This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. Spending time outdoors, then let's talk about skin cancer. Non-melanoma skin cancers, or NMSCs, including basal cell carcinoma and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, are the most common cancers in the U.S. and can become harder to treat if left undetected.
That's why sun protection and timely detection matter. Our sponsor, Regeneron, is raising awareness about advanced NMSCs. Learn more and take the pledge to see a dermatologist annually at let's get real about skincancer.com. This is a message from Michelin. Of course, you're expecting to hear sounds like.
Or even But not this time. What you will hear is... Right? Because at Michelin, we innovate on the road and beyond by creating airless tires to equip robots in their exploration of new planets. And this robot is rolling in negative 88 degrees Fahrenheit.
Right now, get up to 15% off select storage solutions. Put heavy-duty HDX totes to good use, protecting what's important to you. The solid, impact-resistant design prevents cracking, and the clear basin sides make items easy to find even when the totes are stacked. Find select shelving and tote storage up to 15% off at the Home Depot to organize every room in your home, from your garage to your attic. Visit HomeDepot.com, how doers get more done.
Hey there, I'm Kat. I'm a college athlete. I was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, which caused back pain and stiffness every day. With Cosentics, I'm able to stay active. Cosintic secukinumab is prescribed for adults with active psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, or non-radiographic axial spondyloarthritis, available in both IV infusion and self-injection.
Don't use if allergic tochosentics. Get checked for TB before starting. Increased risk of infections and lowered ability to fight them may occur. like TB or other serious bacterial, fungal, or viral infections.
Some were fatal. Tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms like fevers, sweats, chills, muscle aches, or cough, had a vaccine or plan to, or if IBD symptoms develop or worsen. Serious allergic reactions and severe eczema-like skin reactions may occur. Learn more at 1-844-COSENTIX or COCENTIX.com. Move and feel better.
Ask a rheumatologist about COSENTIX. Um This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories. In the years after World War II, Los Angeles was a city caught between Hollywood clamor. in a growing criminal underworld. Here to tell the story is Ashley Lubinsky.
Ashley is a frequent contributor here on Our American Stories, and she was the former co-host of the Discovery Channel's Master of Arms. Let's take a listen. You boys shouldn't fight. You gotta be different like these four cops. They were known as the hat squad, and they wore hats and dusters as a symbol of that difference, and no criminal would mess with them.
And they protected people like me.
So maybe someday you could be like them. Inside the Los Angeles Police Museum, which is housed within the former Highland Park Police Station, there are so many objects that document way more than crime. And amidst all these items are a series of artifacts that appear deceptively simple. There are Four books, two from the 1950s and some from the 1940s, and they are worn. Bound volumes that are filled with photographs.
And on the outside, it mentions the gangster squad. And what these books are are called mug books. And when you open them up, you get it's almost like your old family photo album, but instead it's a bunch of criminals. And you see rows of faces captured in black and white, and a lot of notes about them. You've got Front-facing portraits, sometimes paired with these kind of profile views or pictures of them kind of out in the world, and they're arranged in careful rows.
And the format descends from kind of 19th-century rogue galleries, which were early photographic archives used by police to catalog repeat offenders. But over time, these evolved into kind of portable reference systems that they were books that detectives could carry, study, and rely on in the absence of a centralized database. And in Los Angeles, these volumes became a lot more dynamic. Their pages show where the edges softened, corners bent, some photographs bent, and surfaces that have been clearly handled repeatedly. By the time they came to the museum, they were used By an organization that is known as the Gangster Squad, but at the time they went by the Hat Squad.
When you look at modern mug shots, you see kind of the person, does not look great, holding the sign and having kind of the stripe lines behind them. But when you look at these mug books, you see men in three-piece suits that are looking quite good for having their mug shot taken. That's an interesting piece of style that existed with both the LA PD's hat squad and organized criminals. When you think about gangsters back East, you a lot of times think about the pinstripe suit, and that was not popular out in LA because of the Zoot suit riots. And so, gangsters and the gangster squad, who was trying to fly under the radar and sometimes impersonate other organized criminals, they kind of wore the same thing.
It was flashy, they wore tanned suits, they wore spectator shoes, and they wore their fedoras low on their heads, which is how the gangster squad actually was known as the hat squad, because they embodied LA style in every single facet.
So, to understand these mug books, we have to look at kind of the context of the time. By the 1940s in Los Angeles, it was becoming a breeding ground for organized crime. And the LAPD was incredibly concerned that East Coast and Chicago-based organized crime was going to kind of slowly start to migrate further west. And they had genuine reasons to fear this because it literally was. The LAPD responded in 1946 and they formed a kind of small specialized unit under the direction of Police Chief Clements B.
Horrell. And it was initially composed of just eight officers, and it became known as the Gangster Squad, or the Hat Squad, as they kind of preferred. And that was a nod to the fedoras that the members wore. Unlike traditional police units, the gangster squad operated with. A lot more autonomy, and that's what set it apart.
They essentially didn't exist. They were led in the early years by Sergeant William Burns, and his squad's mandate was basically simple. Keep organized crime out of Los Angeles. dot dot dot by any means necessary. and how that was accomplished was often left to the discretion of the officers themselves.
The Hat Squad was also known to have midnight chit-chats in the Hollywood Hills where they would take new criminals that have come to the area, associates of bigger criminals, and they would have what were referred to as heart-to-hearts, where basically, in some of the instances, they would put a gun to the head of the criminal and basically tell them to get out of town.
So, definitely a lot of questionable moments in the Hat Squad's career, but they were effective. They drove unmarked cars and sometimes there would be, it was like a clown car, there'd be so many of them piled into these unmarked cars. And they would park these unmarked cars kind of near operations by these organized criminals.
Sometimes they would dig out Illinois license plates from the DMV in LA and put them on the car to convince the criminals that they're not cops, they're maybe rival gang members. They conducted a lot of surveillance, including illegal wiretaps. And their tactics included intimidation, warrantless searches, and extra legal pressure. Methods that reflected both the urgency of the mission and the limited oversight under which they operated. Uh And within this environment, these mugbooks became essential because it was basically a diary of LA's most wanted.
And they could gather photographs and gather dirt on them and write notes because their job wasn't necessarily to make all these little arrests. They were there to gather intelligence so that they could arrest criminals down the road. In fact, Mickey Cohen was arrested twice on tax evasion. Not necessarily, you might assume, from someone as prolific a gangster as Mickey Cohen. These records were not stored in evidence rooms.
They were basically working tools that were handled daily, flipped through in squad cars, consulted before raids or confrontations. In fact, in one of the later mug books, there is kind of a profile on the organized criminal Jack Dragna, who operated under the front of a Sicilian banana farmer. When you look at this, you see not just the mug shot, but like a list of like known associates, different names that the person went under, the arrest records. But then at the bottom of this mug book, in very, very small writing, it has like an other category and it lists a few things. And one of them is quote, a great lover, end quote.
And I'm not. Really sure why that was necessary? Four of the gangsters bought to know, but you know what? To each is out. In 1955, as a result of a lot of these kinds of illegal wiretaps, warrantless searches.
There was a California Supreme Court case that created the exclusionary rule, which said that LAPD officers could not use evidence gathered illegally in court, which really kind of changed the way that law enforcement operated, especially in Los Angeles. It was these court decisions and internal reforms. There were chiefs that came in, kind of grew the hat squad beyond just eight men to having women's units, and they created a much more structured system, ultimately with the gangster squad being disbanded. And those functions were absorbed into more structured divisions that would eventually evolve into LAPD's Organized Crime and Intelligence Division, and now it's under many different umbrellas. The firearms and badges often associated with the hat squad.
capture a lot of attention. But it's these books that were handled, studied, and worn from use that reveal how the work was actually done. In a city defined by reinvention, illusion, and performance, the Hat Squad relied on something far more concrete. The ability to recognize a face, To place it within a network and to act on that recognition. And within the pages of these mugbooks, that system, which was imperfect, powerful, and deeply human, still endures.
And a terrific job in the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Greg Hengler. And a special thanks to Ashley Lubinsky, she's a frequent contributor here, and she's doing this as a part of a series, The Stories of Objects. And my goodness, this book, this one on the gangster squad, the hat squad, fascinating. Here's LA. It's a city on the rise.
And of course, whenever there's a city on the rise, all the other crime families around the country, well, they want to get some territory. LA's response was to sort of form a, let's just call it, a non-sanctioned sanction organized crime unit that got to do almost anything it wanted. And then came the Supreme Court's case, MAP v. Ohio, and it basically said you need a warrant before you can do a search. And you can't beat up people to get a confession.
Oh, and you got to read people their rights. The story of the Hat Squad, the original gangster squad of the LAPD. Here on Our American Stories. Spending time outdoors, then let's talk about skin cancer. Non-melanoma skin cancers, or NMSCs, including basal cell carcinoma and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, are the most common cancers in the U.S.
and can become harder to treat if left undetected. That's why sun protection and timely detection matter. Our sponsor, Regeneron, is raising awareness about advanced NMSCs. Learn more and take the pledge to see a dermatologist annually at let's get real about skincancer.com. I'm U.
S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. Mm-hmm. The sound of a seatbelt. It's one of the most important sounds in our car.
It means everyone is ready and everyone is safe. The more our kids see us put on our seatbelts, the more natural it is for them to put theirs on too. Make it a priority. Buckle up every time. Hear the sound?
Make it a habit. Paid for by NHTSA. Yeah. Honey, Felipe sent another photo. From Argentina?
How? With T-Mobile, of course. Mira, he's video calling us. Hold up, Amelia. Did you get my photos?
We did. They're so pretty. Here to share every moment with T-Mobile. Enjoy data roaming at no extra charge in 21 Latin American countries. Switch now on the TeenLife app or t-mobile.com/slash conictape.
Qualifying plan required not for extended international use. You must reset in the US and primary usage must occur on our network. Visit TMobal.com. When Kohler, global design leader in luxurious kitchen and bath products, asked me to be their ambassador for timeless, elegant, durable cast iron, I said, I'm in.
Soon after, I was in their Kohler, Wisconsin foundry, watching molten iron poured, enamel applied by hand, and the beautiful finished pieces ready to ship. Since eighteen eighty three Kohler cast iron has been crafted by incredible artisans, and seeing it first hand gave me a whole new appreciation for their craftsmanship.
Now I am proud to lend my stamp of approval to my favourite Kohler cast iron products for their durability, beauty, and enduring style. Shop my curated pics at Kohler dot com. As the Kohler Cast Iron Ambassador, I say, Long live Cast Iron Mm.
