Every day, thousands of the bravest and
best folks humanity has to offer go out and selflessly put their asses (and
legs, and torsos, and every shoot-able part of their bodies) on the line for the
rest of us. This article isn't about them. This is about the law enforcement
officers who looked at the worst criminals in the world on a daily basis and
said to themselves, "I can top that."
They may be horrible people, but you've
got to admire the balls it takes to pull off stunts like ...
1.
America's top sheriff is arrested for meth, and is jailed in the same jailed
named after him:
In 2001, Arapahoe County Sheriff
Patrick T. Sullivan was named National Sheriff's
Deputy of the Year, and when he retired
in 2002 (after 30 years in law enforcement), the county loved him so much that
they renamed the local jail in his honor. That's how good this guy was at
sheriffing.
Sullivan went on to join a legislative
task force for the state of Colorado and helped to form a lot of the policies
and laws that local law enforcement agencies use to prosecute drug offenders in
general, and meth users in particular. And just in case you still need proof
that this guy was awesome, here's footage of Sullivan in the '80s running his truck through a fence to save some officers
during a shootout.
But at the Same Time ...
Retirement can be hard for some people:
Some stay home every day and sulk, some take up fly fishing, and some try to
deal meth and end up serving time in the
jail named after them.
Apparently, after decades of being up
to his armpits in meth-crazy, Sullivan decided to see what life was like on the
other side of the fence, so he dived in head first. The former sheriff became a
connoisseur of meth and what some folks colloquially refer to as "rough
trade." Sullivan became infamous among young male prostitutes in Aurora
County for using his position to, umm, get into other positions. Sexy
positions.
In 2012, local cops finally caught on
and arranged for a sting operation, and Sullivan was videotaped trying to trade meth for sex with a cop informant. He was
arrested, interviewed, and asked whether at any time he had engaged in sex with
a minor. Sullivan told cops that he couldn't honestly answer that question, as
he was way too fucking high most of the time. Hey, we've all been there, pal.
Sullivan was then booked into the
Patrick T. Sullivan Correctional Facility ...
... which has been since renamed. In all seriousness, if he didn't at least try
to declare himself King of the Jail the moment he was ushered into his cell
block, then we have to question if all of this was even worth it.
2
An anti-drug agent that moonlights as a drug lord
Drug Enforcement Agency officer Darnell
Garcia's entire life was like something out of an '80s action flick. Several of
them, in fact -- not only did Garcia train with both Chuck Norris
and Bruce Lee, but he apparently
knew enough about how to tear an opponent's head off to author a book on the
subject, which he also did. It's called The Fighting Art of Tang Soo Do.
After retiring from the karate
championship circuit, Garcia came up through the ranks of the LAPD and joined
the DEA in 1981. Along with fellow agents Wayne Countryman and John Jackson . Garcia
spent the '80s living the plot of a Miami Vice episode every single day.
But at the Same Time ...
Except for the part where he was
actually the villain. He was anti-drug agent by day and pro-drug kingpin by
night. It was like Dexter, only somehow less plausible.
At some point Garcia and his pals
realized that ripping off drug dealers was a lot more profitable (and fun) than
simply stopping them. Their first few heists were relatively small, netting
only $16,000 in cash and 2 pounds of heroin. Then they decided to stop playing
around in 1985 and stole 400 pounds of cocaine from a Pasadena stash house,
effectively becoming millionaires overnight.
Garcia didn't stop there either.
Garcia, Jackson, and Countryman set up Swiss bank accounts and distribution
networks operating out of both New York and Los Angeles. Garcia then rounded up
several fugitive drug dealers and instead of arresting them, he placed them in DEA safe
houses to handle the sales end of his
operation.
When Countryman and Jackson were
finally arrested in 1988, Garcia fled the country and led both the FBI and
Interpol on an international manhunt. When they finally caught up to him in
Luxembourg a year later, his official defense was that he had come by those
millions of dollars in his Swiss bank account totally legitimately ... by
smuggling jewels for an Italian syndicate.
3
Mafia Ttsk force detectives turned mafia hit man
NYPD Mafia Task Force detectives
Stephen Caracappa and Lou Eppolito were almost complete opposites in every way.
Eppolito was a seasoned street cop who looked kind of like a silverback
gorilla, only with slightly more body hair. Caracappa, meanwhile, was smaller
and bookish, favored dark silk suits, and had a cadaverous complexion. Together,
they fought crime.
But at the Same Time …
Also, they did crime. Because they were also Mafia hit men. On more than one occasion, the two would whack a mark in a
certain neighborhood and end up interviewing potential witnesses in the same
area for their other job.
Caracappa and Eppolito carried out at
least eight hits under direct orders from known gangster Anthony
"Gaspipe" Casso. The hits themselves were masterpieces of simplicity
-- they used NYPD cars and pulled over their intended victims, presumably under
the guise of a traffic stop, and then shot them.
The hits alone are bad enough, but
there's more. Caracappa worked for the Major Cases Unit, which gave him access
to all sorts of classified information about, among other things, the Mafia.
The same Mafia he was working for.
Caracappa also knew all of the safe
houses in New York, so if an informant was moved, that info passed right
through his office and from there to Casso. He was the wet dream of any mob
boss.
And they may have gotten away with it,
too ... if Eppolito hadn't written a book about his rise from Mafia family kid
to totally honest non-Mafia cop, which he then promoted across
national television.
At this point a few people finally
stepped forward and said, "Hey, remember that murderer we saw? He's on
Sally Jesse Raphael right now." Eppolito and his partner were arrested.
4
The head of a kidnapping squad is the one responsible for the kidnappings
"Big" Tom Brown was the chief
of police in St. Paul, Minnesota, in the early 1930s, a time when the notorious
bank robbers of the Depression era had started moving on from stealing rich
people's money to just stealing rich people (and then demanding a ransom).
During that time, Brown was put in charge of the kidnapping squad: It was his
job to dispatch officers to protect
the city's wealthiest citizens.
Just having Big Tom around would make anyone feel safer.
But at the Same Time …
Big Tom was a member of another
kidnapping squad -- as in, one that literally kidnapped people. While he was
protecting the fat cats from being snatched away, he would also feed
information about them to the Barker Gang, the criminals behind the most daring
St. Paul kidnappings of the '30s, and getting a juicy cut of the ransom in
exchange.
On June 15, 1933, the Barkers snatched
up William Hamm, scion of Hamm's Brewery, and held him for four days while demanding
a ransom of $100,000. Hamm's mother ignored the gang's instructions to not get
the cops involved and called the authorities ... who, of course, referred her to the guy in
charge of that department, Chief Tom Brown.
Brown acted as a go-between for Hamm's family and the kidnappers, dropping off
the $100,000 payment, a quarter of which went to his own pocket for helping set up the whole
operation.
Big Tom would also tip off gangsters
when detectives were coming to raid their hideouts -- he was so beloved within
the criminal community that members of the Dillinger gang contributed generous
donations to his campaign to be elected county
sheriff.
Brown and the Barker Gang tried the
same thing about a year later: This time they picked Edward Bremer, whose father, Adolph Bremer, owned several banks and was a
close personal friend of FDR. The members of the Barker Gang were eventually
caught and/or killed by the feds ... but Brown got away with it. By this time
the FBI had stepped in, knowing that Brown was dirty but unable to prove it. Or
they could prove it, they just couldn't decide who would go up to Brown and try
to arrest him, so they just let him go free.
5
A robbery detective does a bank-robbing spree
Andre Stander was born to be a cop: His
father was a general in the South African Department of Correctional Services,
and he graduated at the top of his class at Pretoria Police College. Stander
enjoyed a rapid ascent through the ranks and held the post of captain by the
age of 31. The guy became such a legend that he was recently portrayed by
Thomas Jane in a movie of his life, Stander.
But at the Same Time ...
Of course, most of the movie concerns
his other job ... as a bank robber. Stander would sometimes rob banks on his lunch break
and then go back in the afternoon to investigate.
It all started in 1977, when Stander
hopped on an early morning flight to another city, rented a car, and, donning a
wig, mask, and sunglasses, proceeded to rob a bank. He caught another flight
back that afternoon and finished his shift at the Kempton Park Station. And
then he did it again, and again, and again. For several years.
After the first robbery, Stander
stopped renting cars and simply stole them. Even when he started robbing banks
in his own jurisdiction, he was so good at disguising himself that no one ever
recognized him.
In fact, after three years, the only
reason anybody even caught on is because Stander actually approached another cop and basically said, "Hey, guess who has two thumbs and
likes to pillage Johannesburg? This guy!" Stander's hope was to persuade
his longtime partner in the Robbery Task Division to join the Dark Side of the
Force. Carl Van Deventer, Stander's would-be accomplice, set up a sting
instead.
Stander was caught and sentenced to 75
years in a South African prison. He served three of those years before he
decided he'd had enough. Taking a nurse hostage, Stander pulled off a jail
break.
For the next year, Stander went on an
international crime spree. He spent a year robbing up to four banks a day, spanning the globe from Cape Town to Greece, then to
Spain, then back to Africa so he could steal a yacht, and then to the U.S.
Stander was finally gunned down in Fort Lauderdale after a botched attempt at
fencing a boat worth almost half a million dollars.
Even those who took the oath to
protect, can commit crimes against people.
As always, stay safe !
-Bird
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