Brian Grazer Met with LA Police Chief During the 1992 Riots | Joe Rogan

The J So back to these conversations that you've had over these 35 years, the ones that you've recorded, what have you done with them? You just, you're holding on to them? I just keep, keep them. People get so mad at me. Yes. Because I tell everybody they should do a podcast. How mad do people get at me? They get mad at me. Right? Because I think so many people can. I should, but you definitely should. Well, I should because I like doing this so much. I just, I really, probably like you. I'm just super interested in people. Yes. Well, curious. I'm really curious. Part of the title of your book. Yeah. So in the, so that was, so curious mind, I realized that, geez, I've done 35 years of these. At that time I might've been 30. And my kids, my four kids don't really know what I'm doing. You know, like I'm really spending a lot of time hustling to get Edward Teller to meet me. It took a year and a half, two years. Or, Daryl Gates, it was the craziest meeting of all time. Daryl Gates. The LA police chief. Wow. Well, how is that the craziest one of them? Okay. I'll give it to you very quick. I'll give it to you. Okay. So I really thought this guy, he was, you know, one, he's one of the most well-known and most accomplished police chiefs in America. I think there were three of them. And he was one of the three in a century. And, and then Daryl Gates, I knew created, was one of the creators, the fundamental curator of SWAT, which was bringing paramilitary tactics to the LA police department. He started out as a bright eyed, strong minded, clean cut guy working for the police department. And because he was sharp, he was the driver to the police chief, which was chief Parker. And then chief Parker, the LA, there was a riot called the Watts riot, not the LA riots, but the Watts riot. And the police went in and they were not qualified to be in that situation. And they kind of failed at, at, they felt they failed at it. And Daryl Gates was like by the chief's side the entire time. And he kind of vowed to himself, I'm not going to let that happen again. And when he had the opportunity, because he became later police chief, not, not, not much later, became police chief of Los Angeles Police Department, he instituted SWAT and other, you know, paramilitary tactics and a mind discipline that was pretty, you know, it was like creating, you know, like martial law, people would argue. And, and then we went, that kind of produced an environment that I think many think and I think myself helped an environment that caused the LA riots. Because there was a lot of inequity, I think human inequity felt, I know I'm getting this kind of political. And you should tell me what your point of view, please. On the, on the LA riots. Yeah. Well, I moved here after that. Okay. So I wasn't here while that was going down. Right. It was pretty intense. Yeah. And the LA riots were a direct response to the Rodney King trial. Yes, exactly. And yeah, that was a crazy time. I mean, the reaction, first of all, the reaction to the video, the video was horrible, watching Rodney King getting beaten like that. Then you also heard that they had been on the high speed pursuit with him and that there was more, to that video. Like that was the end of their altercation. Apparently there's much more physical altercation before that video. And maybe if someone saw the full thing, they would understand, well, okay, you're dealing with a wild person who's on PCP and these cops are doing everything they can to detain him. Yeah. But there's a distrust of the police in these communities in the first place, because they had seen so much police brutality. Right. So that reaction, that riot was not just because of that one situation. Correct. Yes. It was an accumulation of different events. Yes. And different interactions that people had had with abuses. It was a boiling pot. Sure. Yeah. You know, and then the whole Rampart unit and there was, there was so much corruption. There's a lot of shit going down during that time. So all that just, poo! Yeah. All of it exploded. Exploded. And so the thing about this story is, I was saying about, I got a meeting with Darryl Gates. It was 10 months on the book. 10 months. Wow. And ironically, the day of my meeting with him was the day of the LA riots. So I thought, and it already had happened, 2000 buildings on fire and everything. And my office gets a phone call from Darryl Gates' office confirming my meeting with him. I'm thinking, oh my God, Parker Center is under siege. You know, it's like the whole city is under siege. He still wanted to keep the meeting. A meeting that was on the books for 10 months. I thought, that's really crazy. So I went down, I had a guy drive me and I went down and they zig zagged through like a security clearance thing where no other cars could get through. That was really bizarre. You know, like we see this now often, but they initiated this, this kind of maze that the car would go through. I get to the front door, a couple of police chiefs, police officers escort me in, they put me in a room. I joke, I said, they didn't give me a cavity search, but just about everything. But, you know, took my clothes off, did everything. Did they really? Yeah, I did. Why did they think that you, a guy who makes movies, that you would go rogue? No, I know. There's like that, there's no evidence of for sure. That's crazy. So, and then I got upstairs and he is sitting so calmly. He'd already ordered two tuna fish sandwiches. Very, you know, very utilitarian, the sandwiches. And we had the potato chips and said, you want a nice tea? I couldn't even swallow. I couldn't eat my food because I was so shocked by the whole thing that he had so much. He was impervious to everything that was going down and the city council was on his TV and on the TV out there. And, you know, guys, police officers were running and go, Chief, you're on TV right now. And they're yelling. And he goes, he says to me and to them, ah, this is nothing. They'll never get me out of here. He had so much hubris. It was amazing. And I thought, and he's so calm about it. And of course, they did get him out. I think the next day, actually, because the city council was really very liberal guys on that board, people on that board rather. And it's a long, insane story. But I had my meeting, my lunch meeting. How long was the meeting? Normal, like an hour, you know, it was a full hour. So you just have lunch and just pick his brain and Yeah, just have lunch and ask questions, you know, and try to act, not be nervous or upset about the what's going on in the environment and the TVs, flashing, you know, like archival footage that they'd shot days before, you know, or the day of and buildings on fire and the Korean, Korean shop market, somebody getting killed and all that stuff they were showing on television. And he, he was just kind of matter of fact, like, this is just what's going down as time will just pass. Wow. I know. It was crazy. Well, it sounds like someone designed for the job. So I couldn't record that one. Yeah, obviously.