0:00 [Music] and welcome back to another exciting episode of the careful boys fatan Lieutenant arum Cho yo we call you Chief here you know yeah Chief future chief chief CH wait are you just one rank below Chief Two oh two what would be in between he's skipping it captain Oh Captain he's going right past Captain is cool no you can't skip I like Captain it makes me feel like a like a Navy guy like Captain Crunch yeah I think once you get the captain and chief man you really it's it's a different job yeah you're you're definitely an admin guy um and you know honestly the jump from me to uh from my rank to Captain is like a 15% pay raise
0:50 and you know and is it worth it to to just sit behind a desk and crunch numbers and type and you don't want to be Captain Crunch I mean at this point in my career I I still have a lot of years left I don't know and and even the promoting the Lieutenant's been great you know financially and and and professionally it's been great but there's a part of me still that feel like I still have a lot of Patrol left in me oh and like I do miss it when I hear stuff on the radio like man I want to be out there but that's a you ask any Lieutenant anybody that promotes you can they'll tell you the same thing you a little bit of me still wants to be there but somebody has to do the job and um and I think I'm at that position now where it's like do I want the guy that doesn't want to be and and always stri strive to be an admin guy or do I want to be a guy that's uh still has it in still has that Zeal but is in this
1:40 position because it's a position of responsibility so but what if your family's like it's like you're getting old I want you behind the desk it's more safe it's too dangerous out there uh yeah it's funny my uh some wives are like that um and then uh we actually we had a lateral uh applicant that we were really high on that was going to come to our agency and we had a shooting in 2022 where we lost two officers and she pulled her application back cuz her daughter told her uh please don't go to that department d right but then statistically though if it just happened it's actually kind of safer cuz it's probably not going to happen again anytime soon with the the numbers on it's like betting on double zero yeah come on dude there's no way it's going to happen again hly you hear about agencies every agency it happens right it doesn't matter if it's a busy agency or slow agency um but yeah my wife um I
2:30 she's never had that talk with me she's always kind of trusted me to navigate my profession and if I did have a question I would ask her how do you feel about me going to this so the last time I asked for her input was actually the second time I went to uh the third time I went to detectives um I was going back to detectives as a sergeant they offered me that position and I remember the first couple times it was the roughest times on my marriage uh was ever any time I was in detectives it because you're so phone never stops um you know you have to really picky on when you leave town on vacations and stuff and um you know the you know waking up at 1:00 in the morning hey this is what we got okay okay okay you know and as a sergeant even have even more Chief again you're always tired and when you go to bed you're not you don't you know it's Patrol you're done right you're done maybe occasionally like I wonder
3:21 how that family is but when you go to bed as a detective it's like okay uh what could I have done on this case tomorrow morning when I show up to work and you're always working cases and it's never one case our at my department the average case load for a detective is 300 cases right 300 what God so not all of them are like super involved some of them are like who done it and they're in this case Lo they're just waiting for evidence to come in don't you ever just completely forget that you had a case so we luckily we nowadays because we have computers we have a case management system so there's all and then and then that's why we have a a succession of Supervisors too we have a Corporal two Sergeant I have hella tabs open on yeah yeah it's dud lit that's why detectives are always at work it's never 9 9 to5 right you're just they early you're they late and then like oh I'm finally catching up uh cool you got another case you got
4:12 another case it just never stops um and we're lucky that our chief and knows that our detective viewer is important and fully staffs it but like in neighboring cities you have two detectives for the whole apartment and stuff like that it's like whoa how do you and I bet like the cases they're urgent because as you're collecting evidence like it could be getting away from you if you're not working at a certain speed cuz you might have a case that was stagnant you're like okay I put this to the side and a new tip comes in I need to work that now jump on it ████ um they actually they actually wanted to ask a question regarding cases um do you have like a case that like out of everything that you've ever worked or experienced like it still somehow sits rentree in the back of your head whether it was a successful one a great one or just something that like that was just the one for you um yeah I mean I have I have my share of cases I was I was happy
5:02 with I shared the one with the homicide the the sun admitting to it 10 years later that's always been a highlight of mine but the most impactful ones are the ones that deal with children jeez not always a happy outcome um usually by the time they call us anyway it's never for a good thing uh but you know having seen child autopsies children that were abused um yeah super impactful in in a not a positive way but it all definitely leaves an impression on you um you know we we had a I forget how old she was I want to say she's pre pesent so maybe 11 or 12 years old in a really bad abuse case um to the point where she knew how to uh load cook heroin load it into a syringe and put it between the webbing of her hands because she's seen it so many times at that age so she was doing
5:53 it no no no no but she could show you how to do it she would just describe in detail and then that same girl you know we took her to to the station to interview her we had her two younger siblings and we got them all food and she took one bite of her food opened the milk carton drank it drunk a sip and then gave the rest of her siblings they're like why we have plenty of food and she's oh okay because she was used to that cuz she was looking out for her sibling she was rationing like immediately yes she was the mom cuz the mom was a prostitute and a drug fiend and she was prostituting out her daughter at 11: 11 oh yeah so it was um I was a field supervisor for that one and then my chief now was the lead detective on that case but we we're that was one that we still talk about is he could write a book about that one how do you like um I guess like I'm sure there's tons of PTSD but like how do you
6:45 like deal with it or is there like some sort of protocol that cops go or deep briefing yeah I mean so there is PTSD uh but there's a new description of of it now I forget what it's called but it's like um occupation stress disorder right is is cumulative that it's not one particular trauma that caused the PTSD but it's it's occupational stress disorder it's a just a succession of things that build up and build up and build up and I said it before the last time I was here um you know if I didn't have faith I don't know where I would be right now uh because in addition to the trauma I saw at on my job I additionally had personal traumatic incidents you know I tragically lost both my parents in in traumatic ways and both times if I didn't have uh God to lean on and still to this day God to lean on and then the motivation to bring other people to
7:35 experience what I've experienced through God um I don't know where I'd be right now maybe I wouldn't be a cop today functioning you know uh professionally did did you find God through the work or like in that time or no I've always yeah my I grew up going to a Korean Presbyterian church but I wouldn't say I was uh by definition a Christian at that point I it was just something that was part of the pattern that my family did I had to go to church on Sundays and I don't think it was till later on when I was a teenager that I was doing stupid things as a teenager and feeling remorseful for it and then my youth group leader was like hey um that all that guilt sitting on your shoulders and in your chest right now can go away right now all you have to do is accept Christ into your life I was like that's all I have to do yeah all you have to do is say that you believe Christ is the Lord and Savior and died for all of our sins I'm like what about the sins I'm going to commit tomorrow and he said
8:25 when he died on that cross he died for all of our sins and all you have to do is profess that he is the one true God lord and savior like that's easy and I did and immediately felt like the burden is off of me no matter what I did up until that point God still loves me my parents love me and even though I'm always going to commit sins and do something stupid um I can pray to not do those things I can try to always strive to be a better person but that if I do stumble um my my my spot in Heaven's always already been secured and and seeing the things that you've seen strengthened that Faith versus like question it from time to time kind of weird to say that right um like you know uh I I know you wanted to talk about what happened to my mother I don't know if this is a good time right now comfor but it applies uh to this so um so my
9:18 mom was murdered in Oceanside um and um I received a call like at 1:00 in the morning and and oceanside's Far Away um so headed down there and I'm I'm in cop mode at that moment right so I'm thinking I'm trying to trying to rationalize what happened instead of being the emotional nutcase that eventually I became um but my mom was um my mom and dad divorced when I was 18 so this was in 2015 when she got killed so uh quite several years later my mom had met this man uh named Jay um who uh my mom was first of all my mom was a beautiful person you can go to my page and find pictures of my mom she was uh I always you know every every son thinks her mom is beautiful but I didn't realize how beautiful she was until I became older
10:08 and uh became very apparent to me she was a beautiful person not just outside but inside she was very sweet um she owned a flower shop and even in high school like when we had the the dances all my friends went to my mom to get the flowers uh so my mom was well- loved at school too and uh when they they divorced my mom you know she um would have random guys pursue her um and she was well off she had she had she did really good with money um after the divorce and people were she saw right through it people were after her for money well she moves back to San Diego after living on the East Coast for a while and she meets this guy who was a con artist and um my mom would take a stray dog from the street and and rehabilitate it and and keep it she would have 50 dogs if she could and she felt the same way about people um so
10:59 this guy Jay was very manipulative and um even though my mom saw that he was a con artist and was trying to get after her money um he said that he didn't have a place to stay and my mom had some real estate and one of the places was a a trailer park in a senior home and she said you could stay there and it was only supposed to be until he got up on his feet wanted two months 3 months and then before you know it it became a year and um during that time my mom meets uh her old golf coach um Peter Hong he just retired from the senior for um he had his own tragedy too he had a Hotel and golf course in um Georgia or Alabama I forget that he ran with his son and um his son was and either two of his kids or all of his kids were killed on a wrongway driver killed him head on so he
11:49 didn't want have anything to do with that business sold it uh gave the money to his widow and then moved back to Southern California where he rekindled relationship with my mom and uh um it was the first time my mom had ever met a guy and was like like in love right really happy like this guy's not after my money he has his own money um he's he's really nice to me takes me out to places and he proposed to her on Christmas in 2014 in Palm Springs and after that happens she calls me I'm like oh I don't know how I feel about that you know I haven't met the guy yet but I'm glad you're happy right uh by this time I trusted it she was smart enough to sniff out the con artists and stuff and uh um so she she forgets about Jay you know she doesn't care and she tells Jay hey she thinks I'm I'm married I to cut off all loose ends with this guy
12:41 they come back from Palm Springs on another trip um in January uh January 6th they come home um and she leaves him at his place in Huntington Beach and says I just have a few things I need to get down in San Diego you're tired you drove all day stay here I'm just going to go and come back back what she didn't tell him was she was she had already made arrangements to go pick up the key from this guy and kick him out um so when she didn't come home um it was in the middle of the night and um Peter is trying to call her she doesn't answer doesn't answer so he knows I'm a cop up in this area doesn't know what agency and calls the LAPD and says hey I'm looking for officer Cho he like are you sure there's so the smart officer that answers the phone Googles my name and sees an old old article associating me with Elman police calls Elman police
13:34 and um one of my childhood best friends who was the Watch Commander at the time Ben Lowry uh who my mom adored and he adored my mom was the one that took the call so he took it hard woke me up at home actually I didn't answer my phone my wife he called my wife and she answered her phone and she she wakes me up and I'm looking at her reaction on the phone I'm kind of half asleep I'm like and I think I said I'm sorry Ben thank you and I hung up and I kind of sat up in my bed talking to my wife I'm like I think I need to go there right now and she's yeah let's go so at this moment you didn't know what happened yet you she just missing I um I just I kind of put two and two together she said it's a crime scene um this is the detective detective Johnson female I forget her first name um and she's waiting for your phone call oh so they reached out to your mom's boyfriend at
14:25 the time no he reached out he called them cuz she wasn't um answering her phone oh so so I'm sorry yeah I left that part out um so please go and do a location check and then saw what happened and then uh called him so um what happened was long story short uh or long story even longer but uh what happened was he agreed to give her the keys but he never intended on um he also had heard either either my mom told him or heard that she got engaged and in his mind if he couldn't have her no one else could so when she showed up he um assaulted her kidnapped her uh strapped her to a chair inside of the trailer and uh was a double wide strapped her in the chair and uh shot her in the head and um then he tried to kill himself he went to
15:16 the bathroom and tried to shoot himself either flinched or couldn't do it cuz there was a gunshot um through the ceiling in the bathroom and um then eventually did it in the same room that my mom was in oh um so you know from from so when I got all that um I'm hearing everything and I'm still kind of just in no motion U didn't really hit me till my drive home and then I kind of lost it all uh was the first time my wife actually ever saw me drunk um uh I didn't know how to deal with it other than start sipping just to calm my nerves and that sip to calm my nerves turned into sip because I was angry and a sip because I was sad and a sip because I wanted to hurt somebody and then a sip because I wanted to hurt myself and um my my wife had to carry me upstairs to bed and um she said uh I never want to see that again I
16:07 understand you get a hall pass but it was really scary how destructive you were on that moment so I felt so bad that my wife had told me that I never want my wife to see me out of control I'm the one that's always in control she leans on me to be the Rock and at that moment I just fell on my knees and prayed to God that I needed to recover and I needed some guidance because I was lost at that moment so um so yeah you know not having the satisfaction of putting this guy away or you know doing whatever I would have done irrational at that P moment might have been a blessing cuz who knows what I would have done um I'm an only child she was my mom and after my parents divorced I stayed with my mom um you know she she was the only involved grandparent when I had kids um it was it was tough um and that was I left out the part that just a few years uh a year
16:58 prior to that she was diagnosed with stage three sea ovarian cancer and she beat it wow you know in her 50s she beat it and she has a scar from here down to her pelvic bone from when they had to remove her organs to remove the cancer and stuff so for a woman who who Str who was doubted her entire life who made a success of herself got cancer and beat that when everybody told her at her age she wouldn't to get taken from this world like that yeah I felt cheated um I I felt my my my mom's life was cheated cut short and just a couple years prior to that in 2012 uh my dad had committed suicide oh um so yeah uh it was a three-year period where my world was just rock yeah that's pretty intense I think any one of those individual things was enough to break
17:49 would have been enough to break somebody um and so I have my testimony today that um I went through not only one of those events two of those EV three of those events and I'm still here to tell you today that it's going to be okay um that you're more valuable here to your family to the people that love you then you would be self-destructing for no other reason than just to satisfy some some carnal needs some internal needs that was just temporary to begin with yeah w wow thank you for sharing that yeah thank you for sharing yeah I'm open about it because um you know it's been what 10 years now actually 10 years yeah January uh 2015 um and it gets better it's easier every time I sit I open up out so it's therapeutic for me but I also as since I shared my testimony about seven years
18:40 ago um on YouTube through a shirt company called dangerous but good they they heard about my story and wanted to do a feature and I I shared it um I've gotten such a tremendous response from people that said man I'm going through this and it pales in comparison to what you're going through but for me it's just as impactful and the the fact that you were able to overcome it gives me hope so I don't know how many lives may have been saved by my testimony or people just the fact that people are impacted alone gives me uh the the courage to be open about it yeah cuz I could have just been uh a recluse and I I don't talk to anybody it yeah I feel selfish that that story um was kept inside because my mom it's disservice to my mom's Legacy even my dad's Legacy he wasn't the best dad he wasn't the best husband but he did have uh a meaningful impact to the kind of person I am today today um so all those events negative or
19:32 positive has shaped who I am today thank you man yeah man hey you're our chief chief that means if you want to raises you ask him to yes true D Man
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