S5, Chapter 8: Sins of the Fathers

0:05 Tapes from the Dark Side contains descriptions of violence and sexuality. Listener discretion is advised. When Stacy Elligot turned twelve years old, her father began molesting her. First. It started with weird little sexual games that to a child's mind might seem silly or innocent. One was called booby grabbers. He'd walk by and bump into my breasts or stuff like that, Stacy said. Another one was a little more aggressive. Richard Elegant called this one the short haired pull.

0:49 In this game, he would reach under his daughter's underwear and yank out a tuft pubic hair. It didn't really think anything of it at first, until it started getting worse. Instead of little grabs, he reached underneath my braw, grabbed me and made me sit on his lap. I didn't like it, scared me. He used to tell me that nobody could ever touch me that way, only he could. There was also the shower incident, in which Richard was fully nude showering when he called Stacy in to bring him a washcloth. She brought it to him, and he pulled her into the shower. Fully closed. He started taking off his daughter's clothes and groping her.

1:29 That event was cut short when Stacy's mother opened the door and saw her daughter and a husband naked together. She gasped and hurried away. Laurie Elligott refused to acknowledge the abuse that was occurring right in front of her. Dick Elligott also gave his daughter erotic massages with baby oil and which she massaged her breast and genitalia. One of the most traumatic incidents of abuse was the mother daughter pictures that Dick Elligott took of Stacy and Laurie. And while this permanently scarred the young Stacy and also produced a definitive evidence of the abuse that would later help to put Richard Elligot in jail, though my opinion for not long enough. Stacy recalls it like this. Her father approached her said he wanted to take nude photographs of her and her mother together. Quote he asked me if I wanted to, and first I was like, no, I don't, And then he asked me again, and just the way he looked at me he scared me. I figured if I did it and got it over with, maybe he'd leave me alone. The pictures are perverse. On the first day, Dick Elligott took over one hundred photographs of his wife and their teenage daughter posed in a variety of ways, standing, sitting with teddy bears, and their legs spread. A week later and Dick wanted more pictures.

2:54 This time, he instructed Stacy to masturbate during the session. He said, I had to look like I was enjoying what I did. I was scared. He kept telling me, if you're going to do this, you're going to do it right, unless you want to piss me off. Those were his exact words. There was another incident that played a pivotal role in Stacy Elegant's decision to get help, and that is when she saw her father playing the Booby Grabbers game with her next youngest sister, who was thirteen. In an instant in her mind, she saw all the abuse that she had endured for the past four years play out, except instead of her, it was her baby sister in her place. This turned out to be the final straw for Stacy. She told one of her friends at school, who advised her she didn't tell someone, the abuse would only get worse. Imagine you're in Stacy's shoes, You're barely sixteen years old and the people who are supposed to be protecting you are hurting you. Not only that, but there your parents and your father, a police officer. His role as father is to protect you, and his role as employee of the state is to protect you.

4:09 Who could you possibly trust? But on the night of July twenty seventh, nineteen ninety Stacy Elegant took a risk and she told her aunt. The way the newspapers in Mesa, Arizona, handled the case is quite upsetting, But even more upsetting was how Dick Eligant and Laurie Elligot responded to the claims of abuse. The newspapers were barred from naming Stacy as she was a miner, and if they referred to her as the daughter of Dick, it would be effectively revealing her identity, and so what little remained of Dick's reputation was partially saved at the time. In January of ninety two, an article in Arizona Republic says Richard told a probation officer that the thirteen year old boy he molested and ra aped with his wife was not a victim, but instead quote got lucky. Richard also said his daughter was the one who approached him about the pictures, and he said it was part of her aspiration to one day be in Playboy magazine. Richard Elligott paints himself as the victim, saying that through therapy he hopes that one day he will understand quote why I allowed it.

5:23 Throughout the early nineties, the Mason newspapers ran similar stories where the anonymous Stacy was portrayed as a willing participant in these sex acts, despite the fact that she was a miner, and that any sexual activity that took place between the underage Stacy in the thirty plus year old Richard and Laurie was, by a definition rape. Dick. Elligott's attorney, Jeff Jones, said, quote, these were consensual actions on the part of teenagers. In this case, these were teenagers, not children. The paper made no effort to interview Stacy, which they could have done, and still kept anonymous. Later she said quote, I wasn't consenting. I was molested. The ensuing trial, as you might already be able to guess, was not much more than a sham.

6:12 Five of the most serious charges against Richard Elligot were dropped. This included the charge of force general massage on his daughter Originally, the prosecutors were trying to strike a deal in which Richard would serve no jail time at all, but that plan was dropped after they received a barrage of phone calls complaining about the plan for soft time. Richard Elligott was sentenced to fourteen years in prison, but he ended up serving only nine of those years. He was released in the year two thousand. Dick Elligott is one of the worst types of offenders, someone who uses his position of privilege to orchestrate the abuse of those closest to him. I have serious doubts this type of person could ever be rehabilitated, but even if they could, it would take years of intensive therapy.

6:59 In my professional opinion, much longer than nine years. Yet, the prosecutors in this case deemed Elligot's crimes quote non dangerous and non repetitive. That's even though he had molested his daughter for four years. That's even though he had begun to molest another daughter, and that's even though he organized the rape of a thirteen year old neighbor who was also a child. Richard Elligott's lawyers tried to write off the sexual abuse as a harmless mistake. At one point, They argued, quote, we don't have a situation where the daughter is in serious therapy and having nightmares. And perhaps more disturbing than all of this, if you can imagine that as the legal case against Richard's wife, Laurie Elligott, Laurie Elligott was an active and willing participant in the sexual abuse of her daughter and the rape of a thirteen year old neighbor. She pled guilty to child abuse and faced no jail time, only three years of probation. And then, in August of nineteen ninety three, the unthinkable happened. An Arizona court ruled that Laurie Elligot could regain permanent custody of her three youngest daughters, who were now fifteen, eleven, and nine years of age. The only saving grace in this story might be that Stacy was now eighteen and a legal adult. But the whole reason Stacy had come forward in the first place was to protect her sisters, and now they were in the custody of a known abuser who had faced almost zero penalty for her abuse. Laurie said she knew

8:35 the sexual games that Richard would play with Stacy, but said, quote, he's not being sexual when he's doing that tool. She also repeated the lie that it was Stacy's idea to take the nude pictures. She said, quote, so I figured if she was going to do it, I wanted to be in there with her. I didn't look at it sexually. Linda Reichhardt, who was Laurie Elligott's one time appointed counselor, said, quote, missus Elligot is not seen as a risk to her children. She's not likely to reoffend on them, nor is she likely to become established in a relationship with another man. All of this stands in stark contrast to the story that the victim told Stacy Elligot. In an interview with Phoenix New Times, she says, quote, I gave my mom a chance before I turned my dad in.

9:24 I said, help me, Mom. You know he's touching me, he's molesting me. Do you want me to spell it out for you. She's had an excuse for everything. My mom basically has no backbone. She totally turned her back on her kids. You can replace a husband, but not your kids. Both my parents are sick. It's clear to me, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that both of Stacy's parents were sick, But Richard's sickness went beyond pure sexual perversions and to the point of violence. Around the time that Stacey he started dating, her father pinned her against a wall and choked her. Stacy said, quote, he told me you can't see him anymore. He's not for you. You don't understand how much I love you. I'm doing this for you. She said that the choking left purple marks on her neck. What is the reason that Richard Elligot served soft time? What is the reason that Laurie Elligot served in no time? What is the reason that the names of the police officers in Richard Elligot's sex diary were wided out? It all comes back to the idea that a police department can investigate themselves. The Mesa Police spokesman Mike hay Is at the time said, can we police ourselves well? When people read the report in its entirety, they will conclude that the Masa PD did it quite professionally and very well.

10:56 Still to this day, we do not know the full extent of the corruption of the nineteen ninety Masa sex scandal. The three hundred plus page report was released by the department, but it had been heavily redacted in it. We learned that the roots of this corruption actually began in the late eighties with a man named Russ Statton. He was also a former Masa PD cop who had also molested his stepdaughters. In nineteen eighty eight, Russ Statton's name showed up in Richard's diary, and curiously, the one who tipped off police to Russ's abuse was Richard Elegant. When Russ Statton left the department and went to prison, he warned the higher ups at Masa PD that Richard himself was molesting his daughters, and he said, quote, someday you'll be asking Dick Elegant these same questions. You'll see. It's clear that the roots of the corruption and scandal took hold of the Masa PD long before the Daniel Shaver case.

12:01 In fact, long before Daniel Shaver was even born. In the Masa PD, we were dealing with a legacy of corruption, and in twenty sixteen, when Charles Langley and Philip Mitchell Brailsford murdered Daniel Shaver, the very DNA of the department seemed engineered to avoid justice and accountability. In this whole story, there actually is one good elegant and his name was Larry. He's the first person that Stacy's aunt, Betty Joe called when she heard about the abuse. He went straight to the assistant chief of Mesa Police, who at the time was Mike Whalen. He told Mike straight up that his brother Dick had been molesting his kids. He told them there were hundreds of nude photographs. He told them there was a diary with names in it, and he told them that it had to be a case for another agency to Larry Elligot. This was Mike Whalen's response. Quote, he told me in the strongest terms possible that Mesa was going to handle this one within the department, and that was that. When her assistant chief tells you something, there's not much argument you can make. Larry Elligott's wife, Cathy was furious. She said, quote, when a nine year old girl tells you that she saw her mom having sex on a living room floor the man, and she saw her mom making out in the kitchen with Rick Keith, her damn husband's lieutenant, it makes you want to strangle a whole bunch of people. Cathy was the one who

13:35 actually organized the bombardment of the County Attorney's office with dozens, perhaps hundreds of phone calls demanding that no plea bargains be made in the Richard Elligott case, it's partly Larry and Cathy's efforts that Richard Elligott faced any jail time at all. And if you look up this case today, you'll see that County Attorney Rick Romley oversaw an internal affairs investigation. But that's partly a smoke and mirror act. Rick Romiley is a Mesa County attorney. He's not an outside organization. He works for the City of Mesa. According to Masa's own police in an anonymous comment quote, having Rick Romiley lead the internal affairs investigation is like asking the fox to card the henhouse. The unfortunate truth is that there had never been a proper investigation into the Mesa Police department by an outside source until twenty seventeen and a man named Ramone Batista coming up on tapes from the dark Side. I'm angry and I'm deeply disappointed by what I saw in those videos.

14:46 It's unacceptable and it needs to stop immediately. Let's return to July twenty seventeen and the announcement that Ramone Bautista would be taking over as the chief of Mesa Police. His goal clean up the culture of non accountability, abuse of force, and scandal that seemed to have run amuck in the department for decades. One of the key changes Bautista made is bringing in independent investigators to review practices. One of the defense's arguments used in the Daniel Shaverer case was that Mitch Brailsford had followed protocol perfectly. He even said himself that if he could do it all over again, he would do everything exactly the same, because that's how he'd been trained. Ramone also instituted implicit pious training in de escalation training, both of which were sorely needed in Mesa. A new use of force policy was implemented that explicitly prevented police officers from striking people in the face we're head unless a suspect was being combative. This seems like a common sense thing, but it was opposed by Mesa police officers at the time. Bautista also helped to make requests for investigations of excessive force more accessible. He helped

16:17 to set up a web page and also implemented a phone number that could be called twenty four seven. Here is Ramone Bautista discussing changes in Masa PD in response to the recent barrage of bodycam footage showing police officers violently beating on our suspects. This specific media appearance occurred shortly after the video the anonymous fifteen year old being beaten well handcuffed went viral. The speech by Chief Bautista was cited as a pivotal moment in which the police officers of Mesa say they lost faith in his ability as a leader. Which is unfortunate because I don't hear Ramone Batista say anything here that is particularly offensive to police or anyone. The police in Mesa had become accustomed to a chief who sided with them every step of the way, one who encouraged them to purge their own disciplinary files in one who enabled a culture of corruption and abuse. Ramone put his foot down and made it known he would be a different kind of chief, one who not only talked about integrity and accountability, but one who expected it and even demanded it. This week, the police apartment has been a news for all the wrong reasons. Over the last few days, we've seen several videos showing situations involving our offers. They are disturbing and they will not be tolerated. As

17:47 the chief of this department, I want to speak openly and directly with you and let this community and the nation know what I'm doing about it. First, let me address the video that we released yesterday showing a fifteen year old and our officers. On May seventeenth, officers were investigating an armed robbery and located a suspect who was arrested and subsequently charged with multiple counts, including armed robbery and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. In the body camera footage released yesterday, you see the interaction after the young man was placed in handcuffs.

18:30 The level of force used by our officers was brought to my attention, and as a result, an internal investigation was initiated by the department. Please know that the actions shown on that video and all these recent videos, do not reflect the vast majority of the men and women of the Mesa Police Department. Our officers work every day to keep our community safe, and they put their lives on a line to protect our city. I'm proud to be their chief, and I owe them my utmost effort to make this department the very best that it can be, and that's exactly what I'm doing today. I'm angry and I'm deeply disappointed by what I saw in those videos. It's unacceptable and it needs to stop immediately. It's essential that when this community interacts with our officers, they are treated with the utmost professionalism, no matter the situation.

19:45 Starting today, I've asked the National Police Executive Research for HIM, based in Washington, d C. To conduct a comprehensive and fully independent investigation looking into our use of force events over the past three years, as well as our policies, procedure, and training. It's imperative that a completely autonomous organization from outside of our city conducts such a thorough examination. These investigators will shine a glaring light on the areas where we have fallen short. The sanctity of human life is at the heart of the mission of policing, folks. That's the whole point. Along with pinpointing our challenges and helping us fix them, it's essential that we continue building and rebuilding trust, dignity, and respect within our community. I've wanted to be a police officer since I was a kid growing up in Tucson. I knew that serving my community and keeping people safe was my calling. I've loved being a cop ever since the day I started back in nineteen eighty six, and it is still my great, great honor to do this job to help make our city safe. My team and I will

21:15 work every single day to make these make sure these situations don't happen again. And then in twenty nineteen, barely two years after he took over the department, Ramone Patissa resigned What happened in those two years. In June of twenty nineteen, five months before Ramone's resignation, the police union held a vote. According to Arizona Central, this kind of vote was nearly unheard of in Masa's history. It was an emergency ballot of no confidence for their commander in chief Ramone Patissa. Nate Gavert, who serves as the president of the Mesa Police Association, said quote, Ramone is no longer welcome in the Masa Police Department.

22:07 He's no longer welcome in our homes, and we would like him to leave. Five hundred and sixty four police department employees cast their ballots, and a stunning ninety five percent vote of no confidence was recorded. It's interesting to note that Nate Gavert was also starkly against the practice of external review of police brutality cases. He said the opinion of outsiders was irrelevant because they judged things unfairly. In what did Nate think of the new implicitious training, critical decision making training, de escalation and non lethal force training. Well, he called these things a waste of time and money. He also called them politically motivated.

22:52 Here is Nate Gavert himself talking about his role as head of the Masa Police Union, also known as the Mason Police Association or MPa. This clip is from a podcast called Boys in Blue, of which Nate was a guest in July of twenty twenty. So you represent the police officers and is it salary negotiations or how does all that work? It was everything from the first day sworn police officers to the chief of police if they were remember, we would represent them, and disciplinary cases, negotiations with the city for any benefits, pay, working conditions. About sixteen years doing that and then also being the president for the last four years. I think from what I've observed, sometimes you know, you got to give the guys take care of the officers rights when he's disciplined or something as much as anybody else's. People forget that, and you see abuses on both sides, I think. I mean, you see especially some of these here, Oh my god, they fire somebody before they because they saw a little piece of a clip of a video and they fire them. They don't even got the whole story yet, you know, right then there's other guys. Go ahead, Nate, Yeah, even when they have the whole story, it just it looks ugly. Force looks terrible no matter how it is, whether it's one hundred percent righteous or questionable, it looks bad. And um and I've seen, um, you know,

24:23 some of the some of the worst leaders I've seen in my career, and then I've also seen some of the best. Yeah, you know. And sometimes the thought of a police union or any unions or we're there to get our officers out of trouble, and that's completely inaccurate. Um, you know, we're there to you know, we'll we'll fight to the end to make sure that our members are treated fairly and equally. And that's it, Like, that's that's what they pay their membership dues. We're not there to find a loophole to get them out of trouble. Um, I'm glad you said that, Nate, because a lot of people have the impression that you're just to fight for the guy. No, man, if he's guilty or no matter what he did, you're gonna just stand up and say he didn't do anything. Well, and so I'm glad I'm glad you expanded on that that it's not so much that Okay, if the guy is screwed up, man, he's screwed up, and he's he's got to pay the consequences.

25:15 But hey, let's the consequences have to match the what the procedures call for. I mean, yeah, a lot of times you see, Okay, you can run a ten second clip on the news at night and it just looks like, oh my gosh, what's the matter of that guy? Well, you weren't there, honey, you didn't see the other five minutes on either side of that little clip, and you did you know, you don't know the whole story. It's nice to hear Nate Gavert, the president of the MASA Police Union, say that they're not there simply to find loopholes. And then if a member did clearly violate the law. They will be held accountable. But what did Nate Gavert have to say about the Daniel Shavers shooting, The shooting that Republicans and Democrats alike looked at as a clear abuse of police power, the one that the entire country seemed to view with disdain.

26:08 We are relieved he had not surprised of the not guilty verdict. The jury short deliberation directly reflects the lack of evidence against mister Brailsford. We are overwhelmed with emotions and have continued faith that the justice system will not be directed by political pressure, but only by a clear application of law and facts. This case should have never been charged by Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery. Not only did it damage a promising young officer's career, it gave false hope to the family of Daniel Shaver. Instead of having the difficult conversation that a lawful use of force occurred, mister Montgomery led them to believe it was unjust. We are a nation of law. Emotion and empathy cannot carry the day. The MASA Police Association will continue to support mister Brailsford throughout his termination appeal process.

26:56 Thank you a couple of months or the vote of no confidence in Chief Ramon Bautista took place. In the spring of twenty nineteen, the union paid for an anonymous survey of their officers to gauge the department's morale. These answers were meant to be kept confidential, but someone leaked them to the press and now we have access to the unfiltered inner thoughts of over five hundred of Mesa Police Department employees. At the end of the survey was a section for comments. Over twenty pages of negative remarks about the new chief were submitted. I've read through every single comment and I won't share all of them with you, but here are a few that stood out. Chief Bautista has single handedly broken this department. He has destroyed everything great about Masa PD, and the assistant chief is just as evil. They both need to resign before they do any more damage. Officers are afraid mister Bautista will sell them out to increase his five minutes of natural fame. I've been with Mesa for many years and I have never seen morale this low. The chief has cut our training so we can spend more money on trainings that are politically motivated. This chief is not interested in what's best for officers, for those he leads nearly as much as he is interested in satisfying the public. Cares more about community perception than facts, and it's scary working for him. I pray I can find alternative employment with similar compensation so my family and I are protected as these are witch hunt internal

28:29 affairs investigation. I have over twenty years experience as a police officer and have never seen a chief of police like this. The current MESA Chief of Police should not be a police officer at all. He has belittled, betrayed, and ruined the lives of many outstanding MESA PD officers. He is an embarrassment to law enforcement nationwide. For the past year, officers collectively have felt there being big brothered on everything they do, random reviews of acts on bodycam footage, also all of the audits of reports, SUPs, etc. Etc. Officers are just tired of the burdensome administrative requirements. No confidence in Chief Batista. He has made the already tough job of being a police officer much harder.

29:14 Rather than easing the stress we take in this department will continue to spiral down in regards morale and productivity as long as Chief Bautista is here. Chief Bautista does not have a leadership style. He rules like a king and has a road to trust, morale, and confidence in The Chief has an out of touch mentality concerning community policing. His initial thought as the officer is wrong and the criminal is right before an investigation can be conducted. He's more concerned with the thoughts of the liberal radicals than with his officers. I am very, very very upset with our chief and the way he has treated us over the last year. He is in this solely for himself and his own interests.

29:55 I can't wait for the day he leaves this department so we can get someone in charge who has our back. Employ a charlatan who fosters a perverse ideology, one that cultivates fear, indecisiveness, and discontentment among the troops. The main problem with the Chief, who is nothing but a politician or his decisions are fluid based on what the public wants and what he feels makes him look better in the public size. His condemnation of officers before any due process is despicable and unforgivable. Chief is a liberal snowflake who cares more about public image than his officers. He is a cancer on this department. His policies and danger officers, and his conduct proves he has no spine. To anyone reading this, please help us replace Chief Romone Batista with a competent chief who cares about bettering mesa and not his own interests before his ideas get an officer killed. Chief has created an environment in our community where criminals are the victims and the officers are watching. Hello officers, criminal conject at the highly slanted media where the black lives matter. I've been through many chiefs in my twenty years. This one is the absolute worst. He is absolute poison to this department in this city. And yet among the hundreds of negative comments, there were a few that seem to have a more objective view of the situation, one almost favorable to Chief Batista quote. As an organization, we need to

31:26 be unified. We need to stop looking at the past and forgive people of their mistakes. Yes, things were done wrong, but if we keep talking about the past, we will never have a good future as a department. Time to move forward and hope the chief learned from what was said and done in the past. I'm sure he has our best interests in his thoughts, and we need to give him a chance to redeem himself. I'm tired of listening to all the complaints, cries and judgment issues. We are all not perfect. I prefer you all spend my union dues on something that benefits me instead of arguing and crying over the past. And the last commonal read is long, but I think it's important for us to hear this so we can remember that there are rational, good officers in the Masa PD. Under the previous admin, our moral compass went sideways. We had an assistant chief that emphasized kicking ass and scaring the public in a chief who turned a blind eye to everything. Our academy went from training guardians to training spartans. Our detectives became lazy, and civilian staff became bitter. The line level officers were happy because we had someone speaking for us, but in the end, neither Milstead nor Silbert really cared about anyone but themselves, and now we face federal criminal probes, lawsuits, and civil right inquiries. All of this because Silbert wanted to quote kick ass incomes Batista, who should not have been selected by the city, especially because they knew all about the brewing issues. He comes into

32:58 a mess and he's now in charge of dealing with it. He has to make decisive moves to keep the city happy, the public trust, and to keep the DJ off our backs. I don't like some of the things he says or does, but then again, I never agree one percent with any chief. I don't think he's trying to quote screw the department. I don't see him as some kind of quote libtard, as he's been called. He was served a floating dumpster fire and told to deal with it. The city council screwed us by not allowing Dvorak to write the ship before hiring an outside chief. The city council and manager screwed Bautista by hiring him and throwing him into a furnace. The Masa Police Association are screwing us by convincing officers Bautista is the bad guy and throwing around phrases like vote of no confidence. Our own command staff is screwing us by making random commander and lieutenant changes, disrupting operations, and making decisions that are not only bad but nonsense. We don't promote leaders. We promote takers and people managers, and then act like we can just put them in any position and they'll adjust. We have supervisors that wouldn't be qualified to run the balloon machine at Walmart, but they're promoted and favored by the fourth floor. I'm almost done with my time being a police officer. It has been the greatest honor of my life. But the way we've been going the last ten years, and the way things are with these new supervisors, makes me not want to be an officer anymore. I deal with the stress of critical incidents on the road and the stress of incompetent leadership,

34:30 warring police unions, and federal scrutiny. A few bad apples, rotten apple quickly infects its neighbor. It's a saying that was first recorded as far back as the thirteen hundreds, a turn of phrase that has its basis in fact. As an apple ages, it releases ethylene gas, which accelerates aging and in turn increases ethylene product in any nearby apples. If this continues unchecked, an entire bushel can turn bad quite quickly. If you remove the bad apple in time, then the bunch might be saved. But what happens when a few bad apples aren't removed. Whoever is left holding the bag will pick through the bushel for the few remaining good ones and ditch the rest. And this is what we see with police communities. Once the bushel has turned rotten, the good apples will inevitably get eaten alive, and the decay spreads like a cancer. The Mesa Police Department is investigating two former officers, both caught stalking out the area near Chief Roman Battista's house. It comes as the Mesa Police union is holding a no confidence vote in the chief. ABC fifteen Zach Crenshaw joins us live outside Masa PD and Zach, the department has launched their own investigation. I understand into the surveillance. That's right, Katie. According to an internal email, the departments Intelligence and counter Terrorism Unit is investigating this.

36:02 They're looking into why two former Mesa police officers were sitting in cars for hours outside of Chief Fatista's home. One of those officers was also the former president of the Mesa Police Union. Now, while they were doing what appears to be surveillance, the current Mesa Police union was conducting a survey about morale and confidence in the chief. On Friday, the union began holding a no confidence vote in the chief and has not been shy about their displeasure and goal of ousting Chief Batista. But the current Mesa Police Union president Nate Gaffert, told me they are in no way connected to the incident outside the chief's home. But the incident is still raising eyebrows. I can't say if he was on his own time, I can't say if he was sent I can't say if he was being paid. But for me, with everything going on, that's very peculiar. We are working to get in contact with those two former officers to hear why they were outside Chief Batista's home. For live in Mason's at Crenshaw, ABC fifteen, Arizona Zach thanks a top law enforcement officer offering you inside into troubles at Mason Police sank Chief Bautista inherited a department in serious trouble. A chief before Batista had purged officers disciplinary files just one of the signs that the department needed a change in culture. In addition to stalking his house, the Mason Police Union raised thirty thousand dollars to launch a campaign to pressure city council to vote to remove Bautista. Their ninety five percent vote of no confidence sent a strong message, but in practical matters it accomplished nothing.

37:37 They needed higher ups to carry out their bidding. They built a website, designed a billboard, and prepared to launch a massive media campaign. But before that could come, as you already know, Ramon Bautista resigned. Another good apple gone. We might never know the real reason why Ramone Bautista resigned from the Mesa PD. It surely had a lot to do with the no confidence vote in the stocking, but the real answer might go deeper than that. In November of twenty nineteen, Ramone signed a confidentiality agreement with the City of Mesa in exchange for six months salary, which was eighty nine thousand dollars.

38:25 I resigned to pursue other interests and opportunities, and I think the city for the opportunity to have served. That's the only official answer we have now from Ramone. As of twenty twenty one, Ramone Bautista's the acting police chief of Santa Monica, California. When Ramone left Mesa, Part one offenses, which include murder, rape, aggravator assault, robbery, burglary, and larceny, were at an all time low of twenty three events per one thousand residents. The music you're hearing right now is that of Laney Sweet. In addition to being a duela, a mother, a daughter, and a wife, she's also an incredibly talented musician. Laney Sweet is still fighting for justice for her deceased husband, Daniel Shaver. While Daniel's parents settled their civil case in twenty twenty one for one and a half million dollars, Laney continues to fight for a trial. So far, she has refused to lower her damage's claim for less than seventy five million dollars, and quite frankly, I hope she gets every cent. In June of twenty twenty two, Laney gave us an update on TikTok after months of having taken a break from social media, and i'd do a check in. Haven't done one of these in a while, which

39:55 maybe I'll explain soon. I have been off social idea for a bit, but today I went to work and came home and Natalie had been doing therapy through telehealth and I was immediately greeted upon coming home to her talking about having feelings of wanting to hurt herself. And so the therapist and I talked after they got off their session and came up with a safety plan and evaluated the risk and it's minimal. It was just the u I guess, the desire to talk about it, not to act on it, and so oh, and it's like, there's always a direct correlation to my children having a harder time when there's chaos happening with court and MESA police department coming after us and traumatizing us over and over for six years now. So I come home to that handle that situation and my nervousnesstem is activated. I'm emotional. I'm so anxious that I need to take my medicine to try to be able to breathe,

41:29 not some only reason I can do this in this moment. And then I'm just hit with the feels because today's supposed to be Danny Knight's anniversary and instead I'm dealing with my child who wants to hurt herself because of the pain of her life and the trauma that has been caused, and no one's been held accountable, and it's just so much, and it's so heavy, and for the last year I was intimidated into silence out of protecting my children and myself in our livelihood and our lives. And I don't want to live in fear anymore. I want to speak out on the damage that Masa Police Department as doing to our family because they got away with murdering my husband and they continue to get away with it. They have had no action or consequence to face and here we are six years later, suffering. It's been six years since Daniel Shaver's death. In four years since when the Department of Justice subpointed the Masa PD for the records in regards to the federal investigation, there's been no update there, but there is still hope. In the four years following the execution of Daniel Shaver, where there's been twenty three police shootings in Mesa.

43:02 Over the thousands of arrests, fifteen hundred of them have included use of force such as Taser, canine, neck restraint or impact weapon such as a beanbag gun. In those four years, Masa received seven hundred and ten complaints of police misconduct and according to Police scorecard dot Org, Mesa uses more force per arrest than seventy four percent of police departments nationwide. Philip Mitchell Brailsford continues to receive his two thousand, five hundred and sixty nine dollars per month from the government for a so called PTSD, and as far as we know, Charles Langley is still living in the Philippines. In a bit of positive news, in the fall of twenty twenty, the Mesa City Council voted three to two to create a Community Police Oversight Board. This would be the first time an official independent police auditor was established in Mesa. In a statement to the paper, Jeanette Castanios, who is a member of the Citizen Public Safety Oversight Task Force, said quote, I'm so relieved now the real work begins.

44:23 Our show is primarily supported by our Patreon backers. If you like the stories we tell here, then consider signing up for our Patreon. It truly makes a huge difference for the future financial security of the show. In return, we have all of our episodes on their ad free early release and bonus episodes too. We have some cool bonus stuff plans, specifically for the Daniel Shaver season, potentially an interview with Laney An interview with lawyer and legal expert Bob Mada to dig a little deeper into some of the legal aspects of this case. And we also have some side stories that are fascinating but that didn't quite find a proper place in the main season. One of those stories is about Nate Gaffer, the former head of the Masa Police Union, in one of his first undercover jobs as a cop, which was bizarrely enough, going undercover to entrap gay men who are trying to hook up in a Macy's bathroom.

45:22 It's a very weird story. Another is about a Masa medical examiner who was revealed to have taken a patient's brain home to his family, where he let his kids play with that brain and photograph them playing with it. Those are just a couple of these short side stories we have planned for the season, which you can hear exclusively on Patreon. It takes less than a minute to sign up. Just go to patreon dot com slash Tapes from the Dark Side. A big thank you to everyone who supports us on Patreon, especially to our newest five dollars member Brian Galasso, into everyone who continues to support us on the producer tier level. Thank you guys so much. Greg B, Christy Ramsher, jac Leavy, Erica Walters, Joel Simonson, Sherry Sly, Angela MF and Alexis Kathleen. Here your name red right here on the podcast.

46:30 Go sign up today Patreon dot com slash Tapes from the dark Side. We're releasing a one time print of a Justice for Daniel Shaver t shirt. Everyone at the producer tier will get one. For everyone else, There'll be thirty dollars and all the earnings will go directly to Laney. Please consider buying one. To see the design, go to Instagram at the dark Side Pod or Facebook dot com slash the dark Side Pod. Thank you to all the incredible music artists who provided music for this season, especially twenty six hundred, who allowed us to adapt his song for our main theme to Augusta Trevororum into Emmanuel Witsthom. A list of all the music credits for this episode and this season can be found in the show notes. Shows like ours would not be possible without dozens of other people who have come before us and researched the same material, whether that be other podcasts, other YouTube channels, or reporters.

47:37 And I just want to take a moment to thank some of those that we have used in this season. The YouTube channel Video Leak Police, who did a documentary on the Daniel Shaver shooting. The Unregistered Podcast, who did a two and a half hour interview with Landy Sweet, The Phoenix New Times newspaper for their reporting on the Elegant sex scandal into Melissa Blazias of ABC fifteen. Links to all of those people and their platforms can be found in our show notes. Please go follow them, support them. Without them, our show wouldn't be possible. The ending of a season is always bittersweet to me.

48:21 It's like saying hello and goodbye at the same time. I'm presenting this story to you that I've spent months researching, and as I tell the story before you even hear it, I feel like I'm talking with you. I'm having a dialogue, though it's one sided, and now I finally get to present that to you. But at the same time, once I present that and it's published and it starts getting downloaded, I've actually already said goodbye. I've already recorded what I want to say, and I've spoken everything that's on my mind as far as this story goes, and that's why I love to hear from what you thought of the material we covered, how it affected you, how it maybe changed you or maybe change some of your ideas, or maybe didn't change some of your ideas. Either way, I do love to hear back from you. You can send me an email. I respond and read everything you send me. Tapes from the Dark Side Pod at gmail dot com.

49:21 You can send me a message on Instagram or Facebook, or you can join our Facebook discussion group where sometimes we talk about the cases or just share about what's going on in our own lives. This doesn't have to be a two way conversation. You can simply listen to the episode and move on with your life. But if you do have something to say or you want to share your thoughts, then I'm here. I want to hear what you have to say, so reach out anytime, and I look forward to possibly hearing from you. He was ridiculously silly and would constantly do or like sing,

51:12 break into like song with like silly stuff to make us laugh. I can think of something that comes off the top of my head, and I have no idea where this comes from, but he would sing this song and he would change the name depending on who are you singing it too. Sometimes he would say Pouncy, which was our cat from Game of Thrones, or Pounce, or he would say Laney or Natalie your emory. But it always brought a smile to my face. And he would be like, Laney, you're my night in shining Armor and I love you, and just like be ridiculous so silly things like that. I don't know. He was just like kind of goofy and just like always like laughing about something or making people laugh.

51:53 So just yeah, something like that. If anybody has any idea where that song comes from, let me know. I've never actually looked it up, but he used to sing it to us all the time, and it's always made a smile. Lady, I'm your night and shining arm and I love you. You have made me what I am and I'm your my love.

52:42 There's so many ways I want to say I love you. Let me hold you in my arms, boor have a moment