00:00

Oh What’s your title Jake? Sergeant Fort Worth 
Police Department narcotics unit?

00:12

Yeah
here we go

00:26

Welcome
back to FORTitude folks JW with my host co host Brinton Payne, and we are
quickly found on FORTitudeFW on social media. Welcome to the show. Brinton.
I’ve looked across the desk today, I noticed something very interesting about
you. What is going on with your upper lip,

00:46

I got
all these sound effects going because I got all my cop stuff going. I was
looking for the right sound effect for it. There we go. So this is not a
caterpillar that crawled off the microphone onto my face. I did this in honor
of my friend to the right of us who is our special guests here today. I don’t
even know if it’s called officer or Sergeant Sergeant,

01:06

Sergeant
Jake white Fort Worth Police Department narcotics unit,

01:10

and
we’ve been Narcos on Netflix. Jake introduced me to the show and told me I got
to watch and know all the history of and so that’s where the stash comes from.

01:20

He kind
of fits the part that need Jake what he does,

01:23

he does
wait well done. I’m gonna turn the lights off. Only when Jake talks. I’m going
to turn them Jake,

01:27

we
welcome you to the show. We both are friends with you, you know Britain longer,
but we think the world of you what you do for a living. You’re great, dude,
thank you for joining us today. We’re honored to have you in our presence.

01:36

Awesome.
Thanks. Glad to be here. All right. All right.

01:38

Let’s
talk some drugs. narcotics. How big is the narcotics problem in this city?

01:45

So you
know, to say it’s big bad. It’s hard to say. I mean, right. We’re the 12th
largest city in the US. I think that given all the factors of everything going
on in the world right now, I think that we do a pretty good job of addressing
it. You know, there’s always new trends that we have to keep up with or catch
up to, um, overall, I think we do a pretty good job of quelling it, if you
will, I mean, there’s, you know, it’s not a problem that’s going to go away. So

02:18

how many
officers excuse me, officers are on the narcotics unit. So we’ve

02:22

got, um,
we’ve got a handful. I’ll leave it at that. We’ve got our fair enough. Yeah, we
got to

02:27

do we
need to blur? Okay, it’s that how many of let’s say 100 People move here.
Whatever, the status a day, a month or something? How many of those are bad
guys?

02:43

Oh, out
of 100? I would, I would one out of 1000 Maybe. Right. I mean, right. You know,
maybe you

02:51

have a
lot of homegrown ones here that are just that are here that you? I mean, that’s
part of the job. Right, is that you’re pretty familiar with, yeah, soaked in
their trends and how they work.

03:00

I think
drug you know, especially now where we’re at and in society where we’re at in
the world. It is kind of that homegrown thing. It’s kind of the sad element,
though, right? Because you have, you’re dealing typically now with you know,
guys that are 2535 45. The grew up around it, right? Yes, the life they knew
that. You know, what they grew up knowing. So, I mean, there’s a fair share
that are definitely from here.

03:24

So in
today’s paper, Star Telegram, there is an article detailing from May 2020 to
April 2021, there have been over 100,000 overdose, overdose deaths in America,
a 30% increase from last year. Hmm, what the heck is going on in the world? Why
are drugs? Is it pandemic related? To some extent, what’s causing all this?

03:47

So I
think there’s kind of a multitude of factors that are contributing to that I
think the pandemic may have some element to it. I from a research perspective,
I don’t know how I would correlate the pandemic to overdose deaths. Right. But
I do think that there clearly is some kind of correlation there. But I think
more significantly, what’s going on is the issue that we have with fentanyl.
Right, that’s a incredibly toxic, incredibly lethal drug that is relatively new
to us here to especially to Fort Worth. And I think people, you know, sadly,
it’s it’s one of those things where it takes what they consider, I believe, two
milligrams a lethal dose, right. So a very small quantity, and it slides out,
unfortunately.

04:30

So
there’s the whole Narcan thing where they you guys travel? What I mean, are you
going into places or do they cook fit? Not like, how is it like what how does
that whole thing work where you’d go in and need the Narcan if somebody they
don’t force you to take it or something? How does it get in your system? So

04:47

basically
how the Narcan works is and I’ve never administered it, thank god I’ve never
had to have it administered I mean cops throughout the throughout the country
have right because if you inhale some of the fentanyl then then that’s the
counter to it, basically. But it’s basically like a nasal spray is what it is.
Yeah. So it combats that opioid that’s in your body that turns off the
receptors maybe I don’t know how to phrase it,

05:12

but it’s
like if you have it in a powder form that you guys would find it and then
inhale it. That’s what the fear is like, you could just get right like that. To
a lethal dose.

05:22

Yeah.
For the officer for the investigator in a powder form. That would be the
concern. Okay. Yeah, for sure.

05:27

Yeah,
fit Knowles fairly new drug in the in the world in the market. It’s overtaken
heroin recently in at least in Tarrant County in New York profession as the
drug choice fair to say, and what what is what is fitting all exactly what does
it do? And how are people doing it?

05:42

So it’s
a synthetic opioid, where it would be similar to to heroin. Now the problem is,
is the the way people are consuming that right, so we see it most commonly, and
counterfeit prescription pills. Okay, like your your popular name brand
counterfeit prescription pills, they look identical, but instead of being the
actual ingredient for the prescription, it’s fentanyl. So that’s the most
common way that we see it, but we also see it in a powdered form. Yeah, that’s
very lethal as well.

06:11

And what
do they do with the powder form?

06:13

Um, so
you know, so the powder form is used more most often as a as what we would call
a cutting agent. So basically, if let’s say you took an ounce of cocaine and you
added, you know, an ounce of fentanyl or something like that. Now, you
basically converted that to two ounces of cocaine, which is going to make the
money go a little bit farther for the dealer

06:34

is
fentanyl cheaper than coke? Cane? Um,

06:39

you know
that? That’s a good question. I’m not 100% sure on that. Yeah.

06:42

Do those
guys. Would you mix like, Isn’t coke kind of an upper and fentanyl a downer?
Would you mix those together? I mean, is there like a great high with that?

06:51

So I don’t
I don’t know the reason. Like I don’t know what the significance or why they’re
mixing it because you’re exactly right. Like one’s an upper one’s a downer. So
I don’t know. Yeah,

07:01

you’re
Yeah, you’re close to the drug dealers, but not in the mind of them. Correct.

07:06

So how
long have you been a narc? Um,

07:08

I’ve
been so I’ve been a police officer for almost 22 years of that I’ve been in
narcotics as an investigator and as a supervisor for probably 14 of those
years. So most of my career, that’s incredible.

07:21

What
exactly is your role and supervisor or a sergeant?

07:26

So as a
sergeant narcotics, I supervise a team? A fair number of investigators. So
basically, my role is I oversee the operations right from the search warrants.
My I’ve got kind of the boring office job, honestly. I mean, I’m behind the
computer, most of the time reading reports, reading search warrants, things
like that. I’m not necessarily out there now. Doing the undercover work. You
know, obviously, through a significant portion of my career I was but right now
now.

07:51

Yeah, we
noticed you brought some pictures of you undercover. So can you explain some of
them? Like what? Yeah, just to kind of the scenario.

07:59

So first
one, obviously, is an undercover officer, the goal is for nobody to know that
you’re a cop. Right? So sometimes that’s in your appearance. So I got the one
where I’ve got the 711 outfit. Yeah, that was a good one that worked out. Well.
Now, with that being said, I know like, you guys have had Tegan on here before,
right? And like the guy who kind of wrote the book on like these big expansive
undercover operations, super Hollywood, if you will, most of the time. It’s
very street level stuff, right? That’s what we’re combat. That’s what we’re
combating in Fort Worth, right? We want to get the ones that are creating those
quality of life that life issues, if you will, so we’re kind of going after
some of the small time guys. So to do that, you know, you’re gonna have to
basically get something to distract the person from like, I wonder if this
guy’s a cop? Well, if I’m wearing a 711 outfit, maybe that’s what he thinks I
work out. Who knows? Yeah, so

08:49

Oh, so
it’s like, you don’t even have to justify the 711 where it’s just like, Yeah,
more of a confusion.

08:55

Yeah,
yeah, precisely. Yeah. Um,

08:59

what
about that one?

09:01

This
one’s just pretty. This one. Sadly, this was just kind of the generic day to
day look that I had for many years. Yeah. I mean, it’s very embarrassing, but

09:11

you find
yourself going out after work and things like that. Being successful with the
ladies or anything like that? No, no.

09:19

Last
ones the best. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, the last one this was this is how a lot of
people at the city know me because I had an obnoxious Lee large red beard. Oh,
yeah. Prior to beards being a cool thing or whatever. I’m probably like, one of
my 27 in that picture. I look like I’m 55. Right.

09:40

You look
a little heavier.

09:41

There’s
no way that guy’s a cop in that picture.

09:43

Yeah, I
wouldn’t think so. I mean, a lot of people didn’t think I was so

09:48

I think
he looked like he fit the part there. It worked out. Well. Yeah. So I’m not a
drug dealer, but I wouldn’t picture you as a cop there.

09:55

Well, it
kind of backfired, though. I mean, an obnoxious large red beard after a while
when everybody’s like, Oh, Dude with red beard Right? Kind of backfires a
little bit.

10:03

You can
only go so far with the undercover right in a small town or, you know, like a
reasonably sized town.

10:09

Yeah,
for sure. I mean, you know, definitely something that we ran across. Yeah.
Yeah.

10:14

Well,
and then the other picture, there is a whole lot of guns, right. A whole lot of
guns. Yeah. So tell us about the gun show work that you’ve done. Um,

10:25

so.
Okay, so a lot of cops work part time jobs, right? Yeah, there’s kind of two
elements where I’ve worked at that’s not starting from that. Okay, but So, this
one originated, I believe this was somewhere around 10 years ago. And this gun
trafficking at the time was significant. You know, it still exists, don’t get
me wrong, but it was a huge problem in the mid 2000s 2010 2012 areas. So this
one started right here in Fort Worth, where my partner Travis and I recovered.
It was 10 or 15, ak 40 sevens from a guy that had bad intentions with them in
terms of smuggling them. Yeah. So the recovery of that, and this kind of gets
off topic or into another topic, but the idea of somebody of an informant a
snitch, if you will, right. And so, basically, that led us to the recovery of
the 10 here, took us to San Antonio, like kinda, this is kind of a Hollywood
story. I mean, we get these 10 guns next thing you know, we’re in a friggin
minivan driving to San Antonio, the day of right, they have at like four
o’clock in the morning, the front door of this, like drugs stash house, like
cartel houses getting blown open, and there’s the rest of them in the house. So
there’s another 40 or 50, ar 15 and ak 40 sevens in that house. So, like I
said, there’s some Hollywood elements to it that are super crazy. And that’s
the one weird thing about you know, about being a cop is I can be behind my
computer, you know, reading a report or something like that. And next thing,
you never know what’s in store, right? Like, you never know what’s gonna come
up. So,

12:01

and it
does happen where you may be in a vehicle going four hours south to another
city. Immediately, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure. It’s not timed out, like
the Hollywood stuff. We’re ever on

12:13

good
time either. Right? It’s never like, well, it’s good thing. I don’t have
anything to do tonight. Yeah.

12:20

Yeah. J
couple weeks ago, maybe it’s less time than that. There was a huge $16 million
meth bust. Uh huh. You involved in this operation? Or can you tell us and then
how, what was going on in that? Is there a story you can share? So that

12:34

way, you
know, truthfully, I don’t have a whole lot of facts on that. That was if I’m
not mistaken. I believe it was Tarrant County. different organs. Yeah, there
was quite a few involved in that. My team specifically didn’t have any role in
that. So I don’t have a lot of backstory on that or enough.

12:47

He tells
me more about your like a daily role of a narc officer not use the desk, you
said, but what does it guy in the narcotics unit do on a daily basis, generally
speaking,

12:59

okay. So
at the municipal level, like I said, we kind of address those quality of life
issues, right to where the most common thing we get, let’s say, we get 15
complaints of different drug houses a day in our unit, okay. And most of the
time, like I said, it’s going to be the neighbor calling or somebody down the
street calling in or landlord calling whatever the case may be that says, hey,
there’s something going on at this house. There’s a lot of people coming and
going. I think they’re selling drugs. Yeah. So what we do I mean, we have some
initial steps that we take to vet that information, verify that information.
And then we use a couple different tactics to investigate that if we think
there’s something to it right. So you know, obviously, you’ve got your
Hollywood style stuff, or the undercover officer goes up to the house and acts
like a, you know, a drug buyer, a drug addict, or whatever. But our bread and
butter definitely comes with the use of our confidential informants are
snitches as they’re, yeah. Affectionately known as I suppose. You know, it’s
ironic because or it’s interesting because society, you know, whether it be
through popular culture, media, whatever the case may be, everybody’s like, Oh,
man, I would never rat on anybody. I’d never snitch on anybody. There is no
honor amongst the ifs, right. The moment is facing jail time, right? Especially
not facing jail time, right. The moment somebody gets caught 99 times out of
101 of the first things is like, what do I need to do so I don’t go to jail.
Yeah, right. And they’re gonna make sense. I mean, they’ll turn in their mom
they’ll turn their brother their best friend.

14:32

Yeah.
Well, no, I don’t

14:36

like
that. So even if we’re not doing

14:39

me like
my parole off

14:42

apologize.

14:45

hot
zones in Tarrant County for drug problems. Wait,

14:48

it’s
hot. Sounds like can he use that is that cop language?

14:52

Exclusively
cop is a cop is hotbeds for

14:55

drug
activity in this in Tarrant County. Um, you know,

14:58

every
site To town basically is how like in the police department we it’s broken up
into sides of town, right. And every side of town has a has small pockets where
it’s a problem. Yeah. What I don’t want to do is say, you know, this
neighborhood has a problem, or this neighborhood has a problem, right? Because
there is the one thing that happens with drugs, there’s this idea or concept of
people being stigmatized or neighborhoods being stigmatized, right. And then
once that happens, once that stigma is attached, it’s hard to get rid of it.
Yeah. Right. So yeah, there’s pockets I mean, it you know, you guys are from
here. I mean, you know, what, what you’re going to hear, you know, is the bad
you know, the bad area, the bad part of town. Those are the most common places

15:45

know
where we get our stuff from. I was wondering, yeah, tell us where other places
might

15:48

Yeah,
no, yes.

15:51

I’m serious.
No doubt Jake. Were drug world these drugs, these bad things like fentanyl and
heroin? Where’s it coming from? And how’s it getting here?

15:58

So the I
mean, obviously, the vast majority of it is smuggled typically from the
southern border. Right. And that’s, that’s just there are in the intelligence
that we get through the people that we talk to. Yeah, so that’s where the the
vast majority, but again, drugs have kind of taken on a different role to the
way they come into the way they come to Fort Worth. You take things something
like marijuana, or the new edibles, the THC edibles, those kind of deals,
right. Well, now, all of a sudden, instead, historically, 15 years ago, the
vast majority of that was smuggled through the southern border to Fort Worth or
to whatever its destination was. Yeah. Well, now when you look at the the
things like marijuana, the THC edibles, those are shipped in just via the US
Postal Service, FedEx, whatever the case may be, yeah, to an address here in
Fort Worth right to whoever’s buying it. So that’s kind of changed a little
bit. And has created a whole nother slew of problems and

16:54

well,
probably prioritizations. Right. Like, it’s like, is it really worth I mean,
right, we’re talking about like this huge fentanyl bust, and how can you
appropriately justify when bordering states have something going on? That’s
okay. But we don’t you know, it’s like, jeez, Louise, we have unlimited
resources. Where do we put them? Yeah. So

17:15

that’s,
that’s one thing right now. That’s kind of that’s a hard that’s hard, right?
Because the law says it’s illegal, right. You know, marijuana, even to this day
is still illegal. Yeah. Not that big of a deal. That’s kind of a person. You
know, I mean, it’s an opinion based deal, right? Some people think it’s a big
deal. Some don’t whatever the case might be, it’s still on the books as being
illegal. But how’s it enforced now? Right. Yeah, society’s views on it has
changed entirely. Right to Work. It’s, it’s more or less, except that at this
point, and fine. If it’s accepted, it’s accepted, then maybe get it off the out
of the law books, right. Because it creates the struggle. And it’s creating a,
like, the marijuana stuff. Specifically, what it’s doing where there’s this
conflict of whether it’s illegal, you know, is it illegal? Or is it illegal?
It’s creating violence is what it’s doing? Yeah. Because now all of a sudden,
you have this ease of obtaining that through, you know, through the mail
through whatever your sources and you know, one of the other states. And so you
get, you get these 19 year old kids, these 20 year old kids who are making a
lot of money, right? They may make 510 grand a week. This is a cash business,
obviously. Yeah. So what do you think a 19 year old does? Who makes $10,000 a
week in cash,

18:26

buys a
bunch of Vineyard Vines shirts? No, no, they

18:29

don’t.
What they do is they get on every social media outlet that they can and hold up
stacks of money, right? Hey, look how much money I’m making. This is awesome.
Yeah, you’ve become the next victim. Right? Like now you are now a target to be
robbed. Going back to Narcos. Yes. This recent season. Not a spoiler alert at
all. I believe that was the opening scene, if I’m not mistaken. Where the three
guys run into the house to the drug house in they immediately just start
shooting the people inside the drug house. Right? Yeah, that’s exactly how it
happens.

19:02

Yeah,
it’s like, in true detective with Matthew McConaughey when they lay there, it’s
just a robbery. It’s just a straight up robbery. It’s just you’re robbing for
different stuff. Right.

19:11

And, and
so that’s the unfortunate part. Because at the end of the day, the one thing
that I have learned, right, and my views on drugs, my views on laws are
probably a little bit different than a lot of cops, right? I don’t know, maybe.
I don’t want to say more empathetic, but I have some empathy towards, you know,
how people were raised and what they’ve gone through that’s led them to die
sometime this crazy life, if you will. But yeah, you know, the problem is like
the the associated violence is the issue, right? I mean, there’s I don’t I
don’t have the answer to how to solve the drug problem. Right. If I did, I
probably wouldn’t be sitting here, right? Yeah. Um, but what I do know is what
we’re doing. It doesn’t work. Right. I mean, how long have we been doing this
since 19? 85

20:01

Is that
what, like the Reagan kind of war on drugs? Right? Because

20:05

the
whole war starts, look where we’re at today. It’s no better now. In fact, it
could be worse now than it was then. And at what expense? Yeah. Right. I mean,
that’s, that’s the unfortunate part. Like I said that, you know, like, you go
back to that concept of somebody being stigmatized. That’s a real problem, because
what happens with that person? So let’s say you have a 19 year old kid who grew
up in this hard environment, right? He grew up poor, she grew up poor, whatever
the case may be, well, you know, they sought to eat, they still have to provide
for themselves. If they’re a little bit older, and they have kids, I still got
to provide for their kids. So their survival kicks, and people are going to do
what they what they’ve seen or what they know how to do. Well, now all of a
sudden, if you’re that 19 year old kid, and you’re like, Well, hey, to make it,
I’m going to sell cocaine. So you get caught with an ounce of cocaine. 28
grams, not in the grand scheme of things. Not that much, right? But it’s
enough. That’s a

20:58

lot to
me. Why would I don’t do that. But I would 28 grams, like,

21:04

yeah,
it’s a sandwich bag a quarter of the way full, right? But here’s what happens.
So then you get this 19 year old kid, he gets convicted. And let’s say he goes
to prison for eight years. And he gets out and he’s now 27 years old. Yeah. Now
he’s like, Man, I don’t want to go back to prison for eight years. I’m going to
I’m going to do life, right? I’m going to go get a job. Yeah. And then when
they go get a job, guess what happens? They fill out the application, and they
get to the dreaded question

21:31

convictive.
Then what?

21:35

I think
the question is even simpler, though, Jake, is you make $10,000 a week, doing
it on your own time, or you make 15 bucks an hour, maybe doing some, you know,
menial job that, you know, it’s not at your own terms. I mean, how do you
convince a kid over here to you should be doing this and not that it’s, that’s
the problem. Right?

21:55

Yeah. So
that’s, I mean, there’s there, there obviously, is a huge issue with that.
Because that I mean, that is true. But one thing, you know, over the last two
decades, I’ve had the opportunity to talk to a lot of people who’ve been in a
lot of trouble. Yeah. The one thing, the vast majority of them, not all of
them. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there is evil in this world, right? There’s
evil right here in this setting. There’s no doubt about it. But the vast
majority of them when you talk to them, the one thing that they can’t pay for
the one thing that they can’t buy, is losing it the way I always describe it to
him, and I tell them exactly what you say, right? Like, hey, you’re not going
to walk around with a pocket full of money. Right? You’re going to have
financial struggles, like most people in the US have, right. But the one thing
that you don’t have, you don’t have to constantly look over your shoulder.
Yeah. Right. Like you don’t have that fear of being robbed. You don’t have that
fear of being apprehended or caught. Right. I mean, there’s a lot of value in
that. Absolutely. But with all that being said, though, some I sadly, I think
some people are completely fine with going to prison. Right? Which makes no
sense to me.

23:04

Well,
yeah, we’ve talked before and like you almost have stated that some of them are
so I don’t know what the what’s the word when you get kicked real callous from
something, you know, like they’re immune, or that’s just doesn’t bother them
anymore. Like, it’s like a game. It’s just a simple cat and mouse like a super
high stakes cat mouse. But it’s not like us thinking about it. Like, oh my
gosh, somebody could lose their life here. Somebody could go spend their life
in prison. It’s more like, yep. If the cops catch like it’s a total game. Yeah.
No, I

23:34

mean,
and that’s the thing. I mean, if there’s no fear of consequence, then what?
What’s the motive motivating or driving force to change? Yeah. So I don’t know.
Like I said, I mean, it’s, it’s unfortunate, because I don’t know. I call it
vilifying? I don’t know if that’s a word or not, right. But you can’t I don’t
turn everybody I come across or have over the last two decades. I don’t look at
them like a villain. Like I said, don’t get me wrong. Some of them are are bad
people. Right. But many of them make a living, right. They’re no different.
Yeah, it’s, it’s crazy. I mean, like, you know, I mean, I see guys out and
about in the city that that I’ve arrested or that I’ve known for 20 years,
right. I mean, I worked in a very small area in this city, right. And, you
know, a lot of dudes, you know, some of those guys know me, and they see me out
and, and, you know, general public. And it’s nothing more than a head nod.
Right? Yeah. I don’t have that. And this kind of leads into another topic. Fort
Worth, though, is, in my opinion, different. Right? This is a way different
city. Yeah. I’ve never worked anywhere else. As an adult. I’ve never lived
anywhere else. Right. But what I do know is the things that I see on TV, which
I rarely watch, but when I do, like all these controversies that you see are
things that we typically don’t have to deal with, and in large part, that’s
because of the people who live here. Yeah. I mean, it’s, I mean, you guys know
as well as I do. I mean, there is nowhere else on this on this planet that I’d
want to live. Right. I mean, it’s, uh, you know, the the way the citizens treat
the police in Fort Worth, it’s got to be different than anywhere else, I think.
Yeah, I mean, like said, I’ve never worked anywhere else, but I do know over
what two decades of experiences has offered. Yeah, yeah. Which is a cool, it’s
a cool thing. I mean, like, you know, if a cop walks into, you know, railhead,
or whatever, restaurant, nine times out of 10, they’re gonna go up and pay and
they’re going to get the, hey, somebody else took over your meal. Yeah. Yeah.
Like, and again, it’s, you know, it’s that it’s those kinds of things, or the
other thing that happens every year. It’s almost like a, I don’t wanna say a
celebrity, right? But when you whenever you go in somewhere, and you’re in
uniform, which I don’t wear a uniform, and I haven’t most of my career, but
when I do whenever you walk in somewhere, it is constant. Thanks. Yeah. Right.
Like, thank you for what you do. And cops list. You know, cops appreciate that.
Right? Because it kit there are times where it can be thankless. Right? Yeah.
So I mean, that’s, it’s a, it’s a really cool.

26:08

Well,
and I think even our, like, government is very approachable. You know, I mean,
even our city council and mayor, and I mean, that it seems that this is still a
very communal community, if that makes sense. Like, yeah, like people, they do,
they are approachable and Walker, and they do they make time for one another.
And I do agree that in other cities, from what you see and hear out there, it’s
they’ve lost that route somehow.

26:36

And I
think so, that kind of leads into another struggle, though, a little bit,
right, because we’ve, I would say, we’ve kind of live life in a bubble here.
You know, what you see all these? You know, these, you know, there could be legitimate,
you know, bad things that police have done elsewhere. Yeah, or things that are
perceived as bad, you know, like said, I don’t follow any of the these national
stories or anything like that, because it’s almost a little bit depressing,
right. But what happens is, so now, even here in Fort Worth, where we’re not
used to this kind of stuff, we have to start paying the price to a certain
degree. Yeah, whether that’s changing the way we do things, right, which has
has happened. And this is not a, you know, I’m trying to I don’t want to come
across as negative, right? Because I mean, I still believe that we’ve got the
best cops in the US. And yeah, you know, and we do this in the best city in the
US 100%. But all of a sudden, now, we’re, you know, we’re paying the price for
things that have happened elsewhere. And who ultimately, who ultimately pays
the price are the people who need us the most? Right. And that’s the
unfortunate part. Because when we’ve had to shift our tactics so much, too. I
mean, truthfully, they’re not as effective. Right. And it’s hard. I don’t want
to go like, like, too specific, because there are, you know, there are still
some there, there are still some dangerous things that the police do. Yeah.
Right. And so I don’t want to get like too specific. But we’ve had to change
things so significantly, that personally, I think effectiveness has been lost.
And it’s not for a lack of caring. It’s not for, you know, some kind of protest
amongst the police at all. Right? I mean, the cops here still want to, like are
still super passionate. Yeah, about doing this job. But the cop across the US
right now is super confused. Yeah. Right. Because it’s like, I’m just trying to
do my job, man. Like, I don’t want to, you know, like the the, you know, what’s
happened is the police are now judged on the scale of perfection. And when you
use perfection, as the as the hard line, like if it’s not perfect, you’re in
trouble. Well, guess what people do they shut down. Yeah. And rightfully so.
Yeah.

28:57

Yeah. So
I checked J dub that way a lot. Look at look at the founder. And he comes
close, but we’re never there. And I think that’s why sometimes he doesn’t bring
his A game to the show. But now that you’ve explained it, I understand. Yeah.

29:12

Yeah.
We’re always learning around here. Yes. So Jake, back to back to narcotics.
Anywhere. There’s narcotics in the scale. There’s the cartel. What can you tell
us about the cartel in this town? Tarrant County? If there’s what I don’t know
what you can share what you can’t but they’re operating here, correct?

29:30

Yeah. I
mean, they definitely have a presence here. You know, they’re, I don’t think
their role is inflated in the media, right? I mean, it’s a real problem. And
again, something else that has changed with the way society was in Fort Worth,
we were always in this like, kind of protected bubble. Yeah, where and we’ve
got cartel, but they’re typically not they’re not over violent towards the
police and typically don’t stray too much outside of their areas, if you will.
I don’t think that’s the case right now. Right. I mean, I think the way 10
years ago, I would have sent an officer to a location, you know, to deal with
the cartel. And yeah, and had little had little concern with that. Sure. I
don’t my concern now would not be it would be a significant concern now.

30:31

Now, is
that because demand has increased presence of cartels? You know, or is it a
combination of all those things that have kind of risen up?

30:41

No. So I
think there’s a couple. There are several things. One, you know, we’ve seen
this city has grown significantly in the last two decades and even the last
decade. Which, you know, I don’t know, we had a good for a long time where
we’re like, the smallest big city in the US. Right. And we weren’t didn’t
always have to deal with big city problems. Well, not so much the case now.
Right. So I don’t know that I think demand has increased just simply because
the population has increasing, right. That’s obvious. I think that, you know,
trying to think out of phrases. So police work is is unique, right? There’s a
there’s concepts or elements where subject matter expertise is important. Yeah.
And in a big city, it’s really important, right? Because we, who else do we
turn to? Right? When we are the crime fighters in this town, we need to be the
experts in every element. Yeah. Well, I mean, you look at certain things like,
I don’t know, like a retirement issue, right? When that retirement plan
changes, now, I get why, and I’m not bitter by it, or whatever, I understand
why, but there’s unintended consequences that happen when things like that
change, right? Because what you have now you have cops who were like, you know,
if you’re a 22 year old kid, and you’re like, Hey, I’m gonna do this for the
next 25 years, I’m gonna retire when I’m 47. Presumably, go work somewhere else
afterwards. But to get that retirement to a point to where it’s worthwhile, you
now have to promote, right? You have to keep climbing the corporate ladder,
right? To improve your your pension. Well, whereas before, you didn’t have to
do that, right? You were able, we had these, we had these cops who were cops
for, like 30 years. And they were very, very good at what they did.

32:32

And they
became kind of experts in their community and know the players and things like
that. Yeah, I didn’t think about that change kind of

32:41

get into
that thing is it continues, right? Because, you know, we’re at this last, I
mean, I call it the last generation, right to where we still got, you know,
like I said, I mean, I can I can say this all day long. I mean, we’ve got the,
you know, easily the best cops in the in the country, and some of our units,
right? You’d look at our homicide detectives, our SWAT or NARC, guys, they are
best in the business. Like if you kill somebody in Fort Worth, right? And the
most of those detectives that are there now, they’re so good, you are going to
get caught there. They’re seldom is the who done it. Yeah, right. Yeah. I mean,
they’re, that’s a craft that they’ve perfected. But at some point, that’s going
to go away. The reason they’re good, is they have tenure. They’re super
passionate and motivated about what they do. And they can stay there for a very
long time

33:32

and
still receive the same benefits, they’ll receive the same benefit.

33:35

But
that’s not going to be the case for much longer. That’s very interesting.

33:39

So um, I
once was told by a Fort Worth cop that, like math was the line is.

33:50

But that
was your question.

33:52

That
math was like the root of all evil, right? Like, I mean, if like, he kind of
started to try to explain to me that, like meth, like, kicks off so much
violence, like it’s crazy. The exponential kind of thing. Is that, is that
accurate? Is it now fentanyl or something like that? So I

34:11

don’t
necessarily buy into that. I mean, you know, there are I mean, they’re all bad,
right? I mean, it’s not, you know, I think they all have their issues. They’re
all bad. I don’t know that one is necessarily worse than another meth does
bring about the unique meth look. That happened. Yeah. Right. Which is
incredible. Just, it’s crazy.

34:34

Well,
quick, describe what the Bethel look is.

34:37

Typically,
the teeth are rotted out. You have the sores everywhere. And the the other
thing, like this table right here would be and I’ll tell you why in a second.
This table right here would be like a, like a meth addicts dream. Bricks. Every
time you go into these houses where it’s a meth user or meth dealer. It’s
drawers of random stuff like typically, it’s like, is there any reason you have
200 feet of coax cable perfectly rolled up next to a VCR that you took apart
five years ago and next to a sewing machine? Right? Like it’s just this random?
Like,

35:14

I think
you’ve talked about the teeth check the randomness of stuff check. I believe.

35:23

I’ll be
calling you later.

35:25

It’s at
a different level. So but, but it going back to your question as far as one
being worse than the other? No, I don’t think so. Okay, um, you know, there you
look at the destruction of crack cocaine. I mean, that was a legitimate you
know, just

35:44

this
crack still around. Do you still?

35:47

Not not
at the level that it was? Yeah, it really, really died off probably in the last
seven, eight years. It seems like

35:54

what’s
bigger fentanyl? Like the opioids or meth? are tied? Tied? Really? Yeah. Yeah.

36:02

That’s
my personal list. The

36:03

new we
read about this, we asked you offline but what’s the thing called the drink the
new drug of choice for some of these idiots because it’s killing people. Right
as well.

36:11

So so
the drink not necessarily that’s just typically a pro magazine with codeine
cough syrup mixed with you know, whatever kind of pop that one would drink.
Right? Um,

36:21

wait
like pop you mean in soda? Yeah, like, like, give it a pop that’s coming out in
me. I apologize. Guys that Yeah.

36:30

That’s
funny. So that that’s, that’s very pop in there. You know, it’s got a lot of
popularity from I guess the entertainment world if you will. Right. That’s
where it seems Oh, seriously. No other songs about it. Right. Like, I mean,
it’s just crazy. There’s a lot of

36:46

a lot of
drugs. Yeah, they just sip this drink all day long. It keeps giving this
continue to hire somebody like that. Yeah. Tell me what it is.

36:53

Well, I
mean, it’s coding. So I think it’s gonna like calm them down significantly, if
you will. Well, now they’re with fentanyl.

36:58

I would
imagine so right coding.

37:02

This but
it what it is funny, because when that first came on, I probably 1520 years
ago, they used to drink it out of baby bottles. Wait,

37:11

the
drink was like 20 years ago? It’s that old? Yeah. You know, it’s been I’ve
never heard of it. It’s been

37:17

around
for a while but they’ve changed it. Now. They you know, it’s always in the
styrofoam cup mixed with a serious Yeah, but the good thing is they got away
from the baby bottle. The baby bottle drove me nuts. Because, you know, I mean,
I’m a 23 year old kid, basically. Like, I mean, I’m a cop now, man. I know
everything right? I’m driving around. I start pulling these cars over. I’m
like, why are all these guys

37:40

baby
bottle? Yeah, they don’t even have babies. But it’s crazy.

37:44

Then
after a while, I’m like, uh, you know, I learned I’m like, Ah, is it?

37:47

Is it
like red like cough syrup color is?

37:51

Purple.
Purple or green? Yeah, typically purple though.

37:54

Yeah.
Wait, it’s, it’s a cough syrup. And what is ELSS?

37:58

It’s so
it’s a liquid form of promethazine with coding.

38:04

Just how
to make it.

38:07

I’ll
show you later. Okay. Well, Jake, on the screen behind you, you want to look,
we showed a picture of a bust when you have a bunch of automatic rifles? Do
guns and drug drug culture coincide? Is that a normal thing? When you go on
these these busts? And during the course of your work, are you finding lots of
scary scary guns?

38:29

Yeah,
yeah, that’s one thing. You know, kind of what I touched on earlier, you know,
the way we’ve had to change, like what we’re doing, right? Because do I think
there’s an increase 100%? Like, I mean, I haven’t done any kind of formal
research into it. But I do have two decades of experience that tells me I think
this might be getting a little bit worse, right? Yeah. In terms of the amount
of farms that we’re recovering. Um, so yeah, I mean, they definitely

38:59

what
about amount of cash? Like, what’s the most the biggest amount of cash you’ve
ever seized? And then, um, is that increasing to

39:07

see? Well?
Yes, kind of, okay, so the biggest amount I’ve seen 900,000

39:16

Was that
Oh, okay. That’s yeah, we’re talking about big amounts. Oh, that GSR that

39:20

in his
office? That’s, that’s, that’s the best.

39:23

Are we
talking there’s stacks of just a remainder what happened bundled

39:26

and how
big of an area does something like like as big as this table is?

39:30

They had
it in too big duffel bag surprisingly. Yeah. So I mean, there’s other times
where, you know, I mean, hundreds of 1000s

39:38

I mean,
what’s the other part of that you’re gonna say that that’s kind of a weird
like, that’s on the increase like the amount of drugs are on the increase and
the money or or

39:47

so I
gotta phrase this without like, I said, I don’t want to be negative I you know,
I know that the you know, the police and I’m only speaking for the guys that I
know and like as a I work with you, but the police here, you know, we know how
to do the job. Right. And we did very well, for a very long time.

40:10

Get down
before it got to levels like that. Yeah. And when

40:13

the
rules change, and I don’t think anybody, nobody asked for the change as a
whole, right. And I don’t know that people are necessarily recognizing the
consequence of the change. Like I said, That is who pays the price? Well, the
people who pay the price for the police having to having to change our tactics,
are the people who need the police the most unfortunately, yeah. And and I want
to be clear, I’m not talking about, you know, by no means if a if there’s a
corrupt cop, I don’t know, a cop that wouldn’t that wouldn’t catch them
themselves. Right. Right. Oh, good cop that I know wants to work with with
somebody that’s dirty. Yeah. Right. And, you know, fortunately, that’s not
something we have to deal with. Really? I’m not saying that we haven’t. I mean,
we have Yeah, I had a almost four year run through internal affairs. So I mean,
I saw my fair share of that. But, you know, when the when the rules have
changed, it’s hard, because this is the kind of stuff we want to get off the
street. Yeah. Right. And we know the tactics that we have to use to get this
off the street. But when the tactics that we have to use, we can’t use them, it
makes it hard.

41:22

Yeah.
Yeah, that’s really interesting. I’ve never, I’ve talked to a lot of cops, we
have cops that are buddies yourself, could never talk to a cop that it would
say that the cops don’t protect other cops if the other cop is the bad guy. I
mean, that’s really refreshing to hear. I wouldn’t have never heard you might
say that, like, that’s

41:38

Oh,
yeah. I mean, and that’s the thing. I mean, that’s, that, again, probably one
of the reasons why I do not watch TV, right? Because it’s, it’s always super
negative towards the cops. And it’s like, you know, I know a lot of cops by
trade, if you will. I know, their families. I know them personally. Right. And
I’m not gonna, you know, throughout this blanket statement that this person’s
bad because of this, and this, you know, I mean, everybody, you know, every cop
that I know, right? I mean, now I keep my circle small. Yeah. And I mean,
honestly, it is a weird job, because you can talk about it for days on end and
it can consume you. So outside of work, I really don’t hang out with too many
cops, right? I mean, obviously talk to him, things like that. But um, you know,
the the idea of somebody tarnishing the effort that the you know, I put in or
other good cops have put in, you know, we’re not, we’re not gonna sit there and
tolerate it. Right. So if somebody is doing wrong, you’re gonna be the first
ones to report it.

42:36

Yeah.
What’s the worst thing you can call a COP? COP? IG? What are some other?

42:43

I have
no bad words. What

42:44

he does
was run through some names. I don’t want to repeat them. He was saying a lot of
bad stuff about cops. I know. JW will not accurate. I’m not buying it. I’m not
buying.

42:58

We love
what you guys

42:59

do. No,
I’m kidding. I mean, do you guys like, has, obviously I mean, this is kind of a
I’m going somewhere that, you know, how do you deal with kind of where we are
with stuff? Because I know you outside of here. And I know that, you know, I
know who you are. I know, the one thing that I really appreciated is the way
you work. Right? The way you work is, I’ve seen people come up to you some of
those that you’ve busted. And they have respect enough for you to give you the
nod. Right. And I and I also know, the way that some folks get good intel and
information is by having good relationships, you know, and so, um, how I mean,
how do we, how can we get out of where we are, you know, and back to that kind
of, you know, in a respectable Safeway wreck. I’m not saying I hope so,

43:51

because
I know, you know what I’ve done, and I’m not, you know, I don’t want this to
come across like I’m bragging, patting myself on the back, but I know what I’ve
done and it works, right. Yeah, I know that. The secret to it all, is to treat
people politely. Right. Yeah. For people with respect. That’s something we’ve
always done here for

44:12

Britain.
With respect and kindness, ew, I back to you, Jake.

44:18

is like
looking at your phone when I’m in the middle of a conversation with someone

44:24

that
Jake, could you talk about if you’re able to win any of your real successful
busts? Some of the jobs you’ve been involved with back in the day maybe when
you’re in the on the field that were

44:36

Yeah,
yeah. We had a guest on here who lost like some kind of cooking device like a
large smoker. Are you familiar with

44:44

those
the the Smokies a friend of the show J A friend of the show, so John Bunnell,
that’s, again, going back to that idea of

44:52

them,
we’re trying to get free food from them.

44:56

Going
back to that idea of when you you know, I, when when you don’t look at
everybody, as a villain, right? People who don’t look like me, people who
haven’t lived the same life as me if I don’t view them as a villain, right, and
I’m not talking to them any differently, any different than I’m talking to you
guys, right? Yeah. I mean, it’s the one thing I always say is like, I mean, I
could easily with a lot of these dudes that I’ve arrested, we could be at the
bar drinking a beer and talking about everything, but that stuff and it’s
gonna, the conversations gonna be flowing. Yeah. So we go back to that smoker
story? Well, it again, going back to the idea of sometimes things just take
weird turns throughout the day of a cop, right? Yeah. I am at my desk. Reading,
typing,

45:44

eating a
doughnut. I said bad to ask, I mean, our dog or is it maybe a Danish or you
know, Eclair?

45:58

trom
usto gotten used to it. So sit doing whatever mundane task at my desk, my phone
rings, and it’s a detective that works over on the side of town. He said, Hey,
you, I won’t throw out names. But he goes, Hey, do you know such and such? He
gives me the name? I said, Yeah. No. He’s like, Well, I think he may know the
whereabouts of this smoker. They got stolen from barbells. And I had seen it on
Facebook, like the week before? Yes. For whatever it was. I was like, really? I
was like, Okay. I was like, Well, let me make some calls. Let me see what I
come up with. And, you know, again, the dynamics that there’s not one. I don’t
want to call them a criminal or a bad guy because they’re not but for the sake
of this, of being concise. There’s not one criminal that I talked to, that’s
going to admit that they talked to me. Right, right. Even though they’ll call
me and they’ll feed me little tidbits of information, things like that. So I
make call and say, hey, you know, I think about this smoker that got stolen.
Yeah. Immediately. The defense mechanisms come up. No. And I’m like, Come on,
man. I was like, you shoot me straight.

47:08

It’s
like a 300 pound device. Man. It

47:10

was like
it was it was big. Yeah. So eventually, he or she is like, Yeah, where are you
at? I was like, I’m at the store. And they knew the store that I was talking
about. And I’m in the parking lot. And phone etiquette amongst drug dealers, or
the criminal element sometimes is not the greatest. It’s usually super
aggressive, even though they don’t mean to be aggressive. Yeah. And it’s very
ambiguous. Like this guy. He yells at me. Where are you at? I’m at the store,
yells back, I’ll be there and hangs up. So I’m like, Well, what store? Does
that mean? You’ll be here in five minutes or five hours, like, and they call
back and it just goes straight to voicemail. Whatever. So yeah. 10 minutes
later, this car comes pulling in the parking lot. The guy that I know, he’s
waving his hand. He’s like, Come on, follow me. I’m by myself. Yeah. And I’m
just like this. Yeah. So I’m like, How can you? Where are we going? He’s like,
Come on, just follow me. And I’m like, now here’s the cool thing. Like some of
these dudes I’ve known for 20 years or longer. Yeah, right. So am I concerned
that he’s gonna take me to this back alley and assassinate me? No, not at all.
But it’s still a little bit like

48:24

Sure.
You got a radio with you?

48:26

No, no,
still a little bit uncomfortable. So he stops real quick. And he’s like, Wait,
you got in the car with no, I’m falling. Okay. So we stopped sort of all along.
All right. Yes. And he’s like, Hey, do you want me to get my trailer? And I was
like, No, I was like, I can get a truck down here. He’s like, No, I’m gonna get
my trailer if you need and I’m like, No, I’ll get a truck because Howard then
how are we going to get back to bond else right. It’s gonna look super weird.

48:50

Yeah, so
we might incriminate you. Yes. Your trailer. Yeah.

48:54

So we go
drive in the back streets of this neighborhood. And we pull up to this house.
No joke. I’m in the windows have plywood on him. It’s a vacant house. He or she
jumps out of the car. Come on, follow me. I’m here to town. Jake. That’s pretty
close. And I know that place. Yeah. So. Yeah, exactly. So we walked to the
backyard and under this gigantic blue tarp is the smoker and I’m like, that’s
pretty cool. So how am I gonna? I was like, this thing’s like 500 pounds. Now
what? Yeah, I’m like, Well, I can call a bunch coughing just carried over. Next
thing I know. I I’m going out to the front yard to my car, like to get my phone
or whatever. Maybe my radio I can’t remember. And like three dudes pull up
there like, so. If you need help with it. I’m like, kind of. I can’t get it.
Yeah. Okay. So three dudes, four dudes from the neighborhood with loaded up we
get a truck. Oh, yeah. And the truck, put it in the back of we get a cop truck
over there, put on the back of the truck and drive it down to bond else. I told
the guy I was like, hey, You know, you I know what you do you know what I do?
And, you know, at the end of the day, we’re never find in this thing in the
back of some abandoned house in the middle of the neighborhood covered up under
a blue tarp. Yeah. How about a couple 100 bucks like a reward money for? Yeah.
I was like, come on. I was like, a couple. I mean, that’s the least I could do.
Yeah. Yeah. And I tell them the story. Because if you remember, this is like at
the beginning of the pandemic, man, and he’s doing where he’s doing those
family meals. Oh, yeah. Like just lines down the street, like doing some
phenomenal things in these times we’ve never experienced before in our life.
Yeah. And I explained that to this guy. I said, Hey, look, I you know, this is
where it came from. And some of those dudes I mean, they go drive the streets
just like we do. So he knew. And I was like, you know, what, what he’s doing?
It’s not about just owning a restaurant, right? I mean, it’s going above and
beyond it down to doing it the Fort Worth way. Yep. Which we’re all accustomed
to. And even he, he or she replies with the Fort Worth way of like, Nah, don’t
worry about it. Just, you know. And he even is like, complimentary. Yeah, like,
towards John Bano, like minions. Pretty cool. What he’s doing, man. I was like,
Alright, so we took it down there. And there you go. That’s I arrested

51:15

the guy.
No, or somebody did. And he got he was so wonderful.

51:18

So the
one who actually took it, yes, was arrested. Now, there’s a backstory of how it
ended up where it ended up. And, you know, my logic on that, because the
police, one of the greatest tools that we have is this idea of discretion.
Right? We don’t have to arrest everybody we come across, you don’t

51:37

say I
don’t? I am saying we don’t. That’s not what they told me five times.

51:43

I don’t
know the circumstance that I don’t even want to know. But we have this awesome
tool called discretion to where we don’t have to arrest everybody we come
across, and sometimes we reach a compromise. Right. And I think, you know,
under those circumstances, pretty fair compromise. They got it back. And, you
know, the ultimately the one responsible, you know, was was charged and very
cool.

52:03

Yeah.
One more question. Please. Let me I think that’s a great story. That’s a great
story. Because for asking me.

52:10

Welcome
just trying to be a good host. scary situation you’ve ever been in, if you can
share?

52:16

Yeah, so
I guess I probably anticipated this question. I think cops have a skewed view
of fear. Maybe? Especially. I mean, I’ve always been like, if

52:28

they
make you love minus j, yeah, maybe,

52:31

you
know, just a little bit off. So and, and I’ve for minus a four year run as a
detective. I’ve been in the field my whole career, right. And I always, in a
weird way. I mean, it’s sometimes the fun stuff. The scary stuff is the fun
stuff. So it’s hard to say, you know, honestly, it’s hard to say. I mean, have
I been there in a shootout? Yeah. Have I seen? You know, I mean, I’ve, you
know, like, I mean, I’ve seen a cop get shot, right? I mean, like, so there’s
these weird, weird things where, at the time, though, the fear factor really
didn’t kick in. Because, you know, I mean, but it’s always been, I mean, I’ve
always worked in that team environment. So it’s typically always a team of us
there. Right. So I don’t know. That’s a hard one. I mean, I mean, I nothing
stands out like that. I can remember. But that may also be a defense mechanism.
What

53:26

does it feel
like to just quickly what does it feel like to be in a shootout? Is that the
most unbelievable situation out?

53:31

Now? I
think, for me, I’ve never once fired my gun in the line of duty. It’s awesome.
And hopefully over the next, you know, not too much longer. I can make it
through and then I’m riding off on the sunset, right, but it’s weird, because
the times that I have seen it. You would think you know if I fire to get off
right here right now. It’s gonna be loud. Yeah, our ears are ringing,

53:55

especially
with the mics and the headphones. Yes,

53:57

exactly.
It’s amplified. But in in the middle of it. You don’t hear it? No, it’s a
weirdest thing. Like because your body protects itself, right? And so you like
this dump of adrenaline happens in your body protects itself to where, you
know, you’re not hearing the gunshots and like you start to see things in your
vision does kind of open up right to where you know, it starts like looking
through a pinhole and then as that adrenaline wears off, you kind of start
getting your periphery back. But seeing that’s forget finaw Now that’s the
other thing though. Like it depends on the cop, right? Like you take our SWAT
guys are guys that have worked in Swat before. Like, they’re cooler than the
other side of the pillow. No matter how dangerous something is. I’m like, kind
of envious man. Like you guys are super brave. I don’t know that I have, you
know, like, I mean, not not all cops are the same. Yeah, I mean, these guys are
like some of the things and it’s always weird when you know the person. Yeah,
like, I’ll give you kind of a story in this one. You know These are all these
like these weird stories that stick out and a couple years ago there was a
hostage issue in Fort Worth The guy had. He was shooting at the cops like at
the Bearcat that armored vehicle. And they devised a plan and you know every
cop that’s not in Swat, like pretty envious. I’m not gonna lie right there
like, they’re there. They’re all like the varsity of

55:23

the
department. Yeah.

55:25

I mean,
that’s what they are. They’re all like the star quarterbacks if you will. And
one of my

55:30

football
Britain. Yeah, that’s, I’d be in Swat. I’d be delivering Dota

55:35

Swat,
but he was describing you first.

55:37

Yeah,
yeah. So this so in the middle of this, you know, I mean, all cops are like,
and I’m gonna tune in. So we on the radio, we’re listening to this event. Yeah,
that’s super high stakes, right? I mean, this guy shooting up the cops. There’s
hostages. And then you hear your buddy on the radio, like my buddy. Yeah. And
he’s out the door, and he’s devising this plan. And he’s like, we’re going in
and they have their ways of doing things to where we know what was going on.
I’m like, Man, this is weird. Like, I know, I’ve known this guy for 20 years. I
know his wife and I know his kids. And he literally is about to run into an
apartment where a dude is shooting at the cops. Right? Like, but they’re the
last line of defense and in you know, I don’t I don’t know the the end of it necessarily,
but I don’t I don’t know the full story at the end of it. So I don’t want to
speak too much on that. But you know, just hear like your buddies like going
into these like, incredibly dangerous situations. Yeah, but still always super
cool. Like, yeah, I’m not gonna sound freaked out. So it’s always cool guy
voice on the radio. Yeah. But you know, it’s just that weird. Like,

56:49

your
price sometimes. So that little bit of a shake. Like I mean, there’s

56:52

Oh, so
that’s a that’s kind of a that’s a funny story. Because

56:56

on the
shaky JqI like, Oh, Jake, Jake, or so? No, no, no, you

57:00

have to
take your you’ve got to take a couple deep breaths before? Because if you
don’t, if you’re the cop that freaks out on the radio. You’re gonna hear it for
a very long time. Yeah, because we work in a very I don’t know if you guys know
this or not. Super ruthless environment. Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah. Like everybody.
Like, there is nothing off limits. You know, I mean, obviously, family is off
limits and things like that. But if you screw up and you’ve got the excited
voice or the shake in your voice, yeah, you’re gonna hear it for such a long
time to the point where you’re gonna know your

57:32

nickname
or something.

57:34

Your
situations like with the chief works, or like the head guy wears, like, you’re
off the case. Like the shows and stuff. I mean, does any of that drama happen?
Back at the HQ? No. Like, what? No, you know what? I said your last name. I
guess it’s okay. Yeah. Like you’re off the case. We’re putting you know
somebody else on but it doesn’t. I wish I did a Mac. I

57:56

wish I
could be on the receiving end. I

57:58

just
think we should put the Hill Street but I don’t think he’s done using something
new

58:01

to
elicit that kind of redirection. Yeah, right. Right, right.

58:09

No, I
haven’t. But no, it would be funny.

58:11

Jake, we
are grateful I came here today. Good day. Good Cop. We appreciate what you do
for the city. We have lots of good cops out there. Thank you for what you do
for us, man. Thanks, church. And you can follow us on 42 DFW if you want to
keep up to date,

58:23

and I
know family. Best day. What’s the best day? You know we asked this at the end
of it. Yeah, no family. No family stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

58:33

Why did
I get I’ve listened to every getting stolen, stolen. Every one of these and I
forgot you were gonna ask me that question. I would have had a really well
thought out response.

58:44

I think
that this picture depicts the best day of his life right there.

58:50

Yeah,
maybe. Come on. I can’t care for you. Okay, best day. Haha. Man. I mean, I’ll
keep it cop related. A little bit humorous. One of the funniest days of my life
was when I actually shaved this beard off. We were inside of 711 with my wife were
younger at the time, right? Yeah, no kids. So we were doing all the fun stuff.
And you know,

59:08

shaving
and a 711. No, not shaving and

59:11

standing
in line with my hands are full. And I hear this voice. Hey, hey, and I turn
around, and it’s a guy that’s clearly homeless. And I turn around and he’s
like, Hey, what’s up? And I’m like, talking to me. So I turned back around not
paying any attention to it. And he yells Hey, again, I turn around, like, are
you talking to me? Like, what have you been up to? Man? I haven’t seen you in a
while. And my wife’s like, what? I’m like, I have no clue who that is. And
she’s like, he thinks he knows you. And I’m like, Ah, she’s like, that beard is
gone now.

59:50

Oh,
that’s all Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, that’s it.

59:54

J quite
lovely. Man. Thank you very much. Thank you. 

Jake White Audio

Wed, 1/19
12:11PM • 1:00:08

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

cop, people,
drug, fort worth, fentanyl, jake, tarrant county, super, talking, police, bad,
cartel, big, smoker, hear, swat, year old kid, typically, pandemic, work

00:00

Oh What’s
your title Jake just every time he taught our during the mine Sergeant Ford
Police Department narcotics unit Yeah.

00:08

I think
you turn them on during the intro. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Okay, ready?

00:12

Yeah
here we go

00:26

Welcome
back to fortitude folks JW with my host co host Brenton Payne, and we are
quickly found on fortitude, FW on social media. Welcome to the show. Brinson.
I’ve looked across the desk today, I noticed something very interesting about
you. What is going on with your upper lip,

00:46

I got
all these sound effects going because I got all my cop stuff going. I was
looking for the right sound effect for it. There we go. So this is not a
caterpillar that crawled off the microphone onto my face. I did this in honor
of my friend to the right of us who is our special guests here today. I don’t
even know if it’s called officer or Sergeant Sergeant,

01:06

Sergeant
Jake white Ford Police Department narcotics unit,

01:10

and
we’ve been Narcos on Netflix. Jake introduced me to the show and told me I got
to watch and know all the history of and so that’s where the stash comes from.

01:20

He kind
of fits the part that need Jake what he does,

01:23

he does
wait well done. I’m gonna turn the lights off. Only when Jake talks. I’m going
to turn them Jake,

01:27

we
welcome you to the show. We both are friends with you, you know Britain longer,
but we think the world of you what you do for a living. You’re great, dude,
thank you for joining us today. We’re honored to have you in our presence.

01:36

Awesome.
Thanks. Glad to be here. All right. All right.

01:38

Let’s
talk some drugs. narcotics. How big is the narcotics problem in this city?

01:45

So you
know, to say it’s big bad. It’s hard to say. I mean, right. We’re the 12th
largest city in the US. I think that given all the factors of everything going
on in the world right now, I think that we do a pretty good job of addressing
it. You know, there’s always new trends that we have to keep up with or catch
up to, um, overall, I think we do a pretty good job of quelling it, if you
will, I mean, there’s, you know, it’s not a problem that’s going to go away. So

02:18

how many
officers excuse me, officers are on the narcotics unit. So we’ve

02:22

got, um,
we’ve got a handful. I’ll leave it at that. We’ve got our fair enough. Yeah, we
got to

02:27

do we
need to blur? Okay, it’s that how many of let’s say 100 People move here.
Whatever, the status a day, a month or something? How many of those are bad
guys?

02:43

Oh, out
of 100? I would, I would one out of 1000 Maybe. Right. I mean, right. You know,
maybe you

02:51

have a
lot of homegrown ones here that are just that are here that you? I mean, that’s
part of the job. Right, is that you’re pretty familiar with, yeah, soaked in
their trends and how they work.

03:00

I think
drug you know, especially now where we’re at and in society where we’re at in
the world. It is kind of that homegrown thing. It’s kind of the sad element,
though, right? Because you have, you’re dealing typically now with you know,
guys that are 2535 45. The grew up around it, right? Yes, the life they knew
that. You know, what they grew up knowing. So, I mean, there’s a fair share
that are definitely from here.

03:24

So in
today’s paper, Star Telegram, there is an article detailing from May 2020 to
April 2021, there have been over 100,000 overdose, overdose deaths in America,
a 30% increase from last year. Hmm, what the heck is going on in the world? Why
are drugs? Is it pandemic related? To some extent, what’s causing all this?

03:47

So I
think there’s kind of a multitude of factors that are contributing to that I
think the pandemic may have some element to it. I from a research perspective,
I don’t know how I would correlate the pandemic to overdose deaths. Right. But
I do think that there clearly is some kind of correlation there. But I think
more significantly, what’s going on is the issue that we have with fentanyl.
Right, that’s a incredibly toxic, incredibly lethal drug that is relatively new
to us here to especially to Fort Worth. And I think people, you know, sadly,
it’s it’s one of those things where it takes what they consider, I believe, two
milligrams a lethal dose, right. So a very small quantity, and it slides out,
unfortunately.

04:30

So
there’s the whole Narcan thing where they you guys travel? What I mean, are you
going into places or do they cook fit? Not like, how is it like what how does
that whole thing work where you’d go in and need the Narcan if somebody they
don’t force you to take it or something? How does it get in your system? So

04:47

basically
how the Narcan works is and I’ve never administered it, thank god I’ve never
had to have it administered I mean cops throughout the throughout the country
have right because if you inhale some of the fentanyl then then that’s the
counter to it, basically. But it’s basically like a nasal spray is what it is.
Yeah. So it combats that opioid that’s in your body that turns off the
receptors maybe I don’t know how to phrase it,

05:12

but it’s
like if you have it in a powder form that you guys would find it and then
inhale it. That’s what the fear is like, you could just get right like that. To
a lethal dose.

05:22

Yeah.
For the officer for the investigator in a powder form. That would be the
concern. Okay. Yeah, for sure.

05:27

Yeah,
fit Knowles fairly new drug in the in the world in the market. It’s overtaken
heroin recently in at least in Tarrant County in New York profession as the
drug choice fair to say, and what what is what is fitting all exactly what does
it do? And how are people doing it?

05:42

So it’s
a synthetic opioid, where it would be similar to to heroin. Now the problem is,
is the the way people are consuming that right, so we see it most commonly, and
counterfeit prescription pills. Okay, like your your popular name brand
counterfeit prescription pills, they look identical, but instead of being the
actual ingredient for the prescription, it’s fentanyl. So that’s the most
common way that we see it, but we also see it in a powdered form. Yeah, that’s
very lethal as well.

06:11

And what
do they do with the powder form?

06:13

Um, so
you know, so the powder form is used more most often as a as what we would call
a cutting agent. So basically, if let’s say you took an ounce of cocaine and you
added, you know, an ounce of fentanyl or something like that. Now, you
basically converted that to two ounces of cocaine, which is going to make the
money go a little bit farther for the dealer

06:34

is
fentanyl cheaper than coke? Cane? Um,

06:39

you know
that? That’s a good question. I’m not 100% sure on that. Yeah.

06:42

Do those
guys. Would you mix like, Isn’t coke kind of an upper and fentanyl a downer?
Would you mix those together? I mean, is there like a great high with that?

06:51

So I don’t
I don’t know the reason. Like I don’t know what the significance or why they’re
mixing it because you’re exactly right. Like one’s an upper one’s a downer. So
I don’t know. Yeah,

07:01

you’re
Yeah, you’re close to the drug dealers, but not in the mind of them. Correct.

07:06

So how
long have you been a narc? Um,

07:08

I’ve
been so I’ve been a police officer for almost 22 years of that I’ve been in
narcotics as an investigator and as a supervisor for probably 14 of those
years. So most of my career, that’s incredible.

07:21

What
exactly is your role and supervisor or a sergeant?

07:26

So as a
sergeant narcotics, I supervise a team? A fair number of investigators. So
basically, my role is I oversee the operations right from the search warrants.
My I’ve got kind of the boring office job, honestly. I mean, I’m behind the
computer, most of the time reading reports, reading search warrants, things
like that. I’m not necessarily out there now. Doing the undercover work. You
know, obviously, through a significant portion of my career I was but right now
now.

07:51

Yeah, we
noticed you brought some pictures of you undercover. So can you explain some of
them? Like what? Yeah, just to kind of the scenario.

07:59

So first
one, obviously, is an undercover officer, the goal is for nobody to know that
you’re a cop. Right? So sometimes that’s in your appearance. So I got the one
where I’ve got the 711 outfit. Yeah, that was a good one that worked out. Well.
Now, with that being said, I know like, you guys have had Tegan on here before,
right? And like the guy who kind of wrote the book on like these big expansive
undercover operations, super Hollywood, if you will, most of the time. It’s
very street level stuff, right? That’s what we’re combat. That’s what we’re
combating in Fort Worth, right? We want to get the ones that are creating those
quality of life that life issues, if you will, so we’re kind of going after
some of the small time guys. So to do that, you know, you’re gonna have to
basically get something to distract the person from like, I wonder if this
guy’s a cop? Well, if I’m wearing a 711 outfit, maybe that’s what he thinks I
work out. Who knows? Yeah, so

08:49

Oh, so
it’s like, you don’t even have to justify the 711 where it’s just like, Yeah,
more of a confusion.

08:55

Yeah,
yeah, precisely. Yeah. Um,

08:59

what
about that one?

09:01

This
one’s just pretty. This one. Sadly, this was just kind of the generic day to
day look that I had for many years. Yeah. I mean, it’s very embarrassing, but

09:11

you find
yourself going out after work and things like that. Being successful with the
ladies or anything like that? No, no.

09:19

Last
ones the best. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, the last one this was this is how a lot of
people at the city know me because I had an obnoxious Lee large red beard. Oh,
yeah. Prior to beards being a cool thing or whatever. I’m probably like, one of
my 27 in that picture. I look like I’m 55. Right.

09:40

You look
a little heavier.

09:41

There’s
no way that guy’s a cop in that picture.

09:43

Yeah, I
wouldn’t think so. I mean, a lot of people didn’t think I was so

09:48

I think
he looked like he fit the part there. It worked out. Well. Yeah. So I’m not a
drug dealer, but I wouldn’t picture you as a cop there.

09:55

Well, it
kind of backfired, though. I mean, an obnoxious large red beard after a while
when everybody’s like, Oh, Dude with red beard Right? Kind of backfires a
little bit.

10:03

You can
only go so far with the undercover right in a small town or, you know, like a
reasonably sized town.

10:09

Yeah,
for sure. I mean, you know, definitely something that we ran across. Yeah.
Yeah.

10:14

Well,
and then the other picture, there is a whole lot of guns, right. A whole lot of
guns. Yeah. So tell us about the gun show work that you’ve done. Um,

10:25

so.
Okay, so a lot of cops work part time jobs, right? Yeah, there’s kind of two
elements where I’ve worked at that’s not starting from that. Okay, but So, this
one originated, I believe this was somewhere around 10 years ago. And this gun
trafficking at the time was significant. You know, it still exists, don’t get
me wrong, but it was a huge problem in the mid 2000s 2010 2012 areas. So this
one started right here in Fort Worth, where my partner Travis and I recovered.
It was 10 or 15, ak 40 sevens from a guy that had bad intentions with them in
terms of smuggling them. Yeah. So the recovery of that, and this kind of gets
off topic or into another topic, but the idea of somebody of an informant a
snitch, if you will, right. And so, basically, that led us to the recovery of
the 10 here, took us to San Antonio, like kinda, this is kind of a Hollywood
story. I mean, we get these 10 guns next thing you know, we’re in a friggin
minivan driving to San Antonio, the day of right, they have at like four
o’clock in the morning, the front door of this, like drugs stash house, like
cartel houses getting blown open, and there’s the rest of them in the house. So
there’s another 40 or 50, ar 15 and ak 40 sevens in that house. So, like I
said, there’s some Hollywood elements to it that are super crazy. And that’s
the one weird thing about you know, about being a cop is I can be behind my
computer, you know, reading a report or something like that. And next thing,
you never know what’s in store, right? Like, you never know what’s gonna come
up. So,

12:01

and it
does happen where you may be in a vehicle going four hours south to another
city. Immediately, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure. It’s not timed out, like
the Hollywood stuff. We’re ever on

12:13

good
time either. Right? It’s never like, well, it’s good thing. I don’t have
anything to do tonight. Yeah.

12:20

Yeah. J
couple weeks ago, maybe it’s less time than that. There was a huge $16 million
meth bust. Uh huh. You involved in this operation? Or can you tell us and then
how, what was going on in that? Is there a story you can share? So that

12:34

way, you
know, truthfully, I don’t have a whole lot of facts on that. That was if I’m
not mistaken. I believe it was Tarrant County. different organs. Yeah, there
was quite a few involved in that. My team specifically didn’t have any role in
that. So I don’t have a lot of backstory on that or enough.

12:47

He tells
me more about your like a daily role of a narc officer not use the desk, you
said, but what does it guy in the narcotics unit do on a daily basis, generally
speaking,

12:59

okay. So
at the municipal level, like I said, we kind of address those quality of life
issues, right to where the most common thing we get, let’s say, we get 15
complaints of different drug houses a day in our unit, okay. And most of the
time, like I said, it’s going to be the neighbor calling or somebody down the
street calling in or landlord calling whatever the case may be that says, hey,
there’s something going on at this house. There’s a lot of people coming and
going. I think they’re selling drugs. Yeah. So what we do I mean, we have some
initial steps that we take to vet that information, verify that information.
And then we use a couple different tactics to investigate that if we think
there’s something to it right. So you know, obviously, you’ve got your
Hollywood style stuff, or the undercover officer goes up to the house and acts
like a, you know, a drug buyer, a drug addict, or whatever. But our bread and
butter definitely comes with the use of our confidential informants are
snitches as they’re, yeah. Affectionately known as I suppose. You know, it’s
ironic because or it’s interesting because society, you know, whether it be
through popular culture, media, whatever the case may be, everybody’s like, Oh,
man, I would never rat on anybody. I’d never snitch on anybody. There is no
honor amongst the ifs, right. The moment is facing jail time, right? Especially
not facing jail time, right. The moment somebody gets caught 99 times out of
101 of the first things is like, what do I need to do so I don’t go to jail.
Yeah, right. And they’re gonna make sense. I mean, they’ll turn in their mom
they’ll turn their brother their best friend.

14:32

Yeah.
Well, no, I don’t

14:36

like
that. So even if we’re not doing

14:39

me like
my parole off

14:42

apologize.

14:45

hot
zones in Tarrant County for drug problems. Wait,

14:48

it’s
hot. Sounds like can he use that is that cop language?

14:52

Exclusively
cop is a cop is hotbeds for

14:55

drug
activity in this in Tarrant County. Um, you know,

14:58

every
site To town basically is how like in the police department we it’s broken up
into sides of town, right. And every side of town has a has small pockets where
it’s a problem. Yeah. What I don’t want to do is say, you know, this
neighborhood has a problem, or this neighborhood has a problem, right? Because
there is the one thing that happens with drugs, there’s this idea or concept of
people being stigmatized or neighborhoods being stigmatized, right. And then
once that happens, once that stigma is attached, it’s hard to get rid of it.
Yeah. Right. So yeah, there’s pockets I mean, it you know, you guys are from
here. I mean, you know, what, what you’re going to hear, you know, is the bad
you know, the bad area, the bad part of town. Those are the most common places

15:45

know
where we get our stuff from. I was wondering, yeah, tell us where other places
might

15:48

Yeah,
no, yes.

15:51

I’m serious.
No doubt Jake. Were drug world these drugs, these bad things like fentanyl and
heroin? Where’s it coming from? And how’s it getting here?

15:58

So the I
mean, obviously, the vast majority of it is smuggled typically from the
southern border. Right. And that’s, that’s just there are in the intelligence
that we get through the people that we talk to. Yeah, so that’s where the the
vast majority, but again, drugs have kind of taken on a different role to the
way they come into the way they come to Fort Worth. You take things something
like marijuana, or the new edibles, the THC edibles, those kind of deals,
right. Well, now, all of a sudden, instead, historically, 15 years ago, the
vast majority of that was smuggled through the southern border to Fort Worth or
to whatever its destination was. Yeah. Well, now when you look at the the
things like marijuana, the THC edibles, those are shipped in just via the US
Postal Service, FedEx, whatever the case may be, yeah, to an address here in
Fort Worth right to whoever’s buying it. So that’s kind of changed a little
bit. And has created a whole nother slew of problems and

16:54

well,
probably prioritizations. Right. Like, it’s like, is it really worth I mean,
right, we’re talking about like this huge fentanyl bust, and how can you
appropriately justify when bordering states have something going on? That’s
okay. But we don’t you know, it’s like, jeez, Louise, we have unlimited
resources. Where do we put them? Yeah. So

17:15

that’s,
that’s one thing right now. That’s kind of that’s a hard that’s hard, right?
Because the law says it’s illegal, right. You know, marijuana, even to this day
is still illegal. Yeah. Not that big of a deal. That’s kind of a person. You
know, I mean, it’s an opinion based deal, right? Some people think it’s a big
deal. Some don’t whatever the case might be, it’s still on the books as being
illegal. But how’s it enforced now? Right. Yeah, society’s views on it has
changed entirely. Right to Work. It’s, it’s more or less, except that at this
point, and fine. If it’s accepted, it’s accepted, then maybe get it off the out
of the law books, right. Because it creates the struggle. And it’s creating a,
like, the marijuana stuff. Specifically, what it’s doing where there’s this
conflict of whether it’s illegal, you know, is it illegal? Or is it illegal?
It’s creating violence is what it’s doing? Yeah. Because now all of a sudden,
you have this ease of obtaining that through, you know, through the mail
through whatever your sources and you know, one of the other states. And so you
get, you get these 19 year old kids, these 20 year old kids who are making a
lot of money, right? They may make 510 grand a week. This is a cash business,
obviously. Yeah. So what do you think a 19 year old does? Who makes $10,000 a
week in cash,

18:26

buys a
bunch of Vineyard Vines shirts? No, no, they

18:29

don’t.
What they do is they get on every social media outlet that they can and hold up
stacks of money, right? Hey, look how much money I’m making. This is awesome.
Yeah, you’ve become the next victim. Right? Like now you are now a target to be
robbed. Going back to Narcos. Yes. This recent season. Not a spoiler alert at
all. I believe that was the opening scene, if I’m not mistaken. Where the three
guys run into the house to the drug house in they immediately just start
shooting the people inside the drug house. Right? Yeah, that’s exactly how it
happens.

19:02

Yeah,
it’s like, in true detective with Matthew McConaughey when they lay there, it’s
just a robbery. It’s just a straight up robbery. It’s just you’re robbing for
different stuff. Right.

19:11

And, and
so that’s the unfortunate part. Because at the end of the day, the one thing
that I have learned, right, and my views on drugs, my views on laws are
probably a little bit different than a lot of cops, right? I don’t know, maybe.
I don’t want to say more empathetic, but I have some empathy towards, you know,
how people were raised and what they’ve gone through that’s led them to die
sometime this crazy life, if you will. But yeah, you know, the problem is like
the the associated violence is the issue, right? I mean, there’s I don’t I
don’t have the answer to how to solve the drug problem. Right. If I did, I
probably wouldn’t be sitting here, right? Yeah. Um, but what I do know is what
we’re doing. It doesn’t work. Right. I mean, how long have we been doing this
since 19? 85

20:01

Is that
what, like the Reagan kind of war on drugs? Right? Because

20:05

the
whole war starts, look where we’re at today. It’s no better now. In fact, it
could be worse now than it was then. And at what expense? Yeah. Right. I mean,
that’s, that’s the unfortunate part. Like I said that, you know, like, you go
back to that concept of somebody being stigmatized. That’s a real problem, because
what happens with that person? So let’s say you have a 19 year old kid who grew
up in this hard environment, right? He grew up poor, she grew up poor, whatever
the case may be, well, you know, they sought to eat, they still have to provide
for themselves. If they’re a little bit older, and they have kids, I still got
to provide for their kids. So their survival kicks, and people are going to do
what they what they’ve seen or what they know how to do. Well, now all of a
sudden, if you’re that 19 year old kid, and you’re like, Well, hey, to make it,
I’m going to sell cocaine. So you get caught with an ounce of cocaine. 28
grams, not in the grand scheme of things. Not that much, right? But it’s
enough. That’s a

20:58

lot to
me. Why would I don’t do that. But I would 28 grams, like,

21:04

yeah,
it’s a sandwich bag a quarter of the way full, right? But here’s what happens.
So then you get this 19 year old kid, he gets convicted. And let’s say he goes
to prison for eight years. And he gets out and he’s now 27 years old. Yeah. Now
he’s like, Man, I don’t want to go back to prison for eight years. I’m going to
I’m going to do life, right? I’m going to go get a job. Yeah. And then when
they go get a job, guess what happens? They fill out the application, and they
get to the dreaded question

21:31

convictive.
Then what?

21:35

I think
the question is even simpler, though, Jake, is you make $10,000 a week, doing
it on your own time, or you make 15 bucks an hour, maybe doing some, you know,
menial job that, you know, it’s not at your own terms. I mean, how do you
convince a kid over here to you should be doing this and not that it’s, that’s
the problem. Right?

21:55

Yeah. So
that’s, I mean, there’s there, there obviously, is a huge issue with that.
Because that I mean, that is true. But one thing, you know, over the last two
decades, I’ve had the opportunity to talk to a lot of people who’ve been in a
lot of trouble. Yeah. The one thing, the vast majority of them, not all of
them. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there is evil in this world, right? There’s
evil right here in this setting. There’s no doubt about it. But the vast
majority of them when you talk to them, the one thing that they can’t pay for
the one thing that they can’t buy, is losing it the way I always describe it to
him, and I tell them exactly what you say, right? Like, hey, you’re not going
to walk around with a pocket full of money. Right? You’re going to have
financial struggles, like most people in the US have, right. But the one thing
that you don’t have, you don’t have to constantly look over your shoulder.
Yeah. Right. Like you don’t have that fear of being robbed. You don’t have that
fear of being apprehended or caught. Right. I mean, there’s a lot of value in
that. Absolutely. But with all that being said, though, some I sadly, I think
some people are completely fine with going to prison. Right? Which makes no
sense to me.

23:04

Well,
yeah, we’ve talked before and like you almost have stated that some of them are
so I don’t know what the what’s the word when you get kicked real callous from
something, you know, like they’re immune, or that’s just doesn’t bother them
anymore. Like, it’s like a game. It’s just a simple cat and mouse like a super
high stakes cat mouse. But it’s not like us thinking about it. Like, oh my
gosh, somebody could lose their life here. Somebody could go spend their life
in prison. It’s more like, yep. If the cops catch like it’s a total game. Yeah.
No, I

23:34

mean,
and that’s the thing. I mean, if there’s no fear of consequence, then what?
What’s the motive motivating or driving force to change? Yeah. So I don’t know.
Like I said, I mean, it’s, it’s unfortunate, because I don’t know. I call it
vilifying? I don’t know if that’s a word or not, right. But you can’t I don’t
turn everybody I come across or have over the last two decades. I don’t look at
them like a villain. Like I said, don’t get me wrong. Some of them are are bad
people. Right. But many of them make a living, right. They’re no different.
Yeah, it’s, it’s crazy. I mean, like, you know, I mean, I see guys out and
about in the city that that I’ve arrested or that I’ve known for 20 years,
right. I mean, I worked in a very small area in this city, right. And, you
know, a lot of dudes, you know, some of those guys know me, and they see me out
and, and, you know, general public. And it’s nothing more than a head nod.
Right? Yeah. I don’t have that. And this kind of leads into another topic. Fort
Worth, though, is, in my opinion, different. Right? This is a way different
city. Yeah. I’ve never worked anywhere else. As an adult. I’ve never lived
anywhere else. Right. But what I do know is the things that I see on TV, which
I rarely watch, but when I do, like all these controversies that you see are
things that we typically don’t have to deal with, and in large part, that’s
because of the people who live here. Yeah. I mean, it’s, I mean, you guys know
as well as I do. I mean, there is nowhere else on this on this planet that I’d
want to live. Right. I mean, it’s, uh, you know, the the way the citizens treat
the police in Fort Worth, it’s got to be different than anywhere else, I think.
Yeah, I mean, like said, I’ve never worked anywhere else, but I do know over
what two decades of experiences has offered. Yeah, yeah. Which is a cool, it’s
a cool thing. I mean, like, you know, if a cop walks into, you know, railhead,
or whatever, restaurant, nine times out of 10, they’re gonna go up and pay and
they’re going to get the, hey, somebody else took over your meal. Yeah. Yeah.
Like, and again, it’s, you know, it’s that it’s those kinds of things, or the
other thing that happens every year. It’s almost like a, I don’t wanna say a
celebrity, right? But when you whenever you go in somewhere, and you’re in
uniform, which I don’t wear a uniform, and I haven’t most of my career, but
when I do whenever you walk in somewhere, it is constant. Thanks. Yeah. Right.
Like, thank you for what you do. And cops list. You know, cops appreciate that.
Right? Because it kit there are times where it can be thankless. Right? Yeah.
So I mean, that’s, it’s a, it’s a really cool.

26:08

Well,
and I think even our, like, government is very approachable. You know, I mean,
even our city council and mayor, and I mean, that it seems that this is still a
very communal community, if that makes sense. Like, yeah, like people, they do,
they are approachable and Walker, and they do they make time for one another.
And I do agree that in other cities, from what you see and hear out there, it’s
they’ve lost that route somehow.

26:36

And I
think so, that kind of leads into another struggle, though, a little bit,
right, because we’ve, I would say, we’ve kind of live life in a bubble here.
You know, what you see all these? You know, these, you know, there could be legitimate,
you know, bad things that police have done elsewhere. Yeah, or things that are
perceived as bad, you know, like said, I don’t follow any of the these national
stories or anything like that, because it’s almost a little bit depressing,
right. But what happens is, so now, even here in Fort Worth, where we’re not
used to this kind of stuff, we have to start paying the price to a certain
degree. Yeah, whether that’s changing the way we do things, right, which has
has happened. And this is not a, you know, I’m trying to I don’t want to come
across as negative, right? Because I mean, I still believe that we’ve got the
best cops in the US. And yeah, you know, and we do this in the best city in the
US 100%. But all of a sudden, now, we’re, you know, we’re paying the price for
things that have happened elsewhere. And who ultimately, who ultimately pays
the price are the people who need us the most? Right. And that’s the
unfortunate part. Because when we’ve had to shift our tactics so much, too. I
mean, truthfully, they’re not as effective. Right. And it’s hard. I don’t want
to go like, like, too specific, because there are, you know, there are still
some there, there are still some dangerous things that the police do. Yeah.
Right. And so I don’t want to get like too specific. But we’ve had to change
things so significantly, that personally, I think effectiveness has been lost.
And it’s not for a lack of caring. It’s not for, you know, some kind of protest
amongst the police at all. Right? I mean, the cops here still want to, like are
still super passionate. Yeah, about doing this job. But the cop across the US
right now is super confused. Yeah. Right. Because it’s like, I’m just trying to
do my job, man. Like, I don’t want to, you know, like the the, you know, what’s
happened is the police are now judged on the scale of perfection. And when you
use perfection, as the as the hard line, like if it’s not perfect, you’re in
trouble. Well, guess what people do they shut down. Yeah. And rightfully so.
Yeah.

28:57

Yeah. So
I checked J dub that way a lot. Look at look at the founder. And he comes
close, but we’re never there. And I think that’s why sometimes he doesn’t bring
his A game to the show. But now that you’ve explained it, I understand. Yeah.

29:12

Yeah.
We’re always learning around here. Yes. So Jake, back to back to narcotics.
Anywhere. There’s narcotics in the scale. There’s the cartel. What can you tell
us about the cartel in this town? Tarrant County? If there’s what I don’t know
what you can share what you can’t but they’re operating here, correct?

29:30

Yeah. I
mean, they definitely have a presence here. You know, they’re, I don’t think
their role is inflated in the media, right? I mean, it’s a real problem. And
again, something else that has changed with the way society was in Fort Worth,
we were always in this like, kind of protected bubble. Yeah, where and we’ve
got cartel, but they’re typically not they’re not over violent towards the
police and typically don’t stray too much outside of their areas, if you will.
I don’t think that’s the case right now. Right. I mean, I think the way 10
years ago, I would have sent an officer to a location, you know, to deal with
the cartel. And yeah, and had little had little concern with that. Sure. I
don’t my concern now would not be it would be a significant concern now.

30:31

Now, is
that because demand has increased presence of cartels? You know, or is it a
combination of all those things that have kind of risen up?

30:41

No. So I
think there’s a couple. There are several things. One, you know, we’ve seen
this city has grown significantly in the last two decades and even the last
decade. Which, you know, I don’t know, we had a good for a long time where
we’re like, the smallest big city in the US. Right. And we weren’t didn’t
always have to deal with big city problems. Well, not so much the case now.
Right. So I don’t know that I think demand has increased just simply because
the population has increasing, right. That’s obvious. I think that, you know,
trying to think out of phrases. So police work is is unique, right? There’s a
there’s concepts or elements where subject matter expertise is important. Yeah.
And in a big city, it’s really important, right? Because we, who else do we
turn to? Right? When we are the crime fighters in this town, we need to be the
experts in every element. Yeah. Well, I mean, you look at certain things like,
I don’t know, like a retirement issue, right? When that retirement plan
changes, now, I get why, and I’m not bitter by it, or whatever, I understand
why, but there’s unintended consequences that happen when things like that
change, right? Because what you have now you have cops who were like, you know,
if you’re a 22 year old kid, and you’re like, Hey, I’m gonna do this for the
next 25 years, I’m gonna retire when I’m 47. Presumably, go work somewhere else
afterwards. But to get that retirement to a point to where it’s worthwhile, you
now have to promote, right? You have to keep climbing the corporate ladder,
right? To improve your your pension. Well, whereas before, you didn’t have to
do that, right? You were able, we had these, we had these cops who were cops
for, like 30 years. And they were very, very good at what they did.

32:32

And they
became kind of experts in their community and know the players and things like
that. Yeah, I didn’t think about that change kind of

32:41

get into
that thing is it continues, right? Because, you know, we’re at this last, I
mean, I call it the last generation, right to where we still got, you know,
like I said, I mean, I can I can say this all day long. I mean, we’ve got the,
you know, easily the best cops in the in the country, and some of our units,
right? You’d look at our homicide detectives, our SWAT or NARC, guys, they are
best in the business. Like if you kill somebody in Fort Worth, right? And the
most of those detectives that are there now, they’re so good, you are going to
get caught there. They’re seldom is the who done it. Yeah, right. Yeah. I mean,
they’re, that’s a craft that they’ve perfected. But at some point, that’s going
to go away. The reason they’re good, is they have tenure. They’re super
passionate and motivated about what they do. And they can stay there for a very
long time

33:32

and
still receive the same benefits, they’ll receive the same benefit.

33:35

But
that’s not going to be the case for much longer. That’s very interesting.

33:39

So um, I
once was told by a Fort Worth cop that, like math was the line is.

33:50

But that
was your question.

33:52

That
math was like the root of all evil, right? Like, I mean, if like, he kind of
started to try to explain to me that, like meth, like, kicks off so much
violence, like it’s crazy. The exponential kind of thing. Is that, is that
accurate? Is it now fentanyl or something like that? So I

34:11

don’t
necessarily buy into that. I mean, you know, there are I mean, they’re all bad,
right? I mean, it’s not, you know, I think they all have their issues. They’re
all bad. I don’t know that one is necessarily worse than another meth does
bring about the unique meth look. That happened. Yeah. Right. Which is
incredible. Just, it’s crazy.

34:34

Well,
quick, describe what the Bethel look is.

34:37

Typically,
the teeth are rotted out. You have the sores everywhere. And the the other
thing, like this table right here would be and I’ll tell you why in a second.
This table right here would be like a, like a meth addicts dream. Bricks. Every
time you go into these houses where it’s a meth user or meth dealer. It’s
drawers of random stuff like typically, it’s like, is there any reason you have
200 feet of coax cable perfectly rolled up next to a VCR that you took apart
five years ago and next to a sewing machine? Right? Like it’s just this random?
Like,

35:14

I think
you’ve talked about the teeth check the randomness of stuff check. I believe.

35:23

I’ll be
calling you later.

35:25

It’s at
a different level. So but, but it going back to your question as far as one
being worse than the other? No, I don’t think so. Okay, um, you know, there you
look at the destruction of crack cocaine. I mean, that was a legitimate you
know, just

35:44

this
crack still around. Do you still?

35:47

Not not
at the level that it was? Yeah, it really, really died off probably in the last
seven, eight years. It seems like

35:54

what’s
bigger fentanyl? Like the opioids or meth? are tied? Tied? Really? Yeah. Yeah.

36:02

That’s
my personal list. The

36:03

new we
read about this, we asked you offline but what’s the thing called the drink the
new drug of choice for some of these idiots because it’s killing people. Right
as well.

36:11

So so
the drink not necessarily that’s just typically a pro magazine with codeine
cough syrup mixed with you know, whatever kind of pop that one would drink.
Right? Um,

36:21

wait
like pop you mean in soda? Yeah, like, like, give it a pop that’s coming out in
me. I apologize. Guys that Yeah.

36:30

That’s
funny. So that that’s, that’s very pop in there. You know, it’s got a lot of
popularity from I guess the entertainment world if you will. Right. That’s
where it seems Oh, seriously. No other songs about it. Right. Like, I mean,
it’s just crazy. There’s a lot of

36:46

a lot of
drugs. Yeah, they just sip this drink all day long. It keeps giving this
continue to hire somebody like that. Yeah. Tell me what it is.

36:53

Well, I
mean, it’s coding. So I think it’s gonna like calm them down significantly, if
you will. Well, now they’re with fentanyl.

36:58

I would
imagine so right coding.

37:02

This but
it what it is funny, because when that first came on, I probably 1520 years
ago, they used to drink it out of baby bottles. Wait,

37:11

the
drink was like 20 years ago? It’s that old? Yeah. You know, it’s been I’ve
never heard of it. It’s been

37:17

around
for a while but they’ve changed it. Now. They you know, it’s always in the
styrofoam cup mixed with a serious Yeah, but the good thing is they got away
from the baby bottle. The baby bottle drove me nuts. Because, you know, I mean,
I’m a 23 year old kid, basically. Like, I mean, I’m a cop now, man. I know
everything right? I’m driving around. I start pulling these cars over. I’m
like, why are all these guys

37:40

baby
bottle? Yeah, they don’t even have babies. But it’s crazy.

37:44

Then
after a while, I’m like, uh, you know, I learned I’m like, Ah, is it?

37:47

Is it
like red like cough syrup color is?

37:51

Purple.
Purple or green? Yeah, typically purple though.

37:54

Yeah.
Wait, it’s, it’s a cough syrup. And what is ELSS?

37:58

It’s so
it’s a liquid form of promethazine with coding.

38:04

Just how
to make it.

38:07

I’ll
show you later. Okay. Well, Jake, on the screen behind you, you want to look,
we showed a picture of a bust when you have a bunch of automatic rifles? Do
guns and drug drug culture coincide? Is that a normal thing? When you go on
these these busts? And during the course of your work, are you finding lots of
scary scary guns?

38:29

Yeah,
yeah, that’s one thing. You know, kind of what I touched on earlier, you know,
the way we’ve had to change, like what we’re doing, right? Because do I think
there’s an increase 100%? Like, I mean, I haven’t done any kind of formal
research into it. But I do have two decades of experience that tells me I think
this might be getting a little bit worse, right? Yeah. In terms of the amount
of farms that we’re recovering. Um, so yeah, I mean, they definitely

38:59

what
about amount of cash? Like, what’s the most the biggest amount of cash you’ve
ever seized? And then, um, is that increasing to

39:07

see? Well?
Yes, kind of, okay, so the biggest amount I’ve seen 900,000

39:16

Was that
Oh, okay. That’s yeah, we’re talking about big amounts. Oh, that GSR that

39:20

in his
office? That’s, that’s, that’s the best.

39:23

Are we
talking there’s stacks of just a remainder what happened bundled

39:26

and how
big of an area does something like like as big as this table is?

39:30

They had
it in too big duffel bag surprisingly. Yeah. So I mean, there’s other times
where, you know, I mean, hundreds of 1000s

39:38

I mean,
what’s the other part of that you’re gonna say that that’s kind of a weird
like, that’s on the increase like the amount of drugs are on the increase and
the money or or

39:47

so I
gotta phrase this without like, I said, I don’t want to be negative I you know,
I know that the you know, the police and I’m only speaking for the guys that I
know and like as a I work with you, but the police here, you know, we know how
to do the job. Right. And we did very well, for a very long time.

40:10

Get down
before it got to levels like that. Yeah. And when

40:13

the
rules change, and I don’t think anybody, nobody asked for the change as a
whole, right. And I don’t know that people are necessarily recognizing the
consequence of the change. Like I said, That is who pays the price? Well, the
people who pay the price for the police having to having to change our tactics,
are the people who need the police the most unfortunately, yeah. And and I want
to be clear, I’m not talking about, you know, by no means if a if there’s a
corrupt cop, I don’t know, a cop that wouldn’t that wouldn’t catch them
themselves. Right. Right. Oh, good cop that I know wants to work with with
somebody that’s dirty. Yeah. Right. And, you know, fortunately, that’s not
something we have to deal with. Really? I’m not saying that we haven’t. I mean,
we have Yeah, I had a almost four year run through internal affairs. So I mean,
I saw my fair share of that. But, you know, when the when the rules have
changed, it’s hard, because this is the kind of stuff we want to get off the
street. Yeah. Right. And we know the tactics that we have to use to get this
off the street. But when the tactics that we have to use, we can’t use them, it
makes it hard.

41:22

Yeah.
Yeah, that’s really interesting. I’ve never, I’ve talked to a lot of cops, we
have cops that are buddies yourself, could never talk to a cop that it would
say that the cops don’t protect other cops if the other cop is the bad guy. I
mean, that’s really refreshing to hear. I wouldn’t have never heard you might
say that, like, that’s

41:38

Oh,
yeah. I mean, and that’s the thing. I mean, that’s, that, again, probably one
of the reasons why I do not watch TV, right? Because it’s, it’s always super
negative towards the cops. And it’s like, you know, I know a lot of cops by
trade, if you will. I know, their families. I know them personally. Right. And
I’m not gonna, you know, throughout this blanket statement that this person’s
bad because of this, and this, you know, I mean, everybody, you know, every cop
that I know, right? I mean, now I keep my circle small. Yeah. And I mean,
honestly, it is a weird job, because you can talk about it for days on end and
it can consume you. So outside of work, I really don’t hang out with too many
cops, right? I mean, obviously talk to him, things like that. But um, you know,
the the idea of somebody tarnishing the effort that the you know, I put in or
other good cops have put in, you know, we’re not, we’re not gonna sit there and
tolerate it. Right. So if somebody is doing wrong, you’re gonna be the first
ones to report it.

42:36

Yeah.
What’s the worst thing you can call a COP? COP? IG? What are some other?

42:43

I have
no bad words. What

42:44

he does
was run through some names. I don’t want to repeat them. He was saying a lot of
bad stuff about cops. I know. JW will not accurate. I’m not buying it. I’m not
buying.

42:58

We love
what you guys

42:59

do. No,
I’m kidding. I mean, do you guys like, has, obviously I mean, this is kind of a
I’m going somewhere that, you know, how do you deal with kind of where we are
with stuff? Because I know you outside of here. And I know that, you know, I
know who you are. I know, the one thing that I really appreciated is the way
you work. Right? The way you work is, I’ve seen people come up to you some of
those that you’ve busted. And they have respect enough for you to give you the
nod. Right. And I and I also know, the way that some folks get good intel and
information is by having good relationships, you know, and so, um, how I mean,
how do we, how can we get out of where we are, you know, and back to that kind
of, you know, in a respectable Safeway wreck. I’m not saying I hope so,

43:51

because
I know, you know what I’ve done, and I’m not, you know, I don’t want this to
come across like I’m bragging, patting myself on the back, but I know what I’ve
done and it works, right. Yeah, I know that. The secret to it all, is to treat
people politely. Right. Yeah. For people with respect. That’s something we’ve
always done here for

44:12

Britain.
With respect and kindness, ew, I back to you, Jake.

44:18

is like
looking at your phone when I’m in the middle of a conversation with someone

44:24

that
Jake, could you talk about if you’re able to win any of your real successful
busts? Some of the jobs you’ve been involved with back in the day maybe when
you’re in the on the field that were

44:36

Yeah,
yeah. We had a guest on here who lost like some kind of cooking device like a
large smoker. Are you familiar with

44:44

those
the the Smokies a friend of the show J A friend of the show, so John Bunnell,
that’s, again, going back to that idea of

44:52

them,
we’re trying to get free food from them.

44:56

Going
back to that idea of when you you know, I, when when you don’t look at
everybody, as a villain, right? People who don’t look like me, people who
haven’t lived the same life as me if I don’t view them as a villain, right, and
I’m not talking to them any differently, any different than I’m talking to you
guys, right? Yeah. I mean, it’s the one thing I always say is like, I mean, I
could easily with a lot of these dudes that I’ve arrested, we could be at the
bar drinking a beer and talking about everything, but that stuff and it’s
gonna, the conversations gonna be flowing. Yeah. So we go back to that smoker
story? Well, it again, going back to the idea of sometimes things just take
weird turns throughout the day of a cop, right? Yeah. I am at my desk. Reading,
typing,

45:44

eating a
doughnut. I said bad to ask, I mean, our dog or is it maybe a Danish or you
know, Eclair?

45:58

trom
usto gotten used to it. So sit doing whatever mundane task at my desk, my phone
rings, and it’s a detective that works over on the side of town. He said, Hey,
you, I won’t throw out names. But he goes, Hey, do you know such and such? He
gives me the name? I said, Yeah. No. He’s like, Well, I think he may know the
whereabouts of this smoker. They got stolen from barbells. And I had seen it on
Facebook, like the week before? Yes. For whatever it was. I was like, really? I
was like, Okay. I was like, Well, let me make some calls. Let me see what I
come up with. And, you know, again, the dynamics that there’s not one. I don’t
want to call them a criminal or a bad guy because they’re not but for the sake
of this, of being concise. There’s not one criminal that I talked to, that’s
going to admit that they talked to me. Right, right. Even though they’ll call
me and they’ll feed me little tidbits of information, things like that. So I
make call and say, hey, you know, I think about this smoker that got stolen.
Yeah. Immediately. The defense mechanisms come up. No. And I’m like, Come on,
man. I was like, you shoot me straight.

47:08

It’s
like a 300 pound device. Man. It

47:10

was like
it was it was big. Yeah. So eventually, he or she is like, Yeah, where are you
at? I was like, I’m at the store. And they knew the store that I was talking
about. And I’m in the parking lot. And phone etiquette amongst drug dealers, or
the criminal element sometimes is not the greatest. It’s usually super
aggressive, even though they don’t mean to be aggressive. Yeah. And it’s very
ambiguous. Like this guy. He yells at me. Where are you at? I’m at the store,
yells back, I’ll be there and hangs up. So I’m like, Well, what store? Does
that mean? You’ll be here in five minutes or five hours, like, and they call
back and it just goes straight to voicemail. Whatever. So yeah. 10 minutes
later, this car comes pulling in the parking lot. The guy that I know, he’s
waving his hand. He’s like, Come on, follow me. I’m by myself. Yeah. And I’m
just like this. Yeah. So I’m like, How can you? Where are we going? He’s like,
Come on, just follow me. And I’m like, now here’s the cool thing. Like some of
these dudes I’ve known for 20 years or longer. Yeah, right. So am I concerned
that he’s gonna take me to this back alley and assassinate me? No, not at all.
But it’s still a little bit like

48:24

Sure.
You got a radio with you?

48:26

No, no,
still a little bit uncomfortable. So he stops real quick. And he’s like, Wait,
you got in the car with no, I’m falling. Okay. So we stopped sort of all along.
All right. Yes. And he’s like, Hey, do you want me to get my trailer? And I was
like, No, I was like, I can get a truck down here. He’s like, No, I’m gonna get
my trailer if you need and I’m like, No, I’ll get a truck because Howard then
how are we going to get back to bond else right. It’s gonna look super weird.

48:50

Yeah, so
we might incriminate you. Yes. Your trailer. Yeah.

48:54

So we go
drive in the back streets of this neighborhood. And we pull up to this house.
No joke. I’m in the windows have plywood on him. It’s a vacant house. He or she
jumps out of the car. Come on, follow me. I’m here to town. Jake. That’s pretty
close. And I know that place. Yeah. So. Yeah, exactly. So we walked to the
backyard and under this gigantic blue tarp is the smoker and I’m like, that’s
pretty cool. So how am I gonna? I was like, this thing’s like 500 pounds. Now
what? Yeah, I’m like, Well, I can call a bunch coughing just carried over. Next
thing I know. I I’m going out to the front yard to my car, like to get my phone
or whatever. Maybe my radio I can’t remember. And like three dudes pull up
there like, so. If you need help with it. I’m like, kind of. I can’t get it.
Yeah. Okay. So three dudes, four dudes from the neighborhood with loaded up we
get a truck. Oh, yeah. And the truck, put it in the back of we get a cop truck
over there, put on the back of the truck and drive it down to bond else. I told
the guy I was like, hey, You know, you I know what you do you know what I do?
And, you know, at the end of the day, we’re never find in this thing in the
back of some abandoned house in the middle of the neighborhood covered up under
a blue tarp. Yeah. How about a couple 100 bucks like a reward money for? Yeah.
I was like, come on. I was like, a couple. I mean, that’s the least I could do.
Yeah. Yeah. And I tell them the story. Because if you remember, this is like at
the beginning of the pandemic, man, and he’s doing where he’s doing those
family meals. Oh, yeah. Like just lines down the street, like doing some
phenomenal things in these times we’ve never experienced before in our life.
Yeah. And I explained that to this guy. I said, Hey, look, I you know, this is
where it came from. And some of those dudes I mean, they go drive the streets
just like we do. So he knew. And I was like, you know, what, what he’s doing?
It’s not about just owning a restaurant, right? I mean, it’s going above and
beyond it down to doing it the Fort Worth way. Yep. Which we’re all accustomed
to. And even he, he or she replies with the Fort Worth way of like, Nah, don’t
worry about it. Just, you know. And he even is like, complimentary. Yeah, like,
towards John Bano, like minions. Pretty cool. What he’s doing, man. I was like,
Alright, so we took it down there. And there you go. That’s I arrested

51:15

the guy.
No, or somebody did. And he got he was so wonderful.

51:18

So the
one who actually took it, yes, was arrested. Now, there’s a backstory of how it
ended up where it ended up. And, you know, my logic on that, because the
police, one of the greatest tools that we have is this idea of discretion.
Right? We don’t have to arrest everybody we come across, you don’t

51:37

say I
don’t? I am saying we don’t. That’s not what they told me five times.

51:43

I don’t
know the circumstance that I don’t even want to know. But we have this awesome
tool called discretion to where we don’t have to arrest everybody we come
across, and sometimes we reach a compromise. Right. And I think, you know,
under those circumstances, pretty fair compromise. They got it back. And, you
know, the ultimately the one responsible, you know, was was charged and very
cool.

52:03

Yeah.
One more question. Please. Let me I think that’s a great story. That’s a great
story. Because for asking me.

52:10

Welcome
just trying to be a good host. scary situation you’ve ever been in, if you can
share?

52:16

Yeah, so
I guess I probably anticipated this question. I think cops have a skewed view
of fear. Maybe? Especially. I mean, I’ve always been like, if

52:28

they
make you love minus j, yeah, maybe,

52:31

you
know, just a little bit off. So and, and I’ve for minus a four year run as a
detective. I’ve been in the field my whole career, right. And I always, in a
weird way. I mean, it’s sometimes the fun stuff. The scary stuff is the fun
stuff. So it’s hard to say, you know, honestly, it’s hard to say. I mean, have
I been there in a shootout? Yeah. Have I seen? You know, I mean, I’ve, you
know, like, I mean, I’ve seen a cop get shot, right? I mean, like, so there’s
these weird, weird things where, at the time, though, the fear factor really
didn’t kick in. Because, you know, I mean, but it’s always been, I mean, I’ve
always worked in that team environment. So it’s typically always a team of us
there. Right. So I don’t know. That’s a hard one. I mean, I mean, I nothing
stands out like that. I can remember. But that may also be a defense mechanism.
What

53:26

does it feel
like to just quickly what does it feel like to be in a shootout? Is that the
most unbelievable situation out?

53:31

Now? I
think, for me, I’ve never once fired my gun in the line of duty. It’s awesome.
And hopefully over the next, you know, not too much longer. I can make it
through and then I’m riding off on the sunset, right, but it’s weird, because
the times that I have seen it. You would think you know if I fire to get off
right here right now. It’s gonna be loud. Yeah, our ears are ringing,

53:55

especially
with the mics and the headphones. Yes,

53:57

exactly.
It’s amplified. But in in the middle of it. You don’t hear it? No, it’s a
weirdest thing. Like because your body protects itself, right? And so you like
this dump of adrenaline happens in your body protects itself to where, you
know, you’re not hearing the gunshots and like you start to see things in your
vision does kind of open up right to where you know, it starts like looking
through a pinhole and then as that adrenaline wears off, you kind of start
getting your periphery back. But seeing that’s forget finaw Now that’s the
other thing though. Like it depends on the cop, right? Like you take our SWAT
guys are guys that have worked in Swat before. Like, they’re cooler than the
other side of the pillow. No matter how dangerous something is. I’m like, kind
of envious man. Like you guys are super brave. I don’t know that I have, you
know, like, I mean, not not all cops are the same. Yeah, I mean, these guys are
like some of the things and it’s always weird when you know the person. Yeah,
like, I’ll give you kind of a story in this one. You know These are all these
like these weird stories that stick out and a couple years ago there was a
hostage issue in Fort Worth The guy had. He was shooting at the cops like at
the Bearcat that armored vehicle. And they devised a plan and you know every
cop that’s not in Swat, like pretty envious. I’m not gonna lie right there
like, they’re there. They’re all like the varsity of

55:23

the
department. Yeah.

55:25

I mean,
that’s what they are. They’re all like the star quarterbacks if you will. And
one of my

55:30

football
Britain. Yeah, that’s, I’d be in Swat. I’d be delivering Dota

55:35

Swat,
but he was describing you first.

55:37

Yeah,
yeah. So this so in the middle of this, you know, I mean, all cops are like,
and I’m gonna tune in. So we on the radio, we’re listening to this event. Yeah,
that’s super high stakes, right? I mean, this guy shooting up the cops. There’s
hostages. And then you hear your buddy on the radio, like my buddy. Yeah. And
he’s out the door, and he’s devising this plan. And he’s like, we’re going in
and they have their ways of doing things to where we know what was going on.
I’m like, Man, this is weird. Like, I know, I’ve known this guy for 20 years. I
know his wife and I know his kids. And he literally is about to run into an
apartment where a dude is shooting at the cops. Right? Like, but they’re the
last line of defense and in you know, I don’t I don’t know the the end of it necessarily,
but I don’t I don’t know the full story at the end of it. So I don’t want to
speak too much on that. But you know, just hear like your buddies like going
into these like, incredibly dangerous situations. Yeah, but still always super
cool. Like, yeah, I’m not gonna sound freaked out. So it’s always cool guy
voice on the radio. Yeah. But you know, it’s just that weird. Like,

56:49

your
price sometimes. So that little bit of a shake. Like I mean, there’s

56:52

Oh, so
that’s a that’s kind of a that’s a funny story. Because

56:56

on the
shaky JqI like, Oh, Jake, Jake, or so? No, no, no, you

57:00

have to
take your you’ve got to take a couple deep breaths before? Because if you
don’t, if you’re the cop that freaks out on the radio. You’re gonna hear it for
a very long time. Yeah, because we work in a very I don’t know if you guys know
this or not. Super ruthless environment. Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah. Like everybody.
Like, there is nothing off limits. You know, I mean, obviously, family is off
limits and things like that. But if you screw up and you’ve got the excited
voice or the shake in your voice, yeah, you’re gonna hear it for such a long
time to the point where you’re gonna know your

57:32

nickname
or something.

57:34

Your
situations like with the chief works, or like the head guy wears, like, you’re
off the case. Like the shows and stuff. I mean, does any of that drama happen?
Back at the HQ? No. Like, what? No, you know what? I said your last name. I
guess it’s okay. Yeah. Like you’re off the case. We’re putting you know
somebody else on but it doesn’t. I wish I did a Mac. I

57:56

wish I
could be on the receiving end. I

57:58

just
think we should put the Hill Street but I don’t think he’s done using something
new

58:01

to
elicit that kind of redirection. Yeah, right. Right, right.

58:09

No, I
haven’t. But no, it would be funny.

58:11

Jake, we
are grateful I came here today. Good day. Good Cop. We appreciate what you do
for the city. We have lots of good cops out there. Thank you for what you do
for us, man. Thanks, church. And you can follow us on 42 DFW if you want to
keep up to date,

58:23

and I
know family. Best day. What’s the best day? You know we asked this at the end
of it. Yeah, no family. No family stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

58:33

Why did
I get I’ve listened to every getting stolen, stolen. Every one of these and I
forgot you were gonna ask me that question. I would have had a really well
thought out response.

58:44

I think
that this picture depicts the best day of his life right there.

58:50

Yeah,
maybe. Come on. I can’t care for you. Okay, best day. Haha. Man. I mean, I’ll
keep it cop related. A little bit humorous. One of the funniest days of my life
was when I actually shaved this beard off. We were inside of 711 with my wife were
younger at the time, right? Yeah, no kids. So we were doing all the fun stuff.
And you know,

59:08

shaving
and a 711. No, not shaving and

59:11

standing
in line with my hands are full. And I hear this voice. Hey, hey, and I turn
around, and it’s a guy that’s clearly homeless. And I turn around and he’s
like, Hey, what’s up? And I’m like, talking to me. So I turned back around not
paying any attention to it. And he yells Hey, again, I turn around, like, are
you talking to me? Like, what have you been up to? Man? I haven’t seen you in a
while. And my wife’s like, what? I’m like, I have no clue who that is. And
she’s like, he thinks he knows you. And I’m like, Ah, she’s like, that beard is
gone now.

59:50

Oh,
that’s all Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, that’s it.

59:54

J quite
lovely. Man. Thank you very much. Thank you. 

Jake White Audio

Wed, 1/19
12:11PM • 1:00:08

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

cop, people,
drug, fort worth, fentanyl, jake, tarrant county, super, talking, police, bad,
cartel, big, smoker, hear, swat, year old kid, typically, pandemic, work

00:00

Oh What’s
your title Jake just every time he taught our during the mine Sergeant Ford
Police Department narcotics unit Yeah.

00:08

I think
you turn them on during the intro. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Okay, ready?

00:12

Yeah
here we go

00:26

Welcome
back to fortitude folks JW with my host co host Brenton Payne, and we are
quickly found on fortitude, FW on social media. Welcome to the show. Brinson.
I’ve looked across the desk today, I noticed something very interesting about
you. What is going on with your upper lip,

00:46

I got
all these sound effects going because I got all my cop stuff going. I was
looking for the right sound effect for it. There we go. So this is not a
caterpillar that crawled off the microphone onto my face. I did this in honor
of my friend to the right of us who is our special guests here today. I don’t
even know if it’s called officer or Sergeant Sergeant,

01:06

Sergeant
Jake white Ford Police Department narcotics unit,

01:10

and
we’ve been Narcos on Netflix. Jake introduced me to the show and told me I got
to watch and know all the history of and so that’s where the stash comes from.

01:20

He kind
of fits the part that need Jake what he does,

01:23

he does
wait well done. I’m gonna turn the lights off. Only when Jake talks. I’m going
to turn them Jake,

01:27

we
welcome you to the show. We both are friends with you, you know Britain longer,
but we think the world of you what you do for a living. You’re great, dude,
thank you for joining us today. We’re honored to have you in our presence.

01:36

Awesome.
Thanks. Glad to be here. All right. All right.

01:38

Let’s
talk some drugs. narcotics. How big is the narcotics problem in this city?

01:45

So you
know, to say it’s big bad. It’s hard to say. I mean, right. We’re the 12th
largest city in the US. I think that given all the factors of everything going
on in the world right now, I think that we do a pretty good job of addressing
it. You know, there’s always new trends that we have to keep up with or catch
up to, um, overall, I think we do a pretty good job of quelling it, if you
will, I mean, there’s, you know, it’s not a problem that’s going to go away. So

02:18

how many
officers excuse me, officers are on the narcotics unit. So we’ve

02:22

got, um,
we’ve got a handful. I’ll leave it at that. We’ve got our fair enough. Yeah, we
got to

02:27

do we
need to blur? Okay, it’s that how many of let’s say 100 People move here.
Whatever, the status a day, a month or something? How many of those are bad
guys?

02:43

Oh, out
of 100? I would, I would one out of 1000 Maybe. Right. I mean, right. You know,
maybe you

02:51

have a
lot of homegrown ones here that are just that are here that you? I mean, that’s
part of the job. Right, is that you’re pretty familiar with, yeah, soaked in
their trends and how they work.

03:00

I think
drug you know, especially now where we’re at and in society where we’re at in
the world. It is kind of that homegrown thing. It’s kind of the sad element,
though, right? Because you have, you’re dealing typically now with you know,
guys that are 2535 45. The grew up around it, right? Yes, the life they knew
that. You know, what they grew up knowing. So, I mean, there’s a fair share
that are definitely from here.

03:24

So in
today’s paper, Star Telegram, there is an article detailing from May 2020 to
April 2021, there have been over 100,000 overdose, overdose deaths in America,
a 30% increase from last year. Hmm, what the heck is going on in the world? Why
are drugs? Is it pandemic related? To some extent, what’s causing all this?

03:47

So I
think there’s kind of a multitude of factors that are contributing to that I
think the pandemic may have some element to it. I from a research perspective,
I don’t know how I would correlate the pandemic to overdose deaths. Right. But
I do think that there clearly is some kind of correlation there. But I think
more significantly, what’s going on is the issue that we have with fentanyl.
Right, that’s a incredibly toxic, incredibly lethal drug that is relatively new
to us here to especially to Fort Worth. And I think people, you know, sadly,
it’s it’s one of those things where it takes what they consider, I believe, two
milligrams a lethal dose, right. So a very small quantity, and it slides out,
unfortunately.

04:30

So
there’s the whole Narcan thing where they you guys travel? What I mean, are you
going into places or do they cook fit? Not like, how is it like what how does
that whole thing work where you’d go in and need the Narcan if somebody they
don’t force you to take it or something? How does it get in your system? So

04:47

basically
how the Narcan works is and I’ve never administered it, thank god I’ve never
had to have it administered I mean cops throughout the throughout the country
have right because if you inhale some of the fentanyl then then that’s the
counter to it, basically. But it’s basically like a nasal spray is what it is.
Yeah. So it combats that opioid that’s in your body that turns off the
receptors maybe I don’t know how to phrase it,

05:12

but it’s
like if you have it in a powder form that you guys would find it and then
inhale it. That’s what the fear is like, you could just get right like that. To
a lethal dose.

05:22

Yeah.
For the officer for the investigator in a powder form. That would be the
concern. Okay. Yeah, for sure.

05:27

Yeah,
fit Knowles fairly new drug in the in the world in the market. It’s overtaken
heroin recently in at least in Tarrant County in New York profession as the
drug choice fair to say, and what what is what is fitting all exactly what does
it do? And how are people doing it?

05:42

So it’s
a synthetic opioid, where it would be similar to to heroin. Now the problem is,
is the the way people are consuming that right, so we see it most commonly, and
counterfeit prescription pills. Okay, like your your popular name brand
counterfeit prescription pills, they look identical, but instead of being the
actual ingredient for the prescription, it’s fentanyl. So that’s the most
common way that we see it, but we also see it in a powdered form. Yeah, that’s
very lethal as well.

06:11

And what
do they do with the powder form?

06:13

Um, so
you know, so the powder form is used more most often as a as what we would call
a cutting agent. So basically, if let’s say you took an ounce of cocaine and you
added, you know, an ounce of fentanyl or something like that. Now, you
basically converted that to two ounces of cocaine, which is going to make the
money go a little bit farther for the dealer

06:34

is
fentanyl cheaper than coke? Cane? Um,

06:39

you know
that? That’s a good question. I’m not 100% sure on that. Yeah.

06:42

Do those
guys. Would you mix like, Isn’t coke kind of an upper and fentanyl a downer?
Would you mix those together? I mean, is there like a great high with that?

06:51

So I don’t
I don’t know the reason. Like I don’t know what the significance or why they’re
mixing it because you’re exactly right. Like one’s an upper one’s a downer. So
I don’t know. Yeah,

07:01

you’re
Yeah, you’re close to the drug dealers, but not in the mind of them. Correct.

07:06

So how
long have you been a narc? Um,

07:08

I’ve
been so I’ve been a police officer for almost 22 years of that I’ve been in
narcotics as an investigator and as a supervisor for probably 14 of those
years. So most of my career, that’s incredible.

07:21

What
exactly is your role and supervisor or a sergeant?

07:26

So as a
sergeant narcotics, I supervise a team? A fair number of investigators. So
basically, my role is I oversee the operations right from the search warrants.
My I’ve got kind of the boring office job, honestly. I mean, I’m behind the
computer, most of the time reading reports, reading search warrants, things
like that. I’m not necessarily out there now. Doing the undercover work. You
know, obviously, through a significant portion of my career I was but right now
now.

07:51

Yeah, we
noticed you brought some pictures of you undercover. So can you explain some of
them? Like what? Yeah, just to kind of the scenario.

07:59

So first
one, obviously, is an undercover officer, the goal is for nobody to know that
you’re a cop. Right? So sometimes that’s in your appearance. So I got the one
where I’ve got the 711 outfit. Yeah, that was a good one that worked out. Well.
Now, with that being said, I know like, you guys have had Tegan on here before,
right? And like the guy who kind of wrote the book on like these big expansive
undercover operations, super Hollywood, if you will, most of the time. It’s
very street level stuff, right? That’s what we’re combat. That’s what we’re
combating in Fort Worth, right? We want to get the ones that are creating those
quality of life that life issues, if you will, so we’re kind of going after
some of the small time guys. So to do that, you know, you’re gonna have to
basically get something to distract the person from like, I wonder if this
guy’s a cop? Well, if I’m wearing a 711 outfit, maybe that’s what he thinks I
work out. Who knows? Yeah, so

08:49

Oh, so
it’s like, you don’t even have to justify the 711 where it’s just like, Yeah,
more of a confusion.

08:55

Yeah,
yeah, precisely. Yeah. Um,

08:59

what
about that one?

09:01

This
one’s just pretty. This one. Sadly, this was just kind of the generic day to
day look that I had for many years. Yeah. I mean, it’s very embarrassing, but

09:11

you find
yourself going out after work and things like that. Being successful with the
ladies or anything like that? No, no.

09:19

Last
ones the best. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, the last one this was this is how a lot of
people at the city know me because I had an obnoxious Lee large red beard. Oh,
yeah. Prior to beards being a cool thing or whatever. I’m probably like, one of
my 27 in that picture. I look like I’m 55. Right.

09:40

You look
a little heavier.

09:41

There’s
no way that guy’s a cop in that picture.

09:43

Yeah, I
wouldn’t think so. I mean, a lot of people didn’t think I was so

09:48

I think
he looked like he fit the part there. It worked out. Well. Yeah. So I’m not a
drug dealer, but I wouldn’t picture you as a cop there.

09:55

Well, it
kind of backfired, though. I mean, an obnoxious large red beard after a while
when everybody’s like, Oh, Dude with red beard Right? Kind of backfires a
little bit.

10:03

You can
only go so far with the undercover right in a small town or, you know, like a
reasonably sized town.

10:09

Yeah,
for sure. I mean, you know, definitely something that we ran across. Yeah.
Yeah.

10:14

Well,
and then the other picture, there is a whole lot of guns, right. A whole lot of
guns. Yeah. So tell us about the gun show work that you’ve done. Um,

10:25

so.
Okay, so a lot of cops work part time jobs, right? Yeah, there’s kind of two
elements where I’ve worked at that’s not starting from that. Okay, but So, this
one originated, I believe this was somewhere around 10 years ago. And this gun
trafficking at the time was significant. You know, it still exists, don’t get
me wrong, but it was a huge problem in the mid 2000s 2010 2012 areas. So this
one started right here in Fort Worth, where my partner Travis and I recovered.
It was 10 or 15, ak 40 sevens from a guy that had bad intentions with them in
terms of smuggling them. Yeah. So the recovery of that, and this kind of gets
off topic or into another topic, but the idea of somebody of an informant a
snitch, if you will, right. And so, basically, that led us to the recovery of
the 10 here, took us to San Antonio, like kinda, this is kind of a Hollywood
story. I mean, we get these 10 guns next thing you know, we’re in a friggin
minivan driving to San Antonio, the day of right, they have at like four
o’clock in the morning, the front door of this, like drugs stash house, like
cartel houses getting blown open, and there’s the rest of them in the house. So
there’s another 40 or 50, ar 15 and ak 40 sevens in that house. So, like I
said, there’s some Hollywood elements to it that are super crazy. And that’s
the one weird thing about you know, about being a cop is I can be behind my
computer, you know, reading a report or something like that. And next thing,
you never know what’s in store, right? Like, you never know what’s gonna come
up. So,

12:01

and it
does happen where you may be in a vehicle going four hours south to another
city. Immediately, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure. It’s not timed out, like
the Hollywood stuff. We’re ever on

12:13

good
time either. Right? It’s never like, well, it’s good thing. I don’t have
anything to do tonight. Yeah.

12:20

Yeah. J
couple weeks ago, maybe it’s less time than that. There was a huge $16 million
meth bust. Uh huh. You involved in this operation? Or can you tell us and then
how, what was going on in that? Is there a story you can share? So that

12:34

way, you
know, truthfully, I don’t have a whole lot of facts on that. That was if I’m
not mistaken. I believe it was Tarrant County. different organs. Yeah, there
was quite a few involved in that. My team specifically didn’t have any role in
that. So I don’t have a lot of backstory on that or enough.

12:47

He tells
me more about your like a daily role of a narc officer not use the desk, you
said, but what does it guy in the narcotics unit do on a daily basis, generally
speaking,

12:59

okay. So
at the municipal level, like I said, we kind of address those quality of life
issues, right to where the most common thing we get, let’s say, we get 15
complaints of different drug houses a day in our unit, okay. And most of the
time, like I said, it’s going to be the neighbor calling or somebody down the
street calling in or landlord calling whatever the case may be that says, hey,
there’s something going on at this house. There’s a lot of people coming and
going. I think they’re selling drugs. Yeah. So what we do I mean, we have some
initial steps that we take to vet that information, verify that information.
And then we use a couple different tactics to investigate that if we think
there’s something to it right. So you know, obviously, you’ve got your
Hollywood style stuff, or the undercover officer goes up to the house and acts
like a, you know, a drug buyer, a drug addict, or whatever. But our bread and
butter definitely comes with the use of our confidential informants are
snitches as they’re, yeah. Affectionately known as I suppose. You know, it’s
ironic because or it’s interesting because society, you know, whether it be
through popular culture, media, whatever the case may be, everybody’s like, Oh,
man, I would never rat on anybody. I’d never snitch on anybody. There is no
honor amongst the ifs, right. The moment is facing jail time, right? Especially
not facing jail time, right. The moment somebody gets caught 99 times out of
101 of the first things is like, what do I need to do so I don’t go to jail.
Yeah, right. And they’re gonna make sense. I mean, they’ll turn in their mom
they’ll turn their brother their best friend.

14:32

Yeah.
Well, no, I don’t

14:36

like
that. So even if we’re not doing

14:39

me like
my parole off

14:42

apologize.

14:45

hot
zones in Tarrant County for drug problems. Wait,

14:48

it’s
hot. Sounds like can he use that is that cop language?

14:52

Exclusively
cop is a cop is hotbeds for

14:55

drug
activity in this in Tarrant County. Um, you know,

14:58

every
site To town basically is how like in the police department we it’s broken up
into sides of town, right. And every side of town has a has small pockets where
it’s a problem. Yeah. What I don’t want to do is say, you know, this
neighborhood has a problem, or this neighborhood has a problem, right? Because
there is the one thing that happens with drugs, there’s this idea or concept of
people being stigmatized or neighborhoods being stigmatized, right. And then
once that happens, once that stigma is attached, it’s hard to get rid of it.
Yeah. Right. So yeah, there’s pockets I mean, it you know, you guys are from
here. I mean, you know, what, what you’re going to hear, you know, is the bad
you know, the bad area, the bad part of town. Those are the most common places

15:45

know
where we get our stuff from. I was wondering, yeah, tell us where other places
might

15:48

Yeah,
no, yes.

15:51

I’m serious.
No doubt Jake. Were drug world these drugs, these bad things like fentanyl and
heroin? Where’s it coming from? And how’s it getting here?

15:58

So the I
mean, obviously, the vast majority of it is smuggled typically from the
southern border. Right. And that’s, that’s just there are in the intelligence
that we get through the people that we talk to. Yeah, so that’s where the the
vast majority, but again, drugs have kind of taken on a different role to the
way they come into the way they come to Fort Worth. You take things something
like marijuana, or the new edibles, the THC edibles, those kind of deals,
right. Well, now, all of a sudden, instead, historically, 15 years ago, the
vast majority of that was smuggled through the southern border to Fort Worth or
to whatever its destination was. Yeah. Well, now when you look at the the
things like marijuana, the THC edibles, those are shipped in just via the US
Postal Service, FedEx, whatever the case may be, yeah, to an address here in
Fort Worth right to whoever’s buying it. So that’s kind of changed a little
bit. And has created a whole nother slew of problems and

16:54

well,
probably prioritizations. Right. Like, it’s like, is it really worth I mean,
right, we’re talking about like this huge fentanyl bust, and how can you
appropriately justify when bordering states have something going on? That’s
okay. But we don’t you know, it’s like, jeez, Louise, we have unlimited
resources. Where do we put them? Yeah. So

17:15

that’s,
that’s one thing right now. That’s kind of that’s a hard that’s hard, right?
Because the law says it’s illegal, right. You know, marijuana, even to this day
is still illegal. Yeah. Not that big of a deal. That’s kind of a person. You
know, I mean, it’s an opinion based deal, right? Some people think it’s a big
deal. Some don’t whatever the case might be, it’s still on the books as being
illegal. But how’s it enforced now? Right. Yeah, society’s views on it has
changed entirely. Right to Work. It’s, it’s more or less, except that at this
point, and fine. If it’s accepted, it’s accepted, then maybe get it off the out
of the law books, right. Because it creates the struggle. And it’s creating a,
like, the marijuana stuff. Specifically, what it’s doing where there’s this
conflict of whether it’s illegal, you know, is it illegal? Or is it illegal?
It’s creating violence is what it’s doing? Yeah. Because now all of a sudden,
you have this ease of obtaining that through, you know, through the mail
through whatever your sources and you know, one of the other states. And so you
get, you get these 19 year old kids, these 20 year old kids who are making a
lot of money, right? They may make 510 grand a week. This is a cash business,
obviously. Yeah. So what do you think a 19 year old does? Who makes $10,000 a
week in cash,

18:26

buys a
bunch of Vineyard Vines shirts? No, no, they

18:29

don’t.
What they do is they get on every social media outlet that they can and hold up
stacks of money, right? Hey, look how much money I’m making. This is awesome.
Yeah, you’ve become the next victim. Right? Like now you are now a target to be
robbed. Going back to Narcos. Yes. This recent season. Not a spoiler alert at
all. I believe that was the opening scene, if I’m not mistaken. Where the three
guys run into the house to the drug house in they immediately just start
shooting the people inside the drug house. Right? Yeah, that’s exactly how it
happens.

19:02

Yeah,
it’s like, in true detective with Matthew McConaughey when they lay there, it’s
just a robbery. It’s just a straight up robbery. It’s just you’re robbing for
different stuff. Right.

19:11

And, and
so that’s the unfortunate part. Because at the end of the day, the one thing
that I have learned, right, and my views on drugs, my views on laws are
probably a little bit different than a lot of cops, right? I don’t know, maybe.
I don’t want to say more empathetic, but I have some empathy towards, you know,
how people were raised and what they’ve gone through that’s led them to die
sometime this crazy life, if you will. But yeah, you know, the problem is like
the the associated violence is the issue, right? I mean, there’s I don’t I
don’t have the answer to how to solve the drug problem. Right. If I did, I
probably wouldn’t be sitting here, right? Yeah. Um, but what I do know is what
we’re doing. It doesn’t work. Right. I mean, how long have we been doing this
since 19? 85

20:01

Is that
what, like the Reagan kind of war on drugs? Right? Because

20:05

the
whole war starts, look where we’re at today. It’s no better now. In fact, it
could be worse now than it was then. And at what expense? Yeah. Right. I mean,
that’s, that’s the unfortunate part. Like I said that, you know, like, you go
back to that concept of somebody being stigmatized. That’s a real problem, because
what happens with that person? So let’s say you have a 19 year old kid who grew
up in this hard environment, right? He grew up poor, she grew up poor, whatever
the case may be, well, you know, they sought to eat, they still have to provide
for themselves. If they’re a little bit older, and they have kids, I still got
to provide for their kids. So their survival kicks, and people are going to do
what they what they’ve seen or what they know how to do. Well, now all of a
sudden, if you’re that 19 year old kid, and you’re like, Well, hey, to make it,
I’m going to sell cocaine. So you get caught with an ounce of cocaine. 28
grams, not in the grand scheme of things. Not that much, right? But it’s
enough. That’s a

20:58

lot to
me. Why would I don’t do that. But I would 28 grams, like,

21:04

yeah,
it’s a sandwich bag a quarter of the way full, right? But here’s what happens.
So then you get this 19 year old kid, he gets convicted. And let’s say he goes
to prison for eight years. And he gets out and he’s now 27 years old. Yeah. Now
he’s like, Man, I don’t want to go back to prison for eight years. I’m going to
I’m going to do life, right? I’m going to go get a job. Yeah. And then when
they go get a job, guess what happens? They fill out the application, and they
get to the dreaded question

21:31

convictive.
Then what?

21:35

I think
the question is even simpler, though, Jake, is you make $10,000 a week, doing
it on your own time, or you make 15 bucks an hour, maybe doing some, you know,
menial job that, you know, it’s not at your own terms. I mean, how do you
convince a kid over here to you should be doing this and not that it’s, that’s
the problem. Right?

21:55

Yeah. So
that’s, I mean, there’s there, there obviously, is a huge issue with that.
Because that I mean, that is true. But one thing, you know, over the last two
decades, I’ve had the opportunity to talk to a lot of people who’ve been in a
lot of trouble. Yeah. The one thing, the vast majority of them, not all of
them. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there is evil in this world, right? There’s
evil right here in this setting. There’s no doubt about it. But the vast
majority of them when you talk to them, the one thing that they can’t pay for
the one thing that they can’t buy, is losing it the way I always describe it to
him, and I tell them exactly what you say, right? Like, hey, you’re not going
to walk around with a pocket full of money. Right? You’re going to have
financial struggles, like most people in the US have, right. But the one thing
that you don’t have, you don’t have to constantly look over your shoulder.
Yeah. Right. Like you don’t have that fear of being robbed. You don’t have that
fear of being apprehended or caught. Right. I mean, there’s a lot of value in
that. Absolutely. But with all that being said, though, some I sadly, I think
some people are completely fine with going to prison. Right? Which makes no
sense to me.

23:04

Well,
yeah, we’ve talked before and like you almost have stated that some of them are
so I don’t know what the what’s the word when you get kicked real callous from
something, you know, like they’re immune, or that’s just doesn’t bother them
anymore. Like, it’s like a game. It’s just a simple cat and mouse like a super
high stakes cat mouse. But it’s not like us thinking about it. Like, oh my
gosh, somebody could lose their life here. Somebody could go spend their life
in prison. It’s more like, yep. If the cops catch like it’s a total game. Yeah.
No, I

23:34

mean,
and that’s the thing. I mean, if there’s no fear of consequence, then what?
What’s the motive motivating or driving force to change? Yeah. So I don’t know.
Like I said, I mean, it’s, it’s unfortunate, because I don’t know. I call it
vilifying? I don’t know if that’s a word or not, right. But you can’t I don’t
turn everybody I come across or have over the last two decades. I don’t look at
them like a villain. Like I said, don’t get me wrong. Some of them are are bad
people. Right. But many of them make a living, right. They’re no different.
Yeah, it’s, it’s crazy. I mean, like, you know, I mean, I see guys out and
about in the city that that I’ve arrested or that I’ve known for 20 years,
right. I mean, I worked in a very small area in this city, right. And, you
know, a lot of dudes, you know, some of those guys know me, and they see me out
and, and, you know, general public. And it’s nothing more than a head nod.
Right? Yeah. I don’t have that. And this kind of leads into another topic. Fort
Worth, though, is, in my opinion, different. Right? This is a way different
city. Yeah. I’ve never worked anywhere else. As an adult. I’ve never lived
anywhere else. Right. But what I do know is the things that I see on TV, which
I rarely watch, but when I do, like all these controversies that you see are
things that we typically don’t have to deal with, and in large part, that’s
because of the people who live here. Yeah. I mean, it’s, I mean, you guys know
as well as I do. I mean, there is nowhere else on this on this planet that I’d
want to live. Right. I mean, it’s, uh, you know, the the way the citizens treat
the police in Fort Worth, it’s got to be different than anywhere else, I think.
Yeah, I mean, like said, I’ve never worked anywhere else, but I do know over
what two decades of experiences has offered. Yeah, yeah. Which is a cool, it’s
a cool thing. I mean, like, you know, if a cop walks into, you know, railhead,
or whatever, restaurant, nine times out of 10, they’re gonna go up and pay and
they’re going to get the, hey, somebody else took over your meal. Yeah. Yeah.
Like, and again, it’s, you know, it’s that it’s those kinds of things, or the
other thing that happens every year. It’s almost like a, I don’t wanna say a
celebrity, right? But when you whenever you go in somewhere, and you’re in
uniform, which I don’t wear a uniform, and I haven’t most of my career, but
when I do whenever you walk in somewhere, it is constant. Thanks. Yeah. Right.
Like, thank you for what you do. And cops list. You know, cops appreciate that.
Right? Because it kit there are times where it can be thankless. Right? Yeah.
So I mean, that’s, it’s a, it’s a really cool.

26:08

Well,
and I think even our, like, government is very approachable. You know, I mean,
even our city council and mayor, and I mean, that it seems that this is still a
very communal community, if that makes sense. Like, yeah, like people, they do,
they are approachable and Walker, and they do they make time for one another.
And I do agree that in other cities, from what you see and hear out there, it’s
they’ve lost that route somehow.

26:36

And I
think so, that kind of leads into another struggle, though, a little bit,
right, because we’ve, I would say, we’ve kind of live life in a bubble here.
You know, what you see all these? You know, these, you know, there could be legitimate,
you know, bad things that police have done elsewhere. Yeah, or things that are
perceived as bad, you know, like said, I don’t follow any of the these national
stories or anything like that, because it’s almost a little bit depressing,
right. But what happens is, so now, even here in Fort Worth, where we’re not
used to this kind of stuff, we have to start paying the price to a certain
degree. Yeah, whether that’s changing the way we do things, right, which has
has happened. And this is not a, you know, I’m trying to I don’t want to come
across as negative, right? Because I mean, I still believe that we’ve got the
best cops in the US. And yeah, you know, and we do this in the best city in the
US 100%. But all of a sudden, now, we’re, you know, we’re paying the price for
things that have happened elsewhere. And who ultimately, who ultimately pays
the price are the people who need us the most? Right. And that’s the
unfortunate part. Because when we’ve had to shift our tactics so much, too. I
mean, truthfully, they’re not as effective. Right. And it’s hard. I don’t want
to go like, like, too specific, because there are, you know, there are still
some there, there are still some dangerous things that the police do. Yeah.
Right. And so I don’t want to get like too specific. But we’ve had to change
things so significantly, that personally, I think effectiveness has been lost.
And it’s not for a lack of caring. It’s not for, you know, some kind of protest
amongst the police at all. Right? I mean, the cops here still want to, like are
still super passionate. Yeah, about doing this job. But the cop across the US
right now is super confused. Yeah. Right. Because it’s like, I’m just trying to
do my job, man. Like, I don’t want to, you know, like the the, you know, what’s
happened is the police are now judged on the scale of perfection. And when you
use perfection, as the as the hard line, like if it’s not perfect, you’re in
trouble. Well, guess what people do they shut down. Yeah. And rightfully so.
Yeah.

28:57

Yeah. So
I checked J dub that way a lot. Look at look at the founder. And he comes
close, but we’re never there. And I think that’s why sometimes he doesn’t bring
his A game to the show. But now that you’ve explained it, I understand. Yeah.

29:12

Yeah.
We’re always learning around here. Yes. So Jake, back to back to narcotics.
Anywhere. There’s narcotics in the scale. There’s the cartel. What can you tell
us about the cartel in this town? Tarrant County? If there’s what I don’t know
what you can share what you can’t but they’re operating here, correct?

29:30

Yeah. I
mean, they definitely have a presence here. You know, they’re, I don’t think
their role is inflated in the media, right? I mean, it’s a real problem. And
again, something else that has changed with the way society was in Fort Worth,
we were always in this like, kind of protected bubble. Yeah, where and we’ve
got cartel, but they’re typically not they’re not over violent towards the
police and typically don’t stray too much outside of their areas, if you will.
I don’t think that’s the case right now. Right. I mean, I think the way 10
years ago, I would have sent an officer to a location, you know, to deal with
the cartel. And yeah, and had little had little concern with that. Sure. I
don’t my concern now would not be it would be a significant concern now.

30:31

Now, is
that because demand has increased presence of cartels? You know, or is it a
combination of all those things that have kind of risen up?

30:41

No. So I
think there’s a couple. There are several things. One, you know, we’ve seen
this city has grown significantly in the last two decades and even the last
decade. Which, you know, I don’t know, we had a good for a long time where
we’re like, the smallest big city in the US. Right. And we weren’t didn’t
always have to deal with big city problems. Well, not so much the case now.
Right. So I don’t know that I think demand has increased just simply because
the population has increasing, right. That’s obvious. I think that, you know,
trying to think out of phrases. So police work is is unique, right? There’s a
there’s concepts or elements where subject matter expertise is important. Yeah.
And in a big city, it’s really important, right? Because we, who else do we
turn to? Right? When we are the crime fighters in this town, we need to be the
experts in every element. Yeah. Well, I mean, you look at certain things like,
I don’t know, like a retirement issue, right? When that retirement plan
changes, now, I get why, and I’m not bitter by it, or whatever, I understand
why, but there’s unintended consequences that happen when things like that
change, right? Because what you have now you have cops who were like, you know,
if you’re a 22 year old kid, and you’re like, Hey, I’m gonna do this for the
next 25 years, I’m gonna retire when I’m 47. Presumably, go work somewhere else
afterwards. But to get that retirement to a point to where it’s worthwhile, you
now have to promote, right? You have to keep climbing the corporate ladder,
right? To improve your your pension. Well, whereas before, you didn’t have to
do that, right? You were able, we had these, we had these cops who were cops
for, like 30 years. And they were very, very good at what they did.

32:32

And they
became kind of experts in their community and know the players and things like
that. Yeah, I didn’t think about that change kind of

32:41

get into
that thing is it continues, right? Because, you know, we’re at this last, I
mean, I call it the last generation, right to where we still got, you know,
like I said, I mean, I can I can say this all day long. I mean, we’ve got the,
you know, easily the best cops in the in the country, and some of our units,
right? You’d look at our homicide detectives, our SWAT or NARC, guys, they are
best in the business. Like if you kill somebody in Fort Worth, right? And the
most of those detectives that are there now, they’re so good, you are going to
get caught there. They’re seldom is the who done it. Yeah, right. Yeah. I mean,
they’re, that’s a craft that they’ve perfected. But at some point, that’s going
to go away. The reason they’re good, is they have tenure. They’re super
passionate and motivated about what they do. And they can stay there for a very
long time

33:32

and
still receive the same benefits, they’ll receive the same benefit.

33:35

But
that’s not going to be the case for much longer. That’s very interesting.

33:39

So um, I
once was told by a Fort Worth cop that, like math was the line is.

33:50

But that
was your question.

33:52

That
math was like the root of all evil, right? Like, I mean, if like, he kind of
started to try to explain to me that, like meth, like, kicks off so much
violence, like it’s crazy. The exponential kind of thing. Is that, is that
accurate? Is it now fentanyl or something like that? So I

34:11

don’t
necessarily buy into that. I mean, you know, there are I mean, they’re all bad,
right? I mean, it’s not, you know, I think they all have their issues. They’re
all bad. I don’t know that one is necessarily worse than another meth does
bring about the unique meth look. That happened. Yeah. Right. Which is
incredible. Just, it’s crazy.

34:34

Well,
quick, describe what the Bethel look is.

34:37

Typically,
the teeth are rotted out. You have the sores everywhere. And the the other
thing, like this table right here would be and I’ll tell you why in a second.
This table right here would be like a, like a meth addicts dream. Bricks. Every
time you go into these houses where it’s a meth user or meth dealer. It’s
drawers of random stuff like typically, it’s like, is there any reason you have
200 feet of coax cable perfectly rolled up next to a VCR that you took apart
five years ago and next to a sewing machine? Right? Like it’s just this random?
Like,

35:14

I think
you’ve talked about the teeth check the randomness of stuff check. I believe.

35:23

I’ll be
calling you later.

35:25

It’s at
a different level. So but, but it going back to your question as far as one
being worse than the other? No, I don’t think so. Okay, um, you know, there you
look at the destruction of crack cocaine. I mean, that was a legitimate you
know, just

35:44

this
crack still around. Do you still?

35:47

Not not
at the level that it was? Yeah, it really, really died off probably in the last
seven, eight years. It seems like

35:54

what’s
bigger fentanyl? Like the opioids or meth? are tied? Tied? Really? Yeah. Yeah.

36:02

That’s
my personal list. The

36:03

new we
read about this, we asked you offline but what’s the thing called the drink the
new drug of choice for some of these idiots because it’s killing people. Right
as well.

36:11

So so
the drink not necessarily that’s just typically a pro magazine with codeine
cough syrup mixed with you know, whatever kind of pop that one would drink.
Right? Um,

36:21

wait
like pop you mean in soda? Yeah, like, like, give it a pop that’s coming out in
me. I apologize. Guys that Yeah.

36:30

That’s
funny. So that that’s, that’s very pop in there. You know, it’s got a lot of
popularity from I guess the entertainment world if you will. Right. That’s
where it seems Oh, seriously. No other songs about it. Right. Like, I mean,
it’s just crazy. There’s a lot of

36:46

a lot of
drugs. Yeah, they just sip this drink all day long. It keeps giving this
continue to hire somebody like that. Yeah. Tell me what it is.

36:53

Well, I
mean, it’s coding. So I think it’s gonna like calm them down significantly, if
you will. Well, now they’re with fentanyl.

36:58

I would
imagine so right coding.

37:02

This but
it what it is funny, because when that first came on, I probably 1520 years
ago, they used to drink it out of baby bottles. Wait,

37:11

the
drink was like 20 years ago? It’s that old? Yeah. You know, it’s been I’ve
never heard of it. It’s been

37:17

around
for a while but they’ve changed it. Now. They you know, it’s always in the
styrofoam cup mixed with a serious Yeah, but the good thing is they got away
from the baby bottle. The baby bottle drove me nuts. Because, you know, I mean,
I’m a 23 year old kid, basically. Like, I mean, I’m a cop now, man. I know
everything right? I’m driving around. I start pulling these cars over. I’m
like, why are all these guys

37:40

baby
bottle? Yeah, they don’t even have babies. But it’s crazy.

37:44

Then
after a while, I’m like, uh, you know, I learned I’m like, Ah, is it?

37:47

Is it
like red like cough syrup color is?

37:51

Purple.
Purple or green? Yeah, typically purple though.

37:54

Yeah.
Wait, it’s, it’s a cough syrup. And what is ELSS?

37:58

It’s so
it’s a liquid form of promethazine with coding.

38:04

Just how
to make it.

38:07

I’ll
show you later. Okay. Well, Jake, on the screen behind you, you want to look,
we showed a picture of a bust when you have a bunch of automatic rifles? Do
guns and drug drug culture coincide? Is that a normal thing? When you go on
these these busts? And during the course of your work, are you finding lots of
scary scary guns?

38:29

Yeah,
yeah, that’s one thing. You know, kind of what I touched on earlier, you know,
the way we’ve had to change, like what we’re doing, right? Because do I think
there’s an increase 100%? Like, I mean, I haven’t done any kind of formal
research into it. But I do have two decades of experience that tells me I think
this might be getting a little bit worse, right? Yeah. In terms of the amount
of farms that we’re recovering. Um, so yeah, I mean, they definitely

38:59

what
about amount of cash? Like, what’s the most the biggest amount of cash you’ve
ever seized? And then, um, is that increasing to

39:07

see? Well?
Yes, kind of, okay, so the biggest amount I’ve seen 900,000

39:16

Was that
Oh, okay. That’s yeah, we’re talking about big amounts. Oh, that GSR that

39:20

in his
office? That’s, that’s, that’s the best.

39:23

Are we
talking there’s stacks of just a remainder what happened bundled

39:26

and how
big of an area does something like like as big as this table is?

39:30

They had
it in too big duffel bag surprisingly. Yeah. So I mean, there’s other times
where, you know, I mean, hundreds of 1000s

39:38

I mean,
what’s the other part of that you’re gonna say that that’s kind of a weird
like, that’s on the increase like the amount of drugs are on the increase and
the money or or

39:47

so I
gotta phrase this without like, I said, I don’t want to be negative I you know,
I know that the you know, the police and I’m only speaking for the guys that I
know and like as a I work with you, but the police here, you know, we know how
to do the job. Right. And we did very well, for a very long time.

40:10

Get down
before it got to levels like that. Yeah. And when

40:13

the
rules change, and I don’t think anybody, nobody asked for the change as a
whole, right. And I don’t know that people are necessarily recognizing the
consequence of the change. Like I said, That is who pays the price? Well, the
people who pay the price for the police having to having to change our tactics,
are the people who need the police the most unfortunately, yeah. And and I want
to be clear, I’m not talking about, you know, by no means if a if there’s a
corrupt cop, I don’t know, a cop that wouldn’t that wouldn’t catch them
themselves. Right. Right. Oh, good cop that I know wants to work with with
somebody that’s dirty. Yeah. Right. And, you know, fortunately, that’s not
something we have to deal with. Really? I’m not saying that we haven’t. I mean,
we have Yeah, I had a almost four year run through internal affairs. So I mean,
I saw my fair share of that. But, you know, when the when the rules have
changed, it’s hard, because this is the kind of stuff we want to get off the
street. Yeah. Right. And we know the tactics that we have to use to get this
off the street. But when the tactics that we have to use, we can’t use them, it
makes it hard.

41:22

Yeah.
Yeah, that’s really interesting. I’ve never, I’ve talked to a lot of cops, we
have cops that are buddies yourself, could never talk to a cop that it would
say that the cops don’t protect other cops if the other cop is the bad guy. I
mean, that’s really refreshing to hear. I wouldn’t have never heard you might
say that, like, that’s

41:38

Oh,
yeah. I mean, and that’s the thing. I mean, that’s, that, again, probably one
of the reasons why I do not watch TV, right? Because it’s, it’s always super
negative towards the cops. And it’s like, you know, I know a lot of cops by
trade, if you will. I know, their families. I know them personally. Right. And
I’m not gonna, you know, throughout this blanket statement that this person’s
bad because of this, and this, you know, I mean, everybody, you know, every cop
that I know, right? I mean, now I keep my circle small. Yeah. And I mean,
honestly, it is a weird job, because you can talk about it for days on end and
it can consume you. So outside of work, I really don’t hang out with too many
cops, right? I mean, obviously talk to him, things like that. But um, you know,
the the idea of somebody tarnishing the effort that the you know, I put in or
other good cops have put in, you know, we’re not, we’re not gonna sit there and
tolerate it. Right. So if somebody is doing wrong, you’re gonna be the first
ones to report it.

42:36

Yeah.
What’s the worst thing you can call a COP? COP? IG? What are some other?

42:43

I have
no bad words. What

42:44

he does
was run through some names. I don’t want to repeat them. He was saying a lot of
bad stuff about cops. I know. JW will not accurate. I’m not buying it. I’m not
buying.

42:58

We love
what you guys

42:59

do. No,
I’m kidding. I mean, do you guys like, has, obviously I mean, this is kind of a
I’m going somewhere that, you know, how do you deal with kind of where we are
with stuff? Because I know you outside of here. And I know that, you know, I
know who you are. I know, the one thing that I really appreciated is the way
you work. Right? The way you work is, I’ve seen people come up to you some of
those that you’ve busted. And they have respect enough for you to give you the
nod. Right. And I and I also know, the way that some folks get good intel and
information is by having good relationships, you know, and so, um, how I mean,
how do we, how can we get out of where we are, you know, and back to that kind
of, you know, in a respectable Safeway wreck. I’m not saying I hope so,

43:51

because
I know, you know what I’ve done, and I’m not, you know, I don’t want this to
come across like I’m bragging, patting myself on the back, but I know what I’ve
done and it works, right. Yeah, I know that. The secret to it all, is to treat
people politely. Right. Yeah. For people with respect. That’s something we’ve
always done here for

44:12

Britain.
With respect and kindness, ew, I back to you, Jake.

44:18

is like
looking at your phone when I’m in the middle of a conversation with someone

44:24

that
Jake, could you talk about if you’re able to win any of your real successful
busts? Some of the jobs you’ve been involved with back in the day maybe when
you’re in the on the field that were

44:36

Yeah,
yeah. We had a guest on here who lost like some kind of cooking device like a
large smoker. Are you familiar with

44:44

those
the the Smokies a friend of the show J A friend of the show, so John Bunnell,
that’s, again, going back to that idea of

44:52

them,
we’re trying to get free food from them.

44:56

Going
back to that idea of when you you know, I, when when you don’t look at
everybody, as a villain, right? People who don’t look like me, people who
haven’t lived the same life as me if I don’t view them as a villain, right, and
I’m not talking to them any differently, any different than I’m talking to you
guys, right? Yeah. I mean, it’s the one thing I always say is like, I mean, I
could easily with a lot of these dudes that I’ve arrested, we could be at the
bar drinking a beer and talking about everything, but that stuff and it’s
gonna, the conversations gonna be flowing. Yeah. So we go back to that smoker
story? Well, it again, going back to the idea of sometimes things just take
weird turns throughout the day of a cop, right? Yeah. I am at my desk. Reading,
typing,

45:44

eating a
doughnut. I said bad to ask, I mean, our dog or is it maybe a Danish or you
know, Eclair?

45:58

trom
usto gotten used to it. So sit doing whatever mundane task at my desk, my phone
rings, and it’s a detective that works over on the side of town. He said, Hey,
you, I won’t throw out names. But he goes, Hey, do you know such and such? He
gives me the name? I said, Yeah. No. He’s like, Well, I think he may know the
whereabouts of this smoker. They got stolen from barbells. And I had seen it on
Facebook, like the week before? Yes. For whatever it was. I was like, really? I
was like, Okay. I was like, Well, let me make some calls. Let me see what I
come up with. And, you know, again, the dynamics that there’s not one. I don’t
want to call them a criminal or a bad guy because they’re not but for the sake
of this, of being concise. There’s not one criminal that I talked to, that’s
going to admit that they talked to me. Right, right. Even though they’ll call
me and they’ll feed me little tidbits of information, things like that. So I
make call and say, hey, you know, I think about this smoker that got stolen.
Yeah. Immediately. The defense mechanisms come up. No. And I’m like, Come on,
man. I was like, you shoot me straight.

47:08

It’s
like a 300 pound device. Man. It

47:10

was like
it was it was big. Yeah. So eventually, he or she is like, Yeah, where are you
at? I was like, I’m at the store. And they knew the store that I was talking
about. And I’m in the parking lot. And phone etiquette amongst drug dealers, or
the criminal element sometimes is not the greatest. It’s usually super
aggressive, even though they don’t mean to be aggressive. Yeah. And it’s very
ambiguous. Like this guy. He yells at me. Where are you at? I’m at the store,
yells back, I’ll be there and hangs up. So I’m like, Well, what store? Does
that mean? You’ll be here in five minutes or five hours, like, and they call
back and it just goes straight to voicemail. Whatever. So yeah. 10 minutes
later, this car comes pulling in the parking lot. The guy that I know, he’s
waving his hand. He’s like, Come on, follow me. I’m by myself. Yeah. And I’m
just like this. Yeah. So I’m like, How can you? Where are we going? He’s like,
Come on, just follow me. And I’m like, now here’s the cool thing. Like some of
these dudes I’ve known for 20 years or longer. Yeah, right. So am I concerned
that he’s gonna take me to this back alley and assassinate me? No, not at all.
But it’s still a little bit like

48:24

Sure.
You got a radio with you?

48:26

No, no,
still a little bit uncomfortable. So he stops real quick. And he’s like, Wait,
you got in the car with no, I’m falling. Okay. So we stopped sort of all along.
All right. Yes. And he’s like, Hey, do you want me to get my trailer? And I was
like, No, I was like, I can get a truck down here. He’s like, No, I’m gonna get
my trailer if you need and I’m like, No, I’ll get a truck because Howard then
how are we going to get back to bond else right. It’s gonna look super weird.

48:50

Yeah, so
we might incriminate you. Yes. Your trailer. Yeah.

48:54

So we go
drive in the back streets of this neighborhood. And we pull up to this house.
No joke. I’m in the windows have plywood on him. It’s a vacant house. He or she
jumps out of the car. Come on, follow me. I’m here to town. Jake. That’s pretty
close. And I know that place. Yeah. So. Yeah, exactly. So we walked to the
backyard and under this gigantic blue tarp is the smoker and I’m like, that’s
pretty cool. So how am I gonna? I was like, this thing’s like 500 pounds. Now
what? Yeah, I’m like, Well, I can call a bunch coughing just carried over. Next
thing I know. I I’m going out to the front yard to my car, like to get my phone
or whatever. Maybe my radio I can’t remember. And like three dudes pull up
there like, so. If you need help with it. I’m like, kind of. I can’t get it.
Yeah. Okay. So three dudes, four dudes from the neighborhood with loaded up we
get a truck. Oh, yeah. And the truck, put it in the back of we get a cop truck
over there, put on the back of the truck and drive it down to bond else. I told
the guy I was like, hey, You know, you I know what you do you know what I do?
And, you know, at the end of the day, we’re never find in this thing in the
back of some abandoned house in the middle of the neighborhood covered up under
a blue tarp. Yeah. How about a couple 100 bucks like a reward money for? Yeah.
I was like, come on. I was like, a couple. I mean, that’s the least I could do.
Yeah. Yeah. And I tell them the story. Because if you remember, this is like at
the beginning of the pandemic, man, and he’s doing where he’s doing those
family meals. Oh, yeah. Like just lines down the street, like doing some
phenomenal things in these times we’ve never experienced before in our life.
Yeah. And I explained that to this guy. I said, Hey, look, I you know, this is
where it came from. And some of those dudes I mean, they go drive the streets
just like we do. So he knew. And I was like, you know, what, what he’s doing?
It’s not about just owning a restaurant, right? I mean, it’s going above and
beyond it down to doing it the Fort Worth way. Yep. Which we’re all accustomed
to. And even he, he or she replies with the Fort Worth way of like, Nah, don’t
worry about it. Just, you know. And he even is like, complimentary. Yeah, like,
towards John Bano, like minions. Pretty cool. What he’s doing, man. I was like,
Alright, so we took it down there. And there you go. That’s I arrested

51:15

the guy.
No, or somebody did. And he got he was so wonderful.

51:18

So the
one who actually took it, yes, was arrested. Now, there’s a backstory of how it
ended up where it ended up. And, you know, my logic on that, because the
police, one of the greatest tools that we have is this idea of discretion.
Right? We don’t have to arrest everybody we come across, you don’t

51:37

say I
don’t? I am saying we don’t. That’s not what they told me five times.

51:43

I don’t
know the circumstance that I don’t even want to know. But we have this awesome
tool called discretion to where we don’t have to arrest everybody we come
across, and sometimes we reach a compromise. Right. And I think, you know,
under those circumstances, pretty fair compromise. They got it back. And, you
know, the ultimately the one responsible, you know, was was charged and very
cool.

52:03

Yeah.
One more question. Please. Let me I think that’s a great story. That’s a great
story. Because for asking me.

52:10

Welcome
just trying to be a good host. scary situation you’ve ever been in, if you can
share?

52:16

Yeah, so
I guess I probably anticipated this question. I think cops have a skewed view
of fear. Maybe? Especially. I mean, I’ve always been like, if

52:28

they
make you love minus j, yeah, maybe,

52:31

you
know, just a little bit off. So and, and I’ve for minus a four year run as a
detective. I’ve been in the field my whole career, right. And I always, in a
weird way. I mean, it’s sometimes the fun stuff. The scary stuff is the fun
stuff. So it’s hard to say, you know, honestly, it’s hard to say. I mean, have
I been there in a shootout? Yeah. Have I seen? You know, I mean, I’ve, you
know, like, I mean, I’ve seen a cop get shot, right? I mean, like, so there’s
these weird, weird things where, at the time, though, the fear factor really
didn’t kick in. Because, you know, I mean, but it’s always been, I mean, I’ve
always worked in that team environment. So it’s typically always a team of us
there. Right. So I don’t know. That’s a hard one. I mean, I mean, I nothing
stands out like that. I can remember. But that may also be a defense mechanism.
What

53:26

does it feel
like to just quickly what does it feel like to be in a shootout? Is that the
most unbelievable situation out?

53:31

Now? I
think, for me, I’ve never once fired my gun in the line of duty. It’s awesome.
And hopefully over the next, you know, not too much longer. I can make it
through and then I’m riding off on the sunset, right, but it’s weird, because
the times that I have seen it. You would think you know if I fire to get off
right here right now. It’s gonna be loud. Yeah, our ears are ringing,

53:55

especially
with the mics and the headphones. Yes,

53:57

exactly.
It’s amplified. But in in the middle of it. You don’t hear it? No, it’s a
weirdest thing. Like because your body protects itself, right? And so you like
this dump of adrenaline happens in your body protects itself to where, you
know, you’re not hearing the gunshots and like you start to see things in your
vision does kind of open up right to where you know, it starts like looking
through a pinhole and then as that adrenaline wears off, you kind of start
getting your periphery back. But seeing that’s forget finaw Now that’s the
other thing though. Like it depends on the cop, right? Like you take our SWAT
guys are guys that have worked in Swat before. Like, they’re cooler than the
other side of the pillow. No matter how dangerous something is. I’m like, kind
of envious man. Like you guys are super brave. I don’t know that I have, you
know, like, I mean, not not all cops are the same. Yeah, I mean, these guys are
like some of the things and it’s always weird when you know the person. Yeah,
like, I’ll give you kind of a story in this one. You know These are all these
like these weird stories that stick out and a couple years ago there was a
hostage issue in Fort Worth The guy had. He was shooting at the cops like at
the Bearcat that armored vehicle. And they devised a plan and you know every
cop that’s not in Swat, like pretty envious. I’m not gonna lie right there
like, they’re there. They’re all like the varsity of

55:23

the
department. Yeah.

55:25

I mean,
that’s what they are. They’re all like the star quarterbacks if you will. And
one of my

55:30

football
Britain. Yeah, that’s, I’d be in Swat. I’d be delivering Dota

55:35

Swat,
but he was describing you first.

55:37

Yeah,
yeah. So this so in the middle of this, you know, I mean, all cops are like,
and I’m gonna tune in. So we on the radio, we’re listening to this event. Yeah,
that’s super high stakes, right? I mean, this guy shooting up the cops. There’s
hostages. And then you hear your buddy on the radio, like my buddy. Yeah. And
he’s out the door, and he’s devising this plan. And he’s like, we’re going in
and they have their ways of doing things to where we know what was going on.
I’m like, Man, this is weird. Like, I know, I’ve known this guy for 20 years. I
know his wife and I know his kids. And he literally is about to run into an
apartment where a dude is shooting at the cops. Right? Like, but they’re the
last line of defense and in you know, I don’t I don’t know the the end of it necessarily,
but I don’t I don’t know the full story at the end of it. So I don’t want to
speak too much on that. But you know, just hear like your buddies like going
into these like, incredibly dangerous situations. Yeah, but still always super
cool. Like, yeah, I’m not gonna sound freaked out. So it’s always cool guy
voice on the radio. Yeah. But you know, it’s just that weird. Like,

56:49

your
price sometimes. So that little bit of a shake. Like I mean, there’s

56:52

Oh, so
that’s a that’s kind of a that’s a funny story. Because

56:56

on the
shaky JqI like, Oh, Jake, Jake, or so? No, no, no, you

57:00

have to
take your you’ve got to take a couple deep breaths before? Because if you
don’t, if you’re the cop that freaks out on the radio. You’re gonna hear it for
a very long time. Yeah, because we work in a very I don’t know if you guys know
this or not. Super ruthless environment. Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah. Like everybody.
Like, there is nothing off limits. You know, I mean, obviously, family is off
limits and things like that. But if you screw up and you’ve got the excited
voice or the shake in your voice, yeah, you’re gonna hear it for such a long
time to the point where you’re gonna know your

57:32

nickname
or something.

57:34

Your
situations like with the chief works, or like the head guy wears, like, you’re
off the case. Like the shows and stuff. I mean, does any of that drama happen?
Back at the HQ? No. Like, what? No, you know what? I said your last name. I
guess it’s okay. Yeah. Like you’re off the case. We’re putting you know
somebody else on but it doesn’t. I wish I did a Mac. I

57:56

wish I
could be on the receiving end. I

57:58

just
think we should put the Hill Street but I don’t think he’s done using something
new

58:01

to
elicit that kind of redirection. Yeah, right. Right, right.

58:09

No, I
haven’t. But no, it would be funny.

58:11

Jake, we
are grateful I came here today. Good day. Good Cop. We appreciate what you do
for the city. We have lots of good cops out there. Thank you for what you do
for us, man. Thanks, church. And you can follow us on 42 DFW if you want to
keep up to date,

58:23

and I
know family. Best day. What’s the best day? You know we asked this at the end
of it. Yeah, no family. No family stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

58:33

Why did
I get I’ve listened to every getting stolen, stolen. Every one of these and I
forgot you were gonna ask me that question. I would have had a really well
thought out response.

58:44

I think
that this picture depicts the best day of his life right there.

58:50

Yeah,
maybe. Come on. I can’t care for you. Okay, best day. Haha. Man. I mean, I’ll
keep it cop related. A little bit humorous. One of the funniest days of my life
was when I actually shaved this beard off. We were inside of 711 with my wife were
younger at the time, right? Yeah, no kids. So we were doing all the fun stuff.
And you know,

59:08

shaving
and a 711. No, not shaving and

59:11

standing
in line with my hands are full. And I hear this voice. Hey, hey, and I turn
around, and it’s a guy that’s clearly homeless. And I turn around and he’s
like, Hey, what’s up? And I’m like, talking to me. So I turned back around not
paying any attention to it. And he yells Hey, again, I turn around, like, are
you talking to me? Like, what have you been up to? Man? I haven’t seen you in a
while. And my wife’s like, what? I’m like, I have no clue who that is. And
she’s like, he thinks he knows you. And I’m like, Ah, she’s like, that beard is
gone now.

59:50

Oh,
that’s all Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, that’s it.

59:54

J quite
lovely. Man. Thank you very much. Thank you. 

Jake White Audio

Wed, 1/19
12:11PM • 1:00:08

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

cop, people,
drug, fort worth, fentanyl, jake, tarrant county, super, talking, police, bad,
cartel, big, smoker, hear, swat, year old kid, typically, pandemic, work

00:00

Oh What’s
your title Jake just every time he taught our during the mine Sergeant Ford
Police Department narcotics unit Yeah.

00:08

I think
you turn them on during the intro. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Okay, ready?

00:12

Yeah
here we go

00:26

Welcome
back to fortitude folks JW with my host co host Brenton Payne, and we are
quickly found on fortitude, FW on social media. Welcome to the show. Brinson.
I’ve looked across the desk today, I noticed something very interesting about
you. What is going on with your upper lip,

00:46

I got
all these sound effects going because I got all my cop stuff going. I was
looking for the right sound effect for it. There we go. So this is not a
caterpillar that crawled off the microphone onto my face. I did this in honor
of my friend to the right of us who is our special guests here today. I don’t
even know if it’s called officer or Sergeant Sergeant,

01:06

Sergeant
Jake white Ford Police Department narcotics unit,

01:10

and
we’ve been Narcos on Netflix. Jake introduced me to the show and told me I got
to watch and know all the history of and so that’s where the stash comes from.

01:20

He kind
of fits the part that need Jake what he does,

01:23

he does
wait well done. I’m gonna turn the lights off. Only when Jake talks. I’m going
to turn them Jake,

01:27

we
welcome you to the show. We both are friends with you, you know Britain longer,
but we think the world of you what you do for a living. You’re great, dude,
thank you for joining us today. We’re honored to have you in our presence.

01:36

Awesome.
Thanks. Glad to be here. All right. All right.

01:38

Let’s
talk some drugs. narcotics. How big is the narcotics problem in this city?

01:45

So you
know, to say it’s big bad. It’s hard to say. I mean, right. We’re the 12th
largest city in the US. I think that given all the factors of everything going
on in the world right now, I think that we do a pretty good job of addressing
it. You know, there’s always new trends that we have to keep up with or catch
up to, um, overall, I think we do a pretty good job of quelling it, if you
will, I mean, there’s, you know, it’s not a problem that’s going to go away. So

02:18

how many
officers excuse me, officers are on the narcotics unit. So we’ve

02:22

got, um,
we’ve got a handful. I’ll leave it at that. We’ve got our fair enough. Yeah, we
got to

02:27

do we
need to blur? Okay, it’s that how many of let’s say 100 People move here.
Whatever, the status a day, a month or something? How many of those are bad
guys?

02:43

Oh, out
of 100? I would, I would one out of 1000 Maybe. Right. I mean, right. You know,
maybe you

02:51

have a
lot of homegrown ones here that are just that are here that you? I mean, that’s
part of the job. Right, is that you’re pretty familiar with, yeah, soaked in
their trends and how they work.

03:00

I think
drug you know, especially now where we’re at and in society where we’re at in
the world. It is kind of that homegrown thing. It’s kind of the sad element,
though, right? Because you have, you’re dealing typically now with you know,
guys that are 2535 45. The grew up around it, right? Yes, the life they knew
that. You know, what they grew up knowing. So, I mean, there’s a fair share
that are definitely from here.

03:24

So in
today’s paper, Star Telegram, there is an article detailing from May 2020 to
April 2021, there have been over 100,000 overdose, overdose deaths in America,
a 30% increase from last year. Hmm, what the heck is going on in the world? Why
are drugs? Is it pandemic related? To some extent, what’s causing all this?

03:47

So I
think there’s kind of a multitude of factors that are contributing to that I
think the pandemic may have some element to it. I from a research perspective,
I don’t know how I would correlate the pandemic to overdose deaths. Right. But
I do think that there clearly is some kind of correlation there. But I think
more significantly, what’s going on is the issue that we have with fentanyl.
Right, that’s a incredibly toxic, incredibly lethal drug that is relatively new
to us here to especially to Fort Worth. And I think people, you know, sadly,
it’s it’s one of those things where it takes what they consider, I believe, two
milligrams a lethal dose, right. So a very small quantity, and it slides out,
unfortunately.

04:30

So
there’s the whole Narcan thing where they you guys travel? What I mean, are you
going into places or do they cook fit? Not like, how is it like what how does
that whole thing work where you’d go in and need the Narcan if somebody they
don’t force you to take it or something? How does it get in your system? So

04:47

basically
how the Narcan works is and I’ve never administered it, thank god I’ve never
had to have it administered I mean cops throughout the throughout the country
have right because if you inhale some of the fentanyl then then that’s the
counter to it, basically. But it’s basically like a nasal spray is what it is.
Yeah. So it combats that opioid that’s in your body that turns off the
receptors maybe I don’t know how to phrase it,

05:12

but it’s
like if you have it in a powder form that you guys would find it and then
inhale it. That’s what the fear is like, you could just get right like that. To
a lethal dose.

05:22

Yeah.
For the officer for the investigator in a powder form. That would be the
concern. Okay. Yeah, for sure.

05:27

Yeah,
fit Knowles fairly new drug in the in the world in the market. It’s overtaken
heroin recently in at least in Tarrant County in New York profession as the
drug choice fair to say, and what what is what is fitting all exactly what does
it do? And how are people doing it?

05:42

So it’s
a synthetic opioid, where it would be similar to to heroin. Now the problem is,
is the the way people are consuming that right, so we see it most commonly, and
counterfeit prescription pills. Okay, like your your popular name brand
counterfeit prescription pills, they look identical, but instead of being the
actual ingredient for the prescription, it’s fentanyl. So that’s the most
common way that we see it, but we also see it in a powdered form. Yeah, that’s
very lethal as well.

06:11

And what
do they do with the powder form?

06:13

Um, so
you know, so the powder form is used more most often as a as what we would call
a cutting agent. So basically, if let’s say you took an ounce of cocaine and you
added, you know, an ounce of fentanyl or something like that. Now, you
basically converted that to two ounces of cocaine, which is going to make the
money go a little bit farther for the dealer

06:34

is
fentanyl cheaper than coke? Cane? Um,

06:39

you know
that? That’s a good question. I’m not 100% sure on that. Yeah.

06:42

Do those
guys. Would you mix like, Isn’t coke kind of an upper and fentanyl a downer?
Would you mix those together? I mean, is there like a great high with that?

06:51

So I don’t
I don’t know the reason. Like I don’t know what the significance or why they’re
mixing it because you’re exactly right. Like one’s an upper one’s a downer. So
I don’t know. Yeah,

07:01

you’re
Yeah, you’re close to the drug dealers, but not in the mind of them. Correct.

07:06

So how
long have you been a narc? Um,

07:08

I’ve
been so I’ve been a police officer for almost 22 years of that I’ve been in
narcotics as an investigator and as a supervisor for probably 14 of those
years. So most of my career, that’s incredible.

07:21

What
exactly is your role and supervisor or a sergeant?

07:26

So as a
sergeant narcotics, I supervise a team? A fair number of investigators. So
basically, my role is I oversee the operations right from the search warrants.
My I’ve got kind of the boring office job, honestly. I mean, I’m behind the
computer, most of the time reading reports, reading search warrants, things
like that. I’m not necessarily out there now. Doing the undercover work. You
know, obviously, through a significant portion of my career I was but right now
now.

07:51

Yeah, we
noticed you brought some pictures of you undercover. So can you explain some of
them? Like what? Yeah, just to kind of the scenario.

07:59

So first
one, obviously, is an undercover officer, the goal is for nobody to know that
you’re a cop. Right? So sometimes that’s in your appearance. So I got the one
where I’ve got the 711 outfit. Yeah, that was a good one that worked out. Well.
Now, with that being said, I know like, you guys have had Tegan on here before,
right? And like the guy who kind of wrote the book on like these big expansive
undercover operations, super Hollywood, if you will, most of the time. It’s
very street level stuff, right? That’s what we’re combat. That’s what we’re
combating in Fort Worth, right? We want to get the ones that are creating those
quality of life that life issues, if you will, so we’re kind of going after
some of the small time guys. So to do that, you know, you’re gonna have to
basically get something to distract the person from like, I wonder if this
guy’s a cop? Well, if I’m wearing a 711 outfit, maybe that’s what he thinks I
work out. Who knows? Yeah, so

08:49

Oh, so
it’s like, you don’t even have to justify the 711 where it’s just like, Yeah,
more of a confusion.

08:55

Yeah,
yeah, precisely. Yeah. Um,

08:59

what
about that one?

09:01

This
one’s just pretty. This one. Sadly, this was just kind of the generic day to
day look that I had for many years. Yeah. I mean, it’s very embarrassing, but

09:11

you find
yourself going out after work and things like that. Being successful with the
ladies or anything like that? No, no.

09:19

Last
ones the best. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, the last one this was this is how a lot of
people at the city know me because I had an obnoxious Lee large red beard. Oh,
yeah. Prior to beards being a cool thing or whatever. I’m probably like, one of
my 27 in that picture. I look like I’m 55. Right.

09:40

You look
a little heavier.

09:41

There’s
no way that guy’s a cop in that picture.

09:43

Yeah, I
wouldn’t think so. I mean, a lot of people didn’t think I was so

09:48

I think
he looked like he fit the part there. It worked out. Well. Yeah. So I’m not a
drug dealer, but I wouldn’t picture you as a cop there.

09:55

Well, it
kind of backfired, though. I mean, an obnoxious large red beard after a while
when everybody’s like, Oh, Dude with red beard Right? Kind of backfires a
little bit.

10:03

You can
only go so far with the undercover right in a small town or, you know, like a
reasonably sized town.

10:09

Yeah,
for sure. I mean, you know, definitely something that we ran across. Yeah.
Yeah.

10:14

Well,
and then the other picture, there is a whole lot of guns, right. A whole lot of
guns. Yeah. So tell us about the gun show work that you’ve done. Um,

10:25

so.
Okay, so a lot of cops work part time jobs, right? Yeah, there’s kind of two
elements where I’ve worked at that’s not starting from that. Okay, but So, this
one originated, I believe this was somewhere around 10 years ago. And this gun
trafficking at the time was significant. You know, it still exists, don’t get
me wrong, but it was a huge problem in the mid 2000s 2010 2012 areas. So this
one started right here in Fort Worth, where my partner Travis and I recovered.
It was 10 or 15, ak 40 sevens from a guy that had bad intentions with them in
terms of smuggling them. Yeah. So the recovery of that, and this kind of gets
off topic or into another topic, but the idea of somebody of an informant a
snitch, if you will, right. And so, basically, that led us to the recovery of
the 10 here, took us to San Antonio, like kinda, this is kind of a Hollywood
story. I mean, we get these 10 guns next thing you know, we’re in a friggin
minivan driving to San Antonio, the day of right, they have at like four
o’clock in the morning, the front door of this, like drugs stash house, like
cartel houses getting blown open, and there’s the rest of them in the house. So
there’s another 40 or 50, ar 15 and ak 40 sevens in that house. So, like I
said, there’s some Hollywood elements to it that are super crazy. And that’s
the one weird thing about you know, about being a cop is I can be behind my
computer, you know, reading a report or something like that. And next thing,
you never know what’s in store, right? Like, you never know what’s gonna come
up. So,

12:01

and it
does happen where you may be in a vehicle going four hours south to another
city. Immediately, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure. It’s not timed out, like
the Hollywood stuff. We’re ever on

12:13

good
time either. Right? It’s never like, well, it’s good thing. I don’t have
anything to do tonight. Yeah.

12:20

Yeah. J
couple weeks ago, maybe it’s less time than that. There was a huge $16 million
meth bust. Uh huh. You involved in this operation? Or can you tell us and then
how, what was going on in that? Is there a story you can share? So that

12:34

way, you
know, truthfully, I don’t have a whole lot of facts on that. That was if I’m
not mistaken. I believe it was Tarrant County. different organs. Yeah, there
was quite a few involved in that. My team specifically didn’t have any role in
that. So I don’t have a lot of backstory on that or enough.

12:47

He tells
me more about your like a daily role of a narc officer not use the desk, you
said, but what does it guy in the narcotics unit do on a daily basis, generally
speaking,

12:59

okay. So
at the municipal level, like I said, we kind of address those quality of life
issues, right to where the most common thing we get, let’s say, we get 15
complaints of different drug houses a day in our unit, okay. And most of the
time, like I said, it’s going to be the neighbor calling or somebody down the
street calling in or landlord calling whatever the case may be that says, hey,
there’s something going on at this house. There’s a lot of people coming and
going. I think they’re selling drugs. Yeah. So what we do I mean, we have some
initial steps that we take to vet that information, verify that information.
And then we use a couple different tactics to investigate that if we think
there’s something to it right. So you know, obviously, you’ve got your
Hollywood style stuff, or the undercover officer goes up to the house and acts
like a, you know, a drug buyer, a drug addict, or whatever. But our bread and
butter definitely comes with the use of our confidential informants are
snitches as they’re, yeah. Affectionately known as I suppose. You know, it’s
ironic because or it’s interesting because society, you know, whether it be
through popular culture, media, whatever the case may be, everybody’s like, Oh,
man, I would never rat on anybody. I’d never snitch on anybody. There is no
honor amongst the ifs, right. The moment is facing jail time, right? Especially
not facing jail time, right. The moment somebody gets caught 99 times out of
101 of the first things is like, what do I need to do so I don’t go to jail.
Yeah, right. And they’re gonna make sense. I mean, they’ll turn in their mom
they’ll turn their brother their best friend.

14:32

Yeah.
Well, no, I don’t

14:36

like
that. So even if we’re not doing

14:39

me like
my parole off

14:42

apologize.

14:45

hot
zones in Tarrant County for drug problems. Wait,

14:48

it’s
hot. Sounds like can he use that is that cop language?

14:52

Exclusively
cop is a cop is hotbeds for

14:55

drug
activity in this in Tarrant County. Um, you know,

14:58

every
site To town basically is how like in the police department we it’s broken up
into sides of town, right. And every side of town has a has small pockets where
it’s a problem. Yeah. What I don’t want to do is say, you know, this
neighborhood has a problem, or this neighborhood has a problem, right? Because
there is the one thing that happens with drugs, there’s this idea or concept of
people being stigmatized or neighborhoods being stigmatized, right. And then
once that happens, once that stigma is attached, it’s hard to get rid of it.
Yeah. Right. So yeah, there’s pockets I mean, it you know, you guys are from
here. I mean, you know, what, what you’re going to hear, you know, is the bad
you know, the bad area, the bad part of town. Those are the most common places

15:45

know
where we get our stuff from. I was wondering, yeah, tell us where other places
might

15:48

Yeah,
no, yes.

15:51

I’m serious.
No doubt Jake. Were drug world these drugs, these bad things like fentanyl and
heroin? Where’s it coming from? And how’s it getting here?

15:58

So the I
mean, obviously, the vast majority of it is smuggled typically from the
southern border. Right. And that’s, that’s just there are in the intelligence
that we get through the people that we talk to. Yeah, so that’s where the the
vast majority, but again, drugs have kind of taken on a different role to the
way they come into the way they come to Fort Worth. You take things something
like marijuana, or the new edibles, the THC edibles, those kind of deals,
right. Well, now, all of a sudden, instead, historically, 15 years ago, the
vast majority of that was smuggled through the southern border to Fort Worth or
to whatever its destination was. Yeah. Well, now when you look at the the
things like marijuana, the THC edibles, those are shipped in just via the US
Postal Service, FedEx, whatever the case may be, yeah, to an address here in
Fort Worth right to whoever’s buying it. So that’s kind of changed a little
bit. And has created a whole nother slew of problems and

16:54

well,
probably prioritizations. Right. Like, it’s like, is it really worth I mean,
right, we’re talking about like this huge fentanyl bust, and how can you
appropriately justify when bordering states have something going on? That’s
okay. But we don’t you know, it’s like, jeez, Louise, we have unlimited
resources. Where do we put them? Yeah. So

17:15

that’s,
that’s one thing right now. That’s kind of that’s a hard that’s hard, right?
Because the law says it’s illegal, right. You know, marijuana, even to this day
is still illegal. Yeah. Not that big of a deal. That’s kind of a person. You
know, I mean, it’s an opinion based deal, right? Some people think it’s a big
deal. Some don’t whatever the case might be, it’s still on the books as being
illegal. But how’s it enforced now? Right. Yeah, society’s views on it has
changed entirely. Right to Work. It’s, it’s more or less, except that at this
point, and fine. If it’s accepted, it’s accepted, then maybe get it off the out
of the law books, right. Because it creates the struggle. And it’s creating a,
like, the marijuana stuff. Specifically, what it’s doing where there’s this
conflict of whether it’s illegal, you know, is it illegal? Or is it illegal?
It’s creating violence is what it’s doing? Yeah. Because now all of a sudden,
you have this ease of obtaining that through, you know, through the mail
through whatever your sources and you know, one of the other states. And so you
get, you get these 19 year old kids, these 20 year old kids who are making a
lot of money, right? They may make 510 grand a week. This is a cash business,
obviously. Yeah. So what do you think a 19 year old does? Who makes $10,000 a
week in cash,

18:26

buys a
bunch of Vineyard Vines shirts? No, no, they

18:29

don’t.
What they do is they get on every social media outlet that they can and hold up
stacks of money, right? Hey, look how much money I’m making. This is awesome.
Yeah, you’ve become the next victim. Right? Like now you are now a target to be
robbed. Going back to Narcos. Yes. This recent season. Not a spoiler alert at
all. I believe that was the opening scene, if I’m not mistaken. Where the three
guys run into the house to the drug house in they immediately just start
shooting the people inside the drug house. Right? Yeah, that’s exactly how it
happens.

19:02

Yeah,
it’s like, in true detective with Matthew McConaughey when they lay there, it’s
just a robbery. It’s just a straight up robbery. It’s just you’re robbing for
different stuff. Right.

19:11

And, and
so that’s the unfortunate part. Because at the end of the day, the one thing
that I have learned, right, and my views on drugs, my views on laws are
probably a little bit different than a lot of cops, right? I don’t know, maybe.
I don’t want to say more empathetic, but I have some empathy towards, you know,
how people were raised and what they’ve gone through that’s led them to die
sometime this crazy life, if you will. But yeah, you know, the problem is like
the the associated violence is the issue, right? I mean, there’s I don’t I
don’t have the answer to how to solve the drug problem. Right. If I did, I
probably wouldn’t be sitting here, right? Yeah. Um, but what I do know is what
we’re doing. It doesn’t work. Right. I mean, how long have we been doing this
since 19? 85

20:01

Is that
what, like the Reagan kind of war on drugs? Right? Because

20:05

the
whole war starts, look where we’re at today. It’s no better now. In fact, it
could be worse now than it was then. And at what expense? Yeah. Right. I mean,
that’s, that’s the unfortunate part. Like I said that, you know, like, you go
back to that concept of somebody being stigmatized. That’s a real problem, because
what happens with that person? So let’s say you have a 19 year old kid who grew
up in this hard environment, right? He grew up poor, she grew up poor, whatever
the case may be, well, you know, they sought to eat, they still have to provide
for themselves. If they’re a little bit older, and they have kids, I still got
to provide for their kids. So their survival kicks, and people are going to do
what they what they’ve seen or what they know how to do. Well, now all of a
sudden, if you’re that 19 year old kid, and you’re like, Well, hey, to make it,
I’m going to sell cocaine. So you get caught with an ounce of cocaine. 28
grams, not in the grand scheme of things. Not that much, right? But it’s
enough. That’s a

20:58

lot to
me. Why would I don’t do that. But I would 28 grams, like,

21:04

yeah,
it’s a sandwich bag a quarter of the way full, right? But here’s what happens.
So then you get this 19 year old kid, he gets convicted. And let’s say he goes
to prison for eight years. And he gets out and he’s now 27 years old. Yeah. Now
he’s like, Man, I don’t want to go back to prison for eight years. I’m going to
I’m going to do life, right? I’m going to go get a job. Yeah. And then when
they go get a job, guess what happens? They fill out the application, and they
get to the dreaded question

21:31

convictive.
Then what?

21:35

I think
the question is even simpler, though, Jake, is you make $10,000 a week, doing
it on your own time, or you make 15 bucks an hour, maybe doing some, you know,
menial job that, you know, it’s not at your own terms. I mean, how do you
convince a kid over here to you should be doing this and not that it’s, that’s
the problem. Right?

21:55

Yeah. So
that’s, I mean, there’s there, there obviously, is a huge issue with that.
Because that I mean, that is true. But one thing, you know, over the last two
decades, I’ve had the opportunity to talk to a lot of people who’ve been in a
lot of trouble. Yeah. The one thing, the vast majority of them, not all of
them. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there is evil in this world, right? There’s
evil right here in this setting. There’s no doubt about it. But the vast
majority of them when you talk to them, the one thing that they can’t pay for
the one thing that they can’t buy, is losing it the way I always describe it to
him, and I tell them exactly what you say, right? Like, hey, you’re not going
to walk around with a pocket full of money. Right? You’re going to have
financial struggles, like most people in the US have, right. But the one thing
that you don’t have, you don’t have to constantly look over your shoulder.
Yeah. Right. Like you don’t have that fear of being robbed. You don’t have that
fear of being apprehended or caught. Right. I mean, there’s a lot of value in
that. Absolutely. But with all that being said, though, some I sadly, I think
some people are completely fine with going to prison. Right? Which makes no
sense to me.

23:04

Well,
yeah, we’ve talked before and like you almost have stated that some of them are
so I don’t know what the what’s the word when you get kicked real callous from
something, you know, like they’re immune, or that’s just doesn’t bother them
anymore. Like, it’s like a game. It’s just a simple cat and mouse like a super
high stakes cat mouse. But it’s not like us thinking about it. Like, oh my
gosh, somebody could lose their life here. Somebody could go spend their life
in prison. It’s more like, yep. If the cops catch like it’s a total game. Yeah.
No, I

23:34

mean,
and that’s the thing. I mean, if there’s no fear of consequence, then what?
What’s the motive motivating or driving force to change? Yeah. So I don’t know.
Like I said, I mean, it’s, it’s unfortunate, because I don’t know. I call it
vilifying? I don’t know if that’s a word or not, right. But you can’t I don’t
turn everybody I come across or have over the last two decades. I don’t look at
them like a villain. Like I said, don’t get me wrong. Some of them are are bad
people. Right. But many of them make a living, right. They’re no different.
Yeah, it’s, it’s crazy. I mean, like, you know, I mean, I see guys out and
about in the city that that I’ve arrested or that I’ve known for 20 years,
right. I mean, I worked in a very small area in this city, right. And, you
know, a lot of dudes, you know, some of those guys know me, and they see me out
and, and, you know, general public. And it’s nothing more than a head nod.
Right? Yeah. I don’t have that. And this kind of leads into another topic. Fort
Worth, though, is, in my opinion, different. Right? This is a way different
city. Yeah. I’ve never worked anywhere else. As an adult. I’ve never lived
anywhere else. Right. But what I do know is the things that I see on TV, which
I rarely watch, but when I do, like all these controversies that you see are
things that we typically don’t have to deal with, and in large part, that’s
because of the people who live here. Yeah. I mean, it’s, I mean, you guys know
as well as I do. I mean, there is nowhere else on this on this planet that I’d
want to live. Right. I mean, it’s, uh, you know, the the way the citizens treat
the police in Fort Worth, it’s got to be different than anywhere else, I think.
Yeah, I mean, like said, I’ve never worked anywhere else, but I do know over
what two decades of experiences has offered. Yeah, yeah. Which is a cool, it’s
a cool thing. I mean, like, you know, if a cop walks into, you know, railhead,
or whatever, restaurant, nine times out of 10, they’re gonna go up and pay and
they’re going to get the, hey, somebody else took over your meal. Yeah. Yeah.
Like, and again, it’s, you know, it’s that it’s those kinds of things, or the
other thing that happens every year. It’s almost like a, I don’t wanna say a
celebrity, right? But when you whenever you go in somewhere, and you’re in
uniform, which I don’t wear a uniform, and I haven’t most of my career, but
when I do whenever you walk in somewhere, it is constant. Thanks. Yeah. Right.
Like, thank you for what you do. And cops list. You know, cops appreciate that.
Right? Because it kit there are times where it can be thankless. Right? Yeah.
So I mean, that’s, it’s a, it’s a really cool.

26:08

Well,
and I think even our, like, government is very approachable. You know, I mean,
even our city council and mayor, and I mean, that it seems that this is still a
very communal community, if that makes sense. Like, yeah, like people, they do,
they are approachable and Walker, and they do they make time for one another.
And I do agree that in other cities, from what you see and hear out there, it’s
they’ve lost that route somehow.

26:36

And I
think so, that kind of leads into another struggle, though, a little bit,
right, because we’ve, I would say, we’ve kind of live life in a bubble here.
You know, what you see all these? You know, these, you know, there could be legitimate,
you know, bad things that police have done elsewhere. Yeah, or things that are
perceived as bad, you know, like said, I don’t follow any of the these national
stories or anything like that, because it’s almost a little bit depressing,
right. But what happens is, so now, even here in Fort Worth, where we’re not
used to this kind of stuff, we have to start paying the price to a certain
degree. Yeah, whether that’s changing the way we do things, right, which has
has happened. And this is not a, you know, I’m trying to I don’t want to come
across as negative, right? Because I mean, I still believe that we’ve got the
best cops in the US. And yeah, you know, and we do this in the best city in the
US 100%. But all of a sudden, now, we’re, you know, we’re paying the price for
things that have happened elsewhere. And who ultimately, who ultimately pays
the price are the people who need us the most? Right. And that’s the
unfortunate part. Because when we’ve had to shift our tactics so much, too. I
mean, truthfully, they’re not as effective. Right. And it’s hard. I don’t want
to go like, like, too specific, because there are, you know, there are still
some there, there are still some dangerous things that the police do. Yeah.
Right. And so I don’t want to get like too specific. But we’ve had to change
things so significantly, that personally, I think effectiveness has been lost.
And it’s not for a lack of caring. It’s not for, you know, some kind of protest
amongst the police at all. Right? I mean, the cops here still want to, like are
still super passionate. Yeah, about doing this job. But the cop across the US
right now is super confused. Yeah. Right. Because it’s like, I’m just trying to
do my job, man. Like, I don’t want to, you know, like the the, you know, what’s
happened is the police are now judged on the scale of perfection. And when you
use perfection, as the as the hard line, like if it’s not perfect, you’re in
trouble. Well, guess what people do they shut down. Yeah. And rightfully so.
Yeah.

28:57

Yeah. So
I checked J dub that way a lot. Look at look at the founder. And he comes
close, but we’re never there. And I think that’s why sometimes he doesn’t bring
his A game to the show. But now that you’ve explained it, I understand. Yeah.

29:12

Yeah.
We’re always learning around here. Yes. So Jake, back to back to narcotics.
Anywhere. There’s narcotics in the scale. There’s the cartel. What can you tell
us about the cartel in this town? Tarrant County? If there’s what I don’t know
what you can share what you can’t but they’re operating here, correct?

29:30

Yeah. I
mean, they definitely have a presence here. You know, they’re, I don’t think
their role is inflated in the media, right? I mean, it’s a real problem. And
again, something else that has changed with the way society was in Fort Worth,
we were always in this like, kind of protected bubble. Yeah, where and we’ve
got cartel, but they’re typically not they’re not over violent towards the
police and typically don’t stray too much outside of their areas, if you will.
I don’t think that’s the case right now. Right. I mean, I think the way 10
years ago, I would have sent an officer to a location, you know, to deal with
the cartel. And yeah, and had little had little concern with that. Sure. I
don’t my concern now would not be it would be a significant concern now.

30:31

Now, is
that because demand has increased presence of cartels? You know, or is it a
combination of all those things that have kind of risen up?

30:41

No. So I
think there’s a couple. There are several things. One, you know, we’ve seen
this city has grown significantly in the last two decades and even the last
decade. Which, you know, I don’t know, we had a good for a long time where
we’re like, the smallest big city in the US. Right. And we weren’t didn’t
always have to deal with big city problems. Well, not so much the case now.
Right. So I don’t know that I think demand has increased just simply because
the population has increasing, right. That’s obvious. I think that, you know,
trying to think out of phrases. So police work is is unique, right? There’s a
there’s concepts or elements where subject matter expertise is important. Yeah.
And in a big city, it’s really important, right? Because we, who else do we
turn to? Right? When we are the crime fighters in this town, we need to be the
experts in every element. Yeah. Well, I mean, you look at certain things like,
I don’t know, like a retirement issue, right? When that retirement plan
changes, now, I get why, and I’m not bitter by it, or whatever, I understand
why, but there’s unintended consequences that happen when things like that
change, right? Because what you have now you have cops who were like, you know,
if you’re a 22 year old kid, and you’re like, Hey, I’m gonna do this for the
next 25 years, I’m gonna retire when I’m 47. Presumably, go work somewhere else
afterwards. But to get that retirement to a point to where it’s worthwhile, you
now have to promote, right? You have to keep climbing the corporate ladder,
right? To improve your your pension. Well, whereas before, you didn’t have to
do that, right? You were able, we had these, we had these cops who were cops
for, like 30 years. And they were very, very good at what they did.

32:32

And they
became kind of experts in their community and know the players and things like
that. Yeah, I didn’t think about that change kind of

32:41

get into
that thing is it continues, right? Because, you know, we’re at this last, I
mean, I call it the last generation, right to where we still got, you know,
like I said, I mean, I can I can say this all day long. I mean, we’ve got the,
you know, easily the best cops in the in the country, and some of our units,
right? You’d look at our homicide detectives, our SWAT or NARC, guys, they are
best in the business. Like if you kill somebody in Fort Worth, right? And the
most of those detectives that are there now, they’re so good, you are going to
get caught there. They’re seldom is the who done it. Yeah, right. Yeah. I mean,
they’re, that’s a craft that they’ve perfected. But at some point, that’s going
to go away. The reason they’re good, is they have tenure. They’re super
passionate and motivated about what they do. And they can stay there for a very
long time

33:32

and
still receive the same benefits, they’ll receive the same benefit.

33:35

But
that’s not going to be the case for much longer. That’s very interesting.

33:39

So um, I
once was told by a Fort Worth cop that, like math was the line is.

33:50

But that
was your question.

33:52

That
math was like the root of all evil, right? Like, I mean, if like, he kind of
started to try to explain to me that, like meth, like, kicks off so much
violence, like it’s crazy. The exponential kind of thing. Is that, is that
accurate? Is it now fentanyl or something like that? So I

34:11

don’t
necessarily buy into that. I mean, you know, there are I mean, they’re all bad,
right? I mean, it’s not, you know, I think they all have their issues. They’re
all bad. I don’t know that one is necessarily worse than another meth does
bring about the unique meth look. That happened. Yeah. Right. Which is
incredible. Just, it’s crazy.

34:34

Well,
quick, describe what the Bethel look is.

34:37

Typically,
the teeth are rotted out. You have the sores everywhere. And the the other
thing, like this table right here would be and I’ll tell you why in a second.
This table right here would be like a, like a meth addicts dream. Bricks. Every
time you go into these houses where it’s a meth user or meth dealer. It’s
drawers of random stuff like typically, it’s like, is there any reason you have
200 feet of coax cable perfectly rolled up next to a VCR that you took apart
five years ago and next to a sewing machine? Right? Like it’s just this random?
Like,

35:14

I think
you’ve talked about the teeth check the randomness of stuff check. I believe.

35:23

I’ll be
calling you later.

35:25

It’s at
a different level. So but, but it going back to your question as far as one
being worse than the other? No, I don’t think so. Okay, um, you know, there you
look at the destruction of crack cocaine. I mean, that was a legitimate you
know, just

35:44

this
crack still around. Do you still?

35:47

Not not
at the level that it was? Yeah, it really, really died off probably in the last
seven, eight years. It seems like

35:54

what’s
bigger fentanyl? Like the opioids or meth? are tied? Tied? Really? Yeah. Yeah.

36:02

That’s
my personal list. The

36:03

new we
read about this, we asked you offline but what’s the thing called the drink the
new drug of choice for some of these idiots because it’s killing people. Right
as well.

36:11

So so
the drink not necessarily that’s just typically a pro magazine with codeine
cough syrup mixed with you know, whatever kind of pop that one would drink.
Right? Um,

36:21

wait
like pop you mean in soda? Yeah, like, like, give it a pop that’s coming out in
me. I apologize. Guys that Yeah.

36:30

That’s
funny. So that that’s, that’s very pop in there. You know, it’s got a lot of
popularity from I guess the entertainment world if you will. Right. That’s
where it seems Oh, seriously. No other songs about it. Right. Like, I mean,
it’s just crazy. There’s a lot of

36:46

a lot of
drugs. Yeah, they just sip this drink all day long. It keeps giving this
continue to hire somebody like that. Yeah. Tell me what it is.

36:53

Well, I
mean, it’s coding. So I think it’s gonna like calm them down significantly, if
you will. Well, now they’re with fentanyl.

36:58

I would
imagine so right coding.

37:02

This but
it what it is funny, because when that first came on, I probably 1520 years
ago, they used to drink it out of baby bottles. Wait,

37:11

the
drink was like 20 years ago? It’s that old? Yeah. You know, it’s been I’ve
never heard of it. It’s been

37:17

around
for a while but they’ve changed it. Now. They you know, it’s always in the
styrofoam cup mixed with a serious Yeah, but the good thing is they got away
from the baby bottle. The baby bottle drove me nuts. Because, you know, I mean,
I’m a 23 year old kid, basically. Like, I mean, I’m a cop now, man. I know
everything right? I’m driving around. I start pulling these cars over. I’m
like, why are all these guys

37:40

baby
bottle? Yeah, they don’t even have babies. But it’s crazy.

37:44

Then
after a while, I’m like, uh, you know, I learned I’m like, Ah, is it?

37:47

Is it
like red like cough syrup color is?

37:51

Purple.
Purple or green? Yeah, typically purple though.

37:54

Yeah.
Wait, it’s, it’s a cough syrup. And what is ELSS?

37:58

It’s so
it’s a liquid form of promethazine with coding.

38:04

Just how
to make it.

38:07

I’ll
show you later. Okay. Well, Jake, on the screen behind you, you want to look,
we showed a picture of a bust when you have a bunch of automatic rifles? Do
guns and drug drug culture coincide? Is that a normal thing? When you go on
these these busts? And during the course of your work, are you finding lots of
scary scary guns?

38:29

Yeah,
yeah, that’s one thing. You know, kind of what I touched on earlier, you know,
the way we’ve had to change, like what we’re doing, right? Because do I think
there’s an increase 100%? Like, I mean, I haven’t done any kind of formal
research into it. But I do have two decades of experience that tells me I think
this might be getting a little bit worse, right? Yeah. In terms of the amount
of farms that we’re recovering. Um, so yeah, I mean, they definitely

38:59

what
about amount of cash? Like, what’s the most the biggest amount of cash you’ve
ever seized? And then, um, is that increasing to

39:07

see? Well?
Yes, kind of, okay, so the biggest amount I’ve seen 900,000

39:16

Was that
Oh, okay. That’s yeah, we’re talking about big amounts. Oh, that GSR that

39:20

in his
office? That’s, that’s, that’s the best.

39:23

Are we
talking there’s stacks of just a remainder what happened bundled

39:26

and how
big of an area does something like like as big as this table is?

39:30

They had
it in too big duffel bag surprisingly. Yeah. So I mean, there’s other times
where, you know, I mean, hundreds of 1000s

39:38

I mean,
what’s the other part of that you’re gonna say that that’s kind of a weird
like, that’s on the increase like the amount of drugs are on the increase and
the money or or

39:47

so I
gotta phrase this without like, I said, I don’t want to be negative I you know,
I know that the you know, the police and I’m only speaking for the guys that I
know and like as a I work with you, but the police here, you know, we know how
to do the job. Right. And we did very well, for a very long time.

40:10

Get down
before it got to levels like that. Yeah. And when

40:13

the
rules change, and I don’t think anybody, nobody asked for the change as a
whole, right. And I don’t know that people are necessarily recognizing the
consequence of the change. Like I said, That is who pays the price? Well, the
people who pay the price for the police having to having to change our tactics,
are the people who need the police the most unfortunately, yeah. And and I want
to be clear, I’m not talking about, you know, by no means if a if there’s a
corrupt cop, I don’t know, a cop that wouldn’t that wouldn’t catch them
themselves. Right. Right. Oh, good cop that I know wants to work with with
somebody that’s dirty. Yeah. Right. And, you know, fortunately, that’s not
something we have to deal with. Really? I’m not saying that we haven’t. I mean,
we have Yeah, I had a almost four year run through internal affairs. So I mean,
I saw my fair share of that. But, you know, when the when the rules have
changed, it’s hard, because this is the kind of stuff we want to get off the
street. Yeah. Right. And we know the tactics that we have to use to get this
off the street. But when the tactics that we have to use, we can’t use them, it
makes it hard.

41:22

Yeah.
Yeah, that’s really interesting. I’ve never, I’ve talked to a lot of cops, we
have cops that are buddies yourself, could never talk to a cop that it would
say that the cops don’t protect other cops if the other cop is the bad guy. I
mean, that’s really refreshing to hear. I wouldn’t have never heard you might
say that, like, that’s

41:38

Oh,
yeah. I mean, and that’s the thing. I mean, that’s, that, again, probably one
of the reasons why I do not watch TV, right? Because it’s, it’s always super
negative towards the cops. And it’s like, you know, I know a lot of cops by
trade, if you will. I know, their families. I know them personally. Right. And
I’m not gonna, you know, throughout this blanket statement that this person’s
bad because of this, and this, you know, I mean, everybody, you know, every cop
that I know, right? I mean, now I keep my circle small. Yeah. And I mean,
honestly, it is a weird job, because you can talk about it for days on end and
it can consume you. So outside of work, I really don’t hang out with too many
cops, right? I mean, obviously talk to him, things like that. But um, you know,
the the idea of somebody tarnishing the effort that the you know, I put in or
other good cops have put in, you know, we’re not, we’re not gonna sit there and
tolerate it. Right. So if somebody is doing wrong, you’re gonna be the first
ones to report it.

42:36

Yeah.
What’s the worst thing you can call a COP? COP? IG? What are some other?

42:43

I have
no bad words. What

42:44

he does
was run through some names. I don’t want to repeat them. He was saying a lot of
bad stuff about cops. I know. JW will not accurate. I’m not buying it. I’m not
buying.

42:58

We love
what you guys

42:59

do. No,
I’m kidding. I mean, do you guys like, has, obviously I mean, this is kind of a
I’m going somewhere that, you know, how do you deal with kind of where we are
with stuff? Because I know you outside of here. And I know that, you know, I
know who you are. I know, the one thing that I really appreciated is the way
you work. Right? The way you work is, I’ve seen people come up to you some of
those that you’ve busted. And they have respect enough for you to give you the
nod. Right. And I and I also know, the way that some folks get good intel and
information is by having good relationships, you know, and so, um, how I mean,
how do we, how can we get out of where we are, you know, and back to that kind
of, you know, in a respectable Safeway wreck. I’m not saying I hope so,

43:51

because
I know, you know what I’ve done, and I’m not, you know, I don’t want this to
come across like I’m bragging, patting myself on the back, but I know what I’ve
done and it works, right. Yeah, I know that. The secret to it all, is to treat
people politely. Right. Yeah. For people with respect. That’s something we’ve
always done here for

44:12

Britain.
With respect and kindness, ew, I back to you, Jake.

44:18

is like
looking at your phone when I’m in the middle of a conversation with someone

44:24

that
Jake, could you talk about if you’re able to win any of your real successful
busts? Some of the jobs you’ve been involved with back in the day maybe when
you’re in the on the field that were

44:36

Yeah,
yeah. We had a guest on here who lost like some kind of cooking device like a
large smoker. Are you familiar with

44:44

those
the the Smokies a friend of the show J A friend of the show, so John Bunnell,
that’s, again, going back to that idea of

44:52

them,
we’re trying to get free food from them.

44:56

Going
back to that idea of when you you know, I, when when you don’t look at
everybody, as a villain, right? People who don’t look like me, people who
haven’t lived the same life as me if I don’t view them as a villain, right, and
I’m not talking to them any differently, any different than I’m talking to you
guys, right? Yeah. I mean, it’s the one thing I always say is like, I mean, I
could easily with a lot of these dudes that I’ve arrested, we could be at the
bar drinking a beer and talking about everything, but that stuff and it’s
gonna, the conversations gonna be flowing. Yeah. So we go back to that smoker
story? Well, it again, going back to the idea of sometimes things just take
weird turns throughout the day of a cop, right? Yeah. I am at my desk. Reading,
typing,

45:44

eating a
doughnut. I said bad to ask, I mean, our dog or is it maybe a Danish or you
know, Eclair?

45:58

trom
usto gotten used to it. So sit doing whatever mundane task at my desk, my phone
rings, and it’s a detective that works over on the side of town. He said, Hey,
you, I won’t throw out names. But he goes, Hey, do you know such and such? He
gives me the name? I said, Yeah. No. He’s like, Well, I think he may know the
whereabouts of this smoker. They got stolen from barbells. And I had seen it on
Facebook, like the week before? Yes. For whatever it was. I was like, really? I
was like, Okay. I was like, Well, let me make some calls. Let me see what I
come up with. And, you know, again, the dynamics that there’s not one. I don’t
want to call them a criminal or a bad guy because they’re not but for the sake
of this, of being concise. There’s not one criminal that I talked to, that’s
going to admit that they talked to me. Right, right. Even though they’ll call
me and they’ll feed me little tidbits of information, things like that. So I
make call and say, hey, you know, I think about this smoker that got stolen.
Yeah. Immediately. The defense mechanisms come up. No. And I’m like, Come on,
man. I was like, you shoot me straight.

47:08

It’s
like a 300 pound device. Man. It

47:10

was like
it was it was big. Yeah. So eventually, he or she is like, Yeah, where are you
at? I was like, I’m at the store. And they knew the store that I was talking
about. And I’m in the parking lot. And phone etiquette amongst drug dealers, or
the criminal element sometimes is not the greatest. It’s usually super
aggressive, even though they don’t mean to be aggressive. Yeah. And it’s very
ambiguous. Like this guy. He yells at me. Where are you at? I’m at the store,
yells back, I’ll be there and hangs up. So I’m like, Well, what store? Does
that mean? You’ll be here in five minutes or five hours, like, and they call
back and it just goes straight to voicemail. Whatever. So yeah. 10 minutes
later, this car comes pulling in the parking lot. The guy that I know, he’s
waving his hand. He’s like, Come on, follow me. I’m by myself. Yeah. And I’m
just like this. Yeah. So I’m like, How can you? Where are we going? He’s like,
Come on, just follow me. And I’m like, now here’s the cool thing. Like some of
these dudes I’ve known for 20 years or longer. Yeah, right. So am I concerned
that he’s gonna take me to this back alley and assassinate me? No, not at all.
But it’s still a little bit like

48:24

Sure.
You got a radio with you?

48:26

No, no,
still a little bit uncomfortable. So he stops real quick. And he’s like, Wait,
you got in the car with no, I’m falling. Okay. So we stopped sort of all along.
All right. Yes. And he’s like, Hey, do you want me to get my trailer? And I was
like, No, I was like, I can get a truck down here. He’s like, No, I’m gonna get
my trailer if you need and I’m like, No, I’ll get a truck because Howard then
how are we going to get back to bond else right. It’s gonna look super weird.

48:50

Yeah, so
we might incriminate you. Yes. Your trailer. Yeah.

48:54

So we go
drive in the back streets of this neighborhood. And we pull up to this house.
No joke. I’m in the windows have plywood on him. It’s a vacant house. He or she
jumps out of the car. Come on, follow me. I’m here to town. Jake. That’s pretty
close. And I know that place. Yeah. So. Yeah, exactly. So we walked to the
backyard and under this gigantic blue tarp is the smoker and I’m like, that’s
pretty cool. So how am I gonna? I was like, this thing’s like 500 pounds. Now
what? Yeah, I’m like, Well, I can call a bunch coughing just carried over. Next
thing I know. I I’m going out to the front yard to my car, like to get my phone
or whatever. Maybe my radio I can’t remember. And like three dudes pull up
there like, so. If you need help with it. I’m like, kind of. I can’t get it.
Yeah. Okay. So three dudes, four dudes from the neighborhood with loaded up we
get a truck. Oh, yeah. And the truck, put it in the back of we get a cop truck
over there, put on the back of the truck and drive it down to bond else. I told
the guy I was like, hey, You know, you I know what you do you know what I do?
And, you know, at the end of the day, we’re never find in this thing in the
back of some abandoned house in the middle of the neighborhood covered up under
a blue tarp. Yeah. How about a couple 100 bucks like a reward money for? Yeah.
I was like, come on. I was like, a couple. I mean, that’s the least I could do.
Yeah. Yeah. And I tell them the story. Because if you remember, this is like at
the beginning of the pandemic, man, and he’s doing where he’s doing those
family meals. Oh, yeah. Like just lines down the street, like doing some
phenomenal things in these times we’ve never experienced before in our life.
Yeah. And I explained that to this guy. I said, Hey, look, I you know, this is
where it came from. And some of those dudes I mean, they go drive the streets
just like we do. So he knew. And I was like, you know, what, what he’s doing?
It’s not about just owning a restaurant, right? I mean, it’s going above and
beyond it down to doing it the Fort Worth way. Yep. Which we’re all accustomed
to. And even he, he or she replies with the Fort Worth way of like, Nah, don’t
worry about it. Just, you know. And he even is like, complimentary. Yeah, like,
towards John Bano, like minions. Pretty cool. What he’s doing, man. I was like,
Alright, so we took it down there. And there you go. That’s I arrested

51:15

the guy.
No, or somebody did. And he got he was so wonderful.

51:18

So the
one who actually took it, yes, was arrested. Now, there’s a backstory of how it
ended up where it ended up. And, you know, my logic on that, because the
police, one of the greatest tools that we have is this idea of discretion.
Right? We don’t have to arrest everybody we come across, you don’t

51:37

say I
don’t? I am saying we don’t. That’s not what they told me five times.

51:43

I don’t
know the circumstance that I don’t even want to know. But we have this awesome
tool called discretion to where we don’t have to arrest everybody we come
across, and sometimes we reach a compromise. Right. And I think, you know,
under those circumstances, pretty fair compromise. They got it back. And, you
know, the ultimately the one responsible, you know, was was charged and very
cool.

52:03

Yeah.
One more question. Please. Let me I think that’s a great story. That’s a great
story. Because for asking me.

52:10

Welcome
just trying to be a good host. scary situation you’ve ever been in, if you can
share?

52:16

Yeah, so
I guess I probably anticipated this question. I think cops have a skewed view
of fear. Maybe? Especially. I mean, I’ve always been like, if

52:28

they
make you love minus j, yeah, maybe,

52:31

you
know, just a little bit off. So and, and I’ve for minus a four year run as a
detective. I’ve been in the field my whole career, right. And I always, in a
weird way. I mean, it’s sometimes the fun stuff. The scary stuff is the fun
stuff. So it’s hard to say, you know, honestly, it’s hard to say. I mean, have
I been there in a shootout? Yeah. Have I seen? You know, I mean, I’ve, you
know, like, I mean, I’ve seen a cop get shot, right? I mean, like, so there’s
these weird, weird things where, at the time, though, the fear factor really
didn’t kick in. Because, you know, I mean, but it’s always been, I mean, I’ve
always worked in that team environment. So it’s typically always a team of us
there. Right. So I don’t know. That’s a hard one. I mean, I mean, I nothing
stands out like that. I can remember. But that may also be a defense mechanism.
What

53:26

does it feel
like to just quickly what does it feel like to be in a shootout? Is that the
most unbelievable situation out?

53:31

Now? I
think, for me, I’ve never once fired my gun in the line of duty. It’s awesome.
And hopefully over the next, you know, not too much longer. I can make it
through and then I’m riding off on the sunset, right, but it’s weird, because
the times that I have seen it. You would think you know if I fire to get off
right here right now. It’s gonna be loud. Yeah, our ears are ringing,

53:55

especially
with the mics and the headphones. Yes,

53:57

exactly.
It’s amplified. But in in the middle of it. You don’t hear it? No, it’s a
weirdest thing. Like because your body protects itself, right? And so you like
this dump of adrenaline happens in your body protects itself to where, you
know, you’re not hearing the gunshots and like you start to see things in your
vision does kind of open up right to where you know, it starts like looking
through a pinhole and then as that adrenaline wears off, you kind of start
getting your periphery back. But seeing that’s forget finaw Now that’s the
other thing though. Like it depends on the cop, right? Like you take our SWAT
guys are guys that have worked in Swat before. Like, they’re cooler than the
other side of the pillow. No matter how dangerous something is. I’m like, kind
of envious man. Like you guys are super brave. I don’t know that I have, you
know, like, I mean, not not all cops are the same. Yeah, I mean, these guys are
like some of the things and it’s always weird when you know the person. Yeah,
like, I’ll give you kind of a story in this one. You know These are all these
like these weird stories that stick out and a couple years ago there was a
hostage issue in Fort Worth The guy had. He was shooting at the cops like at
the Bearcat that armored vehicle. And they devised a plan and you know every
cop that’s not in Swat, like pretty envious. I’m not gonna lie right there
like, they’re there. They’re all like the varsity of

55:23

the
department. Yeah.

55:25

I mean,
that’s what they are. They’re all like the star quarterbacks if you will. And
one of my

55:30

football
Britain. Yeah, that’s, I’d be in Swat. I’d be delivering Dota

55:35

Swat,
but he was describing you first.

55:37

Yeah,
yeah. So this so in the middle of this, you know, I mean, all cops are like,
and I’m gonna tune in. So we on the radio, we’re listening to this event. Yeah,
that’s super high stakes, right? I mean, this guy shooting up the cops. There’s
hostages. And then you hear your buddy on the radio, like my buddy. Yeah. And
he’s out the door, and he’s devising this plan. And he’s like, we’re going in
and they have their ways of doing things to where we know what was going on.
I’m like, Man, this is weird. Like, I know, I’ve known this guy for 20 years. I
know his wife and I know his kids. And he literally is about to run into an
apartment where a dude is shooting at the cops. Right? Like, but they’re the
last line of defense and in you know, I don’t I don’t know the the end of it necessarily,
but I don’t I don’t know the full story at the end of it. So I don’t want to
speak too much on that. But you know, just hear like your buddies like going
into these like, incredibly dangerous situations. Yeah, but still always super
cool. Like, yeah, I’m not gonna sound freaked out. So it’s always cool guy
voice on the radio. Yeah. But you know, it’s just that weird. Like,

56:49

your
price sometimes. So that little bit of a shake. Like I mean, there’s

56:52

Oh, so
that’s a that’s kind of a that’s a funny story. Because

56:56

on the
shaky JqI like, Oh, Jake, Jake, or so? No, no, no, you

57:00

have to
take your you’ve got to take a couple deep breaths before? Because if you
don’t, if you’re the cop that freaks out on the radio. You’re gonna hear it for
a very long time. Yeah, because we work in a very I don’t know if you guys know
this or not. Super ruthless environment. Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah. Like everybody.
Like, there is nothing off limits. You know, I mean, obviously, family is off
limits and things like that. But if you screw up and you’ve got the excited
voice or the shake in your voice, yeah, you’re gonna hear it for such a long
time to the point where you’re gonna know your

57:32

nickname
or something.

57:34

Your
situations like with the chief works, or like the head guy wears, like, you’re
off the case. Like the shows and stuff. I mean, does any of that drama happen?
Back at the HQ? No. Like, what? No, you know what? I said your last name. I
guess it’s okay. Yeah. Like you’re off the case. We’re putting you know
somebody else on but it doesn’t. I wish I did a Mac. I

57:56

wish I
could be on the receiving end. I

57:58

just
think we should put the Hill Street but I don’t think he’s done using something
new

58:01

to
elicit that kind of redirection. Yeah, right. Right, right.

58:09

No, I
haven’t. But no, it would be funny.

58:11

Jake, we
are grateful I came here today. Good day. Good Cop. We appreciate what you do
for the city. We have lots of good cops out there. Thank you for what you do
for us, man. Thanks, church. And you can follow us on 42 DFW if you want to
keep up to date,

58:23

and I
know family. Best day. What’s the best day? You know we asked this at the end
of it. Yeah, no family. No family stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

58:33

Why did
I get I’ve listened to every getting stolen, stolen. Every one of these and I
forgot you were gonna ask me that question. I would have had a really well
thought out response.

58:44

I think
that this picture depicts the best day of his life right there.

58:50

Yeah,
maybe. Come on. I can’t care for you. Okay, best day. Haha. Man. I mean, I’ll
keep it cop related. A little bit humorous. One of the funniest days of my life
was when I actually shaved this beard off. We were inside of 711 with my wife were
younger at the time, right? Yeah, no kids. So we were doing all the fun stuff.
And you know,

59:08

shaving
and a 711. No, not shaving and

59:11

standing
in line with my hands are full. And I hear this voice. Hey, hey, and I turn
around, and it’s a guy that’s clearly homeless. And I turn around and he’s
like, Hey, what’s up? And I’m like, talking to me. So I turned back around not
paying any attention to it. And he yells Hey, again, I turn around, like, are
you talking to me? Like, what have you been up to? Man? I haven’t seen you in a
while. And my wife’s like, what? I’m like, I have no clue who that is. And
she’s like, he thinks he knows you. And I’m like, Ah, she’s like, that beard is
gone now.

59:50

Oh,
that’s all Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, that’s it.

59:54

J quite
lovely. Man. Thank you very much. Thank you. 

Jake White Audio

Wed, 1/19
12:11PM • 1:00:08

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

cop, people,
drug, fort worth, fentanyl, jake, tarrant county, super, talking, police, bad,
cartel, big, smoker, hear, swat, year old kid, typically, pandemic, work

00:00

Oh What’s
your title Jake just every time he taught our during the mine Sergeant Ford
Police Department narcotics unit Yeah.

00:08

I think
you turn them on during the intro. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Okay, ready?

00:12

Yeah
here we go

00:26

Welcome
back to fortitude folks JW with my host co host Brenton Payne, and we are
quickly found on fortitude, FW on social media. Welcome to the show. Brinson.
I’ve looked across the desk today, I noticed something very interesting about
you. What is going on with your upper lip,

00:46

I got
all these sound effects going because I got all my cop stuff going. I was
looking for the right sound effect for it. There we go. So this is not a
caterpillar that crawled off the microphone onto my face. I did this in honor
of my friend to the right of us who is our special guests here today. I don’t
even know if it’s called officer or Sergeant Sergeant,

01:06

Sergeant
Jake white Ford Police Department narcotics unit,

01:10

and
we’ve been Narcos on Netflix. Jake introduced me to the show and told me I got
to watch and know all the history of and so that’s where the stash comes from.

01:20

He kind
of fits the part that need Jake what he does,

01:23

he does
wait well done. I’m gonna turn the lights off. Only when Jake talks. I’m going
to turn them Jake,

01:27

we
welcome you to the show. We both are friends with you, you know Britain longer,
but we think the world of you what you do for a living. You’re great, dude,
thank you for joining us today. We’re honored to have you in our presence.

01:36

Awesome.
Thanks. Glad to be here. All right. All right.

01:38

Let’s
talk some drugs. narcotics. How big is the narcotics problem in this city?

01:45

So you
know, to say it’s big bad. It’s hard to say. I mean, right. We’re the 12th
largest city in the US. I think that given all the factors of everything going
on in the world right now, I think that we do a pretty good job of addressing
it. You know, there’s always new trends that we have to keep up with or catch
up to, um, overall, I think we do a pretty good job of quelling it, if you
will, I mean, there’s, you know, it’s not a problem that’s going to go away. So

02:18

how many
officers excuse me, officers are on the narcotics unit. So we’ve

02:22

got, um,
we’ve got a handful. I’ll leave it at that. We’ve got our fair enough. Yeah, we
got to

02:27

do we
need to blur? Okay, it’s that how many of let’s say 100 People move here.
Whatever, the status a day, a month or something? How many of those are bad
guys?

02:43

Oh, out
of 100? I would, I would one out of 1000 Maybe. Right. I mean, right. You know,
maybe you

02:51

have a
lot of homegrown ones here that are just that are here that you? I mean, that’s
part of the job. Right, is that you’re pretty familiar with, yeah, soaked in
their trends and how they work.

03:00

I think
drug you know, especially now where we’re at and in society where we’re at in
the world. It is kind of that homegrown thing. It’s kind of the sad element,
though, right? Because you have, you’re dealing typically now with you know,
guys that are 2535 45. The grew up around it, right? Yes, the life they knew
that. You know, what they grew up knowing. So, I mean, there’s a fair share
that are definitely from here.

03:24

So in
today’s paper, Star Telegram, there is an article detailing from May 2020 to
April 2021, there have been over 100,000 overdose, overdose deaths in America,
a 30% increase from last year. Hmm, what the heck is going on in the world? Why
are drugs? Is it pandemic related? To some extent, what’s causing all this?

03:47

So I
think there’s kind of a multitude of factors that are contributing to that I
think the pandemic may have some element to it. I from a research perspective,
I don’t know how I would correlate the pandemic to overdose deaths. Right. But
I do think that there clearly is some kind of correlation there. But I think
more significantly, what’s going on is the issue that we have with fentanyl.
Right, that’s a incredibly toxic, incredibly lethal drug that is relatively new
to us here to especially to Fort Worth. And I think people, you know, sadly,
it’s it’s one of those things where it takes what they consider, I believe, two
milligrams a lethal dose, right. So a very small quantity, and it slides out,
unfortunately.

04:30

So
there’s the whole Narcan thing where they you guys travel? What I mean, are you
going into places or do they cook fit? Not like, how is it like what how does
that whole thing work where you’d go in and need the Narcan if somebody they
don’t force you to take it or something? How does it get in your system? So

04:47

basically
how the Narcan works is and I’ve never administered it, thank god I’ve never
had to have it administered I mean cops throughout the throughout the country
have right because if you inhale some of the fentanyl then then that’s the
counter to it, basically. But it’s basically like a nasal spray is what it is.
Yeah. So it combats that opioid that’s in your body that turns off the
receptors maybe I don’t know how to phrase it,

05:12

but it’s
like if you have it in a powder form that you guys would find it and then
inhale it. That’s what the fear is like, you could just get right like that. To
a lethal dose.

05:22

Yeah.
For the officer for the investigator in a powder form. That would be the
concern. Okay. Yeah, for sure.

05:27

Yeah,
fit Knowles fairly new drug in the in the world in the market. It’s overtaken
heroin recently in at least in Tarrant County in New York profession as the
drug choice fair to say, and what what is what is fitting all exactly what does
it do? And how are people doing it?

05:42

So it’s
a synthetic opioid, where it would be similar to to heroin. Now the problem is,
is the the way people are consuming that right, so we see it most commonly, and
counterfeit prescription pills. Okay, like your your popular name brand
counterfeit prescription pills, they look identical, but instead of being the
actual ingredient for the prescription, it’s fentanyl. So that’s the most
common way that we see it, but we also see it in a powdered form. Yeah, that’s
very lethal as well.

06:11

And what
do they do with the powder form?

06:13

Um, so
you know, so the powder form is used more most often as a as what we would call
a cutting agent. So basically, if let’s say you took an ounce of cocaine and you
added, you know, an ounce of fentanyl or something like that. Now, you
basically converted that to two ounces of cocaine, which is going to make the
money go a little bit farther for the dealer

06:34

is
fentanyl cheaper than coke? Cane? Um,

06:39

you know
that? That’s a good question. I’m not 100% sure on that. Yeah.

06:42

Do those
guys. Would you mix like, Isn’t coke kind of an upper and fentanyl a downer?
Would you mix those together? I mean, is there like a great high with that?

06:51

So I don’t
I don’t know the reason. Like I don’t know what the significance or why they’re
mixing it because you’re exactly right. Like one’s an upper one’s a downer. So
I don’t know. Yeah,

07:01

you’re
Yeah, you’re close to the drug dealers, but not in the mind of them. Correct.

07:06

So how
long have you been a narc? Um,

07:08

I’ve
been so I’ve been a police officer for almost 22 years of that I’ve been in
narcotics as an investigator and as a supervisor for probably 14 of those
years. So most of my career, that’s incredible.

07:21

What
exactly is your role and supervisor or a sergeant?

07:26

So as a
sergeant narcotics, I supervise a team? A fair number of investigators. So
basically, my role is I oversee the operations right from the search warrants.
My I’ve got kind of the boring office job, honestly. I mean, I’m behind the
computer, most of the time reading reports, reading search warrants, things
like that. I’m not necessarily out there now. Doing the undercover work. You
know, obviously, through a significant portion of my career I was but right now
now.

07:51

Yeah, we
noticed you brought some pictures of you undercover. So can you explain some of
them? Like what? Yeah, just to kind of the scenario.

07:59

So first
one, obviously, is an undercover officer, the goal is for nobody to know that
you’re a cop. Right? So sometimes that’s in your appearance. So I got the one
where I’ve got the 711 outfit. Yeah, that was a good one that worked out. Well.
Now, with that being said, I know like, you guys have had Tegan on here before,
right? And like the guy who kind of wrote the book on like these big expansive
undercover operations, super Hollywood, if you will, most of the time. It’s
very street level stuff, right? That’s what we’re combat. That’s what we’re
combating in Fort Worth, right? We want to get the ones that are creating those
quality of life that life issues, if you will, so we’re kind of going after
some of the small time guys. So to do that, you know, you’re gonna have to
basically get something to distract the person from like, I wonder if this
guy’s a cop? Well, if I’m wearing a 711 outfit, maybe that’s what he thinks I
work out. Who knows? Yeah, so