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D'oh! Operation Flagship · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
0:11
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
0:13
Speaker 2: Chuck and Cherry's here too, And this is stuff you
0:16
Speaker 2: should know, the Freeze edition.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what. The addition this is, this is
0:20
Speaker 1: the law enforcement sometimes thinks they're so cute and clever. Addition, Right, man,
0:28
Speaker 1: I can't wait to point out how many cutesy little
0:31
Speaker 1: names and acronyms pop up in this story and this
0:37
Speaker 1: and a lesson. If you're a criminal and you ever
0:41
Speaker 1: think something might be shady and it might be a
0:43
Speaker 1: sting operation, just look at any name that they've given
0:46
Speaker 1: you and like read it backwards or see if it
0:48
Speaker 1: spells an acronym that says like we nabbed you, buddy
0:53
Speaker 1: or something like that. Like that's that's how cutesy they
0:56
Speaker 1: got is And you'll see. I'll just throw that out
0:59
Speaker 1: there and we'll talk about him as they pop up.
1:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's our daily assistance in helping criminals. A
1:04
Speaker 2: vague capture by law enforcement.
1:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, was that what I was doing? I certainly was,
1:11
Speaker 1: all right.
1:11
Speaker 2: Movie, So we're talking about one specific operation, Operation Flagship,
1:16
Speaker 2: which was conducted by the US Marshall Service back in
1:19
Speaker 2: I think nineteen eighty five, and it's just kind of
1:25
Speaker 2: mind boggling. Where did you hear about this? Did somebody
1:27
Speaker 2: write in or did you already know about it? Being
1:29
Speaker 2: an NFL fan?
1:30
Speaker 1: And yeah, you know what, I'm not sure now that
1:35
Speaker 1: I think of it. This may have been a listener
1:38
Speaker 1: request and I'm going to look that up real quick
1:40
Speaker 1: because i hate not shouting people out.
1:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm with you when that happens, Well, how I
1:46
Speaker 2: keep talking while you look?
1:49
Speaker 1: Okay?
1:50
Speaker 2: So, the US Marshall Service, they're one of the first
1:53
Speaker 2: American law enforcement agencies. They were founded back in seventeen
1:57
Speaker 2: eighty nine. Dave helped us with this, Dave Week by
2:00
Speaker 2: the way, as Dave put it, in the time of
2:04
Speaker 2: George Washington. So they've been around quite a bit, and
2:08
Speaker 2: over the course of this history, like, they've done a
2:10
Speaker 2: lot of different really kind of great stuff. They escorted
2:15
Speaker 2: students into the first segregated schools, Black students to segregated schools,
2:19
Speaker 2: They protected them. They enforced prohibition, which I guess, depending
2:24
Speaker 2: on your views on prohibition, it was great or not.
2:28
Speaker 2: They operated the US Census, which seems like they were
2:32
Speaker 2: at the time just really looking for busy wet for
2:35
Speaker 2: the Marshall service.
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Speaker 1: Yes, just give them a bunch of pencils.
2:39
Speaker 2: Right, and then in turnal loose and then famously chuck
2:43
Speaker 2: anytime you hear somebody call like a wild West law
2:47
Speaker 2: enforcement guy Marshall. They were a US marshal. That was
2:51
Speaker 2: one of the roles they played. They served as the
2:54
Speaker 2: long arm of the law and the wild West era
2:57
Speaker 2: of American history.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so they did a lot of things. They found
3:01
Speaker 1: a lot of busy work for them to do over
3:03
Speaker 1: the years. These days, did you mention witness protection?
3:08
Speaker 2: Not yet?
3:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean basically these days they take care of
3:11
Speaker 1: witness the witness They run the Witness Security Program aka
3:15
Speaker 1: witness Protection. If you see prisoners being transported like to
3:21
Speaker 1: court or something, those are marshals doing that and there
3:25
Speaker 1: since seventy nine they've been in charge of fugitive investigations,
3:29
Speaker 1: which is to say, basically, anybody with an outstanding warrant
3:33
Speaker 1: is a fugitive. You don't have to have like escaped prison.
3:37
Speaker 1: If you're charged with the crime or have been summoned
3:39
Speaker 1: to testify or something like that and you jump bail,
3:43
Speaker 1: you don't appear in court. If you escape from custody,
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Speaker 1: then you're a fugitive, and the US Marshals are going
3:49
Speaker 1: to try and find you and either put you back
3:53
Speaker 1: in jail or put you in jail for your very
3:55
Speaker 1: first time.
3:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Tommy Lee Jones didn't care if you're innocent.
3:58
Speaker 2: His job is to get you and bring you back
4:01
Speaker 2: to jail. No, not kill my wife. I don't care.
4:05
Speaker 1: This is so great, man, one of the great lines
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Speaker 1: in movie history.
4:09
Speaker 2: So, yeah, you can be a fugitive all sorts of ways,
4:12
Speaker 2: And regardless of how it is, the US Marshals are
4:14
Speaker 2: out there to get you. And for the most part,
4:20
Speaker 2: when they get you, it's because they've tracked you down.
4:24
Speaker 2: Maybe they got a tip, maybe they just started looking
4:27
Speaker 2: for you and they found that you're actually at your
4:29
Speaker 2: last known address. Yeah, and they arrest people quite frequently.
4:33
Speaker 2: I think I saw that they rounded up like seventy
4:37
Speaker 2: five thousand fugitives in twenty twenty three or twenty four.
4:41
Speaker 2: They arrest a lot of people. But for some reason,
4:45
Speaker 2: during the early to mid eighties, the US Marshall Service
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Speaker 2: went on what can only be described as a QTSY streak.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, they said, hey, guys, let's have a little fun
4:55
Speaker 1: with this.
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Speaker 2: They clearly did. I mean like these things. This whole
4:59
Speaker 2: thing was hatched hours into an office Christmas party in
5:04
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy nine.
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Speaker 1: That's for this, Yeah, for sure, we'll start with our
5:10
Speaker 1: first QT acronym. In nineteen eighty one, they launched a
5:14
Speaker 1: program called the Fugitive Investigative Strike Team aka FIST is
5:21
Speaker 1: they're going to use their fists to get you, that's right.
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Speaker 1: And their goal was to do fugitive investigations, not just
5:33
Speaker 1: like one person at a time, but like, let's see
5:35
Speaker 1: if we can get a lot of these people at
5:37
Speaker 1: one time, high concentrations of these fugitives and round them
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Speaker 1: up and bring them in, and how are we going
5:43
Speaker 1: to do that. We're going to do that with these
5:45
Speaker 1: really kind of wacky sting operations, which you know, it's
5:50
Speaker 1: not like they were just out to have fun. There's
5:54
Speaker 1: a lot of merit to doing something this way. They're
5:56
Speaker 1: generally cheaper than just one at a time going after
5:59
Speaker 1: some body. Resource wise, they're safer because usually when you
6:04
Speaker 1: launch something like this, they're going to be unaware. They're
6:08
Speaker 1: not going to be they're not gonna have a weapon
6:10
Speaker 1: on them like they might, you know, behind the door
6:13
Speaker 1: of their own home that they barely crack open, so
6:17
Speaker 1: you know, it's cheaper, it's generally a little safer. We're
6:19
Speaker 1: going to talk about a few examples of these before
6:21
Speaker 1: we get to Flagship. One very successful one was a
6:26
Speaker 1: program called Mister Zip and this is just very low five.
6:29
Speaker 1: They would have Marshalls dressed up as US mail carriers
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Speaker 1: and they would just knock on your door and say
6:34
Speaker 1: I got a package for how much Simpson, And they
6:38
Speaker 1: would produce their ID and sign their name and they
6:41
Speaker 1: would say thank you. You're under arrest, Yeah it is you.
6:44
Speaker 2: I think that was actually in The Fugitive too.
6:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, that sounds familiar.
6:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's been in a lot of different.
6:51
Speaker 1: Movies, but like harre your roses that kind of thing.
6:54
Speaker 2: Huh exactly.
6:55
Speaker 1: Yeah.
6:55
Speaker 2: So I don't know if this is actually the origin
6:58
Speaker 2: of it or not, but it certainly seems to be
7:00
Speaker 2: because I don't get the impression that they did a
7:02
Speaker 2: lot of this stuff before this era.
7:04
Speaker 1: Yeah. What about Puno Airlines That was a pretty fun one.
7:08
Speaker 2: So Puno means fist in Spanish.
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Speaker 1: Ugh, right, Sorry, It's just it's also like it's almost
7:15
Speaker 1: like they wanted people to figure it out.
7:17
Speaker 2: Yes, that is inherently the problem behind this whole thing
7:22
Speaker 2: is a lot of this. I was about to say steps,
7:25
Speaker 2: but I'm just gonna say missteps that happened to work
7:28
Speaker 2: out in their favor. We're just basically like, hey, criminals,
7:33
Speaker 2: do you speak Spanish? Do you think anybody would ever
7:37
Speaker 2: name their airline fist airline? Well, they want to give
7:40
Speaker 2: you a free weekend to the Bahamas.
7:42
Speaker 1: That's right.
7:43
Speaker 2: That was the Punos Airlines thing. And I love it,
7:46
Speaker 2: like I think it's it's cool, like in retrospect, but
7:49
Speaker 2: when you stop and actually think of it from a
7:51
Speaker 2: law enforcement perspective, you just you just end up pinching
7:54
Speaker 2: the bridge of your nose. But it actually worked.
7:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, it did. They mailed these fake letters saying they
7:59
Speaker 1: had won that trip plus three hundred and fifty bucks
8:01
Speaker 1: in spending money. Fourteen fugitives fell for it, and you know,
8:05
Speaker 1: they send a limo to your house. It's like a
8:07
Speaker 1: big sweepstakes basically. And most of them were arrested in
8:11
Speaker 1: the limo, like the limo driver is a cop and
8:14
Speaker 1: they just pull over and say you're under arrest. One
8:17
Speaker 1: guy did make it to the airport at Miami International
8:21
Speaker 1: and they did have a fake Puno Airlines ticket counter,
8:26
Speaker 1: so they saw it through. I'll give him that much.
8:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. I think it was right next to
8:30
Speaker 2: air Haiti.
8:31
Speaker 1: Right, No, for real, that was okay. I never know
8:34
Speaker 1: when you're joking anymore, so.
8:36
Speaker 2: So I know, I'm sorry. I've really with reality. That
8:40
Speaker 2: was nineteen eighty five. There was another one the year
8:42
Speaker 2: before fifth seven. Yeah, right, but they would spell it
8:47
Speaker 2: with Roman numerals and make it look super cool.
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Speaker 1: It's so funny.
8:50
Speaker 2: Because I think this is yeah, this is the era
8:52
Speaker 2: of the Rocky sequels.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, Roman numerals were everywhere.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, that one was enormous. It was a multi state,
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Speaker 2: multi agency sting operation. There were one hundred and thirteen
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Speaker 2: Marshalls involved, five ATF agents, one hundred and five police officers,
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Speaker 2: all from across eight different states, and it involved a
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Speaker 2: bunch of different scams that really all together were part
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Speaker 2: of this one big sweep that was just coordinated by
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Speaker 2: the Marshall Service. There was one pretty straightforward in Buffalo
9:27
Speaker 2: where they wrote letters to fugitives and said, hey, you
9:33
Speaker 2: don't know this, but you won ten thousand dollars in
9:36
Speaker 2: the lottery. You know that lottery. You may or may
9:38
Speaker 2: not have ever played. Well, you won ten thousand dollars,
9:41
Speaker 2: but we can't give you the money unless you come
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Speaker 2: to the Lotto office and show us your ID and
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Speaker 2: then you can claim your prize.
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Speaker 1: That's right, That was one of them. One was a
9:52
Speaker 1: job scam. It was called the Prior Offenders Employment Opportunity Program,
9:57
Speaker 1: where they were say like, hey, you're a prior offender, Like,
10:00
Speaker 1: I know it's hard for you to get a job.
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Speaker 1: We can get you a job fifteen bucks an hour.
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Speaker 1: Just call our number and tell us who you are
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Speaker 1: and where you are, and we'll set your right up.
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Speaker 2: That one actually seems like the most effective one because
10:12
Speaker 2: it almost has like a scam sense to it, like outwardly,
10:16
Speaker 2: like overtly.
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Speaker 1: It may be the meanest too.
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Speaker 2: I think so too. I thought the same thing.
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Speaker 1: Because you might think it's mean to say you've won
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Speaker 1: tickets to the Bahamas, but it's really mean for someone
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Speaker 1: to be like, I really want to start my life
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Speaker 1: over and get a regular job.
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Speaker 2: Right, and like this number, have we got an opportunity
10:34
Speaker 2: for you? Yeah, I agree with you. In New York
10:39
Speaker 2: part of fift seven, their sting was called the Brooklyn
10:42
Speaker 2: Bridge Delivery service, not to be confused with New York's
10:45
Speaker 2: finest taxi service, but it's basically the same thing. Their
10:50
Speaker 2: motto was don't mess with the rest, come to the best,
10:53
Speaker 2: and it was essentially the same thing as mister Zip
10:57
Speaker 2: as far as the scam goes. But they would just
10:59
Speaker 2: leave like we missed you, slips on their door saying
11:03
Speaker 2: you have a package that you need to come pick up.
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Speaker 2: And there was a guy involved in this. I can't
11:10
Speaker 2: remember his name, but oh, Robert Leshorn. He was one
11:15
Speaker 2: of the chief or deputy chief marshals, and this was
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Speaker 2: his scam. And so part of it was the criminal
11:23
Speaker 2: would call to find out where to pick up their package,
11:26
Speaker 2: and depending on what they were wanted for, he would
11:29
Speaker 2: tailor what was supposedly in the package. So he said,
11:33
Speaker 2: like if you were wanted for robbery or theft or something,
11:37
Speaker 2: it would be like a brand new stereo or something,
11:39
Speaker 2: so he would tailor, which made sense. And apparently that
11:42
Speaker 2: worked to a certain extent. But all of these, all
11:45
Speaker 2: of them pale in comparison to the one that they
11:48
Speaker 2: ran in Hartford connetic.
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Speaker 1: Oh, man, I thought you were going in the flagship.
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Speaker 1: I was like, are you not going to mention, no one.
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Speaker 2: Not a chance. As a matter of fact, we should
11:55
Speaker 2: probably just stop after this one, because no scam in
11:58
Speaker 2: the history of law enforcement ever been greater than this one.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, this is part of fifth seven in Hartford, Connecticut.
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Speaker 1: This was Hey, let's do a fake TV station giveaway
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Speaker 1: where you can win two tickets to a concert plus
12:12
Speaker 1: dinner and a limo ride. And hey, it's nineteen eighty four.
12:15
Speaker 1: You're gonna see Van Halen on their a big, huge
12:18
Speaker 1: rock tour. No no, no, Boy George and Culture Club.
12:24
Speaker 1: You have won tickets to see Culture Club in nineteen
12:28
Speaker 1: eighty four, and it worked, apparent. I don't know why
12:31
Speaker 1: they chose. I don't know if it was geographical, if
12:35
Speaker 1: Boy George was just like, sure, I'll take part in this,
12:39
Speaker 1: he probably didn't know anything about it, or if they
12:42
Speaker 1: did some research, did a little ree and found out
12:44
Speaker 1: that these dudes love Boy love Culture Club. I don't know.
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Speaker 1: I have no idea, but that's who it was.
12:51
Speaker 2: I saw that part of the package that they won
12:54
Speaker 2: was also a photo shoot. Saw that in a couple
12:57
Speaker 2: of places.
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Speaker 1: With the Culture Club.
12:59
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then one of the marshals who helped who
13:06
Speaker 2: headed up the Hartford Connecticut. Boy George scam said it
13:10
Speaker 2: was just like one of the other ones, where like
13:12
Speaker 2: when you went to get picked up by this limo,
13:15
Speaker 2: right when you got in the limo, they arrested you.
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Speaker 2: He said. All these people that they got with this
13:20
Speaker 2: were all dressed up to go to the Culture Club concert.
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Speaker 1: Oh god, can you imagine what.
13:24
Speaker 2: They looked like when they arrived in jail, Like those
13:27
Speaker 2: feathers that you clipped your ear.
13:29
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, like glitter war.
13:31
Speaker 2: Paint, like on your cheeks, like the whole, the whole shebang.
13:36
Speaker 1: I wonder if they said bad Karma chameleon for you,
13:39
Speaker 1: my friend. I love all the extras too. It wasn't
13:43
Speaker 1: just like tickets to a concert. It was always like
13:45
Speaker 1: and dinner and a photo shoot. Like I guess they
13:48
Speaker 1: really thought they needed to make it something someone couldn't refuse.
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Speaker 2: I guess right, How can you refuse a photo shoot
13:55
Speaker 2: with boy George?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, but we laugh. Fist seven netted thirty three hundred
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Speaker 1: arrests and is the largest fugitive round up in American
14:06
Speaker 1: history still to this day.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, thirty two hundred of them came from the boy
14:09
Speaker 2: George skin.
14:13
Speaker 1: That feels like we have to take a break right there.
14:14
Speaker 2: Right, I think we would be violating some sort of
14:17
Speaker 2: unwritten rule if we didn't.
14:18
Speaker 1: Right now, all right, we're going to come back and
14:20
Speaker 1: talk about one that netted fewer arrest but was definitely
14:24
Speaker 1: fun in Operation Flagship right after this.
14:48
Speaker 2: Okay, Chuck, So we're back and we're finally talking about
14:51
Speaker 2: the titular scam Operation Flagship.
14:57
Speaker 1: That's right.
14:57
Speaker 2: How do you like that?
14:59
Speaker 1: That's pretty good. I love the word titular.
15:01
Speaker 2: Thank you. It's arousing. There's another word for it, but
15:05
Speaker 2: let's just say a rousing.
15:06
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, this was thought up. It was a brain
15:08
Speaker 1: shout of a guy named Howard Sephir. He was head
15:11
Speaker 1: of Enforcement Operations at the time. Seven was a big,
15:15
Speaker 1: big success, and he's like, what at the Christmas party,
15:18
Speaker 1: he's a little toasty and said, what has everybody got?
15:21
Speaker 1: He had too much of Grandma's Christmas breath and he said,
15:23
Speaker 1: what's everyone got? I need some fun ideas. And Robert Leshorn,
15:28
Speaker 1: the guy, the Brooklyn Bridge delivery service guy, still basking
15:32
Speaker 1: in the glow of those tailor made packages to the criminals,
15:37
Speaker 1: he apparently came up with this idea and it was
15:42
Speaker 1: football tickets. One of the hottest tickets in football at
15:45
Speaker 1: the time. In nineteen eighty five, was there at RFK
15:49
Speaker 1: Stadium for what was then the Washington Redskins. I'm now
15:53
Speaker 1: the Washington Commander since the name change, but there were
15:56
Speaker 1: the Redskins then. They had won the Super Bowl, beat
15:59
Speaker 1: the Dolphins in eighty three, lost to the Raiders in
16:01
Speaker 1: the Super Bowl in eighty four. In eighty five, expectations
16:06
Speaker 1: were high. Yeah, season tickets, twenty five year waiting list
16:10
Speaker 1: for season tickets. Every game is sold out at RFK,
16:13
Speaker 1: and so offering up free tickets to criminals in the
16:17
Speaker 1: DC area seemed like a no brainer.
16:18
Speaker 2: Yeah. This particular game versus the Bengals in December fifteenth,
16:23
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty five, it was to whoever won was going
16:28
Speaker 2: to win a wild card playoff berth. Yeah, which has significance.
16:32
Speaker 2: So it was an important game.
16:34
Speaker 1: Oh Doude, I feel like, I don't know, you should
16:37
Speaker 1: get a little gold star for your football knowledge right here.
16:41
Speaker 2: Thank you. Also not to mention too. I mean, even
16:44
Speaker 2: looking back, you're like, wow, these guys were great, But
16:46
Speaker 2: at the time these two were at the peak of
16:48
Speaker 2: their careers. It was thisman versus Asia Sin As far
16:52
Speaker 2: as the quarterbacks went theesman. Is it really?
16:58
Speaker 1: Yeah? The story goes it was Joe Theisman and in
17:01
Speaker 1: college he changed it to thighsman to rhyme with heisman.
17:06
Speaker 1: Oh really that's what they say.
17:08
Speaker 2: Huh.
17:08
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not.
17:09
Speaker 2: Sure he win the Heisman. I mean he's man.
17:11
Speaker 1: Oh you know, I'm actually not sure if he did
17:13
Speaker 1: or not. But his leg got snapped on National TV.
17:16
Speaker 1: I was watching that game. It was horrific.
17:19
Speaker 2: Wasn't that a super Bowl?
17:21
Speaker 1: No? No, no, no, was in a super Bowl?
17:24
Speaker 2: Yeah? That was horrific. I mean it was a compound
17:26
Speaker 2: fracture that came out of his thigh, right.
17:29
Speaker 1: I don't think it was his thigh. I think it
17:31
Speaker 1: was a lower leg, but I just I remember it was.
17:33
Speaker 1: That was the first horrific injury that I saw on
17:37
Speaker 1: TV that, even though I didn't know it at the time,
17:41
Speaker 1: activated my mirror neurons in a way that was quite striking.
17:44
Speaker 2: One of the ones that got me there was a
17:46
Speaker 2: Miami Hurricanes player in early two thousands and he was
17:52
Speaker 2: like running down the sideline and somebody dove to knock
17:56
Speaker 2: him out of well, out of bounce, bounce, and and
18:02
Speaker 2: they got him right and his knee, and his knee
18:06
Speaker 2: turned into like his whole his whole leg, but the
18:09
Speaker 2: apex was his knee just turned into a rubber band
18:12
Speaker 2: that went really far to the left.
18:14
Speaker 1: And it's always so disturbing.
18:16
Speaker 2: It was they kept showing like this was this is
18:19
Speaker 2: the zeitgeist at the time. They showed that injury in
18:23
Speaker 2: slow motion fifteen times.
18:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, the dude was.
18:26
Speaker 2: Laying on the field. They didn't cut to anything. They
18:29
Speaker 2: just kept showing it over and over like it was
18:31
Speaker 2: a new volume of Faces of Death or something like that.
18:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, they did that for up until not too too
18:36
Speaker 1: long ago, and then they stopped. Anytime there's a serious
18:39
Speaker 1: injury like that, they're like, uh, we're not you know,
18:41
Speaker 1: we don't show the replays of these things anymore, but.
18:43
Speaker 2: We probably shouldn't feed the bloodblust.
18:45
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly.
18:46
Speaker 2: But yeah, so anyway, that was that was It's forever
18:50
Speaker 2: burned into my brain that image. And I don't think
18:54
Speaker 2: he broke anything. He just apparently has like the most flexible,
18:57
Speaker 2: resilient leg of any.
19:00
Speaker 1: So he was fine.
19:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know if he was fine. I don't
19:03
Speaker 2: remember that. I just remember like, I don't think he
19:07
Speaker 2: was like anything. Broke. It just went breo.
19:10
Speaker 1: Oh was that old rubbernee Richards.
19:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but ironically I think he had the nickname
19:17
Speaker 2: before that because he could play the rubber bands on
19:20
Speaker 2: his knee.
19:22
Speaker 1: This has gotten so off the rails.
19:24
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we're talking about the cops.
19:26
Speaker 1: And yeah, that's right, all right, So we're back to
19:28
Speaker 1: Robert Leshorn. He's the one that came up with this
19:30
Speaker 1: idea to give away these tickets. He said, here's what
19:35
Speaker 1: we'll do. We'll create a fake TV station, like a
19:38
Speaker 1: rock music TV station, like a local MTV, basically w
19:42
Speaker 1: RC Video, and that's gonna head up this whole thing,
19:46
Speaker 1: the pri and this is where they get cute again.
19:48
Speaker 1: The prize letters that they sent out were signed by
19:50
Speaker 1: station manager I am debt naw. If you'd spell that backwards,
19:55
Speaker 1: it is I am wanted get it.
19:59
Speaker 2: Yeah.
20:00
Speaker 1: And then the guy who they said you had to
20:03
Speaker 1: call in or whatever, the business manager that took the
20:07
Speaker 1: phone call. His name was Marcus kran cr a n
20:11
Speaker 1: spelled backwards as narc no yes, and supposedly, and I
20:17
Speaker 1: did not verify this, but there was one source that
20:19
Speaker 1: said the whole music when you called was I fought
20:22
Speaker 1: the law and the law one by Bobby Fuller. Yeah,
20:26
Speaker 1: and I was like, come on, like really.
20:28
Speaker 2: Right, so even if even taking that one out, it
20:32
Speaker 2: is one hundred percent confirmed that they signed it. I
20:34
Speaker 2: am wanted backwards. I am Debton. Aw Yeah the cran
20:38
Speaker 2: thing is that pretty much one hundred percent?
20:40
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean it's in the NFL Films documentary.
20:42
Speaker 1: You see the guy typing that name in a computer.
20:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, so like this is like, these are the things
20:47
Speaker 2: that they're doing to just make it like a whole
20:49
Speaker 2: tee thing right right to where if you again, for
20:53
Speaker 2: no reason back, no reason but to amuse themselves like
20:57
Speaker 2: there's no reason. As we'll see. I'm sure part of
21:00
Speaker 2: the reason also was for the media blitz that they
21:02
Speaker 2: knew was coming after they shut this off. Yeah yeah,
21:05
Speaker 2: but not only is there really no reason for it,
21:09
Speaker 2: you're actually sacrificing potential captures.
21:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, because there's you're tempting faith.
21:15
Speaker 2: Some of these people have wives. All you had to
21:18
Speaker 2: do was show your wife that letter and say it
21:20
Speaker 2: says wanted backwards. You know, hey, dummy, Yeah, how many
21:24
Speaker 2: of these people were like fell through the drag net
21:28
Speaker 2: because they saw yeah, debtnas wanted backwards. And they're like,
21:32
Speaker 2: I think this is not legitimate.
21:34
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, They mailed out three thousand of these letters
21:37
Speaker 1: to fugitives for a total of seventeen outstanding warrants. Between
21:43
Speaker 1: those three thousand said you won this thing plus a
21:47
Speaker 1: grand prize drawing for Super Bowl tickets. That year, the
21:51
Speaker 1: flagship International Sports television was the fake station Fist. So
21:57
Speaker 1: they did it again. About half the letters came back
22:00
Speaker 1: return to Cender. The others again were told to call
22:03
Speaker 1: Marcus Kran to confirm their attendance. And a few of
22:10
Speaker 1: the people that called in were like, wait a minute,
22:12
Speaker 1: this is the cops. But out of the three thousand,
22:16
Speaker 1: it's not very many. Apparently about one hundred and sixty
22:19
Speaker 1: people RSVP'd, which would still be a pretty good take,
22:22
Speaker 1: I guess. And they said, all right, come on down
22:24
Speaker 1: to the Washington Convention Center at nine am on game day.
22:28
Speaker 1: We're going to have a big brunch and a big
22:29
Speaker 1: party and then shuttle you over to the game.
22:32
Speaker 2: Yes, and I thought something you mentioned is worth emphasizing.
22:36
Speaker 2: That being entered in a grand prize drawing for tickets
22:40
Speaker 2: to Super Bowl twenty in New Orleans, Yeah, that actually
22:43
Speaker 2: struck me as a really nice touch because now you've
22:47
Speaker 2: moved the focus a little further out and you're diluting
22:51
Speaker 2: the focus that's being paid to this most immediate thing,
22:54
Speaker 2: so they're thinking about something else as well. Really, I
22:57
Speaker 2: thought that really was a good touch. Yeah, So to
23:01
Speaker 2: get prepared for this whole thing, they held three different
23:05
Speaker 2: dress rehearsals. That's dedicated for sure, because this is a
23:09
Speaker 2: big production. And it was smart that they held three
23:12
Speaker 2: different dress rehearsals because again there's a lot of moving parts.
23:16
Speaker 2: There's a ton of different cops. I think one hundred
23:18
Speaker 2: and sixty six different agents were involved.
23:21
Speaker 1: They were all cops. Everyone there was a cop. Like
23:25
Speaker 1: the bus boy was a cop, the you know, person
23:27
Speaker 1: serving your drink was a cop.
23:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, the janitors were cops. Everybody was cops. Like when
23:31
Speaker 2: you walked into the Washington Convention Center that day, there
23:35
Speaker 2: was no one who wasn't a cop, a wanted fugitive
23:39
Speaker 2: or the plus one of the wanted fugitive exactly had
23:43
Speaker 2: the haplessness of being brought along to this.
23:46
Speaker 1: Whole Yeah, there real victims.
23:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, So they rehearsed it many, many times. And one
23:51
Speaker 2: of the things I saw of these one hundred and
23:53
Speaker 2: sixty six law enforcement agents that were part of this.
23:57
Speaker 2: A lot of them were brought in from out of
23:59
Speaker 2: state because they didn't want to risk some of these
24:02
Speaker 2: fugitives from recognizing the marshals who say, like, we're in
24:07
Speaker 2: the courtroom with them when they were first brought to
24:09
Speaker 2: trial or had escorted them from jail to prison before
24:13
Speaker 2: they escaped or something like that. So they brought in
24:15
Speaker 2: a lot of ringers from around the country. So there
24:18
Speaker 2: was a lot of cops working from a lot of
24:20
Speaker 2: different offices all for this one huge scam operation Flagship.
24:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, they had to shave a lot of about half
24:27
Speaker 1: of their mustaches.
24:30
Speaker 2: Yeah.
24:30
Speaker 1: If you watch, I mean, you can see this whole thing.
24:32
Speaker 1: It's only like twelve minutes long. An NFL Films documentary
24:35
Speaker 1: on this on YouTube or wherever, and you can watch
24:39
Speaker 1: the whole thing play out. It's incredible. But they look
24:42
Speaker 1: that looks like a room staffed with one hundred and
24:45
Speaker 1: sixty six cops dressed up as different things.
24:48
Speaker 2: Yeah. I made it through up to I think minute three.
24:51
Speaker 2: It's like, I cannot watch law enforcement try to play
24:54
Speaker 2: a tongue in cheek. It's just I can't do it.
24:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, even the cheerleaders who were not dressed as cheerleaders.
25:02
Speaker 1: They were dressed in tuxedos. Like everyone there was wearing
25:04
Speaker 1: a tux which was hysterical because you know, it was
25:07
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five, that's the epitome of class. But they
25:10
Speaker 1: were all cops. And the one of the women that
25:14
Speaker 1: was interviewed, she was like, I didn't want to do
25:16
Speaker 1: a cheerleader. She was like, I was in this. I
25:19
Speaker 1: was a US marshal. I wanted I was rough and tumble,
25:21
Speaker 1: and I wanted to, you know, throw some guys on
25:23
Speaker 1: the ground and put the cuffs on them. But they
25:25
Speaker 1: were like, no, we need you to be a cheerleader,
25:28
Speaker 1: and you're actually the first line of defense because what
25:30
Speaker 1: they did was they hugged these guys upon greeting, like hey,
25:34
Speaker 1: we're cheerleaders. Hug, hug, hug, and they're sort of patting
25:36
Speaker 1: them down and feeling for weapons, right, which is amazing.
25:39
Speaker 2: Well, was that there was some movie where they do
25:42
Speaker 2: that's a great comedic effect. Really yeah, I can't remember,
25:46
Speaker 2: but they're they're like hugging people while patting them down,
25:49
Speaker 2: but like just clearly patting them down. Maning me crazy.
25:53
Speaker 2: You'll think of it later or somebody you'll email and
25:56
Speaker 2: I'll be at least one person does. Yeah. So yeah,
26:00
Speaker 2: like we said, everybody there who was in this building
26:03
Speaker 2: was a cop, including the San Diego chicken.
26:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, was armed.
26:08
Speaker 2: Was an armed cop. That just goes to show you
26:11
Speaker 2: how big the San Diego chicken was in the early
26:14
Speaker 2: to mid eighties that they were like, bring the San
26:16
Speaker 2: Diego chicken in for this Washington Cincinnati football game on
26:21
Speaker 2: the other side of the country. Make sure the San
26:23
Speaker 2: Diego chickens there, just to legitimize things.
26:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, because that was the chicken was for the Padres,
26:28
Speaker 1: not the Chargers, even at the time.
26:31
Speaker 2: Yeah.
26:31
Speaker 1: The only explanation I saw in the video was they
26:35
Speaker 1: said something about Santa Claus was going to be there,
26:38
Speaker 1: and I don't know why. This is the part that
26:40
Speaker 1: has no explanation. He said, Oh, we were like, we
26:42
Speaker 1: can't have Santa Claus, so let's get the San Diego chicken.
26:45
Speaker 1: And I was like, he said that as if that
26:47
Speaker 1: was the most reasonable statement he could make.
26:49
Speaker 2: Really, that's hilarious.
26:51
Speaker 1: It's very funny.
26:51
Speaker 2: That shows a little heart.
26:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
26:54
Speaker 2: I should also say I poked fun at law enforcement
26:57
Speaker 2: trying to be funny. So I looked up see if
27:00
Speaker 2: there's any cops turned comedians, and there are.
27:04
Speaker 1: Sure, I bet there are, And I bet that's their
27:06
Speaker 1: whole act.
27:08
Speaker 2: I don't know if it is or not, but I
27:10
Speaker 2: can just tell you to go out and check these
27:11
Speaker 2: guys out. There's Kevin, Jordan child Ridgeley who went on
27:15
Speaker 2: to be a Groundling, Jeff Perry, Sir Perry, Alfy Moore,
27:20
Speaker 2: and I defy you to find the one Brit out
27:22
Speaker 2: of those.
27:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, I bet it's not Alfie all right, So I'm
27:28
Speaker 1: a Bulby right.
27:30
Speaker 2: Wow, that was a great Alfie More impression.
27:32
Speaker 1: He's the kind of guy that talks like that, I
27:33
Speaker 1: think anyway.
27:34
Speaker 2: I just wanted to toss that out there because very nice.
27:37
Speaker 1: Thanks Leshorn. As for his part, he's in the video
27:42
Speaker 1: he's saying like, nobody can act like a cop. Here
27:44
Speaker 1: we got a smile, And he says in this in
27:48
Speaker 1: the NFL film saying, he goes, I know we're not
27:50
Speaker 1: used to smiling at bandits, but today we need to.
27:54
Speaker 1: I was like, bandits, what is happening in nineteen eighty five?
27:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, he said, no one can act like a cop.
28:00
Speaker 1: Kill him with smiles, right, yeah, not with a planted gun.
28:05
Speaker 2: Right right, Oh my gods. So, like I said, there's
28:09
Speaker 2: a lot of moving parts in a sting where you're
28:12
Speaker 2: trying to nab one hundred sixty or so criminals all
28:16
Speaker 2: at once. Again, they rehearsed at three different times, but
28:19
Speaker 2: there's still tons of X factors that can crop up
28:21
Speaker 2: that you just can't plan for. And one of the
28:25
Speaker 2: reasons why they were really kind of on edge is
28:27
Speaker 2: some of these criminals who they'd invited were pretty hardcore.
28:33
Speaker 2: There were like arm drobbers, rapists. There was one murderer
28:37
Speaker 2: in particular who had escaped from prison. He and two
28:41
Speaker 2: other guys had dressed up as security or not security guards,
28:44
Speaker 2: prison guards, and they from what I was reading, they
28:49
Speaker 2: have no idea where they got these prison guard uniforms,
28:51
Speaker 2: but they managed to escape. The other two guys got caught.
28:54
Speaker 2: The other guy, Charles Watkins, again who was in on murder.
28:57
Speaker 2: He had become a fugitive and was on it as
29:00
Speaker 2: a top ten fugitive in the DC area, So he
29:03
Speaker 2: was a big fish that they were trying to reel in.
29:06
Speaker 2: But at the same time, this guy's a murderer on
29:08
Speaker 2: the run. You have no idea what he's gonna do.
29:10
Speaker 2: So she really had to kind of keep it tight
29:13
Speaker 2: as much as possible. I say that before we get
29:15
Speaker 2: to the actual day, December fifteenth, nineteen eighty five. Yeah,
29:19
Speaker 2: we take another break.
29:20
Speaker 1: All right, let's do it. Alrighty, we are back. It
29:47
Speaker 1: is not Christmas, but it certainly feels like it. In
29:51
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five, it's December fifteenth. The Washington Convention Center
29:55
Speaker 1: is decked out. There's a big TV plan highlight so
30:00
Speaker 1: of the redskins seasoned thus far. There's music playing. Everyone's
30:05
Speaker 1: in those tuxes. They got red and gold balloons they're
30:08
Speaker 1: handing out. It's really fun to watch this thing play out.
30:13
Speaker 1: You've got these cheerleaders hugging and patting these guys, these
30:15
Speaker 1: guys down. One guy is like leaning in trying to
30:17
Speaker 1: kiss the one of the women, and she's just like
30:20
Speaker 1: pulling her face away and still has her arm around it.
30:24
Speaker 1: In fact, she actually Stasia Hilton. She was a US Marshall,
30:29
Speaker 1: the cheerleader that they interviewed, or fake cheerleader, and later
30:33
Speaker 1: on she had gotten out and was brought back into
30:35
Speaker 1: the service as an appointment as Director of US Marshall
30:39
Speaker 1: Service by President Obama.
30:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, but so for this day. She's a Redskins cheerleader, yeah, exactly.
30:47
Speaker 2: So what they would do is the cheerleaders would hug
30:51
Speaker 2: you as you were coming in. Would not accept kiss
30:53
Speaker 2: as it turns out, but they would hug you, pat
30:55
Speaker 2: you down, although you weren't supposed to know that you
30:58
Speaker 2: were being padded down. They would wrecked you toward a table.
31:01
Speaker 1: She's a good hugger, right exactly.
31:03
Speaker 2: Very thorough so they would they would pour you to
31:06
Speaker 2: this table where you would check in and to claim
31:09
Speaker 2: your prize. To make sure you were you, you had
31:11
Speaker 2: to show positive ID. And then when they when they
31:15
Speaker 2: verified that you were on the list, meaning that you
31:18
Speaker 2: were a wanted fugitive who just showed up to claim
31:21
Speaker 2: your two free tickets to the Washington Redskins football game,
31:26
Speaker 2: they would give you a name tag and the name
31:28
Speaker 2: tag would say confirmed winner. And then if you were
31:32
Speaker 2: a dangerous criminal, they would give you a name tag
31:35
Speaker 2: that said double winner. And they could not find anywhere
31:40
Speaker 2: how they would explain why somebody was a double winner
31:43
Speaker 2: and not just a confirmed winner, right exactly, Like why me?
31:49
Speaker 2: I have no idea what they said. Surely they had
31:51
Speaker 2: to say something, but I could not find It's lost
31:54
Speaker 2: to history.
31:56
Speaker 1: He said, your dangersly close to winning the Super Bowl
32:00
Speaker 1: tickets too. That's great, that's how they do it in
32:06
Speaker 1: the movie. At least so one person came that was
32:10
Speaker 1: not expected. It was an attorney from a local TV
32:13
Speaker 1: station that had the local broadcast rights to the games.
32:16
Speaker 1: He heard about this flagship International Sports Television aka FIST,
32:20
Speaker 1: and he was like, wait a minute, they can't do this.
32:23
Speaker 1: He shows up with this in my mind exactly, he
32:26
Speaker 1: shows up with the season desisted letter and the cops
32:29
Speaker 1: got him out of there. They were like, here, why
32:30
Speaker 1: don't you go have a talk with these two cheerleaders.
32:32
Speaker 1: You're like, buddy, you're gonna blow our cover here.
32:34
Speaker 2: Yeah. They they shot him in the leg.
32:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, he hobbled out of there.
32:40
Speaker 2: No, they took him outside. They had to keep it
32:42
Speaker 2: under rap. So, okay, you want to talk about unexpected guests?
32:47
Speaker 1: Sure?
32:47
Speaker 2: Do you want to know the definition of a scumbag?
32:51
Speaker 1: Sure?
32:51
Speaker 2: A fugitive who gets caught up in the dragnet of
32:55
Speaker 2: a scam carried out by the US Marshall Service in
32:59
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty five and shows up without bothering to RSVP.
33:04
Speaker 2: There were fifteen of them.
33:08
Speaker 1: That's funny. They just came.
33:10
Speaker 2: Yep, they just showed up, didn't even bother to RSVP.
33:13
Speaker 2: It just got under my skin when I saw.
33:16
Speaker 1: That this is bad manners for sure.
33:18
Speaker 2: So there was a decent amount of people in this
33:23
Speaker 2: convention center. I mean one hundred and something one hundred
33:28
Speaker 2: fifty cops I think one hundred and sixty a little
33:32
Speaker 2: over one cop to one fugitive. And then most of
33:35
Speaker 2: these fugitives had a plus one, if not all of them.
33:38
Speaker 2: So there was hundreds of people in this convention center.
33:42
Speaker 2: And like you said, it was a big party atmosphere,
33:43
Speaker 2: but right under the surface there's a bunch of people
33:46
Speaker 2: with guns ready to like take you to jail. But
33:48
Speaker 2: the problem is you can't just round everybody up all
33:50
Speaker 2: at once, right, So what they did was pretty clever.
33:54
Speaker 2: They would take fifteen to twenty winners at a time
33:58
Speaker 2: to one of like the separate conference rooms in this
34:01
Speaker 2: convention center, which really it made me nostalgic, chuck, because
34:04
Speaker 2: we played a show or two in the conference room
34:07
Speaker 2: of a convention center, you know, yeah Australia Australia's yeah, yeah, yeah.
34:13
Speaker 2: And they would sit him down and they would present
34:16
Speaker 2: them with some I guess spiel to start as they
34:19
Speaker 2: shut the doors and everybody's settling into their chairs.
34:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is Louis McKinney. He's on a stage. And
34:26
Speaker 1: then again this is just like, hey, this is the
34:27
Speaker 1: party room where we're going to get your actual tickets.
34:30
Speaker 1: And he's the MC, he's the Master of Ceremonies. He's
34:33
Speaker 1: he's wearing a top hat, a literal black top hat.
34:37
Speaker 1: And he doesn't just go up there and say you're
34:39
Speaker 1: all under arrest. He settles everyone down. He said he
34:41
Speaker 1: wanted everyone to kind of get settled in and call him.
34:44
Speaker 1: So he's just doing a bit. He's doing stage work
34:47
Speaker 1: about how excited everyone is and getting everyone like pumped up.
34:52
Speaker 1: And then and you can literally watch this happen, he
34:55
Speaker 1: says on behalf of Flagship International, we have a big
34:58
Speaker 1: surprise for you this morning. Everybody's under arrest. And you
35:02
Speaker 1: see behind the doors, you see all these like SWAT
35:05
Speaker 1: cops is their version of the SWAT, their SOG Special
35:08
Speaker 1: Operations Group that didn't spell anything clever. They're like literally
35:12
Speaker 1: have literal shotguns and they're just like they're right behind
35:15
Speaker 1: the door. Yeah, yeah, exactly. They repel in through the windows,
35:20
Speaker 1: you know, break through the windows. No, they just they
35:22
Speaker 1: literally just like kick in the door and go running
35:25
Speaker 1: in with shotguns. And you see these guys that like
35:29
Speaker 1: about a third of them like immediately sort of put
35:31
Speaker 1: their hands on their heads as they were being directed
35:34
Speaker 1: to and get on the ground, and about a third
35:36
Speaker 1: of them are like, what's happening here.
35:39
Speaker 2: Is this part of the.
35:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, they didn't know what was going on, but you know,
35:43
Speaker 1: soon enough they had them, you know, face down on
35:45
Speaker 1: the floor.
35:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, arresting violently.
35:47
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, fifteen people at a time, then escort
35:50
Speaker 1: thing amount a different door, and just you know, keep
35:52
Speaker 1: doing that over and over until they got everybody.
35:54
Speaker 2: I have to say something really quick. While I was
35:57
Speaker 2: researching this, I had a great little brush with coincidence
36:01
Speaker 2: that I was reading. I got to that part where
36:04
Speaker 2: McKinney says everybody's under arrest, and it just happened to
36:07
Speaker 2: be listening to the Beach Boys Smile album at the time.
36:10
Speaker 2: It's not something I've listened to a lot. I just
36:13
Speaker 2: happened to decide to listen to that while I was
36:15
Speaker 2: researching this, and within seconds of reading that part, it
36:19
Speaker 2: reaches the part in the Beach Boys album where they
36:21
Speaker 2: say you're under arrest. Wow, is that it's fourth I
36:26
Speaker 2: mean that's something, right, I mean, that's not your everyday coincidence.
36:30
Speaker 1: No, I love stuff like that.
36:31
Speaker 2: I do too. So anyway, back to the story, Dave,
36:34
Speaker 2: like I said, helped us with this, and he wondered
36:36
Speaker 2: something that I did as well. What happened to all
36:39
Speaker 2: the all the guests who are like the crowd of
36:43
Speaker 2: plus ones are getting left behind in larger and larger
36:46
Speaker 2: droves as this party room is like you know, set
36:49
Speaker 2: and reset, and people get taken out of the back
36:52
Speaker 2: door to jail. Yeah, and no one knows, I mean no,
36:56
Speaker 2: at least no one ever covered what happened they.
36:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I imagine it was. I've got some
37:02
Speaker 1: bad news and some more bad news, right, Like, there
37:05
Speaker 1: is no good news. It's like your friend has been arrested,
37:07
Speaker 1: and you're also not going to this football game, and
37:09
Speaker 1: you also have to find your way home something exactly.
37:13
Speaker 1: Surely they gave them right home at least.
37:14
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know about that. I don't know about that.
37:18
Speaker 1: I mean I was laughing about there they're victims, but
37:20
Speaker 1: they really are.
37:21
Speaker 2: I mean, what a bummer for sure, especially those wives
37:25
Speaker 2: that found out that their husbands didn't let them read
37:27
Speaker 2: the letter right from I am debtnov.
37:31
Speaker 1: And didn't want to go to the game to begin with.
37:34
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, oh my god. There are definitely plus ones
37:39
Speaker 2: like that.
37:40
Speaker 1: Yeah.
37:40
Speaker 2: Oh man. Uh So when this whole thing was pulled off,
37:45
Speaker 2: the reason why the NFL films little mini documentaries so
37:49
Speaker 2: thorough is the media was there, and it would make
37:53
Speaker 2: sense media was there because this is supposed to be
37:55
Speaker 2: some big deal celebrations. So you see people who are
37:59
Speaker 2: like fugitive it was about to be arrested coming into
38:01
Speaker 2: the convention center like party, like into the cameras. Yeah,
38:05
Speaker 2: that are really like there to film their arrest, but
38:08
Speaker 2: they think they're there to film this big celebration because
38:10
Speaker 2: they won these tickets. The La Times was there, CBS
38:14
Speaker 2: News was there, Washington Post was there. They were like
38:17
Speaker 2: journalists were allowed to go basically everywhere. They're allowed to
38:20
Speaker 2: interview all of the all of the higher ups conducting
38:23
Speaker 2: this sting. I guess they were just required to basically
38:27
Speaker 2: play it straight and pretend like they didn't know what
38:30
Speaker 2: was going on. But as a result of this direct
38:33
Speaker 2: involvement of the media, there was a huge national like
38:37
Speaker 2: celebration for how great the US Marshall Service was and
38:42
Speaker 2: how well they pulled off this amazing sting with not
38:46
Speaker 2: a single shot fired and aside from violently throwing some
38:49
Speaker 2: of these people to the floor, totally nonviolent roundup of
38:53
Speaker 2: one hundred plus perpse.
38:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that's the that's why you do it
38:58
Speaker 1: like this, Oh, for the for the safety, and for
39:02
Speaker 1: the money savings or the efficiency rather, I guess financially,
39:05
Speaker 1: But the pr aspect of this should not be overlooked.
39:09
Speaker 1: Like they wanted them to film this, they wanted them
39:12
Speaker 1: to know all the cutesy stuff. So one day NFL
39:15
Speaker 1: Films would release a mini doc and future podcasters would
39:18
Speaker 1: talk about it and sort of make fun of it,
39:21
Speaker 1: but also bring them, you know, some attention. So the
39:23
Speaker 1: pr part of it was a very purposeful, big deal.
39:26
Speaker 1: The guy, I've seen lots of different numbers bandied about,
39:29
Speaker 1: and by how many people they actually got. I think
39:33
Speaker 1: one hundred and forty four arrests is what Dave saw,
39:37
Speaker 1: but in the documentary, the guy whose brainchild it was
39:40
Speaker 1: said it was one hundred and one. Really, but if
39:43
Speaker 1: you do the math on one hundred and one arrest,
39:45
Speaker 1: it cost them twenty two one hundred dollars to pull
39:48
Speaker 1: this off. That breaks down to just two hundred and
39:51
Speaker 1: eighteen dollars at if they got one hundred and one arrests,
39:55
Speaker 1: and the average cost of just a perfugitive cost of
39:59
Speaker 1: nabbing as fugitive it was about almost thirteen hundred bucks.
40:03
Speaker 1: So that's a you know, that's a big efficient haul
40:06
Speaker 1: if you really look at it that way.
40:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, I mean it's super efficient. And again
40:10
Speaker 2: not a single shot fired. And don't forget they nabbed
40:14
Speaker 2: Charles Watkins, the big fish. They were trying to reel
40:16
Speaker 2: in the murderer who had escaped from prison dressed as
40:19
Speaker 2: a prison guard, which really, if you're gonna escape from prison,
40:22
Speaker 2: that's a real black eye to that particular prison dressing
40:25
Speaker 2: up as one of their own guards and escaping. Yeah,
40:28
Speaker 2: so it was a big deal that they caught this guy.
40:31
Speaker 2: And Stanley Morris, who was the head of the Marshall
40:34
Speaker 2: Service at the time, was quoted in the LA Time
40:36
Speaker 2: saying it's a safe, clean and creative way to get
40:39
Speaker 2: these people off the streets. There's no safer way to
40:42
Speaker 2: make an arrest than away from the home environment.
40:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, he's probably right as far as Charles
40:50
Speaker 1: Watkins goes in and Dave got some of this. By
40:54
Speaker 1: the way, you want to shout out the podcast Criminal,
40:56
Speaker 1: huge shot, Yeah, because they covered this and I think Dave,
41:00
Speaker 1: they've listened to that and got a couple of these
41:01
Speaker 1: things in the end here from there.
41:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a December twenty twenty four episode. So
41:09
Speaker 2: what I'm pretty recently is that the listener wrote in
41:13
Speaker 2: after hearing the Criminal episode. Maybe he said, I've got
41:16
Speaker 2: a great idea for your episode.
41:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, so go check that out for Criminal's
41:21
Speaker 1: point of view. I'm sure it's pretty great because it's
41:22
Speaker 1: a great podcast. Huh. But apparently there was a producer
41:27
Speaker 1: from CBS News named Alan Goldberg who went back at
41:30
Speaker 1: the footage and was like, I think he just thought
41:33
Speaker 1: some of this stuff was a little fishier than it
41:35
Speaker 1: was made out to be as some big, huge success.
41:38
Speaker 1: And he saw footage on there of Charles Watkins, a
41:41
Speaker 1: fifty year old man, saying like, you got the wrong guy,
41:44
Speaker 1: You got the wrong guy. And it turns out they
41:46
Speaker 1: got the wrong guy. They got Charles Watkins senior, Charles Watkins,
41:51
Speaker 1: the murderer that was the felon, or rather fugitive and
41:54
Speaker 1: Felon was his son. He was twenty years old. They
41:58
Speaker 1: got the wrong person.
42:00
Speaker 2: Yeah apparently yeah, according to Criminal, like he finally was
42:06
Speaker 2: able to convince him by showing like some ID and
42:09
Speaker 2: some other like identification saying like, I'm not the guy
42:12
Speaker 2: you're looking for, you're looking for my son and huge
42:16
Speaker 2: again hat tip to Criminal. They did some serious digging,
42:19
Speaker 2: like I was listening to it. And Alan Goldberg, who
42:22
Speaker 2: is a huge source for this, they're the ones that
42:25
Speaker 2: he talked to. This is not like all over the place,
42:28
Speaker 2: like they found this guy and managed to just completely
42:32
Speaker 2: turn all of the coverage of Operation Flagship. Still today,
42:36
Speaker 2: when you read contemporary stuff about Operation Flagship, it is
42:40
Speaker 2: unquestioningly written about as just this perfect success. They found
42:45
Speaker 2: this guy who was like, this is not actually how
42:48
Speaker 2: it went at all. There's actually, in addition to getting
42:50
Speaker 2: the wrong Charles Watkins, the other big fish, they were
42:53
Speaker 2: trying to get Lloyd Golden. He was a top TED
42:56
Speaker 2: wanted fugitive for armed robbery. And this Alan old Berg,
43:01
Speaker 2: you know, God bless him for his journalists streak. He
43:03
Speaker 2: dug into Lloyd Golden and found that he was wanted
43:06
Speaker 2: for selling some drugs, not armed robbery. He wasn't on
43:08
Speaker 2: any kind of top ten list, So that's bad enough.
43:13
Speaker 2: But when you really start digging into it, you're like, oh,
43:16
Speaker 2: this is not only a waste of money. It turns out,
43:19
Speaker 2: even though it was super efficient, it's actually legal but
43:24
Speaker 2: pretty unethical considering who they actually did nab in this dragnet.
43:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it was mainly misdemeanor offenders, a lot
43:33
Speaker 1: of parole violations. There were six traffic offenses.
43:37
Speaker 2: Okay there, and now remember a lot of these people
43:40
Speaker 2: were thrown to the ground regardless of their of what
43:43
Speaker 2: they were wanted for. They were a fugitive and they
43:46
Speaker 2: were thrown to the ground violently in some cases for
43:49
Speaker 2: traffic offenses.
43:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. There was one guy and you can see
43:55
Speaker 1: him in the NFL film stock as they're bringing him out.
43:58
Speaker 1: He was like, man, He's like, you know where I live.
44:01
Speaker 1: You could have come to my house, basically, like, why
44:04
Speaker 1: did you drag me down here and make me go
44:07
Speaker 1: through all this? Just come knock on my door and
44:09
Speaker 1: arrest me.
44:09
Speaker 2: He's like, I want to speak to mister duttono on now.
44:15
Speaker 1: This turned out to be sort of the beginning of
44:17
Speaker 1: the end though it is again still praised as a
44:20
Speaker 1: success if you look at any US Marshall stuff, but
44:24
Speaker 1: they I think, like fists and nine was just regular
44:29
Speaker 1: police work over a period of eight weeks. They got
44:32
Speaker 1: a bunch of more fugitives, which is great.
44:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty impressive. Thirty five hundred fugitives in eight weeks
44:37
Speaker 2: over four states and parts of Mexico's with no scams whatsoever.
44:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, no scams. But they don't do this stuff anymore.
44:44
Speaker 1: I guess this was sort of the golden age of
44:46
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. They're still out getting fugitives. I
44:49
Speaker 1: think last year they captured more than three thousand violent
44:52
Speaker 1: fugitives in Operation north Star, but that did not involve
44:55
Speaker 1: culture club tickets or sweepstakes prizes or anything like that.
44:59
Speaker 2: I think the answer is that in nineties, starting in
45:02
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty six, they went to nothing but beer and
45:04
Speaker 2: wine at their Christmas parties.
45:06
Speaker 1: Right yeah, not the rum punch, right right. Yeah.
45:10
Speaker 2: So one of the things about Operation Flagship is that
45:13
Speaker 2: it is so nuts that it actually happened, and when
45:17
Speaker 2: you just step back and look at it from the
45:19
Speaker 2: you know, from the total outside and how great it
45:22
Speaker 2: was and everything, it's extremely entertaining cops, smart, criminal, stupid.
45:26
Speaker 2: Can you believe they fell for this? There's football involved, like,
45:29
Speaker 2: it has everything you could possibly want, right, So it
45:32
Speaker 2: did actually inspire some stuff, like we said that whole
45:35
Speaker 2: mister Zip thing inspired like the I've got some rose
45:38
Speaker 2: delivery for you fugitive. This specific Operation Flagship inspired apparently
45:45
Speaker 2: the opening scene and Sea of Love with al Pacino
45:49
Speaker 2: where Samuel Jackson is among the fugitives who were tricked
45:53
Speaker 2: into a meat the Yankees scam.
45:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that was copped directly from this. I'm sure
45:58
Speaker 1: there was.
46:00
Speaker 2: So have you seen the movie Trap m Night Shyamalan's
46:03
Speaker 2: vehicle for his daughter's musical career?
46:06
Speaker 1: Yeah? Have you seen it? No? Okay, I just want
46:08
Speaker 1: to talk for one quick minute about this because I
46:11
Speaker 1: heard this movie on two different movie podcasts. I listened
46:15
Speaker 1: to Scott Hasn't Seen He covered this with Mike Castle,
46:21
Speaker 1: husband to Lauren Lapkis as the guest, and then it
46:24
Speaker 1: was also on the Flophouse, one of my favorite shows
46:28
Speaker 1: that have listened to forever on the Max Fun Network
46:30
Speaker 1: where they cover bad movies. Elliott Dan and Stun Yeah. Yeah,
46:37
Speaker 1: it's it's wonderfully bad though, Like I heard both of
46:41
Speaker 1: these before I saw it, and I was like, I've
46:43
Speaker 1: got to watch this movie now because it's so funny, bad,
46:48
Speaker 1: and it is. It's I highly recommend the m night
46:52
Speaker 1: Shyamalan Josh Hartnett movie Trap because it is so ridiculous
46:57
Speaker 1: and awful and the choice that are made as a
47:01
Speaker 1: movie are just bonkers and hysterical.
47:04
Speaker 2: Okay, so I know I am a ascensient adult human being,
47:10
Speaker 2: and I know that a lot of them night shamlans
47:12
Speaker 2: some of his films are bad.
47:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, just bad, terrible.
47:17
Speaker 2: I hated Signs. Hated Signs, although that was largely because
47:22
Speaker 2: of mel Gibson's acting, where all of them.
47:24
Speaker 1: Are pretty bad to me, huh, He's got a handful
47:27
Speaker 1: of pretty good ones.
47:27
Speaker 2: But yeah, well that's what I was gonna say. I
47:30
Speaker 2: will still watch every movie that that man puts out
47:32
Speaker 2: because they're so imaginative, so creative. I also love the
47:36
Speaker 2: cinematography in his films. It's always so dark and moody.
47:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, they look pretty good.
47:40
Speaker 2: The Sixth Sense is one of the greatest films of
47:43
Speaker 2: all time. Yeah, and even like, you can give up
47:48
Speaker 2: on him and then come back years later and watch
47:50
Speaker 2: the stuff that you missed, and you're like, man, I
47:52
Speaker 2: love this stuff. It's such a great thing to watch
47:54
Speaker 2: on like Saturday afternoon or something like that.
47:57
Speaker 1: Yeah. I like the Unbreakable movie and the the Split whatever,
48:03
Speaker 1: there was like a trilogy, and in that world, I
48:05
Speaker 1: thought split. Yeah, I thought all those were pretty good.
48:08
Speaker 1: But yeah, a lot of his movies are really bad
48:11
Speaker 1: but still well made enough to be worthwhile even if
48:14
Speaker 1: it's just sort of like a cringe fun watch. And
48:18
Speaker 1: Trap is one of them. And you know, whenever he
48:21
Speaker 1: pops up in his own movies, it's always so bad
48:23
Speaker 1: and dumb and obvious, and he does so in the
48:26
Speaker 1: funniest worst way in Trap.
48:28
Speaker 2: Okay, good, I gotta see this.
48:30
Speaker 1: It's really a fun bad movie. Watch. I highly recommend it.
48:33
Speaker 2: Have you seen a Knock at the Cabin Door?
48:35
Speaker 1: I have not seen that one.
48:36
Speaker 2: That's good.
48:37
Speaker 1: I don't see them all.
48:38
Speaker 2: Have you ever seen Servant, the show he made?
48:41
Speaker 1: Huh huh, good bad.
48:44
Speaker 2: No, it's really good. It's a really good show. Like
48:47
Speaker 2: he does a great job.
48:48
Speaker 1: He's a confounding filmmaker.
48:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, just just watch Servant. I think you'll
48:53
Speaker 2: like it. I haven't seen all of the seasons. I
48:56
Speaker 2: might have seen the first three and then I stopped.
48:58
Speaker 2: But I can tell you the first three you're definitely
49:01
Speaker 2: worth watching. I think you'll get sucked in pretty quick.
49:03
Speaker 1: Yeah. We cannot finish though, even though I did mention
49:06
Speaker 1: Homer Simpson earlier. One of the great great Simpsons episodes,
49:11
Speaker 1: they had a sting operation where they were giving away
49:14
Speaker 1: a boat. Right.
49:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, I'm sorry. I've watched it the other yesterday.
49:21
Speaker 2: I guess I was watching it. I noticed something that
49:25
Speaker 2: I'd never noticed before. Was at the head of the scene.
49:28
Speaker 2: At the beginning, as they're starts, as they're pulling up
49:30
Speaker 2: to the police station, Homer's falling for a scam like
49:34
Speaker 2: operation Flagship, but instead of Redskins tickets, it's a free
49:38
Speaker 2: motor boat. Yeah, so he's all he's all ready for this.
49:42
Speaker 2: He's wearing a captain's hat driving the family up to
49:44
Speaker 2: the police station to claim his free motor boat. And
49:47
Speaker 2: at the beginning of the scene, as they're pulling up,
49:50
Speaker 2: lou one of the cops has the door kind of
49:53
Speaker 2: like slightly jar and is peeking out right when he
49:55
Speaker 2: sees Homer pull up, he like closes the door real quick. Yeah,
50:00
Speaker 2: oh my god, you have to see it like I
50:01
Speaker 2: can't do it justice. It's just this extra quick little
50:04
Speaker 2: thing that did not need to be added at all,
50:07
Speaker 2: but makes that whole scene so just perfect.
50:11
Speaker 1: Just the heyday of that show.
50:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, season nine, it's in the whole episode by the way,
50:16
Speaker 2: to Lisa the Skeptic is like, yeah, one of the
50:18
Speaker 2: like more heartfelt episodes around two.
50:22
Speaker 1: So good hallo. Why are the pretty one Jarwie's and
50:25
Speaker 1: Shane favorites? Also a little nugget on the end, if
50:29
Speaker 1: you're ever in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and why else would
50:33
Speaker 1: you be there? But going to the US Marshall Museum,
50:37
Speaker 1: you can see Louis McKinney's MCE black top hat on display.
50:42
Speaker 2: Very nice, pretty, It was a nice little nugget.
50:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks Dave for that.
50:46
Speaker 2: No, Yeah, thank you Dave. That was great. We appreciate
50:49
Speaker 2: the assist on this one and on Harry Belafonte. It's
50:52
Speaker 2: Dave week everybody, that's right. And since I said it's
50:55
Speaker 2: Dave week again that unlocked listener mayle.
51:00
Speaker 1: Hey, guys love the show. I just started listening around
51:02
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen. I'm now realizing that was seven years ago.
51:05
Speaker 1: My commute to work is about fifteen minutes and eats
51:07
Speaker 1: each direction, so your release schedule is perfect. To listen
51:11
Speaker 1: to a freshysk episode all the time I was listening
51:16
Speaker 1: to automats and hearing Chuck weird it out about pie
51:18
Speaker 1: for breakfast is so funny to me because I'm a
51:20
Speaker 1: chef and I will never understand why pie sweetened thickened
51:24
Speaker 1: fruit in a pastry is dessert, but a danish or
51:27
Speaker 1: a jelly donut sweetened thickened fruit in a pastry our breakfast.
51:31
Speaker 1: And by the way, this totally vindicates you because when
51:34
Speaker 1: you were like pie for breakfast and I was like,
51:36
Speaker 1: that sounds so crazy. I was, and you said, most
51:38
Speaker 1: breakfast foods are dessert, and I was like, what are
51:41
Speaker 1: you talking about. You're completely right. I wasn't thinking about
51:43
Speaker 1: all this stuff.
51:44
Speaker 2: Oh I love it when you say stuff like that.
51:46
Speaker 1: I was salking about eggs and bacon, but I forgot
51:48
Speaker 1: about the sweet side of breakfast, and all that stuff
51:50
Speaker 1: is dessert. Same goes for cake and pancakes, flour, sugar, eggs,
51:54
Speaker 1: baking powder with a sweet condiment. French toast is plain
51:58
Speaker 1: white bread dipped in a sweet cinnamon custs, griddled and
52:00
Speaker 1: then you drizzle sugar syrup on top of it. I
52:03
Speaker 1: love this so guys, Josh is right. Lots of breakfast
52:06
Speaker 1: foods are pretty much dessert, and I say, if it
52:08
Speaker 1: makes you happy, there's no reason to keep away from
52:10
Speaker 1: dessert foods at breakfast. Your stomach doesn't know what time
52:13
Speaker 1: of day it is. Thanks for all the amazing information.
52:16
Speaker 1: I've learned so much from you, guys, and always have
52:18
Speaker 1: a great time listening to That is from Aarin Brittingham
52:21
Speaker 1: and Aarin, thanks for proving me wrong. I forgot about
52:24
Speaker 1: all this sweet breakfast stuff.
52:26
Speaker 2: Thanks for proving me right.
52:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, and not to even mention cereal. I mean, what
52:29
Speaker 1: is Captain crunch besides a bowl of dessert?
52:32
Speaker 2: That's right. I like to have a balanced breakfast. I
52:34
Speaker 2: like the dessert part with a bunch of pancakes or
52:37
Speaker 2: French toast and syrup, but then I also like the
52:39
Speaker 2: eggs in the bacon part too.
52:41
Speaker 1: I breakfast is my favorite meal that I never eat,
52:44
Speaker 1: but when I do, by God, I love it.
52:47
Speaker 2: Well. Yeah, I'm the same way. I don't typically eat breakfast.
52:49
Speaker 2: So if I'm going to eat breakfast, breakfast like it's
52:52
Speaker 2: gonna be something like that.
52:53
Speaker 1: Agreed.
52:54
Speaker 2: I gave up cereal and I'm the better off for it.
52:58
Speaker 2: I just have to admit, Yeah.
53:00
Speaker 1: I don't eat that stuff anymore. But if I'm on
53:03
Speaker 1: vacation and there's a good breakfast place, I'm going to
53:06
Speaker 1: party down and then I'll skip lunch. That's right.
53:08
Speaker 2: Nice for Charles. Well, if you want to be like
53:12
Speaker 2: Aaron and vindicate me, bring it on. You can send
53:17
Speaker 2: us an email to Stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
53:23
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
53:26
Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
53:31
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.