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Season Six: Holiday Episode 5
64 Plays1 hour ago
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Transcript
Listener Discretion Advised
00:00:00
Speaker
The content you're about to hear may be graphic in nature. Listener discretion is advised.
Introduction to True Crime XS
00:00:50
Speaker
This is True Crime XS.
Fifth Holiday Episode: Hostage Theme
00:00:58
Speaker
I think this will the fifth holiday episode if I, like, planned everything right. And the theme is just kind of a strange one. It's hostage taking, hostages for the holidays. Not all of them occur
Choosing a New York Case
00:01:14
Speaker
at the holidays. This one occurs shortly thereafter. i don't think it would be complete if we didn't have a New York case.
00:01:21
Speaker
You know, New York is largely one of the centerpieces of the world, kind of. It is yeah. So i picked one, but I picked an older one. I do know that there was a documentary about this one released in the past couple of years. Our sources for this, weirdly enough, there was a couple of good Guardian articles. There were several New York Times articles. The Village Voice covered this. And I think the New York Daily News is where I pulled this last piece from. This takes place a very long time ago.
1973 Brooklyn Hostage Situation
00:01:49
Speaker
And when I say a very long time ago, it's 1973.
00:01:54
Speaker
I don't know how many people are super familiar with New York, but Brooklyn, New York, is the most populous of what are known as the Five Boroughs.
00:02:07
Speaker
And um it's become even more popular in recent years. It's sort of located like on the furthest west part of what would be Long Island.
00:02:22
Speaker
We've certainly... Covered quite a few cases from Long Island. um And it it butts up against Queens, New York. I don't know how many people actually live in Brooklyn, New York. I don't know like if you could ever really get an accurate population size. But I've always assumed that it's like couple million people.
00:02:45
Speaker
I have no idea how many people are in Brooklyn. Well, I was just going to point out one of the statistics I pulled said that there were 40,000 people per square mile. And that number is very large.
00:02:59
Speaker
Well, yeah. I mean, depending on what your background is, however you grew up, I mean, it can be startling.
00:03:10
Speaker
Right. right But it's also where everything's happening. right That's what was going to say. So they're all there because they want to be doing the things that are like sort of central.
00:03:20
Speaker
And it really is like, if if you're networking and in a lot of industries, New York is sort of the hub of that. And some people, they've lived in New York their whole life and they don't know any sort of different life. I have not lived the big city life for any substantial amount of time. And I find it to be like smothering. It is a little bit. Like it it's it definitely, um i've I've lived in cities a little bit here and there, but not reason.
00:03:49
Speaker
uh, substantially just like you were saying, but it always takes like an adjustment period that I don't, I don't always make it through the adjustment period. Sometimes I'm like, it's not cut out. Uh, this is going to be 52 years ago that we're talking. And the setting for this is near the border of the neighborhoods of Bushwick and Bedford Stuy.
00:04:11
Speaker
These are really popular neighborhoods in Brooklyn. They're mentioned in a lot of popular media today.
History of John and Al Sports
00:04:17
Speaker
But this is a sporting goods store called John and Al Sports. It was originally located at 927 Broadway.
00:04:24
Speaker
ah So it would have been like a quarter into Bushwick and three quarters into Bed-Stuy. The store had been open at the time of our story for almost 40 years.
00:04:38
Speaker
According to the owners and the articles that I was just mentioning, and I will say that when one of these quotes came out of the Wall Street Journal, there were robberies at this about every 90 days.
00:04:53
Speaker
So that, i don't know if that comes later, like or if it's just like that the whole time. um The founder, a guy named ah Spielberger, was killed during a robbery in 1967.
00:05:08
Speaker
So by 1973, two guys, Samuel Rosenblum and Jerry Riccio, they had taken over the store after Spielberger had passed away.
Hostage Situation Unfolds
00:05:22
Speaker
And for the setting of this story, ah we're going to talk a lot about New York's Finest, because that's the nickname for the New York Police Department. There are several people at the time who get involved from the perspective of um being part of the police department. and And this is a longer hostage situation than some of the other stuff we've talked about. It's not as long as like the riot situations, but um for it to be straight up hostage situation, it is kind of long.
00:05:53
Speaker
It starts out January 19th around 5 p.m. So this is a Friday. and four gentlemen are going to enter...
00:06:07
Speaker
John and Al Sports. Their names are Shaloub Abdar Rahim, Dal Dal Rahman, Yusuf Abdallah, Amulsadig, and Saleh Alil Abdullah.
00:06:20
Speaker
They enter the store and by all accounts, they're shopping. They're browsing, um looking around. in different aisles. But after a few minutes, they all converge and they pull out weapons.
00:06:35
Speaker
They specifically pull out sawed-off shotgun and three handguns. Sawed-off shotguns are any type of shotgun that have a shorter gun barrel, less than 18 inches.
00:06:50
Speaker
a lot of times they will have a, instead of a traditional shoulder stock, to have a pistol grip. They... are not literally sawed off. They're just too short.
00:07:03
Speaker
um Sometimes the barrels are just replaced and sometimes they're manufactured that way to meet the legal definitions of a shotgun. Depending on where you are in time in the United States and jurisdiction, usually that type of that type of shotgun is illegal.
00:07:19
Speaker
So they start referring to each other as one, two, three, and four as opposed to their names. And they demand firearms and ammunition from the counter of this sporting goods store.
00:07:40
Speaker
I found that very interesting because you're coming in with guns. that you know You clearly have your guns. Why would you then be demanding guns? But we quickly find out that what they want is rifles.
00:07:53
Speaker
So they arm themselves up with additional weapons from... the glass case and the walls of this store, including some rifles. Now, around 5.30 p.m., the 90th precinct in New York, the police department, they're alerted by the store's silent alarm.
Police and Escapee Alert Authorities
00:08:14
Speaker
And shortly after the silent alarm is starting to be responded to, there's a student from the local high school, Bushwick High School, who's in the store when this happened.
00:08:26
Speaker
But they were able to get out. So the first responding officers, they arrived within 12 minutes. the All four of these gentlemen, one, two, three, and four, they exit the store on Melrose Street, and they are using Rosenblum, one of the store's owners at this time, as a human shield.
00:08:53
Speaker
So Samuel Rosenblum is being sort of dragged along here. The police confront all four of them, and there is an exchange of gunfire.
00:09:04
Speaker
Based on records, it's unclear if they ever figure out who fired the first shots. But during this exchange, Officer...
00:09:16
Speaker
ah Jose Adorno from the New York Police Department's 90th precinct is struck in the arm. And while it's happening, Mr. Rosenblum manages to escape. Now, one of the things that happens that is sort of problematic is number three, Yusuf Al-Musevig, is struck in the abdomen.
00:09:38
Speaker
When this happens and Rosenblum escapes, they don't have their human shield anymore, One, two, three, and four go back into the store. And it's pretty quickly figured out that in this store, as they're barricading themselves in they have 12 hostages with them.
00:09:59
Speaker
There are multiple shootouts between them and these officers that are arriving from the New York Police Department. This prompts the activation and deployment of what is now known as the Special Operations Bureau of the New York Police Department.
00:10:17
Speaker
At the time, um this would have been the Emergency Service Unit. I don't think they still call themselves that. I don't think they still call themselves the Emergency Service Unit, but they may. This was established in July of 1925 by then-Police Commissioner Richard Enright. He called it the Emergency Automobile Squad.
00:10:36
Speaker
And for a time, officers were really assigned to foot patrols, but this these were the guys who had squad cars. And that's where the name squad car comes from in terms of police services is they had four units.
00:10:54
Speaker
So they had squad one, squad two, and squad one dealt with Manhattan and the Bronx squad to dealt with Brooklyn and Queens. And way back then they were staffed by a total of 50 officers.
00:11:09
Speaker
I think today they have close to 400 officers handling affairs up in New York for the ESU or the Special Operations Unit. This gunfire is chaotic.
00:11:23
Speaker
Since this has all happened, lots of these officers that were involved and were observers that day, they've written stories about this. There's a couple of books that have come out.
00:11:34
Speaker
They called it, kind of collectively, a war zone. One officer specifically recalls in his memoir that he came under fire almost immediately upon arriving to the scene.
00:11:46
Speaker
And he returned fire from his police car. And he was basically just shooting in the general direction of the store. He didn't yet know that there were hostages involved.
00:12:00
Speaker
So that was another problem that happens. Right. So ah what we have is them coming in to the establishment, right? yeah They're grabbing what they want. The police are already responding because of the silent alarm. And then they're leaving with human shield. And my... That's correct, right? yeah Okay. So what they were going to so take was done. Yeah. this was This was actually over when they come out with Samuel Rosenblum. Yeah. Right. And so...
00:12:29
Speaker
I think somebody accidentally fired. Are you, like, picking a side of who fired, or are you just saying? I would say more than likely it was the perpetrators. That's what I'm betting, too, yeah.
00:12:42
Speaker
One of the new guns they procured during this robbery. Yeah, like, and the reason I say that is because typically, if it had been one of the police officers, i assume even 73, they had a means to communicate, Mm-hmm.
00:12:58
Speaker
with one another as far as like, okay, I'm, you know, because when police are acting... There are radios. Yeah. the In that capacity, like... Everybody knows what's going on. And i think that it makes the most sense that somebody accidentally shot off one of the guns they had just stolen. But because of the tension and the situation, it exploded into like what you were talking about from the memoir, where all of a sudden there's like everybody's shooting because nobody knew what was happening. Right. So...
00:13:36
Speaker
Our first major casualty, although we've had some injuries, occurs around 6, 10 p.m.
00:13:45
Speaker
One of the officers from the emergency services unit named Steven Gilroy, he's 29 years old, he takes a position behind an elevated railway pillar for cover. And while he's doing this, he's shot in the head, presumably by one of the rifles that have been procured during this robbery.
00:14:05
Speaker
As Officer Frank Carpenter moves into position to try and pull Stephen Gilroy back, he shot in the knee.
00:14:17
Speaker
um he was He was physically moving his body, and then he changed his mind, decided to move his car. So I think the only thing that was exposed that they could shoot was his knee.
00:14:30
Speaker
um He ends up being rescued by other members of the ESU team. And at this point in time, so we're an hour and 10 minutes into what's happening here. And the emergency services team has moved into position to lay down what's known as suppressive fire.
00:14:47
Speaker
So basically, they are just kind of firing at what they can see, even though there's hostages involved, in order to extract some of these officers. It's to keep them from firing back, basically. like Correct. I was just going to say, this has an interesting effect in that once they fire here between 6.10 and 6.28 p.m., the New York Police Department is not going to fire another shot for the rest of the standoff.
00:15:16
Speaker
That's another reason that I think that it probably wasn't the police. Right. They're exercising quite to bit the control in what the as far as the police go and what they're doing.
00:15:28
Speaker
Now, i I don't think Officer Gilroy's, I don't think that one was an accident. i you know Somebody aimed at him. But I think it all started... And, you know, we've talked about that before. um There was a bank robbery where I felt like somebody accidentally hit the trigger and then everybody else in the facility with a gun shot as well. Yeah. Right? no And I can totally see that happening here. yeah i i have it I had a case last year into this year that involved four people sitting in a car.
00:16:01
Speaker
And the the car lurched forward at an inopportune time. And there was a person standing outside the car reaching in. and It was a drug transaction. The person reaching in was reaching in.
00:16:15
Speaker
They were passing off a phone to do like digital cash app stuff. And he noticed that the person he was handing it to had an AR-15 style pistol laid out that was not visible before. This is taking place at night.
00:16:31
Speaker
And he goes to grab the gun as the car lurches. There's a single shot fired from that gun and it doesn't really hit anybody. It just goes and it makes a loud noise.
00:16:43
Speaker
But it causes a chain reaction in the car and someone sitting in the rear, like the driver's side, passenger seat in the back fires and kills that man outside of the car just because of like the chaos.
00:17:00
Speaker
Right, and that was a... I feel like in that situation, they only had guns in and the event that there was some sort of problem, right? And, um you know, when there's no cash, obviously, if they're doing digital transactions, there's still the product, right, ah which could be taken. But all of that was just like a misunderstanding, basically, right? Right. I mean...
00:17:26
Speaker
I suspect there was a little bit of a ripoff going on and like something was happening that was delaying the the final transaction. But whatever was happening there, it is still kind of what you were saying. like the The shooting had nothing to do with the transaction itself. The guns were there for safety.
00:17:44
Speaker
I learned something at some point in time when I... And I could be completely wrong. I just feel like... A lot of people want to have a gun just in case. Yeah.
00:17:56
Speaker
And a lot of situations that occur are responsive to an accidental trigger pull or something.
00:18:07
Speaker
Well, I guess it would be an accidental trigger pull no matter what, but you can be startled and pull pull the trigger, right? Yeah. Even though you're, especially when we're talking about people who aren't trained necessarily, right? Yeah.
00:18:22
Speaker
Because that is the response that you would have like when you're on alert. i This is all me speculating and assuming certain things. like If you've got a gun just for protection, I personally, like if I pull out my gun from where I keep it, I'm going to shoot somebody until it's empty.
00:18:44
Speaker
And so i'd never I've never pulled the gun out, right? Right. And so I'm not in a position where I'd be in a car with a gun and, you know... So I could be wrong, but my thought is if you have it on you, you're not necessarily trained to not pull the trigger, right? Yeah.
00:19:01
Speaker
It can really set things off. And I think that that happens so many times. It does. i mean, just the, this is based, it is speculation, but it's based on, it's educated speculation.
00:19:15
Speaker
Guns. That are openly displayed have one effect. Guns that are discovered during some other type of interaction have a different kind of effect.
00:19:27
Speaker
Guns change the tension in the atmosphere of any situation. The control and the ah power, right? Yeah, and it's like, it is in my opinion, an automatic escalation, frequently where no escalation needed to be at all.
00:19:44
Speaker
I think with, I guess, social media or at least people having the... No, I guess it is social media. People having the ability to capture stuff happening and then putting it out there has led us to see that, right?
00:19:59
Speaker
Especially with police officers. some And I would say it could be any police officer. Even police officers that are trained, they can get so hyped up that like they shoot people that all they were doing...
00:20:13
Speaker
was nothing right Yeah. and it's a reaction it's not like the cop was like i'm going to kill you and shoot some it's like they respond that way because maybe their training wasn't that great or They just have the wrong mindset, right? Yeah. it's it' So the early 70s tag onto that with lots of new and interesting things happening. Like we had escalating hostage crises happening.
00:20:40
Speaker
And I think that ties into it all from the perspective of you started to see people who normally didn't have guns having guns and
Hostage Negotiation Techniques
00:20:51
Speaker
I want to say that kind of in the wake of all of that, gun crime became this whole new thing where people who normally wouldn't have guns at all had them for protection.
00:21:03
Speaker
And then people who were committing crimes that maybe would have had one gun, suddenly everyone is armed. You were saying, like, the differences in training.
00:21:15
Speaker
I think it's also just that, like, some people... Don't have a really good situational awareness of how serious something is.
00:21:25
Speaker
And an overreaction can come from either side. It can come from the side of the people who are allegedly the good guys, the people who are allegedly the bad guys, just because they don't understand what's unfolding in front of them.
00:21:36
Speaker
Right, exactly. And most of the time it's from a it's either a reaction, a startled response, or it's from a place of fear. Correct. And it's usually not necessary. I saw a lot of startling things as social media evolved and we got to see things with cops and actions besides just on cops. right But again, you know I think you're right. I do think it's a situational thing, but that goes back to training, right? Correct. Yeah, 100%.
00:22:06
Speaker
And um in this case, I didn't know, it's it's a completely different story, but ah part of the reason why these men were arming themselves was because of a different thing that had just happened. to a group of sunny... ah Correct. And so there's several there's several pieces of this that are going to come into play. um I'm going to take us to 7.05 p.m., and then we're going to address some of those things.
00:22:35
Speaker
um One of the things that the New York Police Department was doing is they are establishing a perimeter around this location. They set up a command post that is just down from the sporting goods store, and they...
00:22:50
Speaker
for various reasons, have sub-command posts set up along Broadway. This is all taking place on Broadway in New York. So by 7.05 p.m., there's a safe perimeter set up. They are setting up some interesting stuff, and that is the officers are shooting out the streetlights because it's going start getting dark in New York around this time.
00:23:12
Speaker
And at some point in time, I have not found a good source for when they do it, but they cut the power to this area, to this block. So that that's some of the things that they're they're doing.
00:23:25
Speaker
But we realize there are some reactive things going on in the community. And the New York Police Department is suddenly discovering they have no idea how to negotiate a crisis.
00:23:39
Speaker
So to give you an example of what's happening in the background of all this, because they don't have like a fixed standard operating procedure for all of a guy named Harvey Sloshberg is a traffic officer.
00:23:53
Speaker
And the police commissioner at the time, Patrick Murphy, he finds out that Sloshberg, even though he's a traffic officer, has a doctorate in clinical psychology. So he gets elevated pretty quickly to the role of the police department's head psychologist.
00:24:08
Speaker
At least it was logical. Things that were taking place in the headmines, other riots and hostage takings, some stuff that had happened internationally, i think in 1972 would have had the Munich incident.
00:24:24
Speaker
The police department is thinking, you know, we're the center of the world, we've got to do more about this. And Slosberg was not on board with, like, the contemporary police procedures when it came to things like hostage rescue.
00:24:41
Speaker
Now, what they did at the time sort of focused on close quarters and urban combat and deadly force. and the emphasis that the New York Police Department had literally moments before Harvey Slosberg became their head psychologist was were on defeating anyone who was taking hostages as opposed to saving hostages.
00:25:07
Speaker
And the way that that was known in the world was that cops would not negotiate with, quote, killers. That not negotiating with killers came from the same mindset that we know today as we don't negotiate with terrorists, which sort of uses a trope in movies all the time.
00:25:22
Speaker
According to records, Harvey Schlossberg promoted an introspective approach, believing that there was a way for a what we now know as a crisis negotiator or a hostage negotiator to form a bond with hostage takers to analyze them through conversation and attempt to find solutions to problems where they could then focus on a peaceful resolution wherein the hostages could be rescued as opposed to killed in the crossfire, which was what was happening previously.
00:25:56
Speaker
He also believed that patients and subterfuge would allow them to control a standoff. and if you allowed...
00:26:08
Speaker
the crisis negotiators to control the standoff, the criminals would make more mistakes, and they would also give time to the hostage takers to inadvertently develop bonds with the hostages. And the belief was, if you did that, then they would be less likely to harm people that they were bonded with.
00:26:31
Speaker
So a day before this, since you mentioned ah Sunni Muslims, seven Hanafi Sunni Muslims had been murdered by the black mafia in Washington, D.C.
Motivation Behind Hostage Taking
00:26:46
Speaker
This is because an associate of Malcolm X had begun to essentially voice opposition to the Nation of Islam.
00:26:59
Speaker
So these perpetrators, we're going to find out, are all people who are, like you said, they're African American, they're Sunni Muslims, and they are also opposed to the nation of Islam.
00:27:16
Speaker
They're going to have some very interesting things to say at the end of all this, the ones that, you know, are still with us. And the idea of why they're acquiring the weapons turns out to be quite weird.
00:27:31
Speaker
So the NYPD, around 7.15 p.m., they have decided that they're going to go with Harvey Schlossberg's techniques, and they're going to try and reason with these hostage takers.
00:27:43
Speaker
They're going to use some element of empathy and patience to coerce them into releasing these hostages and surrendering.
00:27:53
Speaker
This pisses off the yeah ESU guys at the scene. They're mad because they've already lost Officer Stephen Gilroy and Frank Carpenter.
00:28:04
Speaker
he has been injured. And ultimately, they want some kind of retribution for this having happen. Now, there was a second NYPD psychologist, and he had recommended that what they should do is figure out how to get the ESU guys close enough to throw some tear gas at the store. So these are very different perspectives, if that makes sense.
00:28:25
Speaker
They're completely opposite. but in some ways, you have to keep in mind you don't want to start a war, right? Right. This is a situation where they've taken people hostage and they the end of that is that they are punished in a court of law for it right? Right.
00:28:44
Speaker
Now, that's a long way around your elbow to get to your thumb. I can see the perspective of just wanting to storm them, tear gas them shoot them, whatever. And that maintains their control and position, Right. Right.
00:28:59
Speaker
But also, it's destructive. And whoever's in charge makes the call. And in this case, it seems anyway like they probably made the right call. Right. One of the mistakes that the hostages have made, like because remember, they didn't plan to be here very long.
00:29:15
Speaker
They were getting these weapons and they were getting out. And now we're moving towards 8 p.m. But one of the mistakes they made is the they cut or ripped out or disabled the store's phone lines. Right.
00:29:27
Speaker
So you end up with a crisis negotiator for the New York Police Department yelling through a megaphone to communicate with them. Now, this does work to a degree because they get a hostage out around 8 p.m.
00:29:39
Speaker
She tells the police that the hostage takers would kill the other hostages if they're not allowed to leave. So they're using this first hostage as a messenger. 9 p.m. comes...
00:29:52
Speaker
And the guys in the store indicate that they need a doctor. And this becomes like a sticking point in the negotiation because basically the and NYPD says, we'll get you a doctor, we'll get you medical treatment, but we're going to need you to surrender.
00:30:07
Speaker
And they don't want to do that because they feel like this is not in well for them. And they're not wrong. While this is happening, the and NYPD has an emergency rescue vehicle. It's actually an APC or an armored personnel carrier. I've seen it said that it was nicknamed Annie.
00:30:26
Speaker
And so it's this large vehicle that basically had been decommissioned in the 60s from the U.S. Army. And they're using this APC to move along the streets and to get people who are sort of in the and line of fire from the hostage takers away, like some of the officers that got into the wrong position.
00:30:50
Speaker
civilians who have been trapped either along the streets behind cars or in other stores that are sort of in the line of fire they're moving them out so they do this from 9 p.m to about 11 11 15 p.m like they move it up and down the street pulling people out and the hostage takers are taking shots at the erv the um at amy but they don't hit their marks. They're just like basically pinging bullets to ricochet off of the side of this armored personnel carrier.
00:31:23
Speaker
So the police do understand that there's some value in this armored personnel carrier being present because it draws the hostage takers focus and they become preoccupied with what is that thing going to do?
00:31:44
Speaker
So they started using it for the negotiations they were trying to do. and They would bring the armored personnel carrier up close to the proximity of the storefront. Personally, I am convinced that this is the moment where demilitarized equipment became a big deal for police departments because of how it was used in New York. And this is a particularly, ah like Like public moment, well-documented moment where that happened. I do not believe in using this type of stuff for police forces. I think it's terrible. I think they're not wrong in what they're saying here, but like that's not how we should be dealing with things. Our our police are not meant to be military members.
00:32:27
Speaker
They're not. I do agree that like they used it to rescue some of the people in the the middle, right? The bystanders or whatever. And so I feel like it could be used for something like that. I don't know, because my my thought is that they wanted the perpetrators to think that like if at any second that thing could come like running through the store and roll right over them, right? Yeah.
00:32:51
Speaker
That's weird. That's a weird concept. I do think, though, that ah you were you said that like you know none of this was planned for. They were already out of the store with what they were going to steal, right? Correct.
00:33:03
Speaker
And so that nobody's operating off of any sort of plan at this point, right? Right. There's... A lot of improv going on here. Like the police send in elevated train cars with the lights and they use this because, you know in close proximity to the store and not exactly in the line of fire, but close enough that they're concerned about it. There are stranded passengers who were never able to get on a train because the trains were shut down running through this area when this all happened.
00:33:32
Speaker
There are residents in nearby apartments, nearby establishments. There was a bar, a pool hall, and I think a diner. There are people that were like figuring out ways to get themselves out of being held here. and so you have two kind of weird things happening. One is... The general order is if you live in an apartment nearby, stay inside, like it's one of those lock your doors situations.
00:33:57
Speaker
And then if you're stuck somewhere, shelter in place, which is much more common now than it was back then. But then also they're going in to rescue and pull people away from the line of fire. Right. And it's my experience, which isn't a lot, that as soon as you tell somebody that's sitting very happily eating their dinner or playing pool with their friends that they can't leave, all they want to do is leave. yep Yep. Yep. You are 100% correct. If they had left it alone, like like it wouldn't have been a problem, i in my opinion. But like the the moment that you are telling them they can't leave, that's when it happens. We're now moving into the overnight hours because by the time they like finish up these rescues, like the last and interesting ones are happening between 11 and midnight.
00:34:41
Speaker
And some of these hostages are starting to sleep. like They're in a sporting goods store. They're pulling out camping mats, ah camping cots, sleeping bags. And there is documentation that like they're basically sleeping at gunpoint.
00:34:58
Speaker
in this area of the store that's right in the middle kind of out of the line of fire police i think it would be called a mezzanine but it's like a one of those like in between floors it looks in the pictures like maybe it's for displays but i could be totally wrong on that because i'm not familiar with this particular store it's giving at least one of the perps a bird's eye view so the hostages don't do something right correct they're just laying there sleeping in their They're caught or whatever they found in the store. Right. And while that's happening, we still have like activity going on. So as midnight rolls over, we get close to 1 a.m. and they release another hostage.
00:35:34
Speaker
This hostage is carrying a note urging Muslims to unite. And they're also carrying requests for food and medical attention. By around ah four in the morning, they've brought in Reverend Roy Brown, who is from a neighborhood church, and they got him inside the yeah ERV kind of shouting and using the megaphone, ah attempting to negotiate with the people inside. I have no idea why they did that.
00:36:03
Speaker
That is... Wild to me that they would bring a Christian pastor into this mix. Well, a lot of times, well, I i don't know anything about Reverend Roy Brown, but and a lot of pastors can have a calm and a patient.
00:36:19
Speaker
Demeanor? Yeah. And even, you know, because, well, in Christianity, at least, like Christians aren't taught to hate Muslim people just because they're Muslims, right? Correct. I'm not sure that a lot of Christians realize the opposite thing.
00:36:35
Speaker
is not always true. It's not always reciprocated. And it could be seen as actually like an aggravating thing to do, depending on the situation. But I think they were just looking for anybody because, again, they don't know what to do. So they're doing this patience and coercion, come out and surrender type thing. But I have a feeling most of the police officers there are very antsy. It is interesting the FBI doesn't show up, though.
00:37:02
Speaker
Do they? Eventually, they're going to like come into play here. they don't have the presence that we see like in modern times. The 2025 FBI presence is different than the 1995, and that's definitely different than the 1973. Sure, sure, yeah. I'm just saying that Reverend Roy Brown, he was like, let me give it a shot. and they were like, okay. Yeah. so So they do this and it's like the middle of the night when this is happening early morning.
00:37:28
Speaker
They do try again around 5 a.m. and they get a little progress by they pull people in from the local mosque. which is actually pretty smart in my opinion. I don't know that they're all like the same exact mindset, but they do bring in three prayer leaders from one of the local mosques.
00:37:47
Speaker
And not only do they get a little progress, one of the prayer leaders is allowed to go into the store and speak with the hostage takers. Now he comes back out less than 10 minutes later And he makes a statement to police that he believes the hostage takers are willing to die for a lot.
00:38:05
Speaker
Whether that's true or not, we don't know. But it creates a little bit more of a rift with the crisis negotiators. And Schlossberg is literally going to argue that that can't be true, he believes, is the bluff.
00:38:18
Speaker
And he backs that up by pointing out the request that they've made in writing for medical care and food. I think there's two different concepts at play there that would go way beyond the wheelhouse of our Home for the Holidays hostage edition.
Community Leaders in Negotiation
00:38:33
Speaker
Yeah. As far as like the sort of long-term, I'm willing to die for my beliefs. Yeah. Maybe not right this second, though, right? Yeah.
00:38:44
Speaker
And so I think that that could have been i do think that trying to get medical attention and wanting food and such. I don't think that that shows it like a suicidal terrorist. Right.
00:38:56
Speaker
I tend to agree. there's Probably some arguments and to be made for like wanting to keep him alive. But I can't make it rationally. i think I'm with you. but basically it It is interesting, though, that they had like a completely third-party person and a prayer leader from, i think they call them imams. Yeah, that's ah that's a prayer that's a prayer leader from the local mosque. That's the title they would have, yeah. They let him come in the store, speak with them, and leave.
00:39:25
Speaker
Correct. Which is actually like the exact opposite of usually anything that occurs in a hostage situation, right? It is, and, like, it would be a huge no-no today. i can see why it happened out of desperation because you're moving into, you know, once you get to the point that, like, you're 12 hours in like, it is very difficult to, like like, the outcomes start getting a little out of control.
00:39:51
Speaker
Well, not to mention the fact this is going against what, like, every single well, I'm not going to say every single one, but the majority of the cops at the scene, it's going against all of their instincts. Yes. To, like, wait it out. They're like, this is taking forever. Let's just kill everybody and be done with it. But that's war. not That's not criminal justice, right?
00:40:10
Speaker
Right. It gets weird. A megaphone is, like, given out to them. They're not really using it anymore. The 20th, which is a Saturday, has, like, a series of events. But the day really doesn't have, I don't know what the...
00:40:25
Speaker
Doesn't make progress? Yeah, it it doesn't have like advancing progress. It just kind of doesn't get worse. So at 925 in the morning, they bring these guys that are prayer leaders from the local mosque back.
00:40:39
Speaker
Nothing happens. like They don't respond at all. By 1115, the police are kind of thinking, maybe there's something wrong with the megaphone and they can't communicate with us. So they send up a walkie-talkie. The deputy commissioner, who is sort of like in charge of the shit show at this point, a guy named Ben Ward.
00:40:58
Speaker
He like is speaking through the walkie talkie. And at that point, the walkie talkie and the megaphone are thrown out to the front of the store. There's no progress in the morning. By 3 p.m., a couple of lawyers, including Gerald Lefcourt, who is a really high-profile American criminal defense attorney. People today may or may not know this.
00:41:18
Speaker
He was going to be Jeffrey Epstein's attorney. He was his attorney. Sanford Katz is there. They are offering, like from kind of behind the scenes,
00:41:30
Speaker
annie the armored personnel carrier, that they will represent them and they will like, like zealously defend what is happening here. And isn't that such an interesting approach?
00:41:43
Speaker
It is. It's a very interesting approach. Because you're literally contradicting exactly why they're standing there with the hostages. They don't want to suffer the consequences of their crime. Right. That went from stealing guns To killing a police officer and holding all these people hostage, right? Right. And so to me, that is, it's weird. I don't know who came up with the idea. i mean, again, they're throwing everything at the wall. But to me, it probably irritated them more than anything. Right.
00:42:17
Speaker
And it seems to like get worse. They shoot at the armored personnel carrier when this is all around. Which is exactly what I would expect them to do because they're like trial. you don't need anybody to represent us at trial. We're leaving here without being in trouble. Yeah. Don't you see the guns we have?
00:42:36
Speaker
So, but the lawyers, before they're, you know, taken away, they do say, hey, take the walkie talkie that's like now sitting in the front of the store. And as the armored personnel carrier, because remember, they're using this to manipulate them.
00:42:51
Speaker
It's coming up. Negotiations begin. It backs away. They see what happens. So it backs away, and a hostage is sent out to get the walkie-talkies. So shortly after 3.15 p.m., the walkie-talkie is used to request ah sandwiches and cigarettes and medical supplies. So they approve sending in food.
00:43:14
Speaker
and They may approve sending in the cigarettes. But the medical supplies are once again... like the The condition is, if you want like medical treatment, you have to surrender.
00:43:25
Speaker
It is said at this point in multiple news reports, it is only like a single line in like the actual paperwork, that there are relatives of the hostage takers on scene. and that these relatives are being brought up in the armored personnel carrier, given the walkie-talkie, and we don't know what is said or what happens, but I can tell you that it doesn't stop the hostage situation.
00:43:50
Speaker
Around 4 p.m., Thomas Matthews, who's a doctor, and he is the head of the Interfaith Hospital, which is... Located in Brooklyn, New York.
00:44:01
Speaker
um It's a full service, not-for-profit community hospital. I think it has 300 beds. I know at one point I read that like it takes thousands of patients a year. He shows up with a nurse and like it's explained to us through news reports that he's been brought there by the NYPD.
00:44:21
Speaker
What they have done Schlossberg and the NYPD have put together this offer that they're going to treat Amusadé. He's the guy who was shot in the abdomen when they were originally trying to leave.
00:44:32
Speaker
If he's brought out... And like some actual negotiations begin. The hostage takers say they will release the hostage in exchange for the doctor and the nurse to come in and treat a Musatek.
00:44:48
Speaker
And they can also serve intermediaries or sort of messengers. So some time passes, everybody like talks about it. There's sort of this active task force forming in the background and the New York police department agrees this exchange is made and Dr. Matthews and the nurse go in, they spend 45 minutes inside.
00:45:13
Speaker
They come back out. They have the names and telephone numbers of the nine people that are remaining because they had 12 to begin with three have been released. nine remaining hostages. And around this time, the sandwiches and the cigarettes arrive, and they're placed outside the store.
00:45:31
Speaker
So at this point, we're getting into the early evening, we're now 24 hours into this thing. And the people that are showing up to help the and NYPD are the FBI and other psychologists and many other groups of people. There's this odd contingent that's mentioned repeatedly in the News reports, so I looked them up to see what they did.
00:45:56
Speaker
They are people who were hired by airlines and airports to respond to hijackings. So they're another form of crisis negotiator, which is interesting because that means that, you know, you have these, I'm sure the mayor is there and his staff. I'm sure that All of the brass from the police department are here. You've got the Federal Bureau of Investigation involved. You have these people that are negotiating hijackings. And I say all of that to say it's interesting because they're still not planning to kick the doors in and shoot these guys. 24 hours out
00:46:33
Speaker
Well, right. And to me, which I wasn't there, but, you know, Monday morning quarterbacking all day long, to me, you're bringing in like all the most important positioned people to deal with a bunch of petulant children. Right.
Hostage Release Strategy
00:46:51
Speaker
One of the crazy things that happens here is Schlossberg points that out. And he also points out that we don't want to assault them. Right.
00:47:02
Speaker
Because of their vulnerable position and what's happening here, they will be hailed martyrs. And we will end up seeing copycats of this. So...
00:47:12
Speaker
He actually tells his supervisors on Saturday that one of the best things they can do is if this is not going our way, we will let them go in exchange for the hostages to be let go. So they start even making a plan to seriously consider how they would let them go.
00:47:33
Speaker
And it's it's to the point that like the Port Authority Police Department... is like being brought into this little mini task force they have going, and they're going to drive these people to JFK, to the airport, so that they can leave the U.S. s It's never offered up seriously because like there's some other issues that're goingnna that are going to come up with these hostage takers, but they are doing it from the perspective of, we will do whatever we can to save these nine lives.
00:48:07
Speaker
And I find that very interesting that they're doing that. um They do let the doctor back in towards the end of the day on the 20th. So Dr. Matthews goes back in. He takes another round of medical supplies, and he takes orange juice.
00:48:22
Speaker
Now, he doesn't come out quite as quickly, and about half an hour later, they send the nurse in because they're realizing that the batteries are dying on the walkie-talkie. So they send him they send the nurse in to him with a field telephone, which is like and another piece of military gear.
00:48:39
Speaker
um it's a People would picture it as like a backpack with a phone handle on it. and you're i think i guess in today's days, it's been replaced by the SATCOM phone.
00:48:51
Speaker
um But at the time, it was like one of the most unique types of communications we had. So they send that out They leave the store around 1140, so they spend a lot of time in here.
00:49:01
Speaker
And Dr. Matthews lets everyone know that the wounded hostage taker, Al Musadig, he has a fever, and he believes that like his injury is potentially leading to infection, and like there's a strong chance that like the bullet, the injury, everything together is possibly going to kill him if he does not get actual medical treatment. There's only so much he can do walking in and out of this store.
00:49:26
Speaker
So they also bring with them a letter this letter is from the hostage takers and it's written in arabic and according to this it says telling all oppressed people to fight against their oppressors like so that seems to be a message they're trying to send out about it but it also states the the the perpetrators are sorry that officer gilroy was killed they learned that he was killed from a radio they're listening to the news broadcast inside the store They insist at this point in this note that the and NYPD fired first and that Gilroy's death was them simply leveling the playing field for Amusadik having a shot in the abdomen.
00:50:09
Speaker
So Slotsburg looks over all of this and now he's really in the hot seat. We're over 24 hours into a hostage situation taking place in the city of New York. And he says to his bosses that he believes these people were...
00:50:24
Speaker
very early in the process of any kind of radicalization they may be going into related to this argument with the nation of Islam. And he specifically says they had not really formulated their own ideologies.
00:50:37
Speaker
They were now tying this robbery to these vague causes that had been in the headlines. And it was just rationalization. It was a way for them to say that, like, okay, this is why we did that.
00:50:54
Speaker
But it wasn't really based in reality. That's according to Schlossberg. So now we move into January 21st. It's a Sunday. the The barrier that has been set up like around this starts to shrink.
00:51:12
Speaker
They actually bring in barbed wire to prevent fleeing. And... The New York Police Department, which I didn't, like, i I don't have a good sense of timing on this. They actually have an aviation unit in 1973.
00:51:27
Speaker
And it comes over and takes aerial photographs of the store for planning. and That would be like the helicopter, right? It's a helicopter, yell yeah. Yeah. So the reason they would do this for everyone out there, and they're planning on assaulting the building.
00:51:44
Speaker
So something tips these guys off. Don't know what it is. But the perpetrators, around 7.45 in the morning, I don't know if they see the helicopter or the shadow of the helicopter, if they hear it or what, but they pick a parked police car and some of the stores that are in that line of fire I talked about, and they fire nine shots.
00:52:10
Speaker
Their attempts made to call them on the field phone that they have, and by 9 o'clock in the morning, the task force that's developed in the background has started shifting away from Schlossberg's way of thinking, and they are starting to look at ways to assault the sporting goods store.
00:52:30
Speaker
They have come up with four things they think they might want to do. One is the they're considering using charges of explosives on the store or using a wrecking ball.
00:52:44
Speaker
they've They're also considering going back to the tear gas idea where they would put the tear gas inside and incapacitate the perpetrators. And they're trying to figure out if they can access somehow the store from below.
00:52:59
Speaker
Now... I don't know if they thought there was going to be tunnels, because like I've always heard that like in certain neighborhoods in New York, there's lots of underground space. I always picture like sewers and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles type layer.
00:53:17
Speaker
But I don't know why they do this, but the emergency services unit think, all right, we'll come in from underneath. And like they start focusing on that. So they began moving drilling equipment...
00:53:30
Speaker
into this furniture store that shares a wall with the sporting goods store. So I guess they're thinking we're going to drill in and over to get from one building to the next and sneak up on them.
00:53:47
Speaker
So one of the interesting things happening in New York Sunday morning is the same thing that would happen today if something like this were going on. People are starting to gather and stare.
00:53:59
Speaker
And they've moved that barricade and perimeter in because they're trying to shrink the size of the scene. And doing that means that they now have a ton of people right behind where the police officers are all working.
00:54:17
Speaker
So the news, the media, the papers, and the word of mouth is talking about this. um Multiple people show up, people are standing on cars to try and get a look at what's happening.
00:54:32
Speaker
um To be honest with you, this is one of the worst things that can happen in a hostage situation is that you develop an audience. and this crowd, this audience, this group of spectators is going to become the source of a lot of problems.
00:54:48
Speaker
And for example, in the summaries I've seen, You've got photographers attempting to take photos and flashes going off.
00:54:59
Speaker
And police are attempting to set up you know parts of their plan. They misinterpret those flashes as muzzle fire. And they start checking themselves for injuries.
00:55:13
Speaker
And the next thing they do is they start... like breaking the crowd into like those are the spectators and here's the journalists and they start moving the journalists like kind of corralling them to nearby and you have people showing up that ah as you do with a lot of weird things in the world who are there to defend and support the hostage takers so rumors start spreading there's all sorts of like misinformation that starts spreading At around 12.45 p.m., one of the owners who is one of the hostages, he convinces the hostage takers to leave them all like out of the line of sight, out of the line of fire of the police in this one specific corner of the store.
Hostages Escape and Rescue
00:55:58
Speaker
Now, the reason he does this is because he knows that there's a stairwell on the other side of a very thin drywall wall. So it's about a half an inch thick.
00:56:11
Speaker
And it's hidden from view of where they are. But when the hostage tankers go to investigate the sounds of... you know, the drilling equipment being moved into the furniture store next door.
00:56:23
Speaker
and hostages, they break through the wall and they go up to the roof. Now, the emergency services unit officers are able to get to them from an adjoining roof. They lower a ladder down and all nine hostages are suddenly out of the situation. They're rescued. They've escaped. The hostage takers attempt to reach the roof from another stairwell But they're not able to because in part of securing the smaller scene, that stairwell has been barricaded off.
00:56:52
Speaker
So the hostages are now secure. The and NYPD and all of the people helping them, they can prepare for the possibility of something big happening in case there's like a last stand attempt.
00:57:05
Speaker
There is some gunfire that takes place through the store. Doesn't have any effect, doesn't reach anyone. And around 4.55
00:57:16
Speaker
The four hostage takers, three of them are still upright, one's on a cot.
Surrender and Trial
00:57:21
Speaker
They say a prayer and they exit the store and surrender to the police. They're all apprehended.
00:57:29
Speaker
And the wounded man is taken to Kings County Hospital to take care of his injuries. And as weirdly as this all began, it's over. so That's interesting, isn't it? Yeah. Like, it's wild to me.
00:57:43
Speaker
The hostages ended up saving themselves. Yep. And the when they no longer had hostages, the perpetrators surrendered. Right. Which is, I mean, you know, the reason people take hostages, perpetrators take hostages, is to get police to listen as opposed to just killing them all. Right? Yeah.
00:58:03
Speaker
And they have no no bargaining chips if they don't have innocent lives hanging in the balance. I just want to point out that there were 12 initially. I think you said it to begin with. 12 initially, the human shield owner that was taken out, he escaped. And then you said two high school students escaped? One high school student escapes, and then they let out.
00:58:25
Speaker
I don't know if the ah if the other owner was counted. I know when they go back into the building, there's 12 inside of them. One escapes. One is used as a, two are used in a trade, like over time.
00:58:36
Speaker
Okay. it's And it's really hard to get a take on who's who. Well, the number, the number changed. And I just wanted to point out that like none of the hostages died. Right. Right.
00:58:49
Speaker
ah They don't, they don't die. There are nine people left. Right. There are three people that are either exchanged for what the hostage takers think they need. There's a couple of people that I was a little confused as to how they counted. I think we would have been at 14.
00:59:07
Speaker
One store owner escapes in that initial retreat. like retreat And then we have a high school student that escapes and gives information to the police. And then we're left with 12 in the building, but three of them come out along the way in exchanges.
00:59:24
Speaker
Right. So the number didn't decrease because any of them were dead. So all the people that were taken hostage, actually everybody left, right? The perpetrators surrendered, the hostages saved themselves. Right.
00:59:36
Speaker
It's over. It's over, yeah. So in 1974, they all go on trial in Brooklyn, New York. um The defense says that, you know, exactly as I kind of described earlier, that they were afraid of the black Muslims and the Nation of Islam, and like there was is going to be this crazy uprising that was brought on by the January 18th killings of seven Sunni Muslims in Washington, D.C. That's the defense. Whether that's real or not, we don't know.
01:00:03
Speaker
And the defense also said that the standoff only goes down because of the first shooting. And they say it was the NYPD. You and I believe that it's probably the hostage takers. But whatever is going on there, one of them basically shot in the belly.
01:00:20
Speaker
and And that is... It sort of triggers their retreat being like in their mind, like they have to stay and do what they're doing because now it's escalated to violence.
01:00:32
Speaker
Right. And, you know, I don't know. i don't know who, who shot. It just seems more likely that it wasn't the police, especially since they held their fire pretty much except for the direct attack.
01:00:45
Speaker
Like, When it started and then when Gilroy was killed, right? Yeah. um It seems like it would, but probably wasn't them. There was an argument made at trial that Gilroy could have potentially been killed by a ricochet.
01:01:01
Speaker
during a friendly fire mishap. There's not really evidence presented, but the defense very much tries to make it seem like very few shots were fired at people by the four perpetrators. So June 21st, 1974, the jury is made up of 10 white jurors, two black jurors.
01:01:18
Speaker
They find these defendants guilty of 41 counts and not guilty of accounts of ah two counts of attempted murder, ah of the wounding of the police officers.
01:01:31
Speaker
One charge of first degree assault with a deadly weapon on one of the police officers. And there's a handful of accounts that are like a legal possession of a weapon. Something technically was wrong with the weapon charges and the way that it was written up. So it ends up ah sort of being dropped as opposed to them being found not guilty.
01:01:52
Speaker
And these guys, if I understand correctly... Al-Musadik gets out in 1998, so 24 years later. The public isn't made aware of this. he They find out when he dies in 2003. Rahim is still alive.
01:02:08
Speaker
Rahim was convicted of Gilroy's murder. Right. Just FYI. I don't know. I can't remember if he said that or not. I may not have. He doesn't get out until 2010. So he definitely serves the longest sentence, I believe. No, Rahman and Rahim are convicted Gilroy's murder. They get the longest sentence. said Rahim gets out in 2010 on parole.
01:02:29
Speaker
And I've read that he's a social worker. Don't know how accurate that is. Rahman is released in 2019. Abdullah does not get out. ah He ultimately has a stroke in October 2020. He passes away. He served 40 years in prison.
01:02:45
Speaker
More than 40 years. It's interesting because Raheem was convicted of Gilroy's murder, but in 2008, so two years before he got out, He expressed his regrets. Oh, is that the I'm not an animal thing?
01:02:56
Speaker
He actually said at his parole hearing, i wish there was some way I could go back to the moment when I decided to enter the store. I'm not an animal. I understand the pain I caused, which is interesting. Yeah, I i think there was a ah lot of humanity expressed for these particular people.
01:03:14
Speaker
It's so wild that like all of this is basically because of them trying to exit the store with stolen fire. Right, which would make it a provoked attack because it's it's very, very interesting. And to transport ourselves back to 1973, can't do that. However, you've got a situation where they thought they were somehow entitled to steal weapons to defend themselves. against a situation that could possibly happen that happened the previous day to people they had stuff in common with, right?
01:03:48
Speaker
Yeah. And the solution would be you just go buy your weapons, right? Yeah. I'm not really sure why they felt they were entitled to steal them, but it all got out of hand, right Yeah, it absolutely And I have to say that I feel like I don't know what the difference was, um but you know Abdullah dying in October 2020, he suffered a stroke at his 14th parole hearing. Yeah, I never have figured out exactly.
01:04:20
Speaker
i don't think they had remorse. If you look at the sentences, they are primarily based on Gilroy's death. and like the different levels of culpability related to Gilroy's death. But like ultimately, these guys were not really... They were sentenced in a way that like the idea was we don't want them out of prison. If you go and read about this online, which I encourage people to do, because this is a cool story. It's a tragic situation, but it's also a cool story, because it is literally the birthplace of like a huge amount of changes in the way...
01:04:54
Speaker
federal and state and local law enforcement officers handle hostage negotiations. this is like Later in this year, the first hostage negotiation unit is going to be developed and implemented in the New York Police Department, and it's going to change how everybody does their hostage negotiations.
01:05:12
Speaker
Which is really interesting because the hostages saved themselves. The hostages saved themselves. You're 100% right. um It is not a successful negotiation overall. Another key element here, just to keep that in mind. that i guess they felt like it was, though, for some reason. Well... they there It causes a rift in the New York Police Department because a lot of New York police officers at the time felt like what you do with people who do these things are kill them, primarily because an officer is killed.
Evaluating Police Tactics
01:05:40
Speaker
Well, sure. But see, in my opinion, and this is Monday morning speculative quarterbacking, you let the perpetrators, I feel like they took the owner that they took as the human shield to begin with because the police they saw the police coming, right? Yeah.
01:05:58
Speaker
And if they had just let them leave with the guns, yeah then they could have arrested them for stealing the guns. And like, they wouldn't have had this whole situation happen. Yeah.
01:06:09
Speaker
Because, and I feel like, I don't, I don't actually know what the protocol is now, but it's almost like police presence causes hostage situations.
01:06:20
Speaker
that's it That's interesting because it really would have just been an armed robbery without it. it definitely was not a planned hostage situation. No, it wasn't. And see, they could have retrieved the merchandise, right? Yeah.
01:06:31
Speaker
They could have had somebody you know follow them without. Because my understanding is they converged on the store because the silent alarm went off, right? Yeah.
01:06:43
Speaker
And I feel like that's a mistake anyway, because most of the time people committing those types of, they they have no interest in hurting the people in the store, right? They just want their guns. They're stealing them. Just like people who go in banks, they just want the money, right? Yeah. and the police presence causes them to have to use something for leverage. And the leverage always ends up being the innocent people that are standing by. yeah That's an interesting concept, but especially now. Technology is different, but they absolutely could have let those guys think they got away with the guns and then taken them all down without any of this happening.
01:07:23
Speaker
Yeah. But they weren't thinking like that back then. No, not at all. There's a theres there's definitely 1970s into the early 80s change in the mentality of law enforcement in the United States, and it continues to evolve today. um I still think they get...
01:07:41
Speaker
A lot of the personnel issues that law enforcement have are sort of predicated on some ancient nonsense. um And like we end up with cops who...
01:07:53
Speaker
never should have been police officers in the first place. Like that's true kind of universally. And it's still true in 2025. Although I don't agree with the huge shift I've noticed like recently into like there's gotta be some balance there that we we, we have not yet arrived at that balance in the United States.
01:08:13
Speaker
Oh, definitely not. But I don't, you said it's still present here in 2025. I don't, I think it'll be present forever. It's human nature. yeah And it's we don't have a handle on exactly how to tell what it is enough to weed it out at any point in time. Plus, it's so different all across the country, right?
01:08:36
Speaker
And there is no, you know, each police department gets to hire their own officers. And you hope that they want to protect and serve, right? It's just, for whatever reason, i think it's more of a...
01:08:50
Speaker
ah learn an on-the-job training type thing. A lot of times if you've got one bad apple, it spoils the whole bunch, right? But there are good cops out there. 100%, yeah. i Unfortunately, i feel like all I ever encounter are the bad ones. but And I have to say, this is a good illustration of sort of like, you know, the two sides, because you had the you know the one guy who nobody knew he had a, I think you said a doctorate, a PhD in clinical psychology psychology. And so he had his way of doing it. the i feel like a lot of law enforcement, ah given their rathers, they have a trigger type response, right? Yeah, i would agree that.
01:09:37
Speaker
And that's why they have, you know, a order of command and like they can't ah just... make their own decisions. They have to follow their supervisor who has to follow their supervisor and so on and so forth. But I do think that it takes a little bit of that type of personality, I guess, to even want to be a police officer to begin with. Right. yeah And that's a really hard thing to balance. I've always said that if firemen were police officers, it would, the world would be a way more balanced place. Yeah, that's just my opinion. And i do think there are good cops out there. And this is a very interesting illustration of the different ah good, bad and different of how different people would have handled it.
01:10:26
Speaker
Yeah, agree.
Closing Credits
01:10:29
Speaker
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01:10:40
Speaker
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01:12:45
Speaker
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01:13:03
Speaker
Thank you for joining us.