Undercover with the Crips: The Tegan Broadwater Story

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In this powerful episode of Gangland Wire, retired Intelligence Unit detective Gary Jenkins sits down with Tegan Broadwater, a former Fort Worth Police officer, musician, and undercover operative whose story reads like a movie script.

Broadwater takes listeners on a riveting journey from his early years as a professional musician to his dramatic turn infiltrating one of America’s most dangerous street gangs—the Crips. Drawing from his book Life in the Fishbowl, he details how music, culture, and human connection became unexpected tools for survival and success inside the underworld.
Listeners will hear:

How Tegan Broadwater transitioned from touring musician to undercover police officer, bringing creativity and adaptability to the streets.

The story of his two-year infiltration into the Crips—posing as a South Texas drug dealer with the help of a trusted informant. His insights into gang hierarchy, loyalty, and manipulation, and how understanding culture was key to earning trust. The moral challenges of living undercover—forming friendships with men he would eventually arrest. The emotional impact of a major gang raid that ended with over 50 arrests, and how it changed his outlook on justice and humanity.

His decision to donate proceeds from his book to the children of incarcerated parents aims to break the cycle of violence. He continues to share lessons on leadership, empathy, and cultural understanding through his private security firm and new podcast projects.   Broadwater’s story isn’t just about crime and undercover operations—it’s about identity, compassion, and the human cost of violence. This episode offers a rare look at what it means to live behind a mask while still holding onto one’s purpose.

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1:08 Life in the Fishbowl
4:54 The Dangerous Fishbowl
11:09 Going Undercover with the Crips
14:14 The Kingpin and His Operations
26:54 Encountering the Mob
34:27 Comparing Gangs and Organized Crime
44:30 Tegan’s Current Projects and Future Goals

Transcript
[0:00] Well, hey, all you wiretappers. Good to be back here in studio of Gangland Wire. I have a guest today that is another former cop, just like me, worked for the Fort Worth PD. I’m talking with Tegan Broadwater. Now, Tegan has an unusual background. He was a professional musician at one time who ended up going deep undercover to infiltrate the Crips. Now, you know that the Crips is a black gang, don’t you? I know you guys do. The Crips and the Bloods. If you know anything at all about inner city crime, the Crips and the Bloods or the gangs, well, here’s this white dude goes undercover with the Crips. Now, we’re going to find out how he did that. I’m dying to know myself. So welcome, Teagan.

[0:42] Thank you. I appreciate you having me. All right. Now, let’s tell us a little bit about yourself. You just told me kind of nomadic growing up. You went to high school in Houston. You ended up in Fort Worth working for the PD. But you also have been a professional musician and you have a podcast today, written a book, Life in the Fishbowl. You have a company called the Tactical Systems Network. So tell us a little bit about yourself.

[1:08] Yeah, I mean, music was my original passion, and from fourth grade on until my late 20s, that was all I wanted to do. So I went to college for music, went to a prestigious jazz program, and was touring on the road and got signed by a label at one of the early South by Southwest conferences back in the 90s, and just grew a little weary of the music industry itself. I love music, and I still consider myself a creative for the book and the music and stuff that I still do today. I still love to express myself. I think it also played a great role in leveraging it in cop work. So ultimately what happened was as I grew tired of the industry and sharing two beds with five dudes at a day’s end in Oklahoma City on the road, I also had a kid.

[1:57] In 95 I had a kid and I thought, man, I do not want to be gone. So I decided to, at the behest of a few cops that used to come see us play when we were in town they talked me into doing that which was crazy because i just never imagined anything else so i cut eight inches of locks off and retook my driver’s license picture so the guys wouldn’t criticize me when i applied yeah and got into the pd i applied actually at houston pd and for pd and whoever was going to take me first and fort worth was quick to the draw and and although i had absolutely no experience in police work or firearms or anything like that i feel like I really had the type of personality that they needed. I don’t know if they realized that or not, but from the jump, I really wanted to work undercover because I felt like, you know, here I am. I’ve been touring with multicultural bands. I’m the only white guy in this group and that group and whatever. And I’m going to a music school, a bunch of artists and stuff. And so I feel like even in high school, I’d hang out with the jocks, I’d hang out with the smokers, hang out with the whoever. We’re just kind of a pliable personality, just like good people. So I felt like I could really excel at that. And it turns out that I really could. So I got into the police work and ended up being really.

[3:14] Really proficient with a firearm because, again, they teach you how to use it. And I had no bad habits to unlearn. So, you know, I took to all that stuff really well. Yeah. And so, most of us do somewhere. But, you know, I ended up just politicking to try to go to the worst part of town, so to speak, with the highest crime areas so that I could gain more experience. I was super ambitious, learned a lot about the neighborhoods. And at one point, you know, I was trying to.

[3:44] Get into a narcotics unit and as a six foot one white stiff nerd a little more difficult to do so, i started creating my own resume i politicked some of the captains to try to re-implement some of the old weed and seed programs and and learned how to write search warrants and procured some old used expired gear from swat and after just a few years i was i was spending my shift, making covered buys and learning how to do a few undercover buys. And then at the end of every shift, we would earn overtime and go crack doors down some old dilapidated crack houses and, you know, make some cases that way. And so by the time I applied to narcotics for my fourth time, they couldn’t deny me because I had a bunch of informants. I had, you know, several hundred, pardon me, several hundred dynamic search warrants under my belt and all that kind of stuff. So, ultimately, I was accepted there, and what ironically turned out to be a place that I used to work a lot in, there’s an area of town where it was a gang-ridden part of town where you had the Bloods and the Crips divided by one single street.

[4:54] But in terms of the turf, there was a six-square block area with one way in and one way out that was particularly dangerous and particularly problematic.

[5:03] We always rode down there too deep and the cops deemed it the fishbowl because every time you went down there people were radioing in everybody got a warning ahead of time and it made it really difficult for for us to do work down there tons of violence i remember answering calls down there you know bloody females and kids screaming and you know having domestic disturbance calls and displacing these kids and just a real crazy situation but fortunately for me having done those warrants for the few years preceding narcotics when the problems finally arose where the finally they had a killing down there that that drew the attention of the city council.

[5:41] They got together with the chief of police and said, what can we do? We need to pull all stops to get this little segment of town cleaned up. Because obviously there are good people that are down there being held hostage by these jerks that are just shooting each other and making it impossible for anyone to live a normal life. And these people that are innocents are too poor to just stop and move. It’s not as easy as that. So they started doing all the typical things. Of course, they’re not consulting me. I’m just a grunt. And they’re doing jump outs with unmarked bans and writing search warrants and pulling over everybody that moves and trying to get people to flip and obviously to no avail or else that would have worked prior. So, yeah. My whole idea, me being the genius that I am, I went to an informant and said, hey, what do you think of this idea? I said, you pose as somebody that I’m trying to fund. I’m going to pose as T. I’m a big-time dope dealer from South Texas and just had my source busted by the feds. I’m coming up to North Texas, and I’m trying to get my game restarted.

[6:43] But you are the poor crack dude that’s trying to do his little hustle. Because if I’m some kind of big timer and I’m trying to infiltrate Crips here via the dope trade, I certainly can’t go start down at the corners and start buying $25 rack rocks. But I could roll down there with you and tell them that I’m just buying for you. And that was the premise that we went with. He laughed his ass off at first, obviously, too, because obviously the fitting in, I fit in by fitting out, by standing out, right? I wasn’t going to try to fit into that mold. And I even played ignorant along the way by wearing, you know, 49ers, Falcons jerseys and stuff down there in the blue territories.

[7:28] And they’d pull me aside and say, fool, what are you doing? You fool, what are you wearing in this red shirt? And I was like, what? What? You know, I don’t know. You know, give me the evidence. So it was tons of questions, but I feel like I leveraged my own personality and, way more than most would. And between not having an elaborate story to memorize and by knowing that I was going to take this on as a long-term deal, it was easy for me to tell people no. So when they start giving me all these 20 questions, where do you live? Where are you from? I’ve never seen me all of this. I’m like, hey, I’m way higher than you in this game. You don’t even know who you’re talking to. And I’m damn sure not going to tell you where I live. And I’m not going to ask you where you live, you’re obviously an amateur, so I’m going to move on. I got to do my business somewhere else. And then they would think, oh, well, no, I kind of want some money. So they would, you know, ultimately would end up talking me into doing deals. And slowly but surely, I would spend time down there on a little PD budget that we had for our team.

[8:31] And so on days where I knew that guys, key players there were not around, I would pull down to the blocks and ask for them knowing that they’re not there on purpose because I couldn’t afford to spend tons of money every day. So I would go down there and ask for somebody that wasn’t there and then end up hanging out and, you know, share 40 ounce Magnums or playing video games or whatever and getting to know these fools on a different level. And it was just as much learning about their way of life and earning street cred without having to buy bricks yet. So, and that was just on that, you know, skimpy PD budget.

[9:08] So I promised my wife. Now, how did you, how did you like show cash even? Did you, did you borrow some cash from the feds to show cash? The PD gets real nervous. If you want to sit some show money, you know, you’re saying, okay, I’m going to bring this back. This is just for show, but to generate, you know, 10, $15,000 in show cash is hard to do.

[9:31] You’re right. And because you put yourself at risk of being jacked. And you’d be robbed, too, yeah. Yeah. So that was the biggest concern that I had. And what I was actually doing at the time, by facilitating other people.

[9:45] Eventually they would see me come and go, and they would see me doing these deals for my partner and say, man, no, don’t talk to me, just give it to him. And they would see me pull out the swads of cash and give it to him so he could make these buys, and nobody was getting busted. So they knew I was a somebody, but I was literally taking our monthly budget from our NARC crew and cashing in a couple hundred ones and then putting a stack of 20s on the top so that when I pulled out this massive wad. So that was my flash. But after about eight months, I promised my wife it was going to take three months and we’d be done. But I was climbing this ladder rapidly and bad guys introduced me to other bad guys. And it was just turning into a giant operation. I went to my sergeant, who was the only reason I was able to do this deep cover thing and work off the books so often. And just said, look, I’m running out of resources because these dudes are going to start calling bulls on this. Because, you know, I keep telling them I’m this big player. and i go down there and all i’m doing is buying samples or letting guys talk me into trying some of their crack instead of you know the powder because i’m i always tell them it’s like i don’t do no crack i mean i’m i’m looking for bricks and powder because i i move the big stuff so yeah you know i’d buy samples of the favor i said but i can only get away with that for so long so we decided to purposely go shop the feds and.

[11:10] Started with DEA and I presented all this thing. I have this hierarchy. These are the guys. This is where they rank. This is how they’re working together.

[11:21] And ultimately they said, hey, we love this case. This looks like a great deal for us. We’d love to take it from you and we’ll let you know how it goes. And I was like, no. I mean, this isn’t just my ego talking, but by the time I’d been doing this eight months and down there seven days a week and building this massive case, There’s no way I’m handing it off to somebody, even if they are DEA. There’s no logical reason to bring in a new undercover when I already have this kind of momentum going. So then we went to the ATF. They didn’t really have the resources of the people. And somebody mentioned that the FBI had an agent assigned to our gang unit that was there for the gang and violent crimes task force.

[12:04] And she was currently working on another case, but sat down with her, and she was a hustler. She’s fantastic, perfect fit. She loved the idea.

[12:13] She was going to obviously let me continue the undercover work, and she spent a few months finishing up her other case. So for those few months, the advantage slash disadvantage I had was, since I’d been working off the books anyway, now my sergeant thought, well, you’re working for the FBI. And the FBI thought, well, you still have a sergeant. and I was just saying, hey, could I get the 17K? I need to buy a bird. And by the way, could I get a different car? And then, you know, in two days, I’ve got cash money and a Range Rover. So now I’m balling, you know? So now I’m showing up and really able to play the part. And, you know, after a solid year, this thing, I’ve stayed undercover for almost two years. And, you know, after that first year, I started having people come to me trying to do deals. And I had gotten to the point where I was telling people I couldn’t do deals because in my mind I’m thinking, well, this cat is actually too small for me or this cat is not actually a crit because it wasn’t a dope case. And that’s the whole misnomer about the case that we had in the first place. The whole point was to eradicate the violent gangsters that were in this part of the neighborhood, and it ended up spreading into other parts of the neighborhood and a larger area of town, obviously, as ultimately what happened is when the U.S. Attorney said, it’s time to wrap this up. You have your top gun guy.

[13:36] My top, my kingpin, so to speak, in Fort Worth was moving $250,000 of product a week. Wow. Then it was time to wrap it up. So after that long, I probably would have just kept going because I got so into it and just so bought into, you know, the relationship building and the momentum of the case that I, who knows when I would have stopped, but I would have certainly burned out at some point. But it turned out that we ended up arresting 51 people. Crips and 41 went federal and 10 went state.

[14:11] And it was, you know, one of the more successful gang cases a lot. They got tons of time too. Yeah. Interesting. Now you’re a kingpin. How did you work up to him? How was he set up? How did he instantly, can you tell us a little bit about their procedures and how they had that set up?

[14:29] Sure. And the most difficult part was the kingpin was obviously you’re smarter, even though if you’re in a gang, there’s some level of intelligence that must stop at a certain point. But this cat had, he had car lots, he had a real estate license, he had storage units and things like this. So he was sophisticated in terms of a street thug because, you know, typically Crips are, you know, violent dudes that will, you know, take what they need in order to achieve what they need to achieve. But he was smart also. So, you know, he’s a dangerous cat to deal with. And ultimately it was really ironic because it was really what happened is they had what they call the four tray day. And now a four tray crip is a crip that originated on 43rd Street in Compton, you know, Southern Cal. But they carry those five deuce and four tray, they call them. Those sets were heavily populated in Fort Worth and so they had a four tray day and they had everybody in the park behind this fishbowl area all coming together to glorify cryptum i guess and and they’re all there together yeah i know they even got a city permit that’s how smart this oh my god oh my god.

[15:54] So it’s doing so of course i’m you know i’m t from south texas and i go rolling into the barbecue i’m still standing out like a sore thumb oh my god Who’s that white dude? Hey, who’s that white dude? So for every person that would question me and say, what the hell are you doing here? I had just as many people saying, hey, wait, that’s T. Are you kidding me? He’s okay. And they would start introducing me around. Yeah. Well, it turns out that my kingpin, I almost thought I was going to have to wrap it up early because my kingpin had left for California to lay low because he was feeling heat. I don’t know that it was necessarily for me because I hadn’t started wrapping up this case or anything, but for whatever reason, he laid low for a couple of months. And when he came back amidst all this, there was a basketball game that I got caught up in and met up with a few people around this basketball cart in an apartment complex right outside the park. It was just, you know, hundreds of people out there. And turns out he was in one of these games and went to smoke a cigarette outside of one of these apartments. and I met one of my informants out there and I was like, man, I got to go in and see if he’s got a little something.

[17:05] It was a stab in the dark, but at this point, the AUSA had said, hey, you got to wrap this up. So I’m thinking, I got to get this kingpin somehow. And as goofy as my informants have been over the years, this one statement rang true and it ended up being really profound. And he said, T, you know you’re way too big to be asking him for something small and the chance that he has anything on him is already low and you know being so presumptuous to walk up and ask for something small since I only had you know so much money to spend that particular day he said let me let me do it let’s go back to our first little premise and so we ran it the same way and say you know I’m hooking this cat up or whatever I know we haven’t seen you for a bit I know you’re back in town man we’re just trying to get a little something something and just kind of made it really casual if you don’t got it it’s all cool and he’s like man i got you and he reached into his pocket and pulled out this little bit for my partner uh you know i spent a few hundred bucks and you know and then wrapped it up so ultimately we were able to wrap him up in the conspiracy also by the time you debrief all these people they’re all connecting the dots that you haven’t connected for yourself and you know he ended up getting 25 years, we had a 60-year sentence, a life sentence, and then most of the others ranged between 17 and 30 years.

[18:27] Convicted so it was really really traumatic for me honestly because i i didn’t play emotions at all when you’re working undercover you’re you’re highly goal-based you know i’m trying to accomplish certain things and i’m always keeping in mind what i’m trying to do yeah if you get emotional well you would know i mean you know as well or better than i you get emotional in any level of cop work you’re asking for trouble yeah it needs to be a it’s it’s all business and you’re doing your job and that’s the way it needs to be so but we start wrapping these people up many of whom i thought please go away forever but also many of whom who i i really adored as people because i thought man if this kid weren’t a sociopath all we did was play video games and he’d talk about the chicks on the west side of town and we’d share beers and talk about if the cowboys were going to get their ass kicked or whatever and just and i felt like these dudes are just dudes i mean And, you know, it has nothing to do with race. I think most of us would agree that most people don’t have anything in common with criminals that make a living selling dope and moving prostitutes and selling and buying guns. I mean, that’s just not the type of people that we associate with. But I found profoundly that there was so much more in common with some of these guys. And it was at that point that I really felt like emotionally overwhelmed and drained. I’d been put in all these extraordinary hours.

[19:53] And so it really, it wiped me out and during that roundup time. And a lot of people don’t know, just, just actually the act of being out there on the street, hanging out with these guys.

[20:04] Man, in that, what he’s talking about, the fish bowl and these projects and, and these apartments he’s been in and at any time something can jump off, but it might not have anything to do with you. Something else would jump off and the bullets start flying, man. And it’s always that edge of danger and fear going on all the time.

[20:25] And you can’t show that. No, and I think part of it was my natural personality is kind of calm and analytical when it comes to that, which is why, again, I think my creative brain being engaged was part of my advantage. Sometimes I get too creative for my own good, but other times, you know, when guys pulled guns on me, which happened more than once, you know, I would just, I would act like, man, why are you, you’re going to do this? You don’t even know what you’re doing or who you’re dealing with yet. Why don’t we have the conversation and then we’ll figure out if you still want to pull that out. You know, that kind of thing. At the same time, I’m still moving 100 miles an hour in my mind about what I’m going to do. Do I need to drill them a new eye socket or can I talk my way out of this, you know? Really, it’s kind of like the story about the duck you see going across the pond. On the surface, the duck just looked like it’s calm and serene just kind of going across the pond. But underneath the surface, those little feeders going, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That’s exactly right. That’s a great analogy. It’s exactly right. My brain’s going, holy…

[21:26] Okay do this do this okay do this okay say that okay all right all right yeah dude what’s up, yeah but you just stay in character and just like this this isn’t how this isn’t how we do business man you know i’m if you want to learn from people that have been there before you need to put that down and hear what i’m going to tell you because i’ve been at so many levels beyond what you’re talking about i’d be willing to share it if you put that shit down and stop playing around because This is not how we do it. So I would just, I would play it calmly, not even yelling at them. They would yell and whatever, but, you know, I wasn’t intimidated. I think I probably got slightly complacent to a certain point. Yeah, I can see that, yeah, I bet. Yeah, about 12 months in, I can’t remember the exact date. I could look it up, but ended up in a little shotgun house with, you know, trying to do a deal with this kid who was, again, he begged me to do the deal. I confirmed it was a crip I’m like okay and I go to his house and there’s, A couch, a coffee table with a gun and a scale and some dope and then a big screen TV and practically nothing else in there. I’m sure as a cop, you would know. There’s probably a Bible in there somewhere. Probably.

[22:41] Probably. Maybe some porn, but otherwise that’s it, right? So as I’m talking to these cats, I’m hearing an eerily familiar voice. And you got to realize this is about 2006. So, you know, we had three main TV channels. We had, you know, Fox, ABC, NBC, or four, because CBS, I think Fox was there by that time. And Fox was running cops like a mother. I mean, if you hadn’t heard of Fort Worth, yeah, if you hadn’t heard of Fort Worth before cops, you knew who Fort Worth PD was after cops because those suckers followed us all day for years.

[23:21] And we used to have these guys that loved to go out with those crews. It was not me, but when they were off, my sergeant would always assign them to me because me and my partner were hustlers and we would go out and find stuff. So I ended up on a couple episodes of Cops. And so as I’m standing there negotiating this deal with my back to the TV, I hear a familiar voice. I’m thinking, no way. But yes, it was one of the episodes of Cops with me arresting a kid for a bunch of eggs that he had in his pants. And I’m just filibustering and talking loud and everything. And you know how it is too. You could be best friends with somebody that you know is a cop that you see on their off-duty all the time. And then you see them in the grocery store in plain clothes and all of a sudden you don’t recognize them. Well, that was the only advantage that I had because nobody noticed it the entire time. Even when I wrote the book later on, there was no way I could pull a quote from that experience because the only time I truly panicked was then.

[24:18] And then it caused me to really come back to reality. Once I got out of that alive, I thought, Every other deal I did after that, I thought, man, has somebody else seen this? And I’m not aware that they’ve seen it. Yeah. So it really kind of put me back on my toes and made me really regret doing that TV show too. Even though I was ready to do it. Because, you know, there’s some people that are really good with faces and they remember a face. I’m not very good with faces. I know that, but they’re really good with faces and are your voice, you’re hearing your voice. They’re really good with that. mm-hmm so I could see that and I you know.

[24:55] I was a dork in both cases, undercover and in uniform, but I was more of a dork in uniform. So I think it helped that I had, you know, the next to shaved head and all that kind of stuff and then a little bushier hair or whatever. But, you know, in my mind, just the consequences that came to bear were incredible. And so I was just fortunate to get out of that situation. What about chasing down the money? Did you have much luck chasing down any money? Did you end up getting any – did you have a civil forfeiture unit by then? I don’t remember when those started.

[25:27] Yeah, we did. And we were doing our own forfeitures. We seized cash, but it wasn’t anything outrageous. And we got a few hundred thousand bucks in cash. But I know that the Kingpin had cash somewhere. And so my goal immediately after was to, his girlfriend actually took over the operation, which was already sort of a mistake. I don’t know how much he had to do with that. So I started following her around, and within a week, she was executed. So I never did figure out where his money was. He’s since gotten out and probably has it. Yeah. No, I did not find it. You know, we checked a few of his storage units and tried everything we could to make connections there and just never could. There’s always one step ahead. I don’t know if he buried it or what, but, you know, he’s got plenty of people on the outside, even when he went in that would have done his bidding to hide that stuff. So I’m certain it was there, but no, I never got to seize that, unfortunately. Never got the big cash hoard. The big briefcase full of money that everybody says, I ain’t mine, that ain’t mine. I know. Oh, it must be mine.

[26:41] Well, they all got off the street. That was ultimately the idea was, let’s lower the violent crime by getting active gang members off the street. You know, it was kind of the original intent anyway, so…

[26:54] Well, interesting. Now, what about, you talked about having some brush with Gotti. What’s the story with that? Yeah, so the transition time between being a musician and being a cop, while I was in music school, I had this longing to try to get an experience with being on the road and ended up auditioning for this. It was, I guess, pop music, rock music, and some show music, along with a comedian and all this craziness that I auditioned for. And they were out of Pennsylvania in the Poconos. And out of Jersey. And so obviously I didn’t know anything about the mob at the time. I’m just a long-haired drummer who’s trying to get experience on the road. So I auditioned for this outfit, make the audition, go up and they have a spot in the Poconos at the Caesars Palace Resorts in the Pocono Mountains, which is where all of the Goombas hung out. I mean, that was their spot, you know, and it was kind of accepted. I was just learning the ropes. I literally, on day one, was going to the cafeteria line at one of these resorts.

[28:08] And literally looked over at the girl that was serving the whatever it was. I don’t remember what it said. I don’t even know what I said. It was something innocent enough, but yes, she was pretty. And my boss immediately looks down at me and says, you can’t talk to her. That’s, you know, Tony, whoever’s daughter. And I’m thinking, I don’t know who that is, but, you know, but he’s given me an order. I’m just thinking that’s that’s strange so we’re what we would do is typically as the band guys we wouldn’t intermingle with a lot of the resort guests and stuff so we would go off in these little booths and stuff or go to the nightclubs where we they had these big nightclubs and we would tour between each of the nightclubs and play do comedy and all that open for tony bennett types and all that yeah so we’re over eating the sandwich one day and my boss.

[28:55] Whose name was Terry Moretti. And he was, man, he wanted to be connected. He could just tell. But he, and you got to realize, I’m still a musician, no cop experience, no, I’m the most nonviolent, hippie kid, whatever, I just want to play music kind of guy, right? I’m on this gig. And he answers the phone in this club area. They bring a phone over. It’s an actual landline phone.

[29:23] And he takes this call. Yeah, and I don’t know how much I can quote him because it was filthy mouth stuff, but he’s screaming, he’s spitting into the phone. He’s screaming, you mother, you blah, blah, blah, you never talked to me. He starts screaming, and I’m just looking across the table just flabbergasted, like, what is going on with this guy? He’s nuts, and he’s just going off. He slams the phone down and says, come on, we’re going back to the cabin. I said, yes, sir, I’ve got all my food. I’m just leaving all my food because I’m just freaking out. So I go up there and we jump in his Honda and he drives me up as he’s pulling up to my cabin where I stayed. This big Lincoln pulls up behind us and slides sideways in front of us. And my boss reached down to the console and pulls a gun and says, run. Oh, shit. All these guys start bailing out of this Lincoln in front of me. I’m like, am I in a movie? What’s going on here? But no sooner did I think, am I in a movie? I also hauled ass. To my cabin, because I’m not sticking around to find out what’s going on. So all these guys are bailing out this Lincoln, and you could tell this had to be the people that he just cursed out. I don’t know. They had some big standoff. And so they had all this, and nothing ended up happening. I didn’t even watch the end of it, because I went as far away from potential bullet flying as I could.

[30:45] But the next day I go to a payphone and I’m calling my roommates and I’m saying, man, I’ve had some experiences here and I’m really kind of concerned that I think like the mob is everywhere here. And I thought the mob was just in the movies. I said, but I told him about this story and I recounted that and recounted all these orders about these people’s daughters and everybody that works there and can’t talk to anybody. And I said, this is the weirdest experience I’ve ever had. And the very next day before our show, my boss walked into the dressing room and said, don’t you ever mention the word mob again. None of this is your business. You know what you’ve been told and just do what you’ve been told and you don’t understand what you’re getting into. And I’m thinking, I called my friends from a pay phone at a 7-Eleven. And this guy is getting onto me for those types of things. So I was, honestly, it scared the crap out of me at that point. I was like, okay, well, I’m not doing anything. I’m not supposed to. I’m not looking for trouble. But I thought, I didn’t think the mob even existed in the 90s. Like, you know, this is passe. Well, you know, to whatever extent. I mean, obviously, Gotti’s a rock star. And that’s what happened, you know, within the next couple of months is my boss was heard that Gotti’s wife had fell ill, which she had. She was in the hospital. So, he went and visited her.

[32:10] Gotti came out to the show that night. And this was another perspective for me is, you know, he walks up to me and he literally puts his hands around my neck. This is nothing that would happen to me today, I assure you. But as a hippie kid, just like trying to learn life, he puts his hand up and pushes me against the wall. He said, this is how you were going to greet Mr. Gotti. You don’t look up. You only reach out your hand if he reaches out his hand and don’t say a damn thing unless you’ve spoken to. And I’m thinking, okay, okay. But then I thought, wait, did he say Mr. Gotti? And then I’m freaking out. Like, what? So that night during the show, we go out on the stage and we play. And, you know, after the third number where we’re telling a few jokes, he said, I’d like to introduce a dear friend of mine. And, you know, his wife is ill, but, you know, Mr. John Gotti’s in the audience today. And this is an arena with 4,000 people in it. Every single person stands up, standing ovation, clapping, cheering loudly. And Mr. Gotti stands up from the middle of the crowd and just kind of waves at everybody. I thought, oh, my gosh, this dude’s a rock star.

[33:19] He’s a rock star here. So then I’m super confused. Because, again, this is like the Pablo Escobar thing. Well, the poor people swear he gives them free things and helps the community. And it’s the same thing. Robin Hood, Jesse James, same thing. Wow. That’s the most confusing experience of my life. And he comes backstage, shakes everybody’s hand. Of course, I’m staring at the floor when he walks in, sticking my hand out when I see a hand. So the experience was not that notable because I didn’t even hardly speak to the guy. But the fact that he was there and I got that type of impression amidst that kind of environment really woke me up to the fact that, wow, organized crime is no fallacy. These guys are alive and well, and they have the public’s support. And, you know, it was an absolute eye-opening experience for me to be able to meet that guy. Really. You know, talk about the mafia. And, you know, the mafia is organized with a boss, an underboss. Capos are like capo regimes. They have so many guys working under them.

[34:26] Then you’ve got soldiers. Maybe you’ve got a consigliere. Now, can you compare and contrast that with a crypt street gang? Do they have any kind of organization at all?

[34:35] They do, but they are not nearly as organized as they should be. I think if they were more organized, we’d all be in a lot of trouble, honestly. They have guys that they’ll call themselves OGs. There are not that many OGs. There was an OG in this case, but he wasn’t even really the kingpin. He was a guy that was in his 40s who shouldn’t have been playing around anymore, but just got out of prison and ended up kind of back in the game a little bit. But he was an OG because he actually was out with running the parks with Tukey Williams, who started the Crips in L.A. And he was displaced here into Texas and was running around with these guys, but wasn’t playing a significant role, didn’t really play that. But they called him OG.

[35:18] Most of it, I found, was predicated on the level in which you ran business, whether they’re selling guns or running prostitutes or selling dope. So it was almost like that kind of hierarchy. I didn’t hear the mention of lieutenants and things like that much, but I knew exactly who was on different tiers. But it turned out that it coincided directly with, all right, well, if you want to start buying multiple keys, you need to go see this guy. If you want to buy street level whatever or get a whore, you go talk to this guy. And so there were still social levels of people there. And pretty much the guys at the top were recognized as guys at the top. Everybody else was kind of fighting to be known, but they did so in their work. I think a lot of that does align with the way the families or, you know, in terms of.

[36:13] Not necessarily in terms of a formal title, but in terms of how you earned your keep. You know, that’s how you moved up in those families, too. You were a real hustler, and you started bringing in big business. You earned opportunities to move up. It was the same thing, which is less formalized in this case. Yeah, like in a mob, there’ll be a guy who was a little more, he’d be a soldier, even an associate, but he’d be a little more of a natural leader. And then guys will gravitate to him because he has this certain skill or these connections and certain skills that set up jobs that are lucrative for everybody. And so what I hear you’re saying is within these crypts, did they call them sets down there? I remember we used to have different sets, which would be a smaller group within the larger group. And so a certain set will then have a pretty lucrative, have a good connection for dope. And so that, you know, they may be higher in the hierarchy, but these sets are all totally separate from each other. Right. It seems like they’re not, whereas the mob, they really have a real pyramidal thing, but it doesn’t sound like they really are so pyramidal.

[37:21] There aren’t as pyramidal. They are in concept, but they aren’t really as in formality. And when you think of sets, you can just think of it as the different families. Because you couldn’t just volunteer to be a mob family. I mean, the mob families were the mob families. But you also didn’t encroach on other people’s business. There were rules about encroaching into other territory and things like that. That’s exactly how the Crips work. And unfortunately, and probably the same for Mobland, I mean, if any of those guys decided we’re going to become one entity.

[38:00] It would have been a huge nightmare for society and law enforcement and everybody because then you would multiply the amount of weight that they pulled. And it’s the same thing within gangs. I think the best thing you can do is just lean on the fact that they’re not smart enough to all come together as one and remain organized and civil enough to do that for a bigger purpose, which is fortunate for all of us law-abiding citizens. Yeah, really. If you think about the mob, the mafia brought this organization that I described, you know, the boss, the capos, and they brought that from Sicily. That’s been going on for several hundred years in Sicily. They brought that here. Now, the Crips, this is a homegrown thing that just started in like the 1960s. More highly organized as gangs. We ran into a deal when they first came out here from L.A. We started the L.A. Boys Task Force, and I was part of that with my TAC team. We started figuring out that a lot of these taggers, everybody is freaking out about taggers. We got all these different gangs. Sometimes we’d learn that the 31st Street Crips were nothing but three kids running around with spray cans. And, you know, it was, you had to look at the narcotics angle to figure out who was who. And that it’s the same down there. It sounds like.

[39:23] Yeah, for sure. Yeah, because you have wannabes, but it’s similar. You know, like I compare it now to a lot of the terrorist organizations that we’re combating. When it seems like you have a terrorist occurrence, something happens, and then someone like the FBI would say, well, you know, they weren’t on our radar. They’re not claiming to be a part of a whatever group or whatever. Some cases, that’s more dangerous than being a part of a bigger organization because you can’t keep track of rogue actors. So you get three kids that are taggers. You’re right. Most of the time, they’re just artists trying to be relational with other people that are lost. They have people that are in common. They take them into the group, but they’re kind of harmless. But you also get some of those smaller sets with people with very little to lose and you get the right sociopathic combination and then they’ll just walk up and murder you like it’s nothing because they don’t care if they get caught. And in that case, same with, you know, a Gambino family. I mean, they decide you’re going to be offed. Even the guys within the family would figure out, well, it’s, you know, time for me to do my Sonny Black. I need to turn in my stuff and, you know, prepare myself because it’s, yeah, it’s about to happen. And so, you know, it’s, it’s kind of that, that it’s a lot of parallels in that criminal world. Really interesting. Did you ever watch the wire? Did you get into watching the wire?

[40:52] Man, I started to. I need to go back and watch it. I don’t know if it still stands up. That gives PTSD, man. That puts you right back on them streets.

[41:00] So I was still working. I was still working when I came out. And that’s literally the only thing that I hated was I felt like I was just extending my already long work day. But it wasn’t bad. You would.

[41:16] Ultimately, the one thing about the wire that I appreciate the most, and is the way I approached my book too is that I appreciated that as an audience.

[41:27] You’re kind of rooting for some of the bad guys and some of the good guys. And you kind of pick and choose based on some of the characters you’ve grown an affinity toward. And I felt the same way in my case. Like when I wrote the book, I thought I’m not making enemies out of all these people. Some of these guys are really, have endeared themselves to me and are really kind of good dudes otherwise. And so when I present it, I present it like, man, you know, I know some people are going to read this and kind of hope that guy makes it out because you know what? I hoped that he would make it out. I hoped that at the end he would go ahead and cooperate and get a downward departure and I would testify as to his character and the dude would get a minimum sentence and be out and contributing to his society. And that’s the beautiful thing about the way the story was set up and in the wire too. So that’s, because that’s real life. You know, it’s not, everything’s not black and white. No pun intended.

[42:21] That’s for sure. Yeah, really. And in this case, for sure. But yeah, things are not all one way or all another way. And that’s the thing. When you work close to people on the streets, undercover like you did, you have a lot of informants. You really, when I was a patrol officer, I would get out of the car and I would go talk to people and talk to them a lot, trying to develop informants. And you find out. That is, it’s not, you’re not like a soldier in a war zone. You know, there’s a lot of really good people out there and there’s a lot of kids that are just lost and they just need a direction, try to get some kind of direction. And it’s, you know, it’s emotionally harder when you really get close to people. But I think the bank cops are the ones that will get close to people.

[43:01] I totally agree with you. And I appreciate that you did that because there’s not enough of that going on still. I think there’s, there’s a lot to be said, even, even if you’re not gathering information and you’re just trying to. Gain some kind of rapport and have a relationship with the people in your city and, you know, some of the, you know, gang parts of town or whatever. I think it’s admirable what you did. And I think that there’s a lot of people back in your day, my day, and on forward that need to take those lessons forward and just, you know, try to be humans, man. Come on. I had guys tell me we had a big sector. Half of it was more in the white neighborhood and nicer businesses. And then half of it was, was, was all black. And, and these guys used to say, well, Jenkins, you just go over there in the east side and never come out. You know, it’s boring over there where you are sitting around at 7-Eleven talking to each other. Come on over here, it’s not so boring.

[43:59] Being productive here. Yeah. And that’s a beautiful thing. That’s a beautiful thing to that. I mean, they’ve talked about segregating cops to where you can put black officers in black neighborhoods and Hispanic officers in Hispanic neighborhoods so that there’s that cultural relationship. And I think that also tends to be a problem because I think we just need to acknowledge that we have a lot to learn about other cultures and make a concerted effort to learn about other people. That’s really all it takes is a little effort. Yeah.

[44:30] Because it’s interesting. It’s interesting as hell. And I tell you, I made a friend over there, and I went into a barbershop. I came back off duty, and we went to a barbershop they always like to go to. You know, in the black community, the barbershop is a center. And sit there and play checkers with guys and talk with them. And, you know, you just find all these really fun people that, you know, you just have this stuff with. They worked at different places. Some of them were criminals. A couple of them were, all of a sudden, one of them says, quit talking to me about that bank robbery. He says, that’s a cop sitting over there.

[45:00] You know, they had everything in there, you know, most of them worked at the Ford plant or Chevy plant or, or, you know, for the post office and things like that. It’s really nice people. That’s beautiful. And there’s, you know, there’s other dudes that would be scared to go in one. So again, you can really experience it and you can’t judge, you know. Really? All right. Deegan Broadwater, tell us a little more about what you’re up to now. Let’s sell your book. You’ve got companies and you’ve got a podcast. You’ve got all kinds of stuff. Yeah, I’ll whip through it. But after this case became public and after a while I was outed as the undercover, people were encouraging me to write a book. And ultimately, during the debriefs of these guys and getting their backgrounds, we discovered there were 104 children left fatherless after rounding out these 51 people. And it made me really think about whether or not this was solving any of the problem or not. And I acknowledged that, yes, these dudes have to go to prison. But no, it’s not solving the problem. This is step one of many steps that have to happen. And so what really inspired me to write the book was when I discovered that, I thought, okay, well, I’m going to write the book. Will tell the story in a realistic manner and then we’ll donate all the profits of the book to charities that mentor children of incarcerated parents.

[46:26] So, and I’m thousands of dollars in the hole having written this book, but I’m proud to say, you know, we donate all of what would have been money in my pocket to those organizations because ultimately you’ve got to keep their kids from becoming part of that cycle of violence, you know, because everybody knows what a poor fatherless home for a kid is going to serve him. And the stats are too high that they’re just going to be susceptible to gang life and everything all over again. And you got to do a whole nother Operation Fishbowl in 20 years. And we don’t want to have to keep doing that. So I wrote that book and have been promoting the book for some time. You can get it on Amazon. It’s called Life in the Fishbowl. And I have a copy right here. You know, if you find that on Amazon, that’s the copy. All right. And again, it’s for a good cause. Other than the show notes too, guys.

[47:19] Appreciate that. And I left, I got so burnt out doing this. I mean, I’d never made more money in my police career because the feds are paying all my overtime and I literally have been overtime doing this thing. But I left and decided to do something with no risk, like leave with no retirement and start a company from the ground up. And so I say that facetiously, of course, but I started a private armed security firm and we do protection and armed security.

[47:47] Been doing that for 18 years and after covet i got back into the creative biz started writing music again because we were i was being courted to do a movie based on the book and so i told him i was a musician started getting all the stuff and i started writing music that was going to be placements in my own movie which i thought was a cool idea covet hits and you know spoils everybody’s plans but by then i’d kind of started i had the book out and i was writing music again and decided to do a podcast try to get just a little ip and now the podcast has turned into something of a passion project for me also because as you certainly well know we’ve been doing it a lot longer than i have it’s a fabulous experience to be able to to background and learn about all these different people and and in my case i i try to find commonalities and very unique people with extraordinary stories and we just try to find that through line that is so common between people and I just I feel like it’s a it’s a constant learning experience so.

[48:50] I’m doing that. I write a column for SoFRAP based on, you know, military, police, and music. And so I’m writing every week. And I just, you know, I fill my time is what I try to do. So I’ve got people helping me run the company right now that are doing a fantastic job. And so it’s been a rewarding life. I feel very blessed. I’m just trying to aim for things that will help impact positive change ultimately with all the projects that I’m doing. Okay. Tegan Broadwater, I really appreciate you coming on the show. And it’s been really fun for me, us sharing our little stories and our experiences because they’re not December. For sure. That’s for sure. Yeah. I’m very honored. I’m honored that you have me on. And I appreciate your service as well, sir. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show, Tegan. Thank you. You have a great one.