Garrett Maxey
Appearances
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Oh, 100%. And again, you want to talk about a friendly rivalry is cops and firefighters and can't do, you know, We can't do what we do without the fire department, and they can't do what they do without us. Their mustaches are unbelievable. They are. They are. That comes from an old tradition, I'm told, for trying to save themselves from smoke. They could just shove their whiskers up their nose.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
No, that's not how that works. It's not. Yeah. It's not. But if it's 1905 and that's the best you got.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what the standards are for every single fire department. Right. But they're they're usually, you know, well past the crease of the lip. Hundred percent.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And you can always tell a cop's mustache. Right. Because it's kind of like that. that seventies gay porno type mustache where it's a little creepy. It is because those are the grooming standards. You can't go past the crease of the lip and it's got to stay, you know, it's a little creepy and you guys walk up to cars and ask people questions. I, you can ask my wife about this.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
I did try the whole mustache thing after my kid was born. Did she not like it? She hated it. She hated it. And I said, this is, you know, I'm a dad now and I have to do this, but working sex crimes with that mustache, It's risky business. Yeah, you might end up in a mugshot yourself by accident. That's the thing.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Well, everybody, I imagine maybe in your house, you hear something. Maybe you can't make it out. So we've had containments where, you know, canines coming out. They're going to walk the dog. And the warnings come over the speaker. Like, hey, the dog's coming out. If you come out of your house, you're going to get bit. Yeah. And people probably curious.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
I'm going to come out of my house. Go check out. And you're like.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And you heard firsthand, like, how precious radio time is there because the radio is going constantly. So that, like, a genuine thank you to the helicopter pilots. If there's any of them listening, you got, I mean, they know it. They're lifesavers. Yeah. And, yeah, man, it's wild. And with that area being as big as it is, because L.A. itself, I could be wrong here, but it's like 90 square miles.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
It's wild. And just the area that that county covers, it's not the biggest county in California by any means, but just how fast was helicopter. I worked on the North end of the County. Yep. So that's kind of where we were loitering. Okay. Perfect. Yeah. And it's a lot of desert.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
You get pockets of dense population, but a lot of open desert and just those guys being able to get there to you that fast is it's lifesavers. Yeah. Did your dad encourage you going law enforcement or is that something you decided on your own?
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
No, he wanted me to be a firefighter, and he was a fire explorer himself. Okay. Does that mean pyromaniac? A little bit. Okay. Yeah, that man's campfires were out of hand. Okay. But I'm going to admit this, and this might be what every other cop thinks. It might not be. But I am terrified of small spaces. I don't like having a mask over my face.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
I don't like, like I, I shit my pants nearly every time I hang like Christmas lights. I don't like heights. I don't like getting on ladders. I mean, that's an unreasonable fear.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yeah. Zero desire to do. I mean, either of those things, either of those things. So yeah. And then, you know, you watch Cops. Cops is like the best show ever. They don't show you the stacks of paperwork on the back end. But it's like, oh, yeah, I want to drive fast and I want to go take people to jail and find the dope and the guns and all that cool stuff.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And there's a reason they don't make, you know, Firefighter Live. You just kind of hang around the station, you get called out. They do some really cool stuff, but it is a lot of hanging around, not a whole lot of proactive stuff. And being kind of a spaz myself, I'm like, I got to get out there. I realize now, I definitely took the wrong test.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Well, how old were you when you started pursuing that path? Oh, man. I got on with the Sheriff's Explorers in high school. I was a sophomore. Do they require a college degree for LASO? You know, I think they do now. I read something about that. I don't know if that's still the case.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Here's the thing with LA County and probably a lot of different agencies in that area is you've got some of the hardest working line personnel and line supervisors and down. You really couldn't ask for better people. They did the whole college degree thing for a while. They got rid of it. And during that time is when I got in. I mean, I got in. Gosh, I got hired when I was 18.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And I don't regret it. It was either the Marine Corps or the sheriffs. And I had started the process when I was 17 and a half to get on with the sheriff's office, the sheriff's department there. And... It was for a civilian position working in the jails. I was like, hey, this is the custody assistant position.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yeah. Working in jails. Yeah, man. It was the wildest experience. My 19th birthday was my first day in the jails and winding up at Men's Central Jail in downtown LA. And it was wild, dude. But it was cool because the way that this job is marketed is, hey, you're going to go and, you know, you're not supposed to have any inmate contact. You're just pushing buttons. Bullshit. Hell no. Yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
So in LA County is completely all the time short staffed. So it's like, hey, you're filling in. wherever we need you. So you're doing inmate contact and all the stuff that it says you're not supposed to do, you're doing it. So that was a jail, more of an interim facility as opposed to a prison? Correct. Okay. Yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
So in LA County has this very robust, that's still not enough space, but gosh, I'd have to count on my hand or probably your hands, the amount of facilities they have. Jails? Yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yeah, you know, and so California laws are funky, right? Among many things in California. Among other things, yeah. So I think it was AB 109 was passed, and it basically said, hey, you know, you're convicted of this crime, but you're going to spend time in the L.A. County Jail, which... would be way worse than going to prison because at least the prisons, you get a little bit more freedom.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
You get radios, you get some other cool stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So you have a little bit more because it's long term. Like if you're going to spend 40 years in a prison, they're going to give you a little bit more on the amenity side of things. Whereas a jail is meant to be more short term.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Right. Right. But, uh, you know, that's how we catch lawsuits and we hurt feelings and feelings are what matter most.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Um, yeah, I mean the, the jails are meant to be temporary and they became, uh, less temporary with the passing of AB 109. California also passed, uh, 47 and 57, so they decriminalized, not decriminalized, like made it legal to possess methamphetamine or heroin or whatever, but dropped it down to a misdemeanor. And then they made other crimes.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
It is. It is. And I would say it becomes more of a waste of time. You still got to take them to jail. You're going to hard book them. But they get a citation and they walk out, usually before you're even done with a report. Really? Yeah. So you took the dude's dope that he probably went and burglarized a car, stripped some copper, burgled a house or whatever for. You took his dope away.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
set him off with a citation. So like he's going to go steal more shit to go buy more dope. Well, he'll definitely show up for his court case.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yeah, I've seen California's number keeping. I probably wouldn't trust it too much. Yeah. But, I mean, Prop 57 came through after 47 by a handful of years. But that dropped a bunch of felonies down to misdemeanors, one of those being rape of an unconscious person. What?
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
I do. I have no idea. And if I sit here and I go, let me look at this from the other side of the table and see what they're thinking.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Um, you might want to ask the person who has that happen to him. Right. Yeah, exactly. You know, but I have a, I have a sneaky suspicion that the people who are, you know, writing these things up haven't been victimized or don't have family.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And if you name it something nice and rosy, like this is the safe streets law or whatever.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
What we're going to do is take all these felonies. We're going to drop them down to misdemeanors and we're going to let these people out in your neighborhood again.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yeah. Well, exactly. Exactly. And that's why stats are... Yeah. Stats could be great if you're... They're also susceptible for manipulation. Exactly. Exactly. I mean... That whole area, unfortunately, there's, I'm going to go off on a quick tangent, but I got a buddy of mine. He's a deputy with LA County. And back in 2023, he gets called to a robbery in progress up in the city of Lancaster.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
So he gets there. Suspects are female black, male black. He detains the female portion of this party. She's resisting, she's struggling, she's fighting. He does takedown, hits her with pepper spray. A total of two times, I believe. Hauls her off to the car. That seemed to take the fight out of her like pepper spray should.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
So that got looked at by the sheriff, and the sheriff said, nah, you know what? I don't like that. I don't like the optics on that. So he sent that off to, uh, to the LA County DA. And, uh, even the LA County DA's office was like, not much we can do with this. The civil side of that didn't go anywhere. He got pushed up to the feds and the feds said, yeah, we'll take this.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And he just, he just lost that case. He was convicted of the officer. Yeah. The deputy, he was, he was convicted on, uh, It was like battery under color of authority. It was basically excessive use of force. Did he deviate from any of the use of force criteria? No. No. He did his job is what he did. And here's the thing is he was giving verbal commands. He tried to take down first.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Hey, stop fighting, stop fighting. She keeps going. And if I remember correctly, he told her, if you don't stop, I'm going to hit you in the face. And he never did. He actually used a lower level of force, which is pepper spray. It hurts, but it's not going to break a jaw. It's not going to bust a nose. It's just uncomfortable. And use that instead of actually physically striking this woman.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And he just got convicted, and that carries, I want to say the maximum is 10 years in federal prison. Really? This dude's got a wife, two kids. So that's kind of the struggle that L.A. County is dealing with. And LAPD's got the same issues. The problem is, you know, it's the climate that they're forcing these cops to work down there. I mean, if you work a predominantly black neighborhood—
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
well, why aren't your stats for, you know, force or arrest or whatever? Why don't you arrest more white people? Cause you got me working in a predominantly black neighborhood. That's kind of what's going to happen. Right. So yeah, sheriff didn't like the optics on that one. Sheriff didn't like the optics on another one where, uh,
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Deputy's pulled over a car, middle of the night, no front headlights, and there's two or three female blacks in the car, and they've got their kids in there with no seatbelt, and the driver's drunk. So, and might have been all three were drunk, but... deputies go to take the kids, like, hey, your kids are going to be going with DCFS now.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And as they're trying to get one of the kiddos out of this lady's hands, she's got this kid in almost like a headlock kind of thing. So it becomes a rescue force type situation. Deputy reaches over, clocks her in the face, and she lets go of the kid. And the kid's fine. And the woman's fine. She just got tagged real quick. Didn't like that one. So he ended up losing his job over that.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And then you get this issue where it's like, I guess we're not going to do our jobs. Like we're going to do our jobs, but how do you expect cops to do their jobs down there? If you're going to be, you know, hanging them out to dry for every, every use of force. It's a tough balance. It is. It is. And the problem is like, obviously there's bad cops.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Everybody knows that nobody hates a bad cop more than a good cop. But when your brass is, you know, is promoting the people who go out and they're hugging babies and shaking hands and all that stuff, but not the go getters.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
It's rough, man. So when did you transition from jail into, uh, working on the streets? So I did a couple of years as a CA and let's see, I was 20, 20 or 21. I think I was 21 when I graduated the deputy Academy and had to go back to the jails. Uh, and I was there for about a year. The way LA County works is you put in your, I think it was three stations where you want to work.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And Palmdale was my number one, Santa Clarita number two, and then I had a throwaway station. I couldn't remember what it was. But I was getting ready to go to Palmdale station. I got a phone call, said, hey, you're going to Santa Clarita, which is the city where I worked. And my recollection was, you know, like it's a slower city.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And in a lot of respects, it is slower than that Antelope Valley, Palmdale, Lancaster area. Um, but once I started actually working there, I realized that it's a lot faster than, than I thought it was going to be.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
So I was at that station for about four years and then, uh, that puts us in about 2020. Yeah. Three, four years. And then.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
For sure. For sure. And you'd be correct. I mean, it's... It's one of the, and I will get to that portion, but to answer your question, um, you know, starting out, I was like, I just want to do the dope and the guns and the sexy stuff. And I got off training and training was a lot of, you know, you're learning how to write reports. You're learning how to do a bunch of stuff. Right.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
But as a trainee, it's like, you're taking all the paper. So I got off training and, uh, Kind of was at this point where I'm like, I really don't know how to find dope. So started hanging out with people who did. But your paperwork skills were, I bet, good. Because of a handful of really good sergeants that bled all over my reports, they made me a good report writer. Yes.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
So, yeah, I started learning kind of how to do the actual proactive cop stuff. And I loved it. And I... like a lot of cops do. Unfortunately, I was trying to avoid a lot of the nasty calls, the rape calls, the, um, anything involving sex crimes against children. And it's not so much that I didn't care. It's just that it's really uncomfortable.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
I'd say so. And I think a lot of it was you're, you don't want to be that guy who's stuck on a, on a shift killer of a call, right? So you get a rape call and, and this is going to vary depending on what agency you're at, but LA County, you do, you're not calling a detective out. You're doing the whole, the whole investigation upfront, right?
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
So you're interviewing, collecting evidence, you're doing the whole nine yards and then writing your report, submitting your evidence and shipping it off to special victims. Yeah. So it's a long, long day. And you're not going to be out backing your partners. You're not going to be out doing proactive, you know, sexy stuff. It basically takes you off the street. It does. It does.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And it's got to be done, and it's vitally important, and dispatchers know that. Everybody really knows that, but you avoid those calls if you can, if that's just not your gig, you know? That's fair. And at the time, it wasn't mine, and it wasn't that I didn't care. It was just... Ooh, it made me really uncomfortable and it's going to kill my shift. And I was honestly, it's just selfish.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Like I was being selfish. I wanted to do what I wanted to do and not what I was hired to do, which is go and help people. Um, but fast forward a couple of years in, I'm talking with a special victims detective and he's, um, he's telling me about a case that he's working. And I was like, man, I don't know how you work that stuff. And he was like, I don't know how you don't like it's,
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
really the most important stuff you can do because you know violent crime homicide robbery you know it's there's usually a reason behind a homicide there's usually a reason for a robbery or you know just savages going out doing savage things but sex crimes against kids. Like there's no kid that's asking to be victimized. There's usually, it's just, it's the, in my opinion, right?
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
It's the worst of the worst. Most people I think would agree with you.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Well, here's the thing is, I think that it doesn't take some mathematician to sit there and calculate stats for anything.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
everyone to know like yeah if you're attracted to children the recidivism rate is through the roof it's through the roof it's through the roof because there's again world according to me right i'm not a doctor i'm not a psychologist or psychiatrist or whatever but there's nothing you can do there's no money you can give me there's no electroshock therapy that you can give me that's going to convince me that i'm not attracted to women i'm not attracted to my wife i'm you know and
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
I imagine for gay dudes, it's probably the same thing. People who are attracted to the same sex, it's probably the same thing. People who are attracted to children, why wouldn't that be the same thing?
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
How often do you hear that those are your favorite episodes, though, with your dad?
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And I got to walk back a little bit of what I said and follow my sword a little bit here because there are stats on people who were victimized as children. Yeah. And if I remember right, it's, you know, for every person that's victimized as a child and... It might be sexual and like a physical abuse situation. They go on to abuse three more people.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
So that's like an exponential growth type thing, right? So I guess the question becomes, is it nature? Is it nurture? Is it a little bit of both? I mean, because we see... It's probably a combination of... Right.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And you move on to the people who are, you know, maybe they haven't hands-on abused a child in a sexual way, but they're into, used to be called child pornography, but pornography... What do they call it now? CSAM, child sexual abuse material or child sexual exploitation material. Why did they change it from child pornography? So my understanding is... Is it too rough of a term?
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Well, it's one of those words that just takes minutes off your life when you hear it.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
So again, let's not round the edges on this shit. I think they got rid of child pornography because pornography, there's like this... like consent to it.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Well, that's, that's the thing, right? Yeah. You're, you're a child. Even if, if you're 16 and you're consenting, like. Yeah. The law doesn't recognize that. Sorry. It doesn't work that way. Yeah. Especially when the dude's a lot older, like definitely not. Older creepy dudes. Yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And see, here's my problem with stats and all that, because it makes you look in one direction more than another. Sometimes that's good, but... if you're looking in this direction, you miss all the stuff over here too. And like, there is the creepy uncle and there is the dude that comes in and solicits hugs and he's trying to break that physical barrier so that he can take the next step. Right.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Um, but a lot of what we're seeing in the national center of missing exploited children, their stats for 2024 aren't out yet, but 2023 there's stats on like child enticement type stuff on the internet.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Oh yeah, it is. And I mean, so neck back stats on, on the child enticement that actually resulted in a kidnapping, um, is over a couple of years span. There's a few hundred, it was over 400. So Most of these kids are found over state lines. There's still like 1% or 2% that are missing, which is awful. Does that trip it to federal if they take them across state lines? Yeah, it can. It can.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And as it should. The thing is that it's not like the creepy dude in the van. It's, you know, these average suspects are male white and they're mid to late 20s.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
That was, uh, he's got you thinking about it. It got me thinking about it. Um, definitely got me looking at things through a different lens. I think the interest was always there is just, uh, it's intimidating. It's gross. And you know, it's like, those are the investigations that are just, they stick with you, man. You know? Yeah. So I never got a chance to do that in L.A. County.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
By the time the riots kicked off, my son was just born and told my wife, I go, we're we're out. Yeah, we are out. So applied with a couple of departments out in Idaho and got hired.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yeah. Yeah. I would say so. I mean, it was, it was a 10 week Academy. Yeah. There was other California laterals in there, all from Southern California. And the academies in Southern California are all pretty similar. It's a full-stress academy. It's 22 weeks of just screaming and PT and, you know, get your day ruined every day.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
So wind up there and sit in that position of attention and just waiting for the hammer to fall. And they're like, hey, there's coffee and bagels. And we're like, that's a trap, dude. Yeah, you're like...
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yeah, exactly. That's, nah, you don't go touch that stuff. So it took about three weeks for anybody to actually make it over to the coffee pot and pour some. And not get screamed at. Yeah, not get screamed at.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
I don't think anybody got screamed at. I was like, this is like a vacation, man. This is great. There's a time and place for everything. Yeah. A hundred percent.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
So made it through the 10 weeks and went out and did patrol training again. which was a blast. I really enjoyed the city I was working in. Kind of reminded me a lot of the city that I was in before, just on a smaller scale and not having the same issues as Southern California did. So it was a lot of fun.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yes. Yeah. And, you know, I'm like, oh, my God, dope's a felony here. This is great. Taking people to jail for drugs.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Idaho is one of those funky ones where. I don't know if they'll ever legalize it. In fact, I heard, I don't know how true this is, but I heard that they're like, oh no, we want to make the penalty stiffer for possession of marijuana. So 49 out of 50 states will be slightly more progressive than I know. Exactly. Whatever. Yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
But yeah, man, just went out there and knowing that I wanted to go work, you know, special victims type work, did the patrol thing. Got a really great opportunity to help out in the detective bureau there. And let me back up a little bit. Before I started the academy there, I got put in with the detective unit just to like, hey, you're waiting for a date.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
So it's, and this is going to change, you know, state to state where, yeah, you've got to go through this extensive training to become a detective in some places. And some places you make detective and you're doing work and then they throw you in a course whenever it comes up. So with this first agency that I was with in Idaho, uh, They toss me in there. I talk with the sergeant.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
I go, this is my background. This is what I'm, you know, this is what I'm used to writing and running investigations. And they're like, okay, cool. Thanks for telling me that. Here's a full caseload. All right. So started doing that and then hit an academy and then went on a patrol training. Kept real close with the detectives there and, you know, still stopping in, saying hi, showing my face.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
It just got to a point when I was working there, you know, being the sole breadwinner, I just couldn't make that one work anymore. So I loved, loved, loved that city and that department.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yeah, couldn't do it anymore. So applied for another agency and got hired on.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
and um same thing not so much the academy it's just straight in do the patrol training portion and i first thing i did was go and talk with detectives when i got there like this is what i want to do i'm you know real passionate about crimes against children and special victims type work like perfect sounds good man we'll get through the field training portion and yeah when a spot comes up you know put in for it so
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
as luck would have it, a couple spots opened up as I was coming towards the end of my training or just finishing and put in and We were off to the races, man. Got in.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
So they don't really provide that for you. I went and sought additional training through, it's like free training that ICAC does, but it doesn't prepare you for what you're actually going to see. That's what I'm going to say. How the fuck do they on-ramp you for that? Did you do like the full clockwork orange and they just put you like... They probably should.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
There's like an emotional survival or emotional readiness class. I shouldn't even say class. I think it's a couple hours. It's a block built within... you know, a one or two day course on how to investigate those kinds of crimes. But it's just like, hey, you're going to see some really bad stuff. And we have a psych on staff and talking about ICAC. Yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
They've got a psych on staff and it's mandatory. You got to go talk to her like once a quarter or something like that. But, you know, working and with that first agency, I got to work a couple of cases where It was like ICAC type cases where you're dealing with child pornography and that kind of thing. So I knew kind of what that stuff was. And this is going to sound terrible, but.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
I mean, these cases I was working with that first agency, these girls were eight, maybe youngest at six years old, uh, which is atrocious. It's terrible, but it's not the, you know, infant torture and infant rape and that kind of thing. Uh, so there's some really just like, I thought I knew what evil was kind of thing. And then I went and worked ICAC.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
So, um, and for, for anyone who doesn't know, I mean, ICAC internet crimes against children, they're, they're, Gosh, I can't remember how many task force entities they have around the country. But generally, it's going to be the state investigator's office and their investigators attached to that task force. And then affiliate positions with local agencies around that state.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And so, you know, when you get a cyber tip or whatever the case may be, it gets complicated. I guess, tasked over to that law enforcement agent, whoever's attached to that task force. But the nice thing is you've got the whole state investigator's office there behind you. It makes sense. Yeah. So, yeah, I left that first agency, went to the second one, said, this is what I'm really wanting to do.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Got in with the detectives. I was working major crimes and positioned open for ICAC. And I was like, man, I want to go do that. Like, those are the people I want to go after. So I was the only person who put in for it. Shocking. Right? And got that spot and went over and started working those investigations. How long was it until you realized you were in some pretty deep waters?
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Man, I made it about six months. I made it about six months. So I've got a little kid. He's going to be five this coming July. So... You know, like I said, I kind of knew what I was getting myself into. Those were the crimes I really wanted to, you know, investigate. And those are the bad people I really wanted to go get.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
The problem is when you're working those investigations, you get what's called a cyber tip from National Center of Missing Exploited Children. And at this time, Idaho's backlog for cyber tips was enormous. It was terrible. They've since got it figured out. And I think they're one of the highest producing units in the nation right now. They're doing great.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
But at that point, it was just, all right, we've got to get these cyber tips out and start investigating them. And man, a lot of those after I kind of got my feet wet were just atrocious, man. I mean, we're talking like you know, infant rape, torture, really young kids under two years old. A lot of them.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
You know, I don't know if they know. They must know why we're there. And they've got to know.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Right. Do they think they can get away with it? I don't know. I'm not sure what's going through their head at that exact moment. But if I put myself in their shoes. Yeah. There's a reason why there's a lot of these suspects end up called taking a brass plea. They usually take themselves out. Not usually, but it happens quite a bit with those types of investigations.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And obviously I don't condone any violence or anyone taking their own lives, but you know, it does.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yeah. That's a, that's a rough one, man. Like most criminals, you take a murderer and you know, just someone who is just a sociopath. And be like, hey, pedophiles, yeah, no? They're like, absolutely not. I do appreciate how they get treated in prison.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, look, I did a relatively short time in that task force and those investigations are so detailed and they take a long time. You're writing a lot of legal process to different entities to try and get information to put your case together. So while I was in there with ICAC, I had investigations going.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
I wasn't able to get one to a point where I was taking my guy, but I was also before that taking people for similar type crimes, right? Producing child pornography. What's it like sitting in the room with those people? Do they seem normal? Yeah. Yeah. For the most part. I mean, there's, there's some dudes where you go, that's Very stereotypical.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That's the dude living in his mom's basement and he's got the Jeffrey Dahmer glasses and it says like, I don't know, I heart anime or whatever on there. It's always anime or Star Wars. I don't know why.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And listen, this isn't 100%. I like Star Wars. Yeah, I get it. It's a trend. It's a trend. It's a trend.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Is there a breaking point for them? Generally, yeah. So there's the denial, and it's usually a very soft denial, like, no, I didn't do that. And you can kind of see them melting. That's when you flip the page.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
So, for example, one of the cases that's adjudicated at this point— This guy, he was basically grooming his niece from a super young age. And this is one of those cases where she had her own cell phone, but she also had a burner phone that her uncle gave to her. Oh, of course. Right. And that's where they communicated through Facebook.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And over the course of quite a few years, I think she was 12 or 13 when her case landed on my desk. But he had been... you know, sexually abusing her online enticement type stuff. Hey, sneak out of your house and come over. I love you. I'm going to leave my wife and we're going to get married and all sorts of stuff like that. Right. So we get to a point where we can make an arrest.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Um, and we come to find out that he had been producing photos of her and had those on his phone. So we get those photos. We put our whole case together. Um, We rewind on that. We knew about some of these photos. I didn't know how many, though, but I had two or three at the time. We arrest him, bring him in for the interview.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And at that point, I mean, this guy's like he doesn't know how much we know. Right. But as we're laying it out for him, you can see him kind of sinking, sinking, sinking, sinking. And the denials become weaker and weaker and weaker. And and eventually are just like, hey, man, like we know you showed up to a park to have sex with your niece.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Like you've been talking to your niece for the past three weeks. You've been talking to me and my partner. So we know what's up, and we have all your messages, and we have the photos inside the truck. You showed up with a moving blanket down on the bench seat. You got condoms in the car, flowers, and the chocolate that we asked you to bring. Jesus. Right? Like that kind of thing.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
So he gets to a point where he goes, yeah, okay, nope, I showed up. This was the reason. I was trying to get back at my wife because we've been having issues and yada, yada, yada. So, which that's a lie, but thanks for telling me that.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
So, I mean, the last thing that we showed them were the photographs. They were, we call it sanitized, right? So we sanitize the photos. Digitize it out or whatever. Correct. Yeah. And put them down and go, hey, what about this photo? Is that her? And he goes, yeah. I go, that finger right there in that photo, is that your finger? And he goes... Yeah. Check this one. Yep. Check this one. Yep.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Check this one. Yep. All right, cool. So, uh, God, last year he got, he got 30 years.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
The, the abuser is somebody that the child knows. Yeah. So it's, it's, there's a million stories like that, unfortunately. So parents had no idea that this girl had a burner phone that uncle gave to her. Oh, for sure. And that's like, that's the thing. Like, I mean, gosh, if this, if this podcast saves one kid, like dude, awesome. This is all worth it.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And that's, that's my goal is to try and get info out to parents. But it's like, listen, if you've got a kid that's a teenager, um, Don't be shocked if they have a burner phone. Go, like, be a parent. Toss their stuff.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
So we don't have the chats from when they first started talking.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
So I think, and I can't, I can't speak for her, but from what we did hear from her, this started when she was super young and it's, Hey, this is, this is a secret. If you tell anyone like your mom and dad, or they're never going to talk to me again, they're probably going to get divorced. It's all your fault. Yada, yada, yada.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And there's usually something to that effect, yes, that keeps a kid quiet. And then it just kind of grows from there, especially like he's got access to her all the time. And it was always a small touch, and then it became, all right, well, I touched your knee, so now I'm going to try and touch your thigh.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yes, and he was patient. didn't push it. And he just, he was able to get her to a point where she, she knew that it wasn't normal. She said, I don't, I don't like this. It makes me feel gross, but it just kind of is what it is. And I think that there's a lot of kids that, that deal with that. And it's, it's tragic because you're a kid. You don't know any different. You don't know any different.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yeah. So she just, I think she just got to a point where it's normal, and if something bad happens, it's my fault. And she was... How did it end up on your guys' radar? Parents found her phone. The burner? Yes. Did they know it was the uncle? Yes, because he was talking to her through his Facebook account. Oh, I would have definitely gone a non-legal route with that.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
I told her dad, I said, hey, man, I appreciate the amount of restraint that you have. Honestly, it was commendable, the amount of restraint that he had.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
This girl said something that like, I mean, it's still, it just, it breaks my heart. She, she had mentioned when she was being sexually abused, she goes, I, it made me feel gross. but it was confusing because it also like it physically, it felt good because you know, that's that portion of your body is supposed to feel good. It's not supposed to feel pain. Right.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
So, I mean, it's, you can imagine how in a young child, you know, 10 years old, give or take how confusing that has to be. Well, how does that not scramble your eggs for the rest of your life too? Right. And she's got a great family. I stopped by their house not too long ago just to check on them, see how they're doing. And she's doing great.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Grades are good. I mean, I don't think I've ever been so blown away as like watching some of these kids come out of these situations and just... rebound as well as they do. Some of them don't, which is tragic, but I mean, man, it's wild.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yeah. And, you know, I was thinking about this exact exchange. Yeah, because you don't want to educate the predator either. Correct. And the fact of the matter is like a, Criminals do dumb things, but they're not stupid. They're usually pretty smart. And so if I was a criminal and I want to find out how I'm going to get better at what I do or how I can get away with it, I'm going to seek out...
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
the cop talking to a guy on a podcast about what I'm doing and try and get away with, you know, like take some notes down. Right.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yeah. And I don't want to educate them at all anyway. No, no. And I'm trying to be really careful about my words here because I don't want to give anything away. We're not going to talk about investigatory tactics or anything like that. But to the person who is listening to this that maybe is looking for that tip, you're not going to find it here. Yeah.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
It doesn't matter how good you are on the internet. The internet's a big, big place, but it's not that big. And there's always a tidbit that leads back to you, that bad guy. And I guarantee you at one point that your name has come across the law enforcement officer's desk, whether it's local, state, federal. We hear all the time about...
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
how underfunded law enforcement is in these, in these, these units that work sex crimes against kids and all these things are underfunded, understaffed. And sometimes that's true. But if you're the person that's going after kids and you're listening to this right now, like, I hope this keeps you awake at night knowing that the people who work these units are
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
they're they're bulldogs man like it's it's bite it's hold it's chew it's i'm going to i'm going to find you eventually and there's always a breadcrumb somewhere in all the data that comes back to that person you know or comes back to their house and now you got a swat team busting down your door and detaining your whole family going all right well which one of you is into kids And it's coming.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
So I guess my urge to you is stop what you're doing now before it's too late. And man, go find Jesus because that's the only way you're going to get any sort of mercy, any sort of grace, because it ain't coming from me. That's not my job. It's not the job of the prosecutor.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's like a rabid dog, right? Everybody says, like, oh, if a dog bites a kid, we put it down. You're right. We do. And obviously, I'm not condoning any violence here, but— You leave that to me, sir. Yeah, that's— I'm not a law enforcement officer. Yeah, right? It just drives me nuts that— You just eat, you can't fix it. You can't fix it.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And I talked to my wife about this not too long ago, where like, if I can keep myself zoomed in on, this is my casework, I'm gonna, I'll be okay. I can keep myself held together pretty good. But if I zoom out and I go, Oh boy. 2023, 36 million cyber tips, over 105 million files shared. And you, you can't, you can't fix it, man.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Correct. So I don't want these people to learn anything from this podcast besides like. That your day is coming.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
There's groups of people who communicate. Whether they're in the same local area or not, I'm sure that that exists. You've got multiple people, same local area, who are into the same nasty stuff. But there's also the internet being the internet, it's worldwide. You do get those communities where it's all these people, one chat room from around the world.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
The chances of arresting one guy and going, hey, I need you to flip on a buddy and we'll take it easy on you. First of all, like, we can't really do that. It's hard to prosecute a case.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Right. So, and that works. That works. The issue is... They're probably going to give us something we already know. Which seems to be the case with the bicycle guys up here, too.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
They're trying to get out of the local jail 24 hours earlier.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
You're like, oh, the same tweaker that steals all the bikes? Yeah, thanks for the stale info, dude. Yeah, man. So it's... This world is so big and complex that it's... I don't even know if that juice would be worth the squeeze. Maybe on the federal level, it might be.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
So it does get more difficult. So courts make things more difficult, right? It's not like every time they make a decision that it makes it less restrictive on law enforcement. Yeah. Usually gets more restrictive. And on top of that, when you're talking about
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Cyber crimes of any kind, everything's going over to encrypted, everything's, you know, so it makes getting your legal process through a little bit harder. It's not impossible, it just makes things harder. Yeah, it's evolving. It's evolving, exactly. And these people know that. They know that. They're not, again, they do dumb things, but they're not stupid.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
So the tactics change, we have to adapt with the tactics and there's constantly new trainings coming out and there's new tactics coming out and there's new forensic software that comes out and it's constantly evolving to try and keep up with the way that technology's going. I think where things get so difficult is with just how massive the issue is, right?
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Exactly. And then we're going to miss that from our dads and then our kids. Exactly. We'll be driving them nuts.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And then you got your people who are into the images themselves. And statistically speaking, most of them are hands-on offenders at one point or another. But I could see where if you got the guy who's, if he's pimping out kids, maybe. But then again, most of those people, it's inter-familial type stuff. It's a parent pimping out a kid.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
So they might not know who the other people are pimping out their kids. Is the problem more prevalent than you think most people would want to admit? Dude, 100%. 100% it is. The numbers are just staggering. Like we just talked about COVID and we just talked about... you know, cyber tips. So 2019, the cyber tips were, it was like 16 million roughly.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And you fast forward to 2023 during the whole COVID type deal, jumped up to like 36 million. Jesus. It's a huge, huge jump. And the reason is because part of the reason is because we said, Hey kids, you're no longer going to school. Here's a device, go home, do your homework. And both parents are working.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
So you got just like all these kids on a computer all day and you have dudes in chat rooms that were looking for kids and they literally called it harvest time. They knew that all these kids were home alone and went after them. And so now you got these cyber tips that
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
They include the child enticement, they include the solicitation of nude photos or just dudes sending unwarranted photos to children or they're acting like they're children and they're not. Those cyber tips include all of that. So it's just this massive spike, and I haven't seen the 2024 numbers. I would imagine they're probably about the same. Who knows what 2025 is going to look like?
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
It's not like there's less internet. It's just... No, it's evolving.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
How long were you able to stay on the ICAC task force? I made it about six months. I made it about six months. I'll be honest, man. What was the tipping point? Oh, man. So it was kind of a few things. I stepped in there on the wrong foot, as it was. I had a partner down in L.A. County that was killed, Ryan Klinkenbroomer, on September 16th of 2023.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And then the following week I started in that unit. So I'm just messed up over losing Ryan. I go to this new unit and it's off to the races. You're learning as you go. Here's your caseload, have at. Um, and it started out pretty solid. I was loving it. And then getting to the point where it's like, you know, four or five months in where I know what I have to go do today.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
I know I'm going to go see this stuff. And I'm like literally in tears on my way to work, like just not in a good space, dude. And my wife knew it and she's watching me like circle the drain. Like I can't, I can't give my kid a bath. I can't change, you know, put them in a new pull up or do underwear.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
I was a mess and wasn't really talking to anybody about it and didn't really talk to any of the guys at the unit about it. And it was, it was at the point where, you know, I'm working these cases that are, it was just constantly like little, little kids. I mean, there was a video, a little girl and she had the same baby blanket that my kid had. And it just like that one.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
That's going to blow your brain up. Yeah. A hundred percent. I mean, like what they tell you when you work that unit is, Hey, you're going to,
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
on the videos you're going to watch the video with the audio off and then you're going to minimize the video and play it again with the audio on because when you write your your affidavits you have to describe what you're seeing and what you're hearing so there's a way to automate that particular man yeah how what what normal person could do that and not be completely destroyed
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
I'm not quite sure. I will tell you, I've got my head back together at this point.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And I feel like I could go do it. I don't know if I actually can or not. But I've worked with guys who've been working that stuff for like, no shit, like over a decade.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yeah, I have. I have. And I was actually, I was... kind of amazed when I put in for this spot that they didn't really screen for like, Hey, are you into this stuff?
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yeah. It's you hear about it and I don't know if it's, I know that it's not super common, right? But you do hear about it. It's one of those where you always hear the negative thing. But if you were a fucking predator and you wanted to have unfettered access, holy shit. Well, that's the thing, right? It's the same thing.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Like the people who are into kids, then they work at schools, they work at a daycare.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Imagine that. Yeah. Imagine it's like a drug addict. hanging out at a flop house. You're going to go where the dope's at. So it's no different. How did they catch the cop? Gosh, I don't know, but I hope there was... So you have heard of it, though? I have heard of it. I don't know these people personally. I've heard the stories about it. But this is my personal opinion.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
If you're the general Joe Public and you're doing this stuff, you need to be treated... Very harshly. If you're a cop doing this stuff, strip that uniform off because you don't deserve it whatsoever. You're a disgrace. And you should be treated twice as harshly as that person.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yeah, that you have to play that game that long to get into a unit like that. Because you hear about cops, firemen. Politicians, you know, you name it. These people who are put in positions of trust that get caught like a sting, right?
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Dude, how are you supposed to be a hero if you're not putting out fires?
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
We just don't know about it yet, is my guess. I mean, is there a lot of kids?
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
You hear about dudes getting hooked at Disneyland or they're, you know, they're Disneyland adjacent, right? They're working there. They're working around Disneyland. And you hear about them getting arrested quite a bit, quite a bit. And it makes sense. And it makes sense. But, yeah, man, the dudes that can do it forever, I'm thankful for them because it's a job that needs to be done.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
I just was not in a space where I could do it anymore and be any use to anybody or, like, just not completely lose my shit.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Right. And it's, to my knowledge, it's like one of the few places where you put your name in, you get selected, you go do it. And you can tap out at any time.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Like I it was right before I just I had to call it maybe a week or two before. We helped, again, this is an adjudicated case, but we helped Homeland Security with a warrant. This guy was producing terrible stuff with son or daughter, I can't remember. Jesus. But he was sending that material over to an undercover agent on the other side of the country.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
So they were able to track him back to this little town. HSI hit us up and said, hey, we need help with this search warrant. And we said, yeah, we're there. So does that flip it to federal, too, even if it's the internet across state lines? Yeah. Oh, sweet. Yeah. I don't know if you could play that both ways, local or federal. But generally speaking, if you take that to an AUSA, yeah, absolutely.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
So yeah, we get there and go into this dude's motor. I guess the situation is this guy's going through a divorce. Mom and kid live in the house. Dude lives in his motor home. Like on the property? On the property, like in the driveway. Jesus. In the driveway. I don't know if mom ever went out into that motor home or not, but I mean, it was disgusting. And in the back was like...
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
You really you can't describe it as anything else except for like a like a child sex dungeon. It was horrific, like little child sized torsos, you know, that are.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Actually, it's it's a thing and people advocate for it because they think it's, you know, oh, well, they'll just take it out on that instead of actually seeking children. And that's obviously not the case because this guy got caught doing it.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
I want to see that account get to like a million followers, though.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
I'll tell you what. You're never going to touch a kid again. Well, that's because you'd be dead. That would just detonate your entire pelvis, which is perfect. I mean, in this little motorhome, I would imagine just the whole back end being... removed all over the neighborhood, all over the neighborhood.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yeah. So, I mean, that was that I was already not doing great. Go and do that and seeing that stuff. And I'm like, Oh man, I'm not. just, yeah, dude, it was all bad. It was all bad. Um, and then go back into work and there was a video, uh, I'll spare the details, but just infant, you know, being raped and it was horrific.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
If all the fake Andy Stumpf profiles follow him back, though, what do you think?
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And it's one of those things you watch it without the audio produced inside of that RV. No, no, this was a separate, separate case. Sorry. Separate case that I was working. And, uh, infant is having these terrible things happen to it. And it's like the
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Dude, it's so messed up because you watch these videos without noise and you go, I hope that this kid's dead because I can't imagine what that's like, you know? And I minimize the video and turn the audio on and this baby is screaming, dude. It was terrible. It was terrible. And I ripped off my headset. I just walked out of the office and took a drive.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And I called up my buddy who, uh, works child crimes. I was like, dude, I, I can't do this anymore, man. Like I'm not that I was going to do anything to myself. I just like, I, I can't, I just can't stand this stuff anymore. And so he was like, Hey man, relax. You're good. Just bro. Pull yourself out. You just, you gotta get out of there. And I was like, you're right.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
So I went to my Sergeant's office and just, I was a mess in there and I was like, I can't do this anymore. And this is the first time that I've ever taken myself off of something in this career. And it sucked because that's all I wanted to do was go work those kinds of crimes. But I just, I got to a point where I just could not. I was, I, I couldn't function, man. I couldn't function.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Do they give you some time off? Yeah. Yeah. He's like, Hey, take the rest of the week off.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And I appreciate it. I came in. No, look that, that my agency, I can't express how awesome they are. Really. Um, they, I, I come back in, uh, it's like a Monday or something for a meeting with the Lieutenant. And he's like, look, dude, we, we fully expect for people just to not be okay when they leave this unit, whether they're there for six months or years, like do people leave that unit?
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And, uh, I've heard I've spent time in a facility or they just quit law enforcement. Yeah, man. I mean, it's, it just, it's scrambled me to a point. Like I've never been scrambled before. Um, and it was, that was truly a new feeling for me cause I was a stable. I was pretty good at it.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
tamping everything down um or so i thought right i look back now and i'm like no definitely not you were good at wearing a mask but it's like you weren't that great at it um yeah man so meet with the lieutenant tells me yeah you're out don't worry about it like you just need to make sure you're okay and then went and worked it was like a juvenile crimes type spot that was Wasn't too, too bad.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And then we switched over to special victims. Skittles, theft crimes, gas station and shit. Yeah. It's, you know, it wasn't anything near as, as heavy as that.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
I still wanted to work crimes with kids, you know, crimes that included child victims, which is... you know, special victims, you're going to work with adult victims. You're going to work with child victims. Um, and don't get me wrong. I've got a huge heart for, you know, the adult victims that I work with too. Huge heart for, for them.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And how many other people is he following though? Just those?
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Um, but I think anybody would agree, like it's a whole nother, it takes on a whole nother meaning when it's a child. So getting to work those crimes and still, you know, I'm not, I'm not seeing and viewing this terrible stuff every day. I'm working those types of crimes still, but they're, Further and fewer between.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yeah. It's a, for retirement. Yeah. It's like a rule of 80. So it's like your years of service plus your age. If it makes 80, it's whatever percentage of your. That's a fucked up way to do that.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
I mean, you might as well. Right. I, yeah, dude, I don't. I'll be the first to admit, I, I should probably look more to the retirement side of things. I feel like it's so far off and it's, it's not, it's 20 years, but it's, it's close enough. I should probably know more about it. I just, you know, I I've been putting it off. I should know more about it.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
So I, is there something that could do that? Maybe, probably. I think it gets, I think it gets dicey. Maybe if you have like a, uh, almost like an AI system where you're not... It has to reach a legal standard, right?
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
It would have to reach a legal standard, but it's also, if you dump this into an AI system and other people have access to that AI system, now you're like disseminating this type of stuff. See, I don't know. I would imagine we now have like a code for AI generated CSAM, which is great because that's becoming a more prevalent issue. Yeah. So is it possible to... Are the penalties less for that?
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And there's still arguments going on about that, right? Because some people are like, you know, oh, well, it's not a real person. So it shouldn't be treated as such.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
It's a real desire. So... the way the code's written for like enticement, right? If I'm working undercover as a kid and somebody reaches out to me, I'm not a real kid, but they showed up to have sex with me. Yeah. There's, there's, it's not going to change.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Like, okay. Yeah, actually, I'm glad you brought that up because, dude, it's happening all over the place. And I will say this, it's a rose and thorn moment. The rose is you're putting yourself between a real child and one of these predators. And that's awesome. Thorn is you're not a cop.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
The thorn is you're not a cop, and you're probably not going to meet the Fourth Amendment standard for this to actually hold up in court. So there's a whole lot of training that goes into doing those undercover chats. And-
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
All you're really doing, if you go, you catch this guy in a Walmart parking lot, you smack him in the face and send him on his way and you get a million likes on YouTube, that's cool. But you just made a smarter pedophile. He's going to go, oh man, I fell for that.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
But I think on the, on the other side is when you do take someone to jail, like your, your, your clock starts.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
If I can take a report, take this weirdo's name down, all of his information, hand it off to a detective.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
So I would say that that's, that's probably how I would go. Like, let's, I can't take this dude's chats, some random dude from, whatever platform and hand them to a prosecutor and be like, I sure hope this is good enough. That's not going to fly.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
But if I can, you know, if you're a patrol cop and you get one of these and you write it as like an information only type thing or whatever, and you hand it off and maybe an investigation can start that way. I think that's a lot safer. I think that's you're going to have a better chance of this flying in court because now you're not using fruit of the poisonous tree. Right.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
It's tough. And I. I'm so torn. Right. Because I'm, I'm same boat. I'm like, this is who, who doesn't like watching that. Right.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
But yeah, my concern is like, uh, you know, it's like fishing, right? You throw a lure in the water, you're throwing flies in the water and the fish are, they could start recognizing what's, What's food and what's not food? You're going to start training these people. You know, they talk with enough people who are trying to get a gotcha moment.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
They're going to start finding out like, okay, what's real and what's not. And that to me is what's scary because we don't really get a whole, we don't get a whole lot of chances for proactive work and sex crimes against kids. We can put together a team and go, all right, cool.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Hey, this night we're going to have, you know, four or five dudes chatting online with these weirdos and we'll have a house that they're supposed to show up to and a takedown team.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And they're great, right? But that's also law enforcement on the other side of the door. Correct. Yeah. There's a penal code section that says, hey, if we end up whooping someone's ass, like, We're good as long as it's justified.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Correct. But that's, dude, you take 10 to jail in a night. That's awesome. That's a great night. You're not even putting a dent. in the population, though. That's the problem. So it's not like you send a team of street cops out there and go, hey, this area has been having a lot of burglaries or a lot of dope, and we're just going to go rape and pillage, take everything to jail.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
It doesn't work like that. So the opportunity for proactive work on the sex crime side is really difficult. So we can't make smarter pedophiles. We really got to be careful about that.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
The couple that come to mind, and these weren't my cases. These are cases from dudes who are, I mean, if I could be half the cop that they are, I'd be doing pretty good. But chatting with them, it's a mixture of both. It's a little bit of luck on the law enforcement side. And it's also, yeah, they made a mistake. They made a mistake. But here's the thing is like,
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
We all use the same internet, right? We all use the same dark web. Like, it's not like, I mean, I've heard of the dark web and the onion round here.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And there's so much to it. Like if I tried to tell you what it is, everyone in this room would leave more confused because I can't articulate it quite right. It's like an internet. That's not an internet through a browser.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Exactly. That was one of my first questions when I went to ICAC was, hey, do I need to be a computer nerd to work this unit? And they go, no, you need to be an investigator. The nerds are over there.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yeah. I went and put myself through a bunch of training through ICAC's.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
training portal i'm like this is an ip address and it looks like this and it's just i mean barney style yeah breaking it down i know what ip address stands for yeah i don't know what the fuck it means it's it's it's all of it is so confusing i know it's some numbers i know it stands for internet protocol yeah i still hit up dudes from that unit i'm like i have this what does it mean and they're like let me take your hand yeah and lead you me with my father and his pictures yeah
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Most people are, but there's people who are really, really good at it, right? Bad guys and good guys. So I guess the moral of the story is like, yeah, you can try and hide your identity through using the dark web, but that's only going to work for so long. You... You're eventually going to get caught, I think is the moral of the story on this one.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
I don't want people to think that I can just get away with doing whatever on the dark web. You can hide a little bit, but you're eventually going to get found, man. You're eventually going to get found. We all use the same internet. We're all using the same, not all of us, but the people using the dark web, it's all the same.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
I would say like low level. Right. Especially now working in Idaho. It cracks me up. You get people from Oregon where they're like. It sounds like they're almost handing out heroin and meth. They're like, we have too much heroin and meth. Please take this.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Right. Yeah. Imagine that. Right. But you got these people with heroin, meth, heroin's a thing of the past now, fentanyl, meth, that type of thing. And they roll into Idaho and they get stopped and their car gets tossed and you find all this stuff. And they're like, I thought we were good. That stopped over there, man. That was about 80 miles, 90 miles that way, dog. That's not going to fly here.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And then they go to jail for possession. Yeah. I mean, those people to me, man.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Well, that's the thing. That's crazy that somebody else's pants fit you so well, first off.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yeah, in my whole life, I've never worn somebody else's pants. So I think at this point, I mean, cops has been around since the late eighties. Yeah. I think that's people still try it. It doesn't work. I think we're onto you at this point. We're pretty sure that those are indeed your pants. Probably. I think they are too. You might've fooled us back then in the eighties, but I don't know, man.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
It's not my car. Yeah. It's registered to you. Oh yeah. Yeah. Or they do like the tweaker car shuffle. They're like, oh no. So I picked this car up last week from my girl and blah, blah, blah. And you try and call them and this is a disconnected number and you can't figure out whose car it is. And like, all right, well, you're going to jail for something.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
I mean, that's, that's a great way to put it. Cause unfortunately like nothing, nothing is a hundred percent.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Now, are we talking like from head to toe, the only thing they're wearing is cleats? Yeah. Yeah. See, that's rough. I think it might go against community guidelines. Illegal? Probably not.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yeah. I think dude, honestly, like let's start out with what, what's free, what's going to cost you nothing. It's just conversations, conversations with your kids as in like, Hey, from when they're super young, these are your private parts. Nobody touches them, but you or mommy and daddy, when we're giving you a bath or helping you go potty or anything like that. But other than that, like,
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
nobody and just being, you know, keep drilling that into their head.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yeah. I see exactly what you're asking. I think you're right on the money because there is...
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
not the parents shouldn't do it i'm just curious if that's a more malleable barrier for a known quantity yeah there's there's definitely a difference between the neighbor touching you inappropriately and maybe a family member that it's still weird it's still not right and these kids are they're not they're not dumb they go whoa right yeah this is really weird but it's it's uncle bob you know so maybe they don't say anything for a while
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
But at the same point, I mean, you do have the kids who, you know, when they're super young, kids are going to act out what's done on them, right? So you get the kid at school that's touching the other kids inappropriately, and the teacher pulls them aside and goes, hey, you know, those are our private parts. Nobody touches them but us, yada, yada, yada. And the kid goes, oh, well.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
In that case, it's like it's almost normal for that kid. Right. He's he's just saying, well, I think it's OK to do it because it happens to me.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
You know, I think it depends on the kid. I think it depends on the kid because some of them you talk to them or have, you know, they go in for a forensic interview.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Right, exactly. And then others, you, it's, you really got to pry it out of them. I think, I think that depends on the kid, but as you, as kids start getting older, cause you know, I have seen like five-year-olds with cell phones, which blows my mind. But as kids start getting older, that conversation starts shifting to like, hey, you're going to be trusted with a little bit more freedom.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Maybe we're going to give you a phone. Maybe we're not. But your friends are going to have phones and, you know, they might show you some really bad stuff. You know, they might show you pornography on their phone. And this is what this is, what pornography is. And it's not OK. This is, you know. even drugs, like you just buy drugs off of Snapchat these days. Right.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
I mean, you name it. We could probably, I'm not familiar with this area, but we could probably find someone to sell us dope and,
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. But I do those conversations are, are make or break and it's creating that trust or, you know, your kid's always going to be better at technology than you are. So be curious about what they have. Hey, can you show me how that works? Can you show me this, that, and the other? They're probably going to show you. Kids are also sneaky, though.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
So, like, we talked about burner phones. We talked about all these different things.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
But also if it's the 1920s and you're trying to shave down there.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Oh dude, for sure. And I mean, here's the thing is, you know, I tell people this quite often is you give your kid this phone with access to the internet and now they've got access to the whole world, which is awesome. The world has access to them. Exactly. Exactly. And maybe you take their phone away, but their friend has it.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And same thing happens where, you know, they're being exposed to this terrible stuff or these people who have access to your kid's friend now have access to your kid because they're hanging out in the same circle. They're all going to be doing the same, the same things. So I think that's where it's really, you just got to have those conversations and drill it into them. Like this is not okay.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And these, you're, you are going to see these things. That's not an if it's, you are going to see these things. And I, I can only do so much. So you need to be aware of this and be aware that it's not okay. And be aware that you can come and talk to me about it. I mean, something we haven't covered yet is like the sextortion side of things.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Even still, you're talking like, you know, safety razor where you got to put the blade in and crank it. Trying to shave down there with that has got to be a nightmare.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like Snapchat's one of those where everybody says it's 10 seconds and it's gone. Till you get a fucking warrant. Yeah, exactly.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And then we go, actually, it's kind of forever. Yeah. Yeah, man. I mean, this extortion type thing, it's, we're seeing a lot of... How do I put this? We're seeing the rate of teenage suicide skyrocket. And we're also seeing sextortion skyrocket. And I can't say that those two things are... Might not be causal, but they're probably correlated. Correct. And NECMEC put out a report about that.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And I want to say it was 2023, but don't quote me on it. They said, hey, we can only confirm that 20 teen suicides were because of not only, right?
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Only 20 teen suicides are because of sextortion. And then they go, but we believe it's a lot higher. Yeah, it could be a flawed reporting system. It could be a flawed reporting system or it's, hey, this kid didn't leave a note behind saying why this happened.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
But you look into their phone while you're doing the investigation and go, well... Yeah. There's extortion behind it. I can't say this is the exact reason this kid did this, but it exists, but it exists. Right. So I have a hard time believing that those two numbers aren't related, you know, in some form or fashion. So having those conversations with your kid about like,
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
You might be exposed to this. Somebody might hit you up and you make a poor decision because we're all human beings and we all make poor decisions. And you send that photo. And it's actually not some cute blonde girl you're talking to. It's a dude. And he's going to start hitting you up for money and hounding you and hounding you and hounding you.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And that's when you need to stop what you're doing and come tell mom and dad. And mom and dad, take the phone. Don't erase anything. Just keep it as is. And give us a call. Call the cops. If it's somebody that's overseas, we might be able to do something that we would hope, right? Somebody here on the state side? Absolutely. Because your kid's not the only person that's happening to.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
They're talking to kids all over the country. And it's rising at this insane rate. And the pressure that it's putting on kids, it's like, yeah, how do you deal with that shame? I can't go tell my mom about this. But you can. But you can.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
None of that's true. And I talked to parents who, you know, I get a report on my desk and it's, Hey, you know, uh, Johnny was talking with this girl who he thought was a girl sends a picture of himself to her and the extortion portion starts. Right. The parents freak out, which is completely understandable. I'd be in the same boat. And they call us and we go, hey, relax. We got this.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
The only person that's in trouble here is the guy talking to your kid. Your kid's not in any sort of trouble. We don't want them to feel pressured in any sort of way. This is the time where we back it up a little bit. Let's have a cool, calm conversation about how we fix this. how we don't run into this issue again, right?
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
A little bit of a tangent, but one of the ways that you fix this is through NECMEC, and they've got a program called Take It Down. And it's this awesome program where, hey, I sent this photo of myself and I really screwed up, right? You can take that photo, you drop it off to NECMEC, and then they do their best to scrub it from the internet.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
It is, it is. So if you're a kid listening to this or you're a parent listening to this and and this happens to you, like it, it's gonna, it's gonna suck. That's not a fun position to be in, but you've got a whole law enforcement agency behind you. You've got NECMEC there. You've got these options. So have those conversations with your kids. Cause it's, it like legit could save their life.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
How did you fight your way into law enforcement? So growing up in Southern California, my dad was a deputy with L.A. County sheriffs. And I mean— that's just what I wanted to do.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
It could save their life. Like we've all been teenagers before. Thank God I didn't have a phone. Dude.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
There is an adult version for Take It Down also. He's got his pencil out. I don't remember that.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yeah. You know, I, this probably is, I couldn't tell you like across the country, like this is the be all end all case. Yeah. But from, from the unit that I worked at, I mean, you got guys, the dudes have been there for a long time. They have that one case where it's like, Hey, this started out with a single image. dropped into like Bing or whatever. Yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And we had almost no information and we start working it. And then we come across thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of files or, um, gosh, there's one case. The detectives did an amazing job on it where it started out, um, started out as a cyber tip. I believe I could be wrong on that, but it was just one victim. They tracked this guy down.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
long story short, this guy was talking to kids on some gaming platform and that would move them over to another platform. And then they, he would basically get them to start taking their clothes off and he was recording everything. And he had like five, like, like hard copies of everything that he was recording. And he would like, this is a guy's full-time job.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Like he's spending his entire day doing this. Like we're talking, gosh, I want to say 60 victims. It's probably north of that, of all these kids, right? That he was able to get to a point where they're taking off their clothes and exposing themselves or getting them to bring in a friend or a young family member and abuse them.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
So, and there was victims from all over the country, all over the country. My cousin, who was working special victims at the time, actually worked on this case that originated out of Idaho. And my cousin was working down in Southern California. So there's just victims everywhere, everywhere. That guy got some insane, insane sentencing. Like he'll never see the light of day again. Good.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Probably not. Probably not. But you reap what you sow, right? You reap what you sow. You know that people who commit those crimes don't do well in prison. You went and did it anyways. Yeah. I'm very happy that they don't do that in prison.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yeah. Oh, 100%. And I know you've had at least one LAPD copper in here or retired LAPD copper, but, uh, There's definitely that friendly, unfriendly rivalry. Why he went sheriff's, you know, I'm not sure off the top of my head. I think... What about his family before him? Were they law enforcement? No. So he was the first into the... He was the first. Okay. Yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yeah. I mean, looking ahead, I, I really liked the leadership aspect. Um, I remember being, you know, just a boot cop and looking up at like some of my sergeants going, I want to do that one day, like lead a team and go out there and be proactive and, and that kind of thing. So I think in the next, you know, two to five years promoting and then, um, yeah, hopefully, uh,
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Kind of finding out from there that you promote and it opens up all these different doors. And, you know, I can't say for certain what I want to do.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yeah, exactly. Hey, man, if it's two in the morning, it's freezing cold, ain't nobody moving around. Fuck. Yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
I guess the first thing I would change... And knowing that it is actively changing is the culture around mental health. That's what I would change right up front. The place I'm at right now does an amazing job, in my opinion. I think they do a great job. And the place that I was at before, the other agency in Idaho, did a phenomenal job. Los Angeles County, I love that agency.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
The culture does not... like i said that's changing yeah that's like a battleship changing though it takes a lot of spins of the wheel for the compass to move a degree absolutely and the agency themselves i mean there's there's a ton of of like county shrinks and all they do is handle cops right they're hired by the county for the county and that's it and in their families i believe but uh
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
The problem is the culture just, hey, you're a pussy if you go talk to them. You're a pussy. And so it makes it difficult, man. I'm not afraid to admit that I went to a really, really, really bad place. two years, give or take in a patrol. And you don't really fit in with like the brand new guys, but you don't really fit in with like the OG cops.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And you're just seeing nasty, terrible stuff all the time and blowing off smoke is, you know, or blowing off steam is drinking too much. And I can't do anything else. I, I, All I know is being a cop.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
My grandfather did, like, duct work for HVAC systems. And then, yeah, my dad... Less likely to get shot. Yeah. A lot less likely. Yeah. A lot less likely. Now, my pop got into it, and I... He wouldn't have done well in the trades, I don't think. It's not his personality. Not his personality. He definitely had a personality for law enforcement. How long did he do? Gosh, he did 24, 25 years.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
I mean... We've seen it happen. I just had a partner that I worked with down there, took his own life. And it sounds like it was that same, like I've got 15 years on, I can't leave and go somewhere else, but we're so short staffed and I'm working, you know, I'm maxed out on overtime, mandatory, can't sustain it. And I mean, 2023, there was, it was a 24 hour period.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And four LA County, there are two deputies and two civilian employees killed themselves in a 24 hour period. I mean, if that doesn't set off alarm bells institutionally, I don't know what would all over the news, but yeah, you know, as, as it should be, but you go, okay, there's four and 24 hours and that's terrifying. But then you look at, and that's in one County and that's in one County. Yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
I think LA County that year, I want to say had like 13 or more suicides. And I will point to you go, man, we've got like a serious issue. The County did their job. They've got all these shrinks on, on site. It's, it's, it's a cultural thing. Um, so like, dude, if you're, if you're struggling, like bro, go get help. It takes a strong man to actually go get the help that they need.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Absolutely. And I wish, I wish I went and did that. Way sooner. I would have saved myself a lot of heartache, man. A lot of heartache. It would have saved my family a lot of heartache. Like it's, I'm just going to sit there and I'm going to suck it up. And you know, well that, that only works for so long before it starts spilling over. And yeah, it's, and it's never, ever, ever good. I agree.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
nothing's ever going to be a hundred percent safe. If you're a parent, like don't think that the boogeyman's around every single corner. Right. And you got to allow your kids some freedom, but don't think he doesn't exist either, but don't think he doesn't exist. Right. Like if your kid's got a cell phone and none of this is aimed at trying to tell you how to parent your kids, none of it.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
But if your kid has a cell phone, maybe it's a good idea to just, hey, we're going to charge that and it's going to be up in my room. Or, you know, you leave a kid in the middle of the night with their cell phone, they're probably going to do something that they're going to regret later. There's different options out there for cell phones.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
I'm not sponsored by any of them, but like Bark, Pinwheel, anything like that.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Yeah, absolutely. So missingkids.org is neck mech. Okay. Dude, they've got stuff for kids. They've got stuff for parents. They'll come out, they'll do training. If you own a restaurant, you own a coffee shop, you own a clothing store, whatever it is.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
They do a program called Code Adam, and it's basically just a protocol for, like, if a kid goes missing in your store or around your store, like, hey, everybody's trained up on what to do. We're going to call the cops immediately. Give me a description of the kid. Get me a photo.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
We're going to have all that lined out so that we can get this kid, A, found faster, or B, let's put them in the system as fast as we can. I mean, most... Most missing kids situations, the parents go and just completely understandable. They go and they look for a couple hours and go, oh, God, he's like really gone, gone.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
And then call. That's enough to be over state lines. Correct. Correct. You know, God forbid something actually happened or even like, you know, you find kids in lakes and canals and that kind of thing. And it's terrible. Yeah. If I guess what I, last point is if you're a parent, God forbid something happens to your kid, what do you do? You kill everybody. Yeah.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Well, it comes with some legal issues, but we can try and work around it, I guess.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
He just retired a couple years ago. How do they abbreviate it? L-A-S-O? L-A-S-D.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
It's your natural instinct as a parent is to go, oh, my God, tell me everything. Right. That's it's going to be really hard to do this, but call the cops, get a very basic story and then let the investigators investigate. Because if we ask too many questions up front and we don't get a great interview in or this kid comes across looking like they were coached, even though they weren't.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
That's going to be really hard on the court side. And we don't want people who abuse kids to get away with any of this stuff because small ticky tack nonsense.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
I'm not affiliated. Yeah, I'll throw it out there. On Instagram, codeword.northstar. It's not affiliated with any agency. Anybody who goes and checks it out, I'm terrible, terrible with social media. I'll link you up with my dad. He could be your manager. Oh, dude, perfect.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Well, thank you for coming out. Dude, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
I'm trying to put some sort of training together. The gym that I roll at in Idaho. Oh, jiu-jitsu player. Yeah. Well, okay. Let me put it this way. I suck. Yeah, welcome to the fucking club.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
It is. It's a rough intro. It is, man. I started at 30. I'm like, I really wish I started this earlier. I started at 41. Oh, man.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
You know, and listen, I'll say this. I love the LAPD guys, you know, but we chase our bad guys down to them. They chase theirs up to us, and, you know, and... You know, we were talking about the helicopter side of things, right? LAPD's copters are coming back to us a ton of times when our aero units weren't able to make it to us. So, yeah, there's a friendly rivalry. It's healthy.
Cleared Hot
Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Dude, if you yell tickle fight and then he shoots you, you got a great case on your hands. I mean, I don't know. It's not a good shot either.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
I don't know how to help you. I don't know how to help you. But yeah, man, trying to put out trainings and just get in front of as many parents as possible. I think that's the way. Yeah. That's the only way we get in front of this. Yeah. Because we're reacting to a lot of stuff. Something bad's already happened. So the prevention is going to be up to parents.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
It's still ongoing. Who has the longer academy? So I think the academy is dictated by California Post. Who has the better academy? Oh, L.A. County. Without a doubt. Without a doubt.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Here's the thing, though. And I've talked to folks from LAPD, and they've got little stress cards. If they're feeling a little too stressed, they can just hold up their. No, they don't. I don't know, man.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
Right. Yeah. Right. And there's that whole, you know, I'm sure it's the same in the military, definitely in law enforcement and fire and all that, where the generation before us had it so much worse and the generation before them, they were tougher and had it worse and so on and so forth.
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Episode 383 - Garrett Maxey
My father-in-law has retired LA City Fire, and the amount of times I've heard that over the past 15 years or so.