National Police Association Podcast with Guest, Dave Case, 30+ Years LEO, Author, Prof, Writer, Speaker
Hi. This is sergeant Betsy Brantner Smith from the National Police Association, and this is the National Police Association podcast. I have a guest today who's from my native land. He's from Chicago and he is an author, he is a cop, he's a boss, and he's a guy with so much experience. And I've got about 150 questions for him, and I hope that we can get through a lot of this because he is a really fascinating guy, I knew you needed to meet him.
Betsy Smith:Commander Dave Case, welcome to the show.
Dave Case:Well, thank you, Betsy. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me.
Betsy Smith:So I gotta ask you this question. I ask everybody who's a cop when they come on. Why did you become a cop?
Dave Case:That's a loaded question. I think my answer is probably pretty pat that I came on help people. It's just in my DNA. I can't pass by somebody in need, and so that's pretty much what I do. And I like locking up bad guys, so these days it's kinda slowed down.
Betsy Smith:It is fun to, you know, there's no other way to say this, it's fun to put somebody in jail. It's fun to put somebody in handcuffs who has victimized another person, and I think that's why a lot of us become cops. And you decided to start with the Chicago Police Department, one of the largest police departments in this country. Tell me about that. What was that like?
Dave Case:Well, actually, at the time, I was going to University of Minnesota, and I lived in Minnesota. Mom and dad and sister were up there. I decided I wanted to be a cop because I worked with a bunch of them in the security agency I did. But you needed another two years of very specific education in Minnesota. And I had five years of college as it was, and none of it applied.
Dave Case:So I was like, I have to look elsewhere. My best friend, his sister married a kid from Chicago. His father was a detective. So that was the, the way I got in. So I actually at the time, it was the first time in 1985 that you didn't have to be a resident of Chicago to take the test, but he didn't trust it.
Dave Case:So I went to Chicago and I made his address my address and signed up. I took the test with 36,000 people, and I was lucky enough to get hired the next July. So was very fortunate.
Betsy Smith:What was that like for a young man from Minnesota to walk out of the Chicago Police Academy and hit the streets of Chicago in the 1980s, which people need to understand was we were just starting to deal with crack cocaine, we had a huge street gang problem. It was a pretty extraordinary time to be in law enforcement, and here you are again in Chicago.
Dave Case:Yeah, it was surreal. And I can't even hardly begin to describe, but I was a young man and fairly, I wasn't self aware at all. You know, I was just impressed with the city and it was so beautiful until you get into the, get to see the warts. But it was amazing. My first assignment was in Inglewood, which you are probably familiar with, infamous Inglewood on the South Side.
Dave Case:I spent over four years there and had a ball, worked with some great people, worked for some great people, and there are great people in the community. It is just they are held hostage by the knuckleheads that run the streets.
Betsy Smith:And that's one of the things, and yeah, quite frankly, not a lot has changed as far as our street gang problem. Again, not just Chicago, but around the nation. What have you seen with the evolution of the street gang issues in Chicago?
Dave Case:Well, I think Chicago is a little on the unique side with the street gangs because they are so embedded into everything, including politics now. But there are so many kids that just don't have a family that are looking for that security that the gangs offer. You know? And in the neighborhoods, you don't talk to too many kids that are not, you know, approached by the gang in school or in the neighborhood and told you are joining. I know a few coppers that were in those positions.
Dave Case:And it was because their moms and dads kept them in the house and wouldn't let them go out. Kept them hostage or playing three seasons of sports all the time. They kept them out of it. It is just it is just the way of life here. It really is.
Dave Case:I don't see that there is a way that we are going to be able to do anything about it because they are so embedded. Generational, men and women both are in the gang. And it is handed down, handed down, handed down.
Betsy Smith:You you make such a great point because I don't think a lot of people understand that, that being in a gang is a multi, multi, multi generational situation, especially in Chicago, isn't it?
Dave Case:Yeah, it really is. It really is. I have no idea how we're going to be able to address it.
Betsy Smith:And when we talk about street gangs, of course we've got to talk about guns and drugs. And in the 80s, again, was cocaine, it was crack, Again, over these decades, what have you seen change?
Dave Case:Well, when I was first in Inglewood, we had a lot of, heroin being done with hypodermics, which is just a really scary situation. And it seemed like, or maybe I just got away from it, but it seemed like that kind of slowed down. But nowadays, you see heroin many, many places. Obviously, are cutting it with fentanyl as well, and, and killing a lot of people. But you are seeing everyday average high school suburban kids are doing it and dying off.
Dave Case:It is, I just don't understand it. You know, I really don't. How they get into it, why it is they get into it. There is so much else in this world that has to offer. I am just grateful that my kids never got into it nor were they associated or affiliated with anybody that did.
Dave Case:I would just hate for them to lose a friend that way.
Betsy Smith:Well, and that's the thing about fifteen, eighteen years ago, we started to see that stereotypical suburban rich kid coming into Chicago and heroin was their drug of choice. And in the suburbs, you know, we saw the death of these kids who by all accounts were these nice, suburban, athletic, know, quote unquote good kids. But heroin is, as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Will tell you, it's a very powerful drug, isn't it?
Dave Case:Oh, it surely is. I got a friend of mine, a captain of police. His son passed away from it.
Betsy Smith:I mean, it's really, addiction is
Dave Case:He listened to Narcan a lot.
Betsy Smith:Yeah, addiction is heartbreaking. And that's the thing, is now cops are carrying Narcan because of, again, just the exposure that you guys have, that the public has, and now with the introduction of fentanyl coming, I'm gonna apologize as I sit 80 miles from the southern border, coming up through here and our other southern states, it's an incredibly dangerous time. Now we're seeing more young people who literally do try a drug one time and they die.
Dave Case:Yep, yeah, absolutely. You just hope and pray you raised your kids right.
Betsy Smith:Amen. They don't
Dave Case:have that curiosity.
Betsy Smith:Amen. Chicago's famous for a lot of things, sports teams, go Cubs, And we're famous for food, and we're famous for our gun crime.
Dave Case:Yes, yes we are.
Betsy Smith:And talk a little bit about, again, have things changed since the 80s? And then let's talk about what you think we need to do to stop this proliferation of gun crime.
Dave Case:Oh, the thing that I get so frustrated about is the politicians push for eliminating guns. Because it is not the gun that is committing the crime, it is the person holding the gun. Is the person searching for the gun. But yet, we see politicians, prosecutors lightening and ignoring existing laws and letting gun offenders walk out. Whether they are not charged appropriately, whether the judge lets them go, or at least gives them no kind of bond, tells them come back to court next month.
Dave Case:It is insane. Think now we have a little bit different mindset in the Cook County prosecutor's office hoping we see some improvement there. I think to this extent we have so far since she has gotten in office. So that is really frustrating. Back in the day, I mean, we were taking guns off the street at an incredible rate.
Dave Case:Chicago always outdid New York in volume of gun recoveries. But I think through the 80s and 90s we have proven that we can arrest our way out of these problems. Particularly if we are not in lockstep with the prosecutor's office, with the Department of Corrections, with the state. We just don't have the place to put everybody. Know, we used to take guns in by the truckloads off the street.
Dave Case:You know, it was insane. When you look at some of the numbers, and I don't have them in front of me, but we would get them all the time. We had guys that were just good at seeing that little bulge in the pocket or the way a jacket hung, And they were just amazing. You know, I, I was not one of those, but I tried my damnedest. And, I certainly did my share.
Dave Case:But, you know, I worked with a lot of people that were extraordinary at detecting them. And we did our part. It is just, there's just, for everyone you lock up, there's three guys that wanna take his place.
Betsy Smith:And that's the thing, we hear this rhetoric that you're talking about from politicians, you know, who say we've gotta, we're gonna take care of gun crime and we're gonna do this, and all they talk about is more laws and eliminating firearms altogether. And in reality, when you talk about the prosecutor's office, which we should have a good relationship with our prosecutor, but in Chicago, guys had Kim Fox, George Soros installed prosecutors, one of his first, by the way, and her, I believe, eight year reign in office, if you will, we saw gun convictions plummet, we saw bail, no cash bail, we saw bail change dramatically in the state of Illinois. We were one of the few states who still had cash bail, that's gone thanks to the Safety Act. I mean there has been so many things that have happened in about the last ten years, and especially in the last almost five years now, have just decimated enforcement, hasn't it?
Dave Case:It certainly has. You know, it's made it really difficult. I think, you know, from the whole George Floyd and COVID situation, it really turned the tables on law enforcement. I think we are seeing some of the, the negative impacts of that with all the police suicide. Just the intense negative scrutiny that, that is out there.
Dave Case:It is kind of sloughed off a little bit, but it is there. If, if it has the opportunity to come out, it will. But for the most part it is, it is not as overwhelming as it used to be. I mean, I got to the point where I do turn on the news at all. I do not read newspapers.
Dave Case:I stopped reading newspapers ten years ago before I even retired. You can't get a fair shake. I have never been involved. And this goes back from when I first came on a job in 'eighty six. I have never been involved in a newsworthy incident that the reporters got it right.
Dave Case:Never. Never close. It's insane.
Betsy Smith:Which is, and that, you know, when you talk about police officer mental health, that was one of the things in dealing with the media. All you want is for them to tell the truth, and when you're constantly on the wrong end of their stories, which generally speaking are not correct, it does chip away at your mental health, and that combined with perhaps not being supported by the mayor, not being supported by some of your communities, and the communities that do support the police, nobody talks to them. Right? Nobody you know, the media is never sticking a microphone in the face of a community, organization who is pro police in Chicago. That's a rarity, isn't it?
Dave Case:No, no, it doesn't happen. In Bridgeview, have a wonderful supporting community. And they wave all five fingers at us as we drive by and they great. Every once in a while somebody wants to buy your lunch or whatever. They are amazing, But they're the exception and we just don't have the kind of incidents happening in Bridgeview that the media is interested in.
Betsy Smith:We
Dave Case:do have a pretty good where we're at. So I mean, I'm not complaining in that sense whatsoever.
Betsy Smith:So one of the other things that we were famous for in Chicago was our public housing. Yes, And this was something as a young police officer, young farm kid from Illinois, and then I become a suburban police officer, and then I find myself working in the city of Chicago with a drug task force, and there were these housing complexes like I had never seen before in my life, Robert Taylor Holmes and Cabrini Green. What did you think, again, going back to when you were a young cop, the first time that you went into Chicago Public Housing on a call.
Dave Case:Well, for me, it wasn't quite as dramatic an enlightenment because when I worked in Minnesota prior, when I was in college at the University of Minnesota, I worked in a in a in a security job where we had a block full of apartment buildings and three or four of them were public assistance based. We had some of the it certainly wasn't to the scale by any stretch of imagination. I was kind of used to the setting. When I when I got to Chicago and saw and I worked my days off going to Robert Taylor Homes, Stateway Gardens. Rock, yeah, Rockwell, Obla Homes, and Henry Horner.
Dave Case:And I ended up working in going to the Eighteenth District and working in Cabrini Green. And, you know, it is a couple of city blocks by a couple of city blocks full of buildings from, you know, nine stories to 16 stories, and then a few of the row houses. And just the density of people is just extraordinary. We started calling it vertical, vertical policing, just because there are certain aspects to it that you had to get used to. And trying to cripple the drug trade in Cabrini was exhausting.
Dave Case:And we were relying a lot on informants and working with the community, trying to get the word out and find out what was going on. Some officers were better at it than others. I happened to work with a couple of guys that were just amazing. Knew everybody. You go to Kenny, you ask him who is, you know, where is Pookie's girlfriend?
Dave Case:And he will tell you. He will, you know, she is in this building, she is at this apartment, and blah, blah, blah. He was insane with how much. But he lived and breathed it. That was his life.
Betsy Smith:And when we talk about public housing, now again, fast forward to 2025, and the left keeps telling us that if we just provide housing for people, that they will be great, their lives will be amazing, and they are not going to be criminals anymore. What was your experience?
Dave Case:Unfortunately, the criminals take over those buildings and they hold everybody hostage. I think that experiment went down in flames, you know, with the buildings they were tearing down in the city. We still have a few row house comp areas, but it just, it just did not work. Now, you can say it did not work because they were not kept up the way they should have been, but I don't think that is the answer. You know, unfortunately, the good people were held hostage, and it was amazing.
Dave Case:You know, and they couldn't even tell you thank you for fear that somebody would see them, and they'd be getting in trouble.
Betsy Smith:How did the gangs get their hold into public housing? And they did it quickly. How did that happen?
Dave Case:I am not entirely sure other than they moved in, and then they organized. Now, I don't know how, it certainly wasn't around when the big buildings were built and populated, but each building, you know, there were affiliations with gangs. You know. 500 West Oak was the vice lord. That is the only building they had.
Dave Case:Mickey Cobras were over at 11:50, sixty Sedgwick and had another building on Cleveland Or 2. And then the gangster disciples had most of the other ones. And they just did not go across lines. If they did, there were trouble. And how they got there, I'm really not sure, but they would bring in gang members from other areas of the city when they needed to, not restock, but when they brought in new blood or when they needed something to be done where somebody wouldn't recognize them.
Dave Case:They'd bring somebody in from on the West Side or South Side or something. And it was a unique and a pretty amazing and frustrating environment to work
Betsy Smith:understand would say, well, why didn't the police do something? What were you guys doing?
Dave Case:Oh, we tried. Trust me, we tried. And after Dan and Earl Davis got killed, they fortified the buildings. You know, they put fences around them and gates. Well, who do you think is working those gates?
Dave Case:They were mandated by the feds to have so many residents work the gate. Well, you have a resident working the gate, they're subject to intimidation by the gangs. So, we were having doors slammed in our face. We'd be chasing somebody, and they would get in the door, the door would slam, it'd be locked. And they're gone.
Dave Case:And there's nothing we could do about it. You know? And and I felt sorry for the the people that were working, because they didn't have a choice. If they didn't if they didn't cooperate, they were they were having a whole lot bigger troubles than the police could give them. So I see it as a failed experiment, at least as it was done back then.
Betsy Smith:So you had this front row seat to all of that, and you decided to write about it.
Dave Case:I've always had a creative side to me. At the University of Minnesota, I was studying. At the end of my college career, I had various degrees I was pursuing, but ended up with studio art. I was having a hard time figuring out what I wanted to do with my life, and then I took an art class. I fell in love with it and found out I had, I do not know if I had the talent for it so much as it is just a love for it, so I worked at it.
Dave Case:And was pursuing that when I fell into law enforcement. So I went back to school. Once I was in Chicago for a while, went back to finish off my degree. And I went back to studio art because I had a lot of credits in that line. Didn't want to start over, or at least do the last two years over for law enforcement.
Dave Case:I just did studio art. And when I got done, I was married, we had a kid. I wasn't gonna be able to paint at home. We didn't have the finances to go rent a studio, that certainly wasn't gonna happen. So I always wanted to write because I was a big reader, and I just changed my, my creative outlook to writing.
Dave Case:And I had always wanted to write and had tried it a number of times and failed. But she inspired me and said, no, I want you to, you know, put your head down and and get this thing done that you really wanna do. Get it out of your system. I think she thought I'd get it done once and just be done with it instead. It's kinda taken over aspects of my life.
Dave Case:So, what I like to do is give people, the reader, a real life glimpse of the street as it is, and the struggles of the men and women and their heroics that they are going, the links they are going to, to try and make communities safer and portray good people that are held hostage. I'm really into to realism. I've been warned John Sanford, the best selling author. He and I had a number of conversations. He read one of my early drafts of out of Cabrini, and he warned me, he said, Dave, you know, don't let realism take over and your story gets boring.
Dave Case:He goes, I know a lot of law enforcement is boring. And I said, John, you are right, but I think I know enough. I can still make it fun. And that is what I try and do. Because at the end of the day, when I write on that book cover, I'm a policeman.
Dave Case:I think I have a responsibility to the men and women on the street to accurately portray what they're doing and what they're facing.
Betsy Smith:So talk about how many books, how many more you got in you and tell people where they can find them.
Dave Case:Well, I've got two published so far, Out of Cabrini, and then I did a Western, Stand for the Dead. Both of them are published by Genius Book Publishing out of Milwaukee. Small publisher, great people, good to work with, easy to work with. I have another one coming out. It is a sequel to Out of Cabrini called Chicago Justice, scheduled for release around May 23 in police month, which is really cool, just a week after the police week in Washington, D.
Dave Case:C. I have gotten, I think I still have two more books that I have written that I have been able to sell that we are going to get out there. I am currently working on one real hard, and I have got a couple other ones. I have got a sequel to the Western kind of going in the back of my mind and, working on another one. So it just seems like this is what I'm going to do.
Dave Case:And then once I retire, retire, my kids are all out of college, I might just devote my time to writing because it ain't gonna support me. That's for sure. But I've got my website, Dave Case Books, it's got links there for the books to either go to Amazon or the publisher if you wanna go there straight away. So I appreciate all the support hope you enjoy it. I wanna hear from people.
Betsy Smith:Have to ask you, are any of the characters autobiographical?
Dave Case:Well, I think every character in the book has got a little bit of autobiographical Dave in them, just because they are coming out of my head. There are some characters that I have modeled after people, whether it is their looks or some of their personalities. Some of the characters back when I first started, I officers, they were really close to me, what their mother's maiden name was. And then that ended up being the character's last name. And they forgot they told me, they'd come up to me, oh, this is my mom's, like, yeah, dummy, you told me.
Dave Case:That's why the characters, you know. But it's it's not very accurate as far as things that happen. And out of Cabrini, all the, robbery decoy mission stuff, that's all real accurate, you know, because it was so funny. And I had to have some kind of humor to put in there. That's where that came from.
Betsy Smith:So when Ottob Cabrini is made into a movie, who do you want to play you?
Dave Case:Good Lord, I have no idea who I wanna play the main character. The main character does have some semblance to me because I was starting out writing. So he was from Minnesota. Because I also wanted to give him that perspective of an outsider looking in at the city. But I really do not know.
Dave Case:I have had some people pushing it in Hollywood, and it just was not a, it was not getting any traction because they liking it to The Wire. A lot of people that have read it said, oh, this is realistic like The Wire. Is completely different, of course. But nevertheless, because it takes place in Cabrini Green and in Inglewood, some of it. But they, they say it is just like The Wire.
Dave Case:You know, it's already been done except it was done in Baltimore. Gangs and drugs and and guns and stuff. So, it didn't get a whole lot of traction. I don't know. I I don't really care.
Dave Case:John Sanford told me and and he was right is he goes. Don't pay attention to Hollywood at all. It's a it's a rabbit hole you go down. You're never gonna come out because then they're saying, can you write the screenplay and that's a whole different art form. Don't wanna be bothered with so if if I were approached I would be giddy at getting that check.
Dave Case:So other than that, I'm good.
Betsy Smith:Well, and Dave, you know what you're doing is you're telling the stories of real cops and really giving people a flavor beyond Hollywood, beyond TV shows and beyond movies of really what the job is all about. And I mean that in and of itself is a service and of course you're still serving and we appreciate that. So again remind everybody where they can find you, where they can find the website.
Dave Case:Dave Case Books, is the website, davecasebooks.com. It's on Amazon. They're on, on, Genius Books Publishing as well.
Betsy Smith:Awesome.
Dave Case:Appreciate any support. You know Betsy, I really want to tell you the best compliment I ever had was a copper I knew that worked in Cabrini. Not with me, he worked there at a different time, but he came up with the book and asked me to sign it. He's like, I'm gonna give this to my father and say this is what my life was like.
Betsy Smith:Wow.
Dave Case:Because it was so realistic he's like thank you and that was the biggest compliment I think I've ever gotten.
Betsy Smith:That's absolutely true, and again that's just another form of service that you're doing. I'll tell you Dave, we cannot thank you enough for sharing all this with us, for writing these books, and for continuing to serve the citizens of Illinois. We really appreciate you taking time out of that whole busy life to spend time with us today. And if you'd like more information about the National Police Association, you can visit us at nationalpolice.org.
Narrator:Every day, the brave men and women of law enforcement put their lives on the line to keep us safe. But they need our help to continue their mission. Activist politicians, progressive prosecutors, the ACLU, and the rest of the anti police forces receive millions in donations from extremist pro criminal elements like George Soros and woke corporations. The National Police Association is fighting them in courts around the country, including the United States Supreme Court, defending officers who are being attacked for doing their jobs. Additionally, the National Police Association works year round to pass tough on crime legislation to put and keep criminals behind bars.
Narrator:Consider going to nationalpolice.org and donating to keep us in the fight. Together, we can win. That is nationalpolice.org.
