Organized Crime and Punishment

Title: Behind the Badge: Unmasking and Preventing Police Corruption Original Publication Date: 11/8/2023 Transcript URL: https://share.descript.com/view/3mw7dv9a5a8 Description: In this episode, we delve into a crucial topic: Police Corruption and the challenges officers face daily. We'll also discuss effective measures to prevent such corruption in law enforcement. This episode features 20 year police captain and police fiction author Frank Scalise.  https://www.frankzafiro.com/ #PoliceCorruption #LawEnforcement #CommunityPolicing #PreventCorruption #PoliceAccountability You can learn more about Organized Crime and Punishment and subscribe at all these great places: https://atozhistorypage.start.page email: crime@atozhistorypage.com www.organizedcrimeandpunishment.com Parthenon Podcast Network Home: parthenonpodcast.com On Social Media: https://www.youtube.com/@atozhistory https://www.facebook.com/groups/atozhistorypage https://facebook.com/atozhistorypage https://twitter.com/atozhistorypage https://www.instagram.com/atozhistorypage/ Music Provided by: Music from "5/8 Socket" by Rico's Gruv Used by permission. © 2021 All Rights Reserved. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=210vQJ4-Ns0 https://open.spotify.com/album/32EOkwDG1YdZwfm8pFOzUu Begin Transcript: [00:00:00] Welcome to Organized Crime and Punishment, the best spot in town to hang out and talk about history and crime, with your hosts, Steve and Mustache Chris. I started to think about another form of, I guess it could be corruption, and it comes out of the fact that policing, like just about anything else, Is a lot more subjective than it is the objective and, uh, and baseball. Now they have it where they have the AI calling balls and strikes and. Seriously, it's experimental and, uh, and then they'll go to it. Uh, if, uh, they can, that you can challenge [00:01:00] it. But there's a lot of subjectivity to a ball and a strike. Now you could have it where you see somebody who maybe rolls through a stop and, uh, should I give them a ticket? Did I really see it the right way? But you could also see it where somebody blows past a stops, uh, stop red light past the school bus. But it's 10 minutes before your shift is supposed to end and you really don't feel like staying over. And I got to get my kid to this and that, and, uh, I'm not going to, that's got kind of a corruption in a way. Well, policing requires a great deal of discretion. That's no question. And I think if you're going to examine but. Apples to apples is a better way to look at it, right? So if you're talking about somebody rolling through a stop, are you working that intersection? Are you writing tickets? You stop. I stopped Chris. I don't know him. He gets a [00:02:00] ticket. I stopped Steve. We went to high school together. In fact, we play baseball together. Uh, you know, I'm going to give you a warning this time. Is that correct? You know, I was not a traffic count. I, I gave a lot of warnings and my, my rule of thumb essentially was, is if I stopped you and we had a short conversation and I thought that our conversation had a likelihood of affecting your future behavior, then I didn't see the need for something punitive. To, to do it. If you just basically wouldn't admit that you ran through the stop sign or you were a jerk or whatever, it's clear. I wasn't going to impact your future behavior. Then my only other option was, well, let's see if a financial penalty will influence your future. Because my role is to, it's not to do anything about the stop sign you just ran. It's to stop you from doing it again, because that's how I make that intersection safe. Well, you know, there's a lot of discretion. That's discretion, right? I mean, if I talk to Chris and he's a jerk and I don't know it and he gets a ticket and I talked to Steve and I went to high school with him and he's like, [00:03:00] yeah, man, that was stupid. I normally don't do that. I will never do that again. If I will try to never do that again. I'm really sorry. And I cut you a break. Is that corruption? Because I didn't treat you equally. I may have treated you fairly, but I didn't treat you equally. And so even when you go apples to apples, it's hard, you know, you could get into long discussions, which we did in the leadership course, the ethics section, especially, but throughout the entire course, we got into discussions like this about what corruption was. Was this okay? Was that okay? What variables would impact whether it was okay or not? And I mean, I found Canadians to be, uh, much more, uh, much less tolerant of. Bad behavior, but also much more reasonable in, like, common sense ways of handling things than in some of the places I was in the States. I mean, we're not all idiots down here. That got a lot of good answers from US officers too, but it's an interesting conversation, but you do kind of have to be apples to apples. Otherwise it doesn't entirely work. Right? So, but lots of [00:04:00] discretion and and with discretion comes the capability or the possibility of an error in judgment or. Purposeful corruption that can happen. I was going to say you mentioned something about the trees. Um, like, uh, like the police officers focused on like the individual tree where like the organization is like focused on the forest, right? That's exactly how I would like a police officer to kind of view his job. Like, how can I make a difference in this, say one individual's life? Like, every day that I'm on the job, I know that's not, you're not going to make a difference every day, obviously, but like, when you have an opportunity to be able to make a difference, say, in one person's life, you mentioned the, like, how can I talk to this person? So hopefully they don't run through a red light again, you know, or how can I stop this robbery? Or maybe it could actually sit and talk to this criminal or whatever that we had to arrest in the backseat when we're driving them, you know, to where he has to go. And maybe I can say something to him or, or he. Maybe thanks twice [00:05:00] about what he's doing with his life. Um, to me, that's like, probably the most effective type of policing. If you can go into, and it sounds odd because, you know, like, I'm not a police officer, I'm not going to lie. I don't know a ton of police officers in my life. I got the mustache for it. Uh, I need to get some aviators. Um, you know what I mean? So that's the way I would like. To view it like there was a part of me when I was growing up, always kind of wanted to be a police officer slash, uh, like, uh, detective always been fascinated by, like, murder mysteries and things of that nature. Um, it's just, I don't know. It just never happened. But, uh, that's the way I would view the job is like, how can I make a difference in this 1 individual's life? Because to a certain degree, you have a fair amount, a certain amount of power to be able to actually do that. Um, To me, that was the most kind of effective policing. I find a lot of the interactions that I've not so much me personally. I'm not [00:06:00] ton of interactions with cops, but, uh, the couple that I have, um, I just found like, uh, there was a couple of police officers. We had like, good conversations, like, just simple stuff, you know, like, uh, traffic stuff or what have you, uh, But there was like other times they just didn't seem like they were really interested at all and trying to make a difference. Well, you bring up a great point. And that is that, you know, uh, the, the person to person connection is the most effective connection. And when you start your career in law enforcement and you're young and your uniform is bright and your badge is not scuffed at all, your shoes are shine, your haircut's fresh and all that. Um, there's good guys, bad guys, and victims and witnesses, and that's it. It's a very, it's a very black and white kind of world. And at some point in your career, if you're paying attention, you come to the realization that for the most part, people are people. And while there may be two or three people [00:07:00] you come across in your career that are truly evil, whatever that means, that's majority of people. They're making bad choices in their bad situations. And if you can make a difference in their life in any way, you should try it and you're not going to save everybody. You're not going to make an impact on everybody. Some people don't want it. Some people won't accept it. Some people don't actually need it, but you have to try where you think you Can try and I think your point is, is valid as well in that if you are trying, people appreciate that. I mean, you go to a foreign country and you try to speak the language, don't they love it? You know, they, they, they help you. They appreciate your effort. I think if you're in a service position and you're trying to help people, even if they don't really need the help or they're still going to appreciate and you certainly have the opportunities within law enforcement to those differences. Um, quick, quick story, real quick story. Okay. It's, it's summertime here, which means spring cleaning, cause my wife's a teacher. So stuff happens. I'm sure you're familiar with that, uh, process. See, you know, stuff that has been waiting all year to get done. It's start getting done, going through a lot of [00:08:00] stuff, goodwill visits, you know, those things, kinds of things. Going through some old paperwork, throwing out old receipts and all kinds of stuff. And I came across a letter that a guy wrote me from my time on patrol. It's one of the few things I kept from my law enforcement career. And I didn't remember it. Really, when I got the letter, I had to think about it a little while and read his letter to remember the incident. But in his letter, he credits me with saving his life. And, and I remember what happened after I read it. And I just basically talked to the guy. He got stabbed in the heart and I talked to him and rode with him to the hospital in case he died on the way to the hospital because he was a victim. And. Talk to him and kind of, you know, try to be positive and everything. And he survived and he credited me being there with saving his life. Now, did I save his life? No, the doctor did, or he wasn't going to die anyway, but I made that impact. And, and, and the reason that impact happened was because I was trying. Um, and, and, you know, the guy was in all honesty, the guy was kind of a criminal. It wasn't a bad criminal, but he was, you know. A mediocre crew and I [00:09:00] ran his record up and I was like, oh, guy's kind of a durang, but he's just a guy, right? He's a person and, and, and so you know that person to person connection matters. And so I think your view of it, Chris, is actually really bang on Steve here again, we are a member of the Parthenon podcast network, featuring great shows like Josh Cohen's, eyewitness History, and many other great shows. Go to Parthenon podcast to learn more. And now here is a quick word from our sponsors. In all your time, did you see that there's been a change in police or maybe even geographically, that sort of the, the, the. The thin blue line, like we're on this side and you're on that side. And, uh, could that be a factor of that? A lot of departments are cutting back. So cops are seeing a lot more of the really bad stuff. They're not getting to [00:10:00] do some, some more of the soft scale stuff. They're doing a lot more of the hard stuff. So they're, they're building up a barrier between them and the public. You know, that's always been a factor. Um, One of the things about policing is, and I mean, really teaching is the same way. If you think about it, Steve, um, you know, people think they know your job because they've interacted with you or they seen cop shows or in your case, they went to school. Yeah, so they think they know what teaching is. They think they know what policing is. They know you're there to serve them in some capacity. They pay your salary. And they're more than happy to remind you of that. Um, and they have certain expectations, not all of which are realistic. They underestimate the amount of work teachers do, for example, the end, they overestimate the amount of authority that officers have sometimes underestimated other times. And so. When you're dealing with the public, sometimes it can, you know, it can be frustrating. These kinds of things can be frustrating. And then it's an understanding factor. Um, I won't equate [00:11:00] policing and what police go through with what soldiers go through in war in terms of intensity and frequency, because I think they're different. Scenarios, I think one is far more, uh, is far bigger than the other, I guess, for lack of a better term, but I do think they're on the same frequency to a degree. You see some terrible things. You deal with some terrible things. You have to put up a bit of a shell in order to avoid cracking under the emotional onslaught of those things, both the. Immediacy of the event and the cumulative effect of it over years. And then again, you throw into that the public's response and they're, you know, all the stuff I just talked about the public and it all starts to grind on you and who understands that, you know, well, other cops understand that there are other people who do too, but that's, that's an easy one, right? Other cops understand. And so. You know, there's an old, I can't remember the guy that did the course, but he [00:12:00] talks about emotional, like saving yourself emotionally as a cop. And he talks about how, when you come on the job, you've got all these friends, you know, your high school friends, your college friends, your sports friends, your drinking friends, your whatever hobby friends, your family or whatever. And little by little, you kind of start carving them out because, you know, they don't want to hear about the dead baby at the barbecue, you know, and. And more to the point, you can't talk about it. It's not even that that you do and they go, what the hell are you talking about? It's more often that you don't talk about it. You can't talk about it. So as slowly your circle kind of tightens and and your trust circle tightens right along with it. You end up being surrounded by nothing but other cops. And so in what attitudes. are normalized is all cop attitudes, right? And so, uh, do you become tribal? Do you become clannish? Does the thin blue line become a factor? It does. And I think that's a natural human behavior given what's going on. No, it's like, I'll use an example. I'm trying to [00:13:00] think, uh, on this couple of years now, but you guys remember the, the guy in Florida that was on bath salts and, uh, he was, uh, I think it was eating that guy's face underneath the bridge. Like, can you imagine being the police officer that showed up to that situation? They ended up, I think they ended up having to shoot the guy. Um, uh, and they killed him there. Just go like, Oh yeah, I'm just going to go. You know, talk to my high school friends about what I just saw and just experience like, no, you're going to be talking to like, well, they're talking about the lawnmower that they just bought. And I could speak from personal experience, like, not to get whatever. I don't mind talking about it. Like, I lost my dad when I was quite young and I was the 1 that, uh, found them and. You know, 15 year old, uh, me, who am I going to go talk to? Who could understand that amongst your peers? And like, I'm going to talk to a bunch of other kids that are, you know, they're more concerned about like what video game they're going to buy. Well, at least at the, at the [00:14:00] time that's, or, you know, what girl they're going to pick up or what have you. And I'm sitting there and I'm just like, I just saw this and like. There's no one for me to really talk to, you know, if there were like other people at the time to talk to naturally, I, I would have just gravitated towards them because they had experienced something similar. It's very, uh, it just, it makes a lot of sense. I think also related to that is, uh, to what you were saying, Frank, about, uh, you can be familiar with the public when you're on duty. But with teaching and a lot of where there's an authority aspect, you can't be too chummy because eventually there's going to be a, there's a line you can't cross where there is an authority and a power differential. And then throw in the factor that as a police officer, you are correctly trained that there is potential danger everywhere. Now, that doesn't mean everybody's [00:15:00] dangerous and they're going to try to hurt you. You don't have to run around paranoid thinking. Oh, my God, Chris is going to reach to the screen right now and throttle me. I need to get my hands up. But then again. You don't know, and the thing about police work is like, you're not in constant danger, but you're in constant danger of being in danger. If that makes any sense. It's not 1 of the 10 most dangerous jobs by by statistics, you know, most years, but it's that latent. Very real threat that something could happen at any moment. My help could be needed. Somebody could be placed in danger. I could be placed in danger. I may need to act in a way that's going to change my life and everybody else's life that's involved. And I'm going to have about 1. 3 seconds to decide exactly how I'm going to resolve that situation. And people are going to spend months and maybe years pouring over that decision and second guessing it. And that's what you're up against. And so, I mean. For cops to be clannish, for cops to be standoffish, for cops to be suspicious. This is why. Um, I'm not excusing it like [00:16:00] it's a good thing. I'm just explaining why it, why it does occur and why it doesn't make, it's not because they're being evil, you know, they're not being, you know, it's not like they have character flaws. It's a natural response to the stimula that they're faced with. And not just, and again, over a period of time, decades in some instances, and it's institutionalized. Like I was only on for 20 years, but in year one, I was feeling the impact of the previous 20 years. I mean, when did Rodney King happen? 1988, something like that. It might've even been later, a little later than that too. I was, I know I was over in Germany at the time in the military. So it had to happen between 88 and 91. Either way. It happened in LA in the late eighties. Let's say I'm in a, in Spokane in 93, I'm a police officer and I'm getting told, don't Rodney King, me, you know, by people. So it's not just the weight of your own experience that you feel in that profession, but it's the weight of, of the [00:17:00] collective cultural experience and the collective experience of the profession. Um, and again, I, I know we're getting a little far field from the. The, the, the topic of, of corruption, but I think it's related because certainly if corruption is part of that culture, you feel it, right? You're faced with, uh, so it's, it, it is a difficult job and, and we were talking to Steve in the, in the pre funk, uh, a few weeks ago about how, how a similar teaching is in many ways, uh, uh, and my wife's a teacher. So we've had this conversation. And so if anybody wants to see it on, on display, Okay. Then done with expert writing and directing and acting season four, the wire is perfect, near perfect explanation of how the two professions, uh, have a lot of similarities. You mentioned that like the, the, uh, the dangerous aspect of being a police officer and I find it's, uh, being a police, it's unique in the sense of how unpredictable could be like, you could be pulling a guy [00:18:00] over for running red light and he's got a dead body in the trunk. Potentially, he pulls out a gun or a dead body in the trunk. Uh, or like, if you're like a firefighter. You know, going into that fire every time you go, like, it's in a sense, it's predictable. And like, it's dangerous, you know, exactly what's going to happen. Like, maybe the house collapses or what have you. Or if you're even like a soldier, I know there's unpredictable things that happen essentially. Oh, you drove down this road a 1000 times and, you know, there's an RPG could come and hit your truck or what have you, but you're driving and. Yeah. A war zone. So you kind of know to a degree that you have to constantly be on your feet where like a police officer, you have to constantly be on your feet, obviously, right? But I can see how it would be easy to kind of let your guard down. It's like, Oh, I'm just pulling over an SUV or something like that. And like a Toyota RAV4 and. Somebody pulls a, pulls out a knife or a gun and starts shooting for any reason, who knows, you know, they, maybe they have drugs in the [00:19:00] car or something like you, like, uh, something of that nature. I could see where, uh, with the, the way a lot of the wars were going, like in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Vietnam to a certain degree, that it is very similar in that The soldiers didn't know necessarily they could be walking through a town or a village that they thought was safe. And then they do get hit with a R. G. or an I. E. D. or something like that, like not knowing what the danger is. It's I'm in a. It's very similar in a way in that, that that's where the PTSD and those things start to kick in is when you're getting hit with that stress, that it's constant, but it's fluctuating and you don't know whether you're safe or whether you're completely unsafe. That probably is. There is gotta be some overlap it's one to one because I wouldn't want to insult people who have been in a war zone. Um, and maybe like a Venn diagram type. [00:20:00] Yeah, yeah, I think you're right. I think there's a, there's a, there's crossover for sure. And, and, and the constant threat of there being a threat is it's draining. It definitely is draining and it causes you to always keep a part of yourself in reserve. And it causes yourself causes you to always be on guard. And this is easily and not unreasonably by the, by the public. Interpreted as being aloof, suspicious, arrogant, uh, you know, paranoid, you know, a number of different adjectives can be applied to it. And you understand why the public might think that, but that's what's going on there. You know, the thing about policing that you have to remember, of course, is an incredible amount of responsibility is given to police and therefore an incredible amount of power. To accomplish what they're responsible for is given to them. And you know what they say about power, right? That comes right back to our original topic of corruption is, is it can it can [00:21:00] happen. I think that in these environments, maybe where there's a good community. Police relationship, and there's a lot of trust there. You know, that's another obstacle to any corruption taking place because I mean, we're basic. We're pretty basic creatures when you break it down to our core behaviors and and, you know, we don't want to disappoint people we care about. Like, I don't want, I don't want my wife to be disappointed. Me, her opinion matters. And, and, and, you know, you may have a boss or a parent, a good friend that you feel that same way. And I think if police departments and police members have that kind of a relationship with the community, they don't want to let the community down. So they're going to be on guard against that. Now, if you're in a community. That is itself corrupt that takes on a completely different dynamic, right? And that's, that's a different conversation. Trust is such a fragile thing. You could be doing the best you can and you're, you're doing a great job, a great job. And then 1 [00:22:00] major mistake can completely shatter that trust. And it's a, it's a, it is a very. All these different, the, the grid work, really the lattice of power and corruption and good and not so good and all that. It really is a very complicated situation. And that's why I'm so glad we had you on to really discuss this. Well, and I think I would leave you with the idea, uh, that one element that matters a lot in addressing this is always going to be leadership. And I remember when I was a patrol officer or detective, I was like, I don't care about my leaders. They don't do my job. They don't know my job. I know my job. I do my job. All they do is occasionally get in the way. And I'll bet if you pulled any. Profession anyway, I bet teachers feel the same way about principles half the time. You know, I mean, I bet I bet that's how you feel [00:23:00] about some of your bosses. It's your job to Chris and you don't have to say. So, because it's not a big business, you don't hang yourself, but don't get it. But my point is that, uh. That we're all wrong, right? We do take our cues from leadership. It's human nature and not necessarily a 1 to 1. I see my boss, Steve, do this or my boss, Chris do that. And so I'm going to do the same thing, but they set the tone. They set what's acceptable. I mean, imagine a situation if if you have a difficult. Difficult case happening where maybe there's somebody in danger and you're trying to get a suspect to confess to some information, um, about where maybe a missing child is. I mean, something dire. How far would you go to get that information as an individual, right? You're the cop looking at that tree. The tree that you're dealing with today is this guy who knows where this kid is and won't tell you. How far would you go to get that information? That could be an individual question. Now, [00:24:00] and you might have a different answer than the guy next to you and the gal next to him. But now a sergeant is in the room or a lieutenant or another leader is in the room and that leader says, wow, we really need this information. Huh? I'm going to go grab some coffee. Let me know how your conversation goes and walks out of the room and knowing full well that your next thing you're going to do is smack this guy at the phone book or whatever, you know, some kind of corrupt behavior, probably noble in your own mind in the scenario I drew out here. Correct. And he walks away and and, you know, that's what happens. That is an unofficial almost official, but it's an unofficial legitimacy, right? It legitimize that legitimizes that behavior in an unofficial capacity. And if that happens repeatedly, it becomes embedded in the culture that that leader doesn't have to be in the room. And turn a blind eye and go get coffee for you to know it's okay to smack this guy around. You can just smack him around, maybe even if he's in the room, because it's part of our culture. Now, [00:25:00] if that leader goes a different direction and doesn't permit that behavior, you get a different sort of action. You end up with a different cultural anchor into how we handle these scenarios. Now, nobody likes that scenario, uh, or nobody likes that response in the scenario I've given because we have a child in peril in us and a, you know, dirtbag who's not given up where this kid is. I mean, you know, I bet you 90 percent of people out there and say, smack the guy and get the information. There's a kid in danger and that's noble cause corruption, right? Cause you smack that guy to find the kid. The next day you're smacking him to find the dope. The next day you're smacking him to give him his. You know, I mean, I'm exaggerating the pace at which this occurs and the frequency, but you see the problem, um, in, in these scenario, this scenario that I've drawn out, the leadership matters, not because of what leadership tells you to do, not because of what leadership itself even does per se, but because of the tone that is set. And this, you know, starts at the very top. It starts at the top of an organization. [00:26:00] Um, I said it that way for you, Chris, uh, starts at the top of the organization. But I mean, even at the top of the country, you know, I mean, who the president is affects the national discourse to a degree, you know, and, and, and so leadership matters. So, where corruption is concerned, I think, I think it's a huge factor in either keeping it from taking root, minimizing it where it may crop up. Occasionally, or trying to beat it back and change culture where, where it's a systemic, which unfortunately does exist in some places, but not nearly as frequently as, as I think some of the public. Yeah, you just, you mentioned leadership and we, we, on previous episodes, we had talked about in terms of just organized crime families and how important of like, in terms of how the family actually ran and the way it ran was largely dependent on who was in charge. Really like the Colombo family, we ran like a basket case because no one was really in charge and the people that were in charge weren't very [00:27:00] effective at what they were doing. And then you contrast it to the Genovese family, which had solid leadership throughout most of its most of its tenure. And they also had like, solid, like, organizational structures in place where they did get a bad leader or something did bad did happen. They were able to like, you know, Adjust course, but it really boils down to who was in charge, really, and actually making the decisions and just how important steady leadership is. You don't even have to be a remarkable leader, but if you're steady and you're providing, like, as you, uh, pointed out a tone, and I'm talking about, you know, crime family, not, uh, the police, but the principle still stands, right? Like, the guy at the top really is the most. The people leading it are really the most important because they're the ones that set the tone. Steve here again with a quick word from our [00:28:00] sponsors. Yeah, I, I think, I think I'd interject there. Yeah, no, I just would interject just Chris because I, I don't, I don't like to say they're the most important person because I think the people doing the work where the rubber meets the road are the most important people. But you're right. They had the biggest impact in terms of setting the tone. I think you're absolutely correct. And, and you, you mentioned real life crime families. I think it's on display, even in a fictional crime family. If you look at the movie, the Godfather, which I have a sneaking suspicion, you're both familiar with. Um, you know, I mean, if you look at Vito Corleone, you know, won't get involved with heroin, you know, I mean, he has a moral code that his family. Adheres to he sets the tone and that's the culture of that family. Now they got, you know, gambling prostitution. They're doing all kinds of things, but they're hearing to this code. Why? Because the leadership set the tone and people will adjust their behavior. Based on that [00:29:00] tone, both positively and negatively, the tone changes and they'll change their behaviors. And so I think you make a stellar point. We're not talking about police behavior here. We're talking about human behavior, and it doesn't matter the organization or the purpose of the organization, what their goals are, what their activities are. Leadership sets the tone. Yeah, that's such a huge part of it is the leadership setting the tone. You could have a leader that. I'm going to this is my overall guiding principle. I trust you. If you make a mistake, I'm going to call you out on it. I'm going to correct you. But if you're doing a good job, I'm going to trust you to do a good job. But you can have a leader who goes in the other direction and I'm going to nitpick every single thing you do. Then you have the person who's doing the job. I'm sure it goes this way with policing. Oh, well, Jim, you're not quite pulling over enough. People are. Hmm. You didn't seem to be doing very much your last shift. Well, man, I better go, [00:30:00] you know, shake some trees and, you know, get some things moving. And that might go against what he knows is the correct, or she knows what's the correct thing to do, and that's really a tone set by, by leadership. If you go, uh, back to one of my favorite programs of all time, The Wire, uh, there's a scene in which one of the senior leaders, uh, uh, Daniel, says his name, talks to a new lieutenant. Carver, and he tells them flat out, you're going to go into your district. Some people there, some of the cops there are going to be good cops. Some of them are terrible people. Some of them, but most of them are just going to be people and they're going to be looking to you to take their cues. You show them loyalty, there'll be loyalty. You show them work ethic, they'll work hard. You should, you know, whatever you show them, they're going to reflect back to you. I, I'm not doing the speech justice here. It's, it's probably worth looking up on YouTube real quick. But it's, it's pretty powerful. So I probably want to like [00:31:00] top five or the top 10 speeches from that show. It's a pretty stellar show. It's worth your time. Um, but it absolutely, you're absolutely correct. That's that's, and, and it, it, it goes towards our main subject, which is corruption, if you have a, you know, police chief, who's loosey goosey with the rules. That's what he's showing his people or her people and that's what they're going to be if they're on the other hand extremely, you know, tight to the rules, but not to the point of subverting common sense, which some policy and procedure nerds can do, then that's how people are going to handle things. You, you show your people like how, how you want them to solve problems by the cues that you give them. Do you just open the policy book and that's the end of it, or do you apply common sense as well, you know, or you just don't worry about it, you know, as a leader, you show your people how you want them to handle that kind of scenario. This might sound familiar to you, but, uh, I was reading your book. I, I don't know if it's your first book. It was the one about, um, it was a special forces [00:32:00] guy who came back and he was robbing. Gas stations and, uh, the field training officer wanted to fire the his recruit because he was just messing up everything. And then the lieutenant comes in and he's basically forcing the field training officer to push this guy through. And I think that that thing where you're your leadership is Not trusting in the, in the person who has the most intimate information. And I think that that's something that can get bread into leadership. Well, now I'm a Lieutenant or now I'm a supervisor. I'm sure you see that in your job, Chris, where as soon as somebody gets that, that bit of authority, well, now I know everything about everything that that can really sneak in and make big problems. Yeah, I like, I kind of laugh at those situations. I [00:33:00] guess I'm like, I've worked at the particular, like, I don't know, I've done this type of work for quite some time now. And it's, I guess I'm like the 20 year old vet on the police force. And that's like somebody becomes like a supervisor or something like that and be like, yeah, you'll be relying on me in a couple of months. And you'll see. So you'll see, you'll see why I look at things in a particular way. If they were smart, they'd be relying on you from day one. I mean, that that's the that's the 1 thing that, you know, I will never sit here and and make a claim of having been a great leader. But I did do 1 thing that I feel. Particularly proud of, or that I think was smart. And that was, I recognized my own limitations and, and so like, we all have our strengths and we all have our areas of expertise, but those don't necessarily mean we're experts at everything else. And so for instance, when I took over the canine unit as a lieutenant. I'm not going to go in there and pretend I know more about dogs than these guys. I mean, one of our lead [00:34:00] handlers was regionally recognized as the guy. If you had a question, you ask Kevin King, and he had the answer. And if he didn't have any can send you to the sources to get deeper answers. And I mean, I'm not going to try to act like I know more than that guy. I am going to learn from that guy and figure out what he needs for me as the leader to make sure he can keep being that guy. That's my job. And, and you're right. There's an arrogance that can come up with leadership. And there's a, uh, uh, uh, Not just leadership sometimes, but expertise. Somebody's a real strong expert in one particular field. And they think somehow that, you know, just because they're smart and really good at 1 thing, that means it's going to transfer to another thing. And that's that's a dangerous supposition to make. I think, um, as a leader, you, you, I think 1 of the things you have to be You have command presence. You have to be willing to lead. You have to have, be able to act with authority. All of that's true. But humility is one of the traits that I don't think often gets [00:35:00] enough emphasis when we're training our leaders to be, to be humble enough to, to say, I don't know everything. I want to learn more and, you know, figure out how to do my job better. And the people I am leading. Who essentially I'm serving, even though they're called followers, and I'm called a leader, I'm serving them. They can help me in that journey. They can help me in that process, um, or process, sorry. And they can help me become a better leader, right? I, to me personally, I've always found that to be. A real, the true sign of intelligence is somebody who's humble enough to fully admit when they don't know something. I, just speaking from personal experience, like I, I go, like, I work out at the gym and stuff like that, a fair, like a, uh, fairly often I like consider myself maybe slightly like an amateur bodybuilder. I, I cannot believe the amount of people that will argue with me about basic stuff about in terms of. Terms of bodybuilding and like, uh, [00:36:00] rep ranges, types of exercises and what have you. And I'm like looking at them and then I'm looking not to sound arrogant. Then I see myself and I go, really? Are you arguing with me? It's like, it'd be like me arguing with the car mechanic about what's wrong with my car. Well, but it, it, it, it it? I mean, you, you have to be willing to admit that. We're all human and therefore susceptible to those failures that humans are susceptible to, therefore, could I have made a mistake that could be viewed as corruption could lead to corruption if I continue to do it or did it in a slightly greater, you know, go down that road a little bit further. Is it going to hit a point where the community around me would say that is corruption because that might be a good. Good litmus test, because every community is different, right? I mean, what's okay in Cleveland and what's okay in Albuquerque and what's okay here in Redmond, Oregon might be 3 different [00:37:00] things where on that spectrum is whatever I'm doing considered corruption being willing to be humble enough to. I mean, let's face it. I mean, humility isn't necessarily a trait that most people attribute to cops. You know, arrogance is one that gets trotted out a lot. And there's some validity to it at times. We can appear arrogant. Um, you know, uh, uh, we don't listen, you know, we're bossy. We're taking control. We're telling people what to do. Now, there's legitimate reasons why all these things are. Or being done and why in most cases, they're probably proper, uh, and effective, but they don't always come across great. Right? Um, and so that's how people see us, but I think, and I say us, I've been retired now for 10 years. So I should probably my speech patterns. But the point being is if, if, if you're in a profession where you got to be type a, for the most part, because you could be in a survival situation at some point, um, Okay. You have to take control of the situation. You have to tell [00:38:00] people what to do in a way that they're willing to do it, whether they're a suspect, a victim or a witness or a bystander. Um, and, and so that requires a particular persona and that persona doesn't always. You know, lend itself to a great deal of humility. Um, and so it could be a difficult thing, maybe. And I do think that if we are humble enough, if we do take that step back and say, okay, you know, I am in perfect. So was this something that could be construed as corruption? Was this a mistake? I think it's a good 1st step. I think it, I think it does tie in just like leadership ties in. It is, as Steve said at the very beginning of our discussion. I It's a very convoluted and very multifaceted and difficult conversation because there's so many intersecting threads, uh, that are part of it. We've just really scratched the surface here. And I think what we're going to really try and do is take some different situations. [00:39:00] Look at some cop movies because who doesn't love cop movies and we're going to explore a lot of these different issues of corruption and police, what they do really well, what maybe they had, they haven't done so well as exemplified in his. And using different case studies and especially movies to talk more about these issues. So, uh, speaking from me and I, I know Chris as well. Thank you so much, Frank, for coming on and we definitely look forward to continuing to talk with you. Well, thanks so much for having me. I've really enjoyed this guys. Well, Frank is now a friend of ours and we, uh, really the best way for everybody to support the podcast is to tell your friends about the show so that they can become friends of ours. Forget about it guys. You've been listening to Organized Crime and Punishment, a history [00:40:00] and crime podcast. To learn more about what you heard today, find links to social media and how to support the show. Go to our website, A to z history page.com. Become a friend of ours by sending us an email to crime at a to z history page dot com. All of this and more can be found in the show notes. We'll see you next time on Organized Crime and Punishment. Forget about it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Coming Soon on Organized Crime and Punishment! You can learn more about Organized Crime and Punishment and subscribe at all these great places: https://atozhistorypage.start.page www.organizedcrimeandpunishment.com Click to Subscribe: https://omny.fm/shows/organized-crime-and-punishment/playlists/podcast.rss email: crime@atozhistorypage.com Parthenon Podcast Network Home: parthenonpodcast.com On Social Media: https://www.youtube.com/@atozhistory https://www.facebook.com/groups/atozhistorypage https://facebook.com/atozhistorypage https://twitter.com/atozhistorypage https://www.instagram.com/atozhistorypage/ Music Provided by: Music from "5/8 Socket" by Rico's Gruv Used by permission. © 2021 All Rights Reserved. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=210vQJ4-Ns0 https://open.spotify.com/album/32EOkwDG1YdZwfm8pFOzUuSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Title: Noble Cause Corruption: Police Corruption for All the Best Reasons? Original Publication Date: 11/1/2023 Transcript URL: https://share.descript.com/view/YErXOzeB214 Description: In today’s episode of Organized Crime and Punishment, we explore the intricate relationship between law enforcement and crime. We look into the complexities, ethical dilemmas, and consequences that arise when these two worlds collide. Join us as we unravel the hidden aspects of this captivating intersection. This episode features 20 year police captain and true crime author Frank Scalise. https://www.frankzafiro.com/ #PoliceCorruption #OrganizedCrimePodcast #CriminalUnderworld #CrimeAndJustice #CorruptCops #UnveilingTheTruth You can learn more about Organized Crime and Punishment and subscribe at all these great places: https://atozhistorypage.start.page email: crime@atozhistorypage.com www.organizedcrimeandpunishment.com Parthenon Podcast Network Home: parthenonpodcast.com On Social Media: https://www.youtube.com/@atozhistory https://www.facebook.com/groups/atozhistorypage https://facebook.com/atozhistorypage https://twitter.com/atozhistorypage https://www.instagram.com/atozhistorypage/ Music Provided by: Music from "5/8 Socket" by Rico's Gruv Used by permission. © 2021 All Rights Reserved. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=210vQJ4-Ns0 https://open.spotify.com/album/32EOkwDG1YdZwfm8pFOzUu Begin Transcript: [00:00:00] Welcome to Organized Crime and Punishment, the best spot in town to hang out and talk about history and crime with your hosts, Steve and Mustache Chris. Thanks for joining us again on Organized Crime and Punishment. I'm your host, Steve, and I am joined as usual by our own Mustache Chris. Today, we have a very special guest, our first guest, guest, uh, as it were. Frank Scalise. Frank is a retired Spokane, Washington police officer. Is it Spokane, Spokane, Spokane? It's definitely, it is definitely Spokane, not Spokane, not Spokant, but Spokane. [00:01:00] Frank served at every level from patrolman to captain in his 20 year career. Look for Frank to be a fixture on the podcast to provide the law enforcement aspect of crime and punishment. In this first episode of a, of a series where we're going to begin to discuss law enforcement, we will discuss a serious topic in policing that of corruption. Police corruption is a really complicated topic and a really a fascinating one. And I'm really excited to have Frank here to lead us through this, uh, in some ways, difficult conversation. Thank you so much for joining us today, Frank. Well, thanks for having me. I'm excited to talk about this too. And I think it's, uh, going to lend itself to an interesting discussion, given that, you know, I'm up in the Pacific Northwest. Uh, you're down in Texas, I think, by way of the Northeast. Yeah. And, and, and Chris is up in Toronto area there in Ontario, um, in Canada. So, I mean, [00:02:00] there, there's that. Cultural divides there, and I think that comes into play when we're talking about this topic. So it'll be interesting to hear the different viewpoints. And now, Frank, can you, we'll get into a lot of details of your biography, but can you maybe give us a 10, 000 foot view about yourself and your police career and then your post police career? Uh, sure. The, uh, thumbnail sketch is I came on the job in Spokane, Washington in 1993. For people who don't know anything about Spokane, it's in Eastern Washington. Um, I think it's about 250, 000 people. Now it was closer to 200, uh, even to 10, maybe when I came on, uh, in my career, I was kind of fortunate. Uh, not kind of. I was very fortunate. And then I spent the first half of my career doing the job where the, where the rubber meets the road. I was patrol officer training officer. I was a detective. I was a corporal. Um, and, and I, so I did the work that that police are there to [00:03:00] do about halfway through my career. I kind of fell backwards into a leadership. Position, uh, as a sergeant and, and had to reassess my career a bit in terms of what I wanted to accomplish and, and, and what leadership meant and, and I embrace that. So, uh, I spent the 2nd, half of my career in leadership roles and I retired as a captain. The good thing about that was. I did some different things in patrol and in investigations, but I got to see an even greater breadth of the department in my leadership roles. And so. Like, I got to command, for instance, the canine unit. Um, now, I learned a lot about canines. I mean, I couldn't have jumped in the car and taken a shift for one of the guys if they were sick. Uh, not even close. I didn't know a hundredth of what they knew. But I knew enough, uh, I knew a hundred times more than the public did though. So, I mean, it was a good education. And, and that happened in every unit that I was fortunate enough to, to command during my career. And, and so this gave me [00:04:00] a little bit of a different view than say, someone who spent their entire career as a detective or as patrol officer. Retire as a captain, as I mentioned, post career, I spent about 4 years teaching a course for the International Association of chiefs of police. And this is a, it's either nonprofit or not for profit. I forget the difference in which it is. But it has a mission to assist police agencies in a variety of ways. And one of those ways is training. And the course that I was teaching at a national level is called leadership and policing, pretty intensive three week course, where we'd go in for a week and do the first week and then come back a month later, do week two, and then finish with week three a month after that, very heavy into behavioral science. And, and, and created with a very, uh, with an eye towards application in the policing world. Um, this was pretty cool too, because, you know, I spent my whole career in Spokane and then I went to a few different training [00:05:00] conferences and other things and interacted with other agencies, but I was pretty Spokane centric for that 20 years. Um, and in fact, the biggest stretch I probably had was working with other municipal. Entities, you know, the mayor's office and the water department and the fire department and things like this. Now, suddenly, I get to travel all over the US and Canada and see all these different agencies and all these different parts of North America and that really opened my eyes and really taught me a valuable lessons that probably conversation. 3, 3 thumbnails of sketching there. Sorry about that. But now, you know. In a department of that size, it's not a huge city, but it's not a small city. I guess you could call it a medium sized city. As a captain, you would have some different roles as a captain. You're not just focused. It's not a big enough department that you're just the captain over patrol, or just the captain over the [00:06:00] canine unit, or that sort of thing. Would that be accurate to say? Yeah, I mean, every department is different. Um, I think Spokane's up to around 300 sworn officers now. It was closer to 270 during my career. Um, and, and yeah, as the K 9 unit, I commanded that as a lieutenant, the SWAT unit. As a lieutenant, as captain, I had roles like the entire patrol division or the entire investigative, um, or all of support services. And so you, you become a, uh, you have a much larger purview, uh, rather than a more. Uh, you know, precise 1, uh, narrow, um, and, uh, you know, they, they had the rank of major for a while. And I, I was a major when they had that rank, they ended up getting rid of that rank and restructure. And that became a very outward facing job or as like, as captain of patrol, you're. Focused on running the patrol division and helping solve the problems associated with that when you're the major of operations, you're, you know, [00:07:00] dealing with city council and you're dealing with, it's a very outward sort of facing position and that's, that's a, that's a gear shift that shifts your gears into mode. So it was a valuable experience. I can't say I enjoyed it as much as focused, but it was what it was. You had, when we were having our pre conversations about what we would like to talk about focusing on law enforcement, you brought up the aspect of police corruption and it really, just in our brief conversation, it really opened my mind to it that it's a lot more complicated than what I would have ever thought police corruption is and it's one of your specialities and so maybe, uh, you could just kick us off and What has, what got you thinking about police corruption? Well, I, I should be clear. Um, Steve, just to say that I'm not purporting to be an expert on this subject. I haven't written a book or a doctoral thesis or anything like that. There are people [00:08:00] far more knowledgeable than I am. Um, so I think I would say rather that it has been a. A personal focus of mine, especially post career, I've really paid attention because I, it fascinates me, um, you know, I, I first came across the idea of corruption, um, you know, as a young patrol officer and, and I was very dismissive of the idea. Um, because I didn't see any around me and I felt like it was a bunch of old ninnies worrying about something that wasn't there. You know, ghosts and goblins under the bed. Let's focus on something real. Like, let's, you know, take care of this domestic violence problem. Let's take care of this drug house over here. Um, and, and, you know, that was Hmm. That was my perception. It probably wasn't correct entirely, but it was, you know, born of my experience. And just to give you an idea, kind of where Spokane was at the time, we had a, uh, uh, convenience store [00:09:00] located, uh, uh, it's changed hand multiple times. So I guess it's fair to Bring up where it was, uh, located at Francis and wall in Spokane. There was a Chevron station at the time. It was clean, had like a couple of booths on each side that were, you know, weren't broken down and it was clean. You could go in there. You could write reports and they gave. Cops, taxi drivers, ambulance drivers, and the bread guy, uh, 0. 25 coffee. You know, they want you to stay awake while you're on the road, and they wanted cops to come in at night because they were less likely to get robbed if there was a guy in a uniform sitting there writing a report. So that became a destination for us when we, oh, hey, I got to write a report. I'll meet you up at Francis and Wall. Let's knock this out. That 0. 25 coffee was viewed by our administration at the time as a gratuity and therefore corruption. So that was the kind of stuff that I was hearing when corruption came up in my early patrol years. And so you can imagine why I kind of dismissed it. Um, and of course, I revisited it later on because it's an [00:10:00] interesting discussion, but, you know, I don't think when I say the word police corruption, people probably picture, you know, a cop getting a 25 cent cup of coffee along with the bread guy and the tack, you know, the cab driver at night. Right? So that's where that's where it started. Um, yeah. You know, later on, I kind of had to look at it from a leadership standpoint and recognize where where the pitfalls lay and I was fortunate to be from what I would term a clean department. Now, I think that's probably my own bias kicking in there. So feel free if you've read up on Spokane and want to call me on on it, because there have certainly been scandalous behaviors that have occurred. But when I say clean department, I guess I mean, institutionally. Thank you. Uh, even though there have been some bad actors like the department of any size, um, and, and I was always proud of that fact that, that I, you know, came to partner, but I recognized, you know, the danger exists, the danger exists. And then when I got out into the even bigger world after, after, uh, retiring [00:11:00] and got into some cultures where it was a little more prevalent. Um, I just kind of reinforced my, my book that I came from a pretty good in, in this respect. Steve here. We are a member of the Parthenon Podcast Network featuring great shows like Richard Lim's This American President and other great shows. Go to parthenon podcast.com to learn more, and here is a quick word from our sponsors and I can see where you, that idea that, oh yeah, it's just a 25 cent co coffee, but you almost had, there was a quid pro quo of some sort. They wanted. Cops to hang out there too, but and I can see where that snowballs and even in my own profession as a teacher, you get gifts all the time from students and 99. 99999 percent of the time it's completely completely nonstop. Honest and it's just they want to give you a gift. They're appreciative of it. And I'm sure as a [00:12:00] cop, people would love to give you a bottle of scotch or something because you help them out. But then you almost do feel like there is some sort of expectation that when a bump in the road comes along that you're in some compromised position of some degree. You know, it's definitely a spectrum. Up here in Canada, there was a burger joint that used to give cops, I think it was like half price lunches, I don't know, like you brought up the 25 cent coffee and like the vast majority of the public is just going to look at that and go like, this is ridiculous. Like, what are you guys even talking about? They just want some cops around in the, in the coffee shop late at night, right? And then, but it does be, it can become a slippery slope, like, uh, Like, I've read a fair amount about Whitey Bulger, and, um, back in the day, like, the, the, uh, detectives that were his handlers, I'm trying to remember their names right now, it's escaping me, you know, Bulger would give them gifts, and at first, it kind of started off like, oh, it was, you know, it was like [00:13:00] a, I don't know, it was like a Like a ring or something like that, or maybe a couple hundred bucks. And then increasingly the gifts got more and more extravagant to the point where like, like you guys can't be doing this. Like this is, this is illegal. It's against the rules. But I don't know. It's crazy how people make like a big. Deal with something like 0. 25 coffee and then immediately it almost makes people want to just kind of dismiss the whole idea that there's police corruption because it's ridiculous, right? It's a, it's much of what goes on in terms of just debate in general that goes on in society now, where it's just like, really, we're getting upset about this. And then nobody wants to take anything else, but take the, uh, the rest of the stuff really seriously, if that makes sense. It does. And, and you brought up a, a, a several good points. I mean, one good point is that for most cops, and I mean that 99 percentile, like you, you mentioned the closest thing they're ever going to get to corruption is, Oh, 25 cent coffee at Francis and wall. That sounds cool. [00:14:00] You know, and they're not going to, uh, uh, amend how they do their job. They're not going to extend particular, uh, or favored treatment. Uh, it's, it's, it's a big nothing. Yeah. And that's what it was for me. I wasn't going to, you know, if I went to that, the owner of Francis walls house on a domestic, he wasn't going to not go to jail for hitting his wife because I got 25 cent coffee. You might make a stink about it afterwards, but he's not getting out of getting arrested. Right? And that's kind of what it is for, for, like I said, the vast majority of officers, but it does become kind of tricky. You talk about that half off burger thing is the other point you brought up that that I think is kind of funny is. Somebody always has to ruin it for everybody. Right? Um, and, and they're everywhere I went. It didn't matter where I went, whether it was up in the Northeast, Southwest, up in Canada, Canada, East Coast, Canada, out West and in the prairies. It was always the same. If something like this existed, you know, if a, if a dinner place [00:15:00] said, we're going to adopt a cop. And when that cops on shift, he gets half off his meals because maybe we don't pay our cops a lot around here, or it's an appreciation thing or whatever. And everybody seems okay with it. Eventually, some cop is going to decide on his day off. He's going to take his whole extended family there and expect the discount and make a fuss when he doesn't get, you know, he's going to come through the pizza place that gives half off an order. 25 pies. You know, I mean, they just, there's always an idiot that screws it up for everybody and calls attention to it in a negative way. Um, but maybe it needs to have attention, right? Because it can be a slippery slope. Like you mentioned. You said that Spokane was overall a good department. How do you define a good department? And then maybe, how do you define a bad department? Yeah, that's a tough one, because defining what's a good department, what's a bad department. First off, I think is it's not an objective of an objective thing. It doesn't exist in a vacuum. The [00:16:00] culture of the place where that department exists, um, and the system it resides within plays a part. Um, you know, I think you're going to bring up At some point in the conversation, the idea of a corruption spectrum, a spectrum of corruption and, you know, where that, you know, how that spectrum looks and what's on the light end and the dark end of that spectrum is impacted by where, where you live. I mean, I had a buddy of mine who. Was, uh, served as the IA sergeant for a little while, and he went to school and he's sitting there in the IA school. I don't remember where it was and they're talking about things that happened within a department and how to approach them. And he's just kind of flabbergasted by how terrible some of the stories that they're being presented are and. And he kind of got up to a couple of guys from Boston. I think it was actually, um, if you're from Boston and I'm, and this sounds bad, don't hate me. Cause I could be wrong, but he asked these guys from Boston. Is that, is that real? You know, because like, [00:17:00] you know, we, we in Spokane, we take anonymous demeanor complaints. That means Chris, you can get on the phone and call my police department and say, Frank's Glees was a jerk to me. At this time and place, well, what's your name? And you can hang up and they'll still investigate that. Right? And so my, my, my friend, Dave, that, you know, that was the policy, right? Investigate everything. And so my friend, Dave tells this to the Boston cops, and they just look at them and, and they'd been in for a little while at that point, of course, was required, but they didn't have to take it right away. Anyway, he guy says to him, uh, We don't even bother with if it's not a felony now, 1 caveat, my buddy Dave is a storyteller. So whether they said felony or not, they might have said crime. They could have, it could, he could have been exaggerating a little bit. He's prone to doing that, but that's still a long ways from an anonymous demeanor complaint. And so I was, I mean, this was shocking to him. It was shocking to me. And so, uh, but [00:18:00] culture has to do with that, right? The guys told him if you're not, if you're not making 50%, 70 percent more. Right. In street money, then you're not working and Dave was like, what's street money, you know, so, so there's a difference. Right. Um, but I would say a good department is a department that provides necessary law enforcement service. To to the constituency to the people and has the trust of the people that they serve and, and, you know, it's, it's easy to say it's kind of hard to define, but I mean, that that is 1 definition of a good place to. I think you can see, though, that that different idea of trend. It's almost a transparency. Yeah, it can be a little Nick nitpicky. Bill working the south side today was a little bit of a jerk, but you could honestly see that maybe there was a pattern that Bill was being a jerk every day. That's something that if you cared, you could take corrective measures were in that other department, uh, not to pick on Boston, but let's say Boston and you have Bill in [00:19:00] Boston and he's just allowed to be a jerk all the time. And then that does corrode the trust. Yeah, I have a theory that has absolutely zero academic support. I haven't checked it out. It's good. I could be totally blowing smoke here. Um, and, and you gentlemen feel free to poke holes in it. Um, but I think that in, in your Eastern U. S. police departments that were founded. Centuries ago, when policing was a very different animal and when the expectations on the police and who ran the police and what their purpose was, was very different. I think that they are because those things become part of the culture, even if the original behaviors go away, the, the, it's still part of the culture as it changes. I think they're more susceptible to, to that kind of, uh, of, Of corruption, particularly if there's an organized crime element that's prevalent, [00:20:00] that's, that's very, you know, very much a part of the fabric of the culture as well. Whereas, you know, I mean, Spokane was founded in 1884. I have to go check and see when the police department was founded, but obviously sometime after that. Um, and, and so what a police department supposed to do, while it's very different than what it is today, it was also very different than what it was in 1780 in New York. Yeah. You know, or, or Boston, since we're picking on Boston, because, you know, they think they have to win every championship that's out there. So screw them. Um, you know, I mean, it's just it's and so culture matters and where we come from and how we develop through the years matters. And, and I'm not saying better or worse East versus West. I'm just saying that, that they develop different and, and maybe Chris, you could touch on it too. That, you know, things in Canada is a different culture. It's similar to the US, but there are some. Yeah. Pronounce differences as well. And so maybe, you know, the way that Canadian law enforcement developed was different than the way it developed into us. [00:21:00] Well, I know we were speaking for, like, Quebec, because we, we talked a lot about, um, I haven't released the episode yet, but we've talked a lot about, like, Vito Rizzuto and the Rizzuto crime family in Quebec. And there's a long history of corruption that went. On in Quebec, like, to the point where, with the Hells Angels, like, there were members of the Quebec government, like, asking the, the federal government, like, can you, like, do something about this? And at that time, I don't know what the laws are right now, but the federal government really didn't really want to get involved. It's like, this is a provincial matter. You guys kind of have to figure this out. But, like, Quebec, And I don't know, people will probably get angry at me, but there's like a long, long history of like deep corruption and the Quebec police force and the Quebec law system. I mean, um, you know, it goes back to like, like, the Controni and like before that. And I mean, kind of, I guess it's similar to how the Italians, uh, saw like law enforcement in the government period. [00:22:00] Like they brought that kind of mentality from Sicily and they brought it over. Okay. Into the United States and even the Irish to write, uh, with, you know, whenever the English showed up, nothing good happens. And they kind of associated like the angle, upper crust and the United States with the English really. Um, and with Quebec and, you know, they were kind of isolated. They spoke a different language, different religion. So there was just like, kind of an innate. I think there was like, like an innate distrust of government period. This is my opinion. And I don't know anything about Quebec, to be honest with you. So I wouldn't want to comment on that. But the, the dynamics that you describe are not unique to that area. If that's what's going on, it's, it's a definitely, you know, everything exists within a system, right? And you know, I had a friend, a very close friend who took on a training. Role is the chief trainer, essentially for an Eastern agency that that I won't name, I guess, because mostly because I [00:23:00] taught there a couple of different times. So I spent like 6 weeks there at various times and there's a lot of good cops there, but but they, they live and work in a department that has some corruption issues. And they exist within a municipality that is corrupt. I mean, their, the previous mayor went to prison for corruption. Um, you know, the current mayor, uh, mayor at the time that my friend was working there, um, wasn't any better. Um, they brought in a, a, a, a reformer chief, a colleague of mine that I also, that also taught within this program, great guy out of, out of, uh, the, uh. What do you call it? Like Michigan, Wisconsin, that area. It's not the Midwest is upper Midwest, maybe upper Midwest. Right. So, you know, that's his background in terms of geography. He goes in and tries to reform and he was up against the culture, not just the police department culture, which is formidable enough when you're talking 800 people, a thousand [00:24:00] people that can have their own culture, but the city culture and the regional culture, all of which reinforced many of these behaviors. I don't know that there was a big organized crime, uh, presence there. Um, I, there was on the other side of the state and another, another agency that's pretty well known for its corruption. Uh, so maybe there was, but even without that, it was difficult. It was impossible. He ended up leaving without not having accomplished his mission. It did not change. Um, so culture is huge cultures like gravity, you know, it's, it's inexorable and, and it's extremely hard to change. And if you're trying as a police chief. Um, to change a department that has some corruption issues and some members who may be corrupt and you have a culture you're battling that with inside the department and you're having to fight an external culture that reinforces all of that and won't allow you to make the changes that you want to make, um, because they're ineffective because they don't work in a corrupt environment. You [00:25:00] know, what do you do? I mean, you're, you're, it becomes a real, real problem, uh, and a difficult one to solve if it is solved. Yeah. That aspect of culture is another thing that I never really thought about in working in schools. I, we've talked about this before that schools and police departments have so many crossovers, but culture, you can have the top down, but it's really hard to penetrate into the bottom. If there's a lot of veterans who have been around for a long time and they're They've been there 15, 20 years and they're the ones who are, in a lot of ways, they're the more ground level of mentorship of the new people coming in. Yeah, the, the chief or the superintendent or the principal can come in and say, Hey guys, we're doing it this way. But it's really hard when the 15 year veterans saying we, this is how things are done around here. Yeah. And, and in any agency, police or education [00:26:00] or, or any, anything like that, it, you're talking about like your sergeants, basically you and your veteran teachers and these folks, they're doing what they're doing the way they're doing it because it's working, even if it's broken, it's working in some fashion. And if you're going to come in and try to change that, what you're, Yeah. Trying to change it to better work as well, or show promise of working. Otherwise, they're not going to change. And, you know, there's an old saying that that I encountered pretty early in my career that I found out pretty much every cop gets told this at some point in their career, and it's always when they're a rookie or young cop, and it's always by an old salt. I mean, it's, it's almost a cliche at this point, but it goes like this, uh, The brass comes down, they come to roll call, lieutenant comes to roll call, captain comes to roll call, whatever, Hey, this is the new program. This is what we're doing now. And they give you the buzzword. You know, I can't tell you how many buzzwords I heard in a 20 year career. I mean, I know you have to in education, you know, [00:27:00] no child left behind, you know, uh, you know, we're doing, you know, whatever student led teaching, whatever. It's the same thing. We're community oriented policing, neighborhood oriented policing, you know, uh, Uh, intelligence led policing, all of these different buzzwords and some of them, and they weren't just buzzwords. Some of them were fantastic ideas that if implemented or when implemented are effective, but one of the mistakes leadership often makes is they change course so often that nobody really gets a chance to get grounded with the direction that we were going. And then people. Are like, Hey, we're just going to change course in six months. Why am I going to engage? And that's what the old assault tells the young rookie when they come into roll call spouting about this new buzzword. And, and the rookie's like, well, how am I supposed to do this? And how am I supposed to do that? And the old guy just told me, just put your head down, take your calls, do your job in six months. They'll be back with some other shiny toy to talk about. And, and so that's the cynical. And not entirely incorrect at times viewpoint that can exist at the ground level at [00:28:00] the, you know, the mid level for your, your veterans and your mentors. And so you have to overcome that and people talk about, like, uh, with both your professions, you guys are like, have to deal with unions and stuff like that. So you can't even. Even if you catch a dirty cop, it's like a huge process to even get rid of them. Like the union's in place to make sure he doesn't get fired. And I, I don't know, I think people have this like false impression of just how you can change like a big organization, say, I don't know, we'll just use the Boston police force or the New York police force. Like it takes. A long, long time to do it and it takes a long time and it takes a lot of people to actually be committed to wanting to make that change. And like you brought up, like, you know, we're talking about guys have been on the force for like 20 years. Sometimes like you're trying to get them to change their ways and. It's, it's a huge process to be able to deal with a lot of these problems. Like, I know everyone thinks that you can just fix a problem with these large bureaucracies, like, oh, you can just do it [00:29:00] overnight. I mean, like, you can to a degree, like, you can just blow it all up and then just start from scratch. But you can't, but you can't, can you? Yeah, exactly. That's why you can't you can't just fire all the cops and have them reapply for their job. And what contract with another police department to for your police services while that's happening. I don't that I guess you could try it. It'd be it'd be a mess. You're going to fire all the teachers and bring in subs while you reinterview them. I guess you could, but what's the impact going to be? On the people you're trying to give service delivery to to those kids in the classroom or those citizens on the street. I think you make a great point there, Chris. It's not a speedboat. It's an aircraft carrier. You know, it doesn't turn around as quickly as as people want it to and and so people get a little bit. Maybe inpatient leadership changes and changes the course. And so they shift course again. So now it feels like you haven't made any progress or, or even leadership just changes their minds because it's not happening [00:30:00] fast enough, or they get pressure. I mean, all kinds of things can happen. So culture is a huge thing. Culture is a huge thing. And, and how corruption is viewed, what, what constitutes corruption, how corruption is dealt with, um, All of these things I think are heavily influenced by culture. I mean, if a cop murders somebody, I mean, that's going to be the same everywhere. You know, if a cop is kicking in doors with his buddies and, and, and robbing drug dealers or dealing drugs, I mean, that's going to be dealt the same. Across the boards. There's no agency out there is going to say, well, you know, that's, you know, they, they, they, they, they put in a card and took some time off before they went and did that. So, I mean, you're not going to get that. But on the other end of the spectrum, the 0. 25 coffee and up, you get different responses and what, what corruption is. From personally, like, I work in like a non union environment, right? Like, I work at a scrapyard and just even there with relatively, I don't know, it's not large staff, but like, it's, [00:31:00] it's not small either. And it just to change something, even something, even personally, like, I've had a couple of freak outs where I'm just like, Why do we insist on doing something stupid? Do you know what I mean? But it's just, it's just, it's just the nature of how, like we pointed out, like how just bureaucracy works, like it's just this, it's this slow moving behemoth that takes forever to make a right turn. That's the nature of bureaucracy, right? It's intended to work that way. The purpose of bureaucracy is to confer stability. And, and yet there, and therefore, because it's so stable, it's difficult and time consuming to make changes. So I think, I think you nailed it. Now you laid out, uh, at least 1 part of this conversation of, okay, the 25 cent coffee is a way to show appreciation. I appreciate you. And here's a new Tesla. That's there's a spectrum of corruption there, but there was something else that you had talked about [00:32:00] when we were planning. This out is corruption that starts from the best of intentions kind of. Good, good intentions that lead to corruption. And I'd love for them to hear a little bit more about that, really a lot of it more, to be honest. Yeah. The term that I hear that's been used most commonly in the profession is noble cause corruption. And, um, I, I, I don't know who coined the phrase. I know that somebody wrote a book about it that was on every promotional exam I ever took. And the first couple of times I. I read it just so that I could answer the questions and I, I, I, I even thought it was BS. I didn't think it was, it was legit. But the idea of noble cause corruption is that you take a good person in a, in a role of responsibility. In this case, a police officer. And imagine you go and you arrest a child molesting murderer. And guilt is, [00:33:00] I mean, you catch him in the act. I mean, whatever. Guilt is not in question in this scenario. Um, but you, you make a small clerical mistake that would become a procedural error that actually could put things into jeopardy. Maybe you, Asked him a couple of questions. He made a guilt, a guilty statement. And then you remembered you hadn't read him as Moran writes yet. This is actually a pretty big violation, but it works for our example. So then you read him the rights, you read the guy's rights and, and go from there. And, and he doesn't make that same confession again. That confession is going to ultimately be inadmissible and maybe it's enough to keep them from getting convicted. And so you decide, you know, I read him his rights. He's guilty as hell. He admitted it. It's a procedural harmless error on my part that's going to have this major issue come of it. I'm just going to write in my report that I read him his rights and then I started asking him questions. It's just a [00:34:00] small little white lie. And in doing that, I am going to ensure that this Pedophile murderer doesn't get acquitted on a procedural error that I made that is essentially harmless. So are you going to find anybody in the world except a lawyer that's going to argue that you did something wrong there? I mean, most cops are going to, would consider that at least. Um, if they were faced with that situation, that's still corruption, right? Isn't it? It's a lie. It's not your job to make sure somebody gets convicted. It's your job to enforce the law and to write reports truthfully and to administer the procedures. But if you do it incorrectly to document that you made that mistake and let the courts figure out how to deal. That's technically your role. So it's a form of corruption, but it's a, it was done for noble purposes and. This can be the start and you know, could be something that occurs once and never again. You could have cops that never do anything like that. You could have cops that that's the they do one small thing like that in [00:35:00] their entire 25 year career and that's it. But from a. Psychological standpoint from a behavioral standpoint, it can lead to well, this time I, you know, he didn't exactly say he did it, but he kind of gave me a, he raised his eyebrows like at me, but he didn't say yes, but he meant yes. And he was being a smart ass, but I'm going to put yes, because I know we did it. And then you're planting evidence at this point on a guilt. You know, I mean, I'm trying to remember what movie it is where the guy says, uh, Oh, uh, LA Confidential. When the, um, the Irish captain asks, um, the Guy Pearce character, Bagley, Bagley, Ed, whatever his last name is, asks, asks him, you know, would you plant evidence on a suspect you know to be guilty? And Ed says no, and he's like, this job's not for me. Well, you know, planting evidence on somebody, you know, to be guilty, that infers again, a noble purpose, but you're doing something wrong, very wrong. It [00:36:00] can round a bend at some point. I mean, most people argue that's already around the bend, but your purpose is still, I'm trying to make the world a better place. I'm trying to put bad guys that I know are bad guys in jail. No question. It can round the bend into, uh, self. Aggrandizement self, uh, bettering your own circumstances on, you know, keeping money, stealing money, starting money and things of this nature. And that's where the slippery slope idea comes in. Um, there's fascinating, uh, case study in Chicago, um, back 2000s. I think it happened 2008. Maybe I could be wrong early 2000s. It's a Chicago S. O. S. group. Um. Yeah. In which a guy, you know, he, he was a idealistic cop and he started doing exactly the kind of things I'm talking about. And in this scenario, there was a mentor. There was a guy he looked up to even before he came on the department that kind of showed him the way and let him down the garden path. And what started [00:37:00] as a guy's running from me and he ditches the gun and when I catch him, I decide the gun I picked up in the bush that he threw there never left his hand because I want to make this an airtight case. And this guy, you know, you know, killed 3 people and he's a drug dealer and, you know, piece of garbage. He went from that kind of behavior, which is bad enough, most people would argue, to they're kicking in doors and stealing 30, 000 from, from the safe of drug dealers. And then after they got caught putting out hits on some of the other cops in their group, I mean, it's a terrible story. It's a horrible story. And if you're a police officer, you listen to it in horror because it's such a. You know, 0. 0001 percent sort of thing, but it happened rampart happened. You know, it does happen. Um, but it doesn't start with, uh, you know, what, what do they do in New York where they, I think they, you know, they sodomize somebody with a flashlight or screwdriver or something. That's a big story around the same time. And I mean. That's not day 1 [00:38:00] of, of, of noble cause corruption, you know, day 1 is a free pizza or whatever, you know, and, and so the idea is that that's why that 25 cent coffee is something you have to take a look at. That's why. Uh, no, no zero tolerance rule or a very tight grip on what you expect from your officers and what is allowed in terms of, of appreciation and so forth is so important because it's almost like a disease. You can't get a little bit pregnant. You just, you get pregnant and it grows. That's kind of the idea. So I know that was a long and rambling explanation, but there's a lot of. Academia out there about noble cause corruption. If people are interested, there's, like I said, there's textbooks and plenty of papers on the topic. It's pretty well known. And then you can check it out. Steve here again with a quick word from our sponsors. I got understand like, I [00:39:00] totally get this slipper. So I mean, Steve have gone back and forth about this a couple of times. It's like cop walks into a house and it's some guy that's, I don't know, pimping out his daughter and You know, there's drugs all over the place and, you know, he decides, you know, I'm just going to change the report a little bit different to get this guy off the street. There's a part of me that's just like, you know what, just go ahead and do it, man. You know, like this guy deserves to be behind bars. It's like this, this person's scum of the earth. It's not like this person's going to turn around and all of a sudden change his life. How often does that happen? Let's be honest here. And then, but then. It becomes a silver so play you pointed out like it starts off with something like that. And it's like, oh, I got away with it the 1st time. And then, you know, like, you plan a good result came of it, right? That's how you're seeing it. Well, yeah, you know, like, you got a scumbag off the streets, like, not like, not like, just like a guy who stole a good. You know, some candy bars at a store. We're talking like the worst of the worst people [00:40:00] that I think for the vast majority of the human population really has a difficult time, maybe even comprehending some of the people that police officers have to deal with, like, have seen and have had to deal with. Like, you just you see the. Absolute utter worst of humanity and, you know, maybe you change the report just a little bit or, you know, you change something just once just to be able to get this one disgusting scumbag off the streets and maybe save that little girl's life. Or give her a fighting chance, right? You know, yeah, give her a fighting chance. I think the whole idea of you sleepwalking into that level of corruption, that it just starts off as just that tiniest thing. I'm going to put this guy away, uh, because I, I know they're, they're dead to rights. They've done that. And then it just. It can start getting a little bit grayer, a little bit grayer, a little bit grayer, and then it just makes it so much easier to get into the really bad corruption of, I don't make that much [00:41:00] money as a cop and I gotta, you know, put my kids through college and it's not fair. So, and they have all this money from drugs. So, you know, if a couple of packets fall into my Bag on the way out, then, you know, that's not a big deal. Once you start making those little bad decisions, it just key. It's like an escalator. You just can't get off of it. Yeah. And so two quick points there. One, I want to be really clear. The overwhelming majority of police officers that I have come in contact with don't do this kind of stuff. Not even close. They're very conscientious that is preached from the academy onward. And a lot of people, even though they might look at a book like noble cause corruption and had the same reaction I did when I first came across it and be like, I don't need to read that. I'm not, I'm not dirty. I don't take. I'm not on the dole or whatever they still intuitively understand the concept. They understand I have to be true and remain true to do this job. And so they just do if they ever do anything [00:42:00] like that. It's extremely minor and probably a once in a career event. That probably no one would have a problem with, but it's still wrong, right? So that's one point. I just, I want to be really clear on, I don't want to sit here and sound like, you know, uh, I'm saying that, uh, that the cops do this willy nilly because it's not even close to the truth. Um, but to your point, Steve, you know, it's, it's not that it is a slippery slope, but it's not that far to jump from. I know for an absolute fact, because it happened in front of me, this guy did it to Chris saw him do it. And I trust Chris to. Objectively speaking, the facts point to the fact that he probably almost certainly did it too. I'm pretty sure he did it too. He might have done it and he's probably done some other stuff too. And if you're doing the same action to make sure that person goes to jail, you know, over a period of time, it can, you know, it can morph to that, the, the lower the threshold is going to lower, I guess, if you start to make that a practice. Um, and so that's why, you know, yeah. Better, better to not [00:43:00] start in the first point, you know, and void it entirely. And I think you make a good point that it's. Most cops, the vast, vast majority and want to do the best, they punch in the clock every day to do their best and, but they're trained from the beginning to check these things that you do things by the, the book. And is that as a leader, was that something when you moved from the, from the patrol side and from the, uh, I guess the, the ground level, and as you started to move up into leadership, Were those some of the things that you were looking for and putting in systems and thinking about systems of how, you know, the best cop on your department, making sure that he stayed on the course? Um, I'll answer that. I did want to give you a quick analogy. I think that brings that last portion of our conversation really into a tighter focus. Um, I think for the individual officer, the issue of potentially falling prey to a [00:44:00] form of corruption, however slight without really being aware of it. You said sleepwalking into it. I think that that's a good way to put it. But I think it's a combination of kind of a forest and trees problem. When you're a police officer, you're focused on the trees. In fact, maybe just this 1 tree in this particular moment and much like a lumberjack, it's a good thing because that tree might kill you. So pay attention to that trade. Um, but it does mean you don't necessarily see the forest and so the things that you're doing, you could sleepwalk a little if you weren't paying attention. And then also, as I think I kind of mentioned before, as it becomes that frog and boiling water problem to, you know, you can get progressively lower that threshold to your leadership question. I was fortunate. I think. In that I didn't have to develop these systems. They were already in place. Um, you know, we had a chief who was chief when I came on who, who took this very seriously and his successors did as well. And so, you know, I mean, I was. Still in a department where the 25 cent [00:45:00] cup of coffee was something that we took a look at. So the systems were in place. Um, the concerns were always there. And, you know, you're never going to completely be able to stop individual bad actors. It doesn't matter how much you screen people and believe me, if I told you, we can spend 20 minutes about the, on the screening process to become a police officer, at least in most of the agencies I'm familiar with. And I think you'd be surprised. How difficult it is, uh, to get past that screening process. But even so, you're still going to have bad actors that get past and they do it. And there's always, uh, you know, uh, people do things. There are people doing things that are bad across every walk of life. And policing is no different. The big difference is the impact. You know, teaching is similar in this regard. If you have a teacher who does something that's scandalous. It has an outsized impact. I mean, you know, Chris, if you're working, if somebody in the scrapyard does something in their job, that's not great, it's going to [00:46:00] have an impact, but it might not have a city wide impact or a state or province wide impact, but in teaching or policing, I think, you know, it's because of the responsibility that's given to the people. And the authority to exercise and deal with that responsibility when bad things happen, they are outsized and how much attention is given to them. And I think rightfully so I'm not decrying that that scenario, but I was fortunate. We already had things in place. And so all I had to do is unfortunately deal with the individuals who. Who failed and address that I didn't have systemic issues to do. Yeah, you brought up the, uh, like the spotlight the police have on them and it's. It's perfectly like, it's 100 percent true, right? Like, it's easy for. The spotlight go like, to go on, like, the corrupt police officers or what have you, because I don't mean, let's be honest. I don't know what everybody else's opinion is. Like, nobody likes being pulled over by the police, right? Like, there's almost like an inherent, like, I don't like these type of guys. Like, straight off the bat, when you talk to the [00:47:00] vast majority of people, right? So when there's any type of corruption, there's a huge, like, magnifying glass on it, right? Like, where, um, just people love to talk about it and people like to focus on it. And rightfully so, right? Because police officers, as you pointed out, have an opportunity to do some really, really, really, really, really bad things if there's not there's not enough oversight. But I think it's just 1 of those. Right. Professions were when somebody screws up, everyone loves the dog pile on it. And I cannot understand, like, the police officers, like, getting really defensive when, uh, situations like that happen, where, as you pointed out, like, the 99 percent of the police officers that you met in your, uh, tenure for working, you know, through, uh, uh, various police forces. They're 100 percent like, legit, they're squeaky clean, right? And, you know, one, a few bad apples, uh, make everybody else look bad. But then, it's the entire media apparatus. It's Twitter, it's [00:48:00] social media, it's everything. Everyone's jumping on it. It's because of the nature of how policing has changed. You don't really have police officers. I don't know how it works in Spokane. Or, you know, where I grew up in Toronto, there's no police officers walking the beat. You know, I couldn't, I didn't know any police officers by their first name or, or anything like that, whether they had family or, you know, like, uh, back in the day, police officers used to like, kind of walk the, the beat in the neighborhoods and people used to kind of know, like there was a fixture in the neighborhood. Um, so almost every interaction you end up having with police officers nowadays, uh, is typically negative. I mean, uh, uh, I mean, just real quickly, I'll say people don't like the cops, but they sure do like us when somebody's breaking down their door. You like us then , how do you like me now? Right? I've taken that guy to jail. Um, but, uh, uh, but you're right. Um, and, and, and lately of course, there's been even more negative press in the last few years. It's gotten, uh, [00:49:00] amplified. Um, as the world gets smaller, every bad act that happens anywhere gets broadcast to the, to the entire. You know, country or entire, uh, continent. And so it feels like it's happening more often when in reality, I just think it's being reported more widely to more people because that's the nature of the world that we live. But you're right. Um, you know, I, another one of my pet theories and I don't think it's that crazy is that when we took the officer off the beat and put them in a car, we, we, we lost something. Now we gained something too. We gained, you know, you know, strategic ability to deploy rapidly to crimes in progress. And that's a big thing. And that was a great development. And, and, and there are advantages to that, that I don't think we can go back from that. We would not want to go back, but we did lose something. Um, and, you know, ideas like neighborhood oriented policing, community oriented policing, these programs. You know, are, are geared towards trying to [00:50:00] put that back into, uh, some form of that back into play so that, uh, the relationships between communities and their police departments are more organic and more pronounced and more person to person rather than entity to entity. But ironically, when you had that. Cop walking the beat. It was during a time when cops didn't make a whole lot. So that's why people, you know, took terms given the cop free meal while he was on duty. Right? Because they knew he probably couldn't afford lunch. So this, you know, he's come to my diner today. He's coming to yours tomorrow. He'll eat with Steve on Wednesday. And, you know, it's not a big deal. We're taking care of our neighborhood cop. And just like the noble cause corruption kind of slide that we talked about, you know, that. Yeah. That becomes an entitlement rather than an assistance, and that entitlement then becomes a demand and then it escalates. And now we've got situations in the 70s. and so, [00:51:00] um, no, no system is perfect, but I think you're onto something. Chris. I think I think that, uh. Effective policing really does start with community engagement and, and of course you have to have a ready reaction group as well for crisis sorts of events, but that's become our focus. And in some instances, if you're understaffed to a particular degree, that might be all you can do is respond to those sort of events. And that's an unhealthy department when you get to that point, because you're not engaging the community. You can't, um, and. Thank you. If you're disassociated from the community, that's another opportunity I think, for corruption to work its way in one fashion. You've been listening to Organized Crime and Punishment, a History and Crime podcast. To learn more about what you heard today, find links to social media and how to support the show. Go to our website, A to Z history page.com. Become a [00:52:00] friend of ours by sending us an email to crime at A to Z history page dot com. All of this and more can be found in the show notes. We'll see yous next time on Organized Crime and Punishment. Forget about it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Coming Soon on Organized Crime and Punishment! You can learn more about Organized Crime and Punishment and subscribe at all these great places: https://atozhistorypage.start.page www.organizedcrimeandpunishment.com Click to Subscribe: https://omny.fm/shows/organized-crime-and-punishment/playlists/podcast.rss email: crime@atozhistorypage.com Parthenon Podcast Network Home: parthenonpodcast.com On Social Media: https://www.youtube.com/@atozhistory https://www.facebook.com/groups/atozhistorypage https://facebook.com/atozhistorypage https://twitter.com/atozhistorypage https://www.instagram.com/atozhistorypage/ Music Provided by: Music from "5/8 Socket" by Rico's Gruv Used by permission. © 2021 All Rights Reserved. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=210vQJ4-Ns0 https://open.spotify.com/album/32EOkwDG1YdZwfm8pFOzUuSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Title: Mafia and Church Original Publication Date: 10/25/2023 Transcript URL: https://share.descript.com/view/BZyv8VrPajJ Description: Today we have a special crossover episode between the History of the Papacy Podcast and Organized Crime and Punishment. Chris and Steve talk about how much religion, particularly the Catholic Church, has impacted the Mafia and how the Mafia has impacted the Catholic Church. This relationship goes far into the past and exists to this very day! You can learn more about Organized Crime and Punishment and subscribe at all these great places: https://atozhistorypage.start.page email: crime@atozhistorypage.com www.organizedcrimeandpunishment.com Parthenon Podcast Network Home: parthenonpodcast.com On Social Media: https://www.youtube.com/@atozhistory https://www.facebook.com/groups/atozhistorypage https://facebook.com/atozhistorypage https://twitter.com/atozhistorypage https://www.instagram.com/atozhistorypage/ By Quirinale.it, Attribution, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=129042272 Music Provided by: Music from "5/8 Socket" by Rico's Gruv Used by permission. © 2021 All Rights Reserved. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=210vQJ4-Ns0 https://open.spotify.com/album/32EOkwDG1YdZwfm8pFOzUu Begin Transcript: [00:00:00] Welcome to Organized Crime and Punishment, the best spot in town to hang out and talk about history and crime, with your hosts, Steve and Mustache Chris. Thank you for joining me again today. I have a special program today featuring the brand new podcast I've launched with my co host, Mustache Chris. called Organized Crime and Punishment, a history and crime podcast. Organized Crime and Punishment takes the true crime genre and injects it with the heavy dose of the, uh, the much needed history podcast genre. Mustache Chris and I will... Take you through [00:01:00] some of the most fascinating topics in organized crime throughout the history of the United States, and even beyond the United States. And a lot of it is actually gonna cross over with history of the Papa c and in coming episodes and seasons. Mustache. Why don't you introduce yourself to the history of the Papacy audience nicknames, uh, mustache. Chris was the story behind that, but you'll have to listen to the new podcast too. Uh, Get why I have that nickname. I have a mustache, but there's a, there's a little more for it too. Yeah. I don't know if you ever listened to Steve's like beyond the big screen podcast. It became like quite frequent guest on there. Um, you know, we're discussing movies and. You know, this, this new show that we're going to be doing, uh, came about because we were discussing mafia movies and we were both, uh, kind of history dorks and, um, you know, one thing led to another and the series just kept on getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And we decided this, why don't we just do [00:02:00] a history of organized crime in general? You know, just we're going to do the mafia, but, you know, we're talking about doing, you know, all around the world. So we really, it was, we needed to get set free from being held back by. We had to tie something into a movie and we could really go where we wanted to go and follow the history. Wherever it took us, and it's taking us in all sorts of interesting places, which really ties into today's episode. We're going to let you wet your beak a little bit on what Mustache Chris and I will offer in this new podcast series with an episode on the history of the Catholic Church and the Mafia. We'll discuss a few of the people and events where the Mafia and the Church... Collided and crossed over. If you want to learn more and subscribe to organized crime and punishment, you can find it on Spotify, Apple podcasts, your podcatcher of choice, and on YouTube. And if you enjoy [00:03:00] what you hear, make sure you tell a friend about this podcast so that they can be friend of friends of ours. So let me give you a little background, basically. The Roman Catholic Church has had a very strange relationship with various organized crime organizations in southern Italy since they formed in at least the 1800s and even earlier. The full history of the local organized crime outfits in Italy, such as La Cosa Nostra in Sicily, the Camorra, and the Campania region of Italy, and the Um, Ju. Undrangheta of Calabria is really long and something we will get into more properly in the Organized Crime and Punishment podcast. As we've learned throughout this entire series on the popes of the 19th century, the popes hated secret societies that rose in the 19th century, like [00:04:00] the Carbonari, the Freemasons, and others. And even though the La Cosa Nostra, the Camorra, the Uyghurs, and the Calabrians, the Calabrian Gondreta, where secrets, were secret societies and the popes and the church in general hated secret societies. These mafia societies were really quite different than the secular societies. You've read into those ones a bit, Chris. What do you, what would you say about that? Oh, like the differences between the, like, three, uh, types of three major mafias the more secular, uh, secret societies. Yeah, like, La Cosa Nostra is pretty predominant. That's Sicily's, uh, mafia, really. Um, it's... You know, has a very, uh, hierarchical kind of structure to it. Um, you know, non Sicilians, you have to be Italian, but non Sicilians could join in the, uh, La Cosa Nostra, right? Um, and it was [00:05:00] like the, the big area where it was based in, but it's on all of Sicily, but Palermo is like the big hotbed of La Cosa Nostra activity. Um, yeah. After the, I would say kind of after the second mafia war, which is not to go down too much of a rabbit hole, they kind of took a step down. The Camorra, which is, uh, based in, uh, is, I'm sorry, the Camorra is actually probably the oldest out of the all three of the, uh, mafias. Um, it's, uh, I believe from what I've researched, it predates Locosa Nostra, it predates the, uh, the Adrangata. Um, yeah. Yeah, and it's very, it's different than the Locos Nostra in the sense that it's, uh, kind of loosely affiliated. Like, there is an organizational structure, but it's more kind of like individual cells, like working somewhat together, but also like competing against one another. And the Andrangita, which is based in Calabria, um, is, uh, it's kind of like, it's You know, all [00:06:00] these are all, they're all mafia, so there's a lot of similarities between them, but the Adrangata is, uh, really, really, really, really secretive, and one of the things that kind of makes it unique that, at least from the information that we have available to us, where like, guys in like, they have like family, Say, in La Cosa Nostra, a lot of fathers who try to push to not have their kids join, where in the, with the, the Andrangita, it's the exact opposite, really, like you, they push for their entire families to join and keep it as, like, close knit family wise as possible. I mean, in some ways it, it, it was kept it from being able to expand, say, like the, like, uh, Lacosa Nostra did, but in a lot of ways it's proven to be highly effective because, uh, as of right now, they're probably the most powerful out of all three of them. Now one big difference between the secular secret societies like the Carbon [00:07:00] and the Freemasons, they were Virulently Virulently, anti-Christian and anti Roman Catholic Church. And at least on the surface, and I thinking, uh, you might say hourly, but even deeply, these. Were these organizations of the mafia were devoted to the Roman Catholic Church, its institutions and its practices and like many other cultures, the southern Italians were very invested in the folkways of the religion and see the episodes on the resortimento with Joe Pascone of the Turning Tides History podcast to learn more about that. All of this leads into What is the relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and the Mafia? You would think, well, maybe the Roman Catholic Church should be against the Mafia. Maybe they should be completely against the Mafia. That makes us want to, makes me want to talk about this [00:08:00] issue and lay down some groundwork of what is excommunication. Excommunication traditionally doesn't mean someone who is permanently booted out of the church, as we might propose. popularly imagined. Anathematizing is the final booting out where someone isn't welcome back. And even then, if the person repents, there is usually some path to back, to get back in the church. And I did, I've done many episodes on this topic throughout the podcast, including several episodes on the late antiquity and early middle ages controversy over Novationism and Donatism, which we can actually talk about in this episode as we go along. These issues get very confused in modern Christianity, especially in places like the United States and the Anglosphere because of the Puritans and the Reformation in early American history. Their theology is not really. applicable to Catholic theology on [00:09:00] salvation, but that's a whole different issue. So, and really, excommunication means exactly what it says, being out of communion with the church. In other words, not being able to participate in the central sacrament of the church. Communion, no church leader is going to take that lightly, no matter how pious or corrupt they might be. So let's keep this in mind and this whole idea of what the church ideal is, even when the institution is at its very best or fails completely. At that ideal, and I think that this will be a very informative conversation. Let's take a look at a few examples from Italy and the U. S. to see what the Roman Catholic Church had to say about these issues. So the first one is the mafia and the church in Italy, and this is a huge topic, but I really, we decided to take a one small chunk of it. Now, southern Italy [00:10:00] is by far the most religious part of the country, and this was the case back during the post enlightenment period of the 18th and the 19th centuries, and it's very much the case all the way up till today. In many places, the leader of the local mafia is also the local leader of the government. And also the biggest proponent of the church. Steve here again. We are a member of the Parthenon podcast network featuring great shows like Josh Cohen's eyewitness history and many other great shows go to Parthenon podcast to learn more. And now here's a quick word from our sponsors. Yeah, I think it's something that's kind of a little bit. Difficult for, um, American and Canadian audiences to understand, even just like Western Europeans, I think, in [00:11:00] general, like Southern Italy is, in a lot of ways, is not what we would consider like a well functioning society, you know, for most of its history, where, well, there's a lot of history to it, you know, like you, you've talked about it on your podcast, like places like Sicily and Southern Italy have had like, you You know, being conquered many, many times, many different rulers from different parts of the world. Um, and, you know, it's like, just certain institute, like certain things that, like, just don't run properly, like, you know, like a court of law or like, if the groceries are going to be on the shelf to buy. You know, when the government is it's not even so much like the government doesn't want to have this type of powers. There's a lot of the times they're just incapable of being able to exert this kind of control. And once they're not able to kind of exert that control, it's usually local mafias in the case of Sicily, but it's usually like a local gang or a local baron or you know, You know, like the local rich guy ends up taking up the, [00:12:00] uh, the duties of that would regularly be that would typically be, um, divvied out to say, like the state government or even the local, like a municipal government, or in some cases, the federal government, right? Where most of these types of governments have, uh, Failed, you know, and even when they sometimes are, they are running properly, they're running corruptly. And there's a whole history to it too. And, uh, this region of Italy of just the distrust of the government, because of what, as I pointed out, a lot of its history was, you know, you had like French people were there, like French rulers were there, and then it was like Spanish rulers were there. And. All different types of rulers, you know, even you want to go further back, you know, the Muslims were running this region for a while too, right? The Moors, um, so for most of Southern Italy's history, it's kind of been ingrained in the people that you really can't trust the local authorities because, I don't know, they're usually trying to rip you off [00:13:00] or they're corrupt or they're treating you like a conquered people. And then this attitude persists to this day. I mean, it's gotten a little bit better when kind of, Just how, like, the seriousness of, like, just how, um, evil the mafia is, um, in Southern Italy. And if, you know, a couple brave judges and a couple of brave people have spoke out about, um, um, the evils of the La Cosa Nostra and the mafias in these regions, but it's still relatively Still kind of functions like this. It really is. Like if you go to southern Italy, I haven't been personally, but everything that I've read, it's you, you're reading about this. And it's like, this doesn't sound like Europe. And in a lot of ways, it isn't, I think it's, yeah, I, I absolutely agree with that. The local local. Government of your brother or you're basically your tribesmen, they might be pretty evil, but at least they're putting food on your table. They're evil, but they're a little less. [00:14:00] Evil than the way that the central government of say that was coming out of Rome or going back to the Naples or whatever they were, they were rotten evil, and they were just looking to basically steal everything from these people, at least the local. Bad guy was a little bit better and a little bit better at protecting your slight rights than what was coming from the centralized government and really the leader of a local government was usually connected very tightly to the church because they didn't have it. Any of this idea of a separation of church and state, and in many instances, and in many places around the world, that distinction would be absurd, like, in our world view, that is the most enshrined thing, really, in our culture, is that religion in the state is, should [00:15:00] it be absolutely separated, but there's a lot of places around the world that they would think you were a lunatic for separating them. But for most of human history, that's the case. And for the vast, like that, you know, for most of the world, it seems like a really crazy concept. I mean, I use like, kind of like a modern example, look at Afghanistan, you know, uh, the Taliban's back in power and when the Taliban derives their authority from, you know, religion, the religious institutions, but mainly, you know, being like a religious force for Islam and look at Iran. You know, India is slightly different in the sense that it's a little bit more secular, but like, you really can't separate, like, Indian government and, uh, Hinduism. You just, the two were kind of insep like, you can't really separate the two of them. Uh, Japan up until, uh, I mean, literally, they worshiped the emperor as a god up until World War II for most of its history. It [00:16:00] only stopped doing that. Well, I don't, I, I wouldn't say they even really stopped doing it. They just kind of directed it in a different, different way. But in Russia, as an example, um, yeah, like the, the, uh, the Orthodox Church was kind of, uh, marginalized and pushed to the side when the communists took over. As soon as the Soviet Union fell, that separation of church and state just went away, like, for most of its history, like, uh, you know, it's hand in hand again, um, I mean, even England, like, even if you look at England, I mean, in theory, technically, the queen is the head of the, the state, uh, religion too, I mean, it practically has not ran like that, and, but, you Yeah, for most of human history, this, even I think it's kind of a crazy concept where, like, in the States and over here in Canada, we have this, like, strict separation of, like, the church and the state. I think it's, I think it's kind of crazy why we're so adamant about that, but, I [00:17:00] mean, that's a, that's a discussion for another podcast. Now, the Sicilian La Cosa Nostra boss, they said that all men of honor consider themselves Catholic, and I think that really shows that, at least by their ideal, if you're a mafia member, you're also a Catholic, and that's going to seem kind of strange how those two things that are seemingly at odds with each other will Have to be mushed together. It's kind of like two poles of a north and a south of the magnet getting pushed against each other. And they you would think they repel that in this case, they don't necessarily repel. Yeah, it's interesting, like, because even if you look at other different type of organized crime organizations around the world, like, I'll use Eastern Europe as an example, like using, uh. Kind of religious iconography, like you'll see, uh, [00:18:00] them, you know, wearing rosaries and having, like, uh, uh, tattoos of, like, uh, religious, like, uh, religious saints and what have you on their body. Um, I just said, I was thinking that now because I just recently watched that movie, Eastern Promises, and that's all filled with. Russian mafia and they all have these religious tattoos and it's not a meme. It's, it's an actual thing. Um, as the same thing with Southern, uh, with the mafias in Southern Italy and even in the cartels too, like a lot of these, a lot of these guys end up being high up in the cartels and running the cartels, they could. They consider themselves religious too. It's, it's, uh, I, I don't know how they reconcile the two things. I don't, I don't think they, I mean, in their minds they must, right? But I don't see how they're able to do it. And that really went for the, the mafia organizations all across Italy. Bosses or their families or their associates would get pride of place in religious processions, which were, uh, which, Were and [00:19:00] are a very popular form of do devotion and they would get many other perks within the church. And a lot of these mafia guys, like you were saying, are honestly truly religious too. They go to church all the time. They pray. They are maybe the more, the most pious people. And it is, it's a hard, uh, circle to square. If that's the right idiom, there's square to circle or whatever you're going to say, but you know what? You get, get my drift. It's a hard thing to wrap your mind around. I, the only thing I can kind of think of is the way they, I guess, rationalize in their head. It's like, well, I'm actually not participating in any of this stuff. Like I might provide it, but I'm not forcing anyone to do this. And we live in a sinful fallen world and. I, they're choosing to live a life of sin, whereas I'm choosing to live a pious life in some circumstance, like some of these guys just straight up, like, aren't pious at all too, [00:20:00] right? And they don't pretend to be otherwise, but some of them do truly feel like they are, um, like I'm living a pious life. I'm donating to the church. I'm doing this and that, uh, helping out my local community in their odd sort of way. I guess you could rationalize it to yourself, or like, I'm not forcing anybody to do any of this stuff that I'm providing. They're choosing to do it, and like, my conscience is fine. I mean, I guess it kind of makes sense. I mean, if you're running like, say, McDonald's and be, as the CEO, should he feel really bad that he sells, like, Garbage food to the American public and the Canadian public that like causes diabetes and obesity. And I would argue, yeah, you probably should. Do you know what I mean? But we don't really look at it that way. Um, I guess, I guess that would be the kind of round, you know, logic behind it. Does that make sense to you? And really, a number of political tides kept the Mafia and the Church as a strange coalition [00:21:00] even after the Risorgimento and the national formation of Italy throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. The rise of anti religious parties, uh, took control in the state, and these parties left, of the left usually, and even the fascists were aligned against the interests of southern Italy. Along with the papacy in the Catholic church, Pope's during the 20th century made at least lip service to distancing themselves from the mafiaa, but it was, it really was a challenging situation from them. Pope Francis, the first who became Pope in 2013, has recently pushed back against the mafia in Italy saying that brothers and sisters cannot be both in the church and in the mafia. As with many of Francis pronouncements, much can be read into his statements and much will depend on what other bishops and prelates do in individual situations. Francis has also [00:22:00] tried to take away some of the devotional practices used by the Mafia towards things like the Virgin Mary and the processions. Ties between various mafia factions like the Andrangheta and the Vatican Bank still exist to this very day, and they're really just getting exposed to this very day. Yeah, the Andrangheta is like, probably, most people probably never even heard of the Andrangheta, to be honest with you, but, um, Yeah, like I pointed out earlier, like, they're based in the Colabrio region. There's actually a huge presence of the Andrangheta where I live right now, in southern Ontario. Um, a lot of the, uh, Mafia, at least the top Mafia in this area is, they're Durangata, um, and we're not quite sure exactly, just kind of a side note, we're not quite, we think that they're kind of running on their own, but there's still people theorize that they're taking orders directly from Calabria. It's just a little interesting tidbit, little rabbit hole. I've been trying to go down and [00:23:00] trying to find out exactly how it runs. Um, yeah. Yeah, but, uh, the adrenaline has very, they have, like, a very strong ties to the, uh, to the cartels and, uh, South America. And then most of the drugs that ends up getting import, like, imported into Western Europe, it's usually. The Adrengata will be buying the drugs, say, from the cartels, and then they ship them to Calabria, and then from Calabria, it goes into Western Europe. Um, virtually, from my under, from my reading, almost all of it come, uh, it can be traced right back down, traced right back to the Adrengata. Very interesting. And we should also mention there has, uh, have been many priests and bishops who have stood up to the mafia in Italy and have really paid the price and violence for doing so. There's a particular priest named Father Pino Pugliese, who was killed in the 1990s. And there are plenty of stories of priests who supported the Mafia and were even [00:24:00] related to them. Now we're going to move into a very interesting example of a Mafia family connection to the church. That's in a man named Joe Profaci and the Catholic Church. Can you give us a little background on Joe Profaci? Yeah, so Joe Profaci, he was the founder of the Profaci family. Most people probably know him as the Colombo family, which is what they later ended up becoming. Um, kind of, he was, um, I think they, he took, um, A lot of inspiration from, uh, the godfather took a lot of inspiration from Joe Profaci because he ran like an olive oil, uh, importing business. Um, he was kind of like an old school, uh, mafioso. Um, one of his daughters married, I believe it was one of Joe Bonanno's, I think it was Joe Bonanno's son. And that wedding, the FBI had like tons of pictures of it. And I think they used that as the [00:25:00] inspiration for the godfather. The big wedding at the beginning of that movie. Um, yeah. And he was kind of like a conservative, he was kind of like a conservative member of like a mafia wing within the commission. Um, yeah. And he considered himself like very religious. Like he donated tons and tons and tons and tons of money to the, uh. To the church, you know, like to the point where people were pushing for him to get a, like a knighthood in the, the Knights of Columbus at Pro, like you were saying, pro Joe Profaci was a huge and very devout Catholic w with his massive wealth, a game from both the Mafiaa and his hugely successful legal, legal businesses. He was a significant patron of the church, and he attended a particular church called St. Bernadette's Church in Brooklyn. He was members of the Knights of Columbus, the men's organization, which in a way [00:26:00] operates very similarly to one of the secret organizations like the Freemasons, but it is Catholic and he was a kind of a member of it. That's a whole different story, but we're going to focus in on one particular story today. He even had a private altar in the basement of his home where he could have private masses served. Now, many of the Italian American Catholic leaders wanted a papal knighthood for Profaci, but there was actually a fair amount of pushback against that in various quarters, so it never really happened. But there's a really Fascinating story about Joe Profaci and the stolen crown like that could be the title of it. Joe Profaci and the stolen crown. There was a really high expensive and highly ornamented crown that was made for the Brooklyn church that Joe attended. The crown had jewels that were worth over 100, 000 U. dollars Back in the 1950s where 100, [00:27:00] 000 meant something. Now there's people buy cars for 100, 000 and it's not that nice of a car. But, um, back then 100, 000 was a lot of money. Anyway, Joe This crown was stolen, and Joe made it his mission to find out who did it, and eventually the thief, a jewel thief named Ralph Amino, returned the crown, somewhat desecrated, with a few jewels missing. Supposedly, Joe had a contract put out for this thief, and one way or another, Ralph Amino was found shot dead in the Bath Beach section of Brooklyn. A local paper reported Amino was even refused Catholic burial service for his crime, even though he was never convicted or even arrested for it. And some... Sources even say that he, maybe he wasn't shot, or he was shot later, but [00:28:00] that he was strangled to death with a rosary. Joe Profaci died of cancer in 1962, and he was given a full Catholic burial at St. Bernadette's and is buried in St. John's Cemetery, a Roman Catholic cemetery. Yeah, it's interesting because like some, you know, when we get into when you guys start listening to the, the other podcast, we'll get into some of these mob guys didn't, they were denied a Catholic funeral. They were denied, uh, um, from the local pastor or what have you, or the church just straight up. So like, we're just not doing this. It's interesting that Joe got, I guess, because he would, I guess he was so devout and he donated so much to the church and maybe the extent of what He was up to, wasn't quite well known, you know. Like, Joe Profaci was a drug dealer. He was an rocketeer. You name it, this guy was doing it. It's just, it's so bizarre to me that, like, people were pushing for him to get a [00:29:00] knighthood. I think Joe Profaci, in particular, he was so insulated with his legitimate businesses. I think it would be easy to just say, well, Hey, he's an olive oil merchant. And I think, I think that that is the thing that probably insulated him more than other people. It would be hard to say that somebody who had never been. convicted or hardly even arrested of any crimes. I'm not, I can't recall offhand if he had been arrested many times, but it's hard to say that you can say we're not going to give you a Catholic burial to a guy who, at least on the surface, is completely legit. Yeah, you know, other than, like, he was caught up in, like, some drug smuggling, like, charges, but the nothing ever were stuck, and, I mean, there was, if people wanted to kind of scratch a little bit underneath the surface, they could see, like, uh, where's Joe getting [00:30:00] all of his money, right? But... Like you said, like he did run a successful olive oil business, you know, um, from, by all accounts, he, Joe, wasn't like a, like, it wasn't like a psychopath. So he wasn't say somebody like, uh, like gas pipe castle or anything like that. Right. But, um. Yeah, it's just interesting. Like some of these guys got Catholic funerals and others were denied it. We're going to talk now about a Catholic churchman and a cardinal in the church, a very high ranking person, Francis Spellman. And the setting is the late 19th century. Forties, early 1950s, really the beginning of the cold war. And this tale matches up the Catholic church, the mafia, the CIA, the cold war, the FBI and communisms now communist parties were taking over all over Europe in the aftermath of world war two. And. If you know your history, the U. government wanted to stop that trend immediately in [00:31:00] Italy, especially at where the Communist parties were really growing rapidly. And the big thing that was needed was money. And who had tons of money and ways to move it around internationally and secretly, especially to Italy, I think you can make your guess on that the Catholic Church and the mafia money was funneled. All over the U. S. into Europe for anti communist measures by the Catholic Church and the Mafia. Connections to drug trafficking in the Vatican Bank were all involved. And this is very much scratching the surface here with stuff that's just starting to come out now. So look for more connections between the Vatican Bank. The Mafia and anti communist activities soon. This is not tinfoil hat stuff here. This is stuff that's coming out right [00:32:00] from CIA archives and Vatican archives. So let us know if this is a topic that you find interesting because I find it very interesting. Yeah, so do I myself, like, uh, just, you mentioned that book and I started reading it and started getting into it a little bit, and just like, just from researching the Mafia in general, like, there's always been this kind of theory, at least in Italy, that. Like Benito Mussolini had like smashed the, uh, the mafia in a lot of ways. He actually, he did do this. Like he did smash the mafia in Southern Italy is one of the few leaders that was able to do it. He didn't smash it completely, but he definitely weakened it. And there's always been kind of a conspiracy theory, at least on the left in Italy, that like the Americans allowed the mafia to come back into place. Like to come back into Southern Italy because they were afraid that the, the communists would fill the gap and it was actually the American government that propped up the, uh, the mafia back in Southern [00:33:00] Italy, uh, as like a stop gap against, uh, um, the communists from taking over. I mean, in a lot of ways that there's people that theorize it, but even with the labor movement and in the United States where the American government came to the conclusion, it's like, well. We could stop these mafia organized crime types from getting into these unions. But if we stop them from getting into these unions, then the communists are going to get into the union. So they kind of, they pick the, they pick the mafia over the communists. No, I'm not saying that's, uh, it's just the theory that has gone out there. Um, that this is kind of maybe what happened in, uh, both of these regions. You know, I, I can't say with 100 percent certainty, but, uh, just from my personal research, it definitely makes a lot of sense. I mean, if you're going to have to choose, if you're going to choose between communists and the mafia, the mafia, you can kind of somewhat understand, it's like, oh, they just want to make money where, like, the communists want [00:34:00] to do, like, You know, we're not talking like communists that you talk to on the internet, like at this time they were like legitimate communists, like they wanted to overthrow the government, so if you have to choose between the two, the mafia doesn't want to, they just want to be left alone, you know, they're not trying to overthrow the government. Steve here again with a quick word from our sponsors. Our last tale is going to be more recently, it's really something that's, a story that just wrapped up itself within the last year or so of the early part of the 2020s, and that is And this tale takes place in the United States in the Italian American phenomena that developed in the United States and that's really largely the focus of this first series of the organized crime and punishment podcast and we're going to talk about Father [00:35:00] Louis Gigante, a Catholic priest who was the brother of not one but Two notorious mafia figures, boss of the Genovese family and lifelong play actor at being mentally ill, Vincent the Chin Gigante and Genovese family capo Mario Gigante. This guy, Father Louis Gigante lived a crazy life. Chris, can you give us just a little background on his famous mafia brother, Vincent the Chin Gigante? Yeah, I've been, yeah, and I, it's incredible that there hasn't been a movie made about this guy, but yeah, Chinchiganti was, uh, probably one of the most powerful mob bosses in the United States ever. Um, he was the leader of the Genovese family. Um, he's most famous, the Genovese family had this unique structure where they have like, they would have like a front boss. And in this case, it was Tony Salerno. He was like the front boss. So this was the boss that, You know, the cops would be looking at and thinking [00:36:00] was the boss of the family. And then there was the actual boss behind the scenes. And this was, uh, Vincent, the chin gigantic, but like, you think, oh, that's enough secrecy, right? No, like Vincent, the chin gigantic took it up a notch where he decided that he was going to spend the vast majority of his life acting crazy. Um, so people wouldn't think he was a mafia boss. So we're talking about stuff, you know, walking around, like exposing himself in a bathrobe and. On the streets and, you know, peeing in corners and mumbling to himself and going to like weekly psychiatric meetings where he would get like referrals saying like, yep, he crazy. And if the cops showed up to the house, there's one famous story of him. Showering with his suit on, shaving. You know, like, it's just like a really crazy story, man. Um, yeah, and like I said, it's incredible that there hasn't been a movie made about this guy. I just even think they would make a movie about him. Um... Yeah, and, uh, this, this [00:37:00] act worked for a really long time, like, pretty much right up until he finally admitted that he wasn't crazy, but, you know, for years and years and years and years, he kept it up, he would show up to court, you know, in a bathrobe and muttering to himself, and, you know, even the, even the mob guys who kind of knew that it was kind of an act, like, some of them would say, like, you know, they'd talk after, they're talking afterwards, and like, we weren't entirely sure at the time whether how much of it was an act and how much, You know, wasn't an act because he even had like the mob guys convinced. That's how convincing he was for many priests. I mean, honestly, being a priest is a full time job, and it's a lonely one at that, being that most of them are celibate. Being that most of them are celibates, but not for Louis Giganti, Louis lived with his common wall, common law wife in the, in a pretty solid middle class New York suburb, New York city suburb, [00:38:00] and he even had a son they lived like. Typical, classical, suburban family, except as, uh, Louis son said, Dad went to work on Sunday mornings. And most priests, even if they don't exactly take a vow of poverty, they don't get rich on the job. Again, not so for Lewis. When Lewis died, he left in a state of over seven million dollars. And he made that money through various positions he held in both non profit and for profit, building and building maintenance ventures in the South Bronx area of New York City. We don't know exactly for sure if Lewis was connected to the mafia, an informant claimed he was, but, uh, never testified to that fact. But the types of businesses that Lewis made as fortune and certainly smell of the [00:39:00] mafia, and they were certainly very They lived in, they lived in the very same areas that the mafia would dominate, like building, construction, building maintenance. Lewis defended his brother up and down and never apologized for being married, essentially being married, having a son. Honestly, he was proud of it. He was proud of it that he was rich. He was proud of it that his brother was chin gigante. I'm in the sky. I'm honestly shocked I've never heard of him before, until I started poking around. This is another guy who should have a movie after him. Yeah, maybe the two of them together type, like, you know, do a movie about both of them, do like a part one, a part two, or something, um. Yeah, I mean, Lewis wouldn't, wouldn't not just like Lewis would for years and years and years like defend his brother, you know, like, you know, this guy's not mafioso. He's not involved in drug trap. He's not [00:40:00] involved in any of this stuff. Like, what are you guys talking about? Um, very like vocal support of his brother. Um, you know, he gets it is really wild story. Like, like, how was he not kicked out of the church? Like, well, he not kicked out of the church, but how was he not kicked out of the priesthood after he had like, He clearly was not living an excellent life and he had a son, like, I don't, you're more familiar with that. That really comes down to, and that gets us into a, a wrapping up of the episode of today is that it's very difficult for the church to enforce the rules. Exactly. And strictly because as much as you might have the Pope lay down a certain set of rules and canons in Rome, and that's kind of what the Catholic Church sells it as is that we have a Pope. We have a central authority that makes centralized decisions, but it's really how it's enforced on the [00:41:00] ground. And the Pope doesn't necessarily have a many mechanisms to leapfrog over the local bishop who would be the one who would have to put that priest into trouble. And I mean, honestly, it's such a big organization. It would be very difficult for a Pope to know. And then get involved. And I think that's how a lot of the problems that the Catholic Church had throughout the 20th century and into the 60s, the 70s, and even into the modern age is that as much as it is hierarchical, there's a lot of places for people to hide in that big of an organization. And that really comes into how we can see a lot of connections between the papacy, the Catholic Church, and the mafia. And what... Should, you brought up the question, what should the Catholic Church have done with the Mafia during the Golden Age of the Mafia, and what should they do [00:42:00] now with the Mafia in Italy and the United States? What do you, uh, what do you think about that? Well, I mean, during the Golden Age, it's, they were pretty silent, uh, about, about it all. I mean, in their defense, like, the FBI, like, J. Edgar Hoover pretty much denied the existence of the Mafia until almost, like, the 1960s. Uh, it was the Appalachian Meeting was basically when he's like, okay, I guess we can't deny it anymore. Um, um, even though he knew that he was denying it and maybe at one point, like, early on, he didn't think it was the thing, but It shouldn't have taken that meeting for him to come out and recognize that, like, yes, the locosanostra is a real thing, and it is in the United States, and it's a very bad problem in New York. Um, the church should have, uh, in my opinion, just vehemently denounced it. Don't, you know, don't accept donations from people like Joe Profaci. Um... You know, like, lead a campaign or something that says, like, you can't serve [00:43:00] two masters. It's right there in the Bible. Like, you can't be mafia and you can't be part of the church. It's either you're part of the church or you're part of mafia. They're two... They can't... You can't be a mafioso and... Claim to be a Christian. You just, you just can't. You can rationalize it in your head all you want, but you really can't, you know, to become a made guy, you know, we didn't get into this, but like to become a made guy, you have to make your bones, right? Which means you have to kill another person. You know, that's usually once you make your bones, uh, that's, you know, you're for that's okay. Yeah, you're good. You can get made. You can actually officially become a made guy and be, uh, yeah. You know, part of the inner sanctum of the mafia. I'm like, I don't know that. I think there's a thing or two in the that tells you not to do that. I could be wrong. I think that this we can put our theologians hats on. Uh, we're armchair historians were armchair philosophers. We might as well be armchair theologians. I [00:44:00] think the organized crime and crime in general puts a religious organization like The like a Christian church in a really tough position because theologically speaking, and you look at the scope of the history of the church, the church is the hospital of sinners and just skim your gospels for a minute or two, and you'll see Jesus points. weren't about the pious. I mean, in a lot of ways, Jesus was making points against the pious. He was talking to the sinners. I mean, casting the first stone, the woman in the well, the publican and the Pharisee, the thief on the cross, Zacchaeus, you name it. These are the people that Jesus was talking to in, in the gospels. And Western Christianity has taken that theology, added to it, taken some away. But to me, it's, um, It's undeniable that Christianity's focus isn't on the righteous, it's on the sinner. And how [00:45:00] can they say, well, you're, you're somebody who's a sinner, but you're completely out. I think that that would, it would honestly cripple the, the, the organization of the church, theologically speaking, because then at what point. It's a, you know, the old cliche of the slippery slope. When do you say that somebody is actually pure enough to be in the church? My argument would be like, like Jesus had pointed out, like you can't serve two masters. If somebody who say was a mafioso sincerely comes to the church and repents and says, you know, like, I'm not going to, I'll just, I don't know, I'll use John Gotti as an example, right? Say, let's just say, in theory, John God, he says, you know what? I'm out. I'm not mafia. I'm not a mafia boss anymore. I denounced my former, uh, Locoza Nostra life and he comes to the church and he repents and, you know, does the sacraments and in. Uh, you know, his [00:46:00] community service and yada, yada, yada, like, you know, does all the things or so that he's a repentant, uh, Christian, you know, reads his Bible studies, his theology, um, then yeah, for sure, you know, the vast majority of people. They're not going to change that fundamentally. They really aren't. Um, and it's sad, to be honest with you, but like, you know, Jesus had a line I'm trying to remember right now, like, getting into heaven, uh, is, uh, I think it was like, what was it? A rich man getting into heaven is about as easy as a camel going through the eye of a needle. You know, he says it's hard. You know, and the most people aren't going to do it. Uh, so yeah, in theory, like if, say, John Gotti decided and say he, he, he did all the things I had just listed, then yeah, but you can't go to the church and be like, oh, I'm sorry for, you know, murdering this person on Sunday and then go two weeks later and go like, well, [00:47:00] sorry, I had to do it again. But, you know, it's just not how it works. But I, I don't see how they can close the doors on those people because that's fundamentally against the religion. I mean, bring up the, I mean, we can look at historical examples, but if you even bring it back to the Gospels, the thief on the cross, he's on his deathbed and he, he, uh, acknowledges the religion. And Jesus says that I'll see you in, I can't remember the exact quote, but basically I'll see you in heaven this evening. Theoretically, at least the church is supposed to be, the doors are supposed to be open to the people until the bitter end. And like I said, and I'll, I'll get a lot of hate mail on this when I think, but crack your Bible open, look at the early church writers. really mostly anything up until the [00:48:00] Reformation. And it's hard to say that anybody should be denied at least access into the church and access to the mechanisms that the church has to leading somebody out of the sinful life. And to just say that they're completely cut off, to me, cuts out. Completely cuts off the church as an organization at the knees. And like I said, it puts them in a very difficult position to say that, yeah, we are going to let these in a lot of ways, Cretans into the church, but I don't know how you can deny them access. Oh, it's true, right? No, it is the truth, too, right? Like, it's very, I mean, that's the difficulty at Jesus's message in general, right? Where, in a lot of ways, it kind of, I would say it goes against our human instincts, right? Where, you know, my human instinct is go, like, you're mafia, like, what are you talking about, man? Like, sincerely repent, and then you can [00:49:00] come in. You know, but that's not up for me to decide whether he's sincerely repented or not really. I mean, Jesus is the only one that will see it in his heart. You know, maybe one day this, this, uh, ex mafioso or hopefully one day does become ex mafioso. Maybe the, the one Saturday comes in and. I said, you know, I told him to get out or what have you because of, uh, the previous times that he had failed to, uh, change his life around. Maybe it was that one Saturday he was sincerely going to do it, but because I told him no, he never did it, you know, it's, it is difficult. I mean, you could say at the very least, like, don't take donations from these people. I mean, I don't think that's much to ask, right? You know where they're getting their money from. It's not difficult to figure out, you know, drug money is pretty easy to spot. I think we, I think in this, we're never going to answer this question, and I think anybody who says that there is an easy answer to this [00:50:00] question, like, because I mean, again, hate mail alert, Pope Francis is kind of laying out that, oh, there's an easy answer to this. I don't think that there is, and I think that, agree or disagree with me, that 2, 000 years of church history is on my side on this one, that there is no easy answer to situations like this of crime in the church. Uh, and I'll stand, I'll debate anybody on that, that there is no easy answer on it. And honestly, these are the questions that we are going to ask in the Organized Crime and Punishment History Podcast. And I want to thank everybody for indulging us on sharing this little bit of the history of the papacy, the Catholic church, the 19th century church, the modern church, and organized crime. History. So thank you, Chris, for coming on today. And we will definitely be talking more about this on not only the history of the papacy, [00:51:00] but on organized crime and punishment. You've been listening to Organized Crime and Punishment, a history and crime podcast. To learn more about what you heard today, find links to social media. And how to support the show, go to our website, a to z history page dot com. Become a friend of ours by sending us an email to crime at a to z history page dot com. All of this and more can be found in the show notes. We'll see yous next time on Organized Crime and Punishment. Forget about it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After the War: Key WW2 ETO LeadersSHOW NOTES: In this episode of Key Battles of American History, host James Early and his guest Sean McIver follow a long-established Key Battles tradition by giving brief overviews of the postwar lives and careers of the major leaders, Axis and Allies, discussed in the series. Subscribe to Key Battles of American History!Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3nCfZZySpotify: https://spoti.fi/3nIwO5cListen to more episodes of Key Battles of American History!The Longest Day: D-Day and the Normandy Campaign: https://apple.co/46jPeuw / https://sptfy.com/P2g7Saving Private Ryan: https://apple.co/3Q9z0i4 / https://sptfy.com/P2g6 Hitler’s Last Gambit: The Battle of the Bulge: https://apple.co/3tprLJN / https://sptfy.com/P2g4 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Title: The Danbury Trashers -Trash On and Off the Rink Original Publication Date: 10/18/2023 Transcript URL: https://share.descript.com/view/fGOuaYx9PwB Description:   In the second part of the Organized Crime and Punishment podcast's two-part episode on the Danbury Trashers, the focus remains on the intriguing story of this minor league hockey team's entanglement with organized crime. In this episode, the hosts delve deeper into the Trashers' ties to the underworld and the consequences faced by those involved. They explore the team's financial dealings with notorious figures, highlighting how this partnership impacted both the players and the league itself. The episode also sheds light on the legal repercussions faced by key individuals within the organization, offering a gripping account of their trials and punishments. Throughout, the Steve, Mustache and Frank discuss hockey, law enforcement and the Mafia to provide a comprehensive understanding of this remarkable tale. Best Hashtags: #DanburyTrashers #OrganizedCrime #HockeyUnderworld #CrimeAndPunishment #MinorLeagueHockey #hockey #NHL You can learn more about Organized Crime and Punishment and subscribe at all these great places: https://atozhistorypage.start.page email: crime@atozhistorypage.com www.organizedcrimeandpunishment.com Parthenon Podcast Network Home: parthenonpodcast.com On Social Media: https://www.youtube.com/@atozhistory https://www.facebook.com/groups/atozhistorypage https://facebook.com/atozhistorypage https://twitter.com/atozhistorypage https://www.instagram.com/atozhistorypage/ Music Provided by: Music from "5/8 Socket" by Rico's Gruv Used by permission. © 2021 All Rights Reserved. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=210vQJ4-Ns0 https://open.spotify.com/album/32EOkwDG1YdZwfm8pFOzUu Begin Transcript: [00:00:00] Welcome to Organized Crime and Punishment, the best spot in town to hang out and talk about history and crime, with your hosts, Steve and Mustache Chris. Hey, friends of ours, this is Steve here. This is the second part of a two part conversation on the Mafia and Hockey. I'm joined by Frank and, as usual, Mustache Chris. If you like what you hear, you can go back and listen to part one to get some more context for this episode, or just dive right in. They both work really well individually, or even better as a team. So let's dive [00:01:00] right in. One of the corollaries to the, to the wrestling aspect of it was the fighting, and anybody who's even semi aware of hockey. Knows that fighting is a part of hockey, Chris, and then we'll bounce it over to Frank. What's your opinion on fighting in hockey? I'll say right off the bat, like it is kind of bizarre. We're I think it was, uh, there's a clip, there's a famous clip of, like, Joe Rogan talking about hockey, and it's just like, it's the weirdest sport in the world, where, like, they're just playing the sport, and then all of a sudden, people are dropping the gloves, and they're just beating the crap out of each other, and it is truly bizarre, there's no other sport in the world that just, that happens, there isn't, like, I know there's, like, a little bit of roughhousing in football, and once in a while, maybe, people in basketball, they're like, Throw some slaps and maybe sometimes in baseball people will like charge them out. But like, like a, like a fist fight, like a one on one fist fight that goes on in hockey, like there's [00:02:00] nothing compares to it. And the fact that like, say like happens in baseball, it's like, oh, like that's out of the ordinary in hockey. It's like, no, it's just part of the game. This is what you do. It's, it's, uh, it's interesting, like the history of fighting and hockey from everything that I've read, like really early on. It wasn't all that common, uh, like it would happen, obviously, right? Uh, you know, like, more frequently than any other sport. It actually, I believe it was around the 60s and 70s is when it really started kicking off where teams like the the Flyers, as Frank will probably tell you about, um, Saw an opportunity where they maybe they weren't as skilled as some of the other teams, but the intimidation factor fighting and the hard hitting, uh, became like a level or so you could bring the basically like kind of nullify this skill and the speed of another team if you beat the crap out of them enough. And I mean, it works. It's part of the [00:03:00] game, really. There's no way around it. It's just, um, I don't think it's ever going to leave. I mean, I'm quite, I'm, to be honest with you, I'm happy. They've changed a bunch of rules where, and just because the rule changes, the game has gone so much faster. So you can't just have like a guy out there whose, whose only job is to like fight. There's still a couple of them. I mean, the Leafs just kind of recently signed a guy named Ryan Reeves. He's like the heavyweight champ of hockey right now. But, yeah. He can still play to a degree. He can't play like, not gonna be playing him a ton, but he can still kind of keep up. Um, a lot of like the old school, like traditional tough guys that were, we think of like Ty Domi, uh, you know, that's a Leaf one right there. He couldn't play today's end. Yeah. Bob, Rob, well, Bob Prober could actually play tmi. was like, Ty TMI was like, I, I don't know how much he could actually play. Uh, um. He couldn't keep up with today's game just because the rule changes, but the fighting it's it's never going to [00:04:00] leave. It's always going to be there. And the intimidation factor is huge in hockey because I've seen it. I've seen it personally just over the last couple of season with the Leafs where the Leafs are a skill team. They're fast, but a team like Boston, who's not afraid to face wash you, you know, beat the crap out of you, that intimidation factor, it does it. I don't care what anybody says. It changes how the other team plays. They're less likely to go into the corners. Maybe they're a little scared to go in front of the net. Um, so you need, you need that aspect on your team and the trashers. I mean, I think they went a little bit overboard with that. What aspect of the game, but they said right off the bat, like we wanted a team that was going to beat you up. And beat you literally, like beat you in the game and they accomplished that. So you would say that it's an integral part of the game. Could you have hockey without the fighting aspect? Well, you do, you do, you do in, in women's hockey, you don't have fighting either. And in [00:05:00] college hockey, it's, it's rare. And, and the thing is, is it's really two different kinds of fighting. If you go back in history, or it comes to hockey, you know, The further back you go, the less, uh, less safety equipment, the players war, right? I mean, you take off the visors, then you take off the helmets and then off come the shoulder pads and then the shin pads. And pretty soon you're just down to a pair of skates and, and, and, and some gloves maybe. Right. And, and this entire time from whatever, 19, whenever they founded the league. And even before that, when they were still, uh, professionals playing, there's only one referee. And, you know, there's 10 skaters out there, I mean, there were 12 at one point plus 2 goalies, but now they're, you know, for the longest time, there's been 10. There's, there's no way 1 referee is going to see everything. And so people took liberties with the stick or, or, you know, speared, hooked, slashed, whatever, uh, the ref isn't going to see that. And if you want to dissuade that [00:06:00] from happening, then you, yeah. You know, go punch the guy in the nose and next time he won't slash you. And, and I, and I just was kind of a gentleman. It was a rougher time in our history. Uh, and I think people accepted that, that people could have a disagreement and it could end in fisticuffs. Uh, and then at the end of it, they went and sat in the box for five minutes. Uh, if they were allowed to have a beer together, they probably would most of them. And then they go back out and play again, but it did affect behavior to a degree. And then what Chris was alluding to. Round about the late sixties, when the expansion happened and you got six more teams in the league, including the flyers, they, uh, they got pushed around one year by the Bruins and by, by St. Louis and Ed Snyder said, we're not, that's not happening anymore. We're going to get some tough guys and nobody's pushing us around. So they did. And what they discovered was, yeah, they're not getting pushed around. Their thing. But then the entertainment factor kicked in. People started to like to see somebody pounding the snot out [00:07:00] of somebody in an opposing Jersey. And then that became not just entertainment, but like Chris just said, intimidation as well. I mean, when the broad streets, the broad street bullies were at their height, there's a thing known as the Philadelphia flu. Which basically meant players when they came to Philadelphia to play suddenly came down with the flu and didn't want to play that night. You know, it was kind of a joke, but it was also a real thing. And, you know, I mean, Dave, that hammer Schultz had like 400. 27 or some penalty minutes one year. It's insane. Like the guy who has the most in the league today is around a hundred or so, you know, it's just a crazy number. Um, so that entertainment factor kind of kicked in and, and it, and it, it. Got to the point where it was as bad as what you saw in that documentary and Danbury, that was the NHL in the, in the, uh, mid seventies. And I mean, that's where the joke came from. I went to a [00:08:00] boxing match and a hockey fight broke out. I mean, that's, that's, it was that common. Uh, and ultimately they said, okay, enough is enough. This is too much. Uh, we're having bench clearing brawls. We're having, you know, just too, it's, it's becoming thuggery and our skill guys can't. Play the game without getting mugged. And, and so we're going to clean it up. And so they started, you know, uh, the instigator penalty, and then they started giving, you know, third fight and you get a suspension, all these different rules to try to cut down on the number of times somebody fought. I don't know if it was you or Chris that said it, but you made a very valid point. They never said no fighting. They did because it's against the rules, but they, I mean, if you really wanted to get rid of it, they do what every other rule, what every other sport does. And that's if you fight, you're suspended maybe for a game, maybe for a season. Maybe you're suspended for life. I mean, it depends on the, on the sport and the severity and all of that. But if you wanted to get rid of it, that would debate way to be the way to do it. But the league recognized there [00:09:00] still was some inherent value to that self policing element that the rest aren't going to see everything, even though they added a second element. And it's a fast sport with the, you know, I mean, people are going to get emotional a lot more so than some of the other sports. Football is one that I think could be the equivalent. But the thing about football is, is you get a little bit of time to cool down. In between place, you don't get that in hockey. It's constant. And, you know, basketball is constant, but the contact isn't there. The hitting isn't there. Baseball is slower than molasses. It's, it's interesting because something's always going on, even when nothing's going on. Uh, but. You know, how often do you get something explosive happening in baseball? Usually when somebody throws a couple of brushback pitches or something, you know, that's about it. So I think they recognize, you know, better that, that we can just kind of control it rather than try to get rid of it. Cause if we get rid of it, people are going to take liberties [00:10:00] and people are going to get spared and all this other stuff's going to happen with greater frequency because the refs aren't going to be able to catch everything. Now there's 800 different arguments. Surrounding everything I just said, uh, but the biggest point, I guess, is when you say it's an integral part of the game. Historically, it has been an integral part of the NHL and it remains, uh, apart, but at a diminished level. What Danbury did. What AJ Galante did is he got players who could bring back literally the broad street bullies style of play because the flyers weren't just beating the hell out of people. They were beating them on the scoreboard too. Most of the time. I mean, they won the Stanley cup in 74 and 75. On the back of not just beating people up that you don't get any goals for smacking somebody in the face. They don't just start going, Hey, that's three punches. Now you're up three, zero on the scoreboard. You got to put the puck in the net too. And Danbury did that as well. Like I said, their record was really good. And they show clips of some pretty nice [00:11:00] little goals. Um, I mean, I thought they were pretty nice goals, Chris, you saw it. I mean, they seem like they had a couple of players. Oh, yeah, for sure. Even, uh, probably one of the more, um, Brad, um, blanking on his name right now, Brad Wingfield, Wing. Yeah, Wingfield. Yeah, they interviewed him a lot in that. They interviewed him a lot. He was actually, he's known as like the, one of the big fighters and, uh, big fighters on the team. And he was that, but he also was on the same line as Brent Gretzky. You know, he could play, you know, he will. And then that's the unfortunate part about him. And I did. They touched on it a little bit in the documentary where he was on pace for 30 some odd goals and like over 1000 minutes or something like that before he got his leg horribly snapped in half, which is just that's that's just incredible. Like, well, you'll, you know, you you. And the NHL, I mean, there's a couple of examples of that. I think like Cam Neely was one of those guys. Um, that's just like right off the top of my head. Just like the [00:12:00] total package player was like that. Uh, Wendell Clark famous pop and 40 goals and, you know, have like a ton of penalty minutes and fun draws was, uh, was close to that. He, he, he would get a fair amount of penalty minutes and some fights and score a ton of goals. The thing that made the trashers like you trashers unique in the sense of like you brought it up or most teams even to this day the least have in the NHL at least have like one guy who's like the fighter some teams will have like kind of couple guys um even like uh in the 90s you'd have maybe two guys that were like fighters that you know push comes to shove they'll you know they'll throw the gloves down and they'll fight. The Trashers had like six or seven guys. So I think it wasn't like dependent on like one guy doing all the fighting. I think one guy wanted to take a night off and be like, you know, like my hand hurts or my nose is broken. You know, you, you have another five guys who are willing to step up and fill it, fill that void. So like at no point during the regular season [00:13:00] or the playoffs, or there are not guys out there that were going to beat the crap out of you because they just had an army of them. And that's why you had multiple scraps every game. That's what the commissioner was complaining about. And, and it just. You know, the, the crowd loves it. I mean, I, again, I mean, I used to be a season ticket holder for the junior team in Spokane, the Spokane chiefs, 2008 Memorial cup champions, URA. And you know, when the gloves would come off, people would get out of their seats and it wasn't to go to the bathroom. I mean, there wasn't many people who didn't like a good scrap the, the people, there were a few, obviously there are a few. The thing that people tended not to like as much were the staged fights, you know, or people just take off the gloves when the puck drops and it's a big, you know, uh, some people didn't mind other people. They were, I don't know. I got to the point where I was like, if you know, if they wouldn't do that, They probably just leave fighting alone. If it just happened organically, the frequency with which it would [00:14:00] happen and the nature people would probably leave it alone for much longer, but they didn't really get into it in the documentary. But I got the sense that a lot of those fights were of the stage nature and forced and, and that starts to catch the eye of somebody like the commissioner. But Hey, did you guys notice that the commissioner went from really down on the The trashers seemingly in the early parts of that documentary and about the midpoint, right about the time where it became obvious that Jimmy Galante was pretty closely associated with a major crime mob family. Suddenly he's a little bit of a fan of, I mean, did that. Yeah, he really did. There was a definite turn. I would say, Oh, yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure he got, uh, you know, I'm sure he got an envelopes, you know, in his mailbox or something like that, you know, or efficient as bad baby. Apparently, I was listening to a podcast with A. J. And he was talking about, like, all the suspensions or whatever. So it's like the [00:15:00] commissioner would be calling off Jimmy and be like, Oh, yeah, you got to pay this and pay this and this fine and this fine. And apparently he would be like, Apparently just would just start wiring 10 grand like every week or something like to the commissioner being like, you're like, yeah, here, here, the fines are going to stop calling me on a Monday. Like, I'm busy. I got, I got stuff to do and it just like, I'm sure, like, I'm sure the commissioner was taking a little bit of that money himself. Well, he retired to Las Vegas. So who knows? The team really did capture that whole aspect of the, of the entertainment. Like when we would go, when I was a kid, I go to Sabre's games and I was there basically to watch fights either on the ice or in the crowd behind us. That's what I wanted to see. And my brother was the one, he would sit there and he wanted to see how plays unfolded and you know, the, the artistry of the, the skaters and all of that. You know, everybody is somewhere on the spectrum between [00:16:00] spectacle and then wanting to watch, uh, a fair game. I want both. I want both. I want the, I want the beauty of the sport. I want the Pavel Bureys. I want the Paul Correas, but, uh, you know, if somebody's Being a rat or somebody throws a dirty hit, I want to see the gloves fly too. And I want to see my guy pound your guy pretty good, you know? And, and so I, you know, I don't think there's, there's the two are not mutually exclusive. We are a member of the Parthenon Podcast Network, featuring great shows like James Early's Key Battles of American History Podcast, and many other great shows. Go over to ParthenonPodcast. com to learn more. And here is a quick word from our sponsors. It's funny though, because like as much as they've been trying to clean up the game, [00:17:00] really at the end of the day, if you look at the last kind of, the last couple of Stanley Cup winners, what do they have? They. They have the skilled guys, but they also have the rats usually playing in the bottom six. And sometimes their skilled guys are rats too. I mean, if you look at Tampa Bay's famous for being a dirty team, I mean, I think Colorado kind of last, uh, Colorado was like, they didn't really play that type of style, but like Vegas this year, they Definitely played that type of style and if you look St. Louis was famous for just for, you know, being tough, intimidating type of hockey. Like at the end of the day, like an all skill team is just most of the time. It's not just not going to do it. You need a mix. And I mean, even the trashers kind of understood that we're like, right. It was like when they're making a run for the colonial cop and Jimmy's like, you know what, just get me a goal scorer. And they, they signed, that's when they signed Mike Rob, right? Yeah. And they had Bora guard, who the one I'd guy who, who [00:18:00] was pretty talented before he got injured. And, uh, uh, and he, he could put the puck in the net and the two brothers, the one guy that always interrupted the other brother all the time. Um, those guys were. You know, those were 1 was 1 was more of an assist, man, and the other was more of a goal score, but they, you know, they were talented for that level of play. And you're right. You need a mix like any team. You need a mix of people playing different roles for the team to be successful. Because if you don't have that mix, the team you're going up against is going to. Take that one dimensional play that you're able to offer, and they're going to find the weakness in it. And they're going to pound on it until they beat you. You have to be more, more well rounded. And to do that, you need players who can fill different roles, uh, you know, defensive defensemen, you know, an offensive defenseman, you need a sniper, you need guys that can pass, you need guys that can bang, you need guys who can eat minutes. I mean, just all kinds of different roles. And, and for being a, you know, the thing is, is when, when that show started and they [00:19:00] brought out AJ, I had the same reaction that the commissioner actually gave voice to in his interview, I saw AJ and I was like, what a punk, what a little goof, my God, I forgot what a goof this kid is, but then if you sit back and look at it objectively. You can argue whether he should have tried to accomplish what he accomplished or not. You can argue the goal if you want to, but you can't argue that he didn't achieve exactly the goal he set out to achieve. He built a team that had skill and toughness that provided one hell of a spectacle that just the fans became enamored with. He, they intimidated the opponents and they made it all the way to the colonial cup championship, um, in their inaugural season. I mean, yeah. That you can't argue with those results punk 17 year old kid that looks goofy with his chains in his turn sideways hat and all that aside, uh, you know, you just have to admit the results are there, right? Well, [00:20:00] yeah, that's the craziest thing. Like he's a 17 year old kid did this right from the impression that I get his daddy got a kick out of it and like enjoyed watching the games and how much fun his son was having and like all that part of it. Obviously he was the one providing all the cash, but. I think he had a pretty hands off approach in terms of like how the team was constructed and like the philosophical approach to how to play the game. And it seems like it's very fitting that the owner was, you know, essentially a mob associate running a business like waste management and doing the things that he was alleged to have been doing. I mean, that, that team. So perfectly fit the persona of its owner. I mean, it was, it was him personified. Was it not? Oh, yeah, for sure. You know, like, that's what it's great. Like, the, the documentary itself is like, I think they're 1 of the reasons that works so well. And everyone who's that I've ever. Uh, told to watch and [00:21:00] ends up watching it. I think one of the reasons they like it so much is because as ridiculous as the story is, it's real and the people come across as real. Like the AJ doesn't come across like he's playing a character. Jimmy doesn't come across like he's playing a character. None of the equipment guys, even the equipment guy, uh, Teddy or whatever his name was, the guy with the cigar, that guy was hilarious. And my wife pointed out, my wife pointed out when we were done watching it, I, I I clicked it off and, and, uh, you know, I told her I was coming on this show and everything. So she, she knew about that. I asked her, Hey, you know, what'd you think? And she goes, it's so interesting because these guys are criminals. They're literally criminals and, and not of the blue, the white collar variety. I mean, they're threatening people. They're blowing up or setting trucks on fire. There's, you know, I mean, how many counts, 103 counts or some crazy number is what they charged him with. And yet they come across as [00:22:00] likable guys. Jimmy is likable in, in the flashback stuff and the, in the footage they show, uh, you know, the older stuff. And then in the interviews that they conduct with them that are contemporaneous to when this was made, same with AJ, same with, uh, whatever the equipment manager guy's name was. He was a little bit of a caricature, but he was still. Like likable guy, and when you see him go into the bar for that 10 year reunion of the section 102 people, the big like super fans, there's joy on their faces. Both both the people in the bar and the characters going in, you know, that Jimmy and those folks, they're hugging, they're They're toasting. They're telling stories. I mean, it's the, it's, it's like the Sopranos, right? Like when you watch the Sopranos, you get to like, at some points in the show, you get to like Tony Soprano. You get to be sympathetic with Tony Soprano. And then he goes and does something absolutely horrific and reminds you that he's a total piece of garbage human being.[00:23:00] And you get to be uncomfortable until the next episode with that. It was very similar in that regard with, with these, these folks there, they're likable even though they're despicable. Well, we, we, we, uh, got into that when we were researching, I think it was Donnie Brasco and me and Steve were talking about, you know, uh, Sonny Black, uh, who was, was the, the capo, uh, one of, was a capo in the Bonanno family, and he was like the, It was basically running the crew. He comes across as a likable guy from what you're reading, like playing pranks with people and I think he had like, uh, he was wrestling Donnie Brasco, um, with Joe Pistone or whatever they were having arm wrestling matches all the time and Joe Pistone would beat him all the time and he, uh, Just say, Oh, I'm going to beat you this time. And he's like, well, I don't understand. Like, I beat you every other time. And he's just like, spits in his face. And then it slams his, uh, fist fist on the ground. It's like, and like, every, you read the guy and he seems likable. And even show up a stone said, like, sunny black was a likable guy. He [00:24:00] said, like, out of all the things that happened afterwards. Um, him getting whacked was, was one of the things that he does regret, because he legitimately likes Sonny Black, and he was hoping that Sonny Black would just turn, you know, state witness, which never happened. He, you know, he kept Emerita right to his death. And if you watch the movie, if it's any, any... Percentage of accurate. I mean, the, the character of Donnie Brasco ends up having a greater affinity for the people he's undercover with in his own organization. I mean, they treat him like hell. I mean, that scene where they hurry him in, give him a quick award and hurry out. I mean, that's just despicable. Um, and so, so, yeah, you have these, these yeah. You know, I think that's why they do well in the community. And of course it doesn't hurt that they're paying for, you know, all these things in the community. So there's something tangible that is making the lives of some people in the community better. I mean, now there's a [00:25:00] football field to play on or the scoreboard is brand new or whatever it is that they're paying for and they're supporting the girl scouts and their cookie drive and all this other stuff. Uh, they start to become, like I said before, maybe, you know, kind of folk heroes almost. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Putting on your, uh, your police hat, if, as it were, Frank, when we talk about fighting, because like, if I got into a fight in the Walmart with somebody, you're going to probably put us into handcuffs and bring us to jail. But on the hockey rink, it's, uh, nobody ever, or it's a very, very infrequent. And I know you and Chris will have some examples of where The law enforcement agencies and prosecutors and that sort of thing get involved. What is the line between being on the ice and being in the stands as far as when you, uh, throw fists? Well, the stands is no different than the Walmart behavior wise. [00:26:00] So that, that's an easy answer there. If you're in the stands and you're acting like a, like a ding dong and you get in a fight, you're just as liable for whatever you do is if you're being the same at, in the Walmart parking lot or anywhere else. But when you're involved in a sporting event, you know, there's an expectation of, of, of certain, uh, Things happening within that event. I mean, uh, you're, if you go to a boxing match, you know, that nobody's going to be charging anybody with assault, right? They've agreed by participating that they're going to punch each other. It's a tacit admission that you could be involved in this when you are playing in a professional hockey league like the NHL. Uh, not so much. Thank you. With like recreational hockey so much, but, you know, they were talking about the pros here. Um, and so, because even though it's against the rules and even though it's, it's, it's penalized five, five for fighting, right? You go into the box and feel shame. It it's, it's also kind of condoned because. [00:27:00] Nothing else happens if you pay your, you know, you do your time, you do your five minutes. And so if, if two guys, for whatever reason, fight, it's not a big deal. There's no law enforcement involvement at all. When it crosses the line, uh, it has to be something very egregious. And we were talking about a couple of examples from the NHL before we went live, uh, on the show. Um, one that, uh, The Chris mentioned 1st was the Todd Bertuzzi and Steve Moore incident, and that in a nutshell, just involved them being angry at a player for something that had happened in previous games. And the code in hockey kind of is, if you do something that makes the other team legitimately mad, like you hit somebody and hurt them, or you do a dirty play or something like that, and somebody challenges you to fight. You got to answer the bell. That's the code, right? I mean, everybody, it's not written down anywhere, but that's the code. And Moore was not a fighter and he wasn't going to fight. And so Todd Bertuzzi trying to get him to fight, followed him [00:28:00] around for a bit. He ended up cross checking him from behind. And then when he fell to the ice, he cross checked him again and his head hit the ice and he ended up damaging his spine. And, and there was Police involvement, there was prosecutorial involvement there, uh, and I, did that, that happened in Vancouver, didn't it? Didn't that happen in Vancouver, Chris? Yeah, that was, that was in Canada. And that was in Canada that happened in, uh, yeah, I believe. Yeah, for sure. I positive that I'd happened in Vancouver. I know he was playing for Vancouver at the time. And, um, Colorado was the team that more was playing for. Ironically, the other one we were talking about also involved the Vancouver. Player, um, this, this time on the receiving end, um, and that was a player named Donald Brashear, who, uh, another, who was a known fighter, who was an enforcer. He had a little bit of skill, but not a ton. And then Marty McSorley who wrote, uh, Road shotgun for, for Wayne Gretzky for a lot of years. And he was definitely an [00:29:00] enforcer. He was upset with Brashear. What was he doing? What Chris, why was he upset? I don't remember what he was upset about. They, uh, I guess they would have been getting under each other's skin. And like Donald Brashear was like cross checking him, sparing him, you know, probably saying stuff to him, like during the entire game and. Marty McSorley had been trying to get him to fight the entire game, like, you can watch the montage on YouTube leading up to the incident, and Marty McSorley snaps and smacks the stick right across the side of, uh, Donald Brashear's head, you know, like, two handed, like, baseball job from behind, right? From behind. Yeah. From behind, which is even worse. Yeah, he claims he was trying to hit him in the shoulder or the upper arm to piss him off and get him to turn around and fight. That sounds bad. I missed and hit him in the head. And then of course the real damage happened because that that stunned him. And so his feet, it went out from under him and he fell hard to the ice and had a little whiplash action [00:30:00] there. And so he was, he was hurt pretty badly. And there was again, uh, there was law enforcement and, uh, the, the prosecutors got involved in that. Um, but those are extreme cases. I mean, and those are egregious. Uh, there are not as many fights in hockey as there used to be, but. There's never any question that it's against the law. It's part of the sporting event. The thing with the trashers, though, is like they were in that gray area in between what the brochure incident or the more incident were and what your daily night in any hockey league might be. You might get a fight or two, maybe not. I mean, you know, in the today's NHL, you might go 10 games with no fights. Your team might not have a single fight for 10 games and then maybe you have one. The trashers were having four and five fights a night, you know, so, you know, they're, they're a little out of control. They're a little off the hook to use a two thousands [00:31:00] term there for you. There was that big blowout, um, in basketball that happened about the same time. And I believe there's a Netflix documentary on that as well, where, uh, one of the players. Went and, uh, got into a fight with a heckler and it turned into a whole big thing. I think it was in the Knicks, I want to say, but that gets into that gray zone too, where what's your expectation? You know, the player versus a fan and then it turned into a whole, uh, a whole, basically the whole arena went into a brawl. Well, that happens in this documentary. I mean, Jimmy... The owner comes down after, uh, after Brad's leg gets snapped and it, uh, off a dirty, a dirty head is flew foot. Um, and like the, it's just an utter bloody chaos. Like, uh, Jimmy actually comes down and I, he punches the ref in the face. Does he not? And he ends up. Yeah, I didn't see what he actually [00:32:00] did, but he got in trouble for. For threatening the ref or trying to get at the ref or whatever. And that is one thing that the leagues, none of the leagues will put up with is if you abuse of an official is, is, is never, is never accepted. And, and they're pretty sticklers on that. Um, things like that have happened. I remember Ty Domi, uh, was in the penalty box in Philadelphia. And some very Philadelphia looking fan talking like a Guido looking guy, kind of a heavyset guy with dark hair looks just when I think of Philadelphia, that's the face. I think of, you know, just a Northeastern looking guy. He's just given Domi the. Business he's ripping on him and chatting at him and then he starts leaning over, uh, the glass and pointing at him and, and Domi's chirping back at him. And then he squirts him with some water. I think 2 from his water bottle and the guy lunges for it and the glass pops off. And this fan falls into the penalty box with [00:33:00] Tidomian, you know, you can say what you want about Tidomi skills with the puck, but he could throw hands and he had a cement head. And the last place you'd probably want to be with him is in the penalty box, wearing the opposing team's colors as a fan. And so, uh, and then Mike Milbury in Boston, he, he, when bunch of Boston. Bruins went up into the stands because somebody was throwing keys or something or whatever. I don't remember what started that, but he took a guy's shoe and sort of beating him with his own shoe. So, I mean, it, it, it doesn't just, it hasn't only happened in Danbury. The, the, the difference is, is by 2005, a lot of that was 20 to. 30 years in the rear view mirror, and now all of a sudden it's, you know, it's right here in front of you and in your face again. Let's start to wrap up the story there. Let's wrap up the hockey story. What happens to the Danbury Trashers? They're only in existence for a very short amount [00:34:00] of time. Uh, Chris, do you want to wrap up their story? Yeah, and it's weird because in the documentary you get this impression that it was all just one season, but the Trashers were actually around for two seasons, actually, and I believe both seasons they went to the Colonial Cup, um, and it ends with them losing to, uh, Kalamazoo is what they lost to in the documentary. I don't know which year that was, though. Basically how it ends, like, uh... Like, which is, I mean, it's really remarkable type of story when you really think about it, because getting into League, I don't think people really gave them much of a chance, and just kind of the way they played the game, they're like, oh, we're gonna mix the wrestling and hockey together, and You know, here they are like going all the way to the cup. And, uh, I think I looked up the series. They, it was a close series too. And I mean, they almost pulled it off, which is, you know, for expansion team first. And it's a little bit different than say the NHL. [00:35:00] But still it's their first two years and in the league and they go to the cup both years. Like that's pretty wild. One of the things that's kind of interesting from a, I guess, a human behavior standpoint is. This team really endeared itself with the population, uh, population, or at least the fans that came, they were very, you know, the relationships appeared to be very genuine and, and some strong emotions and they love their team and, and the team seemed to love them back. And, you know, they had that, uh, winger character, uh, that Wingfield, you know, talked a lot and he thought very highly of. Uh, Jim Galante and at the end of the documentary, when they surprised him by having Jimmy be there, he, he was in tears. He was trying not to cry really. So these really tight connections that are going on at the, on the hockey side of things. And then you get to the mob side of things, right? Where, where the FBI lands, this massive [00:36:00] indictment, Jimmy Galante is faced with whatever it was a hundred and some counts. He could go to trial. He could try to win. But because of the hockey team, ironically, he's got some close dealings with his son because his son is so integral to the hockey team. And you know, they were funneling money through there, like crazy, you know, they were doing all kinds of, he knows his son is vulnerable. If the FBI starts going that direction, they may have even said as much to them behind closed doors. And so what does James Galante decide to do? You know, I'm talking about this guy who's kind of a folk hero in the community, right? A bad guy, but essentially to save his son. He, he pleads, takes a plea arrangement and goes to jail for like 10 years, goes to prison rather. Um, now you guys are doing a lot of these shows. I'm not, uh, I'm only on a couple of them, a few of them here, but you're talking about organized crime a lot. Omerta doesn't usually hold up like that. Right. I mean, emeritus, a little bit of a myth [00:37:00] sometimes. I mean, there are guys who adhere to it, but it's not, it's not the staunchest of codes in terms of adherence. And yet, you know, he, he did, you know, he didn't, he didn't give up, you know, or, or, you know, he didn't give up Maddie the horse and he didn't, and he took a hit to save his kid. So. You know, to echo what my wife said after we were done, it's hard not to admire that in a grudging way. Uh, I'm not doing the Tony Soprano thing and making him out to be a hero by any means. Um, but it is hard not to, to admire the way that the community. Rallied around this team, what the team gave the community, what the community gave the members of that team, and then the people behind that to see that that same expression was taking place within the family. And here's a guy who's willing to do 10 years to keep his son from facing the prospect of any time at all. Um, I think that's a, that's a, that's an actually a very beautiful human story, even though there's a lot of [00:38:00] ugliness surrounding it. Steve here again with a quick word from our sponsors. Well, that's exactly it, right? Is me and Steve are going back and forth about it. I go, I mean, it's such a Capta Emerita, right? Like he decided that, you know what? I chose this life and you know, I benefited from it and I'm going to not be a rat, right? This is what I told my son his entire life. Be a standup guy and don't be a rat. How can I turn around and just be a rat myself? The other side of the coin though, is. The guy that he was really, I think, none of, I don't think they would have went after his kid or, I think they just started going after that because they were pressuring him because the guy that they really wanted was Matty, uh, the Horse Ionello. He was the guy that the FBI really wanted. He knew, they knew that Jimmy knew a lot of stuff that he was up to. Did he give him anything? I mean, they give you the impression in the, in the documentary that [00:39:00] he didn't give him anything, that he just took his hit. He didn't give up anything at all. And he gave up, but at the same time, he gave up 10 years of his life that he could have been there with, and they don't get, they don't catch on, they don't catch on it. They don't like, and the impression that you get in the documentary, it's like, yeah, they were father and son, but in a lot of ways they were like best friend. Um, and he gave that up 10 years, you know, and he even talks about it. When he comes back, you basically have to realize it's like. They're all living their lives and they did it. They're doing it without me. And can you imagine being like a father and then, you know, you're seeing your kids there and it's, well, if I died tomorrow, like, they don't need me. Because that's basically what you have to come to the conclusion with, right? Because 10 years is a long time. Was it worth it? I don't know. It's not for me to say. No, but, you know, here's an interesting thing, right? As a police officer, I'm [00:40:00] always happy when somebody gives me information, a criminal, right? You want an informant. You want a confession that makes your job far easier. It fills in facts. It strengthens your case. It's what you want. And yet I will tell you that most cops that I know still have disdain for somebody who is a rat, a tattletale, whatever you want to call it. I mean, uh, I worked with a guy who grew up in Brooklyn and, and then he. Came out playing baseball, uh, in the Mariners system. And when he got out, he had met a local girl and decided to live in the Pacific Northwest and everything came on the job. And, uh, he and I were talking one time and he absolutely spit the name, uh, of Sammy Gravano. He called him a rat, thought he was a piece of garbage, just, you know, and he's, you know, he's a patrol officer. I was, I'm his Sergeant. We're having coffee and just talking. And he has. Just absolutely no respect for the guy at all, even though he's doing [00:41:00] exactly what as an investigator, you would want him to do provide information so that you can bring down this, this, you know, criminal organization. So it's a weird dynamic, uh, in that people just not just cops, but it's odd that cops are this way too, but people are generally that way. They respect somebody who doesn't rat. And even more than that, I think they respect somebody who says the, this is my code. And then they stick to that regardless of what that. That's what this code is. Oh, for sure. I mean, there's like numerous examples, uh, just from the research that we've done. Like, Samuel Bolgrovano is a guy where it's just like, oh, my God, like, the fact that they even used him is a whole other story. But it's like, really? You're going to be the guy that rats after all the stuff that you did? Like, Thank you. Like, give me a break here. I'm like, I'm reading another one, uh, on the Westies, this, another gentleman named Mickey Featherstone. He ends up becoming a state witness. And it's like, really, really, you benefited from all of them. And I loved, I loved Goodfellas and I thought it was a great [00:42:00] movie. Absolutely loved it. I loved Ray Liotta, great actor. Just awesome film in a many, many ways, but come on. I mean, Henry Hill was a pretty bad guy. He maybe not as bad as Sammy the bull, but you know, I mean, he flipped pretty easily. Uh, and so I don't know. It's, it's an interesting dynamic. Anyway, I just wanted to point out that it doesn't surprise me after watching that and seeing how the fans and the team interacted that they would also feel a certain way about this guy. In their midst, you know, this, this folk hero, uh, who they very well know is, is a little bent, you know, but it's part of the culture and it's a little more accepted than it might be in some other areas. And he said, I wasn't going to rat and he didn't rat and he did 10 years. He walked the walk. Uh, I, I bet, I bet he doesn't buy a beer anywhere in that town, you know, right or wrong. I'm not condoning it. I'm just pointing it out. It's an interesting. It's an interesting thing. I [00:43:00] think there's something to that. I would imagine, you know, on your side of the table, looking at somebody who's snitching or ratting or squealing or whatever the word you want to use that you always have to have in the back of the mind. Are they really a reliable narrator to the story? Or are they painting a picture to make themselves look better or to make the, even if maybe they're dead to rights on something that they've done wrong. And that they're making the person who they're selling out look a lot worse than they may even actually be. Yeah. You always want to confirm independently the facts that they tell you, if you can, what, what often what informers will do for you is, is kind of point the direction and give you, you know, There's a thousand boxes in this room and they tell you which one to look in. You know, I mean, it's, uh, you know, it's that kind of an assistance in your investigation. But yeah, I mean, it's a weird thing. I, I, I was [00:44:00] very grateful for, for people who told the truth and snitched people off and they helped my cases. They helped me as a patrol officer. They, they, but deep inside, I had a little bit of contempt for him too. It's like, it's almost like they're a traitor. It's like you chose your team. You chose your team and now you're a traitor. It's like a, like a, somebody who defects from, from, from Russia. I don't, Hey, great. Thanks for the secrets, but I don't really admire you. You were born there and that's your country. And you just betrayed that your country, you know what I mean? It kind of feels like that with these mob informers too. And so, you know, 10 years is a long time, but he took it standing up, you know, and, and in a way, you just kind of have to grudgingly admire that just a little bit. I think the other thing with Jimmy is I know there was some violence and there was the setting of the trucks on fire, but a lot of the stuff that he eventually went down for two is a lot of complicated financial crimes and stuff like that. I think in a lot of ways. [00:45:00] People maybe don't overlook it, but they don't really understand it. Or they don't see that, oh, well, that's not so bad. He didn't break anybody's kneecaps in the streets. And we like that he puts on a good hockey game. So we're there, people are able to mentally overlook a lot of things. A little bit of willful blindness there probably too, because if you're, if you're listed as a close associate of Maddie, the horse, you're probably, you're probably doing a few things that most people would, uh, uh, would change their minds about what a good guy you are. If they knew about it for sure. And that's why guys like that go and give Christmas gifts and I mean, a lot of guys like that probably would gave money to the, um, you know, the police boosters club and like, uh, you know, made themselves look like big men, you know, in town. Sponsored cub scouts, you know, this mile on the freeway is sponsored by, you know, galante waste management. I'm sure he did [00:46:00] all that kind of stuff. I mean, hell's angels have a choice for tots drive or whatever it is. I mean, it's a, it's a very old tactic, but it works. That's why it's old because it keeps getting used because it's effective. Jimmy does eventually go to jail the and that's pretty much it. He comes back 10 years later. A. J. Has moved on. Everybody's moved on and it's kind of a happy ish ending in a way. Yeah, like we see like they have like a reunion at a bar and they're reminiscing about the trashers. Uh, I listened to some interviews with A. And for a really long time after like the trashers fold in and dad went to jail, he just Didn't want anything to do with hockey. Didn't want, didn't even watch the NHL. Nothing. He was just, I guess he associated with all of that went down really with his dad going to jail. And I think it's only until recently that he started watching some hockey again. Um, And like obviously like they had that reunion and yeah, it's like a happy ending. It's like, you know, like we, it was a short time, but like, [00:47:00] look at all the memories that they created with the players and the friendships and within the community. I mean, we're talking, we're still talking about them now and how, how many years ago was this? The team was only around for two years, right, in a, you know, kind of lower end league in terms of professional hockey, and it's really incredible what they did. You know, one thing they didn't talk about that, that I noticed that was glaringly absent was what Jimmy's doing now. You know, they talked about AJ, he's got a job and then he's doing this boxing thing and you know, and he's that, that was pretty clear, but you know, he declined to answer a couple of questions directly on advice of counsel, probably wisely, but they didn't talk about what he's doing now, you know, is he back in the business? Is he doing something else? What is he, is his wife supporting him? What, what's happening? I don't know if you know the answer to that, Chris, I have no idea, but I found it, uh, I found the absence of, Some kind of a, uh, because [00:48:00] that's kind of the kind of thing you include at the end of the story. And the date and while the story, it's like, you know, I mean, you see these documents are all the time where it'll freeze frame and then it'll print across the bottom, you know, James Galante is now working as a consultant for the FBI or something like this. Right. But they don't do that with him. And I got to tell you, that actually made me a little suspicious. That maybe he's drifted back into what got him in trouble in the 1st place, and there's still stuff there. But do you know, uh, Christie, have you read anything or anything? I don't know. Uh, off the I know. I don't know exactly what he's doing now. I know for sure. It has nothing to do with trash because I know the plea that he took he. Said that he would never get involved in the trash business again, right? So, I mean, well, you, you both know, there's lots of industries where he could get involved in, though, that are that are absolutely adjacent industries. I know we had a significant amount of money still left after he got out of prison. I think it was, they couldn't, they couldn't take it off because he was able to still, they [00:49:00] couldn't take it. Everything. So he still had like 10 million. I mean, he, maybe he's just living it off that. Yeah. And all being like, you know what, I did my time and I get 10 million, right? I could live like this for the rest of my life. Just, yeah, you, I don't know how much interest that bears every year, but I got to thank you. Live on a couple hundred thousand dollars a year. That's going to last you. Yeah, I'm sure you can figure out a way. I just thought it was interesting they didn't, they didn't, they didn't point in any direction whatsoever. And that, that omission was a little glaring, but maybe I'm making more out of it than it is. That is interesting though, because if he was just cruising, I think people would, they would say that, well, Jimmy's just. Living his retirement now that trying to men fences after being in the can for 10 years, but they didn't say you're right. They didn't say that or he's a motivational speaker for people trying to recover from battle criminal life or whatever it is, if it were positive, I would think they would highlight it. [00:50:00] But again, I mean, that's. You get to have a suspicious nature when you spend some time in law enforcement. So, you know, suspicion is, is fine. Uh, but, but I, you know, you got to seek out whether your suspicion is accurate or not. And I do not know. So I freely admit that it's just a suspicion that I would have to follow up on. I was kind of hoping Chris knew for sure. No, it's not a bad suspicion because he's a, you know, he's a career criminal. So he's probably, I don't know if I had to take a guess. He's probably, I don't think he's doing. He's probably, I. Probably not doing anything like he was doing before, but I'm pretty sure he, you know, he's probably doing some illegal. I mean, I don't think, I don't think he's ever going to be stopped being one, right? That's, that's what he is. That's what he did in his whole life. It's a hard habit to break. I mean, look at, I mean, yeah, well, Henry Hill gets sent out onto the west coast and he starts, uh, you know, a stolen property ring or something [00:51:00] like that and almost got kicked out of the witness protection program. And I think they sent it up to Seattle and I think he did get kicked out after a second time. I mean, so, you know. You know, more habitual creatures and crime can be a habit. Well, I have to say I enjoyed the documentary. I enjoyed the hockey clips, both the goals and the scraps and the, and the, the people and the fans and the interaction and all those dynamics. I thought it was fascinating. I'm glad you suggested it, Chris. And we really had an interesting confluence of a lot of different topics that came together. And I'm very happy that you were able to join Mustache Chris and I, Frank, and I very much hope that you'll come back for more episodes. I'd be thrilled to. Yeah, it'd be awesome. You know, it's like I suggest everybody watch this documentary. It's you don't have to be a hockey fan or even organized crime fan because it's just it really is just a really crazy story. It helps if you're fans of both and then you'll really enjoy it. But just sit [00:52:00] back and watch it because it's, uh, it's fascinating. Netflix, in my opinion. It's a well made documentary too. It's, it's, it's high production value. If you like what you hear, you like episodes like this, definitely send us some feedback, send us back some feedback on maybe some episodes you'd like to hear Frank talk about in particular, um, when the three of us get together. But if you like what you hear for sure, tell your friends about it so that you can become friends of ours. Forget about it. Forget about it. You've been listening to Organized Crime and Punishment, a History and Crime podcast. To learn more about what you heard today, find links to social media and how to support the show. Go to our website, A to z history page.com. Become a friend of ours by sending us an email to crime at a to z history page dot com All of this and [00:53:00] more can be found in the show notes. We'll see yous next time on organized crime and punishment Forget about itSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Coming Soon on Organized Crime and Punishment! You can learn more about Organized Crime and Punishment and subscribe at all these great places: https://atozhistorypage.start.page www.organizedcrimeandpunishment.com Click to Subscribe: https://omny.fm/shows/organized-crime-and-punishment/playlists/podcast.rss email: crime@atozhistorypage.com Parthenon Podcast Network Home: parthenonpodcast.com On Social Media: https://www.youtube.com/@atozhistory https://www.facebook.com/groups/atozhistorypage https://facebook.com/atozhistorypage https://twitter.com/atozhistorypage https://www.instagram.com/atozhistorypage/ Music Provided by: Music from "5/8 Socket" by Rico's Gruv Used by permission. © 2021 All Rights Reserved. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=210vQJ4-Ns0 https://open.spotify.com/album/32EOkwDG1YdZwfm8pFOzUu            See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Title: The Danbury Trashers – Skating on Thin Ice Original Publication Date: 10/11/2023 Transcript URL: https://share.descript.com/view/iwB0rOeBrF9 Description: In the first part of this two-part episode of Organized Crime and Punishment, Frank, Mustache Chris and Steve delve into the intriguing story of the Danbury Trashers hockey team. Founded by James Galante, a prominent figure in the waste management industry with alleged connections to organized crime, the Trashers' rise to notoriety is a fascinating tale of sports, business, and criminal influence. In this episode, we explore the origins of the team and how it became a symbol of defiance against the established hockey world. We discuss the controversial figures involved, the Trashers' unique marketing strategies, and the tensions that arose as they challenged the status quo in minor league hockey. #DanburyTrashers #OrganizedCrime #HockeyHistory #SportsScandal #JamesGalante #MinorLeagueHockey #hockey #NHL You can learn more about Organized Crime and Punishment and subscribe at all these great places: https://atozhistorypage.start.page email: crime@atozhistorypage.com www.organizedcrimeandpunishment.com Parthenon Podcast Network Home: parthenonpodcast.com On Social Media: https://www.youtube.com/@atozhistory https://www.facebook.com/groups/atozhistorypage https://facebook.com/atozhistorypage https://twitter.com/atozhistorypage https://www.instagram.com/atozhistorypage/ Music Provided by: Music from "5/8 Socket" by Rico's Gruv Used by permission. © 2021 All Rights Reserved. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=210vQJ4-Ns0 https://open.spotify.com/album/32EOkwDG1YdZwfm8pFOzUu Begin Transcript: [00:00:00] Welcome to Organized Crime and Punishment, the best spot in town to hang out and talk about history and crime with your hosts, Steve and Mustache Chris. I'd like to welcome everybody back to a special Episode of Organized Crime and Punishment. We're joined not only by Mustache Chris, but also our new contributor on this series, and hopefully many series to come, Frank Scalise, and you will be aware of him. Frank Scalise from some of our previous episodes, Frank Scalise was a 20 year officer with the Spokane police department. Uh, so [00:01:00] he's going to give us a law enforcement perspective, but today he's also going to give us both. Frank and mustache. Chris are going to give us a perspective on crime, but not only crime, but a mutual passion of theirs of hockey. As we talk about a really. Fascinating piece of history, of hockey history and the mafia history with the hockey team called the Danbury Trashers. And we're going to have a really wide ranging conversation about organized crime, hockey, hockey meets organized crime, and much, much more. Maybe we'll start with Chris. Can you give us a little bit of background on why you came up with this episode, because you had come up with this episode just for people. If you want to really dig in deep, even more into this. There is a Netflix documentary on the Danbury trashers, but we're going to go into some other avenues on this story. Chris. [00:02:00] But to start us off, what got you interested in this particular topic? And why did you think it might be a good one for a collaboration? When me and Frank and you all talked previously on the, the previous episodes, we, what you guys didn't really hear was, uh, me and Frank talking about hockey and Frank's a Flyers fan. I'm a Maple Leaf fan and we just hit it off right away because I don't know, I guess we're both like, uh, hockey nerds. Uh, you know, it's not very often you meet people who can remember players like, You know, Donald Breshear and, you know, from way back in the day, and we were talking about even when the Flyers beat the Leafs in the playoffs and almost immediately after we finished our conversation, I remembered, oh, yeah, there's a documentary that literally is about hockey and organized crime, and it would fit perfectly for the show. And why wouldn't I want to talk about probably two of my most favorite things now? Um, what did you think? What was your first [00:03:00] blush of this? Frank, when you watched the documentary, I had watched it once before, uh, shortly after I think it first came out. My wife. Watched it and said, you would love this. It's hockey and the mob and it's a fascinating story. So I checked it out. But when, when Chris brought it up as a possible discussion point here, I went back and watched it again just earlier this week. And Christie and I sat down and what struck me about it was how, how completely. Interwoven the two topics were, I mean, the things that were happening that were mob related in this story were tied directly into things that were happening to the, the hockey element of the story and, and there were just a lot of different things that I'm sure we'll touch on that, that, that reached out and grabbed me by the throat and said, Hey, this is pretty interesting, um, as a huge hockey fan and, and, uh, and, uh, yeah, Fan of [00:04:00] Canadian culture and, and certainly hockey culture. Um, I liked some of the things that they showed, but the, the, the mob culture, or at least the family culture of the Galantes and the dynamic between the father and the son, especially, uh, was pretty interesting. And so I'm sure we'll delve into that. It's kind of interesting. I watched it and I remember absolutely zero about this. I don't know if it just wasn't national news or it was happening during when the Iraq war was just about starting in Afghanistan. So maybe that, uh, didn't rise up in the news. It was also during the, during the lockout, the NHL lockout. And so a lot of people. That weren't massive, crazy fans, uh, kind of checked out on hockey, unless they had a local team to follow. So it wasn't getting a ton of news. I don't think. Yeah, that's really interesting. I also, I mean, it was just incredible. The. The story had so many different elements and a lot of elements that you, Chris, and I [00:05:00] had talked about with wrestling. I felt like I was watching something that was ECW like with this extreme, uh, extreme form of entertainment. Uh, Chris, maybe you could set us up a little bit of the background in the early life of AJ Galante and Jimmy Galante, the founders of this team. Yeah, well, like, early in the documentary, I think the first person you see is the, is the commissioner of the UHL, and he immediately starts talking about Jimmy and, you know, like, how he did all this stuff for the community, like, not just like, oh, he was donating turkeys, like, I believe he was, like, actually building buildings, and he was donating to the hospital, and, you know, from everything. Football field. Football field, yeah, and, um, From everything that I read, he was, uh, you know, uh, Jimmy Galante, the father of AJ Galante, who was a, like, a very well, uh, respected, uh, member of the Danbury community. And we get this little [00:06:00] montage of, like, uh, uh, AJ, like, when he was just, like, 16 or something like that, and it just made me laugh, just how people used to dress. Fact, because I grew up during that time, like me and AJ are probably around the same age, and just like the baggy clothes, and like the, uh, like the hats with the giant gold chains, it just looks ridiculous, even he, I've listened to some stuff that he's done, like podcasts, and like interviews, and he talks about just how ridiculous he looked at the, at the time, it just, it's like one of the better moments in the documentary, in my opinion. So, uh, Jimmy, he's, what was his industry that he was in, because that'll, uh, inform a lot about the, of what we were, what we'll be talking about. Oh yeah, Jimmy, he was like, yeah, he was the, uh, actually owned one of the largest, well, he owned the largest, uh, trash company in the Connecticut, uh, region, I believe that served, uh, like Winchester Putnam. In Putnam, New York, like all [00:07:00] around that area. I mean, you're more familiar with that geography around that area, right? Like, where is that? And I believe that is right on the border with Connecticut. They're all kind of touching in that, uh, the tri state area. Yeah, well, he like he ran like the auto recycling company was called, uh, auto, uh, automated, uh, waste disposal. He had like up to upwards to like 50 trucks, right? Like this guy was running a multi million dollar business and trash disposal. I don't know if, uh, maybe our audiences might not be familiar with it, but like trash disposal and especially in and around that New York region, uh, Up, up and around there and the mob was just, was one hand in hand. I think at one point literally the mob ran the entire like trash business in New York. That's like, I don't mean it was convenient for getting rid of bodies too. So they, uh, Jimmy, he kind of, uh, corners the market in this, uh, [00:08:00] in this whole trash business. He winds up going to jail and this sets up a whole, uh, narrative arc that they have. With this, but let's get right into the hockey team and maybe you can set us up, Chris, with the hockey team. And then I think you and Frank are going to just go off on hockey. So let's, let's get into the hockey before we hit the hockey. Can, can I point out 1 quick thing? Um, and that is that, uh, uh, and, and I think you and Chris can speak to this a little bit more, but I didn't want it to slide past that. Uh, Jimmy Galante was. It was listed as a, as a very close associate of, uh, uh, again, was it Ionello? Is that the, the acting? Oh, Maddie. Yes. Yeah. Maddie, the horse. Ionello. Yeah. Ionello who, if I'm not mistaken, was the acting Don essentially of the, the Genovese family. Uh, you, you guys are up on this more than I am, but that sounds to me like a [00:09:00] one heck of like, of a connection for some, for some clout. Yeah, and then Jimmy was, um, yeah, for sure, like, Jimmy was connected to, um, well, in particular, the Genovese crime family, but in particular, he was a capo, actually, Matty, the, uh, horse Ionello, and, uh, anybody kind of knows, like, knows a bit about the, well, I would say more than a bit, like, Matty the horse was, uh, Oh, He was a big deal, right? He's actually, uh, quite famous for peddling pornography, believe it or not, and, uh, when we get near to the end, I think that's, uh, the downfall of Jimmy Glancy and the Danbury Trashers, uh, that's one of my theories of, um, what happened to him, but we'll save that for, we'll save that for a little later on. Yeah, it seemed to me like Jimmy, if he wasn't, I can't say guarantee or I wouldn't say 100 percent that he was a made man. He was in all of that, but he was very, I guess what they say in the modern parlance, mob adjacent and [00:10:00] that particular industry you needed in the. Trash disposal industry. You need connections to governments. You need connections to big business. You need a lot of connections that something like organized crime can grease the wheels on. If you just look at, uh, the De Cavalcanti family in New Jersey of what the Sopranos was all based on, it's this whole idea of, uh, municipal garbage collection. If I mean, if you look at Jimmy and it's in the documentary, he kind of sees himself as like Tony Soprano. He has like a big picture of him with Tony, uh, Tony Soprano signed. I mean, if he wasn't a made guy, he definitely felt like he was a mobster, you know, it was the thing that he taught his kids growing up was like, you know, always be a stand up guy and don't rat, you know, straight up like that's what AJ was saying when he was a kid. Right? So definitely. If he wasn't a maid guy, I don't know for sure. I was actually researching this and sometimes, sometimes these things are [00:11:00] hard to tell. I tend to lean to think that he was a maid guy, um, but maybe he wasn't. Either, either way, he was a, he was a favored associate, though, at the very least, right? Oh, yeah, for sure, right? Like, uh, even if he wasn't a made guy, I still have a feeling, like, if you were going to whack Jimmy Galanti, you would probably still need permission, just because the amount of revenue that he was bringing in, which was millions of dollars. You mean he was a good earner? Oh, yeah. What was the short story of how they actually got into the hockey racket? AJ got hurt, right? Yeah, that's exactly it. It's like AJ was, uh, he got into, um, playing hockey and he loved it. And his dad liked watching him play hockey and knew how much AJ loved it. And he hit a kid. And even AJ says he doesn't even know exactly what happened, but. He banged up his knee really bad to the point that [00:12:00] he just would never have been able to play hockey ever again. And I was reading apparently, Jimmy had been thinking about getting into minor league hockey, like investing into it. And like, before any of that happened, and this kind of just kick started it off or well, I would, I don't know, they call it a minor hockey league. I don't know if I would consider the UHL minor league hockey, but yeah, Getting into smaller hockey is the way I would describe it for those folks that aren't into hockey. I think you could use a baseball analogy. Like, you got the NHL and that's like the majors and then you've got the American Hockey League and that's like triple a and then you've got some double a leagues like maybe the East Coast Hockey League is probably double a and then you got like a tweeners like they're not quite single a, but they're pretty low double a and that's like. All the rest of them, the Southern Professional Hockey League, the UHL, this, this league that they're in and, and a slew of others that are smaller and more regional, but you're still talking about guys that are pretty damn good at hockey. I mean, they're [00:13:00] playing professionally. They're just not NHL caliber. I mean, there's only 700 some jobs in the NHL. So he pretty much got to be the best in the world to be there. Steve here. We are a member of the Parthenon Podcast Network, featuring great shows like Richard Lim's This American President and other great shows. Go to ParthenonPodcast. com to learn more, and here is a quick word from our sponsors. Oh, that was a question that I did have. So that's not, it's, it's interesting because we'll get into some things later on. It wasn't really in the baseball metaphor. It's not AAA, the league that they were in, like people who are on the cusp of professional hood. AA at best, I would say, I mean, uh, and lower AA, like, uh, the East Coast Hockey League is probably a higher tier talent wise than, than, uh, than the, than the UHL. Is the UHL even still [00:14:00] solvent? Chris, do you know? No, they're not around anymore. It's, uh, the UHL, it's, it's weird cause it's like, it's, it's, it's a minor league, but it's like kind of semi pro. So in the UHL, okay. So I'll use an example up here. We have the Ontario hockey league, the OHL, and that's strictly developmental, right? So you, you can't be older than, I believe it's 18. Once you're 20, is it 20? Yeah. Every team can have like three or four overagers. So it's really. 16 to 19. Yeah. So that they get strictly for developing young talent is really what it is. Right? And then you go from there, like, Oh, are you good enough to play in the NHL, the HL, or, you know, maybe overseas in the KHL, or there's a lot of different leagues, right? Where the you HL. They never really got into the details of how it works, but I know in the AHL, it's considered, it's a semi developmental league, where you're allowed to have a certain amount of overagers, [00:15:00] right, but only a certain amount, so I think it's like, I don't know off the top of my head, it could be, do you know, is it like, you're allowed to have like, was it like 50, it's not 50, you can have like 25 percent of the roster being overagers, I'm not sure. Yeah, I mean, overagers is probably not the term I'd use though, cause that's specific to junior, but I think you mean veterans maybe, um, of a certain, and I don't, I don't know what the rule is, but you could definitely look at the American hockey league as the farm league to the NHL. In fact, most NHL teams, almost every one of them, uh, has an affiliate. So, you know, the Toronto Maple Leafs have the Toronto Marlies, you know, and so they send people down and bring them back up. A lot of the teams also have a essentially double a affiliate. And those are mostly, uh, maybe exclusively. I'm not certain on this, but they're, uh, East coast hockey league teams. And so I don't know who it is for Toronto for the flyers. It's, [00:16:00] uh, uh, it was, uh, the. Yeah. Or was it Richmond last year? I think I can't remember. Um, the point being is that that is your professional developmental leagues, right? One's AAA, one's AA, as opposed to the junior leagues, which are for kids, you know, 16 to 20, mostly 16 to 18, 19, uh, developmental. So the UHL is a cup below that. Um, and I think when you call it semi pro, I think that's a good word, Chris, because like some of the guys that AJ hired hadn't played hockey in a while, you know, this was like a return to the game for them. Well, they, they had that one player to Roman, uh, the Nigerian, I'm trying to remember his name right now. He played in the NHL. He played in the NHL. Brent Gretzky, he played a, not a lot, but he played a couple of games and a couple of points. Yeah. Um, and I'm trying, Mike Rump, we'll get, well, that's near the end and he played in the NHL, of course, you know, so it's like, it,[00:17:00] there's older players, but there's, there's younger players there and, and the documentary, they call it minor league hockey, but that's not really something like it, I don't know, it's like the age, all right, like we'll have, like, I'll use the example, like the Leafs had Kyle Clifford, who played it. On the Marley's all season. We're talking about a guy that's played in the NHL's entire life and is a two time Stanley Cup winner. He's just playing there because he's not good enough to play in the NHL anymore, but doesn't want to stop playing hockey and he wants to live near home. So, and we liked him. So we just signed him to be like, Hey, mentor the kids. Yeah, it's kind of a situation where you'll have play a lot of young players coming up, but then some players who are on their way back down. Exactly. Exactly. And then the other thing is the confusion of language, right? Like, I think when you say minor hockey in Canada, the inference is almost always youth hockey. [00:18:00] Right down here in the U. S. When we say minors, we think of like double a triple a baseball and we think the same for hockey and we would say youth hockey, not minor hockey. So, you know, it's 1 of those language things that can cause some confusion as well. But however you want to label it, I would say that the U. L. Was, uh, at least, uh, 3. Yeah. Tears below the NHL with the exception of a couple of players, uh, and, you know, let's face it. Some of those players were only there because of the lockout. Were they associated then or, uh, rather affiliated with a team, a professional team? I don't believe so. No, not that I'm aware of. No, the UHL, everything that I've read is they would like corner the market in places say like Danbury and just like other teams that just did not have a professional sports team of any sort and they triggered, well, if we set a team up here. Will be the only show in town. I mean, I believe the U H [00:19:00] L ran for 15 years. So, which is not a bad run for, uh, one of these types of leagues. Even when they folded just like some of the other leagues that folded some of the franchises get gobbled up by the next tier up, you know, like Kalamazoo still has a, a minor team. I believe, I think there are Red Wings, uh, affiliate, whether they're East coast. And the, I don't remember, but that sometimes happens too, but you're Chris is bang on. I think they go into markets that like hockey, but don't have a big team around. So like, if the Hartford Whalers were still up in Connecticut, you know, instead of down in Carolina as the Carolina hurricanes, it probably, the Emory probably would have been a market for the team. Cause they'd all want to go watch Hartford because it's the NHL, but there's no NHL this year because of the. The, the lockout, and then there's no Hartford anymore because they moved down to, uh, to Carolina back in whatever it was. I forget. It's a [00:20:00] real interesting confluence of events that there's this lockout, Danbury, it's kind of in the middle of nowhere for hockey. And then. Uh, they set up this almost like, uh, they have the money to set up a dream team, even though they're not officially supposed to spend the money the way they do, but we'll get into that shortly. Uh, maybe, uh. Frank, you can set the stage a little bit for the lockout. What was going, what was behind this lockout? Because I think in a lot of ways that none of this with the trashers or a lot of this wouldn't have happened the way it did if the lockout hadn't happened. NHL lockout. That's an interesting theory. I, I, I'd have to think about it to say whether I agree or not. Um, I do think there's no way that they make a run to the colonial cup with a, an NHL caliber player or two on the roster. And that made a big difference. So you could be onto something. Um, you know, I don't even [00:21:00] remember. What they were fighting about in 2005, I've been a hockey fan since the mid nineties. And so there's been several labor disputes and, and they're, you know, they're always arguing over money and what the share is and whether or not we should have a salary cap and so forth. I believe in the 2005 lockout, the hard cap was the biggest issue. There was no salary cap in hockey and the owners wanted it for cost certainty. And, and of course, if you're a player, you don't want a salary cap, right? Because you're. You know, capping the potential earnings of your, of your members, if you're the union. So they fought about it, drew some lines in the sand and ultimately, you know, one of the reason reasons Bettman gets booed every time he shows up anywhere, the commissioner of the NHL is because he's. Presided over several stoppages and this one killed the entire season and, and that's a pretty big deal. And so the NHL, they, they delayed, delayed, delayed, delayed, and God, did they get all the way to like December, Chris, before they [00:22:00] finally canceled it, I think, or January. Yeah, it was, it was pretty, yeah, it was pretty bad and it was, um. Especially what they were arguing over. I mean, I mean, there are a lot of the reasons why, like, a league will end up putting a salary cap in, which is essentially what this lockout was all about, was they'll put a salary cap in, and they'll say, because the league, say, the NHL is only bringing in so much revenue, right? So we can't have the owner spending X amount of dollars or what have you on players and this and that. It's just, uh, In the long run, it's not sustainable. That's the argument. And the other argument is, is that you got a big market team like Toronto or Philadelphia, and they can spend 80 million on players. And then you get Buffalo who can only spend 35. And so they're at a distinct disadvantage switch. Probably you're with me on this one, Chris. I don't see the problem with that because anytime the flyers wanted a free agent, they could pay for it. Right. So Toronto did the same [00:23:00] thing, but, but it does create an unfair compete. Right. Yeah. And I, I, the big thing to me personally, the big reason. That the salary cap's in place anyways is because the owners can't stop themselves. That's basically it, right? They'll sign these ridiculous contracts to these players that shouldn't get them and then they end up getting, being stuck paying for them and there's like, I don't want to get into the weeds about how the salary cap works or not, but like It's actually the owners, uh, trying to rein in their general managers, if we want to be more specific, right? Because the GMs are the ones handing out the contracts and the owners are tired of paying them. But they're the ones signing off on it too, though, right? Sure, sure. They get free agent fever every July 1st and out comes the checkbook. Steve here again with a quick word from our sponsors. There's also [00:24:00] a big problem with hockey, being that it's international. A lot of times if the dollar versus the Canadian, the U. S. versus the Canadian dollar fluctuates, it can kill the Canadian teams because they have a lot less buying power with their dollar. When it's when it's uneven like that, that is absolutely a factor. And then the other factor that comes up, uh, is, uh, those teams that are in states that are, that don't have an income tax. So you're attacking another 10 percent on whatever. You know, if you're not paying income tax or whatever, the income tax would be in another state. So, so there's, there's all these little unfair advantages and I guess they figured we'll put the salary cap in place and everybody's on a even playing field, blah, blah, blah. And it took them a year and they had to fight about it and cancel the season to get to it. And the Danbury trashers ended up being very much the recipients of that. Bad luck for everybody else because, you know, they landed a couple of players that might have been playing at a higher [00:25:00] level had had, because once the NHL isn't playing those players who want to play, go play elsewhere. Some went overseas, some played in the American league, some played, obviously, one of them came and played in Danbury and that pushes the talent all down another tier. So guys who are good enough to play in the A, some of those get bumped down to the East coast league. Some of those guys end up in one of these, you know, regional semi prototype. Teams like the, like the UHL. And so it's just a, you know, a, a trickle down effect. And as most trickle down effects go, it's not good for the people that trickles down to at the end. So, uh, but that worked out good for Danbury because now it's, you said it's a confluence of events. It surely was. I mean, here's a guy who wants to buy the team for his kid, make him the president and general manager. He goes out. And he can get players that he couldn't otherwise have gotten if the situation were different. And then once he's got those players, he is going to be able to keep them because as you alluded [00:26:00] to earlier, you know, they might be getting a check for whatever from the Danbury trashers, but they're getting a nice fat envelope every week as well. And that is circumventing the rules and they admit it freely, at least. Two of the players, or no, three of the players admitted it freely during that, uh, documentary. If you remember. And what do you think about that, Chris, that they were getting big, they were that, uh, you, HL did have a cap, a salary cap and a salary structure, but to get these guys on board, they're giving him big, thick envelopes full of cash. I just think it's, like, I think it's hilarious, right? Like, the players are talking about, like, Jimmy Galante just dropping 10 grand on the table, and, like, there's your signing bonus, and, like, if you do, like, a little bit of research, too, like, Jimmy is, like, hiring, like, their wives and kids to work at the, at the dump. Basically with no show jobs and plus they're eating steak and lobster [00:27:00] and private cars. I think they alluded to, it sounded like they were putting them up to like their lodging was comped as well. It sounded like, or they got really cheap lodging. That was really nice. I mean, they kind of skirted that a little bit, so it wasn't entirely sure, but that is what they alluded to. It is. This is what the mob does to society, like, but like, it's within this hockey context, right? Like, they're circumnavigating the rules. They're, they're not paying their taxes per se. They're, uh, cheating, really, is what they're doing. At the end of the day, that's what they're doing. They're cheating, right? Like, I've joked about it with my friends with, like, the amount of money that, The organization that owns the Maple Leafs and be like, just sign Matthews to Austin Matthews, the big superstar up here and like, just sign them to a reasonable contract and then just, you know, give them, you know, a couple duffel bags worth of cash and, you know, big contract with Boston pizza and you're, you're good to go, you know, but that's, that's, uh, you're, [00:28:00] that's cheating, you're circumnavigating the cap. You're not supposed to be doing that. They're the rules are in place for a reason, right? It's almost like. And the best it's like, basically, like a no show jobs, right? Where the cities used to be famous. They're still famous for this, but like, local governments are famous for this. Like, the mayor is like hiring their friends to go work for the dump or go work for, um, you know, the drive a. Say a bus and it's just, yeah, they're on the payroll. They're collecting a paycheck, but they're, you know, they're not actually showing up and doing this job, right? Like it's all it's a kickbacks, right? Which is this is what the mob's famous for is the kickbacks, right? And unless I'm. Mistaking my sopranos history, weren't these kinds of jobs used to show legitimate income and to create legitimate. Retirement opportunities like 401ks and stuff. Yeah, that, well, that's exactly it. Right. All for a lot of these guys, you can show [00:29:00] that like, Hey, I am bringing in some money and You know, most of the time, it doesn't account for. You know, the vast amount of money that you're showing up. It's like, well, yeah, you work in a, uh, you work in a dump, like, I mean, like, how do you afford this Lamborghini? But at least you have something on paper showing like, hey, I work here. And maybe you might have to just literally show up to plant once or twice a week or something. You probably don't even have to do that. Maybe once a week, just show up and. Just there so they can be like, oh, yeah, he was at work type thing, right? When they investigate, but it's it does help when you can have the ability to be like, look, I am actually bringing in money, you know, like, oh, I'm investing in this and this and this, right? Like, as opposed to I believe it was lucky Luciano when they were asking him. It's like. Where did you get all this money from? You haven't had a job in 20 years. He's like, well, no, I own, I own this restaurant like down the street. And he forgot what the name of the restaurant was. He actually did own this restaurant, but like he, [00:30:00] but like he actually forgot the name of the restaurant and you know, it doesn't look good. Like when, you know, they're prosecuting you and be like, you know, where'd you get all this money? You like, there's no, you've never had a job. And then there's no way to funnel the money, but, uh, getting back to the, to the story a little bit, and that's that, uh, AJ, he was, and this is a conversation that I'd be really interested in hearing both of your opinions on. Maybe we'll start with Frank on this one. I find it very interesting that AJ, he was, he loved hockey as a sport. He played it, he lived it, but he also was a huge fan of professional wrestling. And he, he loved the showmanship of that. And he wanted to really bring those two elements together. And I think you see that in extremes in this, but. Anytime you watch a sport, really, you're looking for both the pure athleticism, but you also want to be entertained as well. Uh, what [00:31:00] do you think about those, those two really competing forces inside of sports, pure athleticism and then fun? I think you said it perfectly. I don't think I could say it any better. Um, personally, I'm not a wrestling fan at all. I've always been disdainful of it because it's fake. Not that they're not physical, not that it's not athletic, but because it's staged in terms of the fighting and stuff. And. It took me a long time to get off my high horse and, and just recognize that people enjoy it for the entertainment value. And movies are stage two and I don't call them fake, you know, so, uh, and sometimes things happen in hockey that are staged, you know, like, you know, some of the fights that used to happen, you know, off the, off the buck drop. So I kind of quit being such a jerk about it and realize that. You know, I don't need to, to, to downtalk it in my, in my circle of friends or whatever. And, and it's just another form of entertainment and it does have a very spectacular element to it, doesn't it? I [00:32:00] mean, it's over the top, it's big, it's loud. It's, it's a, it's a spectacle and. When you bring that to a hockey arena, like AJ did, what do you end up with? Well, pretty quickly you end up with a very full arena, you know, section 102 full of the biggest maniacs of your fans. And all those folks are paying money to get into the rink. They're paying money to buy a Jersey. They're buying popcorn, beer, hot dogs, you know, um, And everything else that goes along with it. So number one, it's a, it's a, it's, it's great for the community. That's the one thing that struck me about this entire thing was here. You have a couple of guys, well, Jimmy, anyway, in particular, he's a bad guy. I mean, if you look at the stuff that they had him on tape saying, if he did those things and he was, you know, he pled to some things that he was accused of, he's a bad guy, right? But he's very likable. He's almost like a folk hero in this community.[00:33:00] And when they create this team, it's something for the community to rally around this huge, this huge event, uh, that's just full of energy and spectacle. And, and they all, they reveled, of course, in being the, uh, being the foil, you know, being the bad guy. What do they call that in wrestling? Chris, the, the bad guy has a different name. Being the heel, the heel, that's it. Right. They were the heels of the UHL. Were they not? I mean, that, that was very, very, that's exactly, that's exactly it. Right. AJ played that part. He even talked about that. He was trying to play the heel of, uh, You know, hockey really, but the Trashers and he played because he knew that everyone was gonna hate him anyways They think like oh daddy, but you this team you dress dress ridiculous You're you're only 17 and you're running a hockey team and he just played it up, right? Like it'll like Floyd Mayweather is famous for this, right? Like he had to change up how he boxed because his hands were literally like disintegrating [00:34:00] And so he knew that he was going to play, he was going to fight a style of boxing that was not going to be exciting and just to continue his career. And he knew that people were going to hate it. So he started creating this persona, the money Mayweather, which is people just pay to watch him fight in hopes of seeing him lose. For a long time, that was it, right? Because everyone just hated him so much. Um, but they were paying to watch. Money, money spends the same no matter why they came, right? Yeah, and as you were mentioning, like, you're not so, like, I would, I'm a huge fan of professional wrestling and I totally get what he was, like, trying to do, uh, with mixing the two of them up, right? So, anyway, I, We did like an earlier episode on the beyond the big screen, where I kind of went into like the whole history of professional wrestling and we covered the movie, the wrestler too. And great movie. Yeah. That was like kind of one of the crazier scenes in the movie, though, is like when Jimmy brings all the professional wrestlers to AJ's party and it's [00:35:00] like Triple H and China. And I think The Rock was there. The Rock was there. I mean, when you, when you've got wrestlers in the crowd that I recognize, you're, you're probably hitting the high ones, but you know, I don't know that we truly got. A good picture, a good picture watching this documentary of how crazy it probably was in that arena, because when you're watching it on video and let's face it, it's not the greatest video. It's not television. It's not, you know, like, like, even like a phone today would probably take better video than, than what they were using there in 2005. But when you're there in person, And you can feel the energy in the, and the spontaneity of the events. It's, it's a whole other level than like what we saw in the, in the documentary there on the screen. And, and it has a galvanizing effect on, on the community, especially a smaller community. You know, I [00:36:00] mean, I think Danbury's tiny, but it's not a metropolis, right? I'm guessing. Uh, do you know how big it is, Steve? You're, you're from that region. I know I, to be quite honest, I had never even really heard of it until fairly recently, and Hartford's not that big, and Hartford's bigger than Danbury, I'm pretty sure, so it's definitely, and I get the sense that it's sort of a Rust Belt community too, it probably hasn't gotten, uh, it, it's boat didn't get lifted in some of the better times that came along either. It seemed like a, a hard scrabble town. As of 2021, 86, 000 people live there, so I'm going to guess fewer people possibly in 2005, but even if it was comparable, that's, you know, that's a city, but that's a small city and you get a galvanizing force like this spectacle that was the Danbury trashers. You got a team that's entertaining that is beating the hell out of other people [00:37:00] 3 and 4 times a night. And they're winning. I think their record was like 44 and 28 or something like that. I mean, they had a, uh, like a 68, 70 percent win percentage, which is in cocky. That's incredible. That's a great percentage. And so. I mean, you're putting the puck in the net, you're putting, you're putting their fist in somebody's face, you know, and it's all spontaneous. You never know what's going to happen. And it's all occurring in front of a full arena, uh, with all that energy. I mean, I understand why people got swept up in it and, and why it became such a big deal. Uh, but there's another piece to it too. And that is how much money do you think they laundered through that hockey team? And I mean, that that's a cash business. A lot of the time it easily can be, you know, and, and I have to think they just laundered, uh, just a metric ton of cash during that season. I almost 100 percent guarantee it. That's [00:38:00] exactly what was going on. He saw, like, Jimmy saw an opportunity. I think he, like, legitimately wanted to own a hockey team and he wanted to get it for his son, but he also saw an opportunity. He's like, oh, this is a way of getting rid of a bunch of this cat. Like, you know, launder a bunch of this money that I have lying around. I 100 percent guarantee you that's what was going on. Yeah, you get the ticket sales were probably cash or a lot of cash back then the concessions like you were saying that is a cash machine right there where now, I mean, now you go to a game and like, where we go to the triple a league and everything is cashless. You might as well not even bring your billfold with we went to climate pledge arena up in Seattle, which is pretty new. A couple of years old now is all for, uh, yeah. Seattle cracking game. We went when the flyers came to town and my wife was kind of freaked out a little bit. She didn't like it, but basically you just walk into a place and pick out what you want and walk out and they charge your card. You don't have to, you know, contactless, much less cashless. [00:39:00] And that was a little too big brother for her. She didn't care for it. And I certainly understand that. But, uh, uh, you know, I mean, I, I bet that arena was, uh, yeah. You know, 7, 000 cedar or something like that, and I bet they sold 12, 000 tickets every night when, when the books were done, you know, 5, 000 phantom seats that somebody quote unquote paid cash for, you know, I mean, there's just the opportunities are, are, were huge there. I think we're going to leave it at that for today. I just want to mention though, the best thing you can do to help us in this podcast is if you enjoy what you're hearing. Tell a friend, tell a couple of friends about the Organized Crime and Punishment podcast so that your friends can become friends of ours. You've been listening to Organized Crime and Punishment, a history and crime podcast. To learn more about what you heard today, find links [00:40:00] to social media, and how to support the show, go to our website, AtoZHistoryPage. com Become a friend of ours by sending us an email to crime at a to z history page dot com All of this and more can be found in the show notes We'll see yous next time on organized crime and punishment. Forget about itSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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