Interview Detective Adam Richardson, Ret.

BIO:

B. Adam Richardson, a retired police detective from California, is now a police consultant to TV and film productions. Adam has been helping authors and screenwriters with the criminal investigation elements in their stories for over a decade. Want help with your own stories? Visit: writersdetective.com/about

INTERVIEW:

LYNN: Beyond your bio, tell us a little bit about how you moved through your career.

What sort of responsibilities did you have and how did they change over time.

ADAM: An agency in California decided to give me a badge and a gun when I was just 21 years old, so that was my first serious dose of responsibility. I earned the promotion to detective quite young as well. Thankfully, my first detective assignment was investigating property crimes like burglary and fraud. It was a great way to learn the responsibilities of detective work, such as writing and serving search warrants, where the stakes aren’t quite so high. I’d much rather learn the basics of being a detective during a burglary investigation than a murder investigation. 

Over the next seventeen years, I worked a variety of detective assignments including Major Crimes (sexual assault, robbery, and homicide), Narcotics, Vice & Intelligence - which included counter-terrorism, organized-crime, and dignitary protection assignments. While I was a detective, I went back to school to earn my bachelor’s degree in vocational teaching and management. I learned that I loved teaching and wanted nothing to do with managing people. Learning that about myself, I intentionally kept doing the job I loved rather than promoting up the rank structure. I also began teaching at a local college. Toward the end of my twenty-eight-year law enforcement career, I gave up the stress of a constant case load and lucked into an assignment flying around in police helicopters.

LYNN: I’ve learned from several people in law enforcement that the ability to compartmentalize is important to find a balance between your work and family life. Tell us how you achieved that (or didn’t).

ADAM: I’ve always known that I wanted to be a cop. When I was fourteen years old, a close friend of mine was raped. Our local police department did a phenomenal job of investigating the case and bringing the suspect to justice. I did my best to support my friend through all of it, but I felt relatively helpless to do much more than that. I wanted to be part of the team that brought this suspect to justice. Fast forward to being a detective in the Major Crimes Unit, where rape cases dominated my caseload, and I became emotionally burned out. I’d much rather work a homicide or robbery than a rape. Helping survivors of these horrible sex offenses was a huge part of why I wanted to become a cop, but being so close to the devastation these crimes cause and having new cases routinely land on my desk became unsustainable. Shortly after reaching that point, I tested for an opening in the Narcotics Unit.

Given my proven experience as a “suit and tie” detective, I came out number one on the list and transferred to this unit, which was definitely NOT a suit and tie detective unit. In fact. I shaved my head and grew a goatee. I spent hundreds of hours on surveillance and developed informants. Work was fun again because I didn't get emotionally tied to the outcome of my cases. This was just a high-stakes game of “cops and robbers,” where every dope dealer I busted would be back out on the street again. My heart wasn’t being trampled every time a manila folder hit my desk.

LYNN: What was the biggest mistake you made as a new detective? Please explain it in as much detail as possible so that civilians can understand why it might have been important.

ADAM: Either my brain is protecting my ego or I had great trainers, but I can’t think of any big mistakes I made. The biggest mistake new detectives can make, however, is also one I see authors and screenwriters make in their stories. 

The 1995 movie HEAT, starring Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, is one of my all-time favorite movies. The movie's inciting incident has Pacino’s character, Lt. Vincent Hannah, arriving at an armored-car robbery turned multiple-homicide crime scene. Lt. Hannah uses his Holmesian powers of perception and deduction to determine what, where, when, and why this occurred… and he has a pretty good idea of the type of “who” might have committed the crime. The scene is compelling. Lt. Hannah is clearly the best at what he does. He is smart. He is driven. He has Main Character Energy. We are ALL IN for this ride.BUT…He has just committed the biggest mistake a detective can make in any investigation. He has committed to a personal theory as to what happened. He will then judge everything he learns from that point forward through a “does this fit my theory” filter. This is confirmation bias. It is human nature. The earlier you commit to this theory, the stronger you will hold on to it. Detectives need to remain intentionally uncommitted to a working theory while evidence is being discovered. The factual evidence, whatever it may turn out to be, needs to be what points detectives to the who, what, where, when, why, and (hat tip to Only Murders in the Building) why now.

LYNN: What’s the biggest life lesson you learned as a 28-year police veteran?

ADAM: Life is short. Or as Robert De Niro’s character says in HEAT, “Whatever time we get is luck.” I’m as guilty as anyone for putting things off until tomorrow, always thinking that there will be more time. But time is the only thing in life that we can’t replace, and one day there won’t be any left. Therefore, I try to prioritize it accordingly. In retirement, I am working on being much more present. I am also much keener to say no to things. Saying yes always has an unseen opportunity cost. To remind myself of this, I carry a coin in my wallet that has a skull and an hourglass with the words Momento Mori (Latin for “remember, you must die.”)

LYNN: What was your favorite part about investigating crimes, especially murder?

ADAM: My favorite thing about investigating a murder is when it is a “whodunnit” type of case, and I experience the adrenaline rush that happens when evidence clicks into place like a puzzle piece to reveal exactly who our killer is. I distinctly remember one case where I found an LPR (license plate reader) camera image of a vehicle belonging to a person-of-interest that matched the description of a vehicle seen by a witness at the crime scene. That person-of-interest quickly became our prime suspect, and he was ultimately apprehended with the murder weapon and blood evidence in that same vehicle.

LYNN: I used to do theater with a friend who became a cop. He told me that he’d always been addicted to the adrenaline rush of being on stage, but that becoming a cop had filled that need. Can you talk about that in your own career?

ADAM: Addiction is when your body needs something to maintain its normal state. I was never a daredevil. I’ve always calculated my risks. But daily life in police work means constant adrenaline dumps. My first vehicle pursuit lasted so long that I literally felt the sensation of my adrenaline drain from my core, down my right leg, and out my right foot… which happened to be the foot pinning the accelerator of my patrol car to the floor. I suddenly had no strength left in my leg. I used my hand to physically push down on my knee to keep my foot to the floor. At the time, I was just off of field training, and this was my first full-on adrenaline dump. The bad guy crashed a few miles later, and we tackled him as he tried to run away. Fast forward to my time working in special operations, where kicking down doors and arresting armed suspects was called Tuesday. At the time, my girlfriend (long before I met my wife) wanted to go skydiving for her birthday. I agreed, and we both signed up for tandem jumps, where we would each be strapped to the front of a seasoned skydiving instructor. We went up in the plane, and I was trying to keep her calm because she was sheet-white. She was even reconsidering her decision to make this her birthday thing. My instructor and I jumped first. She and her instructor jumped just after us.

When we landed, she was shaking with adrenaline and excitement. Her smile was a mile wide. After returning all our gear, we walked back to the car. I asked her if she minded stopping at Starbucks for a coffee fix. Her hands were still shaking, and she looked me dead in the eye and asked, “How can you drink coffee right now?” I shrugged. This was not me trying to be macho or manly in front of my new girlfriend. I always thought jumping out of a perfectly good airplane would be the ultimate adrenaline rush. I put it on par with a roller coaster ride. But that’s when it hit me. There was something seriously wrong with my adrenal system. Adrenaline is supposed to kick in when your body recognizes it’s at risk… and plummeting to the earth barely moved the needle for me. That’s when I realized that although I was addicted to adrenaline, it was in the sense that adrenaline was a substance my body used to maintain homeostasis, not to get a rush.

LYNN: When you think back on your law enforcement career, was there ever a time when you wished you’d become an accountant or some other professional? If so, why?

ADAM: No. I suppose my career felt like it was a calling to me. I never knew what it was like to “not know” what I wanted to do in life. I certainly had other interests in life. When I was in my senior year of high school, I applied to an arts and design college. Had I actually pursued that as a career, I would have undoubtedly regretted not following my dream of working in law enforcement.

LYNN: What did you hate most about investigating murder cases?

ADAM: Michael Connelly’s BOSCH books refer to it as “the dirty work.” It’s the next-of-kin notifications.

LYNN: Is there one particular case you worked on that still haunts you? If so, why?

ADAM: Fortunately, no.

LYNN: What’s the greatest gift your law enforcement career gave you?

ADAM: A behind the scenes look at the greatest show on earth. We get to be in the know. We get to see human behavior and human nature in ways that few others ever get to experience. It comes with a surprise gift of post-traumatic stress, but I wouldn’t trade my experiences for anything.

LYNN: If you could change one thing about your career, what would it be?

ADAM: I loved my career and got to do things that few “local cops” would ever get the chance to do. There isn’t one thing I would change. Even the gross, sad, uncomfortable stuff leads to lessons learned that I wouldn’t change. I would have loved to have been a canine handler. When I was a rookie, I often volunteered to wear the ‘bite’ suit at canine training. But my career had its own trajectory, and being a handler wasn’t in the cards for me. If I could magically go back in time and change my career to have worked with K9s, I would have missed out on so many other things that I truly enjoyed doing. So no, I wouldn’t change anything.As a side note, I did adopt an amazing German Shepherd originally imported from Germany to as a narcotics detection canine. When that whole plan fell apart, I got to turn him from a working dog to a love dog. He was my best friend for 13 years. He was with me at work with his head resting on my foot when he took his last breath. Adopting him meant I got an amazing best friend without having to ever send him into harm’s way.

LYNN: How satisfying is collaborating with screenwriters and authors compared to actual police work?

ADAM: I love it. Not just because it’s fun, but because I recognize just how important fiction is in inspiring the next generation to consider law enforcement as a career. No one in my family was in law enforcement. As a little kid, I watched CHiPs, Adam-12, and Emergency. In junior high, it was Miami Vice. I read Silence of the Lambs over a weekend while in high school. (Yes, before the movie came out.)Fiction is what inspired me to pursue this career. The “Clarice Starling Effect” inspired a generation of women to join the FBI. The daily news will not encourage anyone to take on this incredibly demanding job. A job that our society needs for society to sustain itself. Stories that convey when good triumphs over evil or that justice will prevail, keep a flicker of hope alive for what is otherwise a very dismal view of society. Inspiring the next generation to become professional justice seekers is my underlying “why” for helping authors and screenwriters. Compared to police work, helping writers has also been a lot less dangerous…and film sets tend to have great coffee. ;)

LYNN: If you could write a one sentence epitaph for yourself, what would it be?

ADAM: “Oh, how the autopsy tables have turned!”

LYNN: That’s good one. Adam, thank you so very much. I loved your answers and hope my readers did too. I appreciate your time and willingness to share your story.