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All right, let's begin.
My name is Barry Cooper.
- Barry Cooper. - Barry Cooper.
One of the best narcotics officers in the country.
The Barry Cooper story, well, it's a big one.
Barry was your worst fucking nightmare.
Barry Cooper could piss an entire nation off
with the wave of his hand.
You're under arrest for possession of marijuana.
He even looks like a cartoonish version
of that cop that pulls you over and fucks your fucking life up.
[Gunshots]
Man: Oh my god!
Bobby: Who has the power to pull a gun on you, shoot you,
and probably get away with it?
It's a police officer.
Barry: This is the money that we seized.
The only way for Barry to repent for these sins
was to say, I was the villain.
Now I need to be the hero.
Reporter: Can you imagine a DVD that teaches criminals
how to break the law?
Now the former straight-laced lawman
is using his expertise to show drug users
how to conceal their stash.
It's all in an outrageous DVD that he's produced
called "Never Get Busted Again."
He was one of the first people to make a huge public stand.
Oh, I thought he was fucking crazy.
You know, I thought he was going to get shot down.
So why in the world would you,
as a former drug enforcement officer,
want to help people use drugs?
He's developed into this much more dangerous
enemy of law enforcement.
[Indistinct chanting]
We must end this war on our people.
That offended almost all law enforcement officers,
and he became a target.
Barry: Hey, Rangers, why are y'all being pricks like that?
You don't want me busting crooked cops?
We get into some real cloak and dagger,
Breaking Bad, Ozark shit.
Barry Cooper himself is still at large.
Barry broke the code.
People wanted him dead.
Officer: Come our with your hands in the air. Do it now.
Barry: I was considered one of the worst traitors on the planet
to law enforcement.
And my response to them was, fuck you, come get some.
♪ I can't see where you comin' from ♪
♪ But I know just what you're runnin' from ♪
♪ And what matters ain't the who's baddest ♪
♪ But the ones who stop you falling from your ladder ♪
♪ When you feel like you're feeling now ♪
♪ And doin' things just to please your crowd ♪
♪ When I love you like the way I love you ♪
♪ And I suffer, but I ain't gon' cut you, 'cause ♪
♪ This ain't no place for no hero ♪
♪ This ain't no place for no better man ♪
♪ This ain't no place for no hero ♪
♪ To call home ♪
Welcome to the concealing your stash section of this DVD.
I'm going to show you area's other crim--
fuck, OK.
Can we shoot the introduction again really quick?
Cameraman: Do you want your house behind you?
I don't care.
I'm going to show you successful and unsuccessful
places other suspects have hidden
their stash in this section.
Fuck.
The first time I saw Never Get Busted,
I had never seen anything like it.
It's a really good idea to hide your stash
in hard to find places, such as way under the dash.
Leandrew: The sheer nature of the story really just blew our minds.
Ex-narcotic officer that broke bad
and was showing people how to transport and cultivate drugs
without getting busted.
We've had bad policy in America in the past.
You know there was a time when women could not vote?
I think one thing that people
really didn't like about Never Get Busted
was when my dad put a joint in the straw of a kid's happy meal.
Barry: Make it look like a straw skin.
Throw it in the Big Mac box.
Like hide it in your kid's happy meal?
What the fuck is that?
Shit. Taught me some hiding spots, for real.
- The hamburger deal. - When I first saw them,
I was still kind of peddling here and there.
I've always worked, but I-- you know.
And man, I was like, damn, that's some new ideas
I never thought about right there.
I often get asked the question, Barry,
why are you helping people break the law?
[Airplane engine droning]
Fucking airplane.
OK, let me start over.
Why did I betray the police?
What you have to understand is I used to be a cop,
but I didn't become a cop to help people.
That's a cliche bullshit answer.
Police become police for the excitement,
the adrenaline rush, and the power.
[Upbeat music]
[Indistinct radio chatter]
[Siren blaring]
Barry: Pull over.
Pull over and stay there.
How much have you had to drink tonight?
- Too much. Barry: How much is too much?
I didn't have any passion to join the war on drugs
until I stopped a DWI and found some marijuana.
I get behind a truck that's swerving.
I turn on my red and blues.
I do the field sobriety, find him intoxicated.
Count out loud.
Try not to use your arms for balance.
One, two, three.
That felt really good.
Try it again.
Arrest him.
She's also drunk, so I can't let her go.
So I arrest her for public intoxication.
And as I'm searching through her purse,
I find a bud of marijuana.
And I'm like, what's-- there's marijuana.
Marijuana roach in the ashtray, and I smell marijuana.
[Indistinct dialogue]
OK, where's the marijuana at?
And he had a half a joint.
I'm like, here's more.
Here's more.
And it was like a big deal to the jailers.
And they're like, Barry made a pot bust.
I knew that was my field.
I wanted to bust dope.
I had read a book on how to be successful.
And one of the tips was find somebody who's the best at it
and copy them to a T.
There was only one or two really, really smart
narcotics officers in all of Texas.
One was 60 miles from me.
His name was Barry Washington.
He was busting pounds and pounds of marijuana
and kilos of cocaine.
And everybody was like, well, he was a star.
Nobody could figure out how he was doing it.
[♪♪♪]
I'd rather catch a great big load of dope
than to do anything in the world.
I was a law enforcement officer for the state of Texas
approximately 32 years.
I think that's what God wanted me to do.
Barry: There was a line of officers that wanted to ride with him.
And I would just pick up the phone.
And he would push officers out of the way to let me in.
He liked me.
I had a little philosophy that I stood by.
And I think that Cooper really picked up on this part of it.
The country boy act is really good.
I chewed a little tobacco.
And I was just a dumb country boy.
Barry: When I stopped you, did I tell you what I stopped you for?
Yeah, yeah, you did.
Do you remember what that was?
Not staying inside the line.
Barry: OK, for swerving.
For swerving.
It made people really relax.
And they would tell me more than what they should have.
Why did you let me search your van
if you knew it was full of marijuana?
Search it anyway.
Barry: Well, that's not true.
That might be what you think.
If you had told me--
I started walking like him, talking like him.
I learned the questions he asked.
What did you tell me that this van was loaded with
before I found out?
I believe I said medical supplies, didn't I?
Barry: Medical supplies.
Well, I'm not going to tell you it's marijuana
if you're not gonna look.
No kidding.
I learned everything I could about busting drugs
from Barry Washington.
And then I went nuts.
We weren't out there to write speeding tickets.
We were trained to watch if somebody looked like a criminal,
we were going to pull them over,
interview them, and see what happened.
That marijuana doesn't help your asthma, now does it?
That's bad on that asthma.
That's harsh on your lung.
Washington: Barry Cooper was born to bust dope.
You don't learn it that fast.
I asked God to make me the best drug officer on the planet.
There were specialized task forces that work narcotics.
And I learned about drug dogs.
There's a guy I graduated the police academy with,
and he had a drug dog.
And my friend said, I'm going to show you something.
He took a bag of marijuana and hid it in a car.
Then his partner starts working the dog.
And the dog got to the source and started scratching.
Man, I thought that was the neatest--
I can't believe-- are you kidding me?
I'm doing that. I'm training my own dog.
And I started-- and everybody was like,
you can't train your own dog.
These dogs are specially trained in academies.
So I did the research.
And it cost $5,000 to buy one of these dogs already trained.
$5,000 was like $5 million to me.
There's no way I could do that.
But I knew how to train a dog.
You know, I trained dogs to hunt raccoons.
Barry took to country life great.
He loved training dogs.
He loved to fish.
He was always bringing animals home.
He loved snakes.
Oh, god.
Barry: Training a drug dog is very easy.
Finding the right drug dog to train is the hard part.
The dogs that are used to locate narcotics
have a high prey drive.
You know that dog that just everybody hates?
And he's jumping up on you. And he's real hyper.
And he can just chase the ball over and over and over?
That's the dog you want to start training.
Then you just scent the ball with marijuana.
And the dog starts equating the smell of marijuana to his toy.
He'll scratch at it.
Get it out of there, Toby. Get it out of there.
That a boy. Dig it out.
This is my dog, Toby.
Got him certified
through the National Narcotic Detector Dog Association.
Then they had a competition.
And out of 300 dogs, he placed 13th.
And I was the only police officer there
that had trained his own dog.
Get it out of there, Toby. Dig it out.
Get it out of there, Toby.
Get it out of there. That a boy.
Oh, good puppy.
Now listen to me.
I'm going to bring a dog through there.
I'm going to look in it.
Dogs don't miss nothing.
"Claywater PD cracking down on crackheads."
"Barry 'Silver-tooth' Cooper and the rest of the police force
had implemented a zero tolerance drug crackdown."
The nickname "Silver-tooth"
carried throughout my law enforcement career.
So when I would pull somebody over,
I'd just shine the flashlight on my tooth.
And that first year, with three miles of highway,
I made over 100 drug arrests.
It was unheard of.
Reporter: If there are any drugs around, this hound will sniff them out.
This afternoon, he found a quarter pound of marijuana
in Antonio Ruiz's toolbox.
That's bad news for Ruiz
and good work by the hound and the drug team.
But what happened at the cult compound in Waco--
Barry: I got noticed by one of the most successful
drug task forces in the country.
Jack: Barry, my name's Jack Brewer
with the Permian Basin Drug Task Force.
Why do you want to come out here and work for us?
I feel like I could be an asset.
I want to get around a bunch of guys
that are experienced to help me learn so I can keep excelling.
Joe: Barry come in with a dog of his own that he had trained.
Had a rope around his neck for a leash.
And I thought, well, where'd this guy come from?
He was full of vinegar, wanted to suit up every day
and go out and find this type of dope.
He wanted to be top dog.
Brenda: Barry is one determined person.
He gets something in his head that he wants to do,
and he doesn't stop till it's done.
Barry: I was making more cases than all the agents
in the task force put together.
You become a hero over and over and over.
It's quite a rush.
Announcer: Live from the Permian Basin's 24-hour news leader,
this is the Big 2 News Update.
There's not a single day that doesn't go by on the interstate
that we don't put somebody in jail for narcotics
or arrest somebody on a warrant.
When I started working for the drug task force,
that's when I found out how the war on drugs has really fought.
I had envisioned what I saw in Hollywood,
that these tactical guys had made a foolproof plan.
This person go there, that one goes there.
They go in, get on the ground, and it's all clean
and goes according to plan.
It's nothing like that.
I got on the board, everybody's listening.
Here's the house.
We just bought some cocaine from it.
We're going there to kick their ass.
Let's go.
And that's all the planning we did.
Officer: Where's their location? Officer 2: 36.
We're supposed to wait for the jump out truck
until it comes to a complete stop.
I had already jumped out of the back of that truck
and was halfway to the door before the truck ever stopped.
I was kicking in the door with nobody behind me.
I'm like, come on.
We had flashbang grenades.
And we'd run up and break their fucking window out
and throw it through them.
Boom.
Fucking nuts.
Kids screaming, dogs barking.
And there's nine of us running around looking for somebody
to point a gun at.
Officer: Put your fucking face down.
It's absolute chaos.
And the...
...let me tone this down because this is not cool.
They would film the raids.
We would take it back to the police station,
rewind it, and watch it and laugh.
[Indistinct shouting]
Barry: And the funniest parts to us
were the moments the person was the most terrorized.
[Indistinct conversation]
When you kick in the door and you run a pistol
in their fucking head and scream,
"Motherfucker, I'm going to blow your goddamn brains out.
Get on the fucking ground."
And they're like, doing that.
We would laugh about that shit.
That's fucked up.
Why are the Texas police so focused on people
with a relatively small amount of drugs on them?
And it's because that's where the money in policing
has been for the past 40 years.
Bobby: These Texas task forces get this grant money.
They've got to show something for it.
They've got to show cases.
And so if they can put a case on a guy
that wants to buy a bump of meth,
they'll put him in a conspiracy with another guy.
And they can round up 20 or 30 users and one guy
that's slinging the dope.
Officer: Put you hands behind you.
That shows the government's getting their money's worth.
When you look at how those incentives were written,
it wasn't lower the use of drugs in this area.
It wasn't lower the supply of drugs.
It said the number of arrests.
You don't run from the task force.
The latter part of my career, some old drug agents told me,
hey, you find some money and nobody's around,
it's OK to snip a couple hundred off the top
and put it in your pocket.
So I did.
How much cash do you have?
How much cash you got?
There's money in that car, OK?
Joe: I want the rest of the money out of those vehicles.
Get it all, all the money and the dope.
No dope? OK, show me where all the money's at.
Now let's get it all.
Man, you did good.
You did real good.
If they didn't have the veneer of law enforcement behind them,
then this would be just a bunch of people
with guns taking your shit.
Now you have, I guess, one Hispanic male under arrest,
and you have seized this vehicle as well?
Yes, sir, we're going to seize the vehicle.
It was a white male that--
Barry: But back then, I remember feeling
like I was on top of the world.
Nothing could go wrong for me.
And I was so fucking wrong, man.
[Indistinct police chatter]
Officer: Police! Get down!
Get down on the fucking ground!
Get down! Get down!
Barry: We raided a home, and there's a little girl and a little boy.
We had the mom handcuffed.
And I'm like, this mom doesn't belong in handcuffs.
She's not going to hurt me.
And the kids are crying.
We had a female agent at the time.
She was bending over, telling the kids, "It's OK.
We're going to take care of you.
Come on outside with me."
Telling these kids that they're going to be OK,
and mom's crying and screaming, and dad's on the ground
with a fucking shotgun to his head.
It was madness.
And I had two girls at home waiting for me to get home.
And I started thinking, what the fuck?
What if somebody thought I had a bag of pot at my house,
and they raided me and caused that type of trauma?
This is as I'm searching through their house for evidence.
And I noticed the kids' report cards.
And they're straight-A students.
This is a normal home.
And we just fucked it up.
Over pot.
That caused me to start putting the brakes,
putting the brakes on some things.
Now I started questioning what we were doing as cops.
Reporter: A check of the license plates
led officers to the driver's neighbourhood.
When I first started out busting people for drugs,
I saw myself as this hero
who was stopping the bully
from ruining the community.
We finished counting the money.
But we were stealing, kicking people's doors in,
and ruining lives.
Officer: Get on the bed.
Get on the bed.
Roll over.
I realized I was the bully.
When you realize you're wrong,
and the consequences of you being wrong
has caused irreparable damage for that person.
Anybody with a conscience, got to fuck you up a little bit.
And it did.
It did me for a long time.
I wasn't able to forgive myself.
Fortunately, I had developed a relationship
with the Christian God.
Wife: This is my husband.
This is me.
We're headed to church to see Brother Newman preach.
I needed to atone for the damage I had caused.
So I quit.
And I was looking for something else to do.
Thank you, Jesus!
[Indistinct shouting]
Thank you, Jesus!
[Indistinct shouting]
Woo!
Kathy: There's only three kinds of people in this world.
There's people that love Barry Cooper.
There's people that hate Barry Cooper.
And then there's people that never met Barry Cooper.
I'm Kathy Vaden, I was Barry's rhythm guitar player.
And we would rock.
We would rock.
♪ Everybody sing! ♪
♪ Jesus, he will rock you ♪
I saw the God in Barry.
Barry could make people enter another room spiritually.
[Women giggling]
[Indistinct shouting and chatter]
Barry: I started what was called an R-rated church.
Kids weren't allowed.
And I talked about sex and drugs.
It was a wine-drinking church.
Heck, you'd go there, and you'd just get your buzz on, you know?
I'm going to church.
I'll be back in a little while.
[Indistinct shouting]
Kenzie: Everything that my dad's done has been 1,000%.
My name is Kenzie Cooper, and Barry Cooper is my father.
Say hi, daddy.
- Daddy! Brian: Yeah.
Whether he's a preacher or a cop, whatever he's doing,
he's going to do it hardcore.
[Cheering]
He's not just going to have a little church.
He's going to have an X-rated church.
It was a naked church.
Yes, a nudist church.
Why didn't I find out.
He was swinging.
[Indistinct conversation]
Don't look at the apple.
I laughed, because people were like, hey,
you went to church with me.
I was like, yeah, but I was fully clothed.
I was never naked.
[Singing]
Barry: My pastor was like a father to me.
We were really, really close.
Thank the Lord.
Barry: But I started suspicioning he was false prophesying.
Somebody in the congregation
would tell somebody else in the congregation,
"I slept with two guys this weekend,
and I feel guilty about it."
The person that was told that would tell my pastor and me.
The next Sunday morning,
my preacher would be preaching,
and he'd go, sister such and such,
God has a message for you.
Come up to the front.
The Lord is showing me
that you're ashamed of something
you did this weekend.
Pastor: Said, "All right."
Lift your hands up and tell me about your choice.
Hallelujah. Praise the lord.
I'm looking at it, I'm like, that's bullshit.
That's false prophesying.
He said, "yeah."
He said, "Yeah, it's called the okey-doke, son.
You didn't know that?"
I'm like, no, I didn't know anything about the okey-doke.
I just thought it was prophesying.
He says, "No, that's what we do
in all these churches around here."
I'm like, man, I-- broke, broke my heart.
[Indistinct singing]
And people didn't understand that at the church,
how you can be as dynamic as he was,
and then just get up and just walk away from it.
Barry: Look at me.
Look at me.
Look at me or I won't quit.
I was lost.
Me and my wife were going through a hard time.
Wife: Lay down, both of my kids.
Good night. Get a good night's rest.
Don't forget to say your prayers and give me a kiss.
Barry: I loved my first wife dearly.
I really loved her, but we were not a match at all.
But the divorce happened because I had a nervous breakdown.
And it was from the things I did in law enforcement.
I started going to bars.
And yeah, I drank heavy.
Barry Cooper, what do you want to drink?
Barry: Vodka tonic.
- All right. Barry: Y'all know me.
You be sure and get a good picture of my ass.
Barry: Peer pressure will get me involved in anything.
[♪♪♪]
MC: Came all the way from New Orleans.
Barry: Meeting Candi really changed my life
and headed me on the path of where I am today.
[♪♪♪]
She taught me how to not be so serious.
[♪♪♪]
[Indistinct singing]
Kenzie: My dad was like, girls, I want to tell you something.
I'm dating Candi now.
And I was so excited.
I wrote about it in my journal at school.
[♪♪♪]
♪ Give me your love so sweet ♪
I was like, she's so cool.
She's 24, and she likes lip gloss and rap music.
I was obsessed with her.
And that never went away.
I'm still obsessed with her.
I was not crazy about Candice.
I just thought she was too slutty for him.
I didn't like it, not one bit.
But I guess in his own way, Barry was awfully slutty too.
♪ I love Candi ♪
♪ Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom ♪
♪ She's so dandy ♪
♪ Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom ♪
Things were going great.
But I noticed people were coming to her house a lot.
And I wasn't stupid.
She was selling them weed.
Candi was a weed dealer.
Hey, baby.
She met me in the driveway.
And she said, hey, smoke this.
I said, no.
- Just say no. - No!
Say no to drugs.
It hurts the user.
It hurts his family.
And it hurts his friends.
I just want to shake some sense into you kids.
There's no way I could do that.
Announcer: This is your brain on drugs.
Can't do that.
♪ [Say no] Don't need it ♪
♪ [Say no] Just say no to drugs, defeat it ♪
If you do drugs, nothing can keep you from getting hurt.
[Inaudible]
I loved Candi.
She convinced me that it was OK.
[♪♪♪]
So I took a puff.
It was mind-blowing.
[♪♪♪]
And she'd say, here, take another hit.
I said, no, I can't do that over and over.
She said, yes, you can.
[♪♪♪]
And that's when I noticed I'd smoked the weed,
and the vodka wouldn't taste good to me anymore.
And I liked the weed.
There's Candi.
I love you.
And she was wise enough to keep dosing me with marijuana,
knowing that's what I needed to calm my drinking down
and to make me a better person.
Candi would make anybody smoke a joint.
I could see how she could influence somebody
to try a little marijuana.
Barry: She called it Candi-land.
And she said, well, I live in Candi-land,
so stay in Candi-land with me, Barry.
[♪♪♪]
I would smoke the weed with Candi and laugh and laugh
and laugh and laugh and laugh.
[♪♪♪]
♪ Woman, take me in your arms ♪
♪ Rock your baby ♪
And that's when she started talking about drug war,
and these people don't belong in jail.
And I'm like, what?
Barry: The marijuana made me a completely different person.
And I started reflecting on the inside.
It was one of the biggest eye openers in my life,
was going from a former narcotics cop
that had an alcohol problem to an avid pot smoker.
[Upbeat music]
I was Republican, George Bush, let's go to war.
A little racist, hardcore justice, four or five months
with Candi smoking marijuana to, oh, man, I want peace, bro.
How are we killing people in these wars?
Why would I lock all these people up?
I'm not going to tell you where I got this.
I found it out in the yard.
But Snoop,
I dunno, bro.
Whoa, whoa.
[Indistinct conversation]
[Coughing]
Probably now would be a good time
to explain how "Never Get Busted" got started.
I thought, you know, this marijuana
has changed my life so much.
I'm going to teach people how not to get busted.
Bobby: This guy raced into my office one day.
He said, I got this idea.
I'll make a lot of money and help a lot of people.
I'm going to make this DVD.
And I'm going to tell people how to hide their stash.
Because I was able to find it.
I ought to be able to hide it.
Barry: The Drug Enforcement Administration,
the FBI, the ATF,
I was cross-trained by all of them.
And I was just going to tell all the secrets.
I asked him if what I was doing was illegal or not.
He said, you should be protected by the First Amendment.
But he said, Barry, I'm not sure.
We got to thinking about it.
I said, well, you know what?
What are they going to do?
It's the First Amendment deal.
They are trained on the public taxpayer's money,
they being law enforcement.
There's nothing there that's a secret.
Once you train a man and he knows this,
that's his information.
And it's certainly free for him to use it in another manner.
Now, does he violate the law?
I think he violates the law if he stashes his own stuff.
Yell-o.
Barry: I pitched the idea to this videographer,
a guy with a video camera.
Travis: I had made a short film about three friends
who mysteriously get three real dangerous lightsabers
dropped off on their doorstep.
[Lightsaber thrumming]
Man: Turn it off! Turn it off!
And then chaos ensues.
Dude.
- Chicks. - Chicks?
Chicks, dude.
Travis: I was sitting and playing video games,
and then the phone rings.
"My name is Barry Cooper,
and I want to know if you can help me make a documentary
about how to hide your marijuana from the police."
And I remember being like, I'm sorry,
you're going to have to say that one more time.
"We are going to teach people
how to hide weed from the police."
And I remember walking around my kitchen going, OK.
Kind of need the money.
And I'm intrigued,
because this is a rootin' tootin' bag of weird shit.
You know, I didn't have a very long conversation with myself.
I immediately wanted to do it.
Woman: CR Kaltenthaler. Man: Kalenthaler?
Woman: Kalenthaler, is that right?
Man: Kaltenthaler. Woman: Kaltenthaler.
Some people are under the misconception
that an individual named C.R. Kaltenthaler
shot and cut Never Get Busted.
But the truth is that it was me.
I did it under an alias.
I did it under a fake name.
That's what I-- that's what I did.
I kept it a secret because I was concerned
they're all going to go to jail.
There's this thing hanging in the air of this hammer
that could fall on you for sharing
this forbidden knowledge.
Check, check, check.
My name is Barry Cooper.
There was no script.
This is coming right off the top of Barry's head.
Are you ready, Barry?
I'm here today to teach you with this DVD
how not to get busted.
How's that, Dad?
Barry needed direction, and he needed someone to rein him in
that he was a lot.
Pores.
Travis: Start again.
[Air horn blaring]
God damn.
Good job.
Barry, to some ears, sounds stupid.
You learn that it's easy to underestimate
Barry's intelligence.
Barry: Do coffee grounds mask the odour of marijuana?
Absolutely not.
He really knows his shit.
I found it was nearly impossible to get my dog
to search for any marijuana if somebody had a cat in the car
or some other type of animal.
So these deer scents and fox urines that hunters use,
it's a good idea to spray your tires with that.
It's a good idea to carry a cat in your car
if you're going to have a couple of marijuana cigarettes.
Throughout the making of "Never Get Busted,"
I knew that I was the audience.
Another really good idea is to conceal your stash
as high as you can get it.
Travis: I had been arrested for a small amount of marijuana.
In headliners of vehicles.
I've been in lockup overnight.
It's scary.
Somehow, my dad was able to get my record expunged.
But the impact it had on my life was that
it became this expensive, scary, embarrassing moment
in front of my parents.
Wear latex gloves when you're hiding your stash.
And so I was 100% hooked on what he was going to say
to make sure that never happened again.
I had an informant tell me that he never carried
more than he could eat.
I'd never heard anybody say that.
"Just eat it."
And I'm here to tell you I've done that
at least five times in my life.
Corvettes are just cop magnets.
She was wiping her nose.
I would automatically assume she's been snorting coke.
OK, these guys I would consider users.
His experience and knowledge of how the war on drugs
is fought on the streets.
Barry: Single male, no family.
Day to day, hour to hour on the highway.
This guy being a Toyota, I'm thinking South American.
Travis: Yes, no, yes, no, yes, no, one, two, three.
He knew it completely.
He was rattling these things off so fast.
Barry: You've been arrested before?
In this traffic stop video,
you'll see me make actual narcotics arrest,
caught from my dash mounted patrol camera.
When you think about what a betrayal,
what he was doing is to the people who trained him,
this was going to be something that
was going to blow people's minds and be big.
You're going to travel with the High Times magazine
or any other cannabis magazines,
keep them hidden and out of sight as well.
But I don't think Barry was 100% aware of what this could mean.
We're rolling, whenever you're ready.
So now my work is finished.
The DVD is in your player.
Grab some popcorn and your favourite cold drink
and let's get started.
We were finished making Never Get Busted.
I was just going to sell the DVD in High Times magazine
to a few stoners.
[♪♪♪]
So I went to meet with them.
♪ This is it, what ♪
♪ Luchini pouring from the sky ♪
♪ Let's get rich, what ♪
♪ The jiggy vines, the sugar dimes ♪
♪ Can't quit, what ♪
♪ Now pop the cork and steam the Vega and get lit ♪
♪ What, what, what ♪
David: When Barry walked into our office,
he wanted to take an ad out.
I thought, you've been fucking up
the lives of my friends, of my community,
of the readers of this magazine,
and now you want to come in and sell something.
A lot of people were like, fuck that.
We don't like cops, and with good fucking reason.
Barry is our worst nightmare.
[♪♪♪]
I wrote articles every month about people
who had their lives torn apart by a Barry Cooper.
[♪♪♪]
We were beyond skeptical.
Man, I didn't know how to handle these geeks.
I scared them.
There were also people on the staff of the magazine,
myself included, who thought this could all be an op,
a way to try to infiltrate the magazine
with an informant.
Barry: So now my work is finished.
The DVD is in your player.
We're going to talk about canines.
We're going to talk about concealing your stash.
We're going to talk about search and seizure.
We're going to talk about profiling.
- We're going to watch-- David: When I watched the DVD,
it was like a Rosetta Stone.
It translated cop
into a language that we understood.
You know, for our audience, that's news you can use.
So I did take it seriously.
Barry: I convinced them to let me advertise in the magazine.
We released the DVD.
It ripped minds apart.
Fucking sales go through the roof,
and I'm like, I'm rich.
Man: Oh, my god.
[Indistinct conversation]
Barry: And that's when I realized I had done something
that nobody else had ever done.
Man: You having fun so far, Barry?
Oh, I'm having a fucking ball.
[Indistinct conversation]
He just wanted to do what he wanted to do
and not worry about the consequences.
Now, who would do that?
Would you do that? No.
[Honking]
Hey.
Barry: And that's when a reporter showed up at my door
and said I was going to be on the front page
of every newspaper in the world tomorrow.
I don't care if a dog bites a man.
But if a man bites a dog, I want to hear all about it.
And that's what Barry was.
It was a man bites dog story.
He said, "Well, you've got a lot of police officers pissed off."
I said, "Well, you know what?
They've got me pissed off.
Because what I'm doing is the right thing to do
and the wrong about caging people for marijuana."
For Barry to come from being the enforcer
to fighting the enforcers,
that's why it caught so much attention.
I'd never dropped a story in the national press
and had it go that wide that fast.
Barry: The article comes out.
CNN emailed, wanted an interview.
Fox wanted an interview.
All that. I'm like, holy shit.
What do I do?
- Called my lawyer. - This is Bobby Mims.
I said, "Get over here now, please."
And I said, "Well, first of all, don't talk to Fox.
They're about as far right wing as you can get.
Barry: I said, "I know my arguments."
If I get on television and I whoop my enemy,
that's going to last.
So I chose Fox on purpose.
[Indistinct] is already riled up about this next guest.
You have to imagine a cop who advises
dopers how to hide their stash.
You know, Barry, you're reminding
more of what NAMBLA does with sex offenders.
NAMBLA teaches the child rapist how to do it,
how to get away with it.
There is a big difference in somebody that molests a child
and somebody that smokes a joint.
In fact, we're kicking child molesters out of prison
at an alarming rate
to make room for the 750,000 pot smokers a year.
You're also teaching the bad guys.
And you know the correlation
- between marijuana and these kind of crimes. - They're not bad guys.
So you're making crime worse, too.
And you should be ashamed of yourself.
No, no. You should be ashamed for those type of statements.
I don't have much to say about those early media appearances
other than he kicked ass on them.
It's not just pot that they might have.
If pot smokers are criminals,
then 42% of America is criminals,
according to the CDC, 42% of America has tried marijuana.
He was one of the first to start showing
how it really goes on in drug interdictions and drug busts.
And he had, quite frankly, had a lot more credibility
than we do as criminal defense lawyers
because we represent criminals.
Barry Cooper, why would you do this?
Logic, reason, and compassion, and the facts and the evidence.
He's doing radio interviews.
He's taking phone calls.
The whole thing escalated.
It's going to take true activism.
- And this is activism? This is activism? - It's going to take compassion.
- You're trying to-- - It's going to take reason and logic--
- You're trying to help drug dealers. - end the war on drugs.
[Crosstalk]
It just seems like a way to get stoners
into some really goofy problems with police, to me.
You know, but I mean, it's just vile.
I mean, these people are just vile.
I kind of liked when he was an asshole to other assholes.
- People smoke pot, and then they use bad judgment. - Let me speak.
David: Barry didn't back down.
He would state the facts.
According to FARS, the Fatal Accident Reporting System,
alcohol and tobacco kills 100,000 people.
And because of his background, it was much harder
for them to dismiss him.
Not one single death has been contributed
to marijuana overdose.
- It's my opinion. - You're letting her spew garbage.
The DEA had made a statement in the paper
that they didn't know if they were going to arrest me or not.
Phones were ringing, helicopters flying around,
little airplanes.
I couldn't tell which ones were reporters
and which ones were cops.
Accusations about dope-smoking cops and responses
from some very angry narcotics officers.
In a word, betrayal.
You cannot turn your back on your people.
When you do, you're going to wake up,
and God is going to chuck you out the door,
because you're a liar and you're a thief.
Barry: The cops are pissed.
That may have something to do with the white truck
that followed us around all day yesterday.
I started to get real spooked.
What Barry saw as justice
the government saw as betrayal.
Barry: OK, man, what you want?
After I released the "Never Get Busted" DVDs,
you have no idea how many times I woke up with the police
beating on our door.
I lost count how many times.
More than 20, less than 50.
This is like the fifth or sixth time
y'all have been here for weird, crazy stuff.
Officer: Okay, sir,
well this is the first time I've ever been here.
They constantly harassed me, pulled me over, and searched me.
[Phone ringing]
Hello?
And that's when I got a call from this guy out in Hollywood.
This is Barry Cooper.
David Ballard: My name is David Ballard.
I'm a Hollywood producer.
And I put two and two together,
and I had the idea of pitching a reality show.
I was going to call it "KopBusters."
We are headed to Hollywood.
We're on the airplane in Austin.
All right.
- Big movie deal. - Toodles.
Barry: Bought a plane ticket and flew over to see this guy.
David Ballard: My name is David Ballard.
I'm a writer, producer, actor.
Ahh!
And I helped Barry Cooper get into show biz.
I produced a show called "MANswers."
It was as politically incorrect a show
as you could possibly imagine.
Narrator: When the bullets start flying, a dude's ass is grass
unless he's got protection.
But why should a guy buy a bulletproof vest
when he can grow one instead?
How fat would a dude have to be to stop a bullet?
The mandate of MANswers
was boobs, beer, guns, and drugs.
As part of my official duties,
I was required to watch every ridiculous video ever made.
So hiding marijuana in food is a good idea.
David Ballard: I watched "Never Get Busted."
Barry knew a ton about drugs.
It's a really good idea--
David Ballard: It was MANswers 101.
Sign this guy up.
It's like your classic moment where you call someone
and you go, "Hey, kid, you're going to be a star."
[♪♪♪]
OK, right now, say it.
- Welcome to Hollywood. - All right.
Wait, wait, wait, David. Wait, wait, wait.
So we're here with our manager, Dave-o.
We're about to sign some big deals.
- Watch what I'm telling you. Bye. - Don't jinx it.
One of the stories we did with Barry was--
Can a police dog sniff drugs and get high.
If a police dog were to ingest crack cocaine during a bust,
that canine would get high.
You know, the guy, he's-- pretty much of a natural.
- Barry: And who are you? - I'm Sabrina.
- Sabrina, what do you do up here in this office? - Intern.
Barry: The intern. Very nice. Very nice. OK.
After we finished MANswers,
Barry pitched me this idea
for a reality show called "KopBusters,"
where he would go around and bust crooked cops.
I was like, OK, cool.
Let's try and sign a deal.
Get in the picture.
We'll go see Kevin Booth.
We're going by his Hollywood house on the way
to the hotel to have a meeting.
I think it's been pretty well established that Barry is not,
by nature, a shy individual.
Barry: Look at the list of people where we'll be meeting.
He didn't think it's any big deal
to call up Adam Sandler's production company,
or Steven Spielberg.
Barry: Oh, shit, I wasn't recording that whole time.
David Ballard: So we went all over the place.
And Barry went in there and did his thing.
I'd ask him, I'd say, hey, I can bust these cops.
Would y'all make a reality show out of it?
And they're like, "Yeah, but go bust one first."
[Phone ringing]
And that's when I got a call
that got the whole thing started.
Hey, this is Barry Cooper.
Leave a message.
[Beeping]
Woman: This is a message for Barry Cooper.
I want to talk to you about a friend of mine,
Yolanda Madden.
Something really bad happened to her with the cops in Texas.
Officer: Can you turn your truck off for me?
- This your daughter? Yolanda: Sure is.
Officer: What's your name? Yolanda: Yolanda Madden.
OK, step back here for me real quick.
Come on back here.
Yolanda: I just know that was the beginning of an end for me.
Any drugs that are in there?
Growing up, we were always taught,
you know, as long as you do the right thing,
the right thing comes back to you.
That police were the good guys.
If you're in trouble, they are the ones to go to.
But if things like this can happen to me,
you have to ask yourself
how many innocent people are locked up.
My name is Yolanda Madden Smith.
My part in the Barry Cooper story
is how KopBusters started.
[Radio static scanning between channels]
Man: 91.7-- Woman: TX and G Houston--
Man: Houston's-- Woman: Positive hip hop and--
Man: Pop.
[Radio static scanning between channels]
♪ Mama told me ♪
Yolanda: The day started like any other day.
My daughter and I were going to run to town
to go to the grocery store.
My son was at home.
He was quite a bit older than my daughter.
Being a single working mom with two kids was nonstop.
I loved every minute of it, though.
[Phone ringing]
I got a phone call.
- Hello? - Hey, Yolanda.
It's Keith.
Keith is one of my son's friends.
He said there was a Game Boy bag that my son
had left at his apartment.
You want to swing by and pick it up?
My daughter and I went by Keith's apartment.
He came out.
I throw the Game Boy bag into my backpack that I had
and go to the grocery store.
When we pulled into the grocery store parking lot,
the next thing I knew, I had a cop car behind me.
And suddenly, I'm surrounded by police.
[♪♪♪]
Told me that they were doing a narcotics investigation.
Asked me if they could search the truck.
And I'm thinking to myself, this is my dad's company truck.
You know? No.
No, you can't search the truck.
And that didn't matter.
They searched it anyway.
There was an officer that went up
to the driver's side of the truck, reached in,
and pulled out the Game Boy bag.
The next thing I know, they're cuffing me and putting me
in the back of the police car.
They charged me with possession with intent
to distribute methamphetamines.
It didn't matter how many times you tell them, that's not mine.
They don't believe you.
[Phone dialing]
As soon as I could get a phone call, I called my father.
[♪♪♪]
[Phone ringing]
When I got the call, Yolanda totally freaked out.
She was totally upset.
She was shaking.
She said that she was totally innocent.
But she was really honest.
That was just part of the core values we brought her up with.
[♪♪♪]
My name's Raymond Madden.
I build electronic equipment for the oil field.
I grew up in a little panhandle town in Borger, Texas.
I was taught right's right and wrong's wrong.
[Explosion]
I was a total patriot.
I joined the military,
seven-year active duty in Vietnam.
I thought that was my duty.
Good, strong values in the Marine Corps.
Honour, duty, honesty.
They were words that meant something.
I believed that you know, right's right
and an innocent person ain't going to go to jail.
I told Yolanda that we're going to fight this,
because the truth is always the truth.
After I had bailed her out, we went and got an attorney.
Before the trial, I needed to prove all these things
that these cops were saying are lies.
[♪♪♪]
I had Yolanda drug tested,
which would prove she wasn't on drugs.
[♪♪♪]
Those come back negative.
[♪♪♪]
I went down the next morning to the police station
and asked to see the traffic stop video.
We were told that video does not exist.
Finally, a couple of weeks before trial,
I was able to come up to get this video.
[♪♪♪]
In fact, we got the video just before
it was going to be destroyed, which was really interesting.
Why do you destroy any evidence on an ongoing case?
[♪♪♪]
When I looked at the video,
that's when I'd seen what the whole story was really about.
Come on back here.
What's going on?
Any drugs or weapons in there?
[Indistinct]
Yes, any drugs in there right now?
Weapons?
Nothing at all.
We got information there's supposed to be drugs in there.
Wait a minute.
We got information there's supposed to be drugs in there.
They knew there was drugs in there.
There was drugs in the bag that Yolanda
had picked up a few minutes
before she was stopped by the police.
Next morning, I went to see the guy
that gave the bag to Yolanda.
This guy actually confessed to me that he set Yolanda up.
His name was Keith Phillips.
He was in trouble because he had gotten arrested
for possession of methamphetamine.
The cops gave him choices of going to jail
or working off their drug charges.
He told me the police were looking for this big time
meth dealer called the Ice Queen.
The police didn't know who the Ice Queen was,
but they had a list of names of people
who were new to the area.
Yolanda had just moved back here to Odessa.
Her name was on that list.
He was encouraged by the cops to call Yolanda
and set up a meeting with Yolanda.
And then when he got there,
they gave him this bag that was found in Yolanda's truck,
and he went and handed it
to Yolanda under false pretenses.
It's like, "Wow, will you testify?
He didn't know.
If he testified, he was going to go to jail.
Finally, he said, "Look, I'll testify."
Well, if this guy's going to testify,
Yolanda's going home.
It's a slam dunk.
But when Keith testified to the truth of the trial,
the judge found that preposterous
that the cops would do something like that.
No way.
I will never forget hearing the guilty and realize, wow,
now what?
[Thunder pealing]
Raymond: It's the biggest shock of my life.
I never imagined her being sentenced
to eight years in prison for something that she did not do.
I've had some pretty tough experiences in Vietnam,
but I've never had anything that tore my heart out like that.
I had to be--
I had to be strong for her.
I had to take her down to jail.
My mom left the night before with my kids,
so they didn't have to see me like this.
And then Dad and I really didn't sleep that night.
The thoughts in my head is I was about ready just to beg him
to get me out of there.
But I didn't, because I knew he would have.
[♪♪♪]
The guards were walking me to my unit
when I heard the women calling out, "Welcome to hell."
And I thought, what am I doing here?
I don't belong here.
Raymond: I didn't give up.
I spent four years spending all kinds of money
trying to get an appeal but they kept being denied.
I went to the sheriff. I went to the FBI.
They said they couldn't do anything for me.
I had been threatened by the cops.
They told me, you need to drop this.
Let your daughter serve her time,
because what happened to her can happen to you.
I had become desperate.
I was looking for some help.
And that's when I found out about Barry Cooper,
that this guy was a cop buster.
Well, one thing I needed was some cops busted.
[♪♪♪]
Automated voice: You have 10 new messages.
First new message received.
Barry: When I got back from Hollywood,
I started going through my messages.
[Beeping]
Yolanda: This is a message for Barry Cooper.
"Out in Odessa, Texas, where you used to work as a drug task
force agent, the police planted methamphetamine
on this girl named Yolanda Madden.
And she was sentenced to eight years in federal prison.
Her father wants your help,
because he can't get any media attention.
And he's got the proof that these police
planted the drugs on her."
Well, proof's a big word for me.
[♪♪♪]
I called her back.
I told her, if he's serious about it,
tell him I'll meet him.
[♪♪♪]
Raymond: I needed to convince Barry that Yolanda's totally innocent.
I had to transport--
Break that down into civilian time.
- About 4-- 4-- 4:50. - OK.
Barry and I come from different
sides of the spectrum.
I believe drugs are the scourge of the earth.
And I thought, man, this guy's a little bit weird.
He's tattooed.
He smokes marijuana.
So this was a totally new deal to me.
But I was down to my last hurrah here.
I mean, I needed to-- I needed to make
something happen.
I'm desperate.
And he showed up by my house with this stack of documents.
And he tells me the whole story.
OK. And these are all police logtimes?
Raymond: These are all-- [Stammering]
They're on the camera.
They're on the video.
Barry: Their police report said that upon stopping,
Yolanda jumped out of the car crying, "Oh my god,
the drugs are in the car.
They're in the car."
And I watched the video.
Drugs in there right now, drugs-- nothing at all?
She never said anything like that, nothing.
They claim Yolanda confessed to having the methamphetamine
during an interrogation by Officer John Doe.
Well, I looked over at the jail records,
and Officer John Doe was booking another prisoner in at the time
he says he was getting a confession from Yolanda.
An informant who had gotten busted gave the bag to Yolanda.
A huge red flag.
That's called an informant plant, and it's illegal.
I was aware of this when I was working as a cop
because some of the agents did that.
[Indistinct conversation]
Barry: And this is where we need to talk about Joe Commander.
This one right here, this guy, Joe Commander,
the little short guy.
He was sort of the undeclared boss of my narcotics unit.
He had connections fucking from here to Egypt.
Joe: I told you lies will get you in trouble.
Barry: If I had a law enforcement mentor, it's Joe Commander.
He had a reputation as being the baddest-ass cop in Texas.
We'd go up to a person that we wanted to get out of town
and drive up, and for no reason whatsoever at all,
jump out of our car with guns, say "Put your hands behind
your back," we'd cuff him.
He'd be, like, "What's this about? What's this about?"
We'd search him.
If they didn't have anything on them,
we'd take a little bag of cocaine out of our pocket,
stick it in their pocket, and they're like,
"What the fuck are you doing?
What's going-- What are you doing?"
"We're planting you like Farmer Brown."
We'd reach in and pull the cocaine out and say,
"You get the fuck out of Odessa, or the next time,
you're going to jail for this bag of coke."
And then we'd let them go and drive off.
And they would leave.
And I'll tell you, if there's any police officer
that you're gonna interview for this documentary,
you would want to-- you would want to talk to Joe Commander.
[Tense music]
Joe: Some people call them informants, I call them spies.
I had hundreds of spies.
You guys come put your hands right up here on the front.
Both of you.
Right over here.
Right up here.
You too. How old are you?
[Indistinct conversation]
- How old? 19? All right. - 19.
Say on a traffic stop, when I search the car
and I found narcotics, I'd take the person in to the office,
interview them, debrief them, and ask them straight up,
"Do you want to work this case off?"
And they'd say, "Well, what do I do?"
I said, "Well, I need you to make three cases."
If they made three bigger cases than what I got them with,
then their case would go away.
Man: Mr. Phillips, what did Joe Commander do
when he arrested you?
Keith: They were threatening me on taking my kids away.
And they wanted me pretty much to give up any information
I knew about anybody.
Man: Was one of the names that they asked you to help them with
Yolanda Madden?
Keith: Yes, sir.
Man: Who brought up that name?
Was it you or them?
Keith: It was them.
Joe Commander had a picture of her and was asking me about her
at that time.
Man: So you gave her something that caused her to be
arrested by the police?
Keith: I was asked to hand a little Game Boy case to Yolanda.
Man: Just so I'm clear,
when you handed this package to Miss Madden,
you didn't tell her there were drugs in it?
Keith: Correct.
Barry: Mr. Madden hired the best polygraph operator on the planet
who used to be a polygraph operator for the FBI.
Polygraphed Yolanda.
"Were these your drugs?" "No."
Then she passed.
The informant on the deal who set her up
polygraphed him, and he passed too.
Raymond: Joe Commander, probably one of the most corrupt
police officers in Texas.
A couple of years before Yolanda was set up,
he was accused of planting drugs on other people.
I found out that the feds had Joe Commander
under investigation.
But nothing ever happened to him.
It was only after the trial,
the assistant chief of police told me,
he said, "Well, Raymond,
what happened is they planted drugs on the wrong person."
And I said, "Well, Don, tell me how you plant drugs
on the right person."
I never planted drugs on anybody.
That was unacceptable.
I'm like, "Motherfucker, they did your daughter, bro.
They did plant drugs on her."
Raymond: Outside the courthouse, after the trial,
one of the cops said, "God, we almost got caught."
And I'm sitting there listening to that.
He had to drop her off in prison.
His own daughter.
- You ever been arrested before? Woman: No, sir.
And it made me cry, because of all the people I'd put in jail.
I also helped separate parents from their children.
Barry felt he had a need to make some things straight
that he had done out in Odessa.
So it was kind of a, you know, a chance for redemption for him
and a chance for me to get my daughter out of jail.
Barry: Let me flowchart this.
And he just said, "We've got to get publicity for Yolanda."
Barry: I told Mr. Madden, "I'll get Yolanda's story on the news."
And I did.
And it almost cost me my life.
[Determined music]
Candi: See that tattoo?
Barry: Three weeks from now, we're going to make
this tattoo a reality.
Candi: Free our prisoners.
And Yolanda's name is going to go right--
Barry: That's right.
Getting Yolanda out of prison.
That's the main goal.
Second, busting these crooked cops.
Barry: To get Yolanda Madden out of jail and prove
these cops are crooked, we need to catch them
red-handed and get it on TV.
What you watching on the Tube today?
When I worked undercover, I would lure somebody
into a hotel room with drugs and the other cops would be
in the other room filming all of it with hidden cameras.
And then they'd run in and bust the guy once the deal was done.
Relax, Cory.
We called it a trap house.
So my idea was we were going to set a trap house
for the crooked cops.
We're about to go to the trap house that Candi and I rented.
Candi: Woo-hoo!
Barry: The one on the right? Candi: That's it, white and green.
Barry: That is-- Both: Perfect.
Candi: We have a good one.
- Barry: This is perfect. - This is perfect.
Barry: Perfect trap house.
[Upbeat music]
The plan was to set up a trap house
with a fake marijuana grow room, then lure the cops in
so we could film them performing an illegal raid.
We're going to set the grow light here with a few plants,
of course not anything illegal.
I'll get the police to raid it illegally
on a bump search warrant.
I'll have the media with me.
And when that happens, I'll start screaming "Free Yolanda
and I'm doing this because y'all planted drugs on Yolanda."
Internet's fine.
I'll let you know when you get here.
Yeah, that's a go.
I would help set up the camera crew
as Barry's manager/producer/consultant.
Barry: We're going to place our hidden cameras there, there.
When you think about it, a sting operation,
it's sort of like making a TV show already.
We will have a "Free Yolanda" sign here
and instructions for the police explaining to them
that they're on a reality TV show, "KopBusters."
You find a location, you set up the cameras,
and then there's the day of production.
It's like, "Okay, action."
Narrator: Ten years ago, a crack commando unit was sent to prison
by a military court for a crime they didn't commit.
These men promptly escaped.
Barry: Mr. Madden agreed to fund the operation.
Now we just needed to hire a crack team
to pull this thing off.
Narrator: If you have a problem, if no one else can help,
and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the A-Team.
I'm a lawyer.
I'm a lawyer!
Don't get in my way!
And if you're prosecuting my client,
you are in my way!
If you're watching this,
presumably either you or a loved one
is looking for legal representation.
And what I want to do is explain my method.
- Hello? Barry: Hey, how are you doing?
Reposa: Barry calls me up, starts telling me about Yolanda Madden.
And he's telling me that this guy testifies
about planting fucking drugs,
and then the judge convicts the person.
So that was real difficult for me.
He tells me that we're going to go to Midland,
where his old, you know,
Permian Basin Drug Task Force buddies
are still just doing all the same shit,
and we're going to trip him up.
So, without trying to set up fucking dirty cops, let's ride.
♪ We'll fight the powers that be just-- ♪
James: I'm a fan of the rule of law.
We all need general rules to govern.
What I can't stand is when people abuse
their positions of power.
♪ Oh, we're not going to take it ♪
Barry?
- Barry: Yeah. - Finish it up.
Barry: All right, man, I appreciate it.
James: Personally, I have a high opinion of officers
that do do their job well.
I just have a very deep hatred for the ones that cheat.
Barry, come on.
So when Barry asked for my help, I said yes.
♪ Your life is-- ♪
Victor: Barry approached me to be his bodyguard
after he knew that I was really good with my hands.
And it wasn't in a boxing gym.
You know, we would fight in a warehouse.
Bare knuckle, you win $1,000 in 17 seconds.
Come on.
It's good money.
Barry: You're on TV. Say something.
You were on TV yesterday.
Barry: I've never seen him be bashful.
Growing up in a small town, the police would harass you.
So when Barry called me and told me the plan,
I said, "Hey, let's go whip their asses."
Travis: I was sitting and playing video games.
Barry's on the phone again.
"I think I'm going to call it KopBusters.
I think I'm going to do it that way and bust the cops
and point it back at them."
I remember thinking, "What the fuck?
The cops will beat the ever-loving shit out of you.
Barry, this is the line.
You can kiss my ass twice.
I'm out for good."
Our stated mission exactly is to prove that these cops,
who were instrumental in having this woman
put in federal prison, are fucking liars.
That's right.
The whole idea is it's not a pot issue, it's a freedom issue.
If they do the proper investigation,
they won't kick the door in.
But if they are who I think they are, that door's coming down.
If the cops think for one second they're getting set up.
- Do you know what I mean? - Oh, yeah.
I felt the plan was quite ambitious
and certainly dangerous.
That wasn't my role, was to have doubts.
My role was to help advise on the legality
and the potential ramifications of what could occur.
The legality was always a great question
because no one's ever thought of it.
Like, "Is it legal to do this?"
I mean, we're busting cops,
and no one else has ever done this before.
Man: I got a question for the attorneys.
Honestly, what are we looking at?
Reposa: As far as going to jail.
[Overlapping conversation]
Whether or not you can publish your footage.
- What I'm saying is-- Barry: I think you can publish anything--
- I do too. Barry: When it comes to the cops.
It's domain. It's investigative journalism.
Reposa: We need the cops to break the law
by making an illegal search of the house.
And we've got to do it without breaking the law ourselves
because nobody here wants to go to prison.
The law was very clear about what the cops could get
a search warrant on.
They can't get a search warrant based on just an anonymous tip.
Otherwise, I can get mad at my neighbour
and pick up the phone and make an anonymous call
and say my neighbour's got a kilo of cocaine in the house
and get him raided.
This is the front door.
If we called the police
and said there's a marijuana grow house on Lotte Street,
that's false report to a police officer.
That's against the law.
But there's no such law as false report to a preacher.
[♪♪♪]
To get the cops interested in the house,
I drafted a letter
as if I was a pissed-off girlfriend
that said I got involved with this guy
who's got 50 marijuana plants
growing at 232 Lotte Street,
and I feel guilty 'cause I'm a Christian.
And by the way, there's $11,000 hidden in the chimney.
Raymond: The bait we're gonna use is money.
Barry knew drugs was not what they was after.
It was money that they were interested in.
And then Candi went to a local church
and handed that letter to a pastor
and said, "Look, I feel bad about something.
Please read this letter."
[♪♪♪]
So the preacher gets the letter
and did exactly what we thought he would do.
He went and turned it in to the police.
Okay, we're going to walk into the mall
and buy a prepaid Visa debit card
to order equipment online.
Come on.
[♪♪♪]
This operation was top secret.
I had to encrypt everything, and I had to use blow-up phones.
You know, get a phone from Walmart,
use it for a little bit, throw it away, get another phone.
I had to really use every technique I knew
to keep this from getting leaked.
One of our agents just quit all of a sudden.
He called and said he was worried about going to jail,
and I tried to explain to him we weren't doing
anything illegal, but it's a high-pressure thing
going on here, I guess, with some folks.
Understanding how police illegally raid houses,
I set up a marijuana grow light.
Merry Christmas.
And instead of putting marijuana plants under it,
I bought little Christmas trees.
[Laughter]
We made a sign that said, "There's nothing illegal
happening in this house.
You're part of a reality show called 'KopBusters.'"
And within 10 minutes, there will be
a group of activists followed by a film crew.
We will all be dressed in red shirts
that you see nailed to the wall next to this sign,
and you will be approached.
What I wanted to do is these cops raid a house.
I didn't want to jump on them right then
while their adrenaline was up, 'cause we'd get shot.
I made that sign.
[laughs]
Yeah, spent hours on that.
Candi and my dad involved me in pretty much all of the projects
and things that we did regarding KopBusters
and Never Get Busted.
[Doorbell ringing]
Oh, that's our daughter. Sorry.
Hang on, let me go get my daughter.
Okay, so my daughter just got home from school.
This is Kenzie.
So we want to finish with "Teenagers Smoking Pot."
I thought everything was normal growing up,
but looking back, a lot of things probably weren't.
Okay, here we go.
One, two, three, four, five, hello, six, seven,
eight, nine, ten.
Okay, is the audio and everything good?
Okay, thanks, I'm out of here.
We rigged the house with hidden cameras
that live-streamed to our hotel room
that we were sitting in watching,
waiting for it to be raided.
We are now waiting...
...for that door to be kicked in by the police.
That's what we're doing at-- 2:00 in the morning?
Woman: Yes, at 2:00 in the morning.
Barry and woman: 2:00 in the morning.
Both: Two.
Barry: And nothing happens.
You start spending another man's money,
you know, your 20, 30, $40,000, into this deal,
and if it doesn't work, Yolanda stays in prison
for another four years,
Mr. Madden loses all his money,
and I'm a failure.
Without getting raided? Yeah.
Raymond: Just because of these cops, 'cause I want them--
I figured they'd try to plant something on me.
Barry: Okay.
We might do something to trigger the raid
like you're talking about.
I think we drop you off two streets over,
and you just walk down the street
and walk right up to the front door and go in.
I'll do that. That's fine.
Here's what I want to make sure before we release you
to do this.
Don't do something that we didn't know about.
You got to do it exactly like we discussed,
because we're making decisions out here based on that.
Reposa: Well, okay, you know what else we need?
Barry: In other words, you're kind of a firecracker.
- Hey, what's going on? Barry: What are we up to?
No good!
[Laughter]
Barry: Adam, if they stop you walking to ID you,
what you gonna do?
Reposa: I'm gonna be the person who goes in the house.
My job is to get the police to breach a door.
Man: All right.
Adam's fixing to come in the house.
Man 2: There he is. Is he going in?
Candi: He's in.
Man: Candi is on edge.
Oh, man.
Well, my lawyer has ADHD.
He's a wild one.
He calls.
He goes, "Man, I don't think they're gonna raid us."
We're talking on the phone,
and he's telling me to hang tight, and I'm feeling like,
"No, man, I need to see
if there's, you know, any way to turn this thing up."
So I walk outside,
and then I see a, you know, task force guy
drive up in the truck, and he's looking at me,
and I'm looking at him, and I know it's on.
Barry: Who is that?
Victor: There is a cop inside the car.
Barry: We've got cops out there.
Victor: Everywhere.
There's more pulling up, too.
Candi: Hang on.
[Door slamming]
Barry: There it is. There he is. There he is.
Back door.
They're raiding it.
Let's go. Let's go.
We've got to get there before the cops figure out
what's going on, and haul ass. We've got one shot.
♪ Lonely shadows follow me ♪
♪ Lonely ghosts come a-calling ♪
♪ Lonely voices talk to me ♪
Man: Oh, should I do that?
Man 2: No, no, no. We need to go.
All right, let's roll.
[♪♪♪]
Barry: Oh, my God, camera's rolling?
Man: I'm rolling.
Driver: So you did call the TV guys, right?
Yes, they're on their way now.
[♪♪♪]
Get out and say, "Do you have a search warrant?"
And if they don't, I'm gonna say, "What were you doing in my house?"
That'll be the argument.
And then we need to find Adam Raposa.
I'm in the back of a cop car, handcuffed,
and they started telling me,
"Hey, we know what's in that house," and I was like,
"The fuck you do, you stupid motherfucker."
Officer: We've been set up.
[♪♪♪]
Barry: They're just about to leave.
[Horn honking]
Go, go, go, go, go, go!
I'm just honking to leave them there.
All right, we're about to come through.
I want you to stop right here.
Stop right here. Stop right here. Right here.
[♪♪♪]
Hey, I'm Barry Cooper with KopBusters.
Why are you in my house?
Y'all planted drugs on Yolanda, and we're gonna get her released
and get the crooked cops busted.
If you're a good cop, great, but you're not.
You raided my house, and nothing's going on.
Man: Hey, sir, apparently you're the one in [Indistinct]. Come here.
Barry: Hey, I want to see the search warrant.
Oh, I thought he was fucking crazy.
You know, I thought he was gonna get shot down.
Officer: We're not giving nobody no hassle.
You did, too.
Y'all planted drugs on Yolanda,
and she's in prison because of it.
- That's giving people a hassle. Officer: Sir.
I'll wait for the media to get here.
That's crazy shit right there.
American police will shoot you for that.
Where's Joe Commander?
Planting drugs on people.
Officer: Can't walk in the roadway.
Officer 2: Can't walk in the street.
Barry: What are you gonna do, put me in jail for walking in a road?
When you guys illegally entered my house?
Put me in jail for walking down a sidewalk.
Officer: You've been warned.
You've been warned.
When they realized that they've been had,
they were trying to find a reason to arrest us.
Barry: You guys are wrong on this one, and you know it.
You got burnt.
Reposa: The cops were shook.
Well, what are you gonna do?
You gonna put us in jail?
Who are you gonna be mad at?
Barry: How about my attorney right there?
Is he under arrest?
He's been detained right now.
Barry: Is he under-- is he free to leave?
Barry: Is he free to leave?
Officer: Is he free to leave? Officer 2: Yeah.
- Barry: Are we all free to leave? - Yeah.
I am no longer in handcuffs.
I am the fuck out of here.
Oh, Renee, let's go! Renee, let's go!
Barry, I'll send you a bill!
Fuck this fucking batshit bullshit.
I am done.
Barry: We'll see y'all in court!
And you'll be on TV! Ha!
[Upbeat music]
It worked.
But the job is only half done.
We gotta get Yolanda's story on the news.
Hey, yeah, Barry. Did Jose send you here?
He did, he did.
Barry: Once all the cops had left,
we got the Channel 7 news team in.
Reporter: Tell me what happened at his house.
We set a trap to bust crooked cops in Odessa.
It fucking worked!
Oh, man!
Victor: That was awesome, dude.
Barry: Hey! Oh, man.
Reposa: And the most fucked up thing is
the part that really mattered.
Get their attention, get them to do something
in clear violation of the law, and then get a media focus.
Everything fucking worked.
Reporter: Our top story tonight, Odessa police are tricked
into raiding a fake drug den.
Reporter 2: But why all the trouble?
Get Yolanda Madden out of prison.
Ex-drug officer, Barry--
Yolanda: We were watching the news.
The girls that I'm locked up with were looking at the TV
and looking back at me and like, "Oh, my gosh."
I bought the domain KopBusters.com with a "K,"
and I posted all the evidence
so everybody could see that these drugs had been planted
on Yolanda Madden.
And then I approached magazines.
Stephen: Barry offered me an online exclusive.
We got millions of readers just lit up.
And I linked to his website from the story.
People were clicking through like, "What the hell?"
And it went crazy.
It broke his website.
At the same time, I released these videos on YouTube
to show the public what the police did.
[Dramatic music]
Reposa: YouTube was pretty new.
I mean, it was when viral was, like, starting to be a word.
[♪♪♪]
Narrator: Every year, thousands of men and women are sent to prison,
many because of corrupt cops.
Like, everyone had already encountered everything but this.
Barry: Hey, I'm Barry Cooper with KopBusters.
Why are you in my house?
"I'm Barry Cooper with KopBusters.
Why are you in my house?"
"Hey, I'm Barry Cooper.
What the hell are y'all doing in my house?"
"My name's Barry Cooper.
What are you doing in my house?"
I got chills watching him do this explosive thing.
I would say I couldn't believe it, but I could believe it.
He told me exactly what he was gonna do,
and then he went and did it.
I gotta say, in the High Times office,
we fucking cheered.
We stood up watching this footage.
People screaming, "Fuck yeah!
Fuck you!
Fuckin' ain't right!"
You did too!
Y'all planted drugs on Yolanda and she's--
David: Simply to see it done to the police by an ex-cop
felt like you were seeing something
you never were gonna see in your whole life.
Stephen: Nobody had ever busted the cops before
and shared it to so many people all over the world.
There was millions and millions and millions
of hits overnight.
It was just everywhere.
The term "KopBuster" was the number one word
searched on Google for two weeks.
Free Yolanda!
Now, even the most cynical journalists
are going to have to ask, "Who's Yolanda?"
I can prove absolutely without a doubt she's innocent.
Reporter: Her father says he's been trying to get a court
to retry the case since the conviction.
A lot of the media now had a reason
to look at that specific case.
Her family says the drugs were planted
and they've got evidence to prove it.
Today, they got their chance to present some of that evidence
in an evidentiary hearing in federal court in Midland.
And when that occurred, something almost...
...unbelievable happened.
[Dramatic music]
Former Odessa police officer Barry Cooper
set up a fake drug house
to sting the Odessa Police Department
on his reality show "KopBusters."
Today, the family that hired Cooper and his crew
to set up a sting are getting what they want.
[♪♪♪]
Yolanda Madden is a free woman.
Federal judge Rob Janelle vacated her sentence.
[♪♪♪]
Getting to hold him and not let go of him this time
was, uh, priceless.
[♪♪♪]
Woman: Oh, you look beautiful.
[♪♪♪]
And then it was just all over.
That's the first time I got to hold her in four years.
[♪♪♪]
I'm in awe, you know?
I'm just glad to be home.
You know, a thank you doesn't seem like enough.
[Laughter]
I'm excited that we had a hand
in getting Yolanda to this point,
but I'm bitter of the pain
that this has caused Yolanda and her kids and her family,
so it's bittersweet to me.
Hey! Come over here, Yolanda!
Wow! Hey Raymond.
Good to see you, brother.
I'm so glad y'all took the time to make it by.
Come here, girl.
Yolanda: Barry's 100% the reason I got out early.
KopBusters and this thing that he did
and the publicity that it drew
put pressure on the courts, obviously.
You know, people started asking questions and stuff
and making phone calls, and so they have to stand up
and do the right thing eventually.
I mean, I was really fucking proud of my dad for that.
I still am proud of my dad for that.
That doesn't happen very often,
and I can say I can't imagine a scenario today
where it would happen again with me in my life.
I may have been getting out and getting ready
to settle into my life, but there were no officers
ever held accountable for what happened in my case.
I never caught anybody doing any wrongdoing
in that drug task force.
If I had of, they'd have been reported.
KopBusters wasn't just going after the police for corruption.
It was going against the very drug task forces
and even some of the fellow officers that Barry worked with.
You are poking the bear, and not just any bear,
but a bear that you know and that knows you,
and as personally as Barry took things,
the reaction was just as personal.
Keep the camera on.
Candi: Okay.
The police absolutely considered me a traitor.
I got death threats.
They hated me.
[Knocking]
Candi: Fuck.
Okay, I don't open the door for the cops.
Candi: Here you go.
Barry: But you can talk to me through the window.
We had a strict rule.
Never, ever, ever open your door for the police.
You're under no obligation to open the door for the cops.
If the police had a legal right to be in your home,
they would kick the door in and raid your house
with a search warrant.
If you do not open the door, you will not go to jail.
Go get a warrant and get me later.
But otherwise, get the fuck out of here.
I don't like cops.
Don't like you. Go.
Do you really know who you're talking to?
Oh, hey, kick the door in, motherfucker.
Hey, kick the door in.
Fuck you. Don't come to my door like that, boy.
Yeah, go on, punk.
The last arrest...
...they fucking hit me so hard.
I'm in the car with Kenzie.
I hear cops zooming up.
I'm like, "Oh, shit."
[Sirens blaring]
Pulled us over two miles from my house.
They jumped out in fucking body armour and guns like this.
And this is what bothered me, is their hands were shaking.
And I knew when cops were in the mood to shoot,
they wanted to be the one to shoot Barry Cooper.
So I just ducked my head like this,
peering up, seeing their hands shaking,
surrounded, more cars swooping in, helicopter overhead.
And I said, "It's okay, guys.
It's okay. It's okay.
Just handcuff me.
I won't hurt you. I won't hurt you."
I'm not going to harm you guys.
Grabbing me like that.
Officer: You have the right to remain silent,
not make any statement at all.
Any statement that you make
may be used to execute your trial. You understand that?
Barry: I don't understand what I'm under arrest for.
[Indistinct conversation]
Barry: It's okay, Kenzie. Don't worry.
Me and my dad just stared at each other the whole time.
I didn't know what the fuck was going on.
Officer: We're going to go back and we're going to execute
a search warrant at your house.
You're either going to cooperate with us, you're going to
tell us who's in the house so we don't have issues,
or you're not. That's the way it's going to go.
Barry: Are you saying that you guys are going to go kick my door in?
Officer: We're going to do what we have to do.
They started driving to my house and my dad was following
behind in the cop car.
I had my phone on me and I was texting Candi, "Lock the door."
Barry: Burn me on it and I'm going to fuck you over real hard
if you scare my family.
Yes, I will. I'll get you in court. I'll get you in court.
That's the why we're doing it like this.
Barry: If you terrorize my family, I'll get your ass in court.
Officer: Here's the way it is, Barry.
I'll give you the same respect you give me.
Barry: I don't respect you motherfuckers for doing this.
What you're doing is fucked up.
- I burnt that cop's ass, got his ass. Officer: This has nothing--
This has to do--
We pull up to my house and I'm in the driveway
and I see all these cops get out and they have all their guns
and they're walking up to my door
and every time I looked at my dad, I just cried.
Officer: Is your wife going to open the door?
Barry: If she sees cops, she won't unless I tell her to.
But it's our rule, we don't open the door to fucking cops.
[Indistinct conversation]
Officer 2: The wife and the small boy got off the bus earlier.
Officer: Let's hustle on that fella.
Barry: They had a warrant to search the house
so I couldn't stop them from going in.
Oh, will you help me?
Can you help me?
You don't need to be helped any longer.
Barry: Candi and Zach were at home watching TV.
I told Candi to open the door so they didn't kick it in.
If I ever go looking for my heart's desire again,
I won't look any further than my own backyard.
[Indistinct shouting]
I mean, it was terrifying, especially because we didn't
know what was going on.
The cops didn't communicate anything with us.
And think to yourself, there's no place like home.
[Officer shouting indistinctly]
They make me and Candi and Zach sit on the couch.
Then they start just searching the whole house.
Dorothy: There's no place like home.
[Camera shutter clicks]
There's no place like home.
I remember looking over and seeing my wife and Zach
sitting on the couch.
I said, I'm gonna cooperate
and tell you where everything is.
They were after my KopBuster tapes,
and I just didn't want them to hurt my family.
[Tense music]
Say hi.
Raiding my family...
[♪♪♪]
[Laughing]
Child: Hi, Daddy.
[♪♪♪]
...fucked me up.
Fucked me up.
[♪♪♪]
And I remember sitting in solitary confinement.
I thought, man, they want to shoot me.
I started looking at the math,
and I noticed in the United States,
any activist that was effective,
their retirement program was death or prison.
I made up my mind right then.
I'm leaving the United States.
I hatched a plan and snuck out of the country
into Southeast Asia.
They couldn't come get me there.
Life is hard, and we all have to go through struggles.
It's how you deal with the struggle.
It's how you deal with the trauma that defines you.
After I fled the United States, well, I lost everything.
I lost my country.
I lost all my possessions.
Had to sell everything when I fled.
Lost my friends, family.
Spent nearly a decade on the run.
And for a long time,
I didn't know how this was going to pan out.
I live in a jungle now, and I train rescue dogs.
I'm really thankful to have what I have now.
I got a do-over.
And I'm not going to squander it, man.
Good boy.
Tim R. Hey, Tim R.
Good to see you again.
You said, "Barry needs to be attorney general."
No, I'm a horrible politician.
You know, I ran for Texas attorney general.
I also started Never Get Busted Live.
I'm using more wisdom and more tact to get my point across.
I feel like I'm preaching again.
Barry's lost a lot in this fight.
A lot in this fight.
From start to right now.
And him being in exile,
that's a whole different toll on him.
[Overlapping conversation]
♪ Our house ♪
♪ It's a very, very, very fine house ♪
Kenzie: I don't think that my dad will ever have true inner peace.
He's lost a whole lot, he's not going to get any of it back.
When he went and picked a fight with the cops
and went on the run,
he didn't think about the consequences.
Travis: Injustice is everywhere, and many of us want
to do something about it.
But Barry played that game at a much bigger level
and at a much bigger scale.
So click that order button now to nevergetbusted.com,
and I'll even pay your postage.
[Indistinct shouting]
And it had the kind of collateral damage
that not even in my wildest dreams did I think
that the Texas Rangers would raid his home
and he'd have to flee the country.
Very nice to meet you, Paul.
I'm Barry.
Hey man, I'm Barry.
I just hope I'm doing okay.
But these are your people, you're Filipino,
I'm a white guy, it's hard.
Leandrew: The thing about Barry, he is that embodiment
of that warrior spirit, that William Wallace, Spartacus,
like, no, I'm standing up for what I believe
and I'm going to fight.
He fought the fucking system in a way
that made millions of people cheer for him.
Barry: Hey Rangers!
Why are y'all being pricks like that?
You don't want me busting crooked cops?
Do you see what happens if you're tied up in this game
and then you try to turn around and hate the game?
No, they're going to hate the player.
They're going to come at your ass
and they're going to fuck you up.
How dare you come into my home on a misdemeanour
pointing guns at my family.
Do you really know who you're talking to?
Hey, kick the door in, motherfucker!
Hey, kick the door in!
David: This isn't the story of one cop who did bad stuff and then quit.
This is a story about a system that's unjust.
Watch our TV show, KopBusters.
Whether you like Barry Cooper or not, you got to agree with me
that he has brought the issue to the fore.
Pot smokers do not belong in jail!
Recreational marijuana is now legal in California.
Alaska is now the third state--
Minnesota now the 23rd state to legalize.
But in Texas, recreational use of marijuana is still illegal.
In the patrol car.
Barry's a guardian angel.
He had enough experience with officers,
he knew what made them tick.
This is called cop watching.
It's investigative journalism.
Man: It's not illegal to record, I'm a journalist.
Barry: Is he free to leave?
Man: Am I free to leave?
Barry: Are we all free to leave?
- Officer: Yes! - Then we can roam around
wherever we want!
A dirty, rotten, mean motherfucker.
Man: Oh, my God!
That dude has such a bug up his ass
about how bad he was to other people
that he's just determined to undo the harm,
even if it means killing himself.
Y'all planted drugs on Yolanda,
and she's in prison because of it.
I mean, for me, I would have to tell you that
I am his biggest fan.
Barry: This fucking worked!
I will always appreciate what Barry did for me.
I mean, I may not ever understand why.
Barry: Oh, man! Victor: That was awesome, dude.
Thank you very much. I'm Barry Cooper.
God bless all of you for being here.
[Cheering and applause]
♪ Well, I was raised up by a simple man ♪
♪ I grew up with a gun in my hand ♪
♪ Taught me how to love and how to fight ♪
♪ Taught me what's wrong taught me what's right ♪
♪ Said you don't have a choice to choose ♪
♪ You do what you can and don't ever lose ♪
♪ Just remember, even when I'm dead and gone ♪
♪ Stick to your guns, son, make me proud ♪
♪ Don't ever back up, don't ever back down ♪
♪ Stand your ground and always tell it like it is ♪
♪ Yeah, this life's gonna be real damn tough ♪
♪ You take them scars and you call that bluff ♪
♪ Don't let me catch you fitting in ♪
♪ Till it's time to do outlaw shit ♪
[Low dramatic music]
[♪♪♪]
I don't fucking know what
that fucking bat shit motherfucker is doing,
but I guarantee you, whatever it is,
it's fucking nuts.
You know, and that was kind of how I got--