It's a special day in the U.S. today. The U.S. Government made it a special day about 20 years ago. It’s called Armed Forces Day. Time to remember all the men who were killed in our various wars. I served stateside during the Korean War.

I was a commanding officer of a very specialized division of the LAPD called Robbery-Homicide Division. And we were involved with all the criminal cases that occurred. Serial killers and things of that nature. It was very interesting. I was in charge of anything and everything in investigations from 1987 up until 1999. O.J. Simpson, Cosby kids. Charles Manson and Sharon Tate too—when I was Hollywood Vice. 

Well, most of my friends that I've known for years outside of the Police Department knew very little about what I did and really worked at. I would never discuss it with anybody, anyway.

I didn't make enough money so I took a lot of part time jobs. I delivered milk on the side for a while. And a number of other things. And then I went into sports as a referee. I had to learn how to referee. I played sports all my life, but I had to learn how to referee when I went into the Academy. That was one of my assignments. So I went to school, did all that, and worked my way up there. I didn't want to work doing security jobs. My last game was in the ’84 Olympics. I wasn't an official in the Olympics, but the Chinese National Basketball team was housed at UCLA, and they were not putting in their practices because they were afraid of going out on the streets of L.A. One of the sergeants who used to work for me said maybe we could help them out. So they called Chief Gates at the time, who said they needed a practice game. And he said, “Okay, we'll give them an escort down to the Police Academy.” And then I got a call. They asked me if I knew the international rules, and I said “Yeah,” and he said, “I need you to referee this game.” 

“Sure thing. I’d love to.”

And this is one of those things—a memory—that stays in your mind. I went home, got my uniform shirt, picked up my wife, and went down to the game. And the Chinese team is in the locker room, but they refuse to come out because they're afraid.

So I went down and talked to them, and I said, “What's the matter?” And they said, “Well, we've been told if we get touched by a Black person, something bad's gonna happen to our team.” And our team is fifty percent Black, and they saw our team coming into the same locker room changing clothes. And the other referee was Black, someone I knew from the probation office. Well, I finally convinced them to go up and got the game started. And they would not touch any of our ballplayers. And we had the lead. And then they got bumped a few times, and this and that, and they realize nothing’s happened to them—so they started playing. They were good players. They beat us by about 40 points. 

And after the game was over, we exchanged gifts, and my wife and I were getting in our car. And there was a practice baseball game going to Dodger Stadium, and the lights were on. And I can see this today. The Goodyear blimp was circling around the place, and this was something that players from China had never seen before. They wanted to sit out there and watch it, and were pointing and talking. It took us almost an hour to get all of them back on the bus, and they could hear people cheering from Dodger Stadium. This is the last basketball game that I refereed. What a way to go out.