Brian Mulligan – Glendale PD encounter

Officer: Sir. What can I do for you?

Citizen: Pardon me?

O: What can I do for you?

C: I feel like there are… I know this is gonna sound crazy, but I feel like there are people
following me, I feel like there was a chopper, do you hear a chopper?

O: We don’t have a helicopter up in Glendale; we don’t come up until 9 o’clock.

C: Okay

O: There hasn’t been one up at all today.

C: So it’s not…

O: At least not in Glendale.

C: …So it’s not yours.

[Police scanner and traffic noises in the background]

C: Do you hear one?

O: I hear the wind. And I hear you.

C: Okay.

O1: And I hear another car

C: [laughs] Okay, maybe I’m nu… I could be nuts, I – I, uh… I guess.

O: You taking any medication or you diagnosed with anything?

C: No, no, no, I’m not, I’m, I am… I am a little paranoid, but ah…

O: This ever happen before?

C: Yes. It has happened before.

O: you’re hearing things, you’re seeing things that people don’t see…

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C: No, not… not seeing things or hearing things, but just people, you know, like, crossing
up, and then the helicopter, I keep hearing the helicopter coming close, and um… I don’t
know, maybe its, maybe it is just me

O: Where abouts do you live, you live in Glendale? Or…

C: Pardon me?

O: You live in Glendale?

C: I live in La Canada, bordering Glendale

O: Okay, just down here, you were at the Galleria, right? you were shopping, or…

C: Yes, I was at the Galleria, at the um… ah, what store, picking up the uh…

O: Is that your car?

C: Nope, that’s my car

O: Ok. [pause] See, I mean, I’m not… I checked at the Galleria units, I only got three
officers working the Galleria, ‘cause it’s a Sunday, and none of them have been busy
with anything, and there’s no helicopter up, so… I don’t know—

C: Okay, alright, I just want you to know that I apologize, I just, uh…

O: It’s okay.

C: Okay, Sorry to bother you, officer.

O: No, its’ not a bother. Are you okay to get home?

C: yeah, [laughing] I think so…

O: You want me to call somebody for you, or…?

C: No, I mean, I can get home, I can get home.

O: Okay, do you, I mean… Personal question: do you have family at home? Or you live
by yourself?

C: I do, I have, um, my wife and two children

O: Okay. You headed home to them right now?

C: I am indeed.

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O: Okay.

C: [laughing]

O: [laughing] You gonna be alright?

C: I am… I am starting to question myself, though, I have to say, officer

O: I mean would you consider talking to somebody and getting things checked out?

C: No. Well, I-I have to do that anyway for other reasons [laughing] but, but not… well,
maybe ‘cause of this but… this is so bizarre to me.

O: I… I mean, is there any reason someone would be following you? You’re not like a
wanted fugitive, are you?

C: I, I will tell you what I, I’m probably uh, probably my lawyer will kill me when I say
this, but I-I went to a head shop and I bought some of that white lightning stuff, which
was bought at a store. So then I bought some more and I said this stuff…

O: Small container?

C: Yeah, small container...

O: Did you snort it?

C: Yes.

O: Bath salts?

C: I don’t know what it is, but it was bad

O: The stuff causes psychosis.

C: Yes, well…

O: Causes hallucinations, auditory and visual.

C: Well, so what I did is, I-I took what I bought and I dumped it,

O: Mm-hm

C: And I washed it and I put it in my locker at uh, at the club

O: Mm-hm

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C: And thought, uh, I forgot to throw that stuff out

O: Okay

C: Then I said, I don’t want to throw it out at the club, so I put it in my bag, and then, and
then I felt like the helicopter was following me, so I could make it, the whole thing could
be made up in my mind

O: When’s the last time you used it?

C: Uh, two weeks ago?

O: Two weeks ago.

C: How long does this stuff stay in your fucking system, man, how’s it legal!

O: Bath salts…

C: Yeah

O: …is a, it’s a close relative of methamphetamine,

C: Yeah

O: It’s completely synthetic, and they, they market it as bath salts

C: Yeah

O: And it’s marked on the container, “Not for human consumption.” That’s how they sell
it, because they market it as something you’re not supposed to ingest even though they
fully intend for you to ingest it, it’s a loophole in the law, it is legal to possess, it’s pretty
well-documented that it causes brain damage, auditory hallucinations,

C: I can’t afford brain… believe it or not, believe it or not, I am actually a smart guy.
[laughing]

O: I believe that, but--

C: ‘SC under-grad, UCLA graduate school, CPA, MBA…

O: It, It causes those things to become permanent fairly quickly; it’s dangerous, nasty,
nasty shit

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C: I’m gonna throw it… I – I – I – I bumped into four others that I was going to throw
away, too, but I –I haven’t… trust me, I’m going to do that… Then, uh then I will say
one other thing…

O: Hm-mm

C: Uh, so, I – I’ve been trying to find something that will help me sleep, ‘cause I have a
very, um, stressful job, I travel a million miles a year.

O: Okay.

C: You know, you can’t physically travel a million, um, air miles, but from business I get
triple, and first class is whatever…

O: You move around a lot

C: Every week I’m in New York. You know, I only try to make it back for my son’s
football games, and um…

O: How old are your boys?

C: My son’s 17, he’s being recruited by Occidental, and uh, got invited to the USC
football camp,

O: How long you been married?

C: 25 years.

O: I guarantee you that if you continue using that stuff it will change who you are and it
will destroy your family. I absolutely guarantee, ‘cause you will stop being who you are
and you will become something totally different.

C: Uh, yeah, I’ve already felt that.

O: And it’s gonna happen quickly; you will reach a point very quickly when those things
will become permanent and there will be no fixing them.

C: Uuuuhhhh, I’ll never buy another one again. I’ll tell you something else, officer, I
don’t know what it’s called, but you know I-I-I, so I had, I had the legal pot so I could
sleep at night. I hate, I hate taking any kind of pill, or... I didn’t smoke pot in high school;
I didn’t drink a beer until I graduated. Ummm, and I didn’t have any regular pot, and I
had this stuff the guy sold me at the pot shop... My God, I felt like my face was melting

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off! You know, I-I-I mean, that one at least I knew, it was like watching a movie, it was
like…

O: You, you didn’t smoke weed in high school, but when you were in high school, the
weed that your friends had was crap compared to the medical grade stuff they grow now

C: Yeah.

O: I’m mean you’re talking about a THC content north of like 30%.

C: I wish…

O: It’s very, very strong.

C: I wish you could just take a pill instead of smoking it,

O: You could.

C: I don’t like smoking around the kids.

O: See a doctor, ask about getting, prescribe something to help you sleep.

C: That’s what I’d rather do, but, but, but like.

O: It would be legal, it would be FDA approved, and it wouldn’t cause you to think there
was a helicopter following you

C: [laughs]

O: You would be in front of the police station right now

C: [laughs]

O: Where do you buy this stuff from the white lightning, is it local?

C: Ah, no. It’s in, it’s in, I just drive right down the, I well, I’ve stopped buying it now.

O: Mm-hm

C: But I would just drive down and whoever had it.

O: Did you go to a street corner or what

C: No no no no

O: Or did you just go around to different stores

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C: No, smoke shops

O: In Glendale? Or outside the city

C: Not Glendale, not Glendale,

O: Where abouts

C: West Hollywood or Van Nuys or ummmm

[Police scanner in the background]

C: Venice, or stuff like that.

O: Mm-hmm

C: It’s hit; it’s very hit-and-miss.

O: Okay

C: But I, but then I realized, uh… [laughs]

[scanner]

C: How fast it can happ--, you know, like what you’re saying… I got, all I have left, all I
have left is my, uh, brain, ‘cause me knees are shot, my back’s shot, due to sports

O: Well, you didn’t get your job with need your knees or you back, right, you got your
job with your brain

C: In fact I got it probably because of that, because I’m, I was… No, no I got it because
God was telling me that I – I didn’t start in high school until my senior year because a
guy in front of me named Bob Gagliano, who’s my son’s quarterback coach, played in
the NFL for 11 years

O: Mm-hmm

C: and then uh, I transferred to, when I went to Glendale College I was the starting
quarterback heading into, uh, the fall, and this quarterback transfers in from Saint Mary’s,
a big guy, and then a quarterback from um [drops something?] Oops. And then a
quarterback from ah, who I played against in high school, Gordy Bohanin, who was CIF
Player of the Year two years in a row… Oh Robert ________, they were on the same
team, he transferred in, you know, he went on to become the MVP of the Rose Bowl, so,
God was telling me,

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O: What do you do now?

C: To focus on… I’m an investment banker.

O: Okay. Absent the ramifications to your family, your wife and your sons, the
legislations in the works to make that stuff illegal, and I guarantee it will be pretty soon,
probably next year, so you could also find yourself kinda wrapped up in legal matters that
would finish your career…

C: Well that’s what I don’t want to do right ... If I get involved, if I get so much as a
misdemeanor, I’m done. I mean, I’m done.

O: Well, right now that’s not the issue, what I’m telling you is if it continues, a lot of
things are going to start to fall apart. [pause] How many times have you used it?

C: I’ve probably used it 20 times. I’ve never been… nothing addicts me, you know like, I
don’t, I don’t even like beer, I don’t like drinking, I don’t like… but that had a whole,
but, I haven’t had it in… yeah, two weeks. I’ve been in New York for two weeks.

O: Are you feeling the urge to use it again right now?

C: No, I’m feeling the urge… [pause]

O: ‘Cause a lot of times I’ll talk to people, and they’ll, they’ll look me in the eye and tell
me they want to stop but it happens again

C: I just feel stupid, I just feel stupid, I’ve never… I just feel like a dope. You know, I’m
the guy that… see, I had this one other time, you know, you’re talking about sleeping
pills, they’re very dangerous, too…

O: Um-hmm

C: I took, ah…

O: Anything is dangerous if not used in moderation.

C: Eminem, I’ll tell ya, Eminem had the same problem and he doesn’t know it. I was
prescribed, sorry… I’m really wasting your time here, but I was prescribed like 20
milligrams of Ambien a night.

O: Um-hmm

C: For like 20 nights, and it’s supposed to be five for seven days.

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O: Right.

C: so, you know, when you do the math, I was like, four thousand for seven months, I
will tell you, I was not myself, my mind had like a cast over it, you know I couldn’t… uh,
y –y- y… I was almost, um, what’s the word… I was almost unable to function…

O: Give me a minute please?

C: I was almost…

O: Give me a minute, okay? Do you need something?

Woman: Uh…

O: Do you think you could pick up the phone and talk to dispatch and let them what you
need? And, or I’ll be with you in a minute.

W: Uh, I have a question to you… Ummmm… because ah somebody um got in my car in

my parking lot but I don’t know who but they always do that sometimes every day…

O: Where do you live?

W: Here in uh, Luis,

O: On Luis?

W: Yeah…

O: Okay, is that your car right there?

W: Yeah.

O: Okay, give me a couple minutes, and I’ll come talk to you, okay?

W: Okay.

C: Um, yeah. That had a damaging impact on me because I didn’t know… You know,
you get something from the doctor you assume this is exactly, you know, it’s what you
should be doing and, um, that was another time I was traveling a lot, and, you know, that
cost me, uh, quite a bit. And I rebounded from it, but, you know, that was all at the hands
of that, you know, ah, prescription medicine.

O: Okay. So what’s the plan now? I guarantee there’s no helicopter, there’s nobody
following you. There’s some residual effects to the stuff you were using, 20 times is quite

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a bit. But it will continue to become worse if you don’t stop. So you live in La Cañada,
right?

C: Yeah.

O: Where abouts?

C: On Commonwealth and Brookshire.

O: Can you get home okay from here?

C: Yeah, I won’t have a problem getting home.

O: Okay. I would seriously consider talking to a doctor or talking to a drug counselor. I

mean, keep it from you family and do this on your own time, but you need to…

C: Yeah, they, they already know

O: Well you need to…

C: I mean, my, my wife knows.

O: Okay, you need to get to on top of this before it gets on top of you.

C: Well, and I’m pissed too, ‘cause this is the, you know, this is the time, I gotta be doing
my son’s tapes

O: Ssssshhhh

C: Stupid.

O: This stuff will become the most important thing in your life and you will not doing
anything for anything else

C: Thank you, officer… appreciate it.

O: Okay? You take care of yourself, alright?

C: Yup, we’ll do. Thank you.

O: Sure.

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