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Amazon Health AI presents painful thoughts. I um I can't stop scratching my downtown. Mm-hmm. Yeah, but I'm not itching to go downtown and tell a receptionist I'm here to talk about my downtown some things you'd rather type. And say out loud.
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Complete disclosures available at public.com slash disclosures. This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star. and the American people. Our next storyteller is a law enforcement consultant, author, and active senior lead officer in Los Angeles. We'll let him introduce himself.
Let's take a listen. I'm Dion Joseph. I am a 27-year veteran of law enforcement. My primary assignment is working in the Skid Roar area of downtown Los Angeles, working with the homeless. Been doing so for about 25 years.
Ended up being my calling. The reason it became my calling was kind of weird. I never, A, never wanted to be a police officer. I was raised to, not raised, or indoctrinated by friends and activist groups that I ran with, that the police were basically my natural mortal enemy. And a couple of times I was racially profiled didn't help.
Uh when I was a civilian, uh then came the Rotten King incident. And right in the king incident, on top of the insults and injury of those officers getting off for doing that horrible act that they engaged in. uh really really had a negative impact on me so I suffered from what's called availability bias. The only thing that was being shown or told to me about police officers was negative. My favorite rap groups were Public Enemy, NWA, KRS1, and everything they said was either F the police or the police were beasts.
They were monsters who were trying to exterminate black people. And I bought into it. I bought into it. And what happened was my father and mother, they founded the first black-owned restaurant in the city of Long Beach. Literally, they were history makers.
And their goal was to try to employ and empower the community. And it worked. He had a successful construction business. He was giving guys second chances who couldn't get chances because their criminal record and whatnot. And when we started that restaurant in that shopping center, it was pretty successful.
And then the riots hit. And after the riots, our construction company suffered because not a lot of people wanted to hire a black-owned company. It was one of the fallouts of the so-called rebellion. And I was out of work for about, I'm going to say about three or four months. No paycheck, and I had just met the most beautiful woman in the world, my beautiful wife, Tasha.
And of course, You don't want to be a deadbeat. You want to be able to support and take care of your future wife.
So I put my name in the hats of many jobs, many jobs, and not one called me. And then I had a friend and an uncle, an uncle who was on the police force, and he says, Hey, our department is hiring. Won't you put your name in that hat? And I was like, That police force? Uh-uh.
I just saw what they did to ride the king. I'm not going to do this. I will never be with that department. And things got worse for me. And finally, I just said, you know what?
Go ahead and put your name in the head and see what happens. And if they called me, I felt like I was gonna do like three years and quit and go finish college or something like that. or do something else.
So, anyway, I was praying and praying and praying for other jobs to call me, and the only one that called me was my current agency. And I'll never forget. When I got the letter, I was in my mom's restaurant, and three of my childhood friends, people who have known me for years, are sitting at a table eating some short ribs and Chicken and I showed my mom, I said, mom, I passed, I made it. and she started celebrating and she was saying, my son's gonna be a police officer. All three of my friends looked at me.
I won't call them friends, I'll call them associates. Looked because my friends would never desert me. Looked at me, stood up. Walked out of the restaurant and wanted nothing to do with me anymore. And I couldn't believe it, I hadn't even put on the badge yet.
But it was affecting my quote-unquote blackness, so to speak. You know, as we're in the age of identity politics, you know, there's a certain way you have to identify yourself as a black man. And I guess they didn't see me as a black man anymore. They saw me as the enemy, and I hadn't even put on a uniform yet. Nonetheless, I was raised not to really care about what people thought about me.
I had a goal. I wanted to take care of my wife, and I wanted to get married and be a good supporter. And uh I joined. And I was before joining, I'll never forget. Boost.
My wife's side of the family, they didn't have a very good relationship with the police. In fact, it was horrendous. Uh you know you talking about Police officers back in the seventies kidnapping my mother-in-law and driving her around a block threatening to hurt her. You know, cousins of theirs who were shot, you know, unarmed and things of that nature. They were not fans of the police.
So I kept getting it from all sides, you know. From my mother-in-law's side, it was: don't let those quote-unquote white boys change you. Don't let those white boys change you. Here's what they did to me back in 1960. Everything was past tense.
Everything was past tense. And it was scaring me. It was scaring me. And of course, my dad, he was a little disappointed at first that I joined, because, of course, every father wants his son to continue. The legacy of the business, but That just wasn't for me.
So he was telling me about all the horror stories that my uncle saw on the job, and all these things were swirling in my mind.
So I'll never forget it was the uh Christmas Christmas night. I proposed to my wife. She said yes, thank God. And the next morning, December 26, 1995, I was standing in what's called the black line. It was a tradition in the police academy that on your first day at the academy, all applicants have to stand on a black line.
And basically, what happens is they're testing your will, they're testing you. You have your instructors yelling at you and barking at you, seeing if you had the temperament or the, or you know, to be a police officer or not. I think we had several of my classmates quit. And the whole time I'm thinking, I know these guys are about to call me the N-word. It never happened.
Never happened. In the academy, 90% of what we learned was more about human relations in Spanish than how to keep our heads from being blown off our shoulders. That's how crazy it was. It's like it was complete opposite or juxtaposed to what. My family and friends were telling me.
And I was surprised at how. Open, they allowed me to be. I was able to share how many African Americans felt about the police and my experiences with the police, and no one shunned me. They listened, and it was really a great experience. It actually helped me break down stereotypes that I had of my white classmates and the other classmates I had.
Uh but that didn't cure me yet. And you're listening to Dion Joseph, a senior lead officer in Los Angeles, share his story, his early resentment. and partially well earned. Of the police he had had encounters that weren't good and but, my goodness, what he was learning as he was becoming an officer about his friends and himself and his fellow officers.
Well, it was a learning experience for everyone. When we come back, More of Deion Joseph's story here. on Our American Stories. Lee Habib here, and I'd like to encourage you to subscribe to Our American Stories on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, Spotify, or wherever you get our podcasts. Any story you missed or want to hear again can be found there daily.
Again, Please subscribe to the Our American Stories podcast on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, or anywhere you get your podcasts. It helps us keep these great American stories coming. Liberty has never been just a word to we Americans. It has guided every one of our endeavors for the past 250 years. And now it takes form in a new way.
The 2026 Semi-Quincentennial Coin and Metal Program from the United States Mint. It celebrates the founding ideals that have long shaped our coinage. Available one year only, this historic collection features new coin designs, limited edition releases, and reissues. Shop new official coins at usmint.gov forward slash semi-q. That's usmint.gov/slash S-E-M-I-Q.
Amazon Health AI presents painful thoughts. I um I can't stop scratching my downtown. Yeah, but I'm not itching to go downtown and tell a receptionist I'm here to talk about my downtown.
Some things you'd rather type. Then say out loud. There's no question too embarrassing for Amazon Health AI. Chat your symptoms and get virtual care 24-7. Healthcare just got less painful.
Mm-hmm. Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high-free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work.
It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one-of-a-kind index, and lets you backtest it against the SP 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com/slash podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com/slash podcast.
Paid for by Public Investing. Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc., member FINRA, and SIPC. Advisory Services by Public Advisors LLC, SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice.
Complete disclosures available at public.com/slash disclosures. Mm. You ever wonder how far an EV can take you on one charge?
Well, most people drive about 40 miles a day, which means you can do all daily stuff no problem. Go to work, grab the kids at school, get the groceries, and still have enough charge to visit your in-laws in the next county. But they don't need to know that. And the best part, you won't have to buy gas at all. The way forward is electric.
Explore EVs that fit your life at electricforall.org. And we continue with our American stories. and with Senior Lead Officer in Los Angeles. Dion Joseph Let's continue where we last left off. Then I ended up graduating from the academy and I ended up in the field in Venice Beach.
And I'll never forget. My first training officer was Basically, he abusive to me. He was very, very cruel. His whole mantra was: It's my job not to hire you to get you fired. And basically, I was this close to getting fired.
And my second training officer was a department legend. His name was Bill Snowden. And they told me to study up on him, and I pulled some of his police reports. I'm looking at this guy, he made 2,300 arrests in a black neighborhood called Oakwood. I'm like, oh my God, I'm about to work with this guy, a white guy who has arrested 2,300 black people in a small part of Venice Beach.
And I was like, all the things my family was telling me, and all the things they put in my heart, you know, was like swelling up inside of me, and I was scared.
So finally, I meet the man and we get in the car and I work with him. And I couldn't, he drove me over to Oakwood where he patrols. And it was the strangest thing. I'm driving through the area with this six foot four, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, white guy with a big old mustache, right? the stereotypical vision of what people would think.
a racist cop would look like. And as he's driving through the community, I'm hearing this. Hey, snow! Hey, God bless you, Snowden. Hey, thanks for helping my cousin, Snowden.
Oh my God. Hey, thanks for helping my cousin while he was in jail, Snowden. I'm sitting here like, what the hell is this? You know, is this guy scaring the community so bad that they just smile away? I thought it was in an episode of The Godfather or something like that.
It was weird. And he saw the look on my face and uh Uh, he said, he pulled the car over. He says, You got something on your mind? I was like, Sir, I don't understand it. You're in a black community.
You arrested half the people here and their mother. Why do these people love you? And he said this. Uh he said, Dion, this is Oakwood. It's one of the most violent areas in the city.
I'm not here because these people are black. I'm here because I'm not. people die. These people understand why we're here. But what they also want you to do is whether you're arresting them or counseling them or whatever.
You make sure you treat them with dignity and respect. That's all they want from us. And he said, as long as you work for me, young man, you will treat everyone we contact with dignity and respect. And I was like, whew, thank God. Another stereotype was completely broken down that my family was feeding me.
And it really, really helped me break my tunnel vision about, you know, groups of people, you know, especially white police officers. And it wasn't that he was Giving me permission to do that. I already knew that that was the cop I wanted to be. It was just good to know that an officer of his stature, this legend, this department legend, believed in the same thing I believed in. And it was a pleasure working this with this man.
And after my probation was up, he literally saved my career. I graduated from probation and ended up at Central Division and Central Division is uh where Skid Row is.
Now uh I wasn't really excited about going to skid rope. At all. I remember one of my training officers telling me, he said, Dion, You have to wear a body condom to work there. People have hepatitis, AIDS, HIV, they got needles in their pocket. You're going to get in there, use a force and get stuck with a needle and give your wife the herpes.
And I was like, oh my god. At the time, I was a germaphobe. I would like to wear five gloves to search people, you know. That's just who I was. And.
And it really scared me. And then he also said the cops there are also fat and lazy. They just let people do anything they wanna do over there. I was like, what? Oh man.
So I get on a freeway. And I'm driving, it's a hot summer day. I think it's in June or July. And I'm looking at the beautiful, picturesque. LA skyline.
And I'm like, this can't be that bad. Look, the bank towers over there. Look at all these skyscrapers. Can't be that bad. I get off on Sixth Street.
And as I get up on Sixth Street, I'm at the basin. I'll be West Coast symbol of America's economic might and power. And I'm seeing people in business suits. I'm seeing people drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, getting ready to go for work. And I said, what is my training officer talking about?
This is great.
Now, you know, if you get to some bad places, there's like about a mile and a half stretch of territory that kind of warns you first, you are now entering Hoodville. Get ready. This did not happen here. As soon as I crossed Spring Street, I'll never forget. It was like I tripped and fell into Dante's Inferno, Mad Max Thunderdome, Water World, any natural disaster movie.
I think an airplane fell from the sky. It was just really that bad. I'll never forget the smells. I remember seeing people having sex on the sidewalk. I remember seeing people shooting up and smoking crack right two blocks from a police station in broad daylight.
I remember trash. Piled so high that it came up to your knees, tense rocking. people arguing in the street. And I remember the saddest thing I saw was a young man in a hospital gown walking in the middle of the street talking to himself. Clearly, he was mentally ill and had been thrown away.
And I said to myself, God, I can't fix this. I'm going to put my transfer in as soon as I get into the station. I get into the station, and sure enough, it was the same thing. The same things I smelled and saw on the outside was inside, sitting on the bench, waiting to get transported to jail. I'm seeing parolees, gang members, homeless people, mentally ill people handcuffed to the bench, yelling, screaming, headbutting each other, set-tripping.
And I'm like, wow. And I'm noticing the officers are just typing like nothing's happening. And I look at one of my classmates, I'm like, do you see what the hell is happening here? And she just lit some insets and kept on talking. I was like, what happened?
And I get upstairs on the light room, go put my transfer in, go put my transfer in. And there was a sergeant who used to call us all Hermano or brother in Spanish. He said, Hey, Hermano, you're Officer Joseph. Hey, your first two months is going to be spent working the Front desk of Central Station. And I was like, oh, thank God God answered my prayer.
So I was like, oh, I don't have to deal with this crap. Two months working the front desk. I was wrong. at the front desk and it was the first of the month. And every Five, ten, to twenty minutes, somebody came in from skid roll.
with their arm broken backwards where they could swing it forty five degrees the other way. One lady came in with her cheeks lacerated, so like she had a second mouth, you could see her teeth. Another man walked into the station holding his stomach and moves his hand and his intestines fell out. And I couldn't believe what I was seeing. And the common thread with all of these people were.
I don't want a police report. I just want an ambulance to take me to the hospital. I have to live here. Because what I didn't realize, or what I did realize, was the station was in the heart of where. Skid row.
I also discovered the cops there weren't fat and lazy. They were just working in a time where the justice system didn't support their efforts, kind of what we're living in right now.
So I'm like, man, get me off this front desk. I can't take it. And then I get my first basic patrol car and it was Chinatown. Like Chinatown, yes. Culture, people in the park stretching and doing Tai Chi and great eating spots.
And I'm telling you, it was beautiful. Your blood pressure went down just parking there, right? And I'm about to write my first ticket. I was there only five minutes. About to write my first ticket at Alpine and Yale, if I remember correctly.
And we get a call. 181, respond to 7th and San Julian for the attack in progress. And back then attack meant rape. Sexual assault.
So we're driving like bats out of hill to get down there, and sure enough, we get there, and there's a woman sitting with her legs crossed, rocking back and forth. She was literally torn to shreds, face messed up, bleeding, skirt torn, and people were standing around her, mocking her. And I got out of the car and I tried to talk to her, and she wouldn't talk to me. And all I hear are these gang members, excuse my French, saying, Oh, that ain't gonna talk to you. Oh, you must be new here.
Get your ass back in the car, man. She ain't gonna tell you nothing. And literally, she told me nothing. I had to take a Jane Dole. Assault report.
called her an ambulance and that was that and i couldn't believe what i saw so my partner i said let's not go back here today And you're listening to active senior lead officer in Los Angeles Dion Joseph. Share the story of his life and his work. In Los Angeles, as a police officer, in that first assignment in Venice Beach. Boy, I can only describe that neighborhood as sketchy. I was there at around the same time he was I was living there.
And it's much different now. But it was sketchy and dangerous, and still can be late at night. And there was that training officer who he reported to.
Well, we've all had people we've had to report to. that were, let's just say, people we hoped to never report to again. and then came his training officer in Oakwood, who fit the stereotype. Of what he thought, well, white racist cops look like tall, blonde, blue eyes, and a mustache. Only, The black people he was serving in that neighborhood loved him.
And I loved him for a simple reason. He was there to serve them. He kept telling them again and again that he wasn't just there to treat the people with dignity who didn't commit crimes, but to even commit to the principle. that the perps and the suspects themselves deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. And then came Skid row.
And Chinatown. When we come back, More of the story of Dion Joseph. Here. on our American story. Liberty has never been just a word to we Americans.
It has guided every one of our endeavors for the past 250 years. And now it takes form in a new way. The 2026 Semi-Quincentennial Coin and Metal Program from the United States Mint. It celebrates the founding ideals that have long shaped our coinage. Available one year only, this historic collection features new coin designs, limited edition releases, and reissues.
Shop new official coins at usmint.gov forward slash semi-q. That's usmint.gov/slash S-E-M-I-Q. Amazon Health AI presents painful thoughts. I um I can't stop scratching my downtown. Mm-hmm.
Yeah, but I'm not itching to go downtown and tell a receptionist I'm here to talk about my downtown.
Some things you'd rather type. Then say out loud. There's no question too embarrassing for Amazon Health AI. Chat your symptoms and get virtual care 24-7. Healthcare just got less painful.
Yeah. Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high-free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work.
It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one-of-a-kind index, and lets you backtest it against the SP 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com/slash podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com/slash podcast.
Paid for by Public Investing. Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. member FINRA and SIPC. Advisory Services by Public Advisors LLC, SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool.
Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com/slash disclosures. Mm. You ever wonder how far an EV can take you on one charge?
Well, most people drive about 40 miles a day, which means you can do all daily stuff no problem. Go to work, grab the kids at school, get the groceries, and still have enough charge to visit your in-laws in the next county. But they don't need to know that. And the best part, you won't have to buy gas at all. The way forward is Electric.
Explore EVs that fit your life at electricforall.org. And we continue with our American stories. And with law enforcement consultant, author, and active senior lead officer in Los Angeles. Dion Joseph. Let's pick up.
where we last left off. We get back to Chinatown, and once again, we get the fifth in San Julian for an ADW in progress. We get there, and first we're wondering where the basic car for that area is, and they're tied up with three people they arrested. It's kind of a picture of how dangerous it was down there. We get to fifth in San Julian.
I see a man. Uh sitting Holding his chest on the sidewalk, and sure enough, somebody stabbed him and punctured his lung. and he points down the street to the man who did it, and I was like The guy was walking like He wasn't running away.
So I call the ambulance for him, we go to detain this guy, and I'll never forget him saying to me. Oh, why you so hard up? I'm going to be out in about two days. DA is going to reject this case. And I'm like, no, he's not.
I went to this station because one thing I can't stand is when you hurt people who are poor or downtrodden. You know, it's part of my DNA.
So I went to this station and I wrote the world's greatest police report. And I struggled because I was from a unified school district that really didn't give a crap about me, right? I literally had an English teacher that said, Dean, all you gotta do is put your name on the paper and we'll give you a seat. And I did that, taking the easy way out.
So, to this day, I still struggle with dangling participles and antecedents, and you know, as a result of not trying, that's my fault, not his. Anyway. I sat down and wrote the greatest police report in the world. Dotted every I, crossed every T, colon's everywhere, quotations in the right place. It was beautiful.
Gave it to the watch commander and there's watch commander we call him the red pin. And he would keep a red pen. And for new officers, he would just completely rip up their reports because he was an English major. And I think I saw a tear in his eye. He said, Joseph, this is the world's greatest police report.
I'm exaggerating, of course. And I was like, thank you, sir. Took the guy to jail, and I just knew that I was going to get a victim, a homeless victim, some justice. I came back two days later. I'm driving down the street, and I guess who I see?
The bald head guy who stabbed him. And he looked at me and said, I told you. I was ins I was upset, I was livid. I went into the detective's office and I said, Hey, I wrote the hell out of that report. And the detective said, You sure did, Officer Joseph.
It was a great report. And she showed me the disposition of the district attorney's office. And it says, DA reject because the victim is a drug addict and because they're homeless. I would ask anybody: does that sound fair to you? And the answer is absolutely not.
You know, justice should not be dealt to people who we believe are perfect people. You know, it's for everybody. And That was a moment that changed my life. You always find a catalyst, and that was my catalyst for why I decided to kind of stay and be a champion on top of my DNA. The reason why people thought I was crazy for being in Skid Row enthusiastically, right, was because my parents.
My parents were engaged in outreach their entire life. Their 47-year marriage, they helped raise 41 foster children on top of their four children and three grandchildren.
So I was around for about 17 of those kids, and you would think I would have a little resentment for not getting 100% of my parents' love, but no, it was actually wonderful to see my parents. Changed these kids' lives, whether they were with us for two weeks or for two years. And the cool thing about my parents, it wasn't just about the kids, they would often sneak and counsel the parents.
So the parents would end up being better parents when the kids finally went back to them. And I'll never forget: we took in kids who are sexually assaulted, homeless, neglected, malnourished. We even took home a neo-Nazi. And this kid's father told him, Don't eat the N-words food. I'm going to come sneak a Big Mac to you.
And I couldn't believe it, right?
So the father never came with that Big Mac.
So after about the third or fourth day, I think the kid got hungry and we caught him in the refrigerator sneaking some collard greens and black IPs and it was delicious and he didn't buy. He realized that the N-words foods is not going to kill you, right? And after about another month with us, he saw, he thought he was black. He was like, man, you know, we got pulled over by the police and this kid was like, you just thought this could be black. And we're all like, no, no, no, kid, no, don't do that.
I'll never forget that. It was a road trip to Louisiana, and it was hilarious. And he didn't want to go back to his own dad. He ended up, thankfully, being sent to his mother, who wasn't a neo-Nazi. And just watching my parents change the life of these kids was incredible to me.
Then my dad. He was a self-made man, grew up in the Jim Crow South, dealt with real tangible racism, not this transferred racism that we're dealing with today. We got kids today acting like they've lived through Jim Crow and they have no idea. What real, tangible, palpable, cross-burning you sit on the back of the bus racism is like. My dad grew up in that, and because of being so poor and so broke, being abandoned by his family at times.
he turned to crying. And of course, he changed his life, found the Lord. Uh, I met my mom in church, or actually, fell in love with my mom in church. They met at a hospital, and uh. Basically, he said I was never going to hurt anybody again to get what I needed.
So, when he became a successful businessman, he would always reach back and hire individuals who reminded him of himself. And I didn't know this. I was going through my background investigations with the department, and they, of course, one of the questions they ask is: have you ever associated with any known felons? And of course, I was telling the truth. Hell no.
I'm squeaky clean. You guys, you check me out. You guys talked to my fourth-grade teacher. What the hell? You know this, right?
And turns on my dad says, Sorry, son, you did. I said, What are you talking about? He said, You remember Cowboy the Framer? Yeah? Oh, he is a ex murderer.
What? You remember Andre? The guy you dig ditches with? I was like, yeah? He was a drug dealer.
And I was like, ugh. What? But I calmed down when I realized the beauty of what my dad did. He gave people a second chance who reminded him of himself. And if they wanted that second chance, He was going to help them.
He believed in hands up, not hands outs. He believed in hands up, giving people a hand up.
So, watching this inspired me, and I loved it. He never called his employees his employees, he always called them his friends. And I was like amazed by this. And you'll never hear me call a person in skid roll a bum, a hobo, a transient. I will always call them my friends, even if they're cussing me out.
I will always call them my friends. And then, lastly, my. Mother and father fed the homeless religiously every Saturday, cooking fresh home-cooked meals as if she was cooking for her family and taking it down to parks and helping families. And she did that up until she got sick and passed away.
So, after about three months of being in Skid Row, all fears went away, and I realized that I was home. This is what my parents were preparing me for. And all I was doing was in my own way carrying out their mission. And I fell in love with trying to help and change the culture of Skid Row as a patrol cop. I loved the community then just as much as I did now.
I just went about it differently. I arrested everybody and their mother. You know, that's what I did. If you were selling crack, if you were assaulting people, if you murdered somebody, I'm going to drive up and I'm going to stuff you in the back of my car along with several of your friends if I can. And that's a noble effort.
There's nothing wrong with that, nothing racist or. Cold about that. You know, you break the law, you got to do the time.
Well, what it did was it kind of left. It gave me a perception problem. To the community, because I didn't have time to stop and say what I was doing or why. Because I was so busy, it was just like, I'm just here to arrest black people.
So I ended up getting one of many names at the time: RoboCop. I've had many names.
So the first name was Uncle Tom, a house Negro, white man's boot-licking lapdog. I heard that one right. The combinations were just incredible. Then came Robocop because I walked like a robot. I had all this gear on me, and it's like you couldn't get away from me.
I knew every crevice of the area. And you're listening to Dion Joseph tell one heck of a story, not just about himself. not just about the people he defends, and calls his friends, those people on Skid Row, But also the model that his family provided for him, adopting so many people whose society. Would cast off, and you know, here on this show, we tell stories about people who society casts off. but great people, particularly people of faith, Well, give a second chance.
and give a real second chance. I hand up. Not a handout and they're very different things. And you could hear it. in Dion Joseph's voice and even a chuckle.
explaining the difference between a hand up. and a handout. When we come back, more of this remarkable story. It's a story about so many things, but in the end, about grace. and love.
Behind a badge. The story of Deion Joseph continues here. on our American stories. Liberty has never been just a word to we Americans. It has guided every one of our endeavors for the past 250 years.
And now it takes form in a new way. The 2026 Semi-Quincentennial Coin and Metal Program from the United States Mint. It celebrates the founding ideals that have long shaped our coinage. Available one year only, this historic collection features new coin designs, limited edition releases, and reissues. Shop new official coins at usmint.gov forward slash semi-q.
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Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com/slash disclosures. You ever wonder how far an EV can take you on one charge?
Well, most people drive about 40 miles a day, which means you can do all daily stuff no problem. Go to work, grab the kids at school, get the groceries, and still have enough charge to visit your in-laws in the next county. But they don't need to know that. And the best part, you won't have to buy gas at all. The way forward is Electric.
Explore EVs that fit your life at electricforall.org. And we continue with Our American Stories, and law enforcement consultant, author, and active senior lead officer in Los Angeles. Dion Joseph. Let's continue with the story.
So then, after about seven years in the street and then two years undercover. I got the opportunity to become a senior lead officer, another job I didn't want.
So I became a senior lead officer, and I didn't want to smile, wave, and kiss babies. I wanted to go back to doing what I was usually doing: fighting bad crime and getting bad guys off the street. But I was doing the same thing, expecting the same results, or different results. And I looked back on all the arrests I made and all the actions I took to try to make the community better. And nothing changed because that, once again, the justice system.
For every bad guy I put in jail, they were out the next day and they were replaced by two more.
Something I'll never forget. And I don't mean to preach, but I'm sitting on Main Street frustrated. Main Street was one of the most dangerous streets at the time, and I'm parked there. I'm seeing drug deals happening all over the place, right in front of my face. And I said, uh.
I just parked my car and said a prayer. I said, God, how can I fix this? You know, these people are suffering. What can I do? And all I heard in my spirit was: stay here.
Okay, I s parked my car there for six hours. And what happened was the drug dealers, what they expected me to do was park a few minutes and leave. But I stayed there for six hours. It was so funny because drug dealers kept coming up to my car going, hey, uh, Ain't it time for you to do something else? Ain't it time for you to go home?
And something told me I was risk it. I am home. And they were like, wow.
So I left. And it's about three-quarters of them came back. I came back, parked for another hour. They left, now it was half. I kept doing it until it was like.
No drug dealers on the block. And I did this for a week. I call it the sit-down technique. And about seven days after doing it, I saw this man come up to me. There's something called a silent majority in any community.
These are the people who they support police, they support law and order, but they have a figurative and literal gun to their head telling them not to talk to the police, even if you get stabbed, raped or shot. And this man knocks on my window and I'm thinking he's going to be another drug dealer asking me to leave. and I rolled out the window. He says, A I don't know who you are. But don't you ever leave this block.
This is the first time I've been able to walk down this street. in about 15 years. It worked. And I said, okay, it's working on this block, so let me switch to the next block.
So I called it the sit-down technique, and it started to reduce crime. I was reducing crime by myself. And I reduced crime 18% with no resources. And people couldn't believe it. They couldn't believe that Main Street was clean, Winston Street was clean, some parts of Fifth Street were getting clean.
It was crazy. But I couldn't do it for long. A lot of people focus on me, but I couldn't do it myself.
So, as I was starting to lose ground, God sent some incredible officers to help me hold down Main Street and the streets that I took care of until. The Safer Cities Initiative, and that's when 50 incredible officers were brought to the division to focus on Skid Row and help reduce crime. And while they went on the offensive, I went on the defensive and tried to build relationships to let the community know that we're not doing this to you, we're doing this for you. Because we had activists in the area who were actively telling them that we were trying to get rid of them, we wanted to criminalize them, and none of that was true. What are the police supposed to do when 95 human beings die from non-homicidal deaths in one year in a 50-block radius?
What are we supposed to do? Let it happen? That's the cruelty. The cruelty is not enforced in the law. The cruelty is not enforced in the law.
What are we supposed to do about that? Sit on our hands. Because it's not the optics aren't friendly? No, we refused to do that. We recognized a skid row accounted for like 50% of all the crime in the area, and we went in.
And it wasn't just enforcement, it was enhancements, outreach, and we were arresting people for the sake of getting them to programs. That they normally would refuse without a push. But now, for the first time in my career, We had the justice system working with us. Parole, probation, the DA's office, everybody was on board. We have to fix Skid Row, it's a disaster.
And during that time, I always say: if you want somebody to change, you have to create an environment conducive to that. That's common sense, that's not political, that's not left or right. And I'll never forget. During the time where we created the environment through enforcement, enhancement, and outreach. It made certain individuals ready for help.
So, as a senior lead officer, I began networking with Housing agencies inside Skid Row and outside of Skid Row. I did that on my own because I know there were individuals who are desperately wanting to get off the street. Not everybody, but I housed about 150 people in 10 years who were ready because of our push.
Now that's nothing. In Skid Rollers, about 2,000 people on average who choose to sleep in the street. There's very few people who aren't there by choice. I would say about 35% of the individuals are there because the party, because this is a place they can go and do their thing. Many people aren't homeless.
But why didn't those other two thousand Come for help. because they weren't ready. They weren't ready. But by the grace of God, due to the push, we got 150 people off the streets. And then through the initiative, we got a lot, 2,225 individuals signed up for programs.
Now, I'm not saying everybody completed the program, but about 30% of them, in my estimation, did. And people were going home, people were reuniting with family members. We were finding missing people, murderers. It was a beautiful time. And then I used my resources to build bridges with the community, community members that normally wouldn't talk to the police.
Of course, you had your extreme activist groups. There's no talking to them. They don't want to sit at the table. They say they want to sit at the table. No, they want to completely turn it over just to feel a sense of power that ends up doing more damage to the people they claim they're trying to help than anything else.
It just made me realize that community policing, grassroots community policing, does work, but you got to put the work in. You can't be scared. And I helped this group. Give paint, trash cans to beautify the community. They literally.
Clean the community up better than the city did. No shot at the city, it's just these folks are more passionate about it. They painted murals saying, These are black people, right? Saying we want clean, safe, healthy streets. Black people.
You know, but the news never reported this stuff. Skid Row was relatively safe, and they did it on purpose. You know, they only want one narrative about the police, right? But the reality is during 2005 and 2011, Skid Road was a relatively safe place to live. Here are the effects of it.
And it was just a beautiful time. I have no regrets. I've saved more lives than anybody who criticizes me for being a police officer. Everyone who criticizes me, they either turn their head and look the other way. I would not change this career or the path that I've taken.
for anything in the world. I'm still going to continue to try to be a light in the dark place. I remember every time I go on vacation. If I'm gone 30 days and I come back, it's like their long-lost father just came home. Damn, RoboCode, where you been?
Man, it's been crazy out here. I'm like, you remember I was telling you about Bill Snowden, you know, him driving down the street and people screaming his name from the rooftop. The same thing happens to me. People don't understand why I'm so passionate. You can call me crazy, you can call me whatever you want.
I touch these things and until you touch it, you will never ever understand why I'm so passionate about bringing in a sense of order to Skid Row. Yes, law enforcement is such an important component. Anything you want to do, whether it's a noble cause, such as get people safe and clean, or have a concert. If it's not safe, no one's going to go. If you want to run a school, if it's not safe, kids aren't going to learn.
And I believe public safety is the cornerstone of all of that. I believe in crime control. And when you say that, people start shaking. But the truth is. I also believe in due process.
and we need to stop vilifying the concept of law enforcement. Because places like Skid Row need order if we're going to save lives down there, if we're going to get people into these programs, we need the justice system to work again in a matter where it did before, where if I brought a drug addict to you, you put them in a mandatory drug program. That doesn't exist anymore.
So, all I can do right now is just be visible and try to deter people from getting hurt. That's the system. I'm not saying this because I hate the homeless. I'm saying this because I care about them. This is not a police perspective.
It's coming from the perspective of a human being who cares who just happens to be a cop. And that's me in a nutshell. And a terrific job on the production, editing, and story gathering by our own Greg Hengler. And a special thanks to Deion Joseph for sharing his story, and it's a heck of a story. On all of us can learn from.
That moment he was on Main Street, watching drug dealers, as he said, everywhere around him. And he offered up that prayer to God, Lord, how can I help this? He heard two words from God. Stay here. And it's what he did.
And he did what he called the sit-down technique, and that is just sit-down. And what do you know just by his presence?
Well, the drug dealers slowly started to fade away. In fact, one of them even walked up to him and sort of said, Hey, when are you going home? Ain't it time for you to go home? His rebuttal was I am home. And then that knock on the window, I don't know who you are.
But don't leave the block. Don't leave the block. By the way, this is a call to arms for so many men and women. who can well sit and be present on a block that might Have problems, just your presence. can make the difference.
You don't have to be a law enforcement officer to make a difference. by doing the sit. This story was about so many things. Public safety. being a cornerstone, but due process too.
and compassion. and mercy and love for the least of these. The story of RoboCop Robocop Dion Joseph. No robot at all. Here.
On our American stories. Liberty has never been just a word to we Americans. It has guided every one of our endeavors for the past 250 years. And now it takes form in a new way. The 2026 Semi-Quincentennial Coin and Metal Program from the United States Mint.
It celebrates the founding ideals that have long shaped our coinage. Available one year only, this historic collection features new coin designs, limited edition releases, and reissues. Shop new official coins at usmint.gov forward slash semi-q. That's usmint.gov/slash S-E-M-I-Q. In football, you've got guys from everywhere.
Different backgrounds, different beliefs, all of it. You don't agree on everything. but you got each other's backs. That's how it works. And right now, off the field, hate's going up everywhere.
Different communities, different ways. And Jewish communities are getting hit hard. That's not how a team operates. The blue square is just one way of showing you've got people's backs. Go to bluesquarealliance.org, grab one, share it, be a good teammate.
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Well, most people drive about 40 miles a day, which means you can do all daily stuff no problem. Go to work, grab the kids at school, get the groceries, and still have enough charge to visit your in-laws in the next county. But they don't need to know that. And the best part, you won't have to buy gas at all. The way forward is electric.
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whether it's from our phones, Or kids in the backseat bickering. But how we handle these distractions can be a matter of life. or death. Before you get on the road for your next road trip, Please put your phones on silent. and take a mental note.
to focus on driving. Paid for by Nitza.
