Eyes Pried Open

by Vincent Sellers

  While we were waiting for fingerprint results that would provide the final official confirmation of our top ten fugitive’s identity, the subject became increasingly difficult to speak with. Other agents were making him mad, and while visually he appeared to be the correct subject, I could see the frustration building on both sides. I escorted him into a holding room where I sat with him for some time and continued to speak with him with the hope of getting his cooperation in either confirming that he was the fugitive, or revealing his true identity if he was not Fisher. When I was able to speak with him one-on-one, he began to calm down and told me what he claimed to be his real name, which was not Robert Fisher, the name of the top ten fugitive. At that point I still believed that he was a cold-blooded killer, and I personally did not feel like humoring him. But I knew that the FBI was waiting to make a major announcement to the media, and that we needed to have zero doubt about his identity. It was time to put a smile on my face and continue to talk to this person as if he were a rational human being. The more I talked to him, the more likely we could quickly determine his true identity, which could later be confirmed by his fingerprints.

  I calmed him down by saying that he did not have to worry about a mistaken identity; the FBI would figure that part out. Although he was uncooperative initially, he finally began to provide the details to support his claimed identity, including his name, date of birth, and social security number. I relayed that information to other agents, who called back to the San Diego office to check on that identity. Even if the information pertained to a real person, it could be a case of stolen identity. This criminal had evaded law enforcement for years, so I was not about to let my guard down.

  As I awaited word back on the confirmation of identity, I continued to talk to the subject and listen to his story. He had enough details to share that I began to wonder if he was the criminal we believed him to be. We began to talk about other random subjects, including music and sports. He said he was a former BMX champion in Southern California, and I truthfully told him that I was a former motocross racer, although my novice level skills were about as far from a champion as anyone can get. His face immediately lit up and he explained that his family was the former owner and operator of the premier motocross track in California called Glen Helen. I told him that only a few months earlier I had been to the track to watch the outdoor motocross national race. He thought that it was amazing that an FBI agent would share interests and a background similar to his own, and his attitude shifted from confrontational to collaborative. While I was still unsure of his identity, I played the part of the laid back agent that he could talk to like any regular guy on the street. The topic shifted to music, and he mentioned a quote by Dee Snyder, which almost felt like a test to see if I was really the “ordinary dude” that he could talk to freely, or if I was an FBI agent trying to lure him into a false sense of security. I immediately continued the conversation and informed him that the 80s hair band “Twisted Sister” was one of my favorites, and that Dee Snyder was an underrated rock genius. We even talked about some of the band’s best songs, and mutually agreed that while the band was considered to be something of a one-album-hit wonder, they really were underappreciated and their music will stand the test of time. By this point he was really starting to relax, which told me that he probably was not the fugitive we were looking for. We chatted a bit longer, and I genuinely assured him that once we could confirm his true identity he would be released with an apology and would be free to go. He even agreed that he understood that mistaken identities happen, and said that he could see that the FBI must pursue top ten fugitive leads aggressively for the public good.

  The results came back from the fingerprint comparison, which proved that he was not the criminal we had believed him to be. His true identity was confirmed, and we verified that he was not wanted for any crimes. He was incredibly relieved when he learned that we no longer believed he was the fugitive. Since he had calmed down and had reached an amazingly friendly status with me, I asked why in the world he would ever tell the Mexican authorities that he was a top ten fugitive. He denied saying that, and insisted that people had peppered him with questions in Spanish, and that he had not known what he was being arrested for until he was in our custody. I did not know if his claim was completely true. One sarcastic remark such as “Yeah, right!” could have been misconstrued as an admission of guilt.

  We walked him out of the building, and after a complicated “cool guy” style handshake and “great talking with you, bro” comment to me, he disappeared into the throngs of people passing between the two countries on foot. A couple of agents chuckled and could not believe how I had managed to befriend this person who initially had been incredibly angry and difficult to deal with. We were all thankful that the media had not yet been alerted about nabbing a most wanted fugitive, which would have been embarrassing for the FBI, since we had the wrong man. This was par for the course in hunting fugitives. Robert Fisher remained on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. Although we did not find the real fugitive, I enjoyed the overall experience. I was able to use my strength of being able to talk to people and find common ground which would continue to serve me well in the FBI while interviewing witnesses or interrogating subjects. The skill of conversation, which in the FBI can lead to admission of guilt, is truly one of the most powerful weapons in an FBI agent’s arsenal.

  CHAPTER 38

  Interrogation

  One quiet morning I was sitting at my desk when a call came in about a suspect who had been arrested by the San Diego Police Department. He was believed to be a bank robber, and was possibly involved with a string of McDonald's restaurant robberies that had occurred over the last few weeks. I made a dash for my car to head to the downtown SDPD headquarters, where the suspect was being held. After a quick journey downtown, I parked and strolled into the main SDPD prisoner intake and receiving area, located in the basement of the building.

  The subject was restrained by handcuffs and was attached to a chair. He was sitting out in the open, which was unusual since suspects are typically placed in a cell or guarded in an interview room. This subject had spit on police officers who had arrested him; his head was in a mesh hood, similar to what a beekeeper uses, to prevent him from spitting on others. Approximately one dozen police officers were eyeing me because I was designated as case agent and was representing the FBI; my presence had the attention of everyone in the vicinity. My objective was to interrogate the subject and get a confession, and I could feel the pressure of having an audience of seasoned police veterans watching. Not only was my personal pride on the line, but the FBI's image and reputation was also at stake, at least to a small degree. As I looked around the room and mentally prepared for my performance, I did my best to convey a sense of confidence and control that people expect the FBI to bring to any given situation.

  I sat in a chair across from the handcuffed subject and began to question him. I spoke with the subject directly, and told him, “I am an FBI agent, and I will be straight with you. I would like to speak with you and hear your side of the story, and I would prefer to have a normal conversation where you are not wearing a hood.” The subject agreed to behave, and I felt that the quality of information I could obtain with a more relaxed prisoner outweighed the risk of being spit on.

  After removing the hood, I continued to employ the FBI techniques I had learned to help get information from difficult people. I confronted him with the evidence that was found, including clothing, and told him we had a positive identification through surveillance video. I told him that there was nothing that he could do to help his case except to cooperate, and that I would make a note of his level of cooperation in my report and pass that information along to prosecutors. Unlike some depictions on TV, FBI agents do not have the ability to make deals to get information. However, they can imply that they will try to help out the person who is being questioned, even tho
ugh the reality is that if a person confesses, little to no weight will be given towards the level of cooperation that the subject showed after being arrested.

  After about twenty minutes of my speaking with the subject, he confessed by rambling about how his “imaginary friend” made him do the robbery. With excellent witness identification and robbery video footage, there was really no question about whether he had committed the bank robbery. However, this confession was the icing on the prosecutorial cake and would almost guarantee that the criminal would face stiff penalties for his actions. In addition, I knew that the confession could help all parties avoid the entire trial process, since a confessed criminal is more likely to take almost any deal that the AUSA (for federal cases) or DA (for state cases) can offer that will help him avoid the absolute maximum penalty for his crime. I was proud to have this result, especially while representing the FBI and being watched by a large crowd of local police officers.

  But despite the bank robbery confession, my work was not complete; the San Diego PD also suspected that the subject could be linked to a series of McDonald’s restaurant robberies. Although a fast food restaurant robbery was not a federal crime and not generally an FBI matter, if I could also get a confession to those crimes, that could be legally used against the subject. Before the interview, I had been provided a summary of the robberies, and I knew that there was not solid evidence to link this person to the McDonald’s robberies. It was time to put on my poker face and see if I could bluff my way to a confession. The pressure was on.

  I shifted my focus, and decided to directly tell the subject, “We know what you did; things will go easier for you if you’ll just admit to the McDonald’s robberies.” His demeanor instantly changed from pretending to have imaginary friends and making wild statements to suddenly becoming very serious, and he was absolutely insistent that he “most certainly hadn’t robbed no McDonald’s.” When it came down to being blamed for a crime he did not commit, his mind morphed into a coherent state, and he adamantly denied any knowledge of the McDonald’s bank robberies.

  While I know that criminals are commonly liars and will try to talk their way out of anything, in this case I believed that the subject truly had no involvement with the McDonald’s robberies. If he did, then he deserved an Academy Award for his acting ability. I felt that my work was done, so I concluded the interview, and the police took him back to a holding cell. I was able to walk out of the interview knowing that I had done my job and represented the FBI well in front of our law enforcement partners.

  CHAPTER 39

  Red Wire or Blue?

  On a warm day early in the summer of 2007, Jennifer and I were getting ready to take a long weekend trip through the Southwest. I had worked every single week and weekend for the previous two months, and we were anxious to get away and enjoy some non-FBI quality time together. The continuous action and stress in my job was quickly burning me out, and I was very much looking forward to this break.

  Just a couple of hours before we planned to head out on our trip, the FBI received a bank robbery alarm notification, and I was the first available resource to respond. I arrived at the bank robbery scene and learned that a subject had already been caught by the San Diego Sheriff’s Department. The most time consuming aspect of an investigation comes after a subject is caught; of course, we wanted to get criminals off the street, but we knew that a pile of paperwork followed every arrest, with a window measured in hours to get everything in order to enable a successful prosecution. Since I was first to respond, by default I became the case agent for this bank robbery, and I would be responsible for a number of steps in the legal process chain for the coming days and weeks. My heart sank and I felt a great deal of disappointment, knowing that I might not be able to take my weekend trip. While that may sound selfish, the repeated working weekends had me at my mental limit. Frankly, I was sick of the job at this point, and because of the dangers posed, Jennifer was also not a fan of the profession. Regular hours of working on a sanitation truck sounded more appealing than the crazy life of an FBI agent working violent crime.

  But I was fortunate to be a part of an extremely hard-working group of FBI agents. A squad mate agreed to take over the case, type up the necessary paperwork, and tie up loose ends so I could get out of town. This sharing of the workload by FBI agents helped to make the job tolerable and was appreciated immensely. I only had to finish interrogating the subject and process evidence taken from the scene of the bank robbery that was being held at the local San Diego Sheriff’s Department substation.

  The majority of the bank robberies in the San Diego vicinity fall within the city limits and are within the jurisdiction of the knowledgeable and experienced San Diego Police Department. However, this particular robbery was in the neighboring community of Lemon Grove, which meant that I would have less experienced deputies to work with, although the vast majority of those officers had much more law enforcement experience than I did.

  I arrived at the robbery scene and walked into a stressful, complex, and taxing environment. I was immediately bombarded with multiple deputies asking what they should be doing. I quickly was unofficially looked on as the leader of this law enforcement frenzy; I performed my duties responsibly; but I did not welcome the tasks at hand. I directed the deputies to conduct interviews, to obtain fingerprints, and to work with the bank to obtain video evidence. The FBI could later use this evidence as needed, depending on whether the prosecution was heading towards a state or federal route. I personally interviewed some of the key witnesses and ensured that fellow agents were able to assist with wrapping everything up at the bank.

  Before I could head home and load up the car for a road trip, I had one last task to accomplish. The robber had taken cash from the bank teller and placed it in a brown paper bag. A device called a dye pack was concealed within the middle of a stack of cash, which would be handed to a robber in the case of a bank robbery. Dye packs are designed to explode when they leave the vicinity of the bank. They leave a bright colored dye substance that that makes it easy for law enforcement to identify and capture robbery subjects. In this case, the subject had taken one of the stacks of cash with a dye pack, but for unknown reasons the electronics had failed and the dye pack was still active but had not exploded.

  Dye packs had a bad reputation for exploding at unexpected times. My supervisor had previously told me a story about hauling evidence back to the FBI office after a bank robbery, and suddenly having a dye pack detonate inside his car. The dye pack had enough force to rip open a water jug in his car, and had created a colorful mess in his vehicle. Knowledge of this event seemed to foreshadow an afternoon of possibly building memories that would be passed down through the FBI ranks like a watch gets handed down from fathers to sons.

  To my dismay, the deputies at the sheriff’s station did not have knowledge of how to disarm the device. They had the paper bag with the money placed in a jail cell, which they figured was safe until the FBI would show up and handle it. I was the lucky FBI agent tasked with the tackling this problem. The only problem was that I had no idea what to do. I immediately got on the phone with a seasoned San Diego Police Department detective who had worked countless bank robberies. I knew that he was my best shot at finding someone to tell me how to defuse this device.

  The SDPD detective was a true professional and expert; he told me he could walk me through how to disable the device. He warned me of something I already knew: it could go off at any second, possibly causing minor injury and major embarrassment to me. Absolute worst case, I thought I might lose a couple of fingers and a suit. One of the female deputies was concerned about my eyes, so I borrowed her “blade” style sunglasses for the task at hand. Armed with a pocketknife and a cell phone with a SDPD detective on the line, I entered the jail cell containing the paper bag. I approached the bag, and turned around to a view of an extraordinary
number of faces packed around the perimeter of the cell. The deputies seemed to be really enjoying watching a good show. While this was a far cry from an actual bomb, at that moment I felt like I was Bruce Willis in a Die Hard movie, and I halfway expected there to be a red wire and blue wire, and I would have to flip a coin to figure out which one to cut.

  The SDPD detective on the phone began to walk me through the steps to disarm the dye pack. I removed the cash from the bag and slowly cut away the money wrapper that only had the appearance of holding together the stack of bills that was concealing the dye-pack. Next, I peeled back the top layer of bills, and carefully moved a spring-loaded latch that reminded me of a mousetrap. Finally, I found two sets of wires that connected to the battery. I cut one of the wires (which happened to be black), and successfully disarmed the device. The deputies all applauded, and we all laughed with relief at the situation. I felt a bit silly for taking the task so seriously, and could only imagine the stress and nerves that our military members must endure when responding to a real bomb threat or removing unexploded ordinance.

  On any given day an FBI agent may be called on to perform duties that he or she has never been trained to do. Agents must be flexible and able to quickly adapt. Sometimes this involves life or death situations. Despite not enjoying these moments as they occurred, I do enjoy these incidents in retrospect. I like to remember the unusual challenges that the job entailed and the impressive people whom I had the pleasure of knowing and working with along the way.

  CHAPTER 40

  Surveillance