A pastor asked me how my casework and experience with corruption affected my faith, whether it pushed me away from it. I replied, quite the opposite, it pushed me more toward it. Look. I’m not the cleanest believer out there but I know that without some sort of divine presence, we are doomed. And while many of these scenarios don’t make sense – for example child sex cases – they would make a lot less sense without God.
I also told the pastor that anything and everything either pushes us away or toward God. Ironically, it’s the desirable stuff that often pushes us away – success, comfort, fame.
Another friend asked me after all I’ve seen why I didn’t turn to alcohol, drugs, or worse. I thought about this and I was going to say because I’m a Malaysian and we are tough resilient suckers.
But that isn’t it. Not all of us are like that. We have our anomalies and exceptions.
I think it is something else.
It’s still about hope and faith.
Neither are blind.
As I’ve learned, it’s not in a position, place, even and especially a person.
It is still somehow in God.
I’ve had to cling on for dear life at times.
All those other things matter but they are still conduits.
But yes – if you want to do something right, pick a Malaysian.
My undercover friend and I once discussed the types of people who could (and did) take us down. We wondered how many it would take. Probably quite a few, but I said that direct confrontation wasn’t their game. M My friend is physically and mentally strong, so good luck taking him on. And I was once closer to Craig Heyward, it once took three guys to drag me down in a game.
Cowardly weak types don’t choose the direct approach. Not even the knife in the back, it takes some courage to sneak up Assassin’s Creed style. Their chosen method is often poison.
Poison is hard to detect and counter. It seeps under the armor and corrodes from within. To fight it, you really need a lot of anti-venom.
Or leave them alone. Keep distance from snakes to avoid being bitten.
There’s a Natalie Merchant song that goes “If lust and hate is the candy
A New York Times crime reporter once contacted me to get the inside scoop on the Department. I knew she was trouble – pretty infamous actually for having an affair with the former head of security for the Senate Intelligence Committee. I also knew because in her introductory email, she writes that she was impressed reading my dissertation.
An obvious lie. No sane person reads someone else’s dissertation. I’m pretty sure half my committee didn’t. I’ve barely even read mine. It’s also thankfully not available anywhere remotely accessible.
In any case, for a non-scientific one, it is short , but reflects a lot of work. I wrote on the relationship between the environment (cultural, political), leadership, controls, and corruption.
Still awake?
Long story short, leaders matter. A lot. An experienced, ethical one has tremendous impact on an organization’s culture, policies, and operations. One of my advisors (who looked like Megamind) pointed out that this factor even surpassed the role of formal controls. The human factor surprisingly prevails.
I once read somewhere that people are fascinated, intrigued, even obsessed with leaders. How they should be, how they are formed. So many resources have been invested in trying to figure it out. A much more intelligent mind, a former junior high classmate and Harvard professor wrote a pretty insightful book that I’ll plug here “Indispensable: When Leaders Really Matter.” Explains Trump, Lincoln, Churchill.
I used to quote this – “Look at the followers, you will know the leader. Look at the leader, you will know the followers.” I think this holds up pretty well. I have virtually no interest in politics, but have noticed this principle in sports – teams really do reflect their head coach. My undergraduate alma mater’s national championship basketball winning team were scrappers who played with chips on their shoulders, tenacious, and intense – exactly who Gary Williams was.
Doctors make the most effective murderers. Think about it.
They know intimately how the body works. How to heal. Just flip it around.
That knowledge also allows them to hurt.
And effectively cover it up and get away with it.
It’s in the plot of many shows, including a Predator spinoff.
My knowledge of the Rolling Stones catalogue is extremely limited although You Can’t Always Get What You Want and Wild Horses are hymns. I did use to quote the following verse from Sympathy for the Devil at staff meetings – “Every cop is a criminal.” The same skill set of a great detective is identical to that of a criminal mastermind.
We used m to have this 14 point checklist for investigations and if you knew those steps, you could reduce your chances of detection.
The homicide solve rate in this country hovers around 60 percent. That means if you know what you’re doing, you have close to a 1 in 2 chance of getting away with murder.
I joked with my undecover friend here’s how to do it properly.
1. Secluded area
2. No witnesses or CCTV
3. Tap tap to the head
4. Get rid of body, gun, shell casings (very, very important)
5. And here’s the key – don’t talk.
This is also why so much is invested in Internal Affairs, the need for internal discipline and controls. It is integral to maintaining the integrity, perception, and reality of the institution. In fact, if you want a top post, especially Commissioner, you must spend time in IA. No one really likes it, but it’s a crucial perspective and experience.
I was taught this stat my first week of training – only 17 percent of crimes get prosecuted. As to actual convictions, it’s definitely lower.
Hold on tight to whatever good you have or who you love. The wolf is always knocking at the door.
A final maybe funny note, I used to sing that part “Pleased to meet you, won’t you guess my name?” at church. It wasn’t the most enthusiastic response.
I’ve mentioned this before – that I was paid peanuts over my career. And the thing is, I would have taken the exact same route if I was paid half the peanuts. It wasn’t about honor, glory, insanity.
It was about belief.
Show me a man who doesn’t believe in anything and I’ll show you worthlessness.
Belief is the reason why it’s difficult to impossible to fight terrorism, insurgencies, revolutions. That’s why the main principle of counterinsurgency is winning hearts and minds. The primacy of the moral and mental over the physical. Maybe the invisible as well over everything else.
Someone overheard me teaching my son this and he goes “That’s right!” I immediately went to shake his hand. I taught the kids that when you face difficult circumstances and you may even lose, go down fighting and swinging.
I would purposely guard the best offensive player in basketball, some of whom even played college hoops. Surprisingly (or not), I could hold my own. One time I guarded someone much bigger and taller than me. He definitely had more than 50 pounds on me and at least 6 inches in height. He, of course, chuckles when he first sees me coming after him. He never scores, much less touches the ball. After the game, he blames his shoes. I go up to him and say no m———r, not the shoes.
One time in court, my first month actually, an experienced attorney challenges me to a fight. He is trying to intimidate me. I tell him, no problem sir, we don’t have to do it outside, we can do it right here. Smoke and mirrors. And at the NYPD, when I knew I was going down, I still fired everything I had left.
Absolutely difficult as an Asian male in this society. And especially the fields I went into. Doormat or threat. Those were my choices. I know what I picked.
This is how much I was listened to – few to no one knows what my favorite movie or book is. Or even color. I listened and observed. Unlike the self-absorbed people I’ve been generally surrounded with. Try listening for once – it gives you great power. And if you’re curious it’s the Godfather and probably Les Miserables. Up there is also the Great Gatsby, the Catcher in the Rye, Science, Strategy, and War, the Tao Te Ching, and the Godfather novel (one of the most insightful commentaries on human nature).
A recent movie that I found thought profound is Jane Campion’s Power of the Dog. Many critics identify the main theme as toxic masculinity and while that is certainly present, it’s more than that. To me, it is way more layered, deep, and complex. I think it is about hiddenness, longing, true power, development, and learning to break free of what holds us back. Some compare it to Brokeback Mountain but that’s not accurate – that’s a love story. The Power of the Dog is something else.
I won’t spoil the plot but this one is worth watching multiple times because the scenes and dialogue are profound and well thought out. It’s even biblical in nature – the title itself coming from one of David’s Psalms. I will mention one key scene where two characters are looking at a mountain and they can see something that everyone else misses. It’s a powerful moment of connection and realization.
The key is to not only be seen but to be seen correctly. I’m not sure how many of us actually receive that. I sure didn’t. I found that the ones who really did weren’t the assclowns in the community and family I grew up in but more, unsurprisingly, within my law enforcement and educator family – and even this was rare. They had the soft eyes – a concept I often refer to that reflects the ability to see what’s really going on – depth, breadth, layers. It’s often linked to age and life experience, but it’s also inherent and intuitive.
The Power of the Dog also explores the issue of vulnerability and reality. The former requires real strength and defines, reflects the latter. The ability to make peace and embrace both is the path to salvation. I’ve met a good array of people through my travels and found this sorely lacking in many. Unsurprisingly, I found it in the ones who have suffered considerably and reflected well, making some peace with all of it. The others just seemed to ignore, distract, and minimize. I don’t think that’s the way to go. It’s about confirming, accepting, even making love to the darkness to really live fully and authentically. I haven’t figured it out yet but this I think leads to freedom.
There are two main characters in the Power of the Dog. Unlike what some critics say, both are extremely powerful. It’s just one knows himself better and embraces it more fully and the other doesn’t, with devastating consequences for himself and others. This is more than just simple self love – it’s about understanding of how one is created in the image of God while still being flawed. Beautiful and broken. The evidence of power and grace.
The true seeing. That is priceless. When you can do it. When you can receive it.
It is both the power of the dog and what also frees you from it.
This week, I went to DA Camp in Pennsyltucky, near Hershey Park. It was fun.
We stayed at the Holiday Inn and listened to various lectures on being a prosecutor. Some were more entertaining than others. The best one was on interviewing children.
An awkward moment occurred when one of the lecturers asked the audience to describe their last sexual encounter. He asked to make a point that no one would answer because it was difficult. Unfortunately, someone decided to answer the question – stating that he had relations with his fiancee the night before. To which the lecturer remarked that the person who answered was either very courageous or foolish. Methinks the latter.
The food at the hotel was free but not so well cooked. I’m not a picky eater but when it makes you go to the bathroom several times in a day, you know it cannot be good for you. One of us had E. coli poisoning from eating at Outback. Fortunately for us, we ate at other fine establishments (Applebee’s, Olive Garden, and Wendy’s). During the nights, the main forms of entertainment were spending time with friends named Jack, Jimmy, and Johnny and country line dancing. They sure take their country line dancing seriously – our first night there was a fight over a woman.
I got to shoot a .45 Glock semi-automatic. That was also fun. I think us Philly DA’s did very well for first timers. After all, it is the water in the city that causes us to be quite murderous. Our office sent 15 DAs to camp. There were a lot of outlets in the area. At one point, more than half our group had skipped lectures to go shopping. Definitely a good representation of our office. I managed to do quite a bit of reading and even rode an exercise bike. A good time was had by all.
Songs of Pain and Hope 