Yeardley: Hey, Small Town Fam. It’s Yeardley. How are you guys? I hope you’re all well. I am thrilled to tell you that. It’s your lucky day, my friends, because Lieutenant Ryan is on the microphone today. Ryan gave us an episode in Season 16 that we called a Race Against Time. He has a long, varied career in law enforcement, and he is a wonderful storyteller. When I did my editing pass on this episode, I kept thinking this could happen to any of us. I suppose that’s true of many of the cases that we cover on Small Town Dicks, but with this one in particular, I was struck by the ordinariness of the Saturday morning that Lieutenant Ryan describes. And then how, in a flash, so many innocent victims were drawn into the slipstream of this chaotic crime spree.

And basically how in law enforcement, you literally never know what kind of danger is in store for you when you show up to work on a given day. This case also made me think of that phrase, honor among thieves, which describes a code of conduct among criminals where first and foremost, you’re not supposed to snitch on other criminals. All I can say is you really find out who your friends are when your grand plan for a crime spree goes sideways. Here is “Quicksand.”

[Small Town Dicks theme]

Hi there. I’m Yeardley.

Dan: I’m Dan.

Dave: I’m Dave.

Paul: And I’m Paul.

Yeardley: And this is Small Town Dicks.

Dan: Dave and I are identical twins-

Dave: -And retired detectives from Small Town, USA.

Paul: And I’m a veteran cold case investigator who helped catch the Golden State Killer using a revolutionary DNA tool.

Dan: Between the three of us, we’ve investigated thousands of crimes, from petty theft to sexual assault, child abuse to murder.

Dave: Each case we cover is told by the detective who investigated it, offering a rare, personal account of how they solved the crime.

Paul: Names, places, and certain details have been changed to protect the privacy of victims and their families.

Dan: And although we’re aware that some of our listeners may be familiar with these cases, we ask you to please join us in continuing to protect the true identities of those involved-

Dave: -out of respect for what they’ve been through.

[unison]: Thank you.

Yeardley: Today on Small Town Dicks, we have the usual suspects that means it’s your lucky day, my friends. We have Detective Dan.

Dan: Hello there.

Yeardley: Hello, you. We have Detective Dave.

Dave: Hello.

Yeardley: Hello. And we have the one and only Paul Holes.

Paul: Hey, hey, how’s it going?

Yeardley: Ah, the hey, hey. I went for the hey. [laughs] And Small Town Fam, we are over the moon to welcome back to the podcast, Lieutenant Ryan.

Ryan: Hey, how’s it going, guys?

Yeardley: It’s so great to see you again, Ryan. Your first case was amazing, heartbreaking, and so beautifully told. And it’s great to have you back in front of the microphone again.

Ryan: Yeah, I’m glad to be back. Thanks for having me here.

Yeardley: Thank you. So, you have another super interesting case for us today. I’m just going to let you take it from here. Please tell us how this case came to you.

Ryan: Yeah. So, I wanted to share today with you guys about my first call as a negotiator. So, this case came to me in the fall of 2016. I had just joined the negotiations team, and I can remember my team leader said, “Listen, when you get the first call, don’t be the first one on scene, take it slow, let us get there, the pros let us get there first.” But I was super excited. But let me give you the backstory first. It’s a weekend day. It’s on a Saturday, and it’s about 7:30 in the morning when this first kicks off. So, Peter is at the gym Saturday morning, nice and early, goes and gets a workout in, he leaves the gym, and as he’s traveling home, he notices that there is a vehicle following behind him.

Well, instead of going to a local sheriff’s office or police department, he says, “You know, I’m just going to go home.” And I don’t know why this car keeps following me, but here I go. So, Peter pulls into his apartment complex, backs in, and in the next couple of moments, three suspects unknown to Peter exit the car. Two of them have weapons, one of them has a rifle, one of them has a handgun. And they take Peter’s car grand theft auto style. They tell him to get out, have him at gunpoint, and before they leave with his vehicle, they demand his phone and his wallet. They don’t want him to call the police. So, Peter complies, he doesn’t get injured, and they take his Ford Mustang.

I’m so glad they took his phone because when he is able to get to his apartment and access his computer and notify the police, he’s got a tracking device on his phone. So, he is able to tell law enforcement pretty quickly that his car was stolen. And I can tell you right where it’s at. So, deputies respond, and by the time they get there, they ping his phone, and it is pinging probably about 40 miles away, and it’s heading east out of our county on the interstate. So, we sent up our helicopter, we sent deputies on the area, and pretty quickly they got the vehicle in their sights.

Yeardley: So, Peter’s car is a pretty recognizable Ford Mustang.

Ryan: That’s correct. So, the Ford Mustang is traveling at a high rate of speed. The deputies that responded and originally came in contact with his car, they didn’t even have time to light him up. So, no pursuit really ensued. By the time they’re getting in place, the helicopter is advising over the radio that the vehicle with the three suspects is exiting off the interstate, which happens to be the county line. So, on the east side of this road is going to be our neighboring county and on the west side of this road is our county. So, of course, trying to get away from the police, vehicle crashes and the three suspects exit the vehicle and they start running towards a McDonald’s. The McDonald’s happens to be on the neighboring county side, which made no difference necessarily.

Although now we have two agencies responding because this McDonald’s is in our neighboring county and we’re in fresh pursuit of our carjacking suspects. So, the first deputy that’s there, which is there pretty quickly notices that the Ford Mustang is still traveling, although it wrecked. They exited the car, of course, not in park. So, now the vehicle is traveling towards additional traffic. So, the first officer on scene runs into the car, the Ford Mustang puts it in park, and then they start to travel to figure out where the suspects are at. So, we have aviation overhead. Pretty quickly we’re being told what’s happening. So, the three suspects exit the Mustang, they run to the McDonald’s and now we’ve got a car line full of people in the drive-thru of McDonald’s. So, of course we just stole a car. What’s next to do? Let’s steal another one.

[laughter]

They have their weapons and they steal successfully another car in the drive-thru line. It’s an elderly woman. They force her out of the car. Actually, when we spoke to her later, they actually kicked her to the ground. She is now on the ground and they have taken off with her car. Well, they don’t get away very quickly. They end up crashing into a telephone pole on the property at McDonald’s. So, they literally get maybe 20 yards. They’ve wrecked their second vehicle. They go to another vehicle. Now they’re going to take this person, they’re going to steal their car while owner of this vehicle has a gun. So, he points it back at our suspects and says, “Get away. I don’t know what you’re doing, you’re not taking my stuff.” So, they pretty much abandon him very quickly.

And all of this is happening in a matter of seconds. Now they approach the vehicle that’s at the drive-thru window. They’re not going to steal this car. They can see behind them that they’re being chased by cops. They run through, they open the passenger door, they climb through the vehicle and they exit out the window and in through the drive-thru window of McDonald’s.

Yeardley: You mean the window where they hand you your fries, they all climb in that window?

Ryan: Yep, that’s correct.

Yeardley: Okay. It seems like you maybe use the door because there’s more room and it’s probably close by. I don’t know. Call me crazy.

Ryan: Well, I don’t know if they had a lot of time on their side because literally our deputies are in pursuit of them and I don’t know if they thought that they could make it to the door in time. So, let’s go through the window.

Dave: It’s such an interesting scene because I’m sitting here playing it out like I’m following this vehicle that’s been in a crash. Three suspects ghost ride it. Now they’re on foot. And I already know that these three suspects have carjacked somebody at gunpoint. And now I got a parking lot full of cars, some of them are occupied, already have the keys in because they’re in the drive-thru. The dynamics of this for responding officers about shoot or don’t shoot suspects is a really thin line. Our job is to protect the public and they’ve already shown their intent. So, now you have possibility of shots being fired in this drive-thru. It’s really dangerous. And these suspects obviously are resourceful. Most people don’t go climbing into a restaurant through the drive-thru window.

So, I would say that the desperation and now you’ve got a whole restaurant possibly full of people, patrons and employees.

Ryan: Yeah. This incident goes from armed carjacking to a hostage scenario of people inside McDonald’s in a matter of seconds. Dave, you hit it right on the head. It was not an ideal situation for anybody to respond to. It just puts everybody at risk. Very tricky situation for sure. So, once deputies arrive on scene, they see these suspects going through the drive-thru  window. They are trying to get as many people to leave the property as they can. They’re holding what they have. The doors are open, they’re yelling at people to leave the restaurant and people are flowing out. So, we’ve got a flow of employees, a couple of customers, and our deputies are surrounding this McDonald’s. And the shift commander on scene makes the decision to activate our SWAT and our negotiations team.

So, my phone rings probably within 30 minutes of this whole thing coming out. And so, I cannot wait. Now I’m told to not be there first. So, I’m taking my time although it’s not very far from where I live. So, I get there, there’s a couple negotiators there. And so, my team leader assigns me the role of intelligence gatherer. So, my assignment on this particular situation was to help gather intelligence as much as we can about who’s inside, who these suspects are, what we’re dealing with, what the layout of the McDonald’s looks like, all that information to share amongst the responding officers. So, once we get on scene, we were given information that one of the suspects called his girlfriend, who ended up calling our sheriff’s office. She is able to tell us who is inside the restaurant.

So our three carjackers are James, Hugo and Derek. Right off the bat, we were able to speak to a manager and we knew that there were 17 employees that were working shift that morning. And we’re able to determine pretty quickly that we have 15 employees. We’re missing two.

[]

[Break 1]

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After speaking to a manager, the two employees were missing, Kayla and Lindsay.

Yeardley: Can I ask you a question, Ryan? How come if when patrol arrives and they go to the McDonald’s and open the door and tell people to get out? I’m assuming that James, Hugo and Derek, our suspects, have squirreled themselves away into the back of the restaurant someplace you can’t find them. Otherwise, wouldn’t you, I don’t know, rush them but they are armed. It’s such a dynamic situation. I’m curious why they didn’t immediately encounter the suspects.

Ryan: Yeah, so I know the responding officers, when they are opening the doors and voicing for everybody to come out, they don’t see the suspects. So, their report is we don’t know where they’re at, but we don’t see them in the general lobby and we don’t see them behind the counter. And they believe that everybody had exited the McDonald’s from what they could tell.

Yeardley: Including the suspects?

Ryan: No, they were aware that the suspects were inside.

Yeardley: I see.

Ryan: So, their thought process was we’ve been able to get all the employees out. And now we have three armed suspects inside the McDonald’s and we’re going to lock it down and wait for the SWAT team to arrive.

Yeardley: Because that way we can contain them.

Ryan: Correct.

Paul: And having worked at McDonald’s many decades ago, actually several stints at McDonald’s, you know, you have the two drive-thru windows, one that you first go to pay, and that’s usually towards the back of the restaurant. And then you have the drive-thru window that is up near the front counter where you receive your food, going into that drive-thru window in terms of the layouts of the McDonald’s that I worked at, you’re in the back and there’s typically like a freezer and walls and office space in the back of the restaurant where I’m imagining James, Hugo, and Derek are just hanging out because they’re away from the threat, which is the front of the restaurant.

Yeardley: I see. I get it. That helps, actually.

Paul: And they would not be able to be seen from the front of the restaurant if they squirrel themselves away back in that area.

Ryan: And to your point, Paul, you had mentioned about the first window being closer to the freezer and interior offices. That is the window that they went through. So, they traveled through the window that’s closest to the back.

Dave: Like I’m just watching these people climb through someone’s car in their driver’s seat and they’re climbing over them to get through a window. The chaos that would have been happening in that situation, it’s quite an image.

Yeardley: It is because it’s bad enough if it’s one stranger climbing over you feeling like a hot mess. Imagine if there are three.

Dave: Yeah. And rifles and guns.

Yeardley: Oh, my God.

Paul: They’re probably tripping over themselves and falling down. It’s a big cluster on their end too.

Ryan: Yeah. So, we learned that Kayla and Lindsey are two employees that are unaccounted for and potentially other customers that we’re not sure if they’re inside or not. So, we are trying to get information on Kayla. I know that there was an employee calling into the restaurant, trying different numbers to try to get in touch with anybody who would answer, which was unsuccessful at first. There’s an employee that emerges named Jose. And Jose explains that he is in contact with Kayla via text message. So, Kayla is communicating with Jose to say, “Hey, I’m inside one of the back offices with Lindsey. Both of us are okay, we’re safe, but we’re in here with one of the suspects.” So, we later learn that the suspect that is with Kayla and Lindsey inside one of those rooms is James.

So, Kayla and Lindsey are working back towards the back of the restaurant. And so, when the three suspects come through the window, Kayla and Lindsey immediately run to one of the back offices, while James, in fresh pursuit of really trying to get away from the cops, he runs and follows these two girls into that back room and shuts the door. So, now the three of them are inside in this interior room. Hugo and Derek, unknown where they’re at, they’re somewhere in the restaurant, but we don’t know. So, our negotiators take control of that conversation and they start communicating with Kayla. So, through the course of their conversation, Kayla explains that James is not being violent, not pointing any firearms at them, although he did hide something in the office and they think it is a firearm.

But James has told them, you cannot leave without me because if I go out by myself, I believe that the police are going to shoot me. But James, at this point, he’s ready to come out. So, pretty quickly after conversation is developed with Kayla, we’re able to convince all three of them to come out. So, Kayla, Lindsey and James, within the first hour of this incident exit through, of course, the drive-thru window.

Yeardley: Really? [Dave laughs]

Ryan: They do. They do. That was the first avenue of sight to come out.

Dave: Did you guys have any indication that the other two suspects were giving James shit for basically giving up?

Ryan: So, when James comes out, he provides a couple of interesting bits of information. So, first of all, he pretty much says that, “Hey, I didn’t know that we’re going to carjack anybody. I thought were just going to steal another car is what he claims. He says that Hugo is recently out of prison, not to be surprised for carjacking.

Yeardley: It seems like that plan that James is describing is a distinction without a difference. Like, I thought we were just going to steal a car, not carjack a guy. Although, I’m assuming James was thinking, I didn’t think the dude would be involved.

Ryan: I’m not buying his story completely. I’m pretty confident he knew what was going to happen.

Dan: All three of these guys are following Peter back to his apartment. Are they not having a conversation in the car? Like, come on. Like, “Hey, right when he parks that thing, we got to bounce, we got to go.”

Dave: I think they just wanted to beat the breakfast lunch bill at McDonald’s. Like, you’ve got, we got to go, we got to go. [Yeardley laughs]

Paul: Hey, Ryan, what age ranges are James, Hugo and Derek?

Ryan: So, I believe Hugo was the oldest. He was in his late 20s. And then Derek and James were a little bit younger, in their mid-20s. So, now at this point, James is now exited. He claims he doesn’t know where Hugo and Derek were, although he says when they originally entered the McDonald’s he runs into a room and Hugo and Derek run into the freezer, but he’s not certain that that’s where they’re currently at. So, it was pretty quickly after his exit that we believed that we just had the two suspects left, Hugo and Derek. So, we’re trying to make contact with anybody inside. We’re bull-horning, which is we’ve got negotiators on PA Systems and they’re amplifying, trying to get these guys to come out. We’re calling the McDonald’s line. We don’t have phone numbers for Hugo and Derek at this point.

Within about 30 minutes of James exiting the McDonald’s, my team leader comes over to me and he says, “Hey, we just got a call from our communications center from a female named Ariel.” Ariel is concerned that her brother may be inside the McDonald’s. So, he said, “Call her. Get a rundown of what’s occurring.” So, I call Ariel, and she is not local. She doesn’t live in the area. But she pretty much explains to us that her brother Jonathan has been posting concerning statements on Facebook and she’s worried that something’s happened to him. So, I asked her to read to me the Facebook message, and I’m going to go ahead and read to you exactly what the post was. So, Ariel’s brother Jonathan says, “I’m inside the McDonald’s next to my job. I’m stuck inside the bathroom, and they’re holding everybody hostage. I love my family. I love you all.”

This again now escalates very quickly again to, we have more people inside. And the first moment I read that post sent chills down my spine. I thought, “Wow, we really are in a hostage situation. We have people inside this restaurant.” So, I give that information over to my team leader, and of course, everybody’s anxiety, I think, has risen pretty significantly at this point. So, we’re trying to communicate with Jonathan. We have a phone number for him. His phone is ringing, but we’re not getting any answer. So, I find out that Jonathan lives in our neighboring county. He doesn’t live in our jurisdiction. So, I ask for the other jurisdiction to go to Jonathan’s house and just try to see if we can get in touch with anybody who lives there.

Maybe he’s married, maybe he’s got kids. Let’s try and contact anybody. And maybe they have a way to communicate with Jonathan because obviously we’re not getting any success. And we also want to let them know that their loved one is in a situation we know Ariel knows. So, we respond to Jonathan’s house and to our surprise, Jonathan is inside his home.

Yeardley: Oh, what?

Ryan: Jonathan comes out of the house and he says, “Hey, what’s going on? Yeah, I’m right here.” So, we’re all very confused.

Yeardley: Dave is nodding. Why are you nodding Dave?

Dave: I just saw a little seam of where this might be going, and I’m going to hold my judgment.

Yeardley: [laughs] Okay?

Ryan: So, I get a call from the officer who’s out there with Jonathan, and he’s not that far away. He’s within 15 minutes. So, I asked him, could you drive Jonathan over to me? I can’t leave this scene, but I’d really like to talk to him. And is he willing to have a conversation? So, Jonathan says, “Sure.” So, Jonathan arrives, and I have an opportunity to have a private conversation in my car. So, I ask him if he knows anything of why I’m having a conversation with him right now. And he is dumbfounded. No, not a clue. So, I ask him if he has possession of his phone. He says, “Yes, I do. Here’s my phone right here.” I’ve already asked him questions about, did you ever lose your phone? Have you had your phone with you this whole time?

And he says, “Yep, I’ve had my phone this whole time.” So, I asked him to give me a rundown of what occurred today. So, he was aware that there was something going on at McDonald’s. So, his statement to me was, well, around 7 something this morning, he left his home to meet with his girlfriend. Now, his girlfriend is married. He says, “We can’t meet at her house. So, we meet in a shopping plaza that’s nearby McDonald’s.” So, he says, “We have a sexual experience for about 30 minutes. And then afterwards, they leave that shopping plaza and they go, they want breakfast at McDonald’s.” So, the two of them drive together, they go to McDonald’s, and they quickly encounter a flood of people coming out. They see lots of cops now. They’re kind of more intrigued of what’s going on.

And so they approach one of the employees, and one of the employees tells them, “Hey, we’re being robbed. There’s people inside with guns.” So, Jonathan and his girlfriend, they’re not even able to get inside. There’s already cops on scene, so this scene is already being secured. So, Jonathan leaves. Jonathan drops his girlfriend off at work and he goes home. So, my next question to him is, “Have you communicated with anybody about this incident?” And Jonathan tells me, “Well, I did send a couple messages. I sent a message to my sister, I sent a message to my brother, and I told them that there was a robbery occurring at the McDonald’s and people were there with guns.” So, I start confronting him about the things that were posted on social media. And he is a very quickly to dime out his girlfriend.

And he says, “Oh, well, I didn’t say any of those things. I didn’t post any of that. That’s something a bitch would do.” So, what he tells me, oh, so he claims, I have never been inside, I was never a hostage, and I never posted any of that content. And if somebody had my phone and actually, in fact, he’s pretty insistent. “Well, you know what, I did lose possession of my phone for a bit of time in my girlfriend’s car. I’m pretty sure she posted that.”

Yeardley: And does he offer any motive as to why his girlfriend might post that?

Ryan: No.

Yeardley: Huh-huh. Okay.

Ryan: So, Jonathan is not cooperative, in the sense he doesn’t want to give me his girlfriend’s information. She’s married. This is a sticky situation. I’m not going to cooperate. But I start showing him messages. Now I know the timestamps of these messages. And so, I asked him, “Did you send this message to your sister Ariel?” And one of the messages was, “People are being held up at the McDonald’s.” He says, “Yes.” Then I asked him if he sent this message to his sister, which basically said, “We’re being held hostage in here.” So, I show him that message and he says, “Oh no, I didn’t send that. If anybody did, that was my girlfriend.” Well then, I told him, “Well, Jonathan, how could that be the case? Because both of these messages were sent within the same minute. There’s no way you didn’t lose possession of your phone within that minute.”

So, we go round and round and ultimately, he sticks to his guns. I was never inside. I never posted that. In fact, I don’t know who posted that from my account. Ultimately, now we’re back to square one, where we have only the two suspects, Hugo and Derek, left inside.

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[Break 2]

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After we confirmed that Jonathan wasn’t inside, we relay that to our commanders. And now the decision has been made that this incident is going to go tactical. So, they introduce chemical agents inside the McDonald’s, they introduce a few different distractionary devices. Nobody comes out. Well, ultimately this incident ends up resolving with SWAT operators having to go in. We’re not getting any response. We’ve tried to get these people to exit. They’re not. So, are they injured inside? Are they fortified somewhere, we can’t get to them, we’re not sure.

So, ultimately the SWAT operators do make entry into the McDonald’s and they find Hugo and Derek hiding in the ceiling. They found a little cubbyhole up top. They were able to avoid some of the chemical agent and they did not have any firearms on them at the time, but they were up in the ceiling and we were able to successfully take them into custody and clear the McDonald’s and determine that there was nobody left inside the McDonald’s restaurant.

Yeardley: I’m curious. They didn’t have their weapons with them. Do you think they left them in one of those stolen cars?

Ryan: Well, we found a rifle inside the Mustang, so we know that one of the rifles was recovered there. We did find one of the semiautomatic pistols outside of the restaurant. It had fallen just under the drive-thru window. So, we’re pretty sure in the shuffle of trying to get into the restaurant, they dropped the firearm outside.

Yeardley: Right.

Ryan: And then the third firearm that was involved, James had possession of that gun. And so, when Kayla had made her statement about James look like he was hiding something in one of those interior rooms, that was where we found the third firearm. Which was to our benefit that Hugo and Derek had no firearms on them at the time they were taken into custody.

Yeardley: Yeah, absolutely.

Dave: And you guys had pumped gas in there to make it uncomfortable, but they’re squirreled away in this space between the ceiling and the roof. I’m guessing they didn’t get much of that.

Ryan: Yeah, we did introduce chemical agent. We did introduce several flashbangs to try to encourage some movement to come out, and it was unsuccessful. So, they ended up going in. And before they made entry, they sent a robot in to kind of see, survey the area. They had no visual of anybody, so I think they knew at that point, Hugo and Derek were hiding in an elevated position somewhere.

Dave: Yeah. How long it takes to air that restaurant out, to open back up for business? [Paul laughs]

Dan: Turned all those chicken sandwiches sitting there into spicy chicken sandwiches.

[laughter]

Yeardley: Yuck. Yuck. So, if Jonathan is actually not at the restaurant being held hostage, does that leave only Hugo and Derek inside the restaurant or are there other folks?

Ryan: No. So only Hugo and Derek were left inside. After James, Kayla, and Lindsey exited, it was only Hugo and Derek left.

Yeardley: Okay.

Dave: So, what’s Jonathan’s story? Clearly it’s him making these Facebook posts about his current status of being a hostage in a McDonald’s bathroom. Is it kind of the typical “I needed some attention, so I’m telling everyone that I’m a hostage in McDonald’s.”

Ryan: Yeah, it seemed to be solely out of attention. Lots of people were commenting, “Oh, my God, we’ve called the police for you. We hope you’re okay. We’re praying for you.” This technically occurred outside of my jurisdiction. Jonathan lived on the other side of our jurisdiction, so I contacted a detective and informed him of everything that I gathered my interview with Jonathan. Jonathan was ultimately arrested for false information to law enforcement during a criminal investigation. So, he did go to jail for this crime.

Yeardley: So, for saying I’m a hostage in this restaurant when he wasn’t, that’s what he’s arrested for, Jonathan?

Ryan: That’s correct. I don’t think that Jonathan realized that he was going to get arrested for making a post on Facebook.

Yeardley: Yeah, probably not.

Dave: Oops.

Yeardley: Fuck around and find out.

Dave: The justification for that is Jonathan has now tied up resources that should have been devoted to potential hostage scene at a restaurant, and instead, negotiator Ryan is having to go deal with, “It’s all BS.” It just detracts from what are we supposed to be doing right now. And then you have to deal with stuff that’s just made up. But you have to check the boxes too, to make sure that Jonathan truly is in a safe spot and that there’s nothing else going on.

Ryan: Yeah. Before we’re able to contact and track down Jonathan, determine who he was, go to his house, bring him back, get a statement. It just delayed resolving this incident by several hours and really elevated it to. We truly thought somebody was inside. I can remember reading that post and literally getting chills and thinking this is it. We have hostages inside this McDonald’s. And it’s so important that we’re on top of how we handle this very carefully and meticulously so we can get these people out safely. So, yeah, you’re right. It just delayed it unnecessarily and caused a lot more additional resources to be there for much longer than they needed to be.

Dave: So Hugo clearly has lived in a different hotel for a few years because of previous carjackings, and he’s probably going back to the same one. In your state, what do multiple armed carjackings get you?

Ryan: Yeah, so this actually ended up being adopted by the ATF, and we never charged them at a state level. They were indicted by the ATF. So, Hugo and Derek, they were sentenced to 15 years in federal prison, and James was sentenced to eight years in federal prison, which was a little bit less. And my assumption is that he was a little bit more cooperative. Probably provided some witness statements against Hugo and Derek for this incident, which may have lessened his sentence when he took some type of plea offer.

Dave: I’ll give James credit. He takes the two innocent girls out with him, saying, I’ve had enough. Come with me, guys.

Ryan: Yeah.

Yeardley: Ryan, why does ATF get involved? Why this one?

Ryan: I would imagine just because of the heinous act and the fact that it involved two jurisdictions and it involved crimes relating with firearms, I believe that’s probably why was adopted by the ATF.

Yeardley: Right. Kayla and Lindsey, do you ever catch up with them after they leave the McDonald’s with James?

Ryan: Yes. They were interviewed by our negotiations team. Both of them say that James was– I don’t want to use the word gentleman. He wasn’t a gentleman, but he was nonviolent. They said James was very scared. He was so scared that he kept urinating in the corner of the room. It almost felt like Kayla and Lindsey felt bad for this guy. [chuckles] But he did make them believe that they were not free to leave until we took over the conversation. Were able to convince him, hey, listen, reassure him. Nobody’s going to get hurt, but we need you to listen to our commands and we need you to come out right now. And pretty quickly they came out.

Dave: Honestly, given all of that, the resolution on this is pretty remarkable.

Ryan: Yeah. Ultimately, this was the best case scenario for us. We were able to get everybody out and no one was shot or injured.

Dan: I’m thinking back to the ATF taking over this case and the prosecution of this case. And very early on in my career, when I was still on FTEP, I was on my critical phase, and I got into a foot pursuit with a guy who ran through an alley and he ducked in behind a car. And I clearly remember the sound of a pistol hitting the pavement. It was unmistakable to me. I knew exactly what that was. And this guy was basically going to ambush me around this corner. And he dropped his gun and I ended up tackling him. I got him in custody and the ATF took over that case and they hit him with armed career criminal charges because he had so many firearm offenses over the years. So, I’m guessing that Hugo and Derek have had multiple run ins. I mean, you said Hugo had just gotten out of prison for carjacking, correct, Ryan?

Ryan: Yeah. James, Hugo and Derek, all of them had criminal histories. Hugo’s was the worst. He had multiple crimes against him involving firearms. He was the one who had recently served prison time, five years and was out for not even a month before this incident occurred. Derek and James had committed a lot of crimes, but they had never been sent to prison. It was all more minor offenses. A lot of crimes when they were juveniles, which those crimes in our county, they a lot of times are slaps on the wrist. They don’t really see any type of time for those offenses. So, this was James and Derek’s largest offense, thus far. Hugo, he was more the mastermind, more the career criminal, I would say, in this case.

Yeardley: And do you know how James, Hugo and Derek are connected?

Ryan: That’s correct. James and Derek had never been to prison. And you know what? I did not really get into their relationships. I do know that we got the phone call from James’ girlfriend and my guess is that James had been communicating with his girlfriend about, “Hey, I’m in this incident, I’ve been involved in a mess and I need help getting out.” I never really did dive into how that came to be. I never interviewed James’ girlfriend, but I know that she was integral and giving us the identity of the people involved.

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[Break 3]

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Dave: Ryan, when you were describing kind of the genesis of this chaotic day for you, you mentioned that James, Hugo, and Derek spot Peter at the gym and Peter even recognizes he’s being followed on his way home. Like you said before, he didn’t go to the sheriff department, he didn’t go to the police station, he didn’t call 911, he went back to his residence. And I think it’s important for us to point out how important it is if you as a driver and a potential victim in this case, you recognize that something is going on, it’s very reasonable for you to call 911 and say, “Hey, I don’t know what’s going on. Somebody is following me.” That is really our job. That is not an interruption to our work. That is the purpose of our work. So don’t go straight home.

Dan: Down in Los Angeles, we’ve had follow-home robberies that have occurred. You know, Yeardley and I actually talked about it. If you’re coming into the neighborhood and you notice a car that is right on your bumper that has followed you and you’ve made a few turns, you got to do some counter surveillance. But don’t pull into the driveway. Just keep driving.

Ryan: Yeah, I spoke to the investigators that did speak to Peter. And that was one thing that really stuck out in his interview is that he even noticed that he was being followed and went home anyways. And I agree with you, “Dan, if you have the wherewithal to realize that you’re being followed, don’t just shrug that off, right?” You’re having that feeling for a reason. When the hair on the back of your neck stands up, you got to listen to those gut feelings. Those are instincts. And if you don’t, obviously, could that have been prevented? Maybe. Maybe if Peter got on the phone with the sheriff’s office and said “I’m being followed.” Well, by the time we got there, we would have noticed the vehicle was stolen. I may not be here talking about my first McDonald’s hostage call out.

[laughter]

Yeardley: What was your impression since this was your first negotiation? What was your impression of this new assignment that you had? Going to be a negotiator? And did it make you think, like, “Okay, I learned a lot from that. Now I feel like I could actually take one on if something went sideways the next time.”

Ryan: Yeah. One thing I will never forget about this call was just the chaos feeling for hours. I can remember, four hours felt like five minutes for me. They always told us that when we respond to these scenes as a negotiator, the scene is very chaotic, at least for the first hour. Once you get there and you get established, we get into a rhythm, and things start to calm down. You know, the negotiations team, we bring calm down chaos. Well, I can remember being in, like hour four, and it is still very, very chaotic. And I look at one of the senior negotiators, and I said, “Hey, I thought this was supposed to calm down after the first hour.” And they go, “Yeah, this isn’t like a [laughs] normal incident that we respond to, so just buckle up.”

Yeardley: Welcome to the circus.

Ryan: Welcome to the circus. But one thing I took away from this, you know, no lives were lost during this incident. We talk about one of our goals and our themes of our team is preservation of life is our number one goal. So, anytime we leave an incident, everybody’s okay and they’re leaving alive. That’s a win in our book. It did give me some comfort knowing that I could go to the next one and hopefully, fingers crossed it wasn’t going to be as chaotic as this scene. Although, I can’t say that was always the case. But it was a good first call out. Our team leader said, “Oh, you guys picked a good one to be your first call.”

Yeardley: [laughs] As if you had any control over that. It’s such a heightened situation as you say, it felt chaotic for four hours or more. How do you go home and be a dad and a husband after a day like that?

Ryan: Yeah, so it’s not the typical day in the office for me. I go for runs. So, in an incident like this, you’re all amped up. Luckily, by the time I was home, it was probably late afternoon, so I still had a portion of the day. But my wife knows if I’ve had one of those types of days that, “Hey, let me just go for a run for a little bit,” get that anxious energy out of your body and it makes me feel a lot better.

Yeardley: We’ve talked about this a lot on this podcast, but I’m sure you can’t overstate the importance of having a release like that, one that is actually good for you, that doesn’t hurt you or hurt somebody else. Like, it’s not alcoholism. You’re fucking going for a run. So that’s pretty extraordinary. And I would consider that a real superpower unto itself.

Ryan: Yeah. And I think, too, another thing is having the support of your family, it really can’t be understated. Our spouses, significant others in law enforcement, they probably don’t get the credit they deserve. But I’m out and I’m having to leave my family while my wife’s at home taking care of my family so that I can go out. So, really having a good support system, and my wife who understands how it affects me, what I need to do to get myself back, in a normal state, and her being supportive through that whole process, really, I can’t understate how important that is to have somebody supporting you in the background just really makes all the difference in the world.

Yeardley: Yeah, sure.

Dave: How nice is it to have a helicopter?

Ryan: Oh, yeah, we love it. We use it all the time. We actually don’t have just one. We have three. And we have a wicks wing plane as well.

Dan: Now he’s just rubbing it in.

[laughter]

Ryan: Well, no, I’m just saying it is very nice, and it is a huge asset to helping law enforcement solve these crimes, get these bad guys apprehended quickly. Having eyes in the sky is definitely a benefit.

Yeardley: Amazing. That’s such good work, and I’m really glad you’re okay. I’m glad everybody was okay, save the older woman who got trampled on, but at least she lived. That’s some fine work.

Ryan: Well, thank you.

Yeardley: Thank you for bringing that to us today.

Dave: Nicely done.

Paul: Thanks again, Ryan.

Ryan: Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me again.

Dan: Well done. That was a fun first call out, I’m sure.

Dave: Did the ice cream machine work at McDonald’s? [Yeardley laughs] Because it never does.

Ryan: It never does. I bet you it didn’t.

[music]

Yeardley: Small Town Dicks was created by Detectives Dan and Dave. The podcast is produced by Jessica Halstead and me, Yeardley Smith. Our senior editor is Soren Begin and our editor is Christina Bracamontes. Our associate producers are the Real Nick Smitty and Erin Gaynor. Logan Heftel is our production manager. Our books are cooked and cats wrangled by Ben Cornwell. And our social media maven is Monika Scott. It would make our day if you became a member of our Small Town Fam by following us on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube at @smalltowndicks, we love hearing from you.

Oh, our groovy theme song was composed by John Forrest. Also, if you’d like to support the making of this podcast, go to smalltowndicks.com/superfam and hit that little join button. There, for a small subscription fee, you’ll find exclusive content you can’t get anywhere else.

The transcripts of this podcast are thanks to SpeechDocs and they can be found on our website, smalltowndicks.com. Thank you SpeechDocs for this wonderful service. Small Town Dicks is an Audio 99 Production. Small Town Fam, thanks for listening. Nobody is better than you.

[Transcript provided by SpeechDocs Podcast Transcription]