Author Archives: Garry Rodgers

About Garry Rodgers

After three decades as a Royal Canadian Mounted Police homicide detective and British Columbia coroner, International Best Selling author and blogger Garry Rodgers has an expertise in death and the craft of writing on it. Now retired, he wants to provoke your thoughts about death and help authors give life to their words.

GUNS DON’T KILL PEOPLE

A6Guns Don’t Kill People. People Kill People. I’m sure you’ve heard this line or saw it on a bumper sticker on some redneck’s jacked-up 4 X 4. You know the blacked-out Dodge Ram with the rifle rack in the rear window and the white Browning decal on the tail gate. Well, truth is people use guns to kill people.

We have gun control because our legal system of people control doesn’t work well. At least not in Canada.

A4Canadians don’t have the ingrained gun culture that America has, but we still have our share of firearm related homicides. I took a look at the stats and see Canada has .51 gun murders per 100,000 people. The United States has seven times the rate at 3.55 / 100K. Interestingly, Japan has zero (0), Australia has 0.11, Mexico has 10.0, Colombia 27.1, Guatemala 34.8, El Salvador 39.9, and Honduras topped the list at 64.8.

So, you’ve got a lot better chance of being shot to death in Central America than in New York, LA,  or even Vancouver where we have daily drive-by shootings – but the little punk gang-bangers are such piss-poor shots that they rarely hit anyone.

A5What got me writing this is the horrific shootings at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. The details of what the psycho used as a firearm or how he got possession of it are yet to come out, but it’s no secret firearms are much easier to obtain, and are much more plentiful in supply, in the US than in Canada.

Canadian gun control laws are not without flaw.

To own guns, Canadians are required to have a firearms Possession and Acquisition License (PAL). You must take an accredited training course, undergo a police investigation where your criminal record is checked, your family is interviewed – especially your spouse, or ex-spouses – and two independent people must sign-off that you’ve no history of mental illness.

A7Firearms are divided into three groups. Non-restricted, such as hunting rifles and shotguns. Restricted, such as handguns and certain assault rifles. And Prohibited, such as fully-automatic weapons. There’s also caveats like locking mechanisms, transport regulations, and magazine capacity.

Restricted firearms have special permits and can only be used on certified firing ranges. Civilians are not allowed to carry handguns in public – with the exception of a very few cases. Even hunting firearms have regulations about where they’re handled and God help if you’re caught with a machine gun. In Canada, possession of firearms is a privilege, not a right.

A8The US is much different and laws vary from state to state. Recently, I attended a seminar in Austin, Texas, and one of the students packed heat in the classroom. Perfectly legal. I saw both his piece and his permit.

It was his constitutional right to bear arms. Right in the 2nd Amendment.

A10“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

I’m not sure the founding fathers had the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in mind when they wrote that piece.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE – IQ vs EQ

A2There’s a world of difference between book smarts and street smarts – between braininess and savvy. The first has its place, but the second is much more useful. Being smart is the ability to logically think things out. Being sharp is the ability to tune into the world, to read situations, and positively connect with others while taking charge of your own life.

What is intelligence?

A4Intelligence has been defined in many different ways such as your capacity for logic, abstract thought, understanding, self-awareness, communication, learning, emotional knowledge, memory, planning, creativity and problem solving.

Where it comes from is anybody’s guess. It’s something that’s designed into us, possibly imbedded in our brain through DNA. I’m a believer in the concept of Infinite Intelligence which is the basis of Napoleon Hill’s masterpiece on human achievement in Think And Grow Rich. If you haven’t read it, here’s the link. If you have read it, go read it again.

Intelligence has long been measured in a quotient called IQ. It’s different from a measure of your ability to control your emotions which is called EQ – a much more difficult thing to measure.

A5Most average adults have an IQ around 100 on the Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scale. The MENSA club requires members to be in the top 98 percentile which sets the bar at 132. According to the Guinness Book of Records, the ‘smartest’ person in the world was Marilyn vos Savant, who scored 185. Probably the most intelligent person who ever existed was Leonardo da Vinci who’s been estimated at around 220.

Conversely, mental retardation used to be divided into sub-classifications, but these labels are officially obsolete due to political correctness: Borderline Deficiency (IQ 70-80), Moron (IQ 50-69), Imbecile (IQ 20-49) and Idiot (below 20). I’ve dealt with a few in my policing career who rated around 15 and I have my own term for that classification.

So what about emotional smarts?

I have a great book called The EQ Edge by Steven J. Stein, Ph.D. and Howard E. Book, M.D. I’ll steal their definition of EQ.

A6Emotional Quotient is the set of skills that enable us to make our way in a complex world – the personal, social and survival aspects of overall intelligence, the elusive common sense and sensitivity that are essential to effective daily functioning. It has to do with the ability to read the political and social environment, and landscape them; to intuitively grasp what others want and need, what strengths and weaknesses are; to remain unruffled by stress; and to be engaging. The kind of person others want to be around and will follow.

Sophisticated mapping techniques in brain research have recently confirmed that many thought processes pass through our emotional centers as they take the psychological journey that converts outside information from infinite intelligence into individual response and action.

God only knows where infinite intelligence comes from.

 

GOING BEHIND THE OUTLAW MOTORCYCLE GANG SCENE WITH KERRIE DROBAN

AA6Kerrie Droban is an award-winning author and criminal defense attorney in Arizona. Kerrie has written many books like Running With The Devil – the true story of the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms takedown of the Arizona Hells Angels – and Vagos, Mongols, and Outlaws – the true story of Charles Falco’s infiltration of three deadly biker clubs. Here, Kerrie shares her fascinating expertise into understanding the mindset of organized criminal bikers in the outlaw motorcycle gang (OMG) scene.

Kerrie, what’s the most surprising thing you learned about OMGs?

AA7The allure of biker gangs is not the so-called “freedom” the lifestyle promises, not the illusion of disorder and reckless abandon it glamorizes, but an outlet for the bloodshed it offers. And it doesn’t matter to OMGs who they kill, only that they leave behind plenty dead.

They meet, habitually, in public to discuss battle plans, share intelligence on rival members, regroup, report, and plan surveillance. Their sole reason for belonging, prospecting, and earning their coveted “Patch” is so that they can kill with purpose.

Many members are largely comprised of active and ex-military personnel and work a “day job” among us as pilots, stock brokers, car salesman etc…

Charles Falco? He lived a double life. What compels a guy like him to infiltrate three gangs and abandon the safety of the witness protection program?

It is a strange truism that it’s difficult to live “invisible.”

AA8After infiltrating the Vagos, Charles Falco was placed in the Witness Protection Program but, without an identity and stripped of even a driver’s license and social security number, he could not stand the isolation. He had purpose and direction and a sense of doing good in the world when he infiltrated the Vagos; ‘protected” he became a “persona non grata” and essentially ceased to exist. That was his “reward” for his sacrifice and bravery.

AA9Many who work undercover experience the same kind of loneliness. They find it difficult to obtain meaningful employment, sustain relationships (because the spouse or significant other necessarily has to live in isolation with them) and often cannot discuss their past achievements. They return to the life they know – a life that has substance.

Charles volunteered to infiltrate two additional biker gangs – the Mongols and the Outlaws and, by so doing, became the single most successful private contractor in the world and the only one to have his investigations result in RICO convictions.

What about Vagos, Mongols, and Outlaws? You said you enjoyed writing this book the most?

AA5Charles Falco has a wonderful sense of humor and I thoroughly enjoyed working with him. Surprisingly, some of the funniest scenes to write involved his stint in San Bernardino’s Murder Unit.

The jail had its own ridiculous hierarchy. Inmates were separated by race and had specific roles and rules and in many ways was more restrictive than the outside world. Charles deftly navigated this internal place even rising to the rank of “Key Holder” (King of the Killers). He had a “want to be” serial killer for a cellie who, though completely crazy and brutal, offered some of the most engaging and humorous dialogue of the book.

You’re a woman investigating and writing about a fringe male culture – outlaw gangs who despise women as part of their criminal culture. What’s that like?

AA10It isn’t really about being male or female. It’s about being a good listener. I was once asked an interesting question at a seminar, “How do you, as a woman, get inside the head of a biker? How do you feel what they feel and describe it in such vivid detail that it’s as if you are that person and have witnessed their lives?” I have a unique ability to get inside people’s heads and feel what they feel and in so doing, bring the reader into their experience. If you tell a good story, people – even bikers – want to talk to you. They want you to be their voice.

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AA3Kerrie M. Droban is an award winning author and criminal defense attorney in Phoenix, Arizona. A graduate of The Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars and the University of Arizona, Kerrie studied playwriting with Edward Albee and poetry with Peter Sacks, Carolyn Kizer, and Joy Harjo.

Her collection of poems entitled, The Language of Butchers, earned numerous awards including the Academy of American Poets Award, the New Letters International Poetry Award, the Poet Lore Award and the Amelia Encore Award.

AA4Additionally, Droban’s true crime Running with Devil: The True Story of the ATF’s Infiltration of the Hells Angels and Prodigal Father Pagan Son: Growing Up Inside the Dangerous World of the Pagans Motorcycle Gang has received critical acclaim and earned the 2008 and 2011 USA News National Book Award for Best True Crime and Best Autobiography.

Kerrie has appeared on national television in A & E’s Gangland: Behind Enemy Lines and numerous local television and radio shows as an emerging expert on motorcycle gangs and the pathology of the criminal mind.

Visit Kerrie Droban’s website : http://kerriedroban.com/

Follow Kerrie on Twitter : https://twitter.com/kerriedroban  @KerrieDroban