Hollywood ain’t got shit on us. In the movies, the bad guys’ responses are known in advance. In undercover work, nothing truly can be known ahead of time. I have used the term “pretending” when talking about UC roles. Undercover work is acting at its best, and it is damn hard. Things happen without warning, and you’d better be able to disguise your fear, anger, or disdain.
Movie actors do numerous takes to get it right. Undercover agents get one per scene.
TAKE 1: UP AGAINST THE KLAN
While at that massive KKK rally at Stone Mountain with Futvoye and those guys, I had to muster all of my acting skills.* At one point, we were sitting on the back of our pickup truck, waiting to meet up with a violator. He came walking up with his young child. This guy’s son was about ten years old. When he introduced the boy, the dad said, “Tell them who you are, son.”
The kid spouted some memorized line, something to the effect of: “I’m a white American, and I hate Jews and niggers.”
I was floored. I had two sons close to his age. As I sit here recalling, I can say with total certainty that if it had been my case, I would have shut it down right then and there and spent the next hour giving that Klan father the beating of his life. Instead, it was incumbent on me to stay in role and finish the job.
As soon as I could, I went home and hugged my kids.
TAKE 2: THE EMISSARIES
Feeding off your partner in a UC environment isn’t something you can be taught. It’s on-the-job training and survival of the fittest. If you do UC with one partner long enough, it’s almost like a marriage. You know what the other person is thinking before they say it. You finish their sentences, and you fill in their silences. Most importantly, you both know what not to do and when not to do it.
On one such occasion, I was thankful Bird was my partner because we had that kind of simpatico relationship. While infiltrating Lil Rat’s outlaw motorcycle gang, he wanted us to go raise some hell at a competitor’s tattoo parlor. The competitor apparently was talking shit about Lil Rat around town. Bird and I immediately recognized this as a test. We used the ruse of stopping to gas up our bikes to steal a few minutes away to get a plan together. We already had seen a couple club members trying to do surveillance on us, no doubt reporting back to Lil Rat on how well we followed his orders. Whatever we were going to do at the rival tattoo parlor had to appear legit from a distance.*
In five minutes, Bird and I threw together a plan, more like a very loose theory. As we rolled into the parking lot of the rival tattoo artist’s shop, we had eyes on the two guys following us. They parked slightly down the street. I remember thinking: “They can’t hear us, so it only needs to look good.”
The shop was closed and the lights were dimmed, but the guy’s truck was there and we could see movement inside.
Jay said, “I’m gonna hang back over here.”
Over here was just a few feet away, behind a pillar for cover if this went badly. I walked up and pounded loudly on the door. That mostly was for our friends down the street. I saw the guy inside stand up and stagger a few steps, looking toward the front door. Through the window glass we both could see that he had picked up a shotgun.
I whispered to Bird, “Just be cool.”
The guy inside flung the door open. The first thing out the door was the barrel of a 12-gauge shotgun. I had my hand very close to my pistol, but as the barrel of his gun touched my forehead, I could see that his finger wasn’t on the trigger.
Generally speaking, in the law enforcement community, when the bad guys’ guns come out, the good guys’ guns come out too. Cops are conditioned to this response when confronted with lethal force, a knife, or a gun. But in the UC world, the bad guys’ weapons being drawn sometimes signals success for the operation.
I calmly said, “I hope you don’t think you’re the first person to ever point a gun at me, but if you don’t want to be the last, you better lower that motherfucker most ricky-tick.”
He started to say something, which is exactly what I wanted. Under a peak stress situation, unless you have muscle memory—usually acquired by training a specific motor skill over and over—your brain takes time to process the simplest action. In other words, this guy wasn’t good enough to talk and shoot at the same time. I also could tell he was way more scared of me than I was of him. I took comfort that if I was wrong, and he shot me, Bird already had drawn a bead on his head, and even Bird couldn’t miss from that far away.
We had a pact that if some violator ever shot one of us when we were on a deal, he/they would never see the inside of a courtroom. I’m glad neither of us had to live up to that pact.
While this guy was trying to respond to my brazen comment, with my left hand I snatched the shotgun out of his now sweaty hand and simultaneously beaned him upside his head pretty fucking hard with my motorcycle helmet, which was in my right hand. He went down like Smokin’ Joe Frazier.
It was an extremely calculated act on my part. He had a gun to my head. Legally, Jay or I would have been completely justified shooting him dead right there.
The guy had fallen backward into the shop. Bird and I scurried inside, locked the door, and pulled the shades. Now our friends down the street couldn’t see or hear shit. We chilled the guy out, never giving ourselves up as cops. He said he had heard talk on the street and figured some guys from the club were gonna come fuck him up. We acted as emissaries and told him we’d come to smooth over the riff and that I only hit him because of the whole shotgun thing. He bought it, apologized, and thanked us for working to rectify the dispute.
We left, and when we walked out, as expected, our friends down the street had left. A couple hours later, Lil Rat called us and wanted us to meet him at the bar. He was a cheap fucker, so when we walked in and he right off paid for our drinks, we knew he knew what had gone down.
Well, at least he thought he did.
We documented the entire episode in our reports so the US attorney wouldn’t be blindsided if it ever came up in court. He was fine with it. He actually considered pursuing charges for assault on a federal agent against the rival tattoo artist when the case wrapped up. But absent blood or broken bones, I always shied away from that charge. Claiming foul after the fact kinda made me feel like a pussy.
TAKE 3: BABYFACE
Carr, a.k.a. Babyface, was one of the most sought-after UCs in the country. He had balls as big as a fifty-five-gallon drum. He was calm, thoughtful, and got along with everybody. Basically, the opposite of me. We always said of him: “The only thing we don’t like about Carr is that we can’t find anything not to like about him.”
Babyface would tell you that the greatest achievement of his career was working a long-term OMO case and never riding a motorcycle, not even once. And they patched him.
Like me, Babyface had grown up in Marin County. We became friends and worked together anytime we got the chance. On one such occasion, he came to help on a job in San Francisco. Carr and I got together for a few cocktails the night he came to town, but we didn’t talk much about the deal. During the briefing, everybody was given their assignments, normally read aloud to the group. Carr was the primary UC on this one. He was going to meet up with some Mexican gangbangers and buy a couple guns and some dope. As ATF had advanced its UC protocols over the years, a hostage negotiator was included on the scene of every deal in case the worst-case scenario played out. So when it came to me, the supervisor read out my assignment as the on-scene hostage negotiator.
Carr said, “Oh, fuck no. If they take me hostage, don’t let Vince talk to them. They will surely torture me.”
I’m happy to say nobody got tortured. In fact, my services as a negotiator weren’t needed that day and the buy went as planned.*
TAKE 4: NOT GUILTY, YOUR HONOR
The notion of undercover work invokes glamorized images—often advanced by books and movies—as a glitzy, fraught-with-peril infiltration of Mafia-like criminal organizations. While danger can arise in any UC situation, in reality, there are varying levels and degrees of undercover work. One of my first undercover assignments was to enter a bar with another agent and sit at the bar as close to the primary undercover agent as we could get. The primary UC was meeting with a methamphetamine cook and negotiating for a large amount of drugs. We were there as countersurveillance in case the violator wasn’t alone and also to function as cover in case the deal went bad. We had to blend in. So, we drank on government funds until our UC left safely, and then we surveilled the violator away.
Even some agents don’t give much thought to the fact that there are many instances where they are undercover without formally intending to be. For example, many witnesses and victims in high-crime areas don’t want to be seen talking to the po-po, so law enforcement agents might dress and act to blend in. In some situations, meeting with an informant while in uniform or even a coat and tie could be fatal. Commonplace surveillances include an undercover element. Staging for a planned raid or a search and arrest warrant often has a UC component. You wouldn’t want to sit down the street attracting all kinds of attention while preparing to crash in somebody’s door.
But sometimes being too good at blending in is a bad thing.
After executing about ten search and arrest warrants on the Outlaws Motorcycle Club chapter in Atlanta, Georgia, hours later I had to appear in court at the defendants’ initial appearance. The way it worked is that the marshals would keep the prisoners in their holding cells until they were called to court. The arresting agent then would collect the prisoners from lockup and walk them into court. Our operation had kicked off around 4 AM, and our entire field division, local police, and US Marshals were tied up all day gathering and logging evidence and transporting prisoners. I had to break away and race to the federal courthouse in Atlanta for the hearings.
I stood before the judge with four of the violators, who clearly had not bathed in days. They looked like they’d just come off the set of a biker movie, wearing their fucking colors (vests with the gang’s logo embroidered on the back). The judge called the courtroom to order and explained the proceedings. He then looked directly at me, the only one not in shackles, and asked if I would like to enter a plea.
I guess I was looking a little rough that day. Oh well. Street theater at its best. Or worst.
TAKE 5: ONE NIGHT IN MACON
Operational security always is a priority during undercover operations. This includes making operations “need to know.” Assuring cover teams blend in and don’t compromise the UCs. Having identities appropriately backstopped. Mastering appearances and dialogue. Sometimes this even means keeping local law enforcement in the dark.
While Bird and I were working the Iron Cross Motorcycle Club investigation in Macon, due to OPSEC concerns only the top brass and the Special Investigations Unit knew we were operating in the area. We just had completed a meth buy from one of the club’s associates at a local bar and were returning to our UC pad to secure and document the evidence. It was around 2 AM, and we were screaming down the highway on our bikes. I had an ounce of methamphetamine in one boot, my pistol in the other, and, as I soon learned, a burned-out taillight.
Predictably, the red lights of a police cruiser lit us up. I began to pull over and Bird continued down the road. I remember thinking, “You fuckin’ bastard.”
Deciding I’d just take the speeding ticket and deal with it later, I produced my UC driver’s license and insurance.
The officer who pulled me over, one Sgt. Boney, was not aware of my identity or my mission, and I needed it to stay that way. The decision to come out of role is based solely on the undercover’s judgment. It’s up to the UC to consider many factors, including public safety, compromising the investigation, officer safety, and other pertinent aspects of the investigation. In this case, there was some intelligence that a small group of local cops were sympathetic to the Iron Cross gang. Our agreed-upon tactic for this case was to stay in role at all times.
Looking the way I looked, driving a beat-up Harley at one hundred miles an hour, caused the sarge to be a bit suspicious. Rather than write the ticket and send me on my way, he decided to prone me out on the side of the highway at gunpoint. In all fairness, I would have done the same thing. He was alone in a one-man unit. Jay had pulled over a ways down the road and was watching this unfold.
Sgt. Boney first patted me down for his safety, luckily missing the firearm and dope in my boots. He then had me stand and place my hands on the hood of his car and continued to do his job, i.e., interrogate me: Where are you coming from? Who were you with? What are you doing out so late? Is that your buddy pulled over down the road?
Wanting to end this contact without further drama, I respectfully answered the sarge’s questions. However, after about twenty minutes standing in the cold and having complied completely, I got irritated and blurted out, “Are we just gonna stand here all night, or are you gonna write me a ticket and let me go home?”
That pissed him off big-time. He stepped up to where his face was inches from mine and in his best Southern bubba voice said, “Boy, I’m driving this ship, and you’ll stand here until I say you don’t. Understand, boy?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Now I want to search your bike. Do I have permission to search your bike?”
That’s where it kind of went south. I had nothing illicit in my saddlebags or anywhere else on my bike, but now I, too, was pissed.
I said, “Yes, sir . . . if you have a warrant.”
The sarge said, “Okay, smart-ass, I’m calling a dog.”
“Call two if you want,” I told him. “There ain’t nothing there.”
He did.
Unknown to me, by this time Bird had contacted the lieutenant in charge of the Special Investigations squad we were working with. Shortly after the detection dog arrived, the sarge waved off the K-9 handler and told me to sit in the front seat of his patrol car. Apparently, the lieutenant had called the police chief, who in turn radioed the sergeant and identified me as law enforcement. Not cool. But the choice was out of my hands at that point. I sat in Sgt. Boney’s cruiser and listened to his lecture, which basically was his attempt to justify being such an asshole. I acknowledged his hard work.* Then I was on my way.
TAKE 6: THE RICHMOND JOB
For some, being asked to be the undercover agent on a case is their worst nightmare. For others, not being asked is considered a slight. As I’ve said, early in my career, I took every shitty gig that came down the pike, partly because I was building my reputation in the bureau and partly because they never offered me the good gigs. One of our agents had a snitch who was offered up by the California Department of Corrections for us to use. That should have been my first clue to steer clear. ATF worked closely with Corrections’ Special Services Unit. SSU agents all were senior prison guards, and their purpose in life (besides IA investigations) was to target the most violent of the parolees and revoke their parole and send them back to prison as quickly as possible. Snitches fell out of the trees to keep from going back.
This case involved an armed robber SSU had targeted to go back to prison. The robber did what they all did: he offered up a friend as a tradeoff. First, this snitch couldn’t be trusted. He was a convict. He easily could have compromised me. So, we decided to do a little street theater. The task force arranged for me and the informant to meet. But in this case, he wasn’t advised that I was a cop. Instead, he was told that I was a bad guy looking for dope and guns. (An informant utilized in this fashion is referred to as an “unwitting” informant.) We met up, had some beers; he was good with me and made the call.
The only way the target violator would agree to meet me was if I went to his house in Richmond in the company of the unwitting informant. Richmond is located north of San Francisco and right across the bay from San Quentin—literally, across the bridge from the prison gates. Because of this, many parolees land right there in the so-called Iron Triangle, i.e., Central Richmond. The city has the reputation of being one of the most violent cities in California.
The deal was set. The plan was for me and the unwitting to go into the violator’s house and buy the dope and a stolen gun. We would leave, roll back across the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge to Marin County, ironically in eyeshot of San Quentin prison. Once in Marin, a marked California Highway Patrol unit would pull me over and ultimately arrest both me and the unwitting.
We got to the house, did the intros, and chatted with the violator, who took a liking to me. He offered me a beer, and I took it. After we did the deal for the dope and gun, I looked at the unwitting and said, “Let’s bounce. I’ve got shit to do.”
The violator asked the unwitting what he was going to do after I ran him back to Marin. “Just party,” was the answer. The violator jumped up, put on his jacket, and told the unwitting: “I’ll go with yah.”
What I didn’t know was that the violator didn’t have a car and wanted to ride with us. The op plan called for me and one bad guy in the car. I could hardly tell the guy I just did business with that he couldn’t ride with us. To be honest, I remember not knowing what I should do.
ATF undercovers are the best because we have the best agents in the field covering us. Before I had to figure this one out, my pager went off with a 10-4, letting me know that my cover team, led by Joe Stafford, was adjusting the plan on the fly. So I got in my G-ride and headed to the toll bridge with the violator sitting in the back seat and the “informant” in the front.
Plans change; shit happens. The violator now sitting directly behind me in the car was a two-time convicted murderer. He was armed. Now the question became how would this violator respond as things proceeded? I had to try to control events inside the vehicle until we all were out of the car and in custody. My heart was pounding as we approached the tollbooth. I was shit talking, trying to distract these guys so they wouldn’t notice that every other tollbooth lane had one of the cover cars going through at exactly the same time as us. Of course, the guys in the car with me had no idea there were cops in the eight unmarked vehicles flanking us. But when you are undercover, your brain sometimes will fuck with you. I was on high alert until we passed through the toll.
As soon as we exited the bridge, looking straight at the highway sign that read “San Quentin Next Exit,” a highway patrol car hit its lights. Immediately, panic set in on the violators. The guy in back was screaming, “I got dope on me!”
I told him just to chill, that I probably was speeding.
Talk about absolute trust. I had to believe that Joe Stafford had accurately described me and completely briefed the highway patrol officer. If not, I might get shot as a bad guy. Unknown even to me, because of the unexpected passenger’s criminal records, the cover team had ratcheted up the planned traffic stop to a felony vehicle stop. The CHP’s loudspeaker boomed at us. The officer followed felony-stop protocols and ordered us out of the vehicle one at a time. We all were arrested as planned without incident.
Before complying with the order to exit the car, the backseat violator looked straight at the unwitting, whom he had known for years and done time with, and said, “I knew you were a fucking snitch.”
Not me, not the new guy, whom he had met just an hour earlier. Now that’s playin’ a role, baby.
* I first ran into the Klan back in my days as a city cop. While I was off duty, they had approached my vehicle while attempting to slide their hateful literature through my truck window. As a kid growing up in California, I’d never seen them all hooded up, and they scared the shit out of me.
* Remember, we could act crazy and give the illusion of committing crimes, but we couldn’t actually commit crimes. We couldn’t commit an act of violence against a citizen without cause. Exceptions exist but in very limited scenarios and only with the approval of the Department of Justice and the US Attorney’s office.
* Another agent, Koz, worked primarily with Carr. They did some phenomenal infiltrations that have made national headlines. Koz is one of the foremost authorities on OMO investigation in the country. I cannot elaborate more on his contributions, as he is still in the field, although his infiltration of the Mongols Motorcycle Club was highlighted in the acclaimed television show Gangland Undercover.
* We never were able to confirm through our investigation that there were any dirty local cops.