Scott Payne (Code Name Pale Horse, White Hot Hate) is a retired FBI Special Agent and author. Scott joins the Armchair Expert to discuss his first taste of undercover work in high school in South Carolina, how he caught the bug training as a fresh-face narcotics officer, and his long shot cold application to the FBI. Scott and Dax talk about his first undercover assignment in the Outlaws biker gang, the ins and outs of performing believable criminal activity, and navigating guilt around putting targets away whose trust he’d earned. Scott explains that the ultimate goal of undercover is accountability by building relationships you’re going to betray, infiltrating an insidious and violent accelerationist white supremacist cell, and a terribly fraught encounter with a goat.Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new content on YouTube or listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free by joining Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting wondery.com/links/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard/ now.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
What was Scott Payne's first undercover experience?
He could have killed so many more people. Now, see, in America, though, you can blast that. That's the First Amendment protected speech. You can say, I hate any racial slur you want. You can say, I hope any racial slur dies. That's not against the law. That's where our work, my peers, mentors, people I've mentored, first responders on that front line have to stay vigilant.
So let's just say you make it into one of those groups and you're looking at thousands and thousands of the most vile posts you can think of.
They're trying to figure out who's serious or not. Yeah. Who's going to pull the trigger. How on earth do you delineate?
You just got to stay vigilant. You hope that people out there, cliche, but if you see something, say something.
You know what this reminded me of a little bit in a weird way is domestic abusers. They beat their wife twice. You know, statistically, okay, well, eight times more likely this guy's gonna kill her. When you're in law enforcement and you're just watching the pattern and you're trying to figure out, okay, he's on the road. When are we allowed to intervene? We have to wait till she gets killed?
I know a lot of times people that'll want to argue against law enforcement, they'll be like, oh, why are you pulling me over? Why aren't you working murders? Well, there's an old theory called the broken window theory, and it's we start small.
If you're a disorderly walking down the street drunk and I lock you up for disorderly, maybe I stopped you from getting behind the wheel of a car and killing somebody in the DUI. Maybe I'll stop you from going home and murdering your wife or having that 15th domestic beating.
This is in Malcolm Gladwell's book. This is cracking down on jumping turnstiles on the subway. This is cleaning up graffiti. You take away the opportunity because you never know what's going to happen. And all that stuff. And look, I'm in the middle of all this. But when your environment is sending you signals that no one's looking, people act differently.
Another friend and acquaintance of mine, he's actually a great instructor speaker, former law enforcement in London, UK. We were having this conversation. It's like, man, why is there more of this stuff happening? We can dive down rabbit holes and stuff and conspiracy theories, but I've been around guns my whole life. It's not that.
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