Let’s Get It On! (15 page)

The difference between Rorion and all the other panel experts was that he was willing to learn. Over time, Rorion would meet me at the police academy, where I taught him how to use a gun better, how to shoot on the move, take angles on suspects, and perform other police-related exercises. This was the beginning of our friendship.

And like so many others, I fell in love with Brazilian jiu-jitsu. It was a simple but highly effective art, and it was real. I appreciated the fact that there was no mystic element to it. You trained hard with your partner, and the longer you practiced, the better you got.

The Gracies didn’t just dole out ranking belts, a problem I saw with other martial arts academies. You had to earn them, and the only way to get to the next level was to work hard and dedicate yourself.

That wasn’t a problem for me. I became a disciple. These guys had the knowledge of life. To me, this was it. They fought. They competed. They were honest. I was convinced, hook, line, and sinker.

I even tried the Gracie diet, which involved eating a lot of watermelon and cream cheese. I got sick of watermelon really fast.

I started going to the Torrance academy twice a week and even started taking my kids to the academy to train. I’d drive home to Corona from the academy in Los Angeles, pick up my seven-year-old, Ron, and four-year-old, Britney, and take them down to Torrance. I was putting in some serious miles.

Twice a week was already pushing it, but I had to train more. Three times a week was the ultimate commitment, so I made it and then also paid for private lessons with Royce on the side.

As my knowledge of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu grew, my faith in the martial arts panel dwindled. Amidst all the bickering and posturing, the panel was never going to produce anything of use to police officers. Yes, they came up with great ideas and techniques, but the real problem was the police department itself.

The LAPD kept asking the panel for ways to use force that wouldn’t injure the suspect but would keep the officer safe. But when we suggested techniques like an arm-triangle choke, which has nothing to do with the trachea, the LAPD would reject them. They said officers couldn’t use chokes.

It became a frustrating and hopeless situation. Though the police force eventually adapted the panel’s recommended techniques and a few of them came from Brazilian jiu-jitsu, I felt most of them were watered down and would never work against a suspect. Knowing some officers could get hurt while using these new techniques, I walked away from the panel after merely eight months.

Still, I was thankful for the panel because it had introduced me to the Gracies and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, which changed my life forever.

Easter with Ron, Charlie Brown (Johnny), and Britney

Another life changer following the riots came when Elaine and I learned we were expecting our third child. With both of us on the force, it had gotten to the point that nannies were basically raising our two kids, and our “riot baby” would make three. Elaine and I agreed we didn’t want our kids being raised by strangers.

I told Elaine that if she loved police work, I’d quit my job once she returned from maternity leave. I felt she had much more of a chance of upward mobility than I did.

Instead, Elaine decided to leave the force altogether.

Johnny, our second son, was born on January 31, 1993, which was Super Bowl Sunday. I got to watch the Dallas Cowboys kill the Buffalo Bills through a tiny TV in Elaine’s hospital room, which I didn’t mind given the circumstances.

Eventually the world turned its attention away from Los Angeles, which began to rebuild and move on. Still, what I’d seen for six crazy days in April of 1992 didn’t leave me. It’s funny how resonating moments in your life can give you pause. The riots made me think about what I was doing with myself and my family. My schedule was impossible. I was reporting to roll call at 2:30 p.m. and was out on the streets for CRASH by 3:30 p.m. until about 2:30 a.m. Then I’d go home for a few hours of sleep and get up at 6:00 to make it to Los Angeles in time to appear in court as a witness for my cases by 8:30. I never had enough time to drive the seventy miles home and make it to roll call again by 2:30.

One morning I woke up, looked in the mirror, and saw my dad. It’s not that this was a bad thing. I love my dad and all he stood for and accomplished. The LAPD and SWAT had been so important to him, and he was always there for it. But I realized I wasn’t him and didn’t want to be.

I knew that in the end, the LAPD wouldn’t give a damn about me. It was how I raised my children that would define me. My kids were already getting older, and I felt like I was missing out on so much. I didn’t want to struggle to make it to occasions like Ron’s preschool graduation. It got to the point that I simply wouldn’t do it anymore.

It just so happened that at that time in early 1993 a teaching position in the police academy opened up. The hours would be far better. I’d start at 5:30 a.m. and be done with my day at 2:30, right as the kids were getting out of school. I could go play in the backyard with Britney, take Ron to Little League games, and be home at night with Elaine and the kids.

I and a group of hopefuls applied for the position of tactics instructor and went through a battery of oral and written tests. During the orals, I had to do a presentation of my teaching skills. As a kid, I’d hated public speaking. It made my stomach turn, but now I had something to fight for. For the test, I taught a standard vehicle stop lesson, showing how I would disseminate the necessary information to a class of cadets and explaining why I would teach it that way.

Tommy McDonald and I were the two finalists for the position. Tommy had worked for SWAT and was Sgt. Frank Mika’s choice. Mika was the officer in charge (OIC) of the Tactics Unit. Glen Hees, the assistant OIC, thought I was the man for the job. Both Frank and Glen had worked for my dad.

I’m told that in the end, Frank said to Glen, “You can have McCarthy, but you’d better be right.”

There was a big difference between Tommy and me. I was surprised they gave me the spot. Tommy was a golden boy, and I was a bad boy.

The one thing I knew after getting the job was that I had to prove they’d made the right decision. I can’t justify it, but I have always felt that whatever position I was in or whatever team I played for, others were always trying to replace me. I know it sounds crazy, but even if I was the captain of the team, I still felt that the coach was looking to put in someone else so I had to continually prove myself. It’s my own personal paranoia that’s stayed with me to this day. In this case, it did ensure one thing: the cadets would get the best I had to give, guaranteed.

The change of scenery and pace, both at work and at home, came at just the right time. I’d told Elaine one of the perks of working for the LAPD was that if you ever got tired of what you were doing, you could try something else.

I felt I’d accomplished a lot of good in the four and a half years I’d spent in CRASH, but there comes a point working with gang members when you just want to kill them all. There’s something about them that makes you think you can change them, and I guess it takes about four and a half years to realize you can’t.

Returning to Elysian Park seven and a half years after I began my career there, I was undoubtedly a different person. The academy had changed as well and mostly for the better. When I’d been a recruit, I’d gotten about 908 hours of training. When you think about it, that’s pretty scary. I read somewhere that you needed 1,500 hours of training to become a cosmetologist, to carry around scissors and cut someone’s hair. You need only 900 hours to be a cop, to carry a gun and potentially take someone’s life. It doesn’t quite add up, does it?

The academy hadn’t offered nearly as much tactical training when I’d attended as it did by the time I was an instructor. For instance, my 1985 class hadn’t been taught how to do a building search, but by 1993 the academy had a mock town with houses and buildings to maneuver through. I got to play every day alongside the cadets as I put them through paintball and grappling exercises, and I taught them the proper way to find and apprehend me in the mock town.

I felt being a police officer was all about tactics, learning how to handle oneself properly both physically and mentally in the field. After what I’d seen out there, I had a few pearls of wisdom to share.

In the classroom, I was assigned to teach the course on use of deadly force. Thankfully, it had been given considerably more hours than when I’d been a cadet, which was helpful as I instructed seventy students on department policy, including the proper use of firearms and chokes. All the time I was spending studying jiu-jitsu with Rorion Gracie gave me a better handle on how to train others in certain aspects of force.

Rorion was studying too, though I didn’t realize it at the time. His weekly meetings with the rest of the martial arts panel weren’t necessarily about improving officers’ field techniques. In Rorion’s mind, he was holding an audition, and the traveling show was about to come to town.

The family that started it all, the Gracies (from left to right: Rilion, Relson, Rorion, Helio, Royce, and Carlson)

When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world.

—George Washington Carver

They say some of the greatest successes have come when someone wasn’t afraid to look at what others had rejected and said, “Let’s try it another way.” Rorion Gracie’s mind had certainly been churning during those weekly meetings with the other martial arts leaders on the advisory panel. When I’d been there, I’d seen a roomful of well-meaning but stubborn zealots. Rorion had seen an opportunity.

Each master was as dedicated to his own art as Rorion was to Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, but Rorion wondered if they’d all be willing to prove it. Would their students lay it all on the line? Pride can be a powerful motivator, and Rorion knew firsthand that there was none greater than a martial artist’s. Not only was there no way they’d step down from a challenge, but Rorion bet people would probably be willing to pay to see who was the best.

Who was the best? The question buzzed around Rorion’s gym in Torrance as he began to speak about his plans for War of the Worlds, a martial arts tournament he’d host in the coming months to decide once and for all which martial art reigned supreme.

Rorion’s grand scheme wasn’t all his own creation. There had already been a man who’d fearlessly tested his art against all who’d challenged him. That man was Rorion’s father, Helio Gracie.