We started talking to him through the door.

He said, “Go away or I’ll jump. “

One senior official said, “Well, let his wife talk to him.”

She got up to the door and said , “Albert, you’re acting like an ass. Why don’t you come out?” Which completely flipped him.

We started telephone negotiations. I was talking with him, looking at him from another apartment across his terrace. He was facing a deal for him to turn hmself in. He knew he was going to be arrested, do ten years, be disgraced and lose everything, including his million dollar job.. He had nothing to live for. But I had him a few times.

He was saying, “OK, I’m going to come out now. I’m going to feed the dog, then I’ll come out.”

A good and a bad sign – good that they’re going to come out; bad that they start performing rituals. They just want to get washed. They just want to feed the dog. They just want to tidy up the loose ends, which happens a lot in suicides.

Tactically it was very difficult to get him. He was on a highrise terrace. Our team prepared to throw one of these cargo nets from the thirty third floor over the balcony to cops on the thirty first floor who would try to pull it tight against his ledge.

We talked for about seven hours, up and down. Yes, he was on my side. No, he can’t come because there was nothing to live for.

He had decided to come out three times. Each time I walked over to the other building and knocked on the door.

He’d say, “Who is it?”

I’d say, “It’s me, Gary. Are you going to come out now?” I’d walk all the way back, pick up the phone. “Why aren’t you going to come out?”

“Well, I don’t want to come out. What am I going to do?”

Again I talked about life, about all the things he had to live for.

We decided to move on him. We opened door slowly. He was in the living room. He ran out to the ledge. The net was dropped, pulled tight. With superhuman strength he squeezed out around it and dove thirty two floors to his death.

This guy has committed at least a half dozen murders on behalf of Nuestra Familia. He’s in for murder. He might be willing to flip, to turn state’s evidence. He’s already locked down because he’s in a jam with the rank and file members of the Nuestra Familia, a very violent gang. His brother, gangster Mendoza, had contract to murder me because of my involvement in this federal investigation. My son had already been followed home from school in Fresno area.

Joker, an unusually large Hispanic of about six feet, is a weightlifter. He’s got a denim shirt on, which he’s torn the sleeves off like a tank top, denim pants torn off ragged-edged, flip flops, tattoos all over, a very tough looking character.

Entering with me is an officer from the Department of Corrections internal gang unit.

As we introduce ourselves, Joker turns to me and says, “I’ve heard of you. I’ll talk to you. But I won’t talk with this motherfucker in here.”

The guys turns to me and says, “It’s up to you, Byron.”

“If you don’t mind, I’ll talk to him by myself.”

The guy says okay, excuses himself and walks out, leaving joker and myself in this very isolated room at the end of a hallway with the door locked from the outside. About ten minutes into the conversation there is a power failure. The lights go out and we’re plunged into total darkness. Dead silence follows.

It seems like hours go by, but it’s probably thirty seconds. For some reason I start laughing. And then in the darkness, he starts laughing . At one point I hear his chair shuffle.

He says, “You know, you’re in deep shit.”

In the darkness I say, “well, you don’t know what’s pointed at you right now.” We’re in a standoff. Then we both laugh again.

I say, “I guess we’re both in deep shit.”

He says, “Yeah.” And we start talking.

In about forty five seconds, which seems like hours, I see rays of light, and hear guards running down the hall, anticipating a scene of total carnage, that joker has ripped me physically limb from limb. They crash through the door, light us both up with the flashlights, and we’re laughing. I’m kicked back with my feet on the table, and joker’s over in another corner with his feet up.

These guys are befuddled. The lights come back on. Joker tells them to get the fuck out of there.