AUTHORS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, BAD GUY FEDS, AND UNIFORMS - 031

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transcript :

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This week on the Writer's Detective Bureau, Authors of Mass Destruction, bad guy feds, and uniforms. I'm Adam Richardson, and this is the Writer's Detective Bureau.

Welcome to episode 31 of the Writer's Detective Bureau, the podcast dedicated to helping authors and screenwriters write professional quality crime related fiction. I wanna think Gold Shield Patron Debra Dunbar, from DebraDunbar.com, and Coffee Club Patrons Joan Raymond, Guy Alton, Natasha Bajema, Natalie Barelli, Joe Trent, Siobhan Pope, Leah Cutter, Ryan Kinmil, Richard Phillips, Robin Lyons, Gene Desrochers, Craig Kingsman, Kate Wagner, Marco Carocari, Victoria Kazarian and Rebecca Jackson. Your support keeps this podcast going, so please support all of these amazing authors by visiting their author websites, and reading their books. You can find links to their websites in the show notes, at WritersDetective.com/31.

If you have your own author business, you should be getting patrons yourself, so consider joining Patreon. It's free for you, and it allows your readers to support you financially, through monthly micropayments. So give your fans a chance to show their support, by creating your own Patreon account right now. To learn more, visit WritersDetective.com/Patreon, P-a-t-r-e-o-n.

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​​Wow, I cannot believe it is March already. Yesterday I sent out the Writer's Detective APB, which is my monthly newsletter, and it's an email packed full of links to websites, articles, PDF documents, that I create with you, the crime fiction writer, in mind. And I send it out on the last day of each month, so if you missed the January and/or February APBs, you can sign up right now by going to WritersDetective.com/mailinglist,which is all one word, and once you confirm your email address, you'll get the January and February ABPs sent to you immediately. And then you'll be set up to receive all the future ones as well, so this isn't a bunch of spam or stuff for you to buy, it's just links to things you will actually find useful for your writing research. So again, the link to join is WritersDetective.com/mailinglist.

And speaking of useful research, my friend Natasha Bajema is launching the Authors of Mass Destruction Podcast on March 3rd, so we're just two days away. Natasha's an expert in national security, weapons of mass destruction, and emerging technologies, and she's also an author. Her podcast is all about relating these topics to your writing, so be sure to subscribe to the Authors of Mass Destruction Podcast starting March 3rd, and you might even hear a familiar voice in an upcoming episode, talking about law enforcement responses to a WMD event, and why getting my DNA tested probably wasn't a good idea. That's the Authors of Mass Destruction Podcast, on iTunes, Google Play, and most of your other favorite podcast listening apps, go check it out.

And before I get into this week's questions, I wanna say congratulations to my friend Max DiLallo, on his new book The Chef. It's a book he co-authored with James Patterson, you may have heard of that guy, and they just hit number one on the Wall Street Journal Bestseller List, and number two on the New York Times Bestseller List, so congrats, Max, celebratory drinks are definitely on me next time. And for everyone else, yes, Max has a standing invitation to come on the podcast, but like most great writers, this whole public speaking thing goes against so many levels of introverted nope. But I'm trying to wear him down with gentle pressure applied relentlessly, we will get him on the podcast eventually, you hear that Max? Eventually you'll get on here, it may take a couple cocktails, but we'll get you on here. So congrats again, Max, I am so happy for you.

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​​Todd Payne writes, "Hi Adam, I'm a new and aspiring screenwriter. I'm still working my way through your podcasts, which are fantastic by the way," thank you, Todd. "I just listened to the podcast about jurisdictions, and have a question about law enforcement turned criminal. Who would be the primary investigator if a CIA, FBI, or other federal agent were arrested by local law enforcement as a suspect in a crime? Maybe they were captured, and later discovered to be an active or a suspended agent. How would the federal agencies be involved, if at all, and what about active military personnel? Not sure if you've addressed this already, but looking forward to your answer. Thanks, just getting started with this stuff, so nothing to promote yet. Todd."

Thanks, Todd. Now, in most cases that I can think of, the local law enforcement agency that arrested this agent would still remain the investigating agency. The way the federal agency would get involved would be in how the local law enforcement agency's criminal investigation would end up kicking off an internal investigation by the federal agency. You've likely heard of Internal Affairs, or IA, as we often call it, as the name for this kind of unit, but that can vary. I know that the FBI calls theirs OPR, which stands for Office of Professional Responsibility.

So, if a police department considers an FBI special agent as a suspect in a crime, then...                                                             Continue reading...