L.O.G. 102 Ill See It When I Believe It

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Okay, well then, I guess we can go ahead and get started. So thanks everyone for joining us today. We are going to be talking about what we call, what we're going to refer to as "ruse crimes." Before we jump in, everyone, don't forget that you can follow me on Facebook so that you can join us when we're live and ask questions and hop into the conversation if you want. So just don't forget about that. The links are down below in the episode details.

So, Greg, this was inspired by a story from just the other day, just a couple days ago, here in New York City where paramedics were called. Right? Someone called 9-1-1, something about someone having some type of medical issue. The paramedics show up, take the elevator up to the 11th floor, and then when they get off, they're met by a masked man with a firearm who then took their supply bag and told them to head back down to the lobby. So they left, and then the bag was later found with their radio and their tablet that they use missing. So nothing was, you know, no injuries or anything actually occurred. The situation that they called 9-1-1 about actually did not happen. It was a fake call to lure them to the crime.

So that is something that we're going to jump into today, but we're kind of just giving it the title. You actually said it, Greg, when you said it in the article of a "ruse crime," which I like because many crimes, whether that's something as simple as a strong-arm robbery all the way up to multiple homicides, a lot of them involve some sort of ruse. So what do you mean by this "ruse crime" term that you threw at me, which I like?

First of all, spot on. Second of all, "ruse crime" sounds like Ruth's Chris, and we're just talking about that. It does. Damn, does Ruth's Chris sound good?

No, and Brian, this is also timely around the holidays because criminality, and specifically criminality by ruse, increases around holidays because people aren't paying attention. They're not attending to their environment like they should. So a ruse is merely a trick. It's an action intended to deceive you so a person can get one of the big three: access. So we understand that a low level of— a high level of organization and a low level of sophistication is going to lead you into a dangerous situation, but access is the most dangerous part of the equation.

The reason I sent that to you is I was laughing, and folks, don't get me wrong, it's my gallows humor. I was laughing because how many times in Chicago for Brian or Detroit for me did the pizza boy get ganked when they sent him to an address, and this is before computers, and he showed up at the vacant lot, but there was a couple of hood rats there, and they took his pizza and his money? And that's a common occurrence. Right? So a ruse is the thing that gets you access. So I've got to bring you to the bomb, or the bomb to you. I've got to bring you to the sniper's crosshairs, or the sniper's crosshair to you. And in this, the ruse allows me to see, feel, taste something that seems normal, and then when I walk in, it's almost too late and the ambush springs upon me.

Right. And so like you said, this goes into access. Right? All criminals need— criminals, terrorists, and surgeons, I don't care what it is. Right? You need access to your victims, and you always put it simply: "Hey, I've got to bring you the crime, or I'm going to bring the crime to you," which sounds very simple and almost like we're oversimplifying it, but in a way, we're not. That's a good way to look at it, right? Because I'm generally safe inside my home, so if someone wants to commit a crime, they have to come into my home. Right? That's more difficult versus getting me to come out. Right? And there's a couple— there's a couple sides to that coin, but I think it's very easy for all of us to fall for this stuff. Right?

Yeah, fall into that. Listen, all I've got to do is do an armed home invasion, I'm in your house. But an armed home invasion is a huge felony with a lot of moving parts, and people get shot and die, and it's very— And so your spot on there, Brian, what we do therefore is we have to play either the chameleon or the trapdoor spider or something else. And that's what I mean by low level of sophistication, if I could spit it out this morning. The idea is, you know, a highly organized person looks at the battlefield, or the football field, or the boardroom and says, "Here are the parts that are in play. These are the things." Look, have you ever had to kiss a boss's ass? Okay, that's part of a ruse to get something done or to lubricate the wheels to get a project going, or to get them to lay off of you and go to, you know, Johnson so you can get your job done. All of those things are things that we may do legitimately. Today, you and I are talking about those illegitimate things that we do that don't require a lot of sophistication to get your front door, or get you to answer the front door, or open it slightly.

Yeah, okay. So this is a good thing because everyone goes, "Well, how do you—" you know, depending on the crime, people are like, "Oh, how'd they fall for that? That's the oldest trick in the book." It's like, no, it's the oldest trick in the book because it continues to work because we all fall into these traps. Like, it depends on what it is. I don't care if it's some type of scam via email or over the phone or where I get the, "Hey, we're trying to sell me insurance for a truck that I no longer own," because I don't— I don't own that vehicle anymore. I don't know what to do, but no matter what it is, it's always just a little bit. There's some ruse involved. Right?

And like you said, you talk about organization and sophistication and access. And this crime that this guy committed, specifically drawing them into this apartment building, to a known area to him, very low level of sophistication, didn't need anything, just needed a phone to call 9-1-1. Right? Didn't— didn't need much else, then just needed some patience. Right? To sit there and wait. Right?

And then, but in terms of organization level, it was highly organized because it was so simple, right? And all he needed was an address. You had a floor, you know, probably reconned the floor to make sure that the cell phone would work. Simple things that we might take for granted, Brian, but those are also going to be the root of finding this guy that perpetrated this crime. Do you get what I'm trying to say? Yeah, that unique little snowflake left his fingerprints, but here they were how he approached the crime.

Got it. Got it. All right, so this— there's a number of things that kind of we fall victim to, so to speak, right? Of our own kind of cognition difference, how we observe things, or different biases. Right? That kind of fall into this. So what occurs and why do we continue to walk into something like this?

Yeah, let me street that up. And the idea is that we talk about confirmation bias a lot. Yeah, folks, take a minute, sit down, drink your orange juice and hit Google or whatever site that you go on and look it up. Biases come in many forms, and there's thousands of them. As a matter of fact, I think it's a grad school requirement now to come up with three and hang them on, you know, the wall. I'm seeing all these splinter factors, are you? You know I'm not lying, right?

No, no, no, actually that's a great point to address right up front, address right up front, because I post different stuff about different cognition biases and stuff that we have and how that works, and everyone says, "Oh, there's a bias for this and a bias for that." And a bias isn't inherently bad or good, right? It's actually— it's a mechanism, it's a— there's a reason behind it, right? Why we see things a certain way or why we assimilate. But I just want to throw that out there. It's like it has a negative connotation, but it's just something— it's just a way to explain something that occurs. Right?

So have— have the folks that are listening now or tuning in live— hi Facebook, I don't have FaceTime or American Dad or any of that. But the idea— thank God Brian does. The idea is think of it as a carpenter. There's a lot of carpenters that listen to our show. When you cut something on a bias, a bias is an angle. So all we're talking about is a mental angle that some people have, and that mental angle sometimes is stronger than other people. So in terms of observation and perception, perception bias would rule us rather than we rule them. And I'd like to throw out a little quote. The question is, "Do I believe it when I see it, or do I see it when I believe it?" And the problem is that if we expect to see something, Brian, we're going to see it.

And so when you expect to see the injured party, and you're the EMS or the first responder going to the 11th floor, when you come off and the guy says, "Hey, give up the cheese, it's a robbery," the first thing you say is, "No, seriously, where's the injured party?" You still— right? Bruises on you. And that's why, you know, we have to remember that a ruse doesn't have to be really good. A vague background context in this context, using it again, works much better than a sharp, created context. And what I mean by that is the evidence that's gathered by our eyes can make us imagine things that aren't or weren't there. Right?

And you and I saw that over and over and over when we were teaching soldiers, U.S. Army ASAT, or we're teaching Marines for the Combat Hunter program that I developed. The idea, Brian, is when we made these ranges, we put Marines like a "shirts and skins" fashion at a thousand meters away, and all we had them do is act very simple scripts and said, "Here, don't go outside of the purview of this script. Do this behavior." But then we put 30 of them left to right and 19 of them front to back, and all of a sudden the story started to emerge. Well, the story didn't emerge. What would happen is the context that frames what we see is more important than what we're looking at. And so the context drove relevance, and so therefore, if we saw a guy riding a bike, that was "bike guy." If we saw a guy working on an antenna, that was "radio shop guy." And what happens is all of a sudden the rich granularity of our village fills in. How is it different than what we do every day with our brain? When we encounter an environment over and over, we pattern select, and after we create that pattern, our brain repeats it. So when we go up and we see a person dressed as a waiter, it's a waiter. When we pull up to the drive-in window, it's a Starbucks. We don't often mix up the bank and go up and order a latte from the bank drive-through.

No, no, it's— that's a— that's actually a really good point. There this goes into explanatory storylines and how we see and perceive our environment. We— we, since 99 out of 100 times things are what they seem to be, we always expect them to be what we think they are. Right? And so— so that goes into a general cognition bias. Right? And again, there's— there's like you said, there's hundreds of these, and they're coming out of— they're coming out of graduate programs every day, five dozen. So— so, and but each one, it's like, and someone just takes it a step further and goes, "Oh, well, it also is this effect too, and we know that effect happens over here." And it's like, great, another one. But the whole point isn't to go so overwhelmed that, "Hey, how do I— how do I prevent myself from falling into this?" Like, well, you're not actually going to prevent— look, they're all there. So it's— it's just balancing out what you see. Right?

To give it to this specific example of these the ambulance drivers, like, how many— or the paramedics that showed up? I mean, how many calls have they been on throughout their career? How many decades of experience do they have where they got a call and then they then had to respond to that situation? Now, it may have been different in the sense that, you know, someone over-exaggerated or under-exaggerated the situation, but there was always a patient there waiting for them, or someone who was supposed to be the patient. Right? So it's like they never, you know, entered there. Why would they ever think, "Hey, when we get off this elevator, we— we might be getting robbed here"? Right? They— they almost never thought that because they never—

You're so— you're on such an important topic, I don't want to get off of this for just a second. One, I want our viewers and listeners to think of the next day for that EMS crew. The next day, they were screwed up like a football bat. Oh yeah. And everything that they did all day, they would call back dispatch. "Hey, hold on, Jim, let me go check." Okay? The idea behind that, Brian, is it so bucked the trend of their historical perspective that now they didn't know what to do. But the problem with being a human is a day, a week, a month goes by, and they would fall for it again. You see, patterns are so strong that they don't just affect us, they affect the people immediately around us. Right?

And you'll remember— yeah, Brian, folks, has an incredible memory, second only probably to Shelley. She's like a flipping elephant when it comes to remembering. Horrible memory, just like your Vegas stuff when I said you're the best guy for Vegas, he loses all the time. But you'll remember it was a setup, you bastard. You'll remember that I wrote that lesson— not a lesson to learn, it was instructor develop back in 2006 on Lita Sullivan (referencing Lita Sullivan, a murder victim). So Lita Sullivan, 35-year-old, she's at work, all of a sudden the flower delivery man comes up. And everybody afterwards said, "You know, it was odd because the flower delivery man had the gloves on, and he had the dark glass, and he had all these things that you wouldn't notice with the delivery man." But he had flowers and he had the hat. Right?

And so he comes right into a place of work, he asked for her by name, she steps up, and he sprays her with nine-millimeter rounds at point-blank range, killing her. Okay? He walks out of the— and I can't remember now because it was 2006, it was like a country club setting or a golf course or whatever this thing where she was working. And this guy had passed all these people on the way in, Brian, and walked calmly out to the parking lot, never been caught. Okay? And when they asked the witnesses, they say, "Yeah, he's a flower delivery guy." "Well, what was he dressed like?" "Dressed like a flower delivery guy." Well, if you had a hundred people in a room and asked some flower delivery guy, each one of them would have a different description, but there would be a commonality. Right? Commonality is what creates the file folder. Yeah. So they all rely on the file folder, and that's why the guy didn't get caught because you can't jump that trend, that— that— that repeat file folder, that cartoon image of the bomb with the little fuse and burning. Do you see what I'm trying to say? They're so ingrained in our memory that myelinization has occurred, and therefore eyewitnesses tend to be horrible witnesses. The guy got away with a homicide crime by dressing like a flower delivery person, and it's not the first, and it's not the first time somebody's going to dupe the EMS either.

You know, no, and that's a— that's a good point. And to take into account all of the different cognition biases and everything you're talking about too is that this is why eyewitnesses are such— are the worst type of witness. And then, but then the same thing, people, you know, bash them or go, "Well, you know, how could you not remember seeing this during this situation?" Or, "How can you, you know what I mean, I would have seen this." But it's like, no, no, you don't. Like, no one does, none of us do if we don't take that time to kind of take a step back and go, "Wait a minute, what am I— what am I seeing here?" Or, "What's taking place?" And if we don't look for those little subtle cues out of our environment.

And now maybe there were none in this specific situation we're talking about with a— yeah, they didn't take the phone call. They didn't go, "That was an odd call," or, "That was something missing from there." But maybe the dispatch, you know, now looking back, goes, "Hey, you know what, they don't— didn't— didn't give a typical description of a scene or a patient or this, that I normally hear." You know what I'm saying? So no, no, you're— you're— you're onto something there too. So start— start right there because I don't want to seem like we bash on the— the, obviously, the paramedics who got robbed. You know what I mean? But why would they, you know, they had no reason other than to believe, you know, "This is going to be what it's— what we were told it's going to be." And I think that in right there is where— where you kind of— that's where we fall into these.

So let me throw two at you, and this is the Sidewinder missile coming in an exocentric segment. I'm sorry about it, Brian, but it's an angle, it's a bias. And for the folks that are at home, here's your homework. Amadou Diallo (referencing Amadou Diallo, a shooting victim). Now, look at a paper that happened in Ohio overnight where a guy with a Subway sandwich with the key still on the door is dead in his living room because he's shot by a copper. Now, I'm not trying to burn down a city, I'm saying stop. Sometimes what we observe isn't what we perceive, and our brain tells us a lie, but the lie is so realistic that we can't get out of it.

So Brian, if we were going to have a coin, what I just talked about with Amadou Diallo and this caper in Ohio overnight is the flip side of the woods that we're talking about. So put it in context. This is why mistakes happen. One, I have— what I have— what I have observed, what I'm perceiving in the moment that has visual field, auditory, meaning I'm listening to it, olfactory, which means I'm smelling it, and tasting it. You know, the umami of the feel of the background of the dirt on the baseball field and the smell of the hot dogs and the crack of the bat. Do you see what I'm trying to say? How that fills in everything that I'm about to see. So that's called observation, one thing where I just gave you four or five spirals.

Next thing is the science of the observation. Okay? Gravity was in play, the person was wearing clothes, the environment was real, there was not a fog or a vision or a geographic thing blocking me from seeing it. Then let's add logic. Okay, well, a person's a flower delivery person. How do you know that? Well, he got out of a van holding flowers and he was wearing a flipping hat. And then we add to that the faith. Well, I've had many other instances of flower delivery people, why would this be different? Now I just talked about four, can you imagine the spirals that would come out of just the faith one or the logic one?

So when we see something, okay, we take so much for granted, and then all of a sudden the microphone from the news guy comes up and says, "Hey, what was it that you saw?" That's where things go wrong. So you can't immediately fault a person and say it was some form of racism or some anger or anxiety.

Okay, so that ends up happening in those cases where they pick like you just said, they'll pick one angle, one bias, right? And they'll go, "Well, it's because of gender," or, "It's because of his race," or, "It's because of his religion." Now, can you find data to support your claim? Probably. You get what I'm talking about. The internet, you can find things that seem related to that, that seem to enhance that argument. But when, in fact, the— and that's the problem with looking at these cases is we don't look on the individual merits of the case, which is funny, that's what you have to do in the legal system if you go to everyday. So, but we— we, meaning the general population, the public, and especially how things get reported, is, you know, we don't have that training, we don't understand that. We don't understand how— how— how different each one of these cases are, and we don't understand the difference between contributing factors and proximate cause, and we don't get this because, you know, we're not taught how to do this stuff.

But like, and for those listening that do follow us on Instagram, the last week I posted a whole bunch of stuff, Greg, all about some of the human processing system. Right? So but things like sensory adaptation, channel capacity, sequencing, adaptation, change blindness, context and relevance, templates, prototype, all kind of a little mix-match of all this, which is everything that we're talking about in this case right now. Right? Not just the— the— the one about that you and I take for granted that we deal with in our world every day. Right? That Lita Sullivan case that you talked about with the delivery man and the flowers, and how all of those things play in. Now the idea is I can't sit here and go, you know, "Well, if I just understood sensory adaptation better, then that won't happen to me." It's like, well, no. It's like, "Well, if I just understood my channel capacity is diminished, that'll never happen." It's like, well, no. Like, we're explaining this that there's reasons why these things occur. So in order to combat some of those things, right? In order to not fall victim, one, I have to be aware of what those are, and I have to realize that it is, you know, I don't care how big, tough, badass, trained you are, how smart you are, whatever, you— you still— we all fall victim to this in a way. Right? The funerals for those people. The most badass person that I've ever seen in my entire life. Right? And that happens.

So yes, we do fall victim. And I'll give our listeners and our viewers, Brian, just a really brief example. So it was when we were still working in and around Benning, and I apologize for not having the notes up. I could look it up, but you do it. We were there, and a guy that was up in, I think it was Gwinnett County or whatever, called the EMS and said he was having a heart attack. When they got there, the house was on fire. They called the fire department, and when the police showed up, now they've got the police, the fire, and the EMS. He started shooting at them. And you recall that they looked back and said, "Okay, it was from a domestic. He was getting divorced, he was getting evicted." Okay?

Then fast forward to October a couple years ago, 2018. Arsonists, they're getting closer to him. They think they know what's going on. He starts his house on fire, calls and says, "Oh my God, there's a house fire!" Wait. So the fire department shows up, he gets a rifle, shoots at them, standoff, he kills himself. Okay? First guy, I believe, was killed by the police, but it doesn't matter.

January of this year, Brian, in Honolulu, a couple of coppers got killed (referencing the 2020 Honolulu shooting incident). Lady complex, Diamond Head. You remember that? And what happens is that guy actually calls and goes, "Hey, [expletive]'s broken loose, there are dead bodies everywhere." He's the caller! Do you get what I'm trying to say? Now he gets everybody in the area, starts his stabbing rampage, burning the place down, and it's a horrible fire in a horrible situation. Each one of those situations, different human, different state, different set of circumstances, but we all came to— they all came to the reasonable conclusion that I'm not going to drive by and kill a bunch of people, I'm not going to drive to the police station to do it. What I'm going to do is I'm going to bring them here.

One reason that students shoot up their own school, one reason that coppers go and blow their brains out in the place that they just retired from is it feels like home. This is my home, this is my castle. That's where those terms come from. So I'm going to shoot myself right from my own porch after I've created this havoc. Brian, do you think that because I gave you three spread over a six-year period, do you think there's going to be one in two years? Do you think there's going to be one next one? Oh, come on! So we know it, but just predicting it isn't enough. We have to see it forming. We have to see that momentum building. That's— that's— that's the idea.

All right, so even when people see those cues forming, and like— like even, you know, you go back to, I don't know why it just popped in my head, but Bianchi and Bono (referencing Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono Jr., the Hillside Stranglers), I mean, they were dressing up, they were doing the police officers, and then they started with, you know, well, they were mostly targeting a lot of prostitutes, stuff like that. But you know that, you know, the prostitutes, let's say that they were targeting, you know, they're pretty, you know, they're— they're— they're on the ball in terms of, you know, being on the street, knowing what's up and seeing— yes. And generally criminals kind of are, you know, people who grew up in those types of environments, you can identify that's just because you have so much more familiarity. Right? They can read their, you know, the person a little bit better or at least in terms of their biases, right? And what they're looking for. And so even though they kind of knew a lot of them, like, "Ah, something's up here," or, "I don't know," or, "Maybe something's off," but, you know, then that denial kind of kicks in.

So that's a good point too because you talk about like you just said, that being able to identify these things, how to identify a ruse right in the moment. Right? There could— one, that's kind of difficult to do because even when I do start to go, "Uh, something doesn't seem right here," I oftentimes— people tend to continue down that path anyway because things like denial and us wanting to believe in us wanting to prove what we think it should be. And so— so that I think is the difficult part. And that part I know, you know, it's easy to say, "Well, you've got to get some training," but, you know, if I'm— if I don't have that ability, it's just— it's how do I weigh those options, Greg, when I do see those things coalescing?

So there's another great point, Brian, and you brought up just an incredible point. So listen to me, you have a symbiotic relationship between the magician and the people that he fools. So a street magician that's going to make the coin appear or the rabbit disappear, they have to occupy your senses and show you what you're expecting to see, and then the surprise comes when something unexpected arises. That relationship is I have to project and you have to believe at least part of it. If you believe none of it, none of this would happen. Yeah. Do you see what I'm trying to say?

That— that's— that— that's a saying, right? "It takes two people to lie: one person to tell the lie, one person to believe it."

Precisely. So in the situation of a ruse, as the ruse begins to develop, there's certain parts of it, certain elementals, that will fall off and they'll coalesce as anomalies. So when we see the anomaly start to form, like, you can't say, "I would pick up on the flower delivery," because it could be the wrong address, it could be somebody that's a hidden admirer, it could be myriad things. Do you get what I'm trying to say? But the guy parks in the parking lot, walks all the way across the thing, asks for a specific person, then comes out with the gun. There was time, distance gaps there, and the gift of time and distance can save us. But on most of them, what happens is it's just something that doesn't fit the basic environment, and we go along with it because we don't want to be the rock in the pond.

You have every right in the world to have somebody delivering something for identification. You have every right in the world to say, "I didn't order any flowers. Have them leave them at the front desk." Do you get what I'm trying to say? When they call you by name, people are going to say— people are going to say, sorry about that, non-COVID, by the way, P.P.G., get better soon, I know you're listening. We know, Brian, that there's a way to be sensitive to your environment without being hyper-alert. And just by saying, "Hey, do me a favor, leave the package at the front." That's you stating that you don't want to be victimized.

When you talked about Bianchi and Bono, what you hit the nail on the head is they started with their ruse of being police officers against prostitutes, and it worked on a couple of the ones that were gullible. Yes. Then all of a sudden they tightened that up, and they couldn't hit that anymore. Yeah. So what did they do? They used the cops' scam, they still used the cop scam, the undercover detectives, but they moved out from prostitutes to the neighborhood. And guess what? They did a couple, and they worked. They got the little girl, they got the woman that was going to college right in front of her own family. But guess what? Coppers tightened that up again, so they had to keep modifying their game. Yeah. You don't think David Copperfield— you don't think that— right? Yeah, they have to modify their game because there's people out there trying to break down— all we're saying is slow time down and go, "Does what I'm seeing fit what I expect to see?" And if it doesn't, if it has anomalies, planetary storyline, yeah, where— where might those lead?

No, that, and that— that's— I mean, same thing. Those are— those are great examples. And then how they have to adapt, and you know, you just— you're going Bianchi and Bono, and then Siegfried and Roy (referencing the famous magician duo) in the same sentence. And yeah, they're saying, yeah, absolutely, all like tigers. So no, thank you. I can't remember which one got bit, was Siegfried or Roy?

Bianchi!

It was so— so, I think that was a different situation. Yeah. But crack is a hell of a drug, Lord. No, but though it is. But those— those two are, you know, that— that's the way we look at it. Those are two sides to the same coin, as we would always say. Right? One is for entertainment, and you know, this is fun, I'm here, you know, you're— you're paying to see a show, and the other is murder, death, kill. Right? So but it's the same process.

A fine line. A hugely thin line, Brian.

It— it— it is, because that same person that can— the street magician who's there to entertain can also steal your wallet pretty easily. Can also do the pedophile that moves your kid off towards—

That's exactly what we're saying. It's— it's is— so if I approach it from that about those entertainment purposes, because it's a little bit easier for me to understand, because like everyone goes, "Yeah, I know it's a— I know it's there, there's some ruse going on." When you're sitting there, I've been to one of them in Vegas one time where it was one of those shows. I mean, it's incredibly entertaining and you can't see how they're doing it, but you know that there's something going on. Right? That he didn't really saw the girl in half. Right? Like, I get it. But but they do such a good job that you can appreciate it.

And I think you— you almost fall into that same thing when I've had like really, really, really horrible, like, street bum, low-level criminals trying to pull something. And when you see it, like, you start laughing because you're like, "This is the worst scam I've ever heard," because you see it in slow motion.

Yeah, framed by the context and relevance that you learn from training and from experience. And they know too, all of a sudden they're caught up in the ruse and go, "Oh, this guy, something's wrong." Yeah, "He's a cop, ain't buying it."

He's the other criminal in your case, you know? Yeah, in my case, yeah, absolutely. No, and I think obviously that's— that's the difficult part. And you— you do mention, and we talk about like, slow time down. And I think that's a big thing is because we're all in such a rush, and we're so distracted by everything we have going on, is that makes it easier for them. So sometimes that single point of focus, I always tell people, "Hey, do one thing at a time," and start there.

So it's the same thing you said you were talking to a— and sorry for the interruption, but folks, you've got to understand, Brian's talking to a hundred coppers and detectives and SWAT team people, and he tells them, "That's how you make a significant change: shut off your phone and put it away." Yeah. And nobody wanted to do it then. I'm not gagged, that's serious. And then they couldn't do it for a few minutes, and they all had different excuses why. We don't want to do part of it, Brian. Part of it is that we're comfortable in our skin, and we don't want to increase our situation awareness. We don't want to change our routine. We don't want to get those flowers delivered and see what's on the card. Listen, it's okay to be a little suspicious, that doesn't mean paranoid.

Let me throw this at you, okay? Let's talk about Bruce Pardo (referencing Bruce Pardo, perpetrator of the 2008 Covina massacre). So Bruce Pardo, coming up on a holiday, all right, kills 12 people and then himself. Now let's wind the clock back a little bit. Bruce was in financial troubles, there were things going on, lost family members, like divorce-type things, was— was perhaps embezzling, all these things that are going on. All right? And then all of a sudden, three of his family members go missing and reported missing just before the holiday. And then all of a sudden, he shows up at a big Hollywood or a holiday party and guns blazing, shoots everybody and then burns the place down. If you heard the story of Bruce Pardo, you would say nobody seeing him on the road would go near him. Everybody would dial 9-1-1. There's no way anybody would let him into the house.

So now let's wind the clock back. Bruce Pardo goes out and buys a $15 Santa Claus suit. He shows up on Christmas Eve at the very door of the people that he's threatened before. He's already killed three before he gets to the door, Brian, and he goes, "Ho ho ho!" That's his ruse. Did it work? It worked. Today, 13 people are dead because of the Covina massacre back in 2008. And Brian, let me ask you this, now, folks, look that up. But Brian, one, that's a ruse crime. Two, has Santa Claus ever been the ruse to get in other places and do homicides?

Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think that's— that's perfect, fitting perfectly fitting for this time of year on how we allow access to individuals just based on literally a holiday. And it goes to— it's kind of funny how we learn. We're talking about different biases, and some of them are learned, right? We're taught that— that, you know, like we— how many photos do you have of the little kids freaking out on Santa Claus's lap because everybody's got one? But then eventually you get to age because your parents have to tell you, "No, it's okay, you can." But everything about that guy is like, the kid is going like, "No, this is horribly terrifying. Why this is homeless Pete on the street, you know, that— that you— you keep me away from when we're walking down the street. Now you want me to sit on his lap?"

Brian, we were in Dubai, we're in Berlin, we're in Saudi Arabia. Even there, because they have relationships with people that aren't Muslim, we saw images of Santa Claus. We saw wreaths and Christian displays as well. And you're precisely right. We say every day to our kids, "Don't sit on homeless Pete's lap. Don't go by that guy, this guy could be a pedophile, take candy from strangers." But one day a year, we dress you up and we shove you there, we force you even against your own better instinct. And that dichotomy goes through the rest of our life. Listen, we don't want to bother somebody and say, "Hey, listen, I don't know you, step away."

Do you remember the— we talked about it many years ago, remember, what's the guy that's in Ghost Protocol and all those films, Tom Cruise? Oh, Tom Cruise walking down the line, and about the third person in line doesn't interview him. He's with his friends, the third person. You remember that? Yeah. And he because he was in line with all the paparazzi didn't know how to react. So he was smiling, then he was like pissed, then he was like, "Why would you do that?" Why? Because he didn't have a teleprompter, he didn't have a producer or a coach telling him, "Hey, okay, now Tom, this is where you get pissed and throw that axe kick." Do you see what I'm saying? So— so it's so foreign to our pattern, and our pattern is laziness, repetition. Right? That all of a sudden that's the— the angle, the bias that they use. The ruse gets them close to us. Don't allow a ruse during the holidays to force you to let your guard down. And that's at the gas station, Brian. That's when you're punching in your PIN at the ATM. That's when you see people that you don't know in front of the store you're about to walk into.

No, and that— that's— that's good, and it can be— it can be easy to explain away even when it's extremely obvious. A perfect example of my— my buddy's gym that I— they train at because of everything on lockdown, like you have to do— you can do anything outside. So you have to bring stuff out, and they have this parking lot next door that's no longer used to this business that isn't open anymore. And so it's great, we're out there, and then over in the corner of the parking lot, out of nowhere, this vehicle just pulls in and parks in the farthest possible corner where there's no one right around at a closed business where there's three other— it's in a business park area, so it's not even in like a residential or commercial, it's literally like all a business park. You know what I mean? You get different— different like warehouse-type businesses in that area. It just sits there, and I'm like looking around, everyone's going on about their business, like, "Did anyone else see that vehicle just— what purpose?" And then as soon as everyone looked, like, "Yeah, why the hell is he parked there? What's going on?" And I said, "Well, let's— let's— looks like we're going to throw a little run into this workout and do a little lap past his car, you know, see what's going on." And it was something that simple, but absolutely no reason to— to get there. That we don't— we don't often attribute value to those things that we need to attribute.

But you just— you just hit on a very important point: when we're not sure, our brain goes to humor. So there's been many times when I was undercover or when we were together and we're armed or we're on a diplomatic detail or something like that, and we're standing somewhere all the time— where's your dad when we need him? But all of a sudden, you see a player coming in through the crowd, and everybody at the right time goes, "Here's the anomaly. This guy's got a body bomb, something's going wrong." And what do we do? We go, "Hey, this is how it ends!" You know what I'm saying? Or we say, "Here it comes!" And we joke about it. Why do we joke about it? Because our brain is still telling us, "Don't waste any calories. Yesterday was fine, today will probably be fine too." Remember, folks, that was a survival instinct because we relied on those survival instincts so we wouldn't waste calories that we didn't have. We could only gather so much, we could only hunt so much. So danger didn't come often, but when danger did, the danger warning, "Will Robinson" signs were so profound and prolific that we had to listen to them. But now we've evolved past that, Brian. We've evolved to a level that even when those pieces start fitting together, and, "Ha ha, I've got the golden ticket," we don't believe it.

So all we're saying, give yourself the gift of time and distance. Nobody approaches you now just because it's the holidays. Nobody's going to drop something off without you saying, "Hey, listen, ask for their identification. I didn't order the package." Right? Because listen, these people with the ruse are smart too. They'll prey on you and say, "Hey, you won this sweepstakes," and you think, "Well, I probably entered a sweepstakes. I'm sure I did that." And guess what? I agreed. Okay, about prostitutes, sex. Okay, the sex industry. "Hey, come on up, I'll do anything you want." You go into the hotel and the guy's there with a bat and says, "Give up the cheese," and you go without your wallet and without the sex. Why? Because we get duped when it's anticipatory. When we're going, "Ooh, this is going to be fun!" That's when we're the dumbest, and that's when we should be most alert.

No, I— I agree. And then, you know, there's— there's different— you can swing that in the other direction too, which happens to be still occasionally where it's— when I'm the prostitute— no, but where you go— go too far. Because I had one where, like, my— you know, my wife was like, "Hey, did you Venmo someone, you know, $300?" Like, "$300?" And I was, "Right, no, absolutely not. I haven't used that thing." And, "Well, I only did it for this, and that was blah, blah." And then they said, "Oh, it came from his account." Like, "Check." I was like, "Well, yeah, I had to pay so-and-so, but that was $325." Right? Yeah, I was like, "Well, you said $300, I didn't do that." It's like, "Oh my God, you're a complete idiot." I was like, "Yeah, that was my bad. Sorry about that." But but we become like almost like a little— little hypervigilant on it.

But the one of the big points too that I— I kind of wanted to make is— is how, you know, you said it a couple times, how we all fall into this, but also how it's that explanatory storyline. We use that as examples that things have to be explained. Your brain will create an explanatory storyline, "That's why this occurred." And sometimes denial sets in because you're still stuck in that loop, that record groove of, "No, this is what's supposed to be happening. I'm supposed to be, you know, doing this, that, this. This is just a flower delivery man. It couldn't be anything else." Right? And I— I think it's a good point, and tell me if this is a good way to describe it is that those storylines are going right now as you're listening to this podcast, whether you realize it or not, it's constantly, constantly happening. So you're— and they're— they're protective, they're intended to try to protect your ego and your psyche while protecting your— down during the day.

I— I think it's a good point to point out, you said protect your ego. What— what do you— what do you mean by that? Because it's yes, there's— we're generally primed for survival, not just survival for ourselves, technically, survival as a species as a whole. And but what do you mean protect your— your ego? Because I think that's a little bit of a distinction that I like and I want you to—

Let me give you two examples to get us there. Yeah. First example: autoerotic asphyxia. Yeah. Exactly. Look that one up, folks. Black vans will be circling your house. So I went on a case where instead of thrilling himself, a guy killed himself, and it was a very elaborate scene. The person had a bias for very specific things, and that angle ended up killing him. When you're alone, you can't have a safe word, right? But the— the— the way out that they intended, they never got to, and so they were hanging in their own garage. There was substantial evidence that this person had engaged in this practice before. There was ample forensic pathology evidence that this was, in fact, the proximate cause of death. There was ample evidence on the internet searches that the person had researched how to do it safely. But the mom was an old-school person, and Mom said, "It's a homicide." And I said, "Man, I know how hard this is to believe, but your son was just enjoying this behavior, and it got out of hand. And like, you know, they never intended to hurt themselves or you, they never intended you to find them this way. As a matter of fact, they've done it before and cleaned up on it. And it's unfortunate, but it's true." She would never come out of her belief metric, her— her view of the world, even when she died. She hated the police, she hated me as an investigator. "There's no way I will ever believe that my son would do this to himself," even in the face of evidence.

Boom! Flash forward to a suicide. A kid shot himself in the mouth, did some damage, but never exited. If you know anything about suicide and the forensic pathology and the wound ballistics, you'll know what I'm talking about. But there was a lot of bruising and there was a lot of swelling. So it appeared as though the people— the person, the male, had been beaten by somebody before they shot themselves. And it wasn't. It was all internal, the gas that was trying to escape. Because this kid was young, and because they didn't leave a note, and because they didn't say to the person, "I'm suicidal," but it was just before Christmas. Do you get what I'm trying to say? "I'm home alone, you went out, I don't want to go back to school," kind of thing. The forest for the trees, Brian, the two fam— the two parents in the family were [expletive], pardon my language. "Why would we ever do this? This is a murder. You're not investigating. You should have pulled fingerprints, you should have investigated the whole neighborhood." Brian, sometimes it's too good to be true, and that's where this comes from. The question is, "Do I believe it when I see it, or do I see it when I believe it?" And you can talk yourself into anything with limited amounts of evidence.

That's— that's another good perspective to take on this. And I think that's always, it's a good one especially because you kind of talked about school shooters earlier, and that's a perfect example of that same way of thinking that that mother of that person who accidentally, you know, killed themselves in the— that caper you discussed, but is the same way why we don't recognize it. You know why it— we don't technically see it in our kids, even though that denial kind of sets in, and they see it. Right? We always want to see it as, "No, this is what they did. My son or daughter or whatever would never do that." And— and— and that's— that's a tough pill for a lot of people to swallow, where, you know, we always take the approach like, look, you don't know what people— like, like when you say, "Well, my so-and-so would never do that," anytime I hear anyone say that, right then and there, I'm like, "Yeah, that's a huge red flag because that means that that person probably would do it." Like, we— we often attribute, you know, value judgments on people that maybe that— that kind of get in the way of— of how they actually are. And because it kind of, it like you said, it— it— it ruins our ego and the way we think and believe of that individual. We don't want to be wrong, and we also don't want to think badly about someone. Like, I'm always—

A parent doesn't want to lose a kid, and the parent doesn't want to have to face the fact that City Market, that, you know, "Hey, your kid died." "Oh, wow, he was young, was it cancer?" "No, it was suicide." Brian, those are hard things, those stigmatized people. You know, we've lost friends to suicide, and it's hard to talk about it even today. Yeah. You know, Don— you know, our good friend Don, and Chuck Yeager (the famous test pilot) died. God bless Don and his family. Yeah. Okay. Brian, it was— it was two weeks after my mom died, but Chuck was a different kind of friend. Do you see what I'm saying? So we can hit me differently. Right? Those are not because of my brain's chemistry, they're from the ego that drives my brain's chemistry. So psychologically how things affect us are hugely important as to what we see. We— we see a ghost when we need to see a ghost. Do you see what I'm trying to say? We see a Sasquatch when our brain doesn't have the capacity to rule out other things that it could have been, or we choose not to. So a psychological bias can be ruining your relationship with your son. It can be screwing up your relationship with your boyfriend or girlfriend. But Brian, we don't want to address it because that means that we're different. That's how suicides start. You know what I'm saying? This is the same recipe.

Yeah, no, it's eggs, or the same ingredients, maybe ingredients. And what you just said, I kind of— we haven't gone into this too much on any podcast about what we talk about when we mean your ego. I mean, we always say humans have a, in a generalization, is we all humans have a fragile ego system. We have our thoughts and beliefs about ourselves and others, and we don't want anything to ruin those thoughts.

Inflation.

And then what people come in and they talk about ego is a bad thing, and you've got to control your ego. And I— I understand what they're getting at, but that's almost not really possible. I mean, it's unrealistic.

But unrealistic. Okay, it's an inspirational way.

Yeah, I— I— I'll agree with that. And what— what I— what I mean by this, say that is, look, being aware of it and understanding how it affects you is better than trying to go, "Well, I'm going to just be more humble," or, "I'm just going to do this." It's like, look, look, that's— that's a tagline, that's a— that's a platitude. Like, this is how you're wired. And you brought up, you said, you say how our ego drives our brain chemistry, and then our brain chemistry then drives our ego. And that can become that feedback loop, right? That positive or negative feedback loop, depending on which way it goes. So two sides of the coin that could be good, it could be bad, it could be, you know, allow me to not see things that I should see, not be aware of it. And that's hugely important to understand because the more times I'm right, right, the less likely I am to think otherwise.

You know, I'm always, you know, especially with the— with the little one, with the kid, just because the work we do and all the cases we study and talk about, like, you know, anytime my wife says, "Well, well, she would never do something like this." And I'm just like, "All right, you've got to wipe that thought from your head and like start over." Right? And this is how to create that thought. Yep. Don't— don't, especially when it comes to kids, it's like, you can't blame her for doing something if she doesn't know what it is. Right? She's mimicking things. She learned something from here, or said a word, or did something that was like, "Hey, where did that—" like, it came from somewhere. It's not their fault they had to learn that. Right? And I always take that as approach when you're looking at kids because it's under— it's easier to understand and see how they develop because it's like— it's like practice. You know, it's like slow-motion practice, right? Especially when they're trying to lie or come up with a story, and you're sitting there watching, you're like, "Oh man, this is so bad!" But like, I'm laughing inside.

He's like, they're trying to— they're learning how to lie because it's the greatest thing in the world. Right? I mean, right? Just just to get together. Yeah, I know. I mean, really what I'm saying, cost-benefit analysis of a kid with a lie. "So I'm going to get into trouble, sorry, I'm going to get in trouble, you're going to take a bunch of stuff from him and be grounded, or I just tell you this, and then none of that happens." Like, exactly. "How do I— I'm going to do that the rest of my life."

And— and that's— that's how— how it works. And so we all fall victim to that. And so I— I— I just want to kind of address that we, when we say "ego," we kind of mean it differently than a societal someone saying, "Oh, that person has a message." We're not talking philosophy. We're not talking and— and ego where this person has a certain amount of bravado.

Yeah, we're talking about your view of you, psychologically and sociologically, and your view of you. Like, you know, I'm 100 years old now and a biscuit shy at 350. Right? But still when I go out to places, I imagine myself as that 27-year-old, never in better shape. Yeah. Later. Right? And when that skids to a halt, well short of, you know, and the people go, "Oh, creepy old guy." Okay, I take that and I go, "Wow, how could they have that misperception?" Because my perception of me isn't this old, failing, "Oh, look at the size of that prostate." My— my look of me is really good. And sometimes your worldview of you doesn't coincide with reality. And that's a bitter pill to swallow, we don't like that. So we insulate ourselves. We insulate ourselves with floppy clothing or eating too much or, you know, not working out, or working out too much. Do you get what I'm trying to say? There's all these different—

Oh, that's— that's biased. That's the one for me because we've been so busy, especially with like the last couple years. Like, it's like what I used to be able to train and do has gone downhill so much. And I don't— do you notice our viewers have noticed? I tried to do some workout, and then like halfway through, I'm laying in a puddle of my own sweat and urine and whatever else, crying, "What is that? What happened? What the hell happened to me?" Right? Right?

So no, that— that's a good point because I still see it as like, "No, I can still do that." And then you put the weight on the bar and you're like, "Damn, this feels pretty heavy. Normally it should be moving faster." But I think that's a better way to— or at least a way to explain how we— what we mean when we say your— your ego because like you said, it's your personal view, so internal. That's an internal ego. And then then it's externally on the— on the rest of the world of how I view it. And we have our beliefs, and this is why we fall into these things.

So an adept criminal is going to use your projection of yourself against you. Yes. A salesman and advertiser, do you see a used car salesman? All of those folks are going to exploit what they see. So if you walk around with "victim" drawn on your forehead, you're probably going to be victimized. If you walk around alert to your situation, you're probably not going to be victimized. And Brian, for the holidays, that's close enough. Don't fall for a ruse. Don't get close to the flame because you could get burned. Give yourself the gift of time and distance, and make sure that you know you— you have the scales dropped from your eyes and you're seeing, smelling, feeling, tasting exactly what's happening before you take that next step, before you unlock the door, before you go out to your car.

No, that's a— a good one. I— you know, everything's a teachable moment. Right? And same thing, we had— we had, you know, we were selling our place and had people that were supposed to show up and do the inspection for the buyer and all that stuff. Right? And— and they came up, you know, because we're at a kind of condo complex, and there's, you know, fire safety standards and stuff. Like, we have, you know, out our back off of our balcony and porch and stuff like that, there's a, you know, there's a nice stairwell that goes down, but it's— it's— it's unused because it— it can funnel in from two different— our condo and the one next to us on the third floor. You can, you know, come out this door that's locked from the inside of your place and go out, and it's a fire exit. But that's all it's there for, it's completely unused other than for that purpose. And so there's never anyone on it. You know what I'm saying? You have to come up our front door if you want to come into our place.

And then sure enough, Mikayley (Brian's wife) saw someone on there and was like, "Whoa, oh," and walked out and said, "Oh, are you here for the home inspection?" And of course, he said yes because he was. But I had to tell her, I was like, "Babe, like you— you just— that you just created 'battery life.' You told them that— that, you know, it's okay for you to be here. I now believe you. So anyone else walking up like that, it could have been a criminal." I had to explain it to her, and she was like, "Oh, like, I never— I never saw it that way." And I was like, "No, exactly. Like, you fit— this is a— you— you— that storyline was already there, and so you— your brain said, 'Oh, it must be this.' You never took it as, 'Why is there a person standing on my fire escape balcony that should never be there?'"

You, first of all, spot on again, Brian. But listen, if you're listening to our broadcast right now, what Brian just did was training, training, practice, rehearsal, and experience. That's the magic. Everything's a teachable moment. You're not saying that this, you know, a college graduate with degrees and all this experience is stupid. It's just in this instance, because that rolodex file came up blank, that person chose something that somebody could in the future exploit. You've got to stop. This is where, Brian, you have to take your ego and you've got to put it on a shelf for a minute and go, "I am vulnerable." You know what? I still think that I can kick, you know, do a jump-spinning roundhouse over a certain hail's head right now, and I'm probably would hit him in the groin and then be in an emergency room for breaking my hip, but in my brain, I can still do it.

Exactly.

That carries with it the potential for access, and I never, ever want to allow a person access to me unless I say, "Now you can come in," after I've, you know, seen that it's a person I know, it's not a scam, it's something. You know, how many years of scam calls did it take for now nobody answers their phone? Yeah. Do you see what I'm trying to say? Yeah. Right now it blocks them for me. It says "potential spam call" on my phone. You know, yeah, you've got my number in that loop too. Yeah, I do.

So folks, step away from the ego for a minute. Take a look at your surroundings. You're not invincible. Okay? Your armor doesn't cover everything or you wouldn't be able to bend and move and swallow and drink and, you know, fart. Slow time down a little bit and just take a look at what the world is showing you. Make sure that you've got artifacts and evidence that would tend to support what's happening. And you're not saying words like, "Well, probably," or, "It could have." If you're saying those kind of words, Brian, you're talking yourself into trouble.

No, I think that's a— that's kind of a good point to kind of— to wrap that up and how to— how to actually do that, and or, as we say, "just be great."

Use a wrap, by the way, for the holidays. I got— you got what you did there. I see you. Be mildly entertained with your environment.

Now, you know, I always do the— the little kids, like, you know, they just got to stop and look at something. They tilt their head because they don't know what it is, and they're trying to make sense of their environment. Well, we've made a living out of that, Brian.

Well, that's what I'm saying. That's all— that's all we do is do the head tilt, go, "What is that?"

So— so, and then there's only a way to turn that into money. Yeah, monetize. So that— that the training point is good, especially if you've got family members like you just said. I give the example to Mikayley, and then the little one, the insurgent, she's— she's already at like— she's at like brown belt level. She just comes back as, "Man, that guy was angry." And then Mikayley's doing like, "How do you know he was angry?" And she'll point to right here between her eyes, goes, and she couldn't pronounce it, she was like, "Yeah, the core muscle right here." I was like, "Corrugator, good job." Like, that's— that pain is hilarious.

Okay, the problem is that you guys, I'm going to be reading about this in the California Journal one day, you know? "Where have your parents been for the last 35 years?" You know, I don't know. That's— you've created a monster, but it's a good monster.

I have. I have Cookie Monster. Yeah. Well, and without the cookies, it's just a monster. So I think on that note, it's actually a good wrap to the ruse that we're talking about here. So without cookies, that guy is just a monster.

All right, thanks everyone for tuning in. Don't forget to check out the episode details below. Subscribe, please hit the like button on here, leave us a review if you can. It helps out, it gets it out to more people, and tell your friends.

Thanks to Macedonia! Brian, oh my God, I completely forgot to give a shout-out at the beginning. I was going to, I completely forgot. We are number one podcast, or excuse me, number one in social sciences in Macedonia, and number five of all science podcasts in that country. So I think that's pretty cool. Thank you to everyone from Macedonia who's listening. I would love to come to your village sometime, and we can— we can hang out and have fun. So it was in a room, there goes that number. Yes.

Well, we're number 10 in Japan. Japan, I love it. Yeah, yeah. So— so Macedonia would be cool, I've never been there. I would love to go. So— so reach out humanbehaviorpodcast@gmail.com, and we'll come visit you. That would be fun. We can do a guest— guest show there sometime. So everyone, thanks again for tuning in. Don't forget that training changes behavior.