Botting - Bullets, bombs, and fast talk: twenty-five years of FBI war stories

BULLETS, BOMBS AND FAST TALK

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TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF FBI WAR STORIES

James Botting

Power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
- Mao Tse-Tung

Copyright 2008 Potomac Books, Inc.

Published in the United States by Potomac Books, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Botting, James.

Bullets, bombs, and fast talk : twenty-five years of FBI war stories / James

Botting. 1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-59797-244-4 (hardcover : alk. paper)

1. Botting, James. 2. United States. Federal Bureau of InvestigationBiography. 3. Hostage negotiationsUnited States. 4. PoliceUnited StatesBiography. I. Title.

HV7911.B68A3 2009

363.25092dc22

[B]

2008023619

(alk. paper)

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper that meets the
American National Standards Institute Z39-48 Standard.

Potomac Books, Inc.
22841 Quicksilver Drive
Dulles, Virginia 20166

First Edition

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Without the unwavering encouragement, support, and understanding of my wife, Robbin, this project would never have been finished. She has remained my loyal supporter and loving partner through all the challenges weve faced together over the years. This project started as something to leave for my children, Jason, Erin, and Christine, as some kind of explanation of what their father did when he disappeared in the middle of the night and left without an explanation or apology. I hope that they will forgive me for all the school plays, and the baseball, football, and soccer games that I missed and someday understand the call of the FBI. I love you all more than you know.

I am also extremely grateful to those in the FBI who gave me the opportunity to experience the challenges, the excitement, and the satisfaction of being a Special Agent, especially my former partner and mentor, Joe Alston, who saw something in me worth cultivating and who gave me a chance to learn from the best the FBI had.

I am especially appreciative of the assistance of Potomac Books editors Kevin Cuddihy, Don McKeon, and Jennifer Waldrop, who guided me through this process with encouragement, experience, professionalism, and most of all patience.

I relied upon numerous Special Agents of the FBI for the details of various incidents, as well as their comments and suggestions. Among them are Nick Boone, Regis Boyle, Ralph DiFonzo, Bill Elwell, Scott Hanley, Ron Iden, Kevin Kelly, Fred Lanceley, Richard Noyes, Jan Wilhelm, Jim Wilkins, and Mark Wilson.

Without the optimism and encouragement of Karl Pohrt, Stuart Abraham, and my brother Dennis Botting, who saw the potential for me to share these stories with others, this book would never have found its way to a publisher.

Lastly, this book is dedicated to all the hostage negotiators out there who are committed to the nonviolent resolution of the many human conflicts that too often require our intervention. You have saved thousands of lives. Keep on doing so.

A portion of the proceeds of this book will be donated to the Foundation of the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI for distribution to the families and children of those agents who have lost their lives in the performance of duty.

Many of the facts, dates, times, and direct quotations of dialogue are from official reports, personal notes, memos, and conversations as I recall them or as they were conveyed to me by those present. At all times, the re-creation of events was done as accurately as possible. Hopefully, those depicted in this book will find their portrayals to be fair.

The opinions, observations, and comments expressed in this book are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect those of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Furthermore, they may not reflect those of the editors, endorsers, publisher, FBI Special Agents, and other persons who are described in this book.

FBI profiler Ken Lanning and I stood outside Als Market on Florence Avenue in Inglewood witnessing a West Coast version of Dog Day Afternoon. Al Pacino had nothing on these two mopes. A couple of local stickup guys had held up the market in a strip mall in the south LA suburb and got jammed inside when the cops who got the call were right around the corner. One look at the black-and-white skidding into the driveway as they tried to flee out the front door and they put on the brakes. They backed into the market and grabbed three employees hostage. That was about 11 PM last night.

Now it was about 8:30 AM and the cops that had been there all night were real tired of playing this game. Hypoglycemia had begun to set in and fur was starting to grow on their teeth. Lanning and I were fresh faces and the cops looked at us in desperation. Wed come down to offer any assistance the federal government could give. The locals always thought the feds had deep pockets. In truth, we were often just as pinched for funds as they were. But it was mostly just moral support they needed.

Shortly after our arrival one of the robbers, his confidence fueled by the bottle of Popov he held in one hand and the large chrome-plated semi-automatic pistol in the other, walked to the front door of the market. Ken and I watched as he paraded in front of the entrance and taunted the SWAT officers forming the perimeter. We held our breath knowing that the snipers lying up on the roof across from the market must be lining up the crosshairs on their rifles.

And then, after a few minutes of a poor Michael Jackson moon walk, he pointed the bottle at the nearest cop and took a long drag, casually turned his back on them all, and swaggered back into the store. Ken and I couldnt believe the balls of this guy.

We had brought a new microphone down to the scene, which the SWAT guys had inserted into an air duct on the roof. For the last hour we had been sitting in the command post entertained by their conversation. The two of them were arguing about how to get outta this mutha-fucker and back to the hood. It was like listening to fourth graders making up rules for dodgeball. It would have been more humorous if they didnt have hostages. Listening to them now worried us that they might get stumped and do something foolishlike shoot up the place and kill the hostages.

The microphone had worked fine until one of the robbers turned on the overhead fan, which clipped off the wire. We could only guess their reaction as the mike dropped onto the floor in front of them. We were also concerned that, without a search warrant, the mike could be construed to be an illegal interception of communicationsthat in the twisted mind of some liberal-ass judge a hostage taker had some expectation of privacy. No one would indict us for that, right? Well, maybe. But as a law enforcement officer, you can get a real uncomfortable feeling thinking about becoming a defendant.