Undercover in a Macy's Bathroom | PREVIEW

WEBVTT

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I'm tz, the creator of Tapes
from the dark Side, and today I

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want to share with you a short
preview of one of our premium episodes.

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This episode is about Nate Gafford,
who was the former president of the police

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union in Mesa. The story that
he tells is about going undercover as a

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rookie cop into a Macy's bathroom to
try and entrap gay men who are looking

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to have sex. Now, I'm
just going to play you the intro for

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this episode, and if you want
to hear the full thing, it'll be

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available add free on our Patreon and
Apple Premium. In our catalog, currently

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our twenty exclusive bonus episodes, and
we have many more planned for you.

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They range from after shows, short
side episodes like this one, personal stories

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from myself, and also a new
show called the VHS Vault, where we

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watch bizarre episodes of old talk shows
from the nineteen nineties. For about the

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sign up, go to patreon dot
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The Dark Side contains descriptions of violence
baan sexuality. Listener discretion is advised.

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As I delved deeper into the history
of the police force in Mesa, there

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was one figure who came up that
I found myself particularly interested in, and

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that was one Nathaniel Gavert, the
former head of the police union. Despite

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my searching, I was confronted with
a lack of information about him. But

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let me start with what I did
find. Nathaniel Ray Gavert was born in

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August of nineteen seventy nine, making
him currently forty three years old. He

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lives in a town right outside of
Mesa, Arizona, and he's been involved

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in some form or fashion with the
Mesa Police Department for nearly his entire adult

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life. He was himself an officer
for number of years and was president of

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the MPa, the Mesa Police Association, which is the union in Mesa.

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I could find out absolutely nothing else
about this enigmatic figure. Now, I

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did discover a few newspaper articles where
Nate's name comes up and he's quoted for

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a line or two about his opinion
for the future police chief in Mesa or

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a number of other issues. We
now know the history of how Mesa chose

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Ramon Bautista and how Nate himself played
a pivotal role in ousting the chief,

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but at least on the surface,
in those newspaper clippings, Nate seemed open

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to Ramon as a potential chief of
police, though he does notably say he

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was partial to someone who's local to
Mesa. In a couple of newspapers,

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I found articles that were actually authored
by Nate Gavert himself, which seems odd

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to me, and perhaps it was
a continuation of the ancestuous relationship between police

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and media that was formed in Mesa
throughout the nineteen nineties. When I'm referring

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to is the role Mason newspapers played
inactively downplaying the Richard Elligott scandal, in

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which Richard had been the ring leader
in a sex ring and also had been

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raping his daughter and producing child porn
of it. The Mason newspapers never made

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any effort to interview the victims and
instead printed outrageous statements by the perpetrators lawyers,

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such as when Dick Elligott's attorney said, quote, these were consensual actions

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on the part of teenagers. In
this case, these were teenagers, non

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children. This statement was in reference
not only to Dick Elligot's molesting his thirteen

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year old daughter, but also him
molesting a thirteen year old neighbor boy.

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And then, just when I thought
there was no more information to be found

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about Nate Gavert, I discovered an
episode of a podcast called Boys in Blue.

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The podcast was first published in January
of twenty twenty and is hosted by

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a retired Mason Police officer, Bill
McReynolds. On July thirty first of the

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same year, twenty Bill's guest was
none other than Nathaniel Gavert. In this

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episode, Nate gives us information about
himself and his career that I couldn't find

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anywhere else, and I could think
of no particular reason why Nate would lie

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here about his career. Specifically,
we learned about the dates of when he

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worked as a PSA, street cop
and investigator. And though I do believe

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that the information can be trusted,
I have to say it should all be

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taken with a grain of salt.
A person is not always the most reliable

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source of information about themselves. Starting
when Nate was nineteen years old, he

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was hired by the Mason Police Department. That was in April of nineteen ninety

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nine, and his first role was
as a PSA that stands for Police Service

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Aid. You would give out batteries, rubber gloves, and even organize police

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reports to file with different departments.
This gave him an overview of how the

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police department functions, and he quickly
learned that he felt at home within the

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walls of this organization. Nearly one
year later, he went to the police

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Academy in May of two thousand in. Upon graduation, he spent seven years

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working patrol, mainly the west side
of Mesa in the Dobson and Fiesta districts.

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He was promoted to detective a new
unit called BRAVE, which was an

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acronym standing for burglary, robbery,
aggravatord assault and victim Education. The officers

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in the BRAVE unit, while they
were detectives, were a little different than

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the suit and tie types that were
used to They were proactive, mainly on

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the streets making arrests. After fourteen
years on the force, Nate was promoted

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to sergeant, which is one of
the highest roles in the department that still

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sees action on the streets. To
give you an overview of the hierarchy,

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after sergeant, there's typically lieutenant,
which is an admin job, and after

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that there's only captain, Deputy Chief, assistant chief, and then at the

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highest level, Chief of Police.
I couldn't exactly find out when Nate became

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officially involved with the administrative roles in
the MESA Police Union, but he says

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he worked there for seventeen years,
the last four serving at the highest level

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as president. At the time of
the podcast interview twenty twenty, Nate was

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still employed by the union as a
representative, meaning that he could be called

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in for consultation and even to occasionally
represent an officer during interactions with the city.

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During his time as president of the
MPa, Nate was outspoken about two

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issues that relay back to Daniel Shaver. One was his insistence that despite the

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body camera footage which seemed to show
Mitch Brailsford and Charles Langley working together to

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murder Daniel Shaver, that they were
actually both innocent, and going a step

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further, Nate insisted that Mitch should
have never been charged in the first place.

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Seeing as Nate as an active Facebook
account and was the president of the

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union at the time, it's also
reasonable to suspect that he was directly responsible

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for posting the controversial message that was
written on the official MPa Facebook page on

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April first, twenty sixteen, shortly
after shooting. This is the same message

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that included the quote. Unfortunately,
there were consequences to mister Shaver's actions and

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he paid the price. Now,
as head of the police union in Mesa,

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it's a Nate's job to support every
officer, no matter they're guilt or

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innocence. I just wish Nate would
be more honest about this. In the

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podcast interview, he gives the impression
that if an officer was actually guilty of

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a crime, he would want to
hold them accountable. Quote. You know,

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it's when sometimes the thought of a
police union or any unions, or

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we're there to get our officers out
of trouble, and that's completely inaccurate.

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You know, we're there to you
know, we'll fight to the end to

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make sure that our members are treated
fairly. And equally, and that's it.

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That's that's what they pay their membership
dues. We're not there to find

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a loophole to get them out of
trouble. In the Daniel Shaver case specifically,

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it sure felt to me like the
police union and his defense lawyers were

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looking for a loophole. But let's
move on, because the reason that I'm

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making this episode is actually not in
regards to how Nate Gavert relates back to

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Daniel Shaver. It's because of a
story that it came across while listening to

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the entire forty five minute Boys in
Blue podcast episode. This story takes place

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when Nate was just a rookie in
the department, which means the year would

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have been two thousand and Nate would
have been just twenty years old. I

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think this story exemplifies the Masa Police
Department as it existed throughout the nineties and

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two thousands. In this excerpt,
you'll hear Nate described going to undercover as

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a rookie in a Macy's men's bathroom, whereas a rumor that gay men were

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engaging in sexual activity. How,
why, and what result would a covert

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approach to such a situation produce.
Well that's what we're here to find out

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in this tape from the dark Side. Hm. I mean I've I've just

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participated in some really crazy, fun, exciting cases. Um you know,

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I don't know if you if you
have time for another one, but it's

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more of a funny story.