POLICE Magazine - Podcasts

A burglary suspect opened fire on officers of the Billings Police Department, resulting in a search and a showdown. Shots Fired article written by Dean Scoville and read by Dan Hazeltine.

Called to a home for a family argument, two deputies found themselves under fire. Shots Fired article written by Dean Scoville and read by Dan Hazeltine.

When a gunman interrupted a school board meeting, Police Chief Mike Jones was forced to respond. Shots Fired article written by Dean Scoville and read by Dan Hazeltine.

Officer Katie Lawson stopped to help a fellow officer at a DUI stop and came under fire from an unknown assailant. Shots Fired article written by Dean Scoville and read by Dan Hazeltine.

Fremont, California, police officer Todd Young and his partner's pursuit of an armed and dangerous gang member led to an exchange of pistol fire that seriously wounded Young. Shots Fired article written by Dean Scoville and read by Dan Hazeltine.

Sergeant Raymond Fleming led a team of patrol officers in a blazing gunfight against a disturbed driver. Shots Fired article written by Dean Scoville and read by Dan Hazeltine.

When a gunman decided to rob a local poker room, he found a retired police chief in the way. Shots Fired article written by Dean Scoville and read by Dan Hazeltine.

Lieutenant Randy Sutton had to make a fateful decision when a suicidal man left him no other choice. Shots Fired article written by Dean Scoville and read by Dan Hazeltine.

Officer Tim Gramins pursued a bank robbery suspect and ended up in a deadly duel. Shots Fired article written by Dean Scoville and read by Dan Hazeltine.

Sergeant Dave Lawler answered a call about a disturbed man in traffic. Then things went downhill fast. Shots Fired article written by Dean Scoville and read by Dan Hazeltine.

Detective James Peters acted immediately and decisively to end a barricade incident before it could spiral out of control. Shots Fired article written by Dean Scoville and read by Dan Hazeltine.

A quiet shopping trip ended in a furious gun battle when Deputy Jason Hendrix tried to stop an angry man from killing several hostages. Shots Fired article written by Dean Scoville and read by Dan Hazeltine.

Called to a domestic disturbance, two Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies faced a man with a knife. Shots Fired article written by Dean Scoville and read by Dan Hazeltine.

We talk to Cat Warren about her memoir "What the Dog Knows: The Science and Wonder of Working Dogs." Warren explains how she and her German shepherd Solo have assisted several North Carolina law enforcement agencies. Solo has become a skilled cadaver dog and Warren explains how canine noses can be trained to locate missing people, drowning victims 200 feet below the water surface and unmarked Civil War graves.

Law enforcement agencies are using on-body cameras with increased frequency. The technology captures the officer's point of view of a force encounter and also holds police accountable while on duty. Mark W. Clark, a POLICE contributing editor, discusses the topic on Larry Mantle's "AirTalk" public radio program. Read "On-Body Video: Eye Witness or Big Brother?" from our July issue.

International drug cartels have been forming alliances with terror groups and other organized criminal organizations in what our own gang expert Richard Valdemar calls "the unholy alliance." A new book, "The Terrorist-Criminal Nexus," explores these connections. Author Jennifer Hesterman joined us to discuss her book.

Author Lynne Finch joins us to discuss weapon handling, off-duty carry, and choosing a concealment holster for women in law enforcement. Her book, "Taking Your First Shot: A Woman's Introduction to Defensive Shooting and Personal Safety" was published in June. She also discusses situational awareness.

Join us for a lively, in-depth conversation about police weapons. St. Louis Metro Police officers are lobbying Chief Sam Dotson for .40-caliber duty pistols to replace outgoing 9mm Beretta 92s they now carry. The agency's police union has also asked for patrol rifles for its members. Chief Dotson tells PoliceMag.com which way he's leaning on the caliber debate and why he's reluctant to allow officers to carry their own rifles on duty.

Mike Detty, a one-time POLICE contributor, talks about "Guns Across the Border," a first-hand account of his involvement in an ATF "gun walking" operation that preceded Fast & Furious. As a firearms dealer, Detty sold guns to Mexican cartel operatives at the direction of ATF special agents in Arizona. Detty says he was motivated by patriotic duty, and betrayed by the agency he worked for. Show the Guns Across the Border Podcast Transcription: Paul: Hello, this is Paul Clinton with POLICE Magazine. This is themonthly author's podcast with books by and for cops. We have a veryinteresting book this month to discuss. It's called "Guns Across theBorder: How and Why the U.S. Government Smuggled Guns into Mexico: TheInside Story". It was written by Mike Detty. In the book, Mike chronicleshis experience as a federally licensed firearms dealer in the Tucson areaand his role in these gun-walking sting operations and the flooding of gunsto Mexico. Mike has been a contributor to POLICE Magazine. He's written some great firearm reviews over the years. His business is essentially selling rifles and other guns at gun shows in Arizona. Mike, we're really pleased to have you on, and thanks for joining us to talk about the book. Mike: Thanks, Paul. It's a pleasure to join you, and thank you for having me on. Paul: Talk about this book and how it came about. You found yourself in the cross-hairs, so to speak, of a very ill-fated, eventually, federal gun operation. Talk a little bit about how you got involved in this from the beginning and how this got started. Mike: Sure. Historically, it is significant in that Operation Wide Receiver, which was the case that I brought ATF into in 2006, eventually morphed into Operation Fast and Furious, about two and a half years later. The way it started was, as you mentioned, I did gun shows for a living. I am an FFL holder, a Federal Firearms Licensee. I sell AR-15s at Arizona gun shows. I was approached by an individual who wanted to buy six AR-15 Lowers from me. The next day, he came back and he asked if I would have more sometime later in the month. I told him I had another 20 on order that I expected the next week. His answer to me was, "I'll take them all." The sheer number that he wanted, and the fact that he was paying cash, and the fact that he was a young Hispanic kid, made me suspicious right off the bat. That happened on a Sunday. Monday morning, I contacted my local ATF contact. He had me fax in the paperwork, and the he called me back later in the day and asked me if I could come down the following day and spend some time talking with him. That was really how Operation Wide Receiver began. There was a group of young men in the Phoenix area that was buying AR-15 Lowers. They were sending them to somebody in San Diego who was purchasing the top ends of the rifles, 10 inch, which of course, anything under 16 inch barrel length is illegal, but it didn't matter to them, because they were pretty mixed up in doing illegal stuff anyway. Anyhow, they would complete these firearms by pinning on a short top end, and then taking them across the border into Tijuana for the Felix Arellano Cartel. That was how Operation Wide Receiver started. It kind of went through some twists and turns, but by the time were finished a year and a half had gone by. I think we'd sold weapons to five different cartels. Paul: Before we get into the details of this, talk a little bit about where federal law enforcement was coming from and their goals in your mind, or what they said to you about these operations. They've been termed "gun-walking operations" and I guess these operations would fall under this Project Gunrunner. What was the original goal of this operation, as far as you understood? Mike: Project Gunrunner was a project to stem the flow of illegal guns into Mexico. It involved saturating the border states with more ATF agents and more funding to prevent that from happening. Operation Wide Receiver, when I first got involved and they first started looking at these characters I was selling to, and by the way, after that initial purchase, I didn't sell anything to these people without prior knowledge of ATF and without them specifically asking them to do this at their behest, to further the investigation. I just want to make that clear. It wasn't as if I did something, and then, "Oh, I'd better let them know," just so I don't get in trouble. Paul: I guess the idea is that, this has always been the case, that the drugs come from Mexico and the guns and the ammunition go to Mexico. So the ATF and the federal government was becoming more and more concerned about guns that cartel operators were purchasing here in the border states and taking to Mexico to use in this violent cartel drug war, right? Mike: That's correct. That was correct. The first meeting that I had with these ATF people here in Tucson, I was told that I would have a chance to help them take out a powerful drug cartel. I'm smart enough to know the implications of that. Paul: Yeah. That sounds good, actually. It sounds like a noble goal. Mike: Being a patriot, I was eager to help them. It just didn't turn out the way it was outlined to me. What happened to be the goal, we never came close to achieving that goal. If you read the book, I think there was something far more insidious going on than trying to take out a drug cartel. Paul: Part of, I think, at least what we've heard said publicly from the ATF, and obviously this was a huge scandal that resulted in congressional hearings, and of course the deaths of two federal agents, speaking of course of border patrol agent Brian Terry, and also ICE special agent Jamie Zapata. Guns that apparently were sold through these sting operations were found at both of those crime scenes. Mike: Correct. Paul: Right. Mike: All three of those guns were from Fast and Furious, although there is nothing that would prove any of the guns from Wide Receiver showing up at future crime scenes. We know that they've shown up at crime scenes in Mexico. Fortunately, nothing has been found here in the United States. Paul: The critique of the ATF through all this has been, why didn't you track the guns? Was there some goal early on to either attach some type a micro-tracker or microchip to the gun? Was there any effort early on by them to track these guns? Mike: No. I do mention in the book, it's been reported in mainstream press that under President Bush things were done more responsibly. They tracked the guns they were working with Mexican officials. That's hogwash. None of that's true. There was one attempt to put a tracking device in a rifle during operation receiver, and it failed miserably. It was never fielded, it was never talked about again. The other thing, what I was told from the start, was that there was ongoing cooperation with the Mexican authorities and that if they didn't interdict the guns that at some point in time, they knew where the guns were at, they were going to round them all up, or most of them. I mean, nothing is 100%. It was conveyed to me that the operation I was working was multinational, meaning that the Mexican authorities were on board with it, and that this was how they were going to take out this cartel. That just proved to never be true. The Inspector General's report that was issued last fall, it cites I think three different phone conversations during the three years I was involved with Operation Wide Receiver where they had contacted Mexican authorities, but there was never any ongoing coordination. There was no commitment by Mexican authorities to follow these guns anywhere into Mexico. In fact, none of them were ever tracked. Paul: Wow. You mentioned that there were a couple of very interesting anecdotes in the book of failed attempts by these agents to follow and/or arrest these straw purchases and the buyers who came to you to purchase these guns. Mike: Sure. In fact, there was one event, I believe it was 50 .38 Super Pistols that one of these guys bought one night. It was ATF's intention to have an air surveillance to follow these guns to the load house, sit on the load house until they were loaded up in the load truck, and then follow them to Mexico so that from the time those guns left my house, it really never left their visual surveillance until they crossed the border. That was very important to help them prove their case. In the book, I relay how this turned into a three-day surveillance. They sat outside a house for quite a while and were concerned that they actually might have missed somebody going out the back door with the guns, because the original intent was for those guns to go very quickly, and it never happened. They did stay on the house. Once they got into a car, they were able to follow them. They went down close to the border, and then on the Indian reservation, they drove in circles for three or four hours. When I asked one of the agents why somebody would do that he said, "These are experienced drug smugglers. They know what type of aircraft we use for air surveillances." In their case, they were fortunate. They had a helicopter to back up while the DTS plane went and got refueled and then came back. They were never able to do much with that information. They know the guns crossed the border, but once they crossed the border, they didn't have any idea what happened to them. Paul: Wow. Let's talk about your role in this, because it really is fascinating. Your book, I have to give you credit here, I mean, you've really written a detailed book, and you've included a lot of great details about how these went down. Talk a little bit about how some of these transactions would work. You have a business and you are able to sell firearms out of your home. Talk a little bit about how this would work, how the cartel members would purchase the guns. You would kind of set a little showroom in your living room, right? Mike: Right, yeah. Being a divorced guy, I had a li

Dr. Bill Lewinski of the Force Science Institute offers his thoughts on high-risk hostage encounters following the accidental shooting of a college student by a Nassau County (N.Y.) Police Department officer. Bill explains high-stress decision making, how tell when you can no longer engage a suspect with rapport, and the importance of time as a factor in an officer's ability to react to these complex situations. Read our profile of Lewinski here.