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Speaker 1: I've been in the job for about maybe three months,

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Speaker 1: and I'm checking the drinks for open doors. Then I

3
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Speaker 1: see these three guys there and they're getting their stuff

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Speaker 1: for need to jump out. I go around and I'm

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Speaker 1: waiting for him. So when they jump out, they jump

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Speaker 1: out right by where the rescueation is. As soon as

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Speaker 1: I told him to come over here, they all pull

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Speaker 1: out their knives, all pissed off, and then I just

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Speaker 1: tell them to stay right there, and then I just

10
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Speaker 1: pulled my weapon. I speaking with Joe de Arte about

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Speaker 1: working as a real broad security guard, where stand ups

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Speaker 1: were part of his daily life, but it wasn't his

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Speaker 1: job to fight armed hobos, so Joe called for backup.

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Speaker 1: I knew the guys were at the cirky, which is

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Speaker 1: half a mile away. I have my radio and I'm

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Speaker 1: talking into it. I got these guys. They have knives.

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Speaker 1: There's three of them, and I'm right by where you

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Speaker 1: guys are at, and they're not listening to me. The guys,

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Speaker 1: Joe called, we're rail cops. It's their job to protect

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Speaker 1: the trains in the cargo, which means dealing with people

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Speaker 1: who aren't supposed to be in the yard. But without backup.

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Speaker 1: The hoboes weren't scared of Joe. They outnumbered him three

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Speaker 1: to one, and I tell him, bro, put those doll

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Speaker 1: I'm going to shoot you there like, yeah, shoot us.

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Speaker 1: Just a security guard ran a cop and I'm calling

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Speaker 1: it again. Finally one of the rail cops answered, no, Joe,

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Speaker 1: just let him go. I go, oh, they put a

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Speaker 1: knife on me, man, but the cops just laughed him off.

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Speaker 1: Joe realized he was on his own. I see the

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Speaker 1: dust cloud do he does the other turn? And I

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Speaker 1: couldn't tell at first if it was one of our

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Speaker 1: needs border patrol? Does she need damn camaro? I'm like,

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Speaker 1: who the hell is this guy? Was that his backup?

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Speaker 1: If it was, Joe'd be surprised, And five months he'd

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Speaker 1: been working for the Union Pacific Railroad Police, they hadn't

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Speaker 1: come to his rescue once. Who were the rail cops?

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Speaker 1: I was shocked when I learned about how this private

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Speaker 1: security force, with full local, state, and federal police powers,

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Speaker 1: reports only to the railroads, and Joe's part of the

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Speaker 1: country is the perfect place to see what rail cops

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Speaker 1: are all about. So worried al Paso, where the edge

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Speaker 1: of the country meets the edge of the train yard,

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Speaker 1: with tracks running along the border with Mexico al Paso

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Speaker 1: as a crossroads for everyone. And in the middle of

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Speaker 1: all of this are the rail cops. I imagine Ruby

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Speaker 1: and her friends crossing through rail Passo as they headed

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Speaker 1: east from Los Angeles to New Orleans on the Sunset route.

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Speaker 1: What happens to hoboes who get off in this wild territory?

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Speaker 1: Were they more at risk on land controlled by the

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Speaker 1: rail cops. Maybe it was more dangerous there. After all,

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Speaker 1: hobos had written songs about how rough it was when

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Speaker 1: you got to Texas. So in the train yards of

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Speaker 1: a border town, is anyone really in charge? And then

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Speaker 1: I'm warning in this the city of the rails, like

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Speaker 1: a warrants, ain't Texas, saying I swear that I ain't

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Speaker 1: going back a road. And I'm all a boy on

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Speaker 1: that track like a warrants in Texas with the old

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Speaker 1: dead band. When I'm telling me from you stood the

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Speaker 1: mail them out again? I said, where will you go

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Speaker 1: with the ball of my roof? Where will you go?

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Speaker 1: Real old ward? Hide you? And where will you go

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Speaker 1: with a light shine like beside you? You nut your

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Speaker 1: mail blow and the whiskey is Brew and as I

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Speaker 1: heard about the rail cops, I wanted to know more

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Speaker 1: about the people who police the City of the Rails.

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Speaker 1: It sounds so unbelievable to say that the nation's railroads

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Speaker 1: have their own police who can pretty much do whatever

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Speaker 1: they want. Imagine another industry with this kind of muscle,

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Speaker 1: like say, Facebook, Google or Big Pharma have their own

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Speaker 1: legal militia who could arrest you. That's what you have

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Speaker 1: with the rail cops. It's real, real, real easy, especially,

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Speaker 1: which is how he ended up in Texas, with Joe

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Speaker 1: taking me around to places he used to patrol. Right

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Speaker 1: over there, that's called the Roundhouse. How Passo is the

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Speaker 1: western edge of Texas on the border of New Mexico.

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Speaker 1: It's a scrubby, old west desert town and a basin

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Speaker 1: between tall, dark mountains. This town is a hot bit

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Speaker 1: of activity, making it the best place to see how

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Speaker 1: rail cops fit into the City of the Rails. Oh,

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Speaker 1: there's another place I will take it to. Union Pacific

81
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Speaker 1: hired Joe to do the job that rail cops don't

82
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Speaker 1: want to do. Get to know the Hoboes. Joe spent

83
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Speaker 1: five years on the job, but before Union Pacific contracted

84
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Speaker 1: him Joe was just a bouncer. I had no security experience,

85
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Speaker 1: no railroad experience. I just had experience throwing guys out

86
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Speaker 1: of a barge and venues. Joe didn't have much experience,

87
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Speaker 1: and after some training on rail safety, the rail coops

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Speaker 1: sort of punked Joe down in the train yard with

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Speaker 1: his phone and a notepad and left him to figure

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Speaker 1: it out for himself. And there was a lot to learn.

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Speaker 1: The rail cops main job is to protect the trains

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Speaker 1: and to nab cargo thieves, but it gets more complicated

93
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Speaker 1: in El Paso. The area has always been in international

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Speaker 1: crossroads and for more than a century a freight hub.

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Speaker 1: Trains go north and south to and from factories on

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Speaker 1: the Mexican side of the border, and they had east

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Speaker 1: from California with goods from China. That means it every week,

98
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Speaker 1: four hundred and thirty eight trains come through El Paso

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Speaker 1: on five hundred and thirty five miles of track that

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Speaker 1: connect the city's six rail yards, and four million pedestrians

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Speaker 1: cross over the bridges that span the Rio Grand And

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Speaker 1: with so much movement, Joe had to make sense of

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Speaker 1: it all and get a feel for all the different

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Speaker 1: types of people the trains brought into the yard. There

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Speaker 1: were the hoboes that were just regular travelers. So those

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Speaker 1: guys were real cool, like they mostly want to beat

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Speaker 1: to themselves. And then there were there were the gangs,

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Speaker 1: and then there were the drug londs. Those guys were

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Speaker 1: in the shadows. They did everything at night, and they

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Speaker 1: were they were hidden everywhere. They scared everybody. That's some

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Speaker 1: one thing about El Passo that you can score anything

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Speaker 1: real easy. Oh, if you're a hobole, it's easy for

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Speaker 1: you for to score some eyes, some cold, some marijuana easy.

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Speaker 1: Nobody's gonna you know. You ask those guys. The trains

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Speaker 1: make opportunities for everyone at the border, making El Passo

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Speaker 1: a huge hot spot for train robbers. So in the

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Speaker 1: day to day, hobos are low on a railcops priority list.

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Speaker 1: That's why they brought in Joe. Joe's main priority was

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Speaker 1: the interview the travelers they found in the yard, get

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Speaker 1: their names, take pictures in personal details to add to

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Speaker 1: Pacific's trespasser database. Leave the bigger stuff to the rail cops.

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Speaker 1: Joe got to know the hoboes in the yard so

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Speaker 1: well he knew who to ask for traveling advice. One

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Speaker 1: time I caught this three piece band trying to get

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Speaker 1: to Denver. They had that big old base, So I'm like,

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Speaker 1: what are you trying to do with you? I can

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Speaker 1: see that base from everywhere. So finally I'm like, let

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Speaker 1: me talk to a conductor. I go, which train is

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Speaker 1: going to Denver? Man? Because this guy's gonna end up

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Speaker 1: dead in the desert. Man, they didn't even have enough water.

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Speaker 1: And then he goes, you know what, you better off

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Speaker 1: talking to the hobos because they'll get him on the

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Speaker 1: right train. The hobos. You're the schedules really quick. So

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Speaker 1: Joe found an older writer who knew just what to do. Yeah, bro,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to go that way and tell him to

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Speaker 1: go with me. But they're gonna eat six yellons of

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Speaker 1: water and they're gonna need no food for two days

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Speaker 1: or whatever. But it was a three. I had caught

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Speaker 1: him that day four times. What about they kept getting

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Speaker 1: on the wrong train and you kept finding them the

141
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Speaker 1: same day. Joe had a lot to keep track of

142
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Speaker 1: lost musicians, hobos, smugglers, cargo thieves. The list goes on.

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Speaker 1: People stuck through the yard for all sorts of reasons.

144
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Speaker 1: So the rivers right there there's some tunnels that run

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Speaker 1: right across, and the rescue mission was located right there,

146
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Speaker 1: so what would happen? A lot of residents from Mexico

147
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Speaker 1: will come in to eat at the rescue mission because

148
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Speaker 1: they offered three meals. The rescue mistion of El Pasa

149
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Speaker 1: was right by the train yard. Every serious tramp has

150
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Speaker 1: gotten a free meal at its corner of hope, where

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Speaker 1: they also can get closed in a shower. And these

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Speaker 1: services are useful to locals from Warez too. With all

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Speaker 1: these people moving through the yard, Joe never knew what

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Speaker 1: to expect when he showed up for work. All of

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Speaker 1: a sudden, during another like another feeling. Sometimes it was fear,

156
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Speaker 1: sometimes it was happiness. Sometimes it was even sadness. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: you feel sorry for these guys. You'd be like, man,

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Speaker 1: you know something bad had happened for these guys to

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Speaker 1: be here. But it was always different. It's never the same,

160
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Speaker 1: the same old crap. No. But despite all the things

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Speaker 1: Joe faced in the yard, he wasn't getting much respect

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Speaker 1: from the rail coops. They wouldn't even respond to his

163
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Speaker 1: calls for backup. Joe was eager to show he was

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Speaker 1: capable of more so he was excited when the rail

165
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Speaker 1: coops called him in to give him a very important job.

166
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Speaker 1: They're in the office and they go, Joe, we got

167
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Speaker 1: a job for you. Got a special shipment. We need

168
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Speaker 1: you to find it. You need you to look at

169
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Speaker 1: all the yards, especially the one by the bridge. Joe

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00:09:38,920 --> 00:09:42,439
Speaker 1: was honored. Tracking cargo was important and he took it seriously.

171
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Speaker 1: So they give me a paper and goes, Okay, this

172
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Speaker 1: is a special shipment of sailboat fuel. Okay, yes, sir,

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Speaker 1: very special. Man. I said that this explosive. I think

174
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Speaker 1: it is. Man, so be careful and you don't smoke. Oh,

175
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Speaker 1: I don't smoke. Man, got the perfect guy for it.

176
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Speaker 1: Joe went from yard to yard searching for this shipment.

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Speaker 1: He even got a Border Patrol agent to help him. Look,

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Speaker 1: we're looking at everything. We can't find it. And I

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00:10:07,559 --> 00:10:10,440
Speaker 1: was out there all day and I'm like, God, please

180
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Speaker 1: help me find this. Help me find this shipment. I

181
00:10:13,920 --> 00:10:16,400
Speaker 1: would look so good if I find it. And then

182
00:10:16,440 --> 00:10:21,440
Speaker 1: it dawned on Joe Selbows don't need fuel. It's air.

183
00:10:22,200 --> 00:10:25,480
Speaker 1: It's a shipment over sunk of pitches. I'm like, man,

184
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Speaker 1: these guys were just screwing with you. They were like

185
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Speaker 1: ha ha, We're gonna get the security guard. Joe was

186
00:10:35,160 --> 00:10:37,960
Speaker 1: working hard, walking the tracks and checking the trains. Well,

187
00:10:37,960 --> 00:10:40,760
Speaker 1: these guys not only ignored him, but wasted his time

188
00:10:41,200 --> 00:10:43,720
Speaker 1: and just hung out at the circle k and Joe's

189
00:10:43,760 --> 00:10:46,400
Speaker 1: story squeared with what Hobos told me. Rail cops could

190
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Speaker 1: do whatever they wanted, beat you up, strand you in

191
00:10:48,880 --> 00:10:51,959
Speaker 1: the desert, you name it. So what was up with that?

192
00:10:52,440 --> 00:10:54,880
Speaker 1: What makes these guys able to do whatever they want?

193
00:10:57,040 --> 00:10:58,920
Speaker 1: It all ties back to the unique status of the

194
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Speaker 1: rail cops. Their power is written into law and has

195
00:11:02,240 --> 00:11:04,920
Speaker 1: been that way for more than a hundred years. When

196
00:11:04,960 --> 00:11:07,720
Speaker 1: the Civil War ended in eighteen sixty five, the United

197
00:11:07,760 --> 00:11:10,400
Speaker 1: States was subsidizing the rails willy nilly, laying track in

198
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Speaker 1: all directions as a way of boosting the economy. The

199
00:11:14,720 --> 00:11:18,319
Speaker 1: railroads were carving up the landscape, infuriating the indigenous people

200
00:11:18,360 --> 00:11:21,040
Speaker 1: as they destroyed their land and killed off the buffalo.

201
00:11:21,679 --> 00:11:25,640
Speaker 1: When tribes attacked railroad construction crews, Washington sent the US

202
00:11:25,760 --> 00:11:29,800
Speaker 1: Army to protect the workers building the Transcontinental Railroad, But

203
00:11:29,840 --> 00:11:33,200
Speaker 1: when the Transcontinental was completed in eighteen sixty nine, the

204
00:11:33,360 --> 00:11:36,160
Speaker 1: Army went home. There was no force to protect the railroads.

205
00:11:36,160 --> 00:11:39,880
Speaker 1: From thieves inside the cars or raiders from without. So

206
00:11:39,920 --> 00:11:42,520
Speaker 1: the government allowed the states and the territories to charter

207
00:11:42,600 --> 00:11:45,560
Speaker 1: the railroad Police as a private security force with full

208
00:11:45,600 --> 00:11:49,920
Speaker 1: police powers nationwide along one hundred and forty thousand miles

209
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Speaker 1: of track, supervised only by the railroads. Now you might

210
00:11:54,120 --> 00:11:57,319
Speaker 1: think permission to operate outside the law sounds like an exaggeration.

211
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Speaker 1: How could that be possible. It's one of those crazy

212
00:12:00,800 --> 00:12:04,600
Speaker 1: legacy railroad things established in the nineteenth century when at

213
00:12:04,600 --> 00:12:07,559
Speaker 1: the time the West was mostly territories with very few states.

214
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Speaker 1: The government sanctioned rail cops were left up to the

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Speaker 1: railroads to manage, and even after one by one Arizona

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Speaker 1: and Nevada and the rest were brought into the United States,

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Speaker 1: no one remembered to make the railroad police. Just like

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Speaker 1: other security guards, railroad police are not subject to government oversight.

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Speaker 1: And what does that mean. It means railroads don't have

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Speaker 1: to answer public record requests, So we don't know how

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Speaker 1: many people the rail cops arrest, under what circumstances, and

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Speaker 1: what kind of altercations take place in the yard. I

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Speaker 1: guess if you're thinking about this in the gentlest way possible,

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Speaker 1: and I'm not you could say, why should this be

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Speaker 1: a cause for alarm. The rail cops have a job

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Speaker 1: to do and mostly it's confined to the yard, and

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Speaker 1: when something big happens, they always interact with the local

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Speaker 1: cops to jail the bad guys. Well, cops with no

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Speaker 1: rules is never a good idea. Just look how it

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Speaker 1: played out for Joe. In a job where he could

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Speaker 1: get knives pulled on him, he likely wouldn't get back

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Speaker 1: up from his team. This had a major impact on Joe.

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Speaker 1: As Joe walked his bead, he interviewed writers and other trespassers,

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Speaker 1: took notes and photographs, and filed them in the rail

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Speaker 1: cops database. These reports were something everyone was supposed to

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Speaker 1: be filing, but not everyone did. Everybody was doing the

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Speaker 1: work except the Wildward police. I don't know why. Every

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Speaker 1: morning I would hand out they'll field inspection reports to

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Speaker 1: allow them because if not that we're going to get

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Speaker 1: written up for that. And it was like, Joe, can

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Speaker 1: I have five I needed? He's seven today and this

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Speaker 1: and that. So you're saying you would stop trespassers and

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Speaker 1: you would write them up, and that the other railroad

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Speaker 1: police would come to you and go could I have

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Speaker 1: some of your reports and I could file them as

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Speaker 1: my own. Exactly. Joe began to realize those rail cops

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Speaker 1: weren't worthy of his respect. As the months went on,

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Speaker 1: he started to believe it might be than them just

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Speaker 1: being lazy with plenty of time on their hands to

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Speaker 1: pull pranks. They were all supposed to be protecting cargo,

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Speaker 1: but sometimes the guys would tell Joe not to patrol

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Speaker 1: one of the train yards on a specific day. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: tell me to stay away from certain trains that were

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Speaker 1: coming in. We got those strains and worry about them.

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Speaker 1: And I'm not a copp or nothing like that, but

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Speaker 1: I'm not done either. You know, why would you help

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Speaker 1: me stay away from them? We'll have my guys stay

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Speaker 1: away from that. I'd be suspicious too. When Joe was hired,

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Speaker 1: it was to replace guards who'd been robbing the trains

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Speaker 1: in the rail yard to run under the bulls noses.

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Speaker 1: I wanted to find out if there was any proof

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Speaker 1: of Joe's suspicions, so I scoured court filings and legal

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Speaker 1: databases looking for rail cops convicted in smuggling cases, but

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Speaker 1: could find none. Were the rail cops squeaky clean or

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Speaker 1: was it no one reporting. So in the day, those

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Speaker 1: three hoboes pulled niyes on Joe. He knew his backup

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Speaker 1: wasn't coming. The bulls told Joe to let the hobo

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Speaker 1: as go, but they'd already drained their weapons and so

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Speaker 1: had Joe. And then Joe saw that cloud of dust

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Speaker 1: and the car racing toward him. What the hell was that?

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Speaker 1: She didn't look like backup cops didn't drive that kind

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Speaker 1: of car. All of a sudden comes this Camaro. It's red,

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Speaker 1: it's it's a beautiful car, man, beautiful, beautiful car. He

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Speaker 1: gets off and I'm like, what the hell he's wearing

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Speaker 1: this weird shirt. Uh, what's that movie? Uh? Ocean's a

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Speaker 1: Living where his shirt back. Joe had never seen this

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Speaker 1: guy before, but right away he took charge of the situation.

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Speaker 1: It blew my mind. He talked to him real stern,

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Speaker 1: in their lingual whatever, and then you they're usable, and

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Speaker 1: I was like a bull so the first time I

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Speaker 1: heard that he talked in their language, and he basically

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Speaker 1: told him to throw their knives and walk away, and

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Speaker 1: he was gonna let him go, and you know, to

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Speaker 1: respect me. They kind of looked at him and they

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Speaker 1: were watching them like, WHOA, something's up. They got this

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Speaker 1: guy here. Now, I'm like, oh wow, man. And then

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Speaker 1: he goes and picks up the knives and put them

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Speaker 1: in a bag, and he comes and shakes my hand

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Speaker 1: and he's like, I'm Larry Dias and I'm with organized crime.

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Speaker 1: And this Miami Vice Entrance hadn't made it clear enough

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Speaker 1: things were about to change in Joe's life. Joe's told

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Speaker 1: Larry he was frustrated by how few arrest they're were

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Speaker 1: in the yard, and as a security guard he couldn't

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Speaker 1: do anything about it. I go, these guys are running

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Speaker 1: our trains and nobody does nothing to him. And they

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Speaker 1: just talked the ship to us and this and that

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Speaker 1: and nothing happens. Man. And he goes, where's your backup?

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Speaker 1: And I go got the circle k looking the Moody magazines.

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Speaker 1: And he goes that things are going to change from

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Speaker 1: now on. And then he told me one thing, Joe,

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Speaker 1: don't trust none of these guys, not one of them.

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Speaker 1: You mean, none of the trespassers, none of the people,

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Speaker 1: none of the officers, the guy in the Camaro Union

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Speaker 1: Pacific Special Agent Larry Diaz was right. Things were about

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00:17:16,040 --> 00:17:18,639
Speaker 1: to change for Joe and for the El Paso rail Coops.

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Speaker 1: This was the beginning of a dynamic duo. Larry meets

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Speaker 1: Joe as Batman meets Robin Sherlock and Watson, partners in

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00:17:26,320 --> 00:17:30,760
Speaker 1: crime fighting with complimentary skills. Yes, it was a mess,

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Speaker 1: pure chaos at the border, but together Larry and Joe,

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Speaker 1: they were going to take it on. We're together. Everything

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Speaker 1: was about to change for Joe and Larry. With Larry around,

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00:17:59,560 --> 00:18:02,480
Speaker 1: Jordan have to worry about backup, and the two had

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Speaker 1: bigger plans. They were taking on cargo theft. Larry had

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Speaker 1: been transferred from LA by Union Pacific to crack down

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Speaker 1: on the thefts in and around the El Paso yard,

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Speaker 1: and when he met Joe, Larry was just starting to

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Speaker 1: understand how complex the problem was in West Texas. In

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Speaker 1: some ways, it was like LA but being so close

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00:18:20,920 --> 00:18:24,760
Speaker 1: to the border meant everything was much more complicated. Soon,

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Speaker 1: Larry would teach Joe how to handle showdowns with hoboes

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Speaker 1: and the two of them would focus on tapping into

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Speaker 1: the hobo network. Joe and Larry brought different skills to this,

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Speaker 1: which was reflected in the way they look. Larry's medium

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Speaker 1: height with his salt and pepper, black hair pulled into

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Speaker 1: a ponytail, and a mustache and goatee framing his face.

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Speaker 1: He's muscular and energetic, someone whose intense eyes you can

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Speaker 1: feel even when he's wearing his aviator sunglasses. Joe is larger,

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Speaker 1: chunky in frame, but with a sweetness about him you

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Speaker 1: can hear in his voice. These guys seemed like good cops,

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Speaker 1: not like the bulls Hoboes described who had nicknames like

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Speaker 1: Satan and Hitler. Those were the ones who scared me

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00:19:02,840 --> 00:19:05,680
Speaker 1: when I thought about Ruby in the yard. How did

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00:19:05,720 --> 00:19:08,400
Speaker 1: rail coops treat young women travelers they found on the trains?

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Speaker 1: And what could they tell me about Ruby? That was

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Speaker 1: one of the first questions I asked when I met

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Speaker 1: Larry Diaz, Like if you would see somebody about my

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00:19:16,880 --> 00:19:20,400
Speaker 1: daughter's age, I mean, would you treat a young girl differently?

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Speaker 1: When I saw females, I gave them a lot of attention,

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00:19:23,440 --> 00:19:26,680
Speaker 1: not just because they're females, but because they're vulnerable. But

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00:19:26,800 --> 00:19:29,600
Speaker 1: you know what, these chicks were as tough as nails.

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00:19:29,080 --> 00:19:33,679
Speaker 1: They knew the game, they knew that they had the attitude,

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00:19:34,119 --> 00:19:37,440
Speaker 1: and they were not afraid. Ruby was tougher now those

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00:19:37,480 --> 00:19:40,280
Speaker 1: ones on the rails had made their mark. Larry told

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00:19:40,320 --> 00:19:42,959
Speaker 1: me how female writers depended on that strength while writing.

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Speaker 1: I never met a female train writer that was like

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00:19:47,920 --> 00:19:50,280
Speaker 1: timid or scared, unless it was like some of you

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00:19:50,359 --> 00:19:52,680
Speaker 1: just jumped on the train and was running away from

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00:19:52,720 --> 00:19:55,840
Speaker 1: home and doing they had no clue, And I ran

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00:19:55,920 --> 00:19:59,000
Speaker 1: into those, and of course those got my full attention.

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Speaker 1: What if she wasn't with a trained family. There were

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Speaker 1: a lot of scary men on the rails who traveled

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Speaker 1: in packs and picked up young women who needed protection.

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Speaker 1: If she fell in with those characters, would that change

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Speaker 1: her prospects? I consider that group thinking, Okay, so how

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Speaker 1: is she an asset for us? She could go bang

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Speaker 1: for us, or maybe she would go steal some liquor.

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00:20:21,160 --> 00:20:23,399
Speaker 1: So if your daughter had the ability to be a

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Speaker 1: part of this team, even if he was just a

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Speaker 1: funny girl, these guys are living this rough life by choice,

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00:20:30,880 --> 00:20:34,520
Speaker 1: that's her value. I mean, it could be anything. Larry

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Speaker 1: knew this how my experience was at Hob's. Mostly didn't

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Speaker 1: want to talk to me, and they'd be even less

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Speaker 1: likely to talk to a cop. But the alliances people

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Speaker 1: made in the train yard were always up for negotiation,

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00:20:45,320 --> 00:20:47,399
Speaker 1: and Larry was in a position to strike a bargain

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Speaker 1: if he thought he could get some useful information. Hobs

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00:20:51,119 --> 00:20:53,959
Speaker 1: could be good informants. Most of them don't rob trains,

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Speaker 1: they don't have much use for a big screen TV

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Speaker 1: in a box car, but they are likely to have

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00:20:58,320 --> 00:21:00,520
Speaker 1: seen the people who swarm the yard broke up in

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00:21:00,560 --> 00:21:03,919
Speaker 1: a container and made off with the laptops. Guess what,

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00:21:04,119 --> 00:21:07,280
Speaker 1: these guys know the railroad, and they know the railroad schedule,

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Speaker 1: and they know the routes and everything about the trains

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Speaker 1: better than even the railroad coption. If the people who

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Speaker 1: rode the train had that much intel, Larry would try

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00:21:16,040 --> 00:21:18,800
Speaker 1: to turn them into informants. And that's where Joe came in.

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00:21:19,880 --> 00:21:22,240
Speaker 1: Larry took Joe under his wing, showing him how the

378
00:21:22,280 --> 00:21:25,360
Speaker 1: trespasser information he was already gathering could be a big

379
00:21:25,400 --> 00:21:28,960
Speaker 1: help to Larry. Joe's familiarity with hobos, the photos and

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00:21:29,000 --> 00:21:31,680
Speaker 1: bios he'd blogged on his phone could be where Larry

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00:21:31,720 --> 00:21:35,000
Speaker 1: started his investigations. So Larry set him to work turning

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Speaker 1: hoboes into informants. Joe did a phenomenal job, point actually

383
00:21:39,440 --> 00:21:43,000
Speaker 1: and finding sources for me. I go. This is what

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Speaker 1: I want from the guys. Asking these questions, do you

385
00:21:46,320 --> 00:21:49,560
Speaker 1: know about railroad crime? Oh my god, you're do you

386
00:21:49,560 --> 00:21:51,520
Speaker 1: write trains? What have you seen? And where do you

387
00:21:51,600 --> 00:21:55,080
Speaker 1: ride at? What do you see? These questions were a

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00:21:55,080 --> 00:21:57,280
Speaker 1: way to start testing out how much a hobo knew.

389
00:21:57,880 --> 00:22:00,240
Speaker 1: Larry also taught Joe how to take advantage of watching

390
00:22:00,280 --> 00:22:03,600
Speaker 1: hoboes who had outstanding warrants for their arrest. But this

391
00:22:03,680 --> 00:22:06,000
Speaker 1: wasn't as easy as walking up to a hobo asking

392
00:22:06,040 --> 00:22:09,000
Speaker 1: them a couple of questions. Ahobo didn't want it to

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00:22:09,000 --> 00:22:11,240
Speaker 1: get around that he was working with the cops, so

394
00:22:11,240 --> 00:22:13,199
Speaker 1: they would only agree if they could do their business

395
00:22:13,200 --> 00:22:16,080
Speaker 1: in secret. Joe had a whole strategy for this approach.

396
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Speaker 1: Give me something to work with, and you tell me

397
00:22:19,040 --> 00:22:21,080
Speaker 1: you know what these guys are doing this. This guy's

398
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Speaker 1: nobody's gonna know you're telling me this, and we're going

399
00:22:24,840 --> 00:22:27,040
Speaker 1: to use you as a source. And I'm gonna make

400
00:22:27,040 --> 00:22:28,840
Speaker 1: sure my guys don't mess with you. You're always going

401
00:22:28,880 --> 00:22:30,800
Speaker 1: to have water, you know, and I'm always going to

402
00:22:30,880 --> 00:22:33,800
Speaker 1: give you a right to the rescue mission. After meeting Larry,

403
00:22:33,880 --> 00:22:35,720
Speaker 1: Joe had an eye out for the kind of traveler

404
00:22:35,760 --> 00:22:37,960
Speaker 1: who could be a good source, but that was only

405
00:22:37,960 --> 00:22:41,119
Speaker 1: part of what made Joe effective. Joe's genuine manner an

406
00:22:41,119 --> 00:22:44,040
Speaker 1: open hearted approach, was in part thanks to his boss

407
00:22:44,119 --> 00:22:47,800
Speaker 1: t J. Munson. He took care of me like he

408
00:22:47,880 --> 00:22:50,160
Speaker 1: gave me a chance in my life to be something

409
00:22:50,200 --> 00:22:53,520
Speaker 1: I always wanted to be, a cop. TJ's magical man.

410
00:22:53,600 --> 00:22:57,960
Speaker 1: He's John Wayne Man, and I'll pass how I got

411
00:22:57,960 --> 00:23:01,080
Speaker 1: to meet TJ. He's retired now and extremely proud of

412
00:23:01,119 --> 00:23:03,600
Speaker 1: the decades he spent as a rail cop. It was

413
00:23:03,680 --> 00:23:06,600
Speaker 1: part of his family's tradition. His dad had been a

414
00:23:06,640 --> 00:23:08,800
Speaker 1: bull and TJ grew up in a small rail red

415
00:23:08,800 --> 00:23:12,200
Speaker 1: town in Nevada. He watched his dad interact with travelers,

416
00:23:12,320 --> 00:23:16,280
Speaker 1: and sometimes TJ worked alongside them in the garden. The

417
00:23:16,320 --> 00:23:19,359
Speaker 1: old boy went over to my dad and I followed along,

418
00:23:19,520 --> 00:23:22,760
Speaker 1: you know, and he said, sir, he said, anyway I

419
00:23:22,800 --> 00:23:26,520
Speaker 1: could talk you out of getting a little grub. And

420
00:23:26,800 --> 00:23:31,160
Speaker 1: my dad said, well, I'll tell you what he said.

421
00:23:31,240 --> 00:23:34,600
Speaker 1: You worked for me today, help us out. He said,

422
00:23:34,640 --> 00:23:37,760
Speaker 1: I'll give you some money and I'll give you some grub.

423
00:23:38,520 --> 00:23:40,639
Speaker 1: TJ heard their stories and got to know the people

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00:23:40,720 --> 00:23:44,240
Speaker 1: his dad called old boys, and TJ instructed his force

425
00:23:44,280 --> 00:23:47,200
Speaker 1: to see old boys as people, to treat them with kindness.

426
00:23:47,880 --> 00:23:50,159
Speaker 1: You know one thing I told my guys when I

427
00:23:50,240 --> 00:23:53,920
Speaker 1: hired them. If you ask an old boy what's your

428
00:23:53,960 --> 00:23:59,480
Speaker 1: occupation and he tells you doctor, write doctor down because

429
00:23:59,480 --> 00:24:05,159
Speaker 1: she's probab probably a doctor. He's had a bad time somewhere.

430
00:24:05,680 --> 00:24:09,680
Speaker 1: His wife was leftyan, he's gotten into the bottle. Something

431
00:24:09,720 --> 00:24:15,119
Speaker 1: has happened to where he just took off. You know,

432
00:24:15,560 --> 00:24:19,560
Speaker 1: I needs ride in the realm. So TJ wanted his

433
00:24:19,600 --> 00:24:22,200
Speaker 1: guys on the forest to grant the hobo's human dignity.

434
00:24:22,440 --> 00:24:24,800
Speaker 1: And it was the same decency and humored TJ brought

435
00:24:24,840 --> 00:24:27,199
Speaker 1: to his work at the border. He was amused by

436
00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:29,760
Speaker 1: the chaos, and with four decades on the job, he

437
00:24:29,880 --> 00:24:33,920
Speaker 1: had a lot of funny stories. Patton daughter guy one time,

438
00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:38,159
Speaker 1: and I'm scared to death of snakes, and every pocket

439
00:24:38,200 --> 00:24:43,280
Speaker 1: I touched moved. I joke, back, man, what do you

440
00:24:43,320 --> 00:24:49,360
Speaker 1: got in that pocket? Parakeet? He had a bunch of birds.

441
00:24:49,760 --> 00:24:53,120
Speaker 1: He had birds in all his pockets. They were pair

442
00:24:53,160 --> 00:24:58,440
Speaker 1: of keets. Yeah, I mean, you don't go figure, I mean,

443
00:24:58,600 --> 00:25:01,200
Speaker 1: when the hell does that? But somebody that rides your train,

444
00:25:01,320 --> 00:25:09,080
Speaker 1: I get I don't know that compassion Joe learned from TJ.

445
00:25:09,280 --> 00:25:12,119
Speaker 1: Came in handy at the border. He interacted with so

446
00:25:12,160 --> 00:25:15,520
Speaker 1: many different kinds of people and still approached every traveler

447
00:25:15,520 --> 00:25:18,920
Speaker 1: with understanding. He could appreciate how difficult life had been

448
00:25:18,960 --> 00:25:21,439
Speaker 1: for some of them. These guys had been through so

449
00:25:21,520 --> 00:25:24,040
Speaker 1: much stuff, you know. That's why t J would always

450
00:25:24,320 --> 00:25:27,080
Speaker 1: tell me, the ali need is a little love, Joe,

451
00:25:27,240 --> 00:25:29,520
Speaker 1: Just like the song, all you need is love, And

452
00:25:29,560 --> 00:25:33,200
Speaker 1: that was very important about what I did. Man. Mostly,

453
00:25:33,280 --> 00:25:36,840
Speaker 1: Joe approached people softly, with curiosity and compassion. At first,

454
00:25:37,680 --> 00:25:39,920
Speaker 1: he recalled the time when a distraught man he found

455
00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:42,920
Speaker 1: in the yard became one of Larry's best informants. When

456
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:45,400
Speaker 1: Joe found him, the hobo was racked with guilt about

457
00:25:45,400 --> 00:25:47,960
Speaker 1: the mess he'd made of his life. It's because I've

458
00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:50,600
Speaker 1: been doing some bad stuff, bro, You're never gonna understand.

459
00:25:50,760 --> 00:25:53,520
Speaker 1: May come back. Go you're liking Donalds? He goes, Yeah,

460
00:25:53,800 --> 00:25:56,760
Speaker 1: did McDonald's a long time bro? So I took him

461
00:25:56,800 --> 00:25:59,600
Speaker 1: to McDonald's right there, and over lunch, Joe found out

462
00:25:59,600 --> 00:26:03,640
Speaker 1: his guest knew a lot. Joe called Larry. This guy,

463
00:26:03,960 --> 00:26:05,919
Speaker 1: he says he knows about smuggling and all that he goes,

464
00:26:05,960 --> 00:26:08,080
Speaker 1: just keep him there, probably gonna stay here, man. He's

465
00:26:08,760 --> 00:26:11,880
Speaker 1: loving every drink and this and that. And Joe kept

466
00:26:11,880 --> 00:26:14,439
Speaker 1: the guy there till Larry showed up, and in the

467
00:26:14,520 --> 00:26:17,159
Speaker 1: end he gave them valuable information about drug smuggling in

468
00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:20,439
Speaker 1: the area. He's one of them, told me about coming

469
00:26:20,480 --> 00:26:23,040
Speaker 1: across with loads of dope, and he had done it himself.

470
00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:27,360
Speaker 1: They put the narcotics in a backpack about three rail

471
00:26:27,440 --> 00:26:30,280
Speaker 1: cars away in front of them usually or behind them,

472
00:26:30,760 --> 00:26:33,680
Speaker 1: and then they ride with the load to Chicago or whatever,

473
00:26:35,480 --> 00:26:37,959
Speaker 1: you know, passo through Larry and Joe. My eyes were

474
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:40,399
Speaker 1: open to just how many different criminals use the rails

475
00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:43,159
Speaker 1: to do their business. I didn't expect Maryby to be

476
00:26:43,240 --> 00:26:47,560
Speaker 1: riding alongside potential narcotics traffickers. I asked Joe if young

477
00:26:47,560 --> 00:26:50,640
Speaker 1: women were ever informants, but Joe said the one time

478
00:26:50,680 --> 00:26:52,920
Speaker 1: he caught young women in the yard, but they were

479
00:26:52,960 --> 00:26:57,200
Speaker 1: expecting shocked him. I pulled him off the train and

480
00:26:57,240 --> 00:26:59,479
Speaker 1: then I just told him to stand by my vehicle

481
00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:02,480
Speaker 1: and I was getting all their stuff. And then she's like, so,

482
00:27:02,560 --> 00:27:04,600
Speaker 1: what are you gonna fuckers right now? Or what are

483
00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:08,040
Speaker 1: you gonna take us somewhere? I go fuck you right now,

484
00:27:08,240 --> 00:27:09,920
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? I go, no, I'm gonna

485
00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:11,360
Speaker 1: take you the rescue mission. She gets you could get

486
00:27:11,359 --> 00:27:14,560
Speaker 1: a shower and eat something, and then she goes, well,

487
00:27:14,680 --> 00:27:17,320
Speaker 1: because where are you used to getting abused and hit

488
00:27:17,440 --> 00:27:20,280
Speaker 1: and raped? And I go, well, what are you doing

489
00:27:20,320 --> 00:27:23,320
Speaker 1: here in the first place? And then she's like you

490
00:27:23,359 --> 00:27:28,840
Speaker 1: probably would understand had Ruby ever faced this, I wondered

491
00:27:28,880 --> 00:27:32,560
Speaker 1: how common it was. My guest was not very Although

492
00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:35,399
Speaker 1: young women travelers had told me stories about angry cops

493
00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:38,760
Speaker 1: taking their packs as evidence or patting them down in

494
00:27:38,760 --> 00:27:41,399
Speaker 1: a sexual manner, I'd never heard a story like the

495
00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:45,600
Speaker 1: one Joe told. Still, considering how much leeway cops had,

496
00:27:45,800 --> 00:27:49,520
Speaker 1: it wasn't outside the realm of possibility. What I found

497
00:27:49,520 --> 00:27:53,520
Speaker 1: out about the rails is there's different levels of eableness.

498
00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:58,200
Speaker 1: Right if you want to play with the devil, you're

499
00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:01,000
Speaker 1: gonna find them down the rail yard. And that's where

500
00:28:01,040 --> 00:28:11,960
Speaker 1: he catched her prey. So this was the Batman Robin

501
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:14,920
Speaker 1: balance in action. Joe was the quieter guy, the one

502
00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:18,120
Speaker 1: on the scene who patrolled the tracks. Meanwhile, Larry worked

503
00:28:18,119 --> 00:28:20,879
Speaker 1: the streets. And because Larry had more power than other cops,

504
00:28:21,200 --> 00:28:24,520
Speaker 1: his mission to fight cargo. Theft had no bounds, which

505
00:28:24,560 --> 00:28:27,080
Speaker 1: was a good thing for Larry for many reasons. For one,

506
00:28:27,320 --> 00:28:31,000
Speaker 1: Larry is the aggressive type, wiley and confrontational, someone who

507
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:34,240
Speaker 1: stood out among the other cops and enjoyed that when

508
00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:36,960
Speaker 1: he showed up in El Paso, he didn't mind provoking people,

509
00:28:37,320 --> 00:28:40,640
Speaker 1: like with his taste in music. When Larry was a teenager,

510
00:28:40,800 --> 00:28:44,680
Speaker 1: he discovered Jimmy Hendrix. Jimmy showed him another world was possible,

511
00:28:44,880 --> 00:28:46,880
Speaker 1: more than what he saw in his neighborhood. And I

512
00:28:46,960 --> 00:28:50,760
Speaker 1: prayed to Jimmy Hendrix every morning. Larry brought his superfandom

513
00:28:50,800 --> 00:28:53,640
Speaker 1: with him to the Union Pacific Rail coup offices, where

514
00:28:53,640 --> 00:28:56,200
Speaker 1: he built a little shrine to Hendrix. A lot of

515
00:28:56,280 --> 00:28:59,320
Speaker 1: other cops didn't like that, and in this mancho crowd,

516
00:28:59,320 --> 00:29:03,120
Speaker 1: a confrontation was inevitable. And every time Larry describes a

517
00:29:03,160 --> 00:29:05,800
Speaker 1: confrontation with authority, it feels like we're in a scene

518
00:29:05,800 --> 00:29:09,440
Speaker 1: from a lethal weapon movie. I remember the captain tell

519
00:29:09,520 --> 00:29:11,960
Speaker 1: you take that shit off the wall. You said, motherfucker,

520
00:29:12,080 --> 00:29:14,600
Speaker 1: that's God. Don't you fuck with my God? And they

521
00:29:14,600 --> 00:29:17,640
Speaker 1: were everybody everybody's got guns, didn't shit, And you're like

522
00:29:17,720 --> 00:29:22,400
Speaker 1: fucking screaming at him a god motherfucker and ars like,

523
00:29:22,600 --> 00:29:27,200
Speaker 1: what the fuck is going on here? Larry brought this

524
00:29:27,280 --> 00:29:29,960
Speaker 1: same determination with him on the beach. So while Joe

525
00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:32,080
Speaker 1: moved through the yard trying to find hoboes it could

526
00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:35,240
Speaker 1: tell him something about cargo theft, Larry moved outside it.

527
00:29:35,600 --> 00:29:38,240
Speaker 1: He worked the streets, even the local swap meets, to

528
00:29:38,280 --> 00:29:41,720
Speaker 1: get intel on cargo thieves. They had this space called

529
00:29:41,760 --> 00:29:44,680
Speaker 1: La Tita Edo. It was a sanctioned swap meet in

530
00:29:44,720 --> 00:29:47,040
Speaker 1: downtown El Paso. And I would look at the space,

531
00:29:47,080 --> 00:29:49,240
Speaker 1: so this is a fucking gold mine. And so went

532
00:29:49,280 --> 00:29:51,400
Speaker 1: in there and I would see these boxes and cases

533
00:29:51,400 --> 00:29:55,840
Speaker 1: of stuff stacked up, nikes and blenders and VCRs. Why

534
00:29:55,880 --> 00:29:57,760
Speaker 1: are the why of these poor people have this ship?

535
00:29:57,960 --> 00:30:00,000
Speaker 1: It would take like four or five boxes or whatever

536
00:30:00,080 --> 00:30:02,280
Speaker 1: recept that they had just stolen off the train the

537
00:30:02,400 --> 00:30:05,440
Speaker 1: night before. And then you could say, hey, dude, I'm

538
00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:07,480
Speaker 1: gonna open a store over here on our pastle Dude,

539
00:30:07,880 --> 00:30:09,880
Speaker 1: how many of these can you get? I'll buy this

540
00:30:09,920 --> 00:30:11,600
Speaker 1: one right here. How many can you get? Bro? Oh,

541
00:30:11,640 --> 00:30:14,040
Speaker 1: I got fucking three hundred of those, okay, ar we're

542
00:30:14,040 --> 00:30:16,640
Speaker 1: losing three hundred. You see how this rich bubble I

543
00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:19,320
Speaker 1: do Larry, but only because you explained it to me.

544
00:30:19,840 --> 00:30:22,960
Speaker 1: Cargo Fest was a seemingly unsolvable puzzle with a million

545
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:25,720
Speaker 1: pieces of it scattered all over the border. It took

546
00:30:25,720 --> 00:30:27,920
Speaker 1: a special kind of mind to put those pieces together,

547
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:32,080
Speaker 1: and Larry he came to this as his birthright. Larry

548
00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:34,800
Speaker 1: was raised in a working class neighborhood in Whittier, California,

549
00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:38,920
Speaker 1: twenty miles southeast of Los Angeles. His parents immigrated from

550
00:30:38,960 --> 00:30:42,720
Speaker 1: Mexico before Larry was born in Hollywood, and both worked

551
00:30:42,720 --> 00:30:46,719
Speaker 1: several jobs to support the family. Before he finished elementary school,

552
00:30:46,920 --> 00:30:49,400
Speaker 1: he joined a gang and it wasn't long before he

553
00:30:49,520 --> 00:30:51,560
Speaker 1: and the whole gang got in trouble with the law.

554
00:30:52,280 --> 00:30:57,040
Speaker 1: So in sixth grade, I got arrested with nineteen of

555
00:30:57,120 --> 00:30:59,840
Speaker 1: us got arrested. We had broken into my own school.

556
00:31:00,920 --> 00:31:04,400
Speaker 1: This gang vandalized his elementary school and did some real damage.

557
00:31:04,760 --> 00:31:07,680
Speaker 1: And this arrest was a turning point for Larry. Sitting

558
00:31:07,720 --> 00:31:10,040
Speaker 1: on a bench in the sheriff station, Larry got a

559
00:31:10,080 --> 00:31:13,840
Speaker 1: good look at the detectives and admired their style. I

560
00:31:13,960 --> 00:31:19,800
Speaker 1: remember them very clearly, like cussing. They had their guns exposed,

561
00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:22,320
Speaker 1: they had like t shirts on their guns out their

562
00:31:22,400 --> 00:31:28,280
Speaker 1: badge and their handcuffs tucked around their belt, and I

563
00:31:28,400 --> 00:31:30,720
Speaker 1: just liked the way that look. In addition to that,

564
00:31:30,760 --> 00:31:33,440
Speaker 1: they were like pushing each other, saying hey, fuck you,

565
00:31:33,520 --> 00:31:35,600
Speaker 1: and they're like, you know, they were like friends, the

566
00:31:35,680 --> 00:31:39,720
Speaker 1: same stuff that we did in the street. And I said, hmm,

567
00:31:39,920 --> 00:31:43,440
Speaker 1: this is like, this is like a gang right here,

568
00:31:43,560 --> 00:31:47,520
Speaker 1: and look at they've got guns. So Larry left the

569
00:31:47,560 --> 00:31:50,640
Speaker 1: gang and enrolled in the Sheriff's Academy, and shortly after

570
00:31:50,680 --> 00:31:53,440
Speaker 1: he graduated, he was recruited by Union Pacific to become

571
00:31:53,480 --> 00:31:57,240
Speaker 1: a rail cup Larry was intrigued as a kid. Trains

572
00:31:57,240 --> 00:31:59,200
Speaker 1: had run right behind his house, and he and his

573
00:31:59,280 --> 00:32:01,840
Speaker 1: gang sometimes broke into them to steal cases of beer.

574
00:32:02,640 --> 00:32:05,720
Speaker 1: He was still fascinated by trains, and this job offered

575
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:08,920
Speaker 1: even more money, so Larry applied to the railroad police,

576
00:32:09,400 --> 00:32:12,120
Speaker 1: and in that uniquely Larry way, he decided not to

577
00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:14,840
Speaker 1: hide his gang pass. When he was interviewed by the railroad,

578
00:32:15,160 --> 00:32:18,280
Speaker 1: he bragged about it and guess what, I know how

579
00:32:18,280 --> 00:32:20,680
Speaker 1: to hop those trains. They're going what I know how

580
00:32:20,720 --> 00:32:23,800
Speaker 1: to pull the air and make the trains stop. They're

581
00:32:23,840 --> 00:32:27,280
Speaker 1: like what And somehow you think this is a good thing?

582
00:32:27,280 --> 00:32:31,000
Speaker 1: To be chainas fucking qualified, bro. I'm better qualified anybody

583
00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:36,200
Speaker 1: you know. Larry got hired and when he started he

584
00:32:36,240 --> 00:32:39,320
Speaker 1: didn't know the full story of the railcops. On his

585
00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:43,400
Speaker 1: first day, his training officer explained, absolute impunity came with

586
00:32:43,440 --> 00:32:46,920
Speaker 1: the job. He goes everything you learned in the sheriff academy,

587
00:32:47,400 --> 00:32:50,560
Speaker 1: forget it. This is a whole different role. That's all garbage.

588
00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:52,920
Speaker 1: This is different. This is the railroad police. I mean

589
00:32:52,960 --> 00:32:55,360
Speaker 1: that they don't have to follow a certain rule exactly.

590
00:32:55,440 --> 00:32:57,840
Speaker 1: They make their own. This is how we operate here.

591
00:32:57,960 --> 00:33:01,280
Speaker 1: We're bulls. We have the power, fed and stay. We

592
00:33:01,400 --> 00:33:05,320
Speaker 1: do what we want. We're in control. FBI. They can't

593
00:33:05,400 --> 00:33:07,680
Speaker 1: stop apart give him a ticket for going through a

594
00:33:07,720 --> 00:33:11,640
Speaker 1: red light. We can't. We give tickets too. LAPD can't

595
00:33:11,680 --> 00:33:14,040
Speaker 1: go to the US Attorney's office and file the case.

596
00:33:14,400 --> 00:33:18,960
Speaker 1: We can't. We're Feds too. We got both and there's

597
00:33:19,120 --> 00:33:25,920
Speaker 1: no public scrutiny, thank you none. You are a lawless

598
00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:31,960
Speaker 1: police force. We had some guidelines, but they're not mandatory.

599
00:33:32,040 --> 00:33:35,560
Speaker 1: They were mandatory, But did we follow him? Who's going

600
00:33:35,600 --> 00:33:39,840
Speaker 1: to keep our feet to the fire on that. After

601
00:33:39,880 --> 00:33:42,200
Speaker 1: seeing how Joe got treated by his co workers, their

602
00:33:42,240 --> 00:33:45,160
Speaker 1: lack of effort should be no surprise. I mean, why

603
00:33:45,240 --> 00:33:48,400
Speaker 1: do too much if no one's really watching? The guys

604
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:52,240
Speaker 1: like Joe and Larry, they were different. Larry believes he

605
00:33:52,280 --> 00:33:54,280
Speaker 1: was one of the first Hispanic men hired as a

606
00:33:54,360 --> 00:33:57,640
Speaker 1: Union Pacific rail coop back in the nineteen eighties, and

607
00:33:57,720 --> 00:34:00,360
Speaker 1: the rail cop bosses told him straight out that he

608
00:34:00,400 --> 00:34:02,440
Speaker 1: was a diversity higher and they'd be happy to see

609
00:34:02,480 --> 00:34:06,000
Speaker 1: him quit. This put a chip on Larry's shoulder. He

610
00:34:06,040 --> 00:34:09,040
Speaker 1: would show them he'd work harder and smarter than anyone

611
00:34:09,080 --> 00:34:12,960
Speaker 1: else more arrest, stop more cargo theft using these broad

612
00:34:12,960 --> 00:34:15,560
Speaker 1: police powers in a world where there were a few boundaries.

613
00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:19,960
Speaker 1: Larry saw the possibilities he could become a legend, and

614
00:34:20,080 --> 00:34:24,120
Speaker 1: he did. He Pacific recognized his skills could help handle

615
00:34:24,160 --> 00:34:27,880
Speaker 1: the growing cargo theft problem in ol Passau. Assembling the

616
00:34:27,920 --> 00:34:30,120
Speaker 1: pieces of this puzzle brought him to the slopes of

617
00:34:30,120 --> 00:34:32,920
Speaker 1: Mount Christo Ray And that's where you see how all

618
00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:35,880
Speaker 1: of this happened. And I know these mounds like the

619
00:34:35,920 --> 00:34:37,719
Speaker 1: back of my hand because we used to walk up

620
00:34:37,719 --> 00:34:39,759
Speaker 1: here all the time and set up sir balances on

621
00:34:39,800 --> 00:34:44,000
Speaker 1: the US side. After gathering information about robbers Larry knew

622
00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:46,759
Speaker 1: how the thieves thought. He could see their trucks parked

623
00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:48,799
Speaker 1: on the other side of the border. A sure sign

624
00:34:48,840 --> 00:34:52,160
Speaker 1: of raid was on the horizon. This is obviously Mexico.

625
00:34:52,280 --> 00:34:56,120
Speaker 1: We're like, what fifty feet from the border, so this

626
00:34:56,200 --> 00:35:00,320
Speaker 1: was a real hard area to contain. The spot Larry's

627
00:35:00,320 --> 00:35:02,040
Speaker 1: showing me is one of the most dangerous and desperate

628
00:35:02,080 --> 00:35:04,920
Speaker 1: neighborhoods in this section of the border. The Book of

629
00:35:04,960 --> 00:35:07,440
Speaker 1: the Lobo. The Wolf's mouth is at the base of

630
00:35:07,480 --> 00:35:09,600
Speaker 1: the mountains where the trains have to slow down before

631
00:35:09,640 --> 00:35:12,800
Speaker 1: they ascend. It's literally a stone's throw from the tracks,

632
00:35:13,120 --> 00:35:15,720
Speaker 1: making it the perfect place for thieves to snap up cargo.

633
00:35:17,080 --> 00:35:19,520
Speaker 1: From his informants, Larry knew when there was a valuable

634
00:35:19,560 --> 00:35:21,880
Speaker 1: of train coming into the yard, one with flat screen

635
00:35:21,920 --> 00:35:25,560
Speaker 1: TVs or Nike shoes, and if his fellow rail cups

636
00:35:25,560 --> 00:35:28,000
Speaker 1: were too busy at the circle k, Larry had a plan.

637
00:35:29,120 --> 00:35:31,880
Speaker 1: So we were talking about source development and the FBI

638
00:35:32,040 --> 00:35:34,320
Speaker 1: was telling you how I had more informants than dated.

639
00:35:34,600 --> 00:35:37,480
Speaker 1: Big government agencies don't get involved unless the thefts are

640
00:35:37,560 --> 00:35:39,960
Speaker 1: large enough, and some are at the Book of the Lobo.

641
00:35:40,520 --> 00:35:43,880
Speaker 1: So Larry developed allies and other agencies. Larry told me

642
00:35:43,920 --> 00:35:46,840
Speaker 1: about the setup for one of his big raids. You

643
00:35:46,880 --> 00:35:49,279
Speaker 1: see the highest point of the first hill in front

644
00:35:49,320 --> 00:35:51,640
Speaker 1: of us right here, So we used to set up

645
00:35:51,680 --> 00:35:56,000
Speaker 1: in that saddle. Everybody was involved, the Phoebees, the customs,

646
00:35:56,239 --> 00:36:00,720
Speaker 1: the railroad police, border Patrol, sun and park last apartment.

647
00:36:00,800 --> 00:36:03,120
Speaker 1: We used to set up over there at night ten

648
00:36:03,120 --> 00:36:06,200
Speaker 1: o'clock till you know, six am, while it was dark.

649
00:36:06,320 --> 00:36:09,200
Speaker 1: We had blackhawks and night vision and everything. Once the

650
00:36:09,239 --> 00:36:11,719
Speaker 1: guys were in place, Larry would command the operation from

651
00:36:11,800 --> 00:36:14,759
Speaker 1: up in the saddle. That's from Border Patrol, I mean,

652
00:36:14,800 --> 00:36:18,600
Speaker 1: and digged themselves a hole maybe two days before low

653
00:36:18,640 --> 00:36:21,160
Speaker 1: crawl all the way across through the bushes, dressed like

654
00:36:21,160 --> 00:36:23,279
Speaker 1: a damn bush themselves. They went in there with their

655
00:36:23,280 --> 00:36:26,040
Speaker 1: little shovels and get in the dirt and cover themselves up.

656
00:36:26,120 --> 00:36:30,280
Speaker 1: And they lived there for twelve hours, yeah, eating, shitting

657
00:36:30,360 --> 00:36:32,840
Speaker 1: their pants, peat in their pants, just so they wouldn't

658
00:36:32,880 --> 00:36:38,120
Speaker 1: be found out and you know discovered. From the saddle,

659
00:36:38,280 --> 00:36:40,200
Speaker 1: the force had a great view of the trains route

660
00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:43,640
Speaker 1: through the Wolf's Mouth. As a train approaches, everyone is

661
00:36:43,640 --> 00:37:08,759
Speaker 1: in position up next. How the rate unfolds with the

662
00:37:08,800 --> 00:37:10,759
Speaker 1: train tracks running right by the border. The book of

663
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:13,000
Speaker 1: the Lobo was the perfect place for thieves to strike,

664
00:37:14,520 --> 00:37:19,480
Speaker 1: judging from there. So what's in that train? Everything? Everything

665
00:37:19,520 --> 00:37:27,080
Speaker 1: you can possibly think of, from makeup to I mean everything, shoes, clothing, food,

666
00:37:27,960 --> 00:37:30,359
Speaker 1: I mean anything you can think of there, and all

667
00:37:30,360 --> 00:37:33,200
Speaker 1: those goods were vulnerable in this stretch of desert. After

668
00:37:33,280 --> 00:37:35,960
Speaker 1: driving in fast from the west. Trains slowed down right

669
00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:38,560
Speaker 1: by the border as they approach El Paso to climb

670
00:37:38,560 --> 00:37:43,040
Speaker 1: Mount Christo Ray. So the railroad police out here would

671
00:37:43,080 --> 00:37:44,799
Speaker 1: have a hell of a time because of trains, as

672
00:37:44,840 --> 00:37:47,000
Speaker 1: I was saying, would go up the hill a mile

673
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:49,640
Speaker 1: and a half long train. But these trains are now

674
00:37:49,640 --> 00:37:52,160
Speaker 1: two and three miles long, offering a lot of cargo

675
00:37:52,200 --> 00:37:55,400
Speaker 1: theft opportunities. So no matter how many street gang and

676
00:37:55,440 --> 00:37:58,960
Speaker 1: cargo theft informants Show and Larry had, the trains were vulnerable.

677
00:38:00,360 --> 00:38:02,200
Speaker 1: And from up in the saddle, Larry could see the

678
00:38:02,239 --> 00:38:05,239
Speaker 1: whole thing play out. The train would only be going

679
00:38:05,640 --> 00:38:08,160
Speaker 1: twenty miles an hour or whatever. And believe it or not, yes,

680
00:38:08,239 --> 00:38:10,320
Speaker 1: these guys can jump on a train while I was

681
00:38:10,400 --> 00:38:13,640
Speaker 1: moving at twenty twenty five miles an hour without any problem.

682
00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:16,480
Speaker 1: Hopping a train moving at twenty miles an hour is

683
00:38:16,560 --> 00:38:20,680
Speaker 1: no joke. But these experienced thieves had no problem. They

684
00:38:20,719 --> 00:38:22,440
Speaker 1: just knew how to time it. They would jump on

685
00:38:22,480 --> 00:38:24,880
Speaker 1: it and grab onto a ladder, and they did it

686
00:38:24,960 --> 00:38:28,000
Speaker 1: sometimes with twenty thirty forty fifty pound backpacks on their

687
00:38:28,040 --> 00:38:30,920
Speaker 1: back full of dope. Once that first group hopped on

688
00:38:30,960 --> 00:38:32,960
Speaker 1: a train, the next step was to make it stop.

689
00:38:33,600 --> 00:38:36,080
Speaker 1: They would pull out the pins to make the train

690
00:38:36,160 --> 00:38:38,919
Speaker 1: lose it's air. The train would stop and these guys

691
00:38:38,920 --> 00:38:42,720
Speaker 1: would come across five fifteen, twenty thirty, maybe even forty

692
00:38:42,760 --> 00:38:47,000
Speaker 1: would come and start looting the training. And then it

693
00:38:47,040 --> 00:38:49,560
Speaker 1: was an all or nothing, free for all that These

694
00:38:49,640 --> 00:38:52,520
Speaker 1: cracked open containers as easily as they had hopped the train,

695
00:38:53,080 --> 00:38:55,560
Speaker 1: and they would come with bowl cutters. Some of them

696
00:38:55,640 --> 00:38:59,160
Speaker 1: just had pipes that fit around the high security seals,

697
00:38:59,360 --> 00:39:01,399
Speaker 1: and they would just work it back and forth until

698
00:39:01,440 --> 00:39:03,880
Speaker 1: they broke off and they opened up the container and

699
00:39:04,040 --> 00:39:06,680
Speaker 1: they'd have like six or seven, ten fifteen guys there

700
00:39:06,920 --> 00:39:10,200
Speaker 1: and they would just start unloading it incredibly. Sometimes the

701
00:39:10,280 --> 00:39:13,879
Speaker 1: robbery was even simpler than that. I mean, why bother

702
00:39:14,000 --> 00:39:16,960
Speaker 1: stopping the train at all. They would burglarize the train

703
00:39:17,040 --> 00:39:19,120
Speaker 1: as it moved. Also, they said, you know what, I

704
00:39:19,120 --> 00:39:20,920
Speaker 1: need to go to Alpasso. I'm going to burglarize the

705
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:23,400
Speaker 1: train as it's moving and get some stuff and then

706
00:39:23,440 --> 00:39:25,600
Speaker 1: go sell it downtown. And it's a win win for them.

707
00:39:25,600 --> 00:39:28,319
Speaker 1: They get a free ride, they get their product, and

708
00:39:28,520 --> 00:39:31,000
Speaker 1: they sell it they make their money, etc. Etc. So,

709
00:39:31,040 --> 00:39:33,160
Speaker 1: as the train nears the book of the Lobo cargo

710
00:39:33,200 --> 00:39:35,400
Speaker 1: thieves emerge from the Mexican side of the border and

711
00:39:35,440 --> 00:39:39,560
Speaker 1: the whole operation commences. The black Hawks swooped down, light

712
00:39:39,640 --> 00:39:42,680
Speaker 1: scanned the tracks, Swarms of officers pop out of the bushes,

713
00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:45,240
Speaker 1: and dozens of cargo thieves are hauled off to jail.

714
00:39:46,200 --> 00:39:49,560
Speaker 1: But despite all this, despite all the fancy equipment and

715
00:39:49,600 --> 00:39:52,520
Speaker 1: the government budgets, Larry and his team weren't able to

716
00:39:52,520 --> 00:39:55,080
Speaker 1: make much of a dent in things. You know what,

717
00:39:55,200 --> 00:39:58,680
Speaker 1: we weren't very successful. They just this is their neighborhood,

718
00:39:58,680 --> 00:40:01,960
Speaker 1: this is their territory. They were in full control. The

719
00:40:01,960 --> 00:40:05,120
Speaker 1: thieves knew the area and were experienced at avoiding detection.

720
00:40:05,640 --> 00:40:09,960
Speaker 1: And these train robberies were a sophisticated operation. We didn't

721
00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:12,399
Speaker 1: have what it took to catch them. Yeah, we caught

722
00:40:12,440 --> 00:40:14,520
Speaker 1: a bunch of them a lot of times, but we

723
00:40:14,560 --> 00:40:17,040
Speaker 1: didn't catch them as much as I think we should have.

724
00:40:17,920 --> 00:40:20,560
Speaker 1: They were just quicker than us. They're desperate, I mean,

725
00:40:20,600 --> 00:40:24,440
Speaker 1: they wanted to eat, they wanted to get high, they

726
00:40:24,440 --> 00:40:28,640
Speaker 1: were motivated. How could Joe and Larry ever wrap their

727
00:40:28,719 --> 00:40:33,080
Speaker 1: arms around all this chaos. They could turn informants, pull

728
00:40:33,160 --> 00:40:36,239
Speaker 1: in Phoebees, bring in the Blackhawks. At the end of

729
00:40:36,239 --> 00:40:40,239
Speaker 1: the day, they were outnumbered. But even if Larry didn't

730
00:40:40,239 --> 00:40:42,440
Speaker 1: make a big dent in the cargo, theft and Opasso,

731
00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:46,960
Speaker 1: bringing in those government agencies was significant. Here was a

732
00:40:47,080 --> 00:40:51,000
Speaker 1: rail coup leading a multi agency government raid. History left

733
00:40:51,040 --> 00:40:53,960
Speaker 1: rail cops with overarching powers, and for Larry that meant

734
00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:57,040
Speaker 1: a chance to climb from La Sheriff's department training to

735
00:40:57,120 --> 00:41:03,520
Speaker 1: commanding the FBI. Thanks in part to the railroads and

736
00:41:03,640 --> 00:41:05,600
Speaker 1: from his perch in the saddle, Larry was the king

737
00:41:05,640 --> 00:41:08,080
Speaker 1: of the hill, able to use all of his colorful

738
00:41:08,080 --> 00:41:10,919
Speaker 1: background on the job, and he'd certainly shown those guys

739
00:41:10,960 --> 00:41:14,560
Speaker 1: who called him a diversity hire. Running this raid, Larry

740
00:41:14,560 --> 00:41:17,680
Speaker 1: felt powerful and like he was making an impact. At least,

741
00:41:18,000 --> 00:41:20,960
Speaker 1: he felt so good. Nothing could bring him down, even

742
00:41:21,040 --> 00:41:22,520
Speaker 1: the fact that the residence of the Book of the

743
00:41:22,600 --> 00:41:27,600
Speaker 1: Lobo were not Jimmie Hendricks fans. I learned Mexican music

744
00:41:27,640 --> 00:41:30,239
Speaker 1: because I sat up there so long. I would have

745
00:41:30,320 --> 00:41:31,840
Speaker 1: words and I would listen to words, and I'd be

746
00:41:31,880 --> 00:41:34,640
Speaker 1: up there tapping my toe, rocking out, listen to music

747
00:41:34,760 --> 00:41:36,920
Speaker 1: that they were playing down here, because it was the same,

748
00:41:37,360 --> 00:41:40,600
Speaker 1: you know, thirty songs, you know, day after day, and

749
00:41:40,640 --> 00:41:42,960
Speaker 1: they was loud, and they would all gather. It'd be like,

750
00:41:43,280 --> 00:41:45,880
Speaker 1: you know, twenty thirty forty of them out here dancing, laughing.

751
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:49,200
Speaker 1: You can hear girls giggling and you gun fire, and

752
00:41:49,480 --> 00:41:52,160
Speaker 1: this just crazy. Larry's teammates would look up using their

753
00:41:52,239 --> 00:41:55,279
Speaker 1: night vision goggles and wonder what Larry was doing up there.

754
00:41:56,000 --> 00:41:57,640
Speaker 1: They would be on this mace up here and they

755
00:41:57,640 --> 00:41:59,560
Speaker 1: would see me over there and they good, to you,

756
00:41:59,640 --> 00:42:03,120
Speaker 1: what are you doing. I'm dancing, dog. He's not answering

757
00:42:03,120 --> 00:42:06,040
Speaker 1: because he's dancing right now. He's rocking out. And I

758
00:42:06,040 --> 00:42:08,160
Speaker 1: would they go away. They're gonna see you, man, No

759
00:42:08,480 --> 00:42:10,680
Speaker 1: fuck are. They ain't got night vision. I can't even

760
00:42:10,719 --> 00:42:12,960
Speaker 1: see the guy sitting two feet away from me. I'll

761
00:42:12,960 --> 00:42:16,400
Speaker 1: they gonna see me. Lay back down, shut up. This

762
00:42:16,480 --> 00:42:18,520
Speaker 1: is my operation. I'm gonna dance if I want to

763
00:42:24,080 --> 00:42:27,280
Speaker 1: Larry was dancing because even though he didn't stop cargo theft,

764
00:42:27,600 --> 00:42:29,520
Speaker 1: through this raid, he could get a piece that brought

765
00:42:29,600 --> 00:42:32,759
Speaker 1: him closer to solving this puzzle. By capturing thieves and

766
00:42:32,800 --> 00:42:36,480
Speaker 1: interrogating them, Larry might get information not just about cargo theft,

767
00:42:36,760 --> 00:42:41,040
Speaker 1: but about drug smuggling. The smugglers find every which way

768
00:42:41,080 --> 00:42:44,000
Speaker 1: they can to small little narcotics in the US, because

769
00:42:44,040 --> 00:42:46,920
Speaker 1: I knew about Tucson, I knew about Phoenix, I knew

770
00:42:46,960 --> 00:42:49,400
Speaker 1: about la I knew about you know, east and west

771
00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:52,319
Speaker 1: of here, one hundred miles several hundred miles. And then

772
00:42:52,360 --> 00:42:55,080
Speaker 1: they ride with the load to like they'll end up

773
00:42:55,080 --> 00:42:58,160
Speaker 1: going in the end to Chicago or whatever. And it

774
00:42:58,239 --> 00:43:01,200
Speaker 1: happens too on the way going south. We're always looking

775
00:43:01,239 --> 00:43:03,960
Speaker 1: for money in rail cars going back south into Mexico.

776
00:43:05,880 --> 00:43:09,319
Speaker 1: This smuggling network reaches everywhere the railroads do. But when

777
00:43:09,320 --> 00:43:12,319
Speaker 1: you talk about illegal immigration and drug smuggling, somehow the

778
00:43:12,320 --> 00:43:15,239
Speaker 1: trains rarely come up. In fact, what I asked Larry

779
00:43:15,280 --> 00:43:18,400
Speaker 1: to characterize the extent of the problem, he didn't mince words.

780
00:43:19,440 --> 00:43:22,120
Speaker 1: I will tell you every train's got it. Every single

781
00:43:22,160 --> 00:43:27,080
Speaker 1: train that comes across has got some contraband not just narcotics,

782
00:43:27,120 --> 00:43:31,279
Speaker 1: but like even merchandise that has not been cleared by

783
00:43:31,320 --> 00:43:34,680
Speaker 1: customs and they're sneaking it across because customs would delay

784
00:43:34,719 --> 00:43:38,480
Speaker 1: it or it costs too much to bring it across. Absolutely,

785
00:43:38,480 --> 00:43:42,160
Speaker 1: no doubt, every single train. This might sound like a

786
00:43:42,160 --> 00:43:44,719
Speaker 1: bold claim at first, but it happens in plain sight

787
00:43:44,800 --> 00:43:47,960
Speaker 1: on the Mexican side of the border. Alexei, who I

788
00:43:47,960 --> 00:43:50,759
Speaker 1: spoke with in episode three, told me about riding a

789
00:43:50,800 --> 00:43:53,960
Speaker 1: train through the state of Chihuahua, where Warez is. He

790
00:43:54,080 --> 00:43:57,320
Speaker 1: decided to hop a train home to Texas. After finding

791
00:43:57,320 --> 00:43:59,960
Speaker 1: his way to the tracks, Alexei was surprised to discovery

792
00:44:00,040 --> 00:44:03,200
Speaker 1: that in Mexico, train hopping is not a crime. It

793
00:44:03,200 --> 00:44:07,080
Speaker 1: takes place out in the open at whatever time at night.

794
00:44:08,520 --> 00:44:14,000
Speaker 1: The ground crews like Chowawa Chiwawa, just yelling it out.

795
00:44:14,600 --> 00:44:17,239
Speaker 1: And then all these people that I didn't see that

796
00:44:17,280 --> 00:44:21,120
Speaker 1: we're in the bushes all loaded up on the train

797
00:44:21,160 --> 00:44:23,560
Speaker 1: at once. I mean they were all up on top

798
00:44:23,600 --> 00:44:27,000
Speaker 1: of grainers. I mean it was probably like thirty something

799
00:44:27,080 --> 00:44:29,920
Speaker 1: people on this train. So I get on the train

800
00:44:30,000 --> 00:44:33,040
Speaker 1: and I remember being either a full moon or real

801
00:44:33,080 --> 00:44:35,680
Speaker 1: close to the full moon. With his new companions on

802
00:44:35,719 --> 00:44:38,160
Speaker 1: the train, Alexei moved through one of the most beautiful

803
00:44:38,239 --> 00:44:42,640
Speaker 1: landscapes he'd ever seen Chihuaha was Copper Canyon. I was

804
00:44:42,760 --> 00:44:47,759
Speaker 1: riding the train through Copper Canyon, which is just spectacularly gorgeous,

805
00:44:48,040 --> 00:44:53,080
Speaker 1: and I remember the moon reflecting on ponds and lakes

806
00:44:53,280 --> 00:44:58,760
Speaker 1: and just so so gorgeous. Lulled by the beauty, Alexey

807
00:44:58,840 --> 00:45:00,840
Speaker 1: was surprised when the train became in the slow and

808
00:45:00,880 --> 00:45:03,960
Speaker 1: then stop. You saw a dust cloud in the distance,

809
00:45:04,640 --> 00:45:06,040
Speaker 1: and then you got a close up view of the

810
00:45:06,120 --> 00:45:09,440
Speaker 1: drug trade from the Mexican side of the border, and

811
00:45:09,520 --> 00:45:12,480
Speaker 1: that dust pile gets closer and closer and closer and closer,

812
00:45:12,560 --> 00:45:16,759
Speaker 1: and this train went right before it stops, people busted

813
00:45:16,840 --> 00:45:20,600
Speaker 1: the locks on the top of the grainers and then

814
00:45:20,880 --> 00:45:26,560
Speaker 1: took out bales, hay bale size of weed, just bales

815
00:45:26,760 --> 00:45:31,840
Speaker 1: and bales and bales and weed. And then that dust

816
00:45:31,920 --> 00:45:33,960
Speaker 1: clue that I saw in the background was a truck

817
00:45:34,040 --> 00:45:39,400
Speaker 1: that was Ronnie doing this. Weed wasn't crossing the border

818
00:45:39,440 --> 00:45:41,760
Speaker 1: in the train, but the train was bringing it closer,

819
00:45:42,080 --> 00:45:45,360
Speaker 1: so smaller amounts could be smuggled across using other methods

820
00:45:45,360 --> 00:45:49,920
Speaker 1: of transport like vans or backpacks. And then they just

821
00:45:50,000 --> 00:45:52,160
Speaker 1: dumped all this weed on the side of the side

822
00:45:52,160 --> 00:45:55,359
Speaker 1: of the train, and then probably about say like ten

823
00:45:55,480 --> 00:45:59,400
Speaker 1: people or something like that all got off and loaded

824
00:45:59,480 --> 00:46:04,280
Speaker 1: up that truck burned off. Alexei witnessed a smuggling operation

825
00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:08,400
Speaker 1: pulled off without a hitch, in and out easy. He

826
00:46:08,560 --> 00:46:11,759
Speaker 1: was just a normal routine thing. The engineer must have

827
00:46:11,760 --> 00:46:18,240
Speaker 1: been in it. Yeah, like everybody was on it. Speaking

828
00:46:18,239 --> 00:46:21,160
Speaker 1: with Alexei, it's hard not to sympathize with Larry. He

829
00:46:21,239 --> 00:46:24,440
Speaker 1: had Joe, he had government resources, but in the end

830
00:46:24,440 --> 00:46:26,719
Speaker 1: he was another cop fighting against a challenge that has

831
00:46:26,719 --> 00:46:30,040
Speaker 1: thousands of people on the other side. No matter how

832
00:46:30,040 --> 00:46:33,000
Speaker 1: hard Larry worked, the problem of cargo fest was going

833
00:46:33,040 --> 00:46:35,560
Speaker 1: on before he got there, and still goes on now

834
00:46:35,600 --> 00:46:38,000
Speaker 1: that he's gone. But at the end of the day,

835
00:46:38,080 --> 00:46:41,560
Speaker 1: and never has been and never will be the railroad's

836
00:46:41,600 --> 00:46:48,640
Speaker 1: top priority. When the Border Patrol confiscated drugs smuggle on

837
00:46:48,760 --> 00:46:51,680
Speaker 1: Unie Pacific trains, it issued heavy fines to try to

838
00:46:51,760 --> 00:46:54,280
Speaker 1: encourage the railroad to get better control of its business.

839
00:46:54,640 --> 00:46:57,040
Speaker 1: But you and Pacific maintained that it couldn't control was

840
00:46:57,080 --> 00:47:00,319
Speaker 1: placed on its trains in Mexico. After all, it has

841
00:47:00,360 --> 00:47:03,319
Speaker 1: no jurisdiction in a foreign country. Surely the government could

842
00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:07,080
Speaker 1: understand that. How could Union Pacific forget that it owns

843
00:47:07,080 --> 00:47:09,759
Speaker 1: twenty four percent of Pharaoh Max, the same railroad that

844
00:47:09,800 --> 00:47:13,160
Speaker 1: brings Union Pacific cargo over the border to El Paso.

845
00:47:14,000 --> 00:47:16,640
Speaker 1: That was another dimension to my understanding of the rails.

846
00:47:16,960 --> 00:47:19,080
Speaker 1: Sure I knew about the risks of the train and

847
00:47:19,160 --> 00:47:22,960
Speaker 1: the hoboes, but smugglers and thieves that was something else.

848
00:47:23,600 --> 00:47:27,080
Speaker 1: Yet again, this world remains hidden in plain sight. Trains

849
00:47:27,080 --> 00:47:29,560
Speaker 1: spread their way through all sorts of terrible neighborhoods and

850
00:47:29,600 --> 00:47:32,759
Speaker 1: crime infested industrial sites, and no one thinks of them

851
00:47:32,760 --> 00:47:36,000
Speaker 1: as the connectors of one crime scene to another. And

852
00:47:36,080 --> 00:47:40,200
Speaker 1: there was Ruby making her way through it all. I

853
00:47:40,360 --> 00:47:42,960
Speaker 1: was exhausted when I got back from El Paso. There

854
00:47:43,080 --> 00:47:45,560
Speaker 1: was something about learning how the rail coops operated that

855
00:47:45,640 --> 00:47:48,160
Speaker 1: made me think maybe I'd had my fill of the darkness,

856
00:47:48,960 --> 00:47:51,120
Speaker 1: Like when Joe described young women in the train yard

857
00:47:51,160 --> 00:47:54,719
Speaker 1: bargaining for their safety. Maybe I didn't need to know that.

858
00:47:56,239 --> 00:47:58,880
Speaker 1: Yet there is that maternal obligation to worry and to

859
00:47:58,920 --> 00:48:02,399
Speaker 1: convince yourself that worrying is a form of love. If

860
00:48:02,400 --> 00:48:05,400
Speaker 1: I wasn't doing this mad investigation, running around the country,

861
00:48:05,520 --> 00:48:08,480
Speaker 1: talking to hundreds of people. Was I giving up hope?

862
00:48:09,440 --> 00:48:14,279
Speaker 1: Was I abandoning Ruby? So it was in my state

863
00:48:14,280 --> 00:48:18,760
Speaker 1: of frustrated energy that Ruby called. I was still unpacking

864
00:48:18,760 --> 00:48:21,160
Speaker 1: my stuff in my room at the barn, but the

865
00:48:21,200 --> 00:48:23,520
Speaker 1: first thing I had put together was my desk, my

866
00:48:23,640 --> 00:48:26,359
Speaker 1: reporting station for collecting info about what was going on

867
00:48:26,440 --> 00:48:29,640
Speaker 1: with Ruby, so my cell phone rang. I sat down

868
00:48:29,680 --> 00:48:31,680
Speaker 1: and pulled out my Ruby notebook to jot down the

869
00:48:31,760 --> 00:48:36,120
Speaker 1: number she was calling from. But the second she started talking,

870
00:48:36,480 --> 00:48:40,279
Speaker 1: I realized I wouldn't need my notebook. Ruby told me

871
00:48:40,360 --> 00:48:45,160
Speaker 1: she was coming home. She would take her time, but

872
00:48:45,280 --> 00:48:47,920
Speaker 1: she was on her way back when she left. Part

873
00:48:47,960 --> 00:48:50,960
Speaker 1: of her goal she'd had a goal was to see

874
00:48:50,960 --> 00:48:54,520
Speaker 1: the United States. On her way home, she would circumnavigate

875
00:48:54,560 --> 00:48:56,520
Speaker 1: the nation, starting in New York with a visit to

876
00:48:56,560 --> 00:48:59,160
Speaker 1: her brother, then up to Vermont and across the top

877
00:48:59,160 --> 00:49:01,719
Speaker 1: of the country. She had no idea how long it

878
00:49:01,719 --> 00:49:04,759
Speaker 1: would take, but I didn't care. There was an end date,

879
00:49:05,120 --> 00:49:10,200
Speaker 1: date uncertain, but there was an end. So just as

880
00:49:10,200 --> 00:49:14,399
Speaker 1: I was about to surrender, this brought me back. There

881
00:49:14,480 --> 00:49:17,120
Speaker 1: was a problem with all that I had learned. Instead

882
00:49:17,120 --> 00:49:19,200
Speaker 1: of some soothing image of Ruby in the box car,

883
00:49:19,280 --> 00:49:22,200
Speaker 1: gazing at fields of grain, I could actually imagine the

884
00:49:22,200 --> 00:49:24,400
Speaker 1: steps it took to hop a train, the dangers in

885
00:49:24,440 --> 00:49:27,120
Speaker 1: the box car, and the scary people in and near

886
00:49:27,160 --> 00:49:29,520
Speaker 1: the yard. Maybe my time in the City of the

887
00:49:29,600 --> 00:49:32,440
Speaker 1: Rails was coming to an end with Ruby's return, But

888
00:49:32,520 --> 00:49:34,560
Speaker 1: there was just one more story I wanted to get

889
00:49:34,600 --> 00:49:37,120
Speaker 1: before I left. It was a story about the people

890
00:49:37,160 --> 00:49:39,760
Speaker 1: who run the City of the Rails. It was about

891
00:49:39,760 --> 00:49:42,600
Speaker 1: the workers in the train yard. The power of the

892
00:49:42,680 --> 00:49:45,239
Speaker 1: railroad works in the favor of the rail coops, but

893
00:49:45,320 --> 00:49:48,080
Speaker 1: often that power doesn't serve the rest of its employees. Well,

894
00:49:49,239 --> 00:49:51,440
Speaker 1: when I'd been in Colton, I went to a retirement

895
00:49:51,480 --> 00:49:54,239
Speaker 1: party where I met Carrie Westcott. The guests were all

896
00:49:54,239 --> 00:49:56,640
Speaker 1: congratulating themselves for having made it all the way to

897
00:49:56,719 --> 00:50:00,640
Speaker 1: retirement because so few do. And then of them said

898
00:50:01,200 --> 00:50:03,400
Speaker 1: it was a shame that they did to Nikki, and

899
00:50:03,520 --> 00:50:06,719
Speaker 1: another one said it should be illegal, but it's just

900
00:50:06,760 --> 00:50:10,560
Speaker 1: the way of the railroad. So who was Nikki? Nikki

901
00:50:10,680 --> 00:50:12,400
Speaker 1: is just one of those people that you just always

902
00:50:12,400 --> 00:50:14,840
Speaker 1: want to do more for Gosh, she's just such a

903
00:50:14,840 --> 00:50:17,240
Speaker 1: good person, you know, and just has such a good energy.

904
00:50:17,880 --> 00:50:21,399
Speaker 1: They didn't like Nikki. Nikki carries herself in a way

905
00:50:21,520 --> 00:50:25,480
Speaker 1: that they don't like the alpha of male, black or female,

906
00:50:26,360 --> 00:50:29,800
Speaker 1: and everybody knows once Union Pacific puts their claws and

907
00:50:30,520 --> 00:50:32,600
Speaker 1: they're not going to stop until they can tamrinate you.

908
00:50:34,040 --> 00:50:36,960
Speaker 1: Like I used to say on Norfolk Southern, I said,

909
00:50:37,480 --> 00:50:40,680
Speaker 1: we hate them, and the reason we hate them is

910
00:50:40,719 --> 00:50:46,759
Speaker 1: because they hate us. Nobody treats other human beings in

911
00:50:46,840 --> 00:50:50,280
Speaker 1: the way that we are being treated unless they actually

912
00:50:50,400 --> 00:50:54,960
Speaker 1: hate us. Next we'll look into the relationship between those

913
00:50:54,960 --> 00:50:57,920
Speaker 1: who drive the trains and those who own them and

914
00:50:57,960 --> 00:51:00,920
Speaker 1: how it got to be this way. That's next episode

915
00:51:00,960 --> 00:51:21,880
Speaker 1: on City of the Rails se Montica seven, Motica Douster fourteen,

916
00:51:23,160 --> 00:51:35,040
Speaker 1: as well be drinking gasol. Look what You've done. City

917
00:51:35,040 --> 00:51:36,960
Speaker 1: of the Rails is written and hosted by me then

918
00:51:36,960 --> 00:51:40,120
Speaker 1: El Morton and developed in partnership between Flip Turn Studios

919
00:51:40,120 --> 00:51:43,640
Speaker 1: and iHeart Podcasts. Thank you to everyone who's been calling us.

920
00:51:43,960 --> 00:51:47,560
Speaker 1: I'm hearing from housewives, artists, current hoboes, and retired ones.

921
00:51:48,080 --> 00:51:50,560
Speaker 1: It's great when a story can touch so many different people.

922
00:51:51,040 --> 00:51:53,960
Speaker 1: We love to hear it, so please keep calling. The

923
00:51:54,040 --> 00:51:57,319
Speaker 1: number is seven oh seven six five three three three nine.

924
00:51:58,040 --> 00:51:59,920
Speaker 1: I want to help us out. You can do it

925
00:52:00,120 --> 00:52:02,240
Speaker 1: very quickly by leaving us a rating or a review

926
00:52:02,239 --> 00:52:04,960
Speaker 1: wherever you're listening to this. It will help more people

927
00:52:05,000 --> 00:52:07,040
Speaker 1: find the show, and it means a lot to us.

928
00:52:07,520 --> 00:52:10,480
Speaker 1: Want to follow along, find us on Instagram at flip

929
00:52:10,520 --> 00:52:14,720
Speaker 1: turn pods. Our team is executive producer and showrunner Julian

930
00:52:14,800 --> 00:52:18,680
Speaker 1: Weller and executive producer Mark Healey from Flip Turn, Senior

931
00:52:18,719 --> 00:52:23,440
Speaker 1: producer and editing master Abu Zafar, and producers Shina Ozaki

932
00:52:23,480 --> 00:52:26,759
Speaker 1: and Zoe Dnkla. Shout out to the Lady Squad. It's

933
00:52:26,760 --> 00:52:28,880
Speaker 1: just Zoe and Mean now that Emily and Sheina have

934
00:52:28,920 --> 00:52:31,680
Speaker 1: gone on to other shows, but we have new recruits,

935
00:52:31,840 --> 00:52:36,000
Speaker 1: Tricia Mukerjee and Jackie Huntington. Thanks for stepping in production

936
00:52:36,040 --> 00:52:39,719
Speaker 1: support from Marcy to Pina. Original music every episode by

937
00:52:39,719 --> 00:52:42,640
Speaker 1: Aaron Kaufman. I was so honored that Aaron wrote music

938
00:52:42,680 --> 00:52:45,840
Speaker 1: for this show. Those intriguing themes that I'm describing a

939
00:52:45,920 --> 00:52:48,560
Speaker 1: dark part of the train yard are the light ironic

940
00:52:48,600 --> 00:52:52,400
Speaker 1: ones when something unexpectedly funny is going down. That's all Aaron.

941
00:52:53,000 --> 00:52:55,400
Speaker 1: Thank you, Aaron for your deft touch and your occasional

942
00:52:55,560 --> 00:52:58,960
Speaker 1: editorial advice. You're a truth teller who doesn't blink in

943
00:52:59,000 --> 00:53:02,760
Speaker 1: addition to being a very talented composer. Our theme music

944
00:53:02,800 --> 00:53:06,760
Speaker 1: for this episode is Warrenson, Texas, performed by Barefoot Surrender,

945
00:53:07,600 --> 00:53:10,760
Speaker 1: Our logos by Lucy quing Tinia and uses a photograph

946
00:53:10,840 --> 00:53:14,600
Speaker 1: by Mike Brodie. Thank you to the Nation Institute for

947
00:53:14,640 --> 00:53:18,760
Speaker 1: Investigative Journalism and the George Polk Foundation for their generous

948
00:53:18,800 --> 00:53:21,200
Speaker 1: grants and support of my reporting on the rail cops.

949
00:53:21,719 --> 00:53:23,719
Speaker 1: I got these grants and more than ten years ago,

950
00:53:24,040 --> 00:53:26,560
Speaker 1: which shows just how hard it is to report this story.

951
00:53:26,920 --> 00:53:29,839
Speaker 1: And I'm not done yet. Any rail cops who want

952
00:53:29,880 --> 00:53:32,880
Speaker 1: to give me a call, You've got my number and

953
00:53:33,000 --> 00:53:38,080
Speaker 1: at iHeart. Thanks to Nikki Etour at Bethan Macaluso. We'll

954
00:53:38,080 --> 00:53:40,879
Speaker 1: be back next week in Colton, because I cannot get

955
00:53:41,000 --> 00:53:43,560
Speaker 1: enough of Colton on City of the Rails