of. "I control the narrative." But it's, it's, it's, it's, you know, it's, it's very juvenile, right? It's very in the moment. There's not a lot of extraneous details you can add to that, which is why you bring up the "keep them talking," because they're going to perjure themselves, right? They're going to say something later, they're going to give something away. And then, you know, again, even as simple as, "Oh, man, like, let's get her some help. Let's figure out what we need to do here. Are you okay?" Those things to help, you know, kind of bring down the guard a little bit and, and, and just continue with that and, and letting that person. And that goes back to kind of you as an individual and how you do that, that, yes, you gotta find what works for you, right? And then you can add in those little tricks. I mean, the big one, you know, I always do.

So, when you're going to, to meet someone, you, you do something very specific, because you're, you're a big guy, you're loud, you're Greg. And, and so, you know what you'll do sometimes when you go up to ask directions or something or ask for something, you'll kind of like shrink down and hunch down a little bit. You'll grab the bottom of your jacket and seem a little unsure and say, "Uh, excuse me?" And you look, you make yourself appear because I don't want to look like a predator, right? You don't want to come up to someone and they go, "Ah, get away from me," right? Or same thing, yeah.

Every time when I go meet some, when I meet someone, I lean in with my ear, right, to like you sound like I'm trying to listen to what their name is, but what I'm really doing is showing them my jugular and carotid artery, and I put my, my hand facing up so they can see the inside of my palm and inside my wrist. Why? Because those are signals to your primitive brain to go, "This person is not a threat." And that's all it is. It's, it's de-escalating a situation before, you know, you may even need to, before where it even starts. And so, that just enhances the dialogue. So, so that's what works for me. You have things that work for you. Those are the things that you can use just to create some sort of communication and connection. Because, like you said, exactly. You know, the guy called 9-1-1, so he wants to get his, his story out there, right? So, tell him that.

Yeah, so that's what I'm saying because otherwise, yeah. And would have found her and then they would go looking for, they would have put it together eventually. But he thinks, "Okay, I'm smart. I know how to do this. I'll get the story going, give myself a little time and distance here." Does that kind of make sense? And psychologically, what do you think?

"Thanks for being here. I would shake your hand, but it looks like you hurt your hand." Yeah, stop. Don't say another word. Okay. Then I do non-sequitur. I do not in order because it works for my brain. My brain is a pretty chaotic place anyway. But then I'll, I'll go all the way through what they're talking, not interrupting. Because interrupting, like I know some people that use an interruption, "Wait, wait, wait, go back." And they use that as a tool. But, but it's not your story I want, it's theirs. So, I'll, I'll let them say something. And now they've given me three things that are in a logical row. "Yeah, then I came back, and I noticed she was on the couch. Well, then I turned on a light, and I noticed she wasn't breathing. Well, then I noticed, holy crap, I'm standing in some blood," or whatever. And then I'll go, "Wow, well, you called 9-1-1." And then I'll stop. Do you get what I'm trying to say?

Yeah, yeah. "I called 9-1-1 because I was afraid of this," and it, "Oh, okay, but you called it as soon as you got to the house." "No, no, like I said, I was coming in the house." Saying clarification of a certain point is fine. Yeah. Once, what? Once you've established a baseline and asking those questions, when you ask them, tell them, "I, I really don't understand that. So, you're saying that you did this?" "Yes, I did that." "Okay, well, talk to me about that then." Let them go, right? Because the more that you get down, once the attorney is there, the attorney is going to say, "No." The attorney's going to say, "And, and listen, we counsel people all the time, get an attorney." Why do we counsel them to get an attorney? Not because you're guilty or you're not guilty, but an attorney is versed in the law, and there's subtle nuances within the law that you don't know. So, have you ever been to an opera, seriously, ever?

I had to go to an opera. Okay, I had to go on an opera. And, and I got to tell you that it was downtown Detroit. I was a little bit high and a little bit ripped. And I went and I didn't appreciate anything about the opera. Since that period, everybody who's on there, the opera's the most beautiful thing in that. I didn't have anybody to give me the relevance, yeah, to the context I was experiencing. Yeah. So, to this day, I feel like an ass because I don't like opera. I don't want to hear anything Peer Gynt can kiss my ass from the symphony. Why? Because nobody taught me to appreciate that. You don't know in this person's story what's necessary. So, shut up for a minute and let them get a lot out there. Because the next interviewer, the next detective, might be in on that, and they might go, "Hey, you got the missing piece of evidence in the calendar case." That's why I'm telling you that the sniper doesn't have to be an Intel officer. All they're providing you is information, but it's timely and relevant information and based on the context of the crime.

And that's why internally, when these things are ongoing, it's always good to, with whoever's involved, "Okay, what do we know right now? Got it. You know this, you know this, and this guy." "What's our plan?" "Well, here's the thing." Yeah. "What's the plan?" And then, "Hey, this is, what do you need to know right now?" So, when something happens, we all need to be immediately updated, right? So, that's like in this case, the, "Hey, okay, boom, now that adds to the narrative there," right? To go, "Okay, that changes the course of this investigation," or, "That changes what else we need to look for," or, "It opens up a new layer," and whatever that artifact or evidence is. You know, that's why it's so important. And, and you'll, you'll realize right away whether, whether it's significant or whether, whether it just sort of falls to the floor as, "Well, turns out that's actually not a big deal," right? Or, or whatever the, the, the case is. So, I, I think the communication part is obviously huge and important, and, you know, knowing, but knowing that you don't know everything when you go into the conversation, that's where you need to start. And, and not wanting to be surprised by something in there, right?

You ever see a butter sculpture or an ice sculpture or one of those cool things? I've never been invited to a place.

Yeah, yeah, some of the places, like the Butter Land for Easter. Oh, yeah, yeah. And it's very intricately carved.

Okay, I'll tell you that I don't get invited to a lot of five-star places, if that's what they are. But I know of their existence, and I would gather, just for my, my street knowledge, that they don't put them together by duct taping or melting ice together to get the form. They start with something that's much bigger, and they carve away anything that doesn't look like a duck or a person or the, you know, Rodin's The Thinker. So, what I'm trying to say here is you come in thinking you're going to put these pieces together. What I'm telling you is let the person give you the rich, full view of their world and where it goes and where it stops. Then you can go in and you can start carving away the bullshit with evidence. With evidence that, that contradicts it. And you know what? Not every, not everybody that's lying to you is guilty.

Yeah, I might be cheating on my significant other. Yeah, I might be cheating. I might be dealing dope in that house, and I don't want you to find. Exactly. You know? So, so, you know, "Hey, we, we were at, you know, this place, and we shouldn't have been there."

So, the idea is the more information that you gather, and, and people are going, "Yeah, but there's a time element." No, there's not. Okay, she's going to live or she's going to die. The wounds are going to heal. They're not now anyway. So, so, right. So, so why would you allow yourself temporally to add a level of stress that you don't need? And do not do it to the suspect. If you look at your watch or act like you're out of time or go take a phone call, you're going to lose their interest. But you know what you can do? You can say, "Hey, I'm parched. You want some coffee? I'll make some. It's not very good," right? That's easy. Or, "Hey, how about I order a pizza? You know any place in town that's a good pizza joint?" Now, what are you doing is you're building rapport and maintaining trust. Building rapport: one, be prepared; okay, two, know who you're about to talk to; three, set up the battle space, that's your job; setting it up for established rapport and maintain rapport; five, established trust and maintain trust, right? And, and if you can do that, you are trained as a copper to take charge of the incident and always be the one directing and talking. This is the first time in your career that you need to shut up and back up and just listen for a while.

Yeah. And, and you, you bring up, you know, the component that we, we mention a lot and and haven't gone into detail about. But, but time is, you know, it won't, it's, it's relative. We, we, the reason it's like the show 24. It's a ticking time. Once we start involving a ticking clock, a countdown, it heightens everything. "Oh my God, now there's a level of stress, now there's a level of complaints, now we have to this, and it's got to get done by now." And realistically, you know, you have, you always have more time than you think you do, or you can stretch and manipulate time to your advantage. And when you get the, when you, when you understand the concept of, of time literally being relative because it's relative. You know, I, I, you know, we, I've talked about the, the Greek version of time. There's two, there's Kronos and Kairos, right? There's Kronos being there's 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes an hour, right? Very specific measurement. And then Kairos being this perception of time where things can slow down or speed up. And that's how life really, really truly is. I mean, time is very relative exactly if you're exerting some sort of ticking clock on it because it's a shift change or a news, a press release has to go out, or we're holding a conference, that changes the situation. And, and I, I wish the situation, yes, and not always to your advantage. Typically not to your advantage, right? So, though when, when you look at time that way as, as sort of a mental construct versus a how many minutes are in an hour, it kind of frees you up mentally as well. I mean, physically and mentally, to understand and take in more information. So, I, I always like to put that, that's what you talked about time.

I would say the combat distance is so relative. So, what is the distance in this caper? That's what you're hitting on, Brian, and I don't think you, the, the viewers might or listeners might understand that. What you're also saying is you got to distance yourself from the case. If you put yourself in the shoes of the victim, if you go, "I have to do this for justice." If you say, "I've been a cop a long time, this guy's not going to get away with this," or, "They're not going to lie to me. Nobody gets out of the interview room." What you're doing is you're setting a standard that you don't need to set. You know, your job is simple: gather information, gather information for which later to process it.

Now, Boyd was different because Boyd was in a firefight, and so what he tried to do is he tried to take one of those comic, you know, the little blow-up dialogue that Popeye was doing all the time. It's kind of good-looking, you know, that that sidebar conversation and say, "In the moment, these are the things to consider." But the reality of this situation is, without training, you're never going to have the time because you added time as a constraint. So, if you take time away, it's no longer a constraint. Distance, now distance yourself from it and just have a conversation with this guy. It doesn't matter that, look, how do you think you talk to BTK? BTK wanted to talk. How do you think they're going to talk to, to this Oregon homicide? So, yeah, what's your story, Kohberger? Now, if he lawyers up, which he's going to, but he's still going to try to release information, yeah. Okay, calling news sources on their own, you know, have you heard of those things? Yeah, why? Because the person's going, "Hey, nobody's paying attention to me." You ever see a Hollywood starlet get a star, get a DUI, or get arrested at an airport for something, and you go, "How stupid can they be?" Now they want to get in Florida.

That's actually a great example in general. When you look at different, just famous people, influencers, people who are famous for being famous, or actors, or whatever, exactly. They have to come out with their comment on some topical issue. And, you know, everyone, I don't even know why we, we entertain these, but people choose to entertain them. And, and they're, you know, they're really just doing it to remain relevant. Because you're like, "Wait, when's the last time?" Exactly. "In a movie, what are they selling?" So, let's talk, are they trying to come up? Let's take a minute to explain that.

Yeah, no, you, you're onto something here, and let me, let me extrapolate. So, there's a show called Top Chef, now, is that it where the chefs go together and there's like three chefs that are judging three new chefs and they come up, yeah, they have a basket full of things, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, so I, I, Shelley likes that show. Yeah, those are great. And so does our dog. Yeah, so she loves the cooking show. I can't stand them because anything that has conflict resolution in it is like work to me, right? So, I'm constantly on, and I hate it. But I've seen, I'd say probably three or four episodes where I watch them in their entirety so that I can draw a reasonable conclusion upon. And in every one of those episodes that I saw, the judge was moving something around on his plate with a fork and go, "This is undercooked, and it's inedible." And then said some, and that person ended up winning. Okay, because of the context and relevance of what they were being judged at, and you didn't know what they were being judged on because there's more things: the presentation, this, that. I think that the restaurant, the editing, made something inedible.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

But why do they do that? They do that to throw you off the scent, to make the timing, to make it confrontational. They do that, folks, stop thinking about that. And in this situation, the last thing you want to be is confrontational. You don't want to play good cop, bad cop. You don't want to walk in and act like a simpleton. You want to make sure, know who you're about to interview, what my goal is of this interview, did I set up the interview room? What are some of the things that I think that could go wrong and derail me that I can stop now? Increase comms with the other teams that are on the street. And then, Brian, what do I know?

Yes. What do I know? What can I prove? Right? Yeah. And what needs, what's missing from my evidence chain?

Right? And so, I would also have a plan, always, always, officer, have a backup plan for what happens in the room and outside the room. So, a person understands now that it's changing to the suspect relationship, and they want out, and they will, in fact, go through you to get out that, that portal. The other thing is, if you think you have enough to make a custodial or the person's no longer free to leave, have some kind of sign, have some kind of statement so it goes seamlessly and flawlessly. And train for that. You don't have to have a real suspect in the room to train interview techniques with your squad or to have them prepared to arrest the person as they come outside, right? It's just like I read a great thing about show-ups the other day, and people are still showing up by bringing the suspect, the likely suspect, the person you're trying to believe is the suspect, to the scene where the crime happened. So, they're driving that person in a police car, in the backseat, to the 7-Eleven, having that person stand out, shining a flashlight, and the guy says, "Yeah, that's him." Well, that's so one-sided and biased. Now let's change that dynamic. You're talking to the person, okay, you're in plain clothes. The police car has the 7-Eleven guy, and they drive by, and the copper goes, "Hey, you notice anybody over there in the park that you recognize?" And the guy goes, "Holy crap, the guy in the blue jacket's the guy that robbed me!" Do you see the difference there? So, that's what you're going for. You want it to be objectively reasonable the entire time. You want to be legal. Do you want it to be, you want to think this out. But you can't do that when you've got a high-profile crime. You got to do that in training before you have a high-profile crime.

No, that, and that's, well, that's a whole another. I can't believe that that still happens. I can't believe that the cops beat that guy to death on, you know, you didn't beat him to death at the scene, but he ultimately died. I see those things, and they defy logic. Why? Because, Brian, we've both been at police academies, and we've trained at police academies, and the kick to the skull, you get what I'm trying to say? Come on. So, if you choose off the menu, you reap the whirlwind. So, as an interviewer or an interrogation, or a sniper, or whatever your role is, yeah, you better do your homework.

Yeah, that's, it's not, you, you can't color outside the lines ever. And, and every, you know, you can, it doesn't exist. Well, it doesn't just destroy, yeah, it doesn't just destroy that case, it's, it's everything you've ever worked on.

I mean, that, that's, that's the issue too. It's not, it's your body of work, yeah, your relevance, you're just your honor, your, your word, right? So, yeah, so I, I, and you know, I, I, we, I think we, I think we covered everything that they, they definitely had questions about. God, I hope so. On this. And you know what, this is why, you know, we don't, we don't teach TTPs (Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures), but we teach Human Performance, Cognitive Performance, Human Behavior. And that's why, because you can use it in all these. There might be great TTPs out there, but the problem sometimes is, one, if the person knows these TTPs, it's not going to work. And two, if, one, if they're, well, I would say first, one, if they're talking to you, then, you know, you're, you're on a good, you're on a good start. You know, they, they, you know what I'm saying?

Only you, precision rifle shooting, you're the problem, not the rifle. Like, is what you're trying to do is let the rifle do the work and not screw up the shot. Like, this thing is designed to hit that target, don't, don't get in its way, right? And, and you don't always know. Listen, have you received a list before of high-priority targets as a sniper? Coppers think of what I'm talking about. There's also a list that comes with that of lower priority. But, you know what? If you see this person, they're good for meeting, if you know what I'm saying. Okay? So, if you have that going in, then you have more than enough information to do your job. But you may never know why somebody's not going to call you, and you go, "Do you understand why that person's B on your list?" That's not your job. Your job is to go in and get information. So, copper, first, do no harm. Get in there and get that information. And if they're talking, you got to admit, now, we could do two episodes on how to get them talking, three with some practical applications. This one, it's much.

Yeah, that, that's a, that's something that we, we can talk a little bit more about some of that on the Patreon side for sure. But that's all for more of an in-person type thing, and not, not, you're exactly right, for the public podcast that anyone can listen to.

Precisely. And that's the insider game because, listen, we're not going to tell you how to be a good crook. You know, I can tell you this, you can't teach you how to find a good trick.

If, if you're listening, you ever wonder why we don't get into more detail on certain things, it's because we're protecting what we're talking.

Yeah, you're not the only one listening. Yeah, you're not, you know what I'm saying? It's not. There, there's a lot of things that people talk about and do and put on YouTube and on podcasts that they absolutely should not be. And so, we try to stay away from doing anything like that because it's not appropriate. And I think what people, a lot of what people are doing is just wrong, and you're giving information. But, thankfully, most bad guys out there aren't sitting around studying this stuff. They're learning the hard way as they go through life and, and have a fairly low, low level of sophistication.

But some of them are pretty organized and a higher rate of recidivism. Yeah, no, you're right on. So, so yeah, we're not talking about sophistication, organization, because a lot of, there's a lot of people that are repeat offenders that have a high degree of organization. Oh, yeah. And you're going, "Why, why do they get caught?" "Because we've seen it before." Yeah, that's what they're not getting. They're getting better at it, but guess what? You set a pattern. You said that pattern that you said is so hard to break. And so, guess what? It sort of defines you. And that, that rich tapestry that you've defined, if somebody taps into it, they go, "Hey, this is him, this is the composer." You know, that's how they, they see art fakes, right, Brian? Somebody matches the brush stroke. But when they get into it, they go, "Hey, the amazing thing is, this paint wasn't available during that time period. And there was a great fire at the cathedral, and there's no ash in the paint." There's, so, as hard as you think you thought of your excuse, there are scientific methodologies that are meant to break that down. So, you're not as clever as here.

There is a good one. There is a good one on, on Netflix. I can't remember the name, I'll put in the episode details when I look it up. But it's, it's actually about a guy who, he was a sommelier, so he's a wine expert. And he, what he did was recreated older wines, their labels, everything, had this aging process, and would sell these rare, rare, you know, sometimes 40, 50-year-old wines or older with these rare vintages. But the, the, the reason why he got away with it for so long, could do it, was he, one, he actually knew wine really well. So, he would find that, take the notes from the flavors of what it's supposed to be, and you would find wines that you could buy today and mix them to get something that would be close. I mean, you're not going to get someone who's going to open and go, "Yeah, that's the '67, whatever," you know, "I remember that." No, it just has to be close enough. So, he was so good at that part of it until some wine family saw some auction where they went, "Wait, we didn't make that type that year. We didn't start it till the next year. Where did this come from?" And then it all came crashing down. And people were buying. And so, it just reminded me of that, that very simple way of doing it. And, and he was actually able to recreate that. And it's no different than someone doing it at a lower level on the street. It's just not as, well, you just did is you epitomized this, this hour.

Yeah. So, listen, you're saying, "Why do you call 9-1-1?" "Because I want my narrative first." "Why did I voluntarily come to the station?" "Because I'm not in handcuffs and in the backseat of the patrol car." I got, "Why are you sitting here treating me nice?" "Because I'm talking to you." And the longer that goes on, he's being bamboozled, thinking, "But guess what? Why, why did he flee, Brian? Because he had an exit strategy the whole time, the whole time." "As it gets more focused, I'm bailing." Did the coppers think of that for a minute? I'm going to, I'm going to leave that hanging chad, right? Did the coppers have the same kind of plan? "I'm just going to run." Yeah. There's Taylor Swift and Taylor Swift. That's hilarious. So, we covered a lot in that. And so, hopefully, we answered all the questions. Talk about, I think there might be some more we can discuss on the Patreon side specifically on this. But we'll see about that. We'll talk about that when we're in person here next week.

But, thanks, everyone, for tuning in. We, we do appreciate it. Please keep reaching out with some of the questions or, or, you know, suggestions for podcast topics. We'd love to hear it. You know, please share the episode with your friends and stay tuned for more. We've got a lot coming up this year, which will be exciting. So, stay tuned. And, and if you're on the Patreon side, you will have sort of insider access to some of that stuff. And, and you'll, you'll, you'll want to get on that. So, we, we, you know, we, we suggest you check out the Patreon site. But thanks, everyone, for tuning in, and don't forget that training changes behavior.