The Jordan Harbinger Show
1161: Tegan Broadwater | How a White Cop Infiltrated the Crips Part Two
Thu, 29 May 2025
Undercover work is psychological warfare in designer jeans. Ex-cop Tegan Broadwater explains how authenticity beats acting when lives are on the line. [Pt. 2/2 — Find Pt. 1/2 here!]Jordan's must reads (including books from this episode): AcceleratEdFull show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1161What We Discuss with Tegan Broadwater:How Tegan Broadwater went undercover and infiltrated the Crips gang for 18 months, working mostly off-the-books without proper backup or supervision.What happened when Tegan discovered a corrupt police officer selling information to gang members and warning them of raids — while superiors ignored his detailed complaint and evidence.How budget constraints forced dangerous solo operations rather than proper surveillance teams, using a single patrol officer as backup via an open phone line.How Tegan's efforts successfully built a 51-person conspiracy case with FBI partnership, resulting in arrests averaging 19-year sentences and solving nine cold case murders.Why a focus on mentoring at-risk youth is society's best chance at breaking cycles of crime — supporting children of incarcerated parents through education, job skills, and positive role models creates lasting change.And much more...And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps! Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course!Subscribe to our once-a-week Wee Bit Wiser newsletter today and start filling your Wednesdays with wisdom!Do you even Reddit, bro? Join us at r/JordanHarbinger!This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors:Northwest Registered Agent: northwestregisteredagent.com/jordanOura Ring: 10% off: ouraring.com/jordanCayman Jack: caymanjack.comAirbnb: airbnb.com/hostLand Rover Defender: landroverusa.comMiss the two-parter we did with Jack Barsky — author of Deep Undercover: My Secret Life and Tangled Allegiances as a KGB Spy in America? Start with episode 285: Jack Barsky | Deep Undercover with a KGB Spy in America!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What was the undercover experience like for Tegan Broadwater?
hanging out in the hood three blocks away with listening devices. You go in, you give the date and time, what you're going to do, and you go in and you try to accomplish whatever the part of the mission is, make the buy, whatever. It's just so freaking conspicuous and time consuming to get that together. And hey, these guys are saying, hey, man, B just went to Waco and he's going to be back.
Are you interested in doing some business? And it's two in the morning. I'm not going to get eight dudes out of their beds to come show up and do all this conspicuous stuff with a bunch of white dudes. Because that's the other thing is these dudes parking in these enterprise leased cars all over the hood. They're just like, I think something's up because these people also have lookouts.
There are 13 Ford Fusions in the neighborhood, and usually there's zero. What's going on? It's that bad in a lot of cases.
Now, there are some real expert guys. Again, if you're working with the FBI and you've certified your undercover status and you have a team of people from different places that you're going, that's fine. But I was also working in my own backyard, and I had so little money.
And so little opportunity to just go in and start flashing money and blowing up stuff that I had to leverage the time that I could spend down there. Sometimes I would go down there specifically asking for someone I knew that was gone so that I had an opportunity to just hang out. But not spend any money because the guy was gone.
Yeah.
And because I didn't have the money, too. I needed to establish relationships and find out who's who. And so I would just go down there. And before you knew it, after 8, 10, 12 months, I'm going down there and they're inviting me down, bringing... four pack of Magnums and we're sharing malt liquor and playing Madden and whatever, and it's all good.
But in the beginning, that's the idea is that's how you build relationships. You know who I am. You've seen me. I'm asking for so-and-so who's not here. And so the rest is, hey, what's up? You want a beer? And just seeing what's going on. So that's a little bit different level of pressure for somebody instead of me saying, well, can you get me something? It's not all business.
That makes a lot of sense. Also, I think it's funny you had the budget issues, right? So you have this wide, this big wad of cash. You got $200 on the outside. You're like, I hope he doesn't need any more than that. Because once I rip off this first $100 bill, everything under that is ones. It's all about the Washingtons, baby. Yeah, we're taking them to the strip club after this deal.
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Chapter 2: How did Tegan manage his operations without proper backup?
So that if anything goes wrong, he can roll up with the lights and sirens. Drive through the front door, man, because these are all like burglar barred, fortified, whatever. I said, just come save my ass.
Jeez, and he's just hanging out at Tim Hortons waiting for the call? Yeah, basically, yeah. But he's thinking about it as a patrol officer. That's exciting stuff to do, too. I guess it's better than, yeah, I mean, he's Carl Winslow in Die Hard, right? He's hanging out outside of...
It's something cool to do, answer a call or waiting for a call or whatever. Somebody calls and says, you know, homicide detective, and you go out hunting.
It's something to do. Sure. Somebody who actually wants to work. No kidding. So you mentioned you did a bunch of stuff off the books. We touched on that. But why did you need to do that again?
I needed to do it primarily because time was a key factor. And essentially, I spent so much time that it was a non-starter. There was no team that could stay down there every single day, including weekends and everything else.
So it's expensive. So you're just like, I'm going to go do it by myself, even though I'm not supposed to do it.
Yeah. And even just the hangouts every day of the week, I would spend some time. I would at least drive through and say, what's up? If I'm on a Saturday and I'm doing something with my family, I would still roll through there and give a what's up. They saw me almost every single day for that straight 18 months. People saw my face rolling through there. And that was part of it, though.
I never just disappeared for periods of time. That's when people start thinking, where have you been? Like, what's going on? And I have to make up some kind of ruse, but I got locked up or wherever else I was supposed to be. And unfortunately, I lived in the same city, which was part of the other anomaly in this case, is that I'm crapping in my own backyard, essentially.
So that made it more difficult. But that's why off the books, I would say, other than a couple of the things that I was involving myself with that would have been Once you go up the chain and say, hey, I want to go, you know, hang out with these dudes and play video games and we talk for smack. I'm going to try to meet some new people wherever. You do that on a daily basis.
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Chapter 4: How did Tegan build relationships while undercover?
Yeah, I was encouraged to write a book after this, and I had no interest in writing a book at all till somebody brought me to one particular organization that got me turned on to this whole thing where we calculate all the kids that were left behind after this roundup. So you have 51 people off the street, one female, 50 dudes, and you try to think of, all right, now...
How many fatherless kids are there going to be on the street in that same poor neighborhood being raised by aunts and grandmothers in that same place who are going to take the next opportunity? And then you got to get some dude in 18 years to go in and take them all to jail. I'm just thinking this is salvaging that neighborhood in a certain way, but it's not a long term solution.
The arrest is not a long term solution. You're getting the violent people away so that this neighborhood could potentially thrive. But what are we doing for that neighborhood to thrive? And this organization is an after-school organization that mentors children of incarcerated and murdered parents. They teach them. They have to come in and report their conduct grade every single day.
They talk about their test scores. They get mentored in art class, in their homework stuff. They do music. They do athletics. They have little after-school. Dallas Maverick guy will come out and do some kind of thing at the basketball court or whatever. It's a fantastic program. They essentially teach these kids everything. Table manners and how to apply for jobs.
Oh, wow.
Yeah. Smart. Takes her ceiling from this level and makes it sky high, which we take for granted. Our parents have always taught me you can do anything you want. Sure. If you just do this, this is the path and whatever.
It's that Chris Rock bit. You ever remember that Chris Rock bit where he's like, you tell a white kid he can do whatever he wants. He turns around and says, I don't know that. That's exactly right.
Yeah, it is right. I think it's funny because it's ironic because these kids, again, that was their dad. That's what they knew. Their dads grew up in that same environment, got into the bad stuff. I will concede most of these guys were not actually great fathers at all.
Yeah, I was going to say like. Absentee father, but your father before was staying up all night killing people. Yes.
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