The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 40 - LAPD 2 - The James Davis Years

Episode Date: December 14, 2014

Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds discuss the LAPD under Police Chief James Davis.Tour Dates Dollop MerchSourcesPatreon

When you're staying at an Airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? You could be sitting on an Airbnb and not even know it. That in-law sweet guest house where your parents stay only part-time Airbnb it and make some money the rest of the year whether you could use a little extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca host. Hello and welcome to the dollop this is a historical podcast each week I Dave Anthony read a story from history to my

friend. Gareth Reynolds who has no idea what the topic is about. Oh yeah. Yeah. Do you want to look who to do? I'll do one bottle. People say this is funny. Not Gary Gareth. Dave okay. Someone or something is tickling people. Is it for fun? And this is not gonna come to tickling podcasts. Okay. You are queen fakie of made-up town. All hail queen shit of Liesville. A bunch of religious virgins go to mingle and do my thing. Now we're doing the podcast. Okay. So it is. So I want to mention something really quick. It feels like we haven't started the podcast then. I get a lot of I've been getting a lot of shit about pronunciation. Oh boy. Like some

people about names of like the Thanksgiving one. I had a feeling. I got such shit about it. Yeah. Look. I write these things. Yeah. And sometimes I remember to go and try to look up the names and even when I do go to look them up I still forget how to pronounce them because they're long crazy names a lot of them. I think it's adorable. And other times if I put the actual how to pronounce it in there it's it's it's slows everything down. I'm gonna be like good day bird. I just want to blow through it for comedy sake. I don't want to get stuck up. Another thing. Yeah. When you're reading 12 pages of stuff. I'm

gonna I'm gonna fuck up words. Yeah. That's just how it's gonna work. I'm not I'm not a guy who who does this for a living. I'm a comedian. You're not an order. I have scripts that I'm reading out. Right. I don't do any of that. This isn't my profession. I'm not a professional voiceover guy. So I'm gonna screw up words. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe I'll get better at it. But right now that's just what it is. I'm sorry. And and hey listen. I'm not gonna know some shit. Okay. I'm not a moron. There's just I didn't pay attention for a lot of my life in school. Okay. That's the other thing. When I was in school I did a lot of drugs

and I I remember I very much remember my vocabulary getting worse. Oh yeah. Like I remember not being able to remember what words were and and so I damaged my brain as far as words go. Here's a great one. Here's a great one. I remember the first day of school one year. It was probably like seventh or eighth grade. I spelled of O V and I looked at it and I was like well that doesn't look right. Hey does this look right to you? It's of. Am I crazy or is I'm looking weird over here. I'm gonna smoke some more. Hey little pattle dude. Little glue. Los Angeles. Oh boy. Here we go. In the 20th century Los Angeles was what you call a corrupt

city. Bribes and vice were common. There were 1800 bookmakers, 600 whorehouses and 200 gambling dens. It's a few too many bookmakers for my liking. And the crooks who ran them paid off the police and politicians but 600 whorehouses. It's a good amount. That would be a lot for now. Yeah. With 12 million people. Yeah. That's a lot. For the few hundred thousand that live there. Not even that. It's probably a couple hundred thousand maybe. Yeah. 600. And you gotta think how many what do you think 10 whores a house. Let's do that math. Good God. Just whores everywhere. Do the horjibra. Remarkable. A police chief that lasted more than six months. Oh this

is another LAPD. Right. This is LAPD month. Yeah. For those who don't know. This is LAPD two. Episode two. A chief. A police chief that lasted more than six months during this period was pretty rare unless they embraced big business and the protection of vice because the mayor owned the chief and all the time political campaigns received substantial funds directly or indirectly from vice operations. Okay. So that's how the city set up. Yep. Money from vice and big business. James Davis made a name for himself in the Los Angeles Police Department as the head of the vice squad during prohibition. Oh man that must

have been quite a fucking job. Right. Yeah. Just fucking kicking indoors and knocking over kegs. Yeah exactly. Just kicking kegs over and kicking people down. There is a picture of him and like six women from Kerry Nations crazy group. Oh Jesus. Yeah the women's temperance movement and they were they're all had axes in their hand and they were they were going into barrels. Fucking what a fucking time. Get out of the bar. The people with axes are here to destroy the booze. So he took over as police chief in 1926. Alrighty. In July of 1927 chief Davis reorganized the department in response to accusation that his war on

crime was inefficient and neglectful. He fired a fifth of the force for bad conduct and instituted the dragnet system of policing. All right. Okay. So that's good. Right. A fifth the guys he gets rid of for being for being shitty cops. Yeah. That's good. Bold. Yes. But I just what. Well I just don't. I feel like it's there's a problem with him. What. Yeah. Okay. Well let's he seems to be a key player already. Okay. Let's read on and see. He made. You know what's coming. Oh you're right. Yeah. So you're right. Well I think he's great. He made vice radical organizations and vagrants his primary targets. Okay. I love that.

I love that it's like the communist groups vice which is you know all that shit gambling. Yeah. Horing and stuff and and then just people who don't have any money. Yeah. And the vagrants too. What did they do. They're there. Quit laying around. But the biggest concern was quote Eastern gunmen also known as gangsters. This was a time when money was cut back for the force so he was working with reduced resources. Davis responded by making a gun squad. Wow. Davis. Boy oh boy. Believed accurate shooting by policemen would be the greatest deterrent to the Eastern gunmen. He believed the average criminal was a poor shot and wouldn't be

able to deal with a well trained police officer. Well every cop movie I've seen bad guys. I mean that that's the deal right. You run up a fire escape. They cannot fucking hit. Yeah. So I think that makes sense. Yeah. Right. You're down with that. So the gun squad was made up of 50 men. After forming the gun squad Davis declared the gun toting element and the rum smugglers are going to learn that murder and gun toting are most inimical to their interests. There's a word. Yeah. If the courts want to eliminate them I will. I will hold court on the gunman on the Los Angeles streets. I want the gangsters brought in dead not

alive. Jesus Christ. OK. So he's just. So his new policy is I don't fuck the fuck around. It's just let's kill people. Yeah. If it's not in court then court is a gun. The streets are the court now. I'm the new chief. Everybody dies. And his baby steps with that policy. See if you can get him in the court. Then you're like all right now I'll take to the streets. He's like they'll bring me their bodies. I know he doesn't want them to bring in alive guys. No no no. What's this guy alive. Yeah. This guy's guilty of being alive. Davis also got the nickname to gun Davis because he. Why. Because he'd love to pose for photos with two

guns drawn guns slinger style. Jesus. Could you imagine a cop doing that. Well that's the problem. Right. Is like that's the problem with everything is is the second that somebody starts to get a little big that they forget about everything else. The fact that he's just like I'm two guns. He's to every picture is like OK you're ready. All right. Here we go. Bang bang. Yeah. Yeah. Like an old timey like an old timey cowboy and he's in charge. Good. Yeah. Good. He also had a pistol team that practiced and gave demonstrations at what is now the Academy for local dignitaries. Davis would usually give a speech about

communism. Then the group would head over to the shooting range. The favorite stunt of Davis was a cigarette in the mouth. Officer Joe Dirks would light a cigarette and put it in his mouth. Jesus Christ. Then Chief Davis would let Tommy Carr raise his pistol. At which point Davis would say wait just a minute Lieutenant I'll hold the cigarette in the Los Angeles Police Department a superior never asks a man to do anything he wouldn't do himself. Oh my god. Then he would take the cigarette and put it in his mouth. What. And Lieutenant Tommy Carr would shoot the cigarette out of his mouth. I mean honestly like it

starts with a day of communism speeches. You're probably like this is going to be a fucking boring day. This is going to lag. And then by the end he's like I'll do it. She like two guns. And then everyone in town is like you go see the police. Yeah. And the showmanship too. Not so fast Lieutenant. Hold on there buddy. Just one more thing. In one notorious incident Davis continued to talk for so long with the cigarette in his mouth that there was nothing left but a long ash. Carr shot and splattered the ash and paper all over Davis's face. Okay so he's the police chief. Fucking badass. Badass. I guess we could say

badass. Yeah. Who's given the green light to kill criminals. Yes. Good. Luther H. Green was a member of the Los Angeles Stock Exchange. Okay. He was also a bootlegger. In March 1927 he was at home on Bonnie Bray Avenue with his stash of 10,000 worth of pre prohibition booze. So 10,000 is a lot of fucking dollars back then. Six men broke into his home and attempt him to leave him of his booze. That's nice of those guys. Green managed to shoot one of the burglars with his rifle before he was shot and killed. The group did not get the booze and they scattered. So now the cops are looking for the killer of a stockbroker when

actually he's a bootlegger. Right. But all the lines are blurred. Oh wait so he died the dude the guy. Okay. The guy died. Okay. The alleged ringleader of the failed raid was a well-known crook named Harry Mylowe Thomas. Wait Mylowe? Yeah that's his nickname. Uh Mylowe. Okay. Harry was nicknamed Mylowe because every time he was arrested. Oh no. Which was at least nine times he always said he was a mile away. So he was like he was always just that close. Hey Harry where were you on Saturday? Were you at the were you at the shooting down at Gardner? No way. No. Come on. Get out of here. I was a mile away. I was nowhere near there. You

can ask my friends. My alibi? I was a mile away. Yeah. Asked two blocks away. Save me. Hey dude. Two blocks away. Save me. Where was I the other day? I was a mile away. I know. I remember we talked. I was two blocks from there. We was shouting. Hey Jimmy down on the beach. Yeah. Well you know where you know where we was when the shooting happened on Gardner? Where was I? You was a mile away. You was two blocks. Where were you? I was on the beach. In this particular case Harry's attorney SS Han told cops. Are there normal names? Are there any normal names coming my way today? No. Okay good. Just the song is everybody's a made up name. In this particular case Harry's

attorney SS Han told cops that he had spoken with his wife. I mean that's a boat. I know it's a boat but the Hans are still like the number one family. They're like the Rockefellers out here. The Hans are a huge family so I assume this guy is one of the Hans. That's still SS is not what you name a boy. You know what? A lot of boys are boats back then. And this is his sister Dingy. There's a little tugboat. He's not doing well. We're gonna put him down. He told cops that he'd spoken with his client and quote he was not only a mile away this time but 16 miles away. SS. The cops chased Harry around for LA for two weeks before they caught him. Harry and the rest of his group were arrested

in connection with Green's murder and he was put on trial. Okay. Well detectives took the actually it was a grand jury thing he was put on. Well detectives took the stand to say. We have faith in those still. They were sure Harry had killed Mr. Green. He was let go for lack of evidence. Okay. Now taking Chief Davis at his word an elite team of detectives set out to stop Harry mile away Thomas. Oh wait a minute. Detectives Ellis Bowers, Richard Lucas and Charles D. Hoy worked out of Los Angeles Police Department's robbery and vice divisions. They mostly chased down bank robbers and car thieves. Together they had captured hundreds of criminals over the years and Lucas also had his own private weapon arsenal including

a shotgun that had once belonged to Poncho Villa. Oh wow. So these guys are like tango and cash. Yeah. I mean he's not kidding about the fact that if the court doesn't work it's go time. He's really not. Yeah. The detectives had been tipped that Thomas might be might hit a West 35th Street garage that was filled with bootleg ligar and a nice autumn. He was not going to use a mile away. They stocked it out for three nights running. Okay. On the third night April 21st 1927 they heard someone climb over a six foot wooden fence remove the garage padlock and with bolt cutters and swing open the double doors. When the intruder turned on his flashlight Lucas shouted stick him up. Oh wow. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. Classic

like a movie. Yeah. Stick him up you rat. Harry mile away Thomas made for his gun and shot twice and that's when they let him have it. Oh boy. Harry was riddled with machine gun bullets. Oh Jesus. Buck shot and revolver slugs. He staggered to the front of an adjacent house and into the arms of a uniformed patrolman who just happened to be walking by the officer by coincidence. Oh that's lucky. Yeah. Oh good. The officer grabbed him. The patrolman testified at a coroner's hearing that Thomas made no complaint of how he was handled only asking that he be hurried to the hospital. I love that that's I love that that's what he said. No no you guys and you guys the way you guys handled this was great because you

gave me the hospital. Yeah. Why are we a mile away. That's amazing. And I like that that's like a put like to make a point of that as well. Yeah. He didn't say and he had no quite he just was really focused on getting to the house. He knows what the game is. He was really he knows if he goes into a garage he can be lit up by a machine gun. He was really not shutting up about getting to the hospital. I mean he was really shot. Detective Lucas testified that he told Thomas in the ambulance you are dying and Thomas replied everybody has to fall sometime. Wow. And then he died. Jesus. So this is also this is what you also this is a movie right. We also saw this is what we saw in the in the Ferguson shooting

is just bad cop dialogue where they make up the report. Yeah. Stick them up. He talked like we was in a movie. Everybody's got to fall sometime. Here I go. Charlie. Here I go. The corner corners jury deliberated just 20 minutes before declaring the officers conduct was justified. He was justified say quote Thomas was spent on crime and was ordered to stop by the officers of the law responding by shooting at them and so compelled the officers to also resort to gunplay. The Times reported the LA Times Gunplay. Now this is a time when cops didn't need to worry about critical newspaper coverage. The press and populist took an officer's word for the way something went down. Oh how unlike today. Well I mean

I was just going to say we had that policy until about what six months ago after Lucas was promoted to afterwards Lucas was promoted to head of LA PD's intelligence squad which is like the elite squad intelligence gunning a dog. But these guys also were like the kick ass detainees. Yeah. So the intelligence squad oversaw gambling and vice enforcement by August and other stuff but August Lucas was working directly for the chief and reputedly was close to gangster Albert Marco. Okay. Albert Marco was born in 1887 in Italy and came to the United States in 1908. He started off as a pimp and a con man in Nevada and Washington. Nice. And Charles H. Crawford who ran Los Angeles politics was an old friend from Marcialedes

so he convinced Marco to move to Los Angeles. In the early 1920s Marco drove to LA in a Cadillac transporting alcohol to Long Beach warehouse to a Long Beach warehouse. The political connections created by Crawford's political machine let Marco operate without much fear of prosecution for his crimes. In 1925 Marco pistol whipped an LAPD officer and was given a $50 fine and his gun back. Love that. Worth it. All right. Just we got to come up with something for you to give me the rest. Okay. Put your wrist out. I'm going to go ahead and slap that. Ow. You gave me 50. There you go. There's your gun. We put some extra bullets in there. You know what? You just if you pistol whip them don't stand there and

get arrested. Just walk away. Next time just throw $50 at him when you whip him. According to the IRS. Pistol whipping was a ride off. See between 1922 and 1924 Marco earned $500,000 from prostitution. Wow. That's a lot of fucking money. That's a lot. I mean that's literally a lot of fucking money. That is insane. Marco wanted to take down Councilman Carl L. Jacobson who was on a tear against gambling and prostitution. Jacobson was a family man who lived in Lincoln Heights and he was a Republican, a Protestant and worked in real estate and insurance. And he hated horse and he did not like the horse. In 1925 he ran for city council and lost by 13 votes to Joe Fitzpatrick. Fitsy. By then Joe was arrested for taking bribes. Jesus.

He got elected and he was arrested before he took office for taking bribes. That's great. So then Jacobson became, as he was second place, he became the city council guy. That's a great phone call they got. So you're the winner. The other guy's in jail. Well good news. You won. The other guy's a real shithead. He was known as a vice crusader and his crusade was costing Marco money. So Marco offered Jacobson $25,000 to focus on parks and recreation instead of prostitution. Wow. $25,000 back then is an insane amount of money. To focus on parks and recreation. Did you get away from the horse and just make ballpox or whatever? The war on swing sets. Finally. Oh thank god. Taking on the swing sets over there. Horse?

I mean it really is amazing how big of a part horse have played in history. Oh my god it's insane. I mean really, really, really. When you get down to it, it just was, we had to make laws to just be like no more of this just constant fucking. Stop. We're like oh we listen. So yeah, so he was like hey why don't you look at trees and shit instead. And Jacobson turned down the money and then he went and told the feds about Marco's bribe and the pimping and he gave them all the information. Federal officials find Marco $250,000 for tax evasion. Jesus. So Marco turned to the man in charge of the LAPD intelligence squad, Lucas, to take down Jacobson. Okay. They set up what in the spy world is known

as a honey trap. Interesting. Because honey's sweet, traps are bad. Okay. Jacobson was called upon, Jacobson was called upon by Miss Hazel Ferguson to discuss a matter of street assessments with her. Miss Ferguson telephoned him at home and asked for him to look over her property to see if it was worth paying the assessments. So when he arrived for their meeting, Miss Ferguson poured two drinks. Oh boy. And then moments later all of the lights in the house went out. He was then hit on the head and knocked unconscious. When he awoke, he had been arrested by four LAPD officers and he was only in his red underwear with a bottle of whiskey nearby and a reporter was taking pictures. Jesus. The worst case scenario for

waking up. What's happening? Say cheese. Sling out. It's like, boy, that wasn't a set up. Yeah. That's bullshit. The two captains, two captains of detectives and Detective Lucas and Detective Raymond all had a very different version of events from what Jacobson said. They said, I wonder why. They said that they went to the house, watched through a window and then after what they thought was criminal behavior that they were witnessing, they went in. They crashed down the door to arrest the couple on morals violations. So their story. Wait. No, this is their story. Their story is that four very high ranking LAPD officers went and just happened to hang out and happen to hang out. Check the meters looking at a

window and saw two people about to get it on. And so they assumed, well, they have booze and she's got to be a whore. So they crashed in and stopped the fucking. They arrested them for morals. Yeah, that's interesting. Jacobson was encouraged to sign a confession rather than face the charges for lewd conduct. He's got to be sitting his head. It's got to be fucking spinning. What the fuck? He was taken to the station, arrested and charged. But it turned out the woman's name wasn't Hazel Ferguson. It turned out her name was Callie Grimes. Of course. And the case against Jacobson went to trial, even though he had a thousand supporters turn up at a protest at one point. Wow. He was tried twice. At

the first trial, he testified that the woman must have pulled down his pants after she hit him over the head. The jury voted nine to three for acquittal. In the second trial, the jury was evenly divided and the DA decided against trying him for a third time after allegations of jury tampering arose. OK, trying so hard to put this guy away. Yeah, just couldn't right. It was like the dumbest setup of all time. Yeah. Like it's you have one cop go in on each round. Like what the fuck? It's all bad. Yeah, four of us just sit outside and then we'll crash in the door. Well, the way the mile away guy, they got I mean, that's that's how you set a fucking dude up, right? They're like, we know we're going to be you're

going to be a criminal. You'll shoot at us and we'll kill you. But this guy's a good family man. Yeah, this guy's this guy's winning. Later was determined that Grimes had been given 2,500 by Marco and promised a 100 a month stipend for the rest of her life for her testimony. OK, this is when things went south. Oh, during a brawl at Chip's Cafe, a boat shaped eatery and speakeasy on the Venice pier. OK, we'll just let that go. But we all know that's crazy. That's a crazy place to go. The boat cafe. Oh God. Marco shot and seriously wounded another patron and he was jailed while in jail. He was unable to make his monthly payments to Grimes. So she came clean and admitted she helped frame Jacobson.

The four officers who conducted the raid and Charlie Crawford, the guy brought Marco to town. Yeah, who's the big LA politics. Yeah, we're tried for conspiracy to frame the city councilman. Oh, wow. I think there's sometimes when shit just gets too in the public eye and out of hand. Yeah, they have to they have to try guys. Yeah, and they clearly don't want to. I love those times. Grimes was a witness for the prosecution. The two trials also resulted in hung juries and the charges against all were finally dismissed in 1929. Jesus Christ. Right system, right? Perfect. The scandal led to the demotion of Chief James Davis. Okay. Detectives Lucas Raymond and the other cops were forced to resign. So that's good. Yeah.

And a great story, right? Good. No, good injustice. They won. Good injustice. Good injustice. No, there's no good injustice. Well, the cops all had to leave the force. Yeah, but that's not. I think we all agree that justice has been served. No, that's not and now and now at a corner's turn in LA politics and the police department and corruption. No, no, no, Dave. Well, Dave, maybe you're wrong because Frank L. Shaw was elected mayor in 1933. But that's not good. His reign is now considered to be the most corrupt time in the city of Los Angeles. See, ever, the most corrupt ever. I think we can still beat him. Mayor Shaw had been strongly opposed by the Chandler family who owned the LA Times. Okay. The LA Times had

gone through a bitter labor struggle in the early 1900s, which led to a union member bombing the Times building in 1910. Okay, normal. That's what you do. Normal thing. If you're trying to form a union and you're having trouble and they won't let you form a union, you blow the shit out. It's better than not blowing it up. I could not agree. It beats not blowing it up. You're right. The bombing killed 21 newspaper employees and injured 100. All right. Now you guys gonna sign the union card. All right. Not the dead ones, but the alive ones. You want to sign the card and make the dead one side toe. So the Chandler family remained pretty anti-union throughout the years. Now Shaw won the backing of the Chandler family. Okay. The best way to do

this was to appoint a police chief who was anti-union. So Shaw appointed good old James Davis back as police chief. Jesus. Because he would provide police muscle to discourage unionization. Good. Very good and very untangled. Chief Davis is back. Hey. Remember when you got fired a couple years ago for that whole scandal? Yeah. I'm back, baby. Two guns. I'm back in crazier than ever. James Davis was known to be absolutely loyal to the interests of Henry Chandler and the other important LA businessman. Chief Davis founded the Red Squad, which ACLU claims was the most lawless and brutal police squad in the country. They were formed to crack down on labor organizations and radical elements. Davis once said, communists have no constitutional

rights and I won't listen to anyone who defends them. That's pretty clear. That's pretty clear. That's pretty good coming from the police. Yeah. That's good. Everything's a squad too, right? Literally everything is a squad. They're all squads. We can't just like form like a group of guys. No, no, yeah. Hey, what's going on with the comedy? Should we get a squad together? Let's get a squad. What's going on with the horse? Should we get a horse squad? Let's get a horse squad. We'll go down there. We'll be a bang squad. First of all, let's go to that boat restaurant on the way. Oh yeah. You want to be a boat squad? We'll be a boat squad. We'll get a beer squad. We'll go fuck some horse squads. Go home squad. Call it a night squad. Hey,

you want to go to the ball game tonight with a ball game squad? Why are we a ball squad? Yeah, I'm into the ball squad. Oh, ball squad's different. Actually, my wife's squad, she's kind of been a bitch squad. You know what I mean? Yeah, I get it. So you're the pussy whip squad. Hey. Sorry, Jimmy. Hey. Hey, it goes old puss whips. It's a squad. Puss whip squad. I get it. I get it. It's a squad. Even Chandler, his quote is saying that Davis was a quote, dictatorial, sadistic, and bitterly anti-labor man who says communist influences, who sees communist influences everywhere. So that's that's what the guy who's backing him up says. He basically calls him a total monster. Yeah, this guy's on my side, but he want a fucking piece of shit. This guy is. Look out.

You're all fucked because this guy's a mother. A communist shit is so fucking nuts. Davis elaborated on going as far as to say that quote, residents were either citizens of economic value or they were not. I mean, like, hey, hey, you got money or go fuck yourself. It's Los Angeles. God fucking nightmare. Good. Yeah. Davis began serious spying on the LA community. And if it had been up to him, all residents of LA would have had a file at the LA PD headquarters that included a copy of their fingerprints. And because the LA Times was involved in this stuff, it is difficult. So this is the crazy thing. It's really hard to find old newspapers stories about corruption in LA. You go in, you Google and nothing comes up because it's not like in

Chicago or New York where the press wrote all about it. Right. In LA, there was like a cone of silence. Everyone was in on it. So throughout the first half of the century, it was the firm desire of the oligarchy who ran Los Angeles, that news of local corruption and scandal be ignored or written about so obliquely that it would take like a decoder to decipher the story. Bad news was bad for business and bad for growth and bad for land speculation. Good. And good long term. Yeah. Everyone's in on it. Under chief James Davis and Mayor Shaw, the old crew saw the chance to take money to make money again. Guys like Detective Lucic Lucas came back. Oh, good. The old gangs back together. Why wouldn't you have that guy back? It's a

corrupt squad. It's been like three years. He's had a lot of time to plot. Hey, remember how I was forced to resign because I tried to take down that city council guy in the frame of job? Well, back, baby. Back in a man now. Lucas went to work for the Central Vice Squad. Members of the Central Vice Squad were enforcers and bag men for mobsters and politicians. The LAPD's Central Vice Squad roamed the city serving as the ultimate enforcer and collector of organized vice operations with the take going all the way up the line to the central organizer, Joe Shaw, the mayor's brother. Oh, boy. So they're literally like the gangsters don't have to hire now guys to go around and collect money, right? Because

the cops are just doing it. Good. So what does it feel like? And then they take the money to the fucking mayor's office and give it to his brother. It's so insane. Well, what about that? Isn't cool, man? What a horrible time to live in. He's nobody has your fucking back. Nobody. If somebody beats the fuck out of you, you just got to take it. You can't go report it. Yeah, a guy beat the shit out of me. So you got any cash? Give us your money. Why? Why are you the cops? That's it. We're going to the mayor's office. You're going to meet the fifth squad. Yeah. I don't want to meet the fifth squad. Joe. I'm in the sorry squad.

I'm in regret squad. I'm the leader of the regret squad. Joe Shaw was a former lieutenant with the US Navy and he had been put in charge of the LAPD. One of the reasons he was so he could control the LAPD and would keep Chief Davis on a short leash because Davis did try to in some ways fight crime. He was. We tried to fight everything. Yeah. Right. Crimes involved. L.A. soon fell into the hands of the Italian and American mobs, gangsters like Jack Dragna, a Sicilian mobster, Bugsy Siegel and his right hand man, Mickey Cohen. Both of Eastern European Jewish descent moved in from the East Coast cities to profit from the booming vice business in L.A. So it was just fucking. So everybody knows that everybody knows.

It was like the new gold rush. Yes. The new gold rush. Like just go out there and get all the money you want based on pussy. Well, we could stay here and get in trouble or we could go there where there's no laws. It was controlled by a loose alliance between the gangsters, the LAPD and City Hall under the very corrupt leadership of district attorney, Boron Fitz. So the district attorney is also completely and unencrupt. Chief Davis and Mayor Frank Shaw with the help of the L.A. Times. So everybody single thing that could possibly help is on the wrong side. Yes. Okay. Right. There's no one nobody under what became known. I mean, imagine reading the L.A. Times back then. It would be so great to read like the article of how bullshit the whole thing's

bullshit from top to bottom. This article just says go fuck yourself. Is that the headlines? This is insane. Under what became known as the Shaw spoiler system, businesses were pressured for 5,000 down payments and 500 a month in protection money. Wow. So all the businesses in L.A. have to pay the cops and the mayor $5,000 and then a monthly fee to not to stop the bad guy, like to stop everybody. Here's what I love about that is that there's a down payment. Like it's a bribe. And they're like, well, no, no, how's your credit? I don't know if we can finance you for this bribe. Yeah, we might have to report you to the credit agency. Put five down, 500 a month, low APR, fixed rate. You don't want this to affect your credit.

That's insane. You got a 740 score right now. I know that we're literally stealing money from you, but here's what I see for you. Okay. Here's your portfolio for us. Jesus Christ. Five grand down. Not only was Joe Shaw now aligned with Italian mobsters who are more overtly and violently criminal, but he was involved in the selling of LAPD promotions. Excuse. What does that mean? Okay. So Joe would sell answers to the civil service examination to become a cop. And then to get a promotion, you had to pay $500. Okay. So the police academy was beauty school? So any cop to get a promotion, like if you want to be a lieutenant, you just paid, you had to pay money. So the average monthly salary of a cop was $200

and vice officers made like 50,000 from just graphs and, and taking money bribes and whatnot. So the only guys who were moving up in the force were the corrupt ones. Because if you weren't corrupt, you didn't have the money to pay to get a promotion. So now the whole upper layer of the LA police force is just all guys who are corrupt who have bought their way there so they could get higher. So it's like a pyramid scheme. So they could get a higher promotion and then they could make more money because it'd be kickbacks and it's fucking insane. Well, any place where you can buy promotion, I mean, it's like fucking candy crush. Just fucking, what's the point? Oh, man, I'm really, I'm really climbing the corporate ladder over here. Oh, fuck.

That's terrible. The officers of his red and intelligence squads were heavily involved in police use of graft and intimidation. The red squad took its direction from the business community, focusing on the enemies of that constituency. And the intelligence squad got its orders directly from the mayor's office, which used them to spy and force, oh my God, use force on enemies of the Shahs. The intelligence squad spied on anyone even remotely critical of the police department from crusading liberal journalist and editor Kerry McWilliams to superior court judge Fletcher Bowron. The list included the district attorney and two of the five members of the county board of supervisors. Chief James Davis had completely lost control of the LAPD. Good. So the Shahs are

just just I mean, he's in charge of the APD and they're like, it's crazy what they're using them for. It's fucking insane. It's not. I mean, the one thing they're not focusing on is fixing problems. Oh my God. Now, contrary to what I've said here, Chief Davis for a long time was considered the second great LAPD chief in history. He served the city as chief for a total of 11 years during the 20s and 30s. And that except for his little break. And at the time he was a much revered chief who did fight crime and move the LAPD forward. But he would just okay. So during his first term he changed forever the use of firearms in the LAPD. He set up the gun range. He gave races for gun accuracy and he waged a war on criminals. He wanted me to wanted his cops to

shoot and kill the criminals. Yeah, beat them up. His other thing was just beat them up really badly. I believe the term was dead bodies. And that did stop a lot of the crime. Well, it will. Except for the all the guy's second money and the cops. It stopped all the external not okay crime. Okay, so all the not okay crime. The not okay crime is dead bodies. You're basically talking about black ice in Mexico. Your words, your words. During this time, Davis also developed the police academy, which they didn't have before, and improve the use of police radios and hot sheets, which was a list of recently stolen cars. Davis's outright assault on the criminal element led to a drive by on his home. Good. And a 37 drop 30% 37% drop in crime. Okay,

so just so just the shitty crime. It's like Giuliani. Yeah, right. The bullshit shitty crime is going away, but the banksters are still in the ass. Yeah, right. That's right. So he but he was also protecting vice and doing favors for the political machines. Then along came a very religious man. Clifford Clinton, whoa, was a righteous man in a city of filth. He was born in Berkeley in 1900. His parents were missionaries who owned a chain of restaurants in San Francisco, which gave them the resources to travel around the world and spread the word of Christ. He was raised to be courageous. One time his father tied a rope to him and lowered him down a well to grab a child who had fallen in. Wow. Jesus. Yeah. Okay, that'll that'll put hair on

your chest or call a fire department or just put the rope down or start with that. Got the fucking rope. Don't put your boy on it or cover the fucking well. What's happening? Honestly, I mean, down a well. Yeah, do we need that person on the street? Well, fallers. Yeah, let's think about it. Well, droppers. Didn't Jesus say leave well dwellers? Yeah, stay in the welleth. Clifford dropped out of high school at the age of 14 and went to work for his dad's restaurant chain. While busing tables and washing dishes, he began putting together his own ethic of how a business should be run. Based on the Christian precepts he learned from his father. He complied these into a bound manual and three notebooks. It was what he called

quote, a manual of operation and it was unique and radical for the time. Clifford dedicated the resulting volume to his father, his quote constant source of inspiration. That's nice. His father, when presented with Clifford's business ideas, fired him. Okay, good. Good. That's got to be nice. That's where the that's where the record scratches, right? Well, this is a point where he I think in life he learns he get probably gets anger from this, right? This is this is where his father Why is that was just like bullshit? Get out of here. His business ideas are going to be insane. If they're based on Christian ideals, you'll see how crazy they are. But you can also see that this is where he was like, well, fuck you all fucking like your son got his anger from this and he got

his like, no, nothing can stop me. Yeah, I want to know well for you. But Clifford held on to his ideas. And when he moved to Los Angeles in 1931, along with his wife, Nelda and their three children, he used them to start a new kind of cafeteria on 618 Olive Street in downtown Los Angeles. And cafeterias in 1930s Los Angeles were wildly popular, and very profitable. In 1931 Clinton opened Clinton's Pacific Seas, which featured a giant waterfall, jungle murals, and a Polynesian grass hut inspired by his explorations of the South Pacific, as well as a meditation garden. We got to get our hands on these manuals. I think that's what they show at Rainforest Cafe, right?

Wow, that's quiet. I mean, he didn't go small. I feel, I feel, why is that fine? Well, you'll see, I'll have a meditation area and a waterfall in my cafeteria. They'll all be saying Clinton Clifford's name, Clifford Clinton. Clinton Clifford Clinton. Either way. I mean, they'll say one of my names first, the other one second. They're gonna know both my names, maybe not in the right order. They might be looking my name in the library. As a deeply Christian man, Clinton believed in helping the poor. While the country plunged into the Great Depression, it was written policy at Clifford's cafeteria that, quote,

no guests need go hungry for lack of funds. He put it in bright neon over the door next to the name of the place. The neon blared pay what you wish. Customers called it the cafeteria of the golden rule. In its first 90 days, it served 10,000 free meals. Okay. Are you starting to see where his dad at the problems with the business? No, this is a terrible business model. The idea that you put it, like it would be one thing if you just had like a low down policy that some people knew about, but to be like, you just pay what you want. Everybody eats. Don't worry. No money. Oh, you don't have any money. Well, here's more money's not a thing here. Hey, hon, let's crunch those numbers. How we looking? What do you mean? We're in the red. We lost

$9 million. Well, how is that possible? Well, it's the Great Depression and you'll serve anyone. Author Ray Bradbury is said to have taken advantage of the policy and Charles Borkowski mentions it mentioned the restaurant in the novel. Well, I mean, that's not gonna put money in your pocket. Borkowski mentions you in anything. It's not a good sign. Like he was like eating rats and drinking whiskey on a street corner. Yeah. It's very true. That's not you don't want to quote from him on your fucking storefront. There's nothing that can make you feel dirtier in the world. I feel right at home here, Borkowski. You can throw up on the tables and shit. I took a dump in the kitchen, Borkowski. I slapped his wife and got waffles.

Literally do whatever the fuck you want here. I gave myself a whiskey and I'm on the kitchen Borkowski review of Clifton Caviteria. I lit it on fire. I'm a part owner. But Clifford Clifton's cafe was incredibly successful. That sounds like a Dr. Seuss line right there. It was and he was he was on his way to becoming one of the city's wealthiest restaurant owners. So people must because he was giving away food, other people must have thought that was good and just started eating there and paying. But even then, I know, I don't know how it worked either. But he made tons of money. It doesn't make any sense. Yeah. But he made a shitload of money. Okay.

I think I believe in God. And he became the city's most powerful restaurant owner. What? He was basically invented the new deal before the new deal was invented. He was like giving away and at the same time, yeah, he was making money, right? Because because he wasn't already the restaurant, like if he was helping people, then you would go, well, I'll go fucking help that. I'll go, I'll go pay for it if I can afford it. It must be that, right? It must be that people just sort of paid it forward a little bit. Right. I think that's exactly what happened. So Clinton's wisdom was on display on every table in a weekly newsletter called Food for Thought, which aired, among other things, complaints from dissatisfied customers about greasy trays or cold

coffee, followed by Clinton's mea culpas or defense. Defense, I like way better. Yeah. Why don't you go fuck yourself? You know, we're really busy there. I'm sorry, were we serving 10,000 people for free? I'm sorry, your coffee was cold. Maybe you just don't know what cold is. Get out. As Jesus said, oh, you're going to complain about your free food? Go fuck yourself. Jesus. Jesus Christ said that. Food for Thought also broached more serious issues. Clinton's integrated dining room drew praise from many, but not all. Quote, I have always liked Clifton's, one letter from 1944 began,

but yesterday two Negroes came and sat at my table. After that, the food tasted like sawdust. Okay, first of all, first of all, that's not what happens to food. Yeah. That's not the magical power. This is dust. Every time black people come near my eggs, it turns into wood. No, it's terrible. Oh, no, don't walk by my eggs. Oh, damn it. I mean, I just paid nothing for that. Good Lord. Clinton responded that he would not violate Christianity, the Constitution, and his own conscience by treating blacks as second class.

See, that really is amazing. Right. This guy's a fucking... Because at that time, it was to be... I always wonder what would I be like in that time period. You have to think that your mind is independent, but you're also in a society. You grew up in a way where you're taught to believe a certain way. But he's Christian, so a true Christian doesn't see color. They don't. I know. I know. You think about the South and you go, wait a minute. Most religions... Yeah. There were plenty of people using religion to justify slavery.

Mormons didn't think black people were real until the 70s. They still don't. Well, I mean, they still don't. Right. They still don't. They did while the Utah Jazz played there. Right. They acknowledged them then. They were like, we just talked to God and he loves the jazz. I guess we gotta believe in the black people because they're gonna have a basketball team here. Okay.

They still had a lot of white guys on that team. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He said, if colored skin is a passport to death. Oh, if colored skin is a passport to death for our liberties, then it is a passport to Clifton's. He's a good guy. Yeah. This guy's a fucking saint. Yeah. The lowliest employee had a stake in the company,

which was run by two voting boards, one of rank and file and the other of managers. Clinton's manual of operations stipulated a fully paid medical plan for his workers, something which was completely unheard of at the time. He also let all of his employees come by and swim in his pool in his Los Feliz home whenever they wanted. Jesus. So this guy's just. Yeah.

This guy is Christ. Yeah. Within a year, he had opened a second cafe where every meal cost just one cent. All right. I am really waiting for the fucking bottom to drop here because this is what's happening. The local power. He must have a genie. The local powers that be were furious.

Of course, right? Quote, we have been severely condemned for our operation of the penny, stated a Clifton brochure which listed among the complaints the fear that, quote, it would cause more drifters to remain in our city. So now what you're talking about. Yeah. The yeah. Now we're back to the vagrants.

Yeah. This was a time. We got to deal with them. This was a time when the dust bowl was raging. Oh boy. So people who don't know what the dust bowl is in. God, I want to say the 20s. I don't know what year it was, but you know, it hit big in like 29, I think.

But so in the in the Midwest, they just had poor planning for farming, and they didn't exactly know how to do the soil. And then a drought hit and just dust storms were covering everything dust went all the way from like Oklahoma storms went to New York. Like it was just horrifying. That woman at the restaurant blamed it on black people. Well, it was the black people because they came. They were near her eggs turned the crops into sawdust.

Ma'am. They're not witches. Ma'am. They're devils. Look at my eggs. That's those are eggs. Look at them. Sawdust.

I see eggs. I mean, I see eggs too. Okay. But eat them. No. Eat this. Okay. Terrible, isn't it?

They taste really good. They taste like eggs. Well, that's because they've been gone for a few minutes. Now they've turned back into eggs. Okay. I would like you to. It's a proximity thing. I would like you not to be here.

Oh, God. California for a long time excelled at curbing migrant and immigration of undesired, undesired populations. California has historically banned undesired migrants from its borders, including the Chinese in the late 19th century, the Japanese in the early 20th century, the Mexicans at the onset of the Great Depression, anti-Chinese sentiment had existed in California since the mid 18th century.

It was believed that the Chinese were quote demoralizing and a degradation to California's people. And that they were dangerous to the community. Yep. The Chinese exclusion. They've always been very offensive. Oh my God. It's horrifying.

It's just unbelievable. A little too apologetic sometimes. Yeah. And I don't like the sauces that they put on some of the green beans. The problem is Dave, that their culture's bled into your mind and your mind is poisoned. Right. And then they use.

But I will say. And they use like a lot of dark chicken meat, which I'm not really into. Yeah, weird. And I don't like duck. No, that's why we should have. That's why in the we round them up into camps for a little while, right?

Right. In California. That's because they were using dark chicken meat. That's fair. Use the breast. It's a good time to use the breast. The Chinese Exclusion Act passed by the federal government in 1882 barred Chinese immigration

and prevented the naturalization of the Chinese who were already in America. The Fresno Republic reported quote Japanese Cooley immigration is of the most undesirable class of people possible. So that's just a newspaper. That's just a nice headline. Japanese people are terrible. Extra, extra.

We hate the Japanese. So David Kearney, earlier advocate of Chinese Exclusion, said in 1892 that quote, Japs being brought here now in countless numbers to demoralize and discourage our domestic labor market and to be educated at our expense, which actually if you took Japs out of there and you replaced it with Mexicans,

my dad would say that. Well, here's what's amazing is we just did the Thanksgiving episode. Yeah. So it's really amazing how the white America quickly took another culture off of it and then we're like, no cultures allowed. What do you think this is?

Can't just come onto some land you don't know about and just make yourself at home. This is our land that we took a couple hundred years ago. We've had this for a little while now. And what are you Mexicans doing here that live here for centuries? Do you know how fucked up it would be to hurt us for land? Get out of your land that's now our land.

Okay, you get it. This land is our land. I mean, it's my land. At the onset of the Great Depression, the federal government sponsored and supported the mass expulsion of Mexican immigrants. It was also reported that a total of 3492 Mexican left on repatriation trains from San Bernardino

between 1931 and 1933. Wait, so they were just... Repatriation. We were just taking their land and shipping them back. It's a good time. Good. But now the problem... Did they serve a meal on the train ride?

No. Now the problem was white people. The dust bowl was raging in the Midwest and the okies were coming. Many Los Angeles residents saw, quote, okies to be a menace to their community. The migrants were seen as culturally inferior to Angelinos and were distinguished as a separate and alien social group.

Ah, I mean, I love this. John Steinbeck conveyed the negative connotation of the term okie in his grapes of wrath, quote, well, okie used to mean you was from Oklahoma. Now it means you're a dirty son of a bitch. Okie means you scum. Don't mean nothing itself. It's the way they say it.

Ah, love that. Love it. Love it. Love, forest, races, kids, other white people. So great. How are we going to figure out who to hate? They're all white. All right.

Here's what we do. We lay out a plate of eggs. If they taste like sand, then you know there's an okie around. But you know there's an okie. The population, the popularity of eugenics at the time also contributed to the stigmatized image of the okie. The eugenic claim that rural isolation and poverty were hallmarks of hereditary inferiority

marked the okies as lesser than. That's great. Yeah, this was the great. Well, someday I'll do it. Someday we'll do a dollop on eugenics. This is fucking insane. That's great. So they just were straight up like, what better than everybody?

Yeah. So about three great people. Yeah. So about 350,000 decibel refugees flooded the state. They were promptly stereotyped exactly as a racial minority. They were considered shiftless and lazy and irresponsible and had too many children. And if we improve the labor camps and put a table in,

they would chop it up and use it for kindling. There were signs at theaters reading, negros and okies go upstairs. Oh, that's great. Jesus Christ. Californians quickly applied degenerative traits to this migrating class and could easily distinguish themselves as culturally superior.

The okies were seen as ignorant, shifty and incestuous while Angelitos considered themselves educated, progressive and Christian. Oh, yum. Yum, yum, yum. Okies and negros upstairs. Yeah. So they, I mean, if you were an okie,

you must have been like down with like black, but you must have been like cool, right? Right, but generally when that happens. Or was it like the Warriors? Generally when that happens, those two groups fight each other. I mean, that's historically the way it's happened in America is when like the Irish and the blacks are competing

for the same job or on the same level, then they kill each other in the street. It's what I call the Jerry Springer theorem. Yeah, like the guys cheating on his wife with this other girl, you bring out the other girl, nobody hits the dude, the two women just beat the shit out of each other. All right. And that, ladies and gentlemen, sums up America.

I'll see you at the Smithsonian. What's happening in the Smithsonian today? Oh, Gareth Randall just doing a speech. A man on his Springer theory. A man who should not be on the stage is on the stage. So then the other chick comes out and they start fighting. Wait, I fucked up the names. And that's what happened in New York during the Civil War.

I should have written more of this down, Dave. I'm in the audience. At the time, there were groups established to create tourism in Southern California. One of those was the All Year Club of Southern California, which I guess would be the A-Y-C-S-C. The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl provided a challenge for tourist clubs of California.

Southern Californians were worried that the All Year Club would increase the number of job seekers because it's better to starve in the sun than in the snow or the dust. So the All Year Club decided to change their advertising focus from enticing tourists to discouraging people from relocating to the area. It's an amazing marketing strategy. We need to make it look shit. Okay, so here's one of their advertisements.

Quote, come to Southern California for a glorious vacation. Advise others not to come seeking employment lest they be disappointed. But for the tourist, attractions are unlimited. That's catchy. You're not going to forget that jingle. I'd love to hear it in a tune. Come to Southern California for a glorious vacation.

Advise others not to come seeking employment lest they be disappointed. But for the tourist, attractions are unlimited. Like how did nobody say we could cut that in half? Hey guys, I think that's wordy. It's a little long and it shifts, which is strange for a slogan. There's a turn. There's two turns. It's really confusing.

I want to go to California, but I'm scared. Okay, well, we're going to California, but don't go there seeking employment. However, we are excited for some of the attractions. What are we doing for spring? The LAPD began arresting and jailing okies on vagrants and charges. Many were often fingerprinted and deported to the state line.

Vagrancy is really just a way of just being able to arrest them, right? Yeah, you make a law against poor people. They don't have a place to actually stay. So if they can't prove they live anywhere, you can just arrest them and get rid of them. That's the way to get rid of the lower class easily. The vagrancy laws which declared that every person who roams about from place to place

without any lawful business is a vagrant and is punishable by a fine not exceeding $500 or by imprisonment in the county jail, not exceeding six months or both. So it seems to be illegal to chill. So you find the guy without a house. The best way to go about things is to find the homeless. Because then they can dig their way out of it.

Where's your house? I don't have one. That's illegal. Oh, well, here's this ticket. What are you talking about? Get out of this town. Here's a ticket for $500. What are you going to do now?

Well, now I'm double homeless. Yeah. Now I'm fucked. Well, you're under arrest for being fucked. Wait, what? That's a big fine. Now get out of here. What, is that a tear?

Yeah. Here's another one. Write them up. You keep at it, buddy. Keep it what? Oh, begging, are we? Not in this zone. After the Chamber of Commerce suggested

they open up hard labor camps in Southern California. Great. Great. Great. Business people. Chamber of Commerce always great ideas. At least now we hide the bullshit. I mean, then you can just like go to the town center

and just be like, we should exterminate this race. They'd be like, well, we're going to vote later. We'll do a vote later. Oh my god. Chief Davis decided upon another plan. And what became known as the bomb blockade. Good. Catchy.

He said 136 LAPD officers to the border of Arizona, Oregon and Nevada, their orders were to turn back all immigrants with no visible means of support. The Los Angeles Times favorably compared Chief Davis to England's 16th century Queen Elizabeth who, quote, launched the first war on bumps. Well, first of all, that's news to me. Did she not know about the war on bumps?

Did she had a war on bumps? They had a big vagrancy. In England, I would imagine there was a lot of snickering when that war got announced. That was a lot of the people that ended up on the boats going to America. They would arrest vagrants and put them on the boats. See what happens?

You see what happens when you get what you want? They started it. Yep. See what happens? An answer to the charges that the blockade was an outrage, the Los Angeles Times editorialized, let's have more outrages. Yes.

Because the Los Angeles Times was like a crazy, asshole-rich uncle that you had as opposed to a newspaper. Let's have more outrages. Yes. People were like, this is outrageous. Let's have more outrageouses. I can't even fathom that sentence. Let's have more outrageous.

Yeah. Oh, the newspaper's gone completely bad. I'll tell you what. I'm not reading this shit anymore. Oh, look, here's an advertisement. We should vacation in California. We just can't tell anyone we know to stay here and seek employment. After a couple of months, Davis was forced to end the blockade

due to lawsuits and a shortage of funding. Meanwhile, Clifford Clinton was enraging people by offering free meals. Oh, my God. So he's like a pure angel compared to everything else that's going on. We have a white knight in the town. You know, so I promise not to ruin this guy. This will be the guy. I'm not going to ruin this guy.

No, I promise. Dave. I promise. David. Yes. Here's the thing about you. Right. Is that you're lying.

And you're glad to do it because no, there's going to be a fall for he's he's going to somebody's going to get there's greasy fucking pause on him and something's going to happen. Yeah. Now I can even tell by your fucking face. Yes. The I actually I'll go as far as to say the next thing you say is going to be fucked up. No, it's not that bad.

It is awful. By the end. No, this is a good thing. By the end of the decade, those in LA politics would call him dictator Clinton and Der Los Angeles Führer and equate him with Stalin. But that's a good thing because that is a good thing. Yeah. They're monsters.

Yes. Besides his plan to save the world from hunger. He also want to save LA from traffic and crime and social ills. I'm waiting for it. I'm waiting for it. I'm waiting for it. In 1935, LA County Supervisor John Anson Ford asked Clinton to investigate food operations at County General Hospital.

Ford thought Clinton's business success, his communitarian beliefs and his robust defense of them made him the right man for the job and he was right. City government had to send it into a cesspool of influence, peddling kickbacks, protection, rackets, police intimidation and shakedowns of public employees. Under Mayor Frank Shaw, everything at City Hall was openly from sale, from building permits to jobs with the LAPD. City contracts were awarded without competitive bidding. Good. People in city government were paid to use designated contractors and large

industries were solicited for bribes in return for the Shaw administration, sponsoring of legislation designed to drive their smaller counterparts out of business. Perfect. Jesus. Normal setup for success. Let's win. Meanwhile, Frank's brother Joe was selling the LAPD jobs. Good.

And promotions right out of the City Hall. So that's what, okay. Of course, the food operations at County General Hospital were no different. So Clinton's final report was shocking. Patients were being served low grade food, which was often spoiled, while wastes and favoritism were costing the county $120,000. So Clinton. Sounds about right.

Yeah. So here's Clinton. He's doing good. He did his job. Now Clinton was really on the radar of the powers that be. All of a sudden, Clinton's cafe was hit with random health inspection and food poisoning complaints. Clinton was furious. Now, this is the thing where his dad comes in, where his dad said,

you know, you're fired. This is where he's like, fuck you. Okay. Don't fight. This is where that's where he got the don't fuck. So are you, he is going to be preserved this man? He vowed to fight back. Okay.

In 1937, he got an LA County Supervisor, John Ashton Ford, who got him the original job. Yeah. The inspection thing got, he got him to appoint him to the County Grand Jury. Okay. Now the County Grand Jury was a bit of a wild card in Los Angeles. Each year, the County's 50 judges would appoint 19 people to the jury, and the jury would have leeway to investigate any wrongdoing in the County. It was maybe the one thing in Los Angeles at the time that could actually push change.

All right. But most of the people on the Grand Jury were appointed by crooked judges, and they wanted nothing to do with what Clinton was up to. Good. But Clinton had the power of the people on his side. He rallied Los Angeles and forced Mayor Shaw to let Clinton create a committee of his own to examine vice in LA. Now, at this point, it's an open.

We need him. At this point, it's an open secret. So when when Shaw does that, he's like, yeah, go ahead, tell everybody what everybody knows. Have a good time, you fucking chef, bitch. Hey, Christ, chef, go fuck yourself. Yeah, you can have your little thing. So Clinton hired an investigator named Harry Raymond. Okay.

Harry Raymond. We like him. Harry had been a private investigator since he was forced to resign from the LAPD and tried to frame the city council member by standing in the bushes outside of him. Wait. Well, they set up a honeypot sting. He was one of the four guys. He was.

I don't know what's happening. It's like a fucking Elroy novel. He's perfect. Yeah, he's great. So he investigated and Clinton's investigated revealed 600 brothels 1800 bookies and 300 gambling houses, which was fine. Everybody knew that. But Shaw had made a horrible error.

Clinton now had the resources to continue investigating. He could use the committee and his investigator to expose the bribery, kicks backs, and systematic abuse that flourished at City Hall in the LAPD. Okay. But the grand jury refused to publish the report. Of course. Although Clinton had an ally in Judge Fletcher Bowren who remember that was the judge from earlier that they were spying on and fucking with.

So he overruled the grand jury and the report was published. Okay. The report was scathing. It found that underworld profits were being used to finance the campaigns of city and county officials in vital positions and exchange local officials from all three of the principal law enforcement agencies in the county. The district attorney's office, the sheriff's department, the LAPD work in complete harmony and never interfere with the activities of important figures of the underworld.

The grand jury foreman John Bauer called Clinton public enemy number one. As he should be. This guy's terrible. Hey, is some fucking do-gooder in here fucking everything up? I mean, that really tells you what a great world you're in. I know. He's public enemy number one. He's public enemy number one.

Hey, this guy's revealing all the bullshit we're doing. Oh, get him out of here. You're a public enemy, you motherfucker. He derided him as the cafeteria kid in the LA Times followed suit. The LA Times, because he was exposing massive corruption, right? Called him public enemy number one media. That's great, right? That's when things got ugly.

A notary named Frank Angelillo appeared before the grand jury to testify that the grand jury foreman was a shock crony. So now, okay, now Clinton is turning it back on the grand jury foreman who called him public enemy number one. So that night, the grand jury foreman, the district attorney and a squad of LAPD detectives showed up at the nutteries house and beat the living shit out of him. Jesus. And he was hospitalized.

Then on the night of October 28, 1937, a bomb exploded in the basement of Clifford Clinton's home. Miraculously, no one was hurt. After a brief investigation, the LAPD said the bomb was planted by Clinton himself to get more publicity. Can you fucking imagine how awkward it is when the cops come to investigate the bomb they put in your basement? Hey, so we went downstairs and we think you did this yourself. Yeah, I figured you'd think that.

Get the fuck out. Can't. I think we might arrest you. Well, you're under arrest for bombing your own basement. Nice try, publicity seeker. Our fingerprints. Unfortunately, a car was seen speeding away from the scene that had licensed. His car that had license plates that tied it to the LAPD's Intelligent Division.

They used a cop car. They're really they're so stupid. Really? That's the Intelligent Division that used a cop car. The squad to bomb a house. Just put different plates on or steal one. Get one of the stolen fucking cars or very take bikes for fuck's sake. It's a bomb.

Good God. Well, let's take the cop car down there and bomb him. Two and a half months later, on the morning of January 14th, 1938, Clinton's private detective, Harry Raymond, started up his car and it exploded. Turns out after Raymond had dug up all of the evidence linking the shots in the LAPD to the underworld, instead of turning it over to Clinton, the first thing he tried to do was blackmail the wall. Oh my God.

That's I mean, listen, I like it. I support the move. He's like, yeah, I'll be right back. I'm still digging. Hey, hey, guys, I got you. I'm about to put a bomb in your basement. Have you heard of the blackmail squad? It's just a bunch of black dudes. Okay.

Now his car blew up. Yeah. Raymond survived, despite suffering 186 shrapnel wounds. Oh shit. He took a story to Los Angeles Examiner and placed the blame on LAPD Captain Earl Connet, who's been spying on Raymond. So this guy was spying on him, but he knew he was spying on him, blah, blah.

Because it was such a big story with connections to Clinton, right after the Clinton bombing, the DA was forced to open an investigation. In a letter to Senator Hiram Johnson, chamber of commerce director Frank Doherty, described the situation, quote, a near psychopathic district attorney is investigating a crooked police department. Yeah, there it is. LAPD Captain Connet was arrested for attempted murder. The trial got underway in April of 1938.

The evidence against Connet was damning. He had personally purchased the steel pipe using the bombing. The trial also revealed that Connet had been running Shaw's secret spy squad. Spy squad. Yeah. When police chief James Davies took the stand, he defended the intelligence program. When pressed as to why certain men were surveyed, Davies admitted that some of them were simply, quote,

attempting to destroy confidence in the police department, which was presumed a crime worth investigating. Doesn't. Why are we spying on them? Because they're because they're okay. So here's the thing. We're spying on them because they're trying to figure out if we're criminals. They're public enemy number one.

Look, they're do-gooders. Yeah. And we as cops, okay, hold on. I'm going to start that over. Wait. We're good people. Okay. They're they're bums.

Yeah. No more questions. Look, I don't like them. That's why we're doing it. No more questions. Connet was Connet was convicted and Davies was disgraced. Clinton demanded that Shaw fired Davies. Shaw refused.

Okay. Because without Davies, the city hall slash underworld alliance would fall apart. And so Clifford Clinton went after Shaw himself. Yes. The fucking restaurant guy. This guy. Under city charter. Fuck you, dad.

After they tried to blow up his house. Right. This whole thing is fucking dead. Fuck you, dad. Fuck you, dad. You didn't hug me. My papa didn't hug me right. You're going to put me down a well.

I'll take the whole fucking countdown. I'm going to go to his grave site and put three manuals on it. Under city charter, a mayor would be recalled by gathering enough signatures and calling a special election. It had never been successfully done before. Not in Los Angeles, not in any major American city. Despite the constant police harassment, Clinton and his band of reformers gathered 120,000 signatures

Jesus to put the recall on the ballot. Judge Fletcher Bowren defeated Shaw in a landslide. Wow. Bowren forced Davis to resign. The mayor's brother, Joe Shaw, was convicted of 63 counts of selling civil service appointments and promotions. DA Fitz was defeated in the next election. The corruption triangle of Los Angeles was destroyed.

Organized crime figures fled to Las Vegas en masse. Wow. Davis died of a stroke at a Montana ranch in 1949. Shaw died of cancer on January 24, 1958. Clifford Clinton stayed involved with politics if only at the fringes. He continued to open cafeterias and he founded Meals for Millions, a nonprofit dedicated toward feeding hungry people all over the world. One November, on November 20, 1969, Clinton died peacefully in his Los Angeles home.

The Clifford cafeteria remains in Los Angeles. Last year, a man named Ray Richmond came forward to tell the story of his mother. She was a nurse who worked at a chiropractor's office across the street from 20th Century Fox Studios on Pico. Quote, her patients were restricted to males, the therapy largely to the region on and around the genitals. Years later, mom would boast with some pride that she had, quote, had the penises of more than 5,000 men in her hand during her time as a happy ending masseuse,

including those of Mickey Rooney and Richard Crenna, as well as numerous other Hollywood players. Give it to me. One day, Clifford Clifford came in and she gave him a tug and he returned to get it again until the two fell in love. The affair went on for quite some time until Clifford's wife found out. She gave him an ultimatum. Clifford couldn't imagine life without either woman, so he attempted suicide.

His wife then said he could continue the affair. And more so, eventually Clifford, his wife and his mistress would regularly dine together locally and vacation in Hawaii and Europe. When traveling, they'd get two rooms and Clinton would have play dates in one while sleeping in the other, sister-wife style. His mistress did her part by converting to Christianity and accepting Jesus Christ as her saviour. Oh, yeah. If you're looking for some reaction, it's happening.

Words might not be coming out, but I'm fucking more. Keep feeding me. His mistress began to create what were then known as marital aids. She created marital aids. She created custom fruit scented and flavored lotions and lubes that so delighted Clinton, he insisted she market them to the world outside of their blacklit bedroom. Okay. Clinton put the seed money to found what would grow to become a sex aid empire.

Oh, what? You really were sitting on a golden egg. I really, and that's, this isn't, I think this makes me like him more. I know, it does, but that's the thing that makes you, it makes you like him more because he's not this crazy Christian guy. He's just a dude. And he handled it. He's just a dude who wanted a fucking tug and then fell in love with the tugger.

And they got a great situation cooking. Great. Amazing. He was like, oh, which key, which room key is this? And then he made lubes. The resulting business made his mistress a comfortable living for decades, generating a string of successful products with names like joy, jail, emotion, lotion, hap, penis, and penetration H.

When Clinton, when Clinton died of a heart attack at 69 on November 20th, 1969, his mistress, mistress attended the funeral and then was platly told by the Clinton family, never, never to bother him again. And she didn't. I heard she got emotionally, emotionally about it. That is fucking amazing. Jesus Christ. That's the story of the LAPD and the, uh,

That's great. That guy is awesome. Clifford Clinton. Yeah. He's a fucking, he's a hero. Just went, got a hand job and then started to took it, took it on vacation. Yeah. While he fed everybody.

Yeah. And while he took down the fucking, the whole city, the whole fucking city, the whole fucking city. Amazing. He took down the whole city while feeding everybody. Yeah. Getting jerked off. Yeah.

And basically helping invent lube. What don't we owe this guy? We owe him everything. Jesus Christ. And I'll say this. Yeah. It's, it's probably time for us to have another Clifford Clinton coming around. On a grand new scale.

We really need one. Because when you were talking about the stuff about like how, you know, how the cops, they, they have to investigate people who are going to speak up. It's just like, that's what, that's what it is right now. Oh yeah. The guy, the guy who filmed, the guy who filmed the Garner getting killed in New York was eventually arrested and he said he was being, he said he was being tailed for months.

Yeah. And they finally put a gun on him and said he had it on him. But he's like, why would I have a gun if you guys were fucking watching me for months? Yeah. Yeah. There's no way I knew you were watching me. You're, you're hassling me for months. I didn't, I wasn't doing anything illegal.

God, I'm just salivating for our Clifford times. Oh God, we need a Clifford. God damn it. And not the big red dog, like an actual. Well, both would be fine. Big red dog. You can't, you can't go wrong with a big red dog. I agree with that.

All right. Well, that was a dollop. LAPD number two. LAPD number two. That was a banger. Yeah.