Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck,
Speaker 2: and there's Jerry, and we're just well, Jerry's not here. Actually,
Speaker 2: now I mentioned it. That was just fsoph habit, wasn't it?
Speaker 1: The ghost of Jerry. She's not she's still with us.
Speaker 2: She's driving the getaway car.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's not that kind of ghost.
Speaker 2: No no, no, no, no no, she's the kind of
Speaker 2: ghost that drives a getaway car.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So I mentioned that though, Chuck, because it's apropos of
Speaker 2: the heist episode we're about to talk about, which I
Speaker 2: guess this would qualify as a heist.
Speaker 1: Right, Oh, I mean heck yeah.
Speaker 2: Well usually to me, heists are a little more intricate
Speaker 2: most of the time successful. This was a little more
Speaker 2: brute firepower than any other heist or most other heists,
Speaker 2: So that's why it kind of disqualifies it in my opinion.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, that's my essay on heists.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what the definition of heist is.
Speaker 2: I just gave it to you.
Speaker 1: Apparently a robbery, so yeah, sure.
Speaker 2: I mean, of course it's a robbery. But and this
Speaker 2: qualifies as a robbery. It's just it's its own unique thing,
Speaker 2: for sure, big time. And you know, as you're reading this,
Speaker 2: it's so theatrical, it's so just totally off the chain
Speaker 2: nuts that this actually happened in real life. It's you
Speaker 2: have to remind yourself from time to time like these
Speaker 2: are like really really bad guys and what they were
Speaker 2: doing was beyond reprehensible. It's just we're so trained to
Speaker 2: get sucked into that kind of like action in the
Speaker 2: movies that when it happens in real life you have
Speaker 2: to like kind of turn off that entertainment part of
Speaker 2: it and bring yourself back to reality. Sometimes, at least
Speaker 2: I did. I had trouble doing it during research a
Speaker 2: few times, No.
Speaker 1: For sure.
Speaker 3: And we're talking about the North Hollywood shootout is what
Speaker 3: it's known a lot as the Battle of North Hollywood sometimes.
Speaker 3: And this is on February twenty eighth and nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 3: when two dudes armed to the hilt with assault rifles
Speaker 3: like anything you can think of. And this is, as
Speaker 3: we'll see a time when and this is kind of
Speaker 3: one of the big sort of I guess, interesting and
Speaker 3: scary parts about this. This is when cops like people
Speaker 3: could be more out armed than the police that are
Speaker 3: trying to stop them, right, And that's what happened the
Speaker 3: day that they engaged, when North Hollywood became a war
Speaker 3: zoned for a little while.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and as a matter of fact, this episode, this
Speaker 2: event led directly to the militarization of police forces, as
Speaker 2: we see, these two guys basically pressed that issue because, yeah,
Speaker 2: the Los Angeles Police Department was outgunned, out armed, and
Speaker 2: but definitely not outnumbered. They outnumbered the robbers, but they
Speaker 2: were still getting pinned down and they were having no
Speaker 2: luck with anything. Well, I don't want to give too
Speaker 2: much away. Let's just start at the beginning, because we're
Speaker 2: talking about two dudes. A twenty six year old this
Speaker 2: is back in ninety seven, named Larry Eugene Phillips Junior,
Speaker 2: and there was a thirty year old who he was
Speaker 2: friends with named Emil Mattiseranu. And even though Emil was older,
Speaker 2: Larry was the one who called the shots. He was
Speaker 2: roundly described by family members as manipulative, controlling, and he
Speaker 2: had Emil under his thumb. A meal was described by
Speaker 2: his family members later as a follower. So even though
Speaker 2: he was a little older. He listened to what Emil
Speaker 2: told him to do, not just in their partnership as
Speaker 2: like criminals, but in life too. I read somewhere that
Speaker 2: Emil got married because Larry told him he should and
Speaker 2: that he shouldn't marry an American girl. So Emil went
Speaker 2: to Romania and got himself a Romanian bribe because he
Speaker 2: was a remain immigrant. That level of control is apparently
Speaker 2: what they were engaged in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally previous to their meeting they met each other,
Speaker 3: they were bodybuilders, not professionally but just bodybuilding guys at
Speaker 3: Gold's Gym and Venice Beach in nineteen eighty nine. And
Speaker 3: just prior to this is when Phillips started. His life
Speaker 3: of crime. Started kind of small, I guess, like most criminals,
Speaker 3: just a heist of four hundred dollars from a seers
Speaker 3: in southern California, and then graduated to burglary, real estate
Speaker 3: fraud stuff like that. Apparently was sort of enamored of
Speaker 3: Scarface and ultimately the movie Heat. So if this shootout
Speaker 3: sounds familiar, it sounds a lot like the one from Heat,
Speaker 3: it's because they seem to have been inspired by that
Speaker 3: movie for sure.
Speaker 1: But love not only just the.
Speaker 3: Gangsters and movies, but also the white collar criminals. He
Speaker 3: would apparently like park in front of rich people's houses
Speaker 3: and just sort of fantasize about that life and wanted
Speaker 3: money like he you know, in the end, this whole
Speaker 3: thing was about money and like the thrill of it
Speaker 3: all largely because of Phillips.
Speaker 2: Right for sure, and Phillips was he kind of had
Speaker 2: the odds stacked against him in succeeding in a normal
Speaker 2: nine to five life because of the family he was
Speaker 2: born into. His father, Larry Ejeen Phillips Senior, who would
Speaker 2: later speak about his son in glowing terms after this.
Speaker 2: He was actually an escape beef from a prison in
Speaker 2: Colorado when Larry Junior was born, so Larry Junior was
Speaker 2: born into an alias. His last name was False Orful.
Speaker 2: That's how he was born, and on his sixth birthday,
Speaker 2: apparently the FBI came in with guns drawn to capture
Speaker 2: his dad, and that helped set up what was referred
Speaker 2: to as basically a lifelong hatred of the police and
Speaker 2: by extension, the kind of normal society the police were
Speaker 2: charged with defending.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: As Par Mattisrano, he was a Romanian immigrant came into
Speaker 3: the country when he was about eleven in nineteen seventy seven,
Speaker 3: was naturalized in eighty eight. And his mom, we'll talk
Speaker 3: about her a little bit. Her name was Valerie Nicolescue.
Speaker 2: I think that definitely gets it across sure Nicolescue.
Speaker 3: She says that he was bullied when he was a kid.
Speaker 3: He became a computer and video game nerd. He ended
Speaker 3: up going to Devrye Institute of Technology when he was
Speaker 3: nineteen and I'm sorry he got his degree when he
Speaker 3: was nineteen. But his neighbors also said things like this
Speaker 3: guy was bad news. He threatened one of the neighbors
Speaker 3: with a chainsaw because their dog came on his property.
Speaker 3: And their family also had another sort of disturbing secret, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they had a family business, a Meal and his mom, Valerie,
Speaker 2: had like basically a residential care center out of their
Speaker 2: home for people with disabilities, usually cognitive disabilities or mental
Speaker 2: health issues. And they were set up as a legitimate
Speaker 2: care institute. No, that's not the word, I guess a
Speaker 2: care home. Yeah. The problem is is they were not
Speaker 2: a good care home by pretty much any standard. They
Speaker 2: were caught multiple times doing or they were accused multiple
Speaker 2: times of mistreating the people. One of their residents was
Speaker 2: left in the hospital just kind of abandoned, ditched there.
Speaker 2: There was supposedly some allegations that a Meal had been
Speaker 2: abusive toward at least one of the patients there, and
Speaker 2: he was not allowed to come back into the house anymore,
Speaker 2: which is a problem because this is the family house.
Speaker 2: And eventually they got shut down for fire codes, and
Speaker 2: later on we'll see it even got worse after the
Speaker 2: heist happened and all the news came out and the
Speaker 2: police and the press started looking into that family and
Speaker 2: their family business. Just suffice to say, like, his mom
Speaker 2: doesn't appear to have been a very good person herself,
Speaker 2: just based on the allegations of how she treated the
Speaker 2: people who were under her care.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was pretty just.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is one of the more disturbing parts
Speaker 3: of this whole story actually, and it's kind of a sidebar,
Speaker 3: which is after the shootout, they searched her like a
Speaker 3: commercial building that she owned in Pasadena and found a
Speaker 3: forty four year old mentally disabled woman locked in a
Speaker 3: room with no windows, with no food or water. And
Speaker 3: then later it turns out that she was charged for
Speaker 3: that initially.
Speaker 1: Which was.
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess just sort of like a neglect charge.
Speaker 3: She was sentenced to ten months. But then later in
Speaker 3: two thousand and two, I found an article in the
Speaker 3: La Times where because I was like, why would she
Speaker 3: do this? It was a social security fraud. She was
Speaker 3: collecting checks in her name and her and this other woman.
Speaker 3: Later on she you know, it was basically welfare and
Speaker 3: social security fraud. So she got pinched for that in
Speaker 3: two thousand and two.
Speaker 2: And if you read kind of some of the contemporary
Speaker 2: articles from nineteen ninety seven right after the heist, she's
Speaker 2: kind of portrayed by the press as like the thing
Speaker 2: she says about herself or her background, the press don't
Speaker 2: really take on face value. Yeah, Like she's she said
Speaker 2: that she was an opera singer from the state opera
Speaker 2: in Romania who defected in nineteen seventy seven, And they
Speaker 2: use the words like claim And when somebody's described as
Speaker 2: claiming something about their own personal history, that's a signal
Speaker 2: from the press that this is probably not a trustworthy person.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 3: She would also say after this whole shootout went down
Speaker 3: with her son that she was like he was depressed,
Speaker 3: his wife had left him, and taken his kid, and
Speaker 3: I basically think this was a suicide mission for him.
Speaker 3: So whether or not that was true, who knows. That's
Speaker 3: what she claimed, right.
Speaker 2: So these are the guys who found each other in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty nine at Gold's gym and became really good friends.
Speaker 2: And one of the things, in addition to bodybuilding that
Speaker 2: they had in common was a real pronounced love of guns,
Speaker 2: and not just any guns, high power to assault rifles
Speaker 2: in particular. And apparently Larry Phillips had a line somewhere
Speaker 2: on steel cased ammunition. He could get it from Russia,
Speaker 2: highly illegal, but apparently people weren't paying attention, and I
Speaker 2: saw there was this British National Geographic little hour long
Speaker 2: documentary on this called Situation Critical, which reminded me of
Speaker 2: that Seinfeld movie Prognosis Negative totally. But they said that
Speaker 2: he managed to import rounds of this really illegal, like
Speaker 2: incredibly powerful steel lined ammunition by the thousands of rounds.
Speaker 2: So not only did they have really high powered assault rifles,
Speaker 2: they had immeasurably higher powered shells to put in those
Speaker 2: assault rifles, which made them extremely dangerous people.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And as we'll see, and maybe we should take
Speaker 3: a break here. These two guys were doing a lot
Speaker 3: of really dangerous criming before that ninety seven shootout.
Speaker 4: Let's take that break, all right.
Speaker 3: All right, so before we broke, I hinted around that
Speaker 3: these guys were criming around previous to the nineteen ninety
Speaker 3: seven shootout where everything ended, and that is very much true.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety three, they.
Speaker 3: Were pulled over in a rental car in Glendale and
Speaker 3: cop said, all right, well, let me take a look
Speaker 3: in the trunk, and they went, oh, you've got two
Speaker 3: nine millimeter handguns, two forty five hand guns, two coalition acoffs,
Speaker 3: six smoke grenades, two homemade bombs, three machine guns, two
Speaker 3: bulletproof vests, one gas mask, six holsters, wigs, ski masks,
Speaker 3: two police radio scanners, a stopwatch, and close to three
Speaker 3: thousand rounds of AMMO. And they said, we're just going
Speaker 3: to the shooting range, man. And you know, sometimes we
Speaker 3: like to wear wigs or ski masks, or listen to
Speaker 3: what the cops are doing, or time each other.
Speaker 2: Right, we're big fans of the police.
Speaker 3: Obviously that all is, you know, to an outsider obvious bs.
Speaker 3: But shockingly, the DA said, you know, we don't have
Speaker 3: enough evidence to convict them of conspiracy to commit robbery,
Speaker 3: and they pled down to a misdemeanor weapons charge in
Speaker 3: about four months in county jail.
Speaker 2: Each It gets even worse than that. That was nineteen ninety.
Speaker 1: Three, Okay.
Speaker 2: They were not only led off with basically a slap
Speaker 2: on the wrist. What they had in their trunk was
Speaker 2: described by other people later on as a bank robbery kit.
Speaker 2: That's everything you needed to rob a bank right there,
Speaker 2: and it was so painfully obvious that's what that was.
Speaker 2: That but they still was a stick up note right, No,
Speaker 2: there wasn't anything like that. They hadn't gotten to that point.
Speaker 2: But the craziest part of this whole thing crazier that
Speaker 2: they only got four months for these weapons. The DA
Speaker 2: and the judge agreed to give them their weapons back
Speaker 2: after they got out of jail, so they were re armed,
Speaker 2: ostensibly so that they could sell the weapons to pay
Speaker 2: for their legal costs, but no one followed up to
Speaker 2: make sure they did sell the weapons. They just gave
Speaker 2: them back their assault rifles and their handguns and probably
Speaker 2: their ski masks, everything they needed to go rob banks.
Speaker 2: And that's exactly what they did with that stuff, and.
Speaker 1: This was Los Angeles. Yeah, for goodness sakes, I know,
Speaker 1: it's crazy.
Speaker 3: So later on, this was after the you know, the
Speaker 3: final shootout that we're leading up to, But later on
Speaker 3: there was obviously all kinds of investigations and stuff, and
Speaker 3: they learned that these two guys were, in fact what
Speaker 3: were known as the High Incident bandits, these two dudes
Speaker 3: that robbed well, it was technically it was two incidences,
Speaker 3: but banks, because they hit two banks at once. In
Speaker 3: ninety five, they robbed a well, not a bank, but
Speaker 3: they robbed a Brinks truck in front of a Bank
Speaker 3: of America in the valley and they killed a guy.
Speaker 1: They killed the driver. They opened up fire on these dudes.
Speaker 2: Without warning, without it put your hands that they just
Speaker 2: came out of nowhere and just started firing on them.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, which will you know, we'll see as an
Speaker 3: obvious precedent. And then in nineteen ninety six, they robbed
Speaker 3: two Bank of Americas, one of which was the one
Speaker 3: that they had previously robbed the armored car in front
Speaker 3: of and killed that guy. And you know, it was
Speaker 3: the same type of deal. They had these automatic rifles.
Speaker 3: They were, you know, screaming that they're going to kill you.
Speaker 3: They had body armor, ski masks, sunglasses. They took their
Speaker 3: time as far as bank robberies go, by being in
Speaker 3: these banks for six minutes and eight minutes very long,
Speaker 3: which is that's a long time for a bank robbery.
Speaker 1: I tried to get out of there in less than three.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, that's you know, that's what everybody does, that's
Speaker 2: our goal.
Speaker 3: But they made off. I mean, these guys had a
Speaker 3: lot of money. They made off with between one point
Speaker 3: three and one point seven million bucks combined from this
Speaker 3: these two heists.
Speaker 2: Let alone whatever they got from the Brinks robbery.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, absolutely. And they were you know, they were
Speaker 3: well known. They were the high incidence bandits. The FBI
Speaker 3: was you know, actively tracking them and also had a
Speaker 3: theory that they're not alone. They're part of like a
Speaker 3: larger crime ring or terror string that's funding them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like that's not only funding them with arms,
Speaker 2: but the bank robberies are meant to fund some sort
Speaker 2: of like right wing paramilitary group or terrorist organization or something.
Speaker 2: That was the point. That was the premise they were
Speaker 2: going on because these guys were so incredibly well armed
Speaker 2: and just for context too, one point seven million dollars
Speaker 2: for two bank robberies is a eye popping amount of money.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's up.
Speaker 2: There in like the top probably fifty bank robberies in
Speaker 2: United States history. Like, those are really big hauls. I
Speaker 2: saw at the time in nineteen ninety one, the average
Speaker 2: bank robbery in the United States yielded the robbers about
Speaker 2: three thousand dollars robbing a bank. The takes were usually
Speaker 2: so paltry that it wasn't worth the bank's money to
Speaker 2: invest in other protections like screens that go up really
Speaker 2: quick between the tellers and the bank robbers. It wasn't
Speaker 2: worth them installing those in banks because the robbers rarely
Speaker 2: got away with more than a few thousand dollars. So
Speaker 2: that was a huge, huge score for almost two million
Speaker 2: dollars between just two bank robberies for these guys.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I don't think murder usually occurs at those
Speaker 3: bank robberies too, Supposedly.
Speaker 2: I can't remember the number. I think it was like
Speaker 2: sixteen people died in bank robberies over like I think
Speaker 2: eighty five to ninety five or something like that, and
Speaker 2: twelve of them were the bank robber. It was a
Speaker 2: statistic somewhat like that. So yeah, yeah, and I think
Speaker 2: eighty five percent of bank robberies get caught. It's a
Speaker 2: really high risk, usually low reward, yeah crime, but if
Speaker 2: you do it like these guys did, armed to the teeth.
Speaker 2: And the other reason that their yields were so big,
Speaker 2: they scouted out the banks and they knew when the
Speaker 2: bank was going to get some big delivery of cash.
Speaker 2: Usually it was a payday or something like that. That's
Speaker 2: why their robberies paid off so well. They had done
Speaker 2: their homework ahead of time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's how they do it in the movies.
Speaker 3: And apparently these guys were inspired by movies.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I guess everybody else in real life doesn't do
Speaker 2: it like the movies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so they were, you know, they were living kind
Speaker 3: of high on the hog for a little while. They
Speaker 3: had a lot of money. Phillips himself, he was the
Speaker 3: one that really sort of idolized, you know, being wealthy
Speaker 3: and all that stuff. He like bought fancy cars, he
Speaker 3: bought rolexes. I think mattisonana rented a big house for
Speaker 3: his family. So, you know, I think looking at the timeline,
Speaker 3: one was in June of ninety five, one was almost
Speaker 3: a year later in ninety six, so, and then this
Speaker 3: final one was in February ninety seven. They weren't, you know,
Speaker 3: they weren't doing this. It's hard to say they were
Speaker 3: being smart about it because they were so brazen. But
Speaker 3: it seems like they were doing this as like, all right, well,
Speaker 3: here's our annual salary and then we'll go out and
Speaker 3: do it again in about a year.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, no, they were. It was like their new
Speaker 2: job and their new hobby and their new life, I
Speaker 2: guess from what I understand. Right. So, on the day
Speaker 2: of the robbery, their third heist, February twenty, nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 2: a Friday, and since it's the end of the month,
Speaker 2: a payday, they had targeted a Bank of America. It
Speaker 2: wasn't one they had hit before, but for some.
Speaker 1: Reason they did Bank of America.
Speaker 2: They really and I kind of get why, but a
Speaker 2: being a former Bank of America account holder myself, But
Speaker 2: they they hit one in North Hollywood. It was on
Speaker 2: Laurel Canyon Boulevard. Are you familiar with this area? Oh
Speaker 2: of course, Okay, so you knew were you in la
Speaker 2: at the time? No?
Speaker 1: I didn't.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, this is kind of right before that though
Speaker 3: I didn't move to LA until two thousand, okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: and North Hollywood just for references, you know, Hollywood, Central Hollywood,
Speaker 3: kind of right in the middle of sort of central LA.
Speaker 3: And then just over the mountains as you go into
Speaker 3: the valley, that's where North Hollywood is.
Speaker 2: Right And that's where Hank, the Cheshneian gangster in the
Speaker 2: HBO show Berry is from. That's why they call him
Speaker 2: NoHo Hank.
Speaker 1: I need to do, Barry you do.
Speaker 2: It's one of those shows that gets insanely off the
Speaker 2: rails and yet they still manage to make it work.
Speaker 2: It's really good.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: I watched a little bit of it years ago when
Speaker 3: it first started and just got distracted and never got
Speaker 3: back around to it. But I'd love everyone in that show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you should. You should give you another shot, all.
Speaker 1: Right, I'll bury up soon.
Speaker 2: It's weird though, it's it's deceptively gritty. It's a comedy
Speaker 2: through it, and it's just bizarre and all that. But
Speaker 2: there's if you really kind of get into the violence,
Speaker 2: the meat of it, it's it's pretty hardcore. It's a
Speaker 2: crazy show. It's hard to pin down, but it's worth
Speaker 2: the seeing.
Speaker 1: All right, I'll follow up.
Speaker 2: So Friday, February twenty eighth, nineteen ninety seven, Larry Phillips
Speaker 2: and a Meal MADISERANU walk into a bank of America
Speaker 2: and they are covered head to toe and tactical gear
Speaker 2: ski masks. It turns out Larry Phillips is covered from
Speaker 2: neck to ankle in body armor. Yeah, that he helped.
Speaker 2: He apparently so did it himself and it was really effective.
Speaker 2: A Meal MATASERANUH has a trauma plate basically a like
Speaker 2: a bulletproof plate covering his chest and his vital organs.
Speaker 2: And they walk in and apparently the first thing they
Speaker 2: did was started firing into the air from their AK
Speaker 2: forty sevens. And you would think that that would capture
Speaker 2: the attention of the police, but that's a moot point
Speaker 2: because the police watched them walk into the bank from
Speaker 2: the first moment this started.
Speaker 3: Boy, I mean, you can do all the planning in
Speaker 3: the world as a bank robber, but you can never
Speaker 3: count or discount bad luck for them good luck for
Speaker 3: everyone else. Sure, but literally there was a police cruiser
Speaker 3: that were like sitting there and watched two guys walk
Speaker 3: into this bank armed like this, And I'm sure they
Speaker 3: were like what the boo and immediately called this is
Speaker 3: at nine seventeen, and they immediately called for backup obviously,
Speaker 3: and I think once they saw and heard the shots
Speaker 3: and everything, they all immediately knew that these were the
Speaker 3: high incident bandits.
Speaker 2: Yes, and for those fans of Snoop Dogg and Doctor
Speaker 2: Dre and Ice Cube and NWA, you're well aware that
Speaker 2: what the police called in was a two to eleven
Speaker 2: an armed robbery in progress.
Speaker 1: That's good.
Speaker 2: So one of the things, a little detail that kind
Speaker 2: of emerged later on, apparently Larry Phillips and Emal were
Speaker 2: not drug users whatsoever in any way, shape or form,
Speaker 2: but apparently they had taken phena barbital just before the
Speaker 2: bank robbery to basically calm their nerves. They were the
Speaker 2: kind of bank robbers that you see in the movies,
Speaker 2: but they don't actually exist in real life. These guys
Speaker 2: existed in real life. They would knock down old ladies
Speaker 2: and put guns in their faces. They would tell moms
Speaker 2: that if they didn't shut their kids up, they were
Speaker 2: going to kill their kids. They fired wildly into the air,
Speaker 2: they fired wildly into the bank. They just shot everything
Speaker 2: up everywhere they were really abusive. They were really tough,
Speaker 2: they were really scary, and they were also really on
Speaker 2: point as far as knowing where the money is, knowing
Speaker 2: who would have access to the money, and just making
Speaker 2: this whole thing work. They had also figured out that
Speaker 2: they had about eight minutes before the average response time.
Speaker 2: They hadn't noticed the cops watching them walk in, and
Speaker 2: so they had timer stopwatches on during this whole eight
Speaker 2: minute robbery.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which is what they had in the trunk when
Speaker 3: the cops pulled them over four years earlier.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the stop watch.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so yeah, I mean they had this thing planned out,
Speaker 3: but they also didn't know certain things, like they asked
Speaker 3: the bank manager to open up the ATMs, and he's like,
Speaker 3: I can't open the ATMs, Like I literally can't do that.
Speaker 3: So he tried to shoot them open, which did nothing
Speaker 3: to get into the atm, but of course it you know,
Speaker 3: bullets Rickachet everywhere and injured the bank manager. They also,
Speaker 3: you know, would shoot I think one of them, Phillips,
Speaker 3: wasn't it, who literally shot into a safe and like
Speaker 3: shot up a lot of the money that they could
Speaker 3: have gotten, Yeah, ruining that.
Speaker 2: Out of anger. They learned that the Prinks truck that
Speaker 2: was supposed to be delivering hundreds and hundreds about three
Speaker 2: quarters of a million dollars by their estimate, was running
Speaker 2: late or had been rescheduled to throw off bank robberies,
Speaker 2: and out of anger, Emil just shot into a safe
Speaker 2: and and basically just ruined a bunch of cash that
Speaker 2: they could have taken.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was also a cell phone on the scene,
Speaker 3: which is not the most common thing in nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 3: for sure, but it was la and they locked a
Speaker 3: bunch of the they were about, you know, thirty bystanders
Speaker 3: or you know, just people doing bank business. They separated
Speaker 3: them out from the tellers and put them in a
Speaker 3: vault and shut the door, and one of the I
Speaker 3: believe one of the women inside had a cell phone,
Speaker 3: and I'm not sure how much it help, but she
Speaker 3: was at least able to be in touch with the cops,
Speaker 3: sort of describing what she was hearing while all this
Speaker 3: is going on.
Speaker 2: Right, this is at a time before people knew what
Speaker 2: lol meant, and run of the cops she was texting
Speaker 2: with was like, LOL meaning lots of love, but she
Speaker 2: didn't take it that way.
Speaker 1: Lots of love. I thought it was laugh out loud.
Speaker 2: Right, that's what it means. The didn't know that. He
Speaker 2: thought he was saying, like, hang in there, l O, I.
Speaker 1: Gotcha, got cha? Okay, I missed. I'm a little less
Speaker 1: sick today.
Speaker 2: That's all right. I stole that joke from family guy.
Speaker 3: Anyway, In the end, though, they did get, you know,
Speaker 3: a pretty good take. They got about three hundred thousand
Speaker 3: dollars worth of cash, and then I guess we should
Speaker 3: probably take a break here. But then they exited the
Speaker 3: bank and all h e double hockey sticks broke loose.
Speaker 2: Okay, chuck, it's about nine five, believe eight minutes has passed,
Speaker 2: the timers going off on their stopwatches, and Amal Mataseranu
Speaker 2: and Larry Phillips are now planning on leaving the bank.
Speaker 2: They have a duffel bag with about three hundred grand
Speaker 2: in cash, and supposedly right when they walk out the door,
Speaker 2: the die packs in the bag go off and completely
Speaker 2: ruin the cash. So the cash that they thought was
Speaker 2: going to be there wasn't there. The cash that they
Speaker 2: did get was now completely ruined forever because the die packs.
Speaker 2: And they come out and realize that the cops have
Speaker 2: them surrounded that this eight minute response time thing doesn't
Speaker 2: count when the cops watch you walk into the bank
Speaker 2: with ski masks in AK forty sevens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, what kind of surrounded are we talking about here?
Speaker 2: We're talking about surrounded on every side with police helicopters
Speaker 2: hovering overhead. That's what they walked out of the bank into.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in the end, there would be more than three
Speaker 3: hundred cops from five different agencies that were engaged in
Speaker 3: the shootout, three hundred against two. That gives you a
Speaker 3: little insight into just how much more heavily armed these
Speaker 3: guys were. That it lasted this long, but they walked
Speaker 3: out to that scene and immediately turned North Hollywood into
Speaker 3: a war zone. I've watched a lot of video this stuff,
Speaker 3: and this is one of the remarkable things is a
Speaker 3: lot of this stuff is on video. You know, LA
Speaker 3: is notorious for you know, anytime something like this is happening,
Speaker 3: there's six helicopters, news helicopters overhead, like within minutes, just
Speaker 3: kind of live streaming, or I guess you wouldn't.
Speaker 1: Call it live streaming then what.
Speaker 2: Would you just say broadcasting?
Speaker 1: Live broadcasting? There you go, Oh man, it's been so long.
Speaker 2: You're so twenty twenties.
Speaker 3: I am so yeah, live broadcasting this thing from above,
Speaker 3: so you can watch a lot of this take place,
Speaker 3: which is horrifying. But again, if you've seen enough movies,
Speaker 3: you're like, yeah, it looks like a lot of movies
Speaker 3: I've seen. But a lot of the interviews that you
Speaker 3: know since then that have happened with cops that were
Speaker 3: there and take place basically said like, these guys just
Speaker 3: came out and started shooting at everything that moved, citizens, cars, buildings,
Speaker 3: police cars at the times at the time didn't have
Speaker 3: kevlar siding and their doors and stuff. So like, hiding
Speaker 3: inside a police car was no good. Hiding behind a
Speaker 3: police car was better because the bullet going all the
Speaker 3: way through it at least is going to you know,
Speaker 3: ricochet around and probably not go like straight into you.
Speaker 3: But you know, they were it was all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: it was like Vietnam out there in North Hollywood.
Speaker 2: So here's the thing. When the cops had them surrounded
Speaker 2: and were waiting for them to come out, Number one
Speaker 2: in the cops mind, they had no idea if the
Speaker 2: whole place inside had just been massacred. Because most robbers
Speaker 2: don't walk in and start shooting into the air. Again,
Speaker 2: that's movie stuff that these guys were influenced by. So
Speaker 2: they heard like, like I think, fifty rounds of automatic
Speaker 2: rifle fire in the bank while they were waiting for
Speaker 2: these guys to come out, and they didn't know if
Speaker 2: everyone inside was just completely killed. That was number one,
Speaker 2: But number two the cops also presume, based on experience
Speaker 2: and history, that when these guys came out and saw
Speaker 2: they were surrounded not just by cops and cop cars
Speaker 2: but also helicopters, that they would just you know, put
Speaker 2: their guns down, put their hands up. So they were
Speaker 2: surprised at the response that these two guys took on
Speaker 2: just even just this first initial wave of dozens of cops.
Speaker 2: And then they were further surprised when the guy's bullets
Speaker 2: started going right through any kevlar vests, started going right
Speaker 2: through the police cars, started going through buildings, through concrete buildings.
Speaker 2: There was a concrete locksmith like kind of like a
Speaker 2: photo mat in the parking lot that they were taking
Speaker 2: shelter behind. The bullets were going through them. This was
Speaker 2: it just suddenly turned completely one hundred and eighty degrees
Speaker 2: from their expectations. And then even worse than that, they
Speaker 2: were finding their own guns were having basically just pinging.
Speaker 2: The bullets were pinging off of these guys because they
Speaker 2: were wearing so much body the armor. So this is
Speaker 2: about the moment almost immediately out of the gate when
Speaker 2: the cops were like, this is nothing like anything we've
Speaker 2: ever experienced before, and we are out gunned right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this sounds unbelievable, but it's true.
Speaker 3: It was so bad right away that the cops realized
Speaker 3: that and said, if there's any available units, go to
Speaker 3: the gun store down the street and get everything you can.
Speaker 3: Like they literally went to a gun store to re
Speaker 3: arm or you know, I guess what would you call
Speaker 3: it when your armament, Yeah, I guess. So they leveled
Speaker 3: up on their guns and they did get guns. Apparently
Speaker 3: according to like recovered ammunition stuff, they didn't actually end
Speaker 3: up using those in the firefight because I guess, you know,
Speaker 3: the whole thing didn't last that long, and I'm sure
Speaker 3: it took a while to you know, talk the store
Speaker 3: owner and giving up these guns and getting the matching
Speaker 3: ammunition and all that. But they sent for backup for
Speaker 3: them by going to a gun store, which is just
Speaker 3: crazy to think about. And they were like, we need
Speaker 3: the SWAT team. This is we're police cruiser guys, and
Speaker 3: that we have revolvers or nine millimeters and this ain't happening.
Speaker 3: Swat team is downtown. Took him about eighteen minutes to
Speaker 3: get there, and they got there though. They finally showed up,
Speaker 3: and apparently it was such a quick sort of let's
Speaker 3: get their quick thing that one of the SWAT officers
Speaker 3: was about to go on a jog and he shows
Speaker 3: up in like jogging shorts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you watched like the footage of the of
Speaker 2: them taking mitos Urano, he's the first one to them
Speaker 2: and it's kind of silly looking to be honest.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this first wave of cops that they encountered, I
Speaker 2: don't know how many cruisers there were, but let's say
Speaker 2: there's probably six and maybe a dozen or so cops.
Speaker 2: There were also two bystanders who got caught in the crossfire,
Speaker 2: both of whom ended up getting shot by those ricochet
Speaker 2: bullets going through cop cars that they were hiding behind.
Speaker 2: Cops were getting shot like through their kevlar vests. I
Speaker 2: think a number of cops were injured and even worse,
Speaker 2: they were pinned down. They were in what's called the
Speaker 2: kill zone. Like these guys were very easily able to
Speaker 2: shoot any of these people who were fairly close to them,
Speaker 2: and so these cops had to basically retreat or be
Speaker 2: pinned down. And some of them were pinned down because
Speaker 2: they were shot. So if you kind of watch some
Speaker 2: of the footage or you you know, read about it,
Speaker 2: that kind of gets left out. And that was something
Speaker 2: I thought that the Situation Critical documentary really kind of
Speaker 2: drove home, Like there were some people who were in grave,
Speaker 2: grave danger in the first like ten to fifteen minutes
Speaker 2: of this firefight before backup arrived. And I also saw
Speaker 2: it described that the Phillips in Mattisaranu at one point,
Speaker 2: especially when they were engaged with that first wave of
Speaker 2: cops who were totally unprepared and une to deal with them,
Speaker 2: that they could have made a getaway, and they seem
Speaker 2: to have decided that they were wanted to stay and
Speaker 2: fight instead. Yeah, that's unusual.
Speaker 3: And I'm curious about the wisdom of that, Like if
Speaker 3: they had left, if these guys just would have went
Speaker 3: and got in their car and tried to get out
Speaker 3: of there, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Who knows. I mean, I don't know, the fact that
Speaker 2: they had a helicopter on them would have made it
Speaker 2: pretty difficult, but who knows. Could have been way worse.
Speaker 2: It could have been shorter. Who knows what could have happened.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think the point was that they, like
Speaker 2: bank robbers, don't try to stick around when they're given
Speaker 2: the option to try to make a run for it,
Speaker 2: and these guys.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not gonna Monday Morning quarterback this thing years
Speaker 3: later in my podcast Booth because I wasn't the one,
Speaker 3: you know, getting shot at on the street. So there
Speaker 3: was one citizen hero among this crowd, which was a dentist,
Speaker 3: doctor Jorge Montes, had an office across the street, and
Speaker 3: two cops that were injured like crawled up the stairs
Speaker 3: to his office and he it sounds like he had
Speaker 3: saved at least one of their lives. He treated them immediately,
Speaker 3: and one of the cops had a shrapnel in his ankle,
Speaker 3: and Montes was smart enough to be like, we should
Speaker 3: leave that in there, Like, I'll treat you, but I'm
Speaker 3: not taking that out because it could get worse. And
Speaker 3: that officer later said that he probably saved my life
Speaker 3: because I probably would have led out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's pretty great. So a few minutes before ten,
Speaker 2: this firefight has been going on for thirty plus minutes. Now, okay,
Speaker 2: Phillips and Mantaseranu decide that this is a really fateful
Speaker 2: decision and no one has any idea why, probably will
Speaker 2: never know why. But mataseranuh gets in their white Chevy Celebrity,
Speaker 2: the ugliest getaway car ever. Oh there's one other thing
Speaker 2: about that white Chevy Celebrity. They had it backed up
Speaker 2: to the bank in a parking space, and so when
Speaker 2: they came out and they were shooting at the cops
Speaker 2: and everybody that moved for thirty minutes with their assault weapons.
Speaker 2: Whenever their assault rifle would like run out of ammo
Speaker 2: or jam or something, they just throw it down, go
Speaker 2: to the trunk of the car and come back with
Speaker 2: a brand new assault rifle. And they had like drums,
Speaker 2: like one hundred round drums as clips. So they were
Speaker 2: really doing a lot of damage. And at some point
Speaker 2: they decided let's head out. Matisanu gets in the Chevy
Speaker 2: Celebrity and rather than get in with him, Larry Phillips
Speaker 2: decides to walk alongside just firing at everybody while Madisranu
Speaker 2: slowly drives with him. And then the really faithful decision
Speaker 2: is made where they decide to split up and Larry
Speaker 2: Phillips peels off for Matiseranu and starts walking down the
Speaker 2: sidewalk of a street, a side street that a residential
Speaker 2: street to a residential area.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's you know, I think I read a
Speaker 3: lot about this too. I think he might have thought
Speaker 3: he was providing some initial cover and the whole split
Speaker 3: up thing is just, you know, judging from the movies,
Speaker 3: I think sometimes that's just what they decide to do, like,
Speaker 3: you know, instead of concentrating everything on us, if we
Speaker 3: split up, that'll that'll split the you know, the burden
Speaker 3: or whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I get that. I also, based on
Speaker 2: how quickly things happened after that, it also makes me
Speaker 2: wonder if he was like, I'm just gonna go take
Speaker 2: my last stand.
Speaker 3: Well maybe, I mean, who knows. We're never gonna know, basically,
Speaker 3: and you'll soon find out why. So in the end
Speaker 3: of Phillips was shot eleven times. He's walking down this
Speaker 3: side street.
Speaker 2: He's still walking after he's some of these most of
Speaker 2: these shots.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's walking down the side street. He's firing at
Speaker 3: everything he can, and he gets just like in the movies,
Speaker 3: like an old Western or something, a cop shoots his hand,
Speaker 3: like shoots the gun out of his hand by shooting
Speaker 3: his hand, he reaches down, picks it up, puts it
Speaker 3: under his chin, and in an attempt to kill himself
Speaker 3: and a trigger and you know, it was sort of
Speaker 3: a bang bang thing. No one sure which was the
Speaker 3: kill shot, but sort of right along that time at
Speaker 3: either right when it happened or right after he fell,
Speaker 3: a cop had shot him true romance style, through the
Speaker 3: side of his body where there was no protection, no
Speaker 3: protective vest because that stuff is usually like it's on
Speaker 3: your back, it's on your chest, but kind of not
Speaker 3: through the side, and he severed his spine and he
Speaker 3: was dead immediately from one of the two wounds.
Speaker 2: So Larry Phillips is now dead one way or another,
Speaker 2: either by his own hand or by the cops shot.
Speaker 2: And that is not the end of things, because mattis
Speaker 2: Ranu is still on the move. He's in his white
Speaker 2: celebrity moving down the street past where Phillips has just died.
Speaker 2: And here's just crazy because as we'll see the LAPD
Speaker 2: is very much fetted after this for having saved nor
Speaker 2: Hollywood taken on these guys who outgunned them. But there's
Speaker 2: a really critical point that I think people just moved
Speaker 2: right past. When they were moving up Archwood, this residential street,
Speaker 2: it was not closed off, So people were driving past
Speaker 2: Emil Mattiseranu within feet, like a handful of feet of
Speaker 2: this guy, and they were confused, they didn't know what
Speaker 2: was going on. And he's strapped with like this ak
Speaker 2: driving the white celebrity which now has this tire shot
Speaker 2: out looking for another car, and at least three or
Speaker 2: four pass him before he finally stops and picks one
Speaker 2: and start shooting at the car. And that was a huge,
Speaker 2: huge failure on the LAPD's part because those guys could
Speaker 2: have gone anywhere on Archwood Street and started taking hostages easily.
Speaker 2: What was the failure that they didn't close the street off, Like,
Speaker 2: I don't understand how you can do about they had
Speaker 2: time bank robbery, you could close it off somewhere back
Speaker 2: there there was through traffic still coming down Archwood, like
Speaker 2: right by the bank. If you watch it, it's crazy
Speaker 2: that that's no.
Speaker 3: I no, I just don't. I don't know, man, I
Speaker 3: think that's also Monday morning quarterbacking. I don't know if
Speaker 3: they could have they were in the middle of a shootout.
Speaker 3: I just I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, the whole LAPD was focused on this shootout.
Speaker 2: I feel like they could have shut the street down.
Speaker 3: It's just crazy to me. All right, agree to disagree, Okay?
Speaker 3: At any rate, he's firing at cars. He gets in
Speaker 3: this guy's jeep pickup truck, and the guy got injured.
Speaker 3: He was fine. He ran out of there and you know,
Speaker 3: got away at least, and he starts, you know, he
Speaker 3: still thinks he can get out of there. I guess
Speaker 3: he's transferring weapons from that Chevy to the truck, and
Speaker 3: three swat guys drive over there. He comes out again,
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, there's another shootout on the
Speaker 3: street movie style, with both of them kind of crouched
Speaker 3: behind these cars, and the cops do a very smart thing,
Speaker 3: which is shoot underneath the car, at his feet, at
Speaker 3: his legs, whatever they can hit, and they end up
Speaker 3: hitting him twenty eight times and dropped him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, can you imagine taking twenty eight shots in
Speaker 2: your legs and feet?
Speaker 1: I can imagine one.
Speaker 2: He put his hands up, he gave up, he surrendered
Speaker 2: and was laying behind the celebrity. I think in the
Speaker 2: end when they captured him, twelve officers had been injured,
Speaker 2: had been shot somewhere in pretty bad shape. Miraculously all survived.
Speaker 2: Eight bystanders had been injured. All of them survived. Everyone
Speaker 2: in the bank survived, and it turned out that the
Speaker 2: only two people who didn't survive were Larry Phillips and
Speaker 2: Emil Mattiseranu, who ended up bleeding to death from his
Speaker 2: injuries lying behind that chevy celebrity. Isn't that nuts yet, Chuck?
Speaker 2: I think seventeen or eighteen hundred rounds were fired in
Speaker 2: this forty four minute firefight, and only two people died,
Speaker 2: the bank robbers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that became a matter of just sort of
Speaker 3: further scrutiny because Mattiserano, you know, he's there, he's bleeding,
Speaker 3: and he says, you know, why don't you put a
Speaker 3: bullet through my head? And when the EMTs show up,
Speaker 3: the cops keep them away, They said, don't come over here.
Speaker 3: EMT has never examined him, and he slowly bled out
Speaker 3: basically over the next hour and died. They were you know,
Speaker 3: heavily scrutinized. I think there was an attorney that ended
Speaker 3: up filing a suit on behalf of the kids that said, hey,
Speaker 3: you know, regardless of whether this guy was a bank robber,
Speaker 3: you can't you know, you still have an obligation to
Speaker 3: treat an injured human on the ground as a cop.
Speaker 3: The cops response was like, we didn't know if there
Speaker 3: were other people involved, if they were around, if they
Speaker 3: had a sniper, if they had explosives on their body.
Speaker 3: We didn't want to put those EMTs in danger. And
Speaker 3: in the end they dropped. I'm sorry, it was a
Speaker 3: deadlock jury at first, so it was a mistrial, and
Speaker 3: then they decided not to go further with another case
Speaker 3: because they might be countersued for malicious prosecution.
Speaker 2: Well put, did you read the La Times article on that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they really went to town putting this thing together,
Speaker 2: and no one came out looking okay, you.
Speaker 3: Know no, And it was you know, the LA PD
Speaker 3: has always had a checkered reputation, so like at first
Speaker 3: they were heroes because this was all over the news,
Speaker 3: and this was you know a handful of years after
Speaker 3: Rodney King, when they had probably an all time low
Speaker 3: opinion rating, so they were like, look, look at the
Speaker 3: cops like protecting you and putting their lives at risk.
Speaker 3: So it was good for pr at first, but then
Speaker 3: this they let them bleed out in the street for
Speaker 3: an hour. I'm sure a lot of people were like
Speaker 3: good and a lot of people are like, yeah, you
Speaker 3: still can't do that.
Speaker 2: Sure. So one of the other outcomes of this was
Speaker 2: that it changed police forces across the United States forever.
Speaker 2: Like the police realized that they were not equipped for
Speaker 2: something like this to happen in not only Los Angeles
Speaker 2: but every other town in the United States. And in
Speaker 2: the Defense Spending Act, I think of nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 2: they passed a section called ten thirty three that said
Speaker 2: that the Department of Defense can sell any access armory,
Speaker 2: weapons materiel to local police departments. Now that's a new thing,
Speaker 2: and it turned into what's been roundly considered the militarization
Speaker 2: of the police. That's had all sorts of knock on effects, including,
Speaker 2: according to multiple studies, an increase in death during police shootings.
Speaker 2: And that's a big criticism of this that rather than
Speaker 2: people saying let's reduce the public's access to things like
Speaker 2: assault rifles that can kill tons of people and have
Speaker 2: firefights like this. Instead, the push has been to let's
Speaker 2: arm the cops equally to these criminals that can be
Speaker 2: armed to the teeth as well, to make it even,
Speaker 2: which there's a logic to it, sure, but you could
Speaker 2: also reduce the public's access to those kinds of things
Speaker 2: as well, and that didn't really happen.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 3: One of the good things that came out of it
Speaker 3: was PTSD counseling for police officers was not such a
Speaker 3: big thing at the time, and after this it became
Speaker 3: much more just sort of implemented across the country.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is a good thing, for sure. Anything else,
Speaker 2: I got nothing else. I think there's in Grand Theft
Speaker 2: Auto five, one of the heists, the Palletto score is
Speaker 2: based on this too. And there's a movie called forty
Speaker 2: four Minutes that was made for TV on FX and
Speaker 2: it's terrible. I bet if you want to know anything
Speaker 2: else about the North Hollywood shootout, there's plenty to see
Speaker 2: and read about that. And while you're reading and seeing
Speaker 2: about the North Hollywood shootout, I think it's time for
Speaker 2: listener man.
Speaker 3: I'm going to call this follow up that I feel
Speaker 3: pretty bad about. We did our podcast episode on Kenton
Speaker 3: Greua Grand Canyon River Adventure not too long ago, and
Speaker 3: we actually heard from his wife, Michelle Grua, who was
Speaker 3: not a stuff you should know listener, but someone told
Speaker 3: her about it. She listened, and she wanted to clear
Speaker 3: up some things and some I'm going to read it.
Speaker 3: It's a little lenkedy, but I feel like we owe
Speaker 3: it to her. Hey, guys, I was surprised to be
Speaker 3: informed by a friend of your podcast about my late
Speaker 3: husband Factor. Yes, our children and I all called him Factor.
Speaker 3: That was his preferred name. I appreciate that you obtained
Speaker 3: most of your information from Kevin's book The Emerald Mile,
Speaker 3: which is for the most part accurate. There are some
Speaker 3: things that you said that are not accurate, and depictions
Speaker 3: of Factor that I'd like to set straight. These things
Speaker 3: are likely only important to me our children into his
Speaker 3: two brothers if they were to ever hear your podcast.
Speaker 3: I can tell that you appreciated his adventurous spirit and
Speaker 3: the grandiosity of the things he did, but I would
Speaker 3: gently suggest that you might consider the feelings of those
Speaker 3: left behind with regard to the way you depict someone.
Speaker 3: He's not just some character and a really cool story.
Speaker 3: He's someone's husband, father, and brother who has sorely missed.
Speaker 3: I do not expect any kind of retraction public retraction.
Speaker 3: I just wanted to let you know about the inaccuracy
Speaker 3: so you could have a more clear picture of him.
Speaker 3: He was the most humble, gracious, generous, respectful, considerate, fear
Speaker 3: soul I've ever met, truly one of a kind and
Speaker 3: the greatest factor in my life. Regarding the description of
Speaker 3: him really liking booze and hiking out to obtain extra liquor,
Speaker 3: the passengers on that particular commercial trip are the ones
Speaker 3: who requested extra booze, and given that there's no delivery
Speaker 3: into the canyon, he offered to hike out and procure
Speaker 3: a resupply for them. Regarding the moccasins, he was a purist,
Speaker 3: and his reasoning was that the ancient Queblins who'd lived
Speaker 3: in the canyon had likely worn moccasins, and he wanted
Speaker 3: to pay homage to them and not have any unfair
Speaker 3: modern advantage like hiking boots. He had scouted the route before,
Speaker 3: and the first through hike attempt he had placed food caches, cases, cases,
Speaker 3: cases for that hike, as well as doing so the
Speaker 3: second time as an insight into his character. He hiked
Speaker 3: back in to remove all of them after the hike,
Speaker 3: leaving no trace.
Speaker 1: You said that he was obsessed.
Speaker 3: If you can say that about someone who smokes that
Speaker 3: much pot, I feel like you may have missed a
Speaker 3: key element of Kenton's character and you're reading about him
Speaker 3: that he had a fierce intellect, an intense focus, and
Speaker 3: once he got ahold of an idea, he ruminated on it,
Speaker 3: turned it over and over in his mind until he
Speaker 3: worked out all the details. Not consistent with the sleepy
Speaker 3: image you conjure up when thinking about a typical Stoner.
Speaker 3: It also bears mentioning that the original idea was Wally Wrists. Wally,
Speaker 3: Rudy and Kenton did the original Speed one, but Wally
Speaker 3: was no longer working on the river in eighty three
Speaker 3: and thus not able to partake this time around.
Speaker 1: Kenton came up with the idea to put.
Speaker 3: A second set of oar locks on the boat so
Speaker 3: you could have two rowing stations to tackle the flat
Speaker 3: water at the far west of the canyon. As far
Speaker 3: as the fine, the fine that was imposed as reportedly
Speaker 3: five hundred dollars. But I have the cancel check to
Speaker 3: the Cocochino County Magistrate in the amount of two hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty dollars paid by Kenton, so your assertion that
Speaker 3: he couldn't afford.
Speaker 1: It is not accurate.
Speaker 3: He never mentioned any imposition of community service to me
Speaker 3: as well, and we are also quite sure of how
Speaker 3: he died. He died not due collision or impact, but
Speaker 3: from the spontaneous a ordit dissection, not an aneurysm. He
Speaker 3: was found unresponsive on the trail by a hiker while
Speaker 3: the kids and I were home awaiting his return. He
Speaker 3: was not dead when the hiker found him. He was
Speaker 3: taken to the local hospital, where resuscitation efforts failed. He
Speaker 3: wasn't laying in a peaceful position. The hiker said he
Speaker 3: was still astride as bike, and it appeared that he
Speaker 3: had just tipped over. Indeed, he had a little cut
Speaker 3: over his ear where his sunglasses dug into the side
Speaker 3: of his head when he landed. As a physician myself,
Speaker 3: I can tell you he was probably in significant chest
Speaker 3: pain and he died about two hundred yards after passing
Speaker 3: through what would have been a busy trailhead parking area.
Speaker 3: So he was probably peddling like hell to get home
Speaker 3: just a couple of miles away, but dissected and lost
Speaker 3: consciousness less than a minute after passing through the lot.
Speaker 3: I only discovered it when he was two hours late
Speaker 3: getting home from the ride and called the hospital where
Speaker 3: I worked to see if they had any Mountain bikers
Speaker 3: that had come in. They said yes, but they weren't
Speaker 3: able to identify him, and that was the last moment
Speaker 3: of true peace that I had. I am glad you
Speaker 3: found a story so compelling. I'm sure he's glad people
Speaker 3: are hearing of it and he doesn't have to do
Speaker 3: the telling himself. But accuracy is important. Please don't paint
Speaker 3: him as a caricature. Best Michelle Grua and I emailed
Speaker 3: her a very long email back, and I felt terrible
Speaker 3: about all this, and she was very sweet and much
Speaker 3: more graceful than I would have been in her position.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I was going to say, I mean, if
Speaker 2: you're going to get taken to task by a living
Speaker 2: relative of someone we profile, all it's about is as
Speaker 2: nice as it can get, for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So thank you Michelle for that, and just publicly,
Speaker 3: I'm sorry for anything we did that costs you any upset.
Speaker 2: Yeah, agreed. It was definitely not our intent to create
Speaker 2: a caricature out of him. That's never our intent. So
Speaker 2: sorry that that happened inadvertently, and thank you for taking
Speaker 2: the time to write all that, and thank you Chuck
Speaker 2: for reading all of it. Certainly, if you want to
Speaker 2: get in touch with us, like Michelle Grua did, you
Speaker 2: can use email as she did, as well send it
Speaker 2: off to stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit
Speaker 1: The iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.