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Chats with law enforcement experts and leaders
Hi. This is sergeant Betsy Brantner Smith at the National Police Association, and this is the National Police Association Podcast. I have a guest today. He's a hometown guy. I'm always so excited to talk to somebody from my native Illinois.
Betsy Smith:So if my Chicago accent really starts to ramp up, you'll know. This guy retired as a lieutenant, had an incredible twenty nine year career, and he's also an incredibly prolific author, and that's really what I wanna talk to him about. Lieutenant Richard Rybicki, welcome to the show.
Richard Rybicki:Thank you very much. It's great to be here.
Betsy Smith:So you and I, we were talking before the show, you know, we're very much law enforcement contemporaries. And so I have to ask you first and foremost, why'd you become a cop?
Richard Rybicki:I've been asked this question a whole lot of times and I don't remember any one particular time where I decided, oh, I wanna be a cop. I kind of always wanted to and I think probably that has a lot to do with my father being a police officer in Chicago. Although he was in traffic division his whole life. So, he really didn't do much. But yeah, I always kind of, it was just there.
Richard Rybicki:It was just there for me. I probably if I never became a cap, I would have been going into journalism. But when I thought about that, should I go into journalism or should I be a cop? Journalism is the guy outside the yellow tape asking questions what happened. Whereas coppers are on the inside of that yellow tape going, I know what happened.
Richard Rybicki:And I wanted to be that guy.
Betsy Smith:So I have to ask, you obviously, I'm gonna guess, were one of those rookies and young patrol officers who wrote really good police reports, right?
Richard Rybicki:Yeah, I kind of always prided myself on that. In fact, once I became a detective, one of the greatest compliments you can give a detective where I was from was you were expected to solve crimes, you were expected to solve those homicides, but they never congratulate you, hey, like a nice arrest, way to go, you solved that one. They always would compliment your paper. The best compliment you can get in Area four Detective Division in Chicago was, hey, you wrote really nice paper.
Betsy Smith:That is so true because, you know, and again, and I don't think a lot of people really think about this, but that report is going to be seen by so many people, including the media sometimes, but prosecutors, judges, maybe a jury, so many different people, lawyers on the civil side, things like that. And you, like me, you've probably seen some really awful police reports.
Richard Rybicki:Oh my god.
Betsy Smith:So, you know, that's a real talent, and it is a real compliment that you did write a great report, put together a Like great
Richard Rybicki:you said, that is what's gonna put the bad guy in jail, your report.
Betsy Smith:Absolutely, and that is the crux of police work, you know. We want everybody to think it's constant running and gunning, but in reality it is that whole report, that package that you're gonna put together. You had that talent and you utilized that talent all throughout that twenty nine year career and then on into your second career, which we'll talk about. So you started in 1977, and at the time that you started on the job, we were losing about 200 to two fifty police officers a year to line of
Richard Rybicki:And duty
Betsy Smith:so you saw everything that happened through the '80s and then into the '90s, especially in Chicago, you know, just the proliferation of street gangs. You saw the beginnings of crack cocaine and what that did to our communities, to to the city. You really saw the beginnings of technology in law enforcement.
Richard Rybicki:Oh my god, yeah.
Betsy Smith:You went from that whole, we were lucky to have portable radios to computers in our cars and things like that. Talk about those twenty nine years and how you ended up in investigations.
Richard Rybicki:When I first started, the portable radios were not a new thing, but a relatively new thing. And in fact, there were so few of them that two partners, there was only one radio between you. One person would drive, the other person would have the radio. So if you got separated, the guy without the radio or the gal without the radio was screwed. And in time, of course, that changed and they got the radios and they used to be heavy.
Richard Rybicki:They were like a brick.
Betsy Smith:They can be used as a weapon in a pinch.
Richard Rybicki:Oh, I've got stories. I don't know if I should go into them though. But anyway, time went on and I became a detective, yeah, you know, our forensics teams, they pretty much would take photos, look for a few fingerprints, and take blood standards, and that's it. And then of course the OJ case came along and that changed everything the way forensics worked. It was under the microscope and so the police department, Chicago Police Department really had to change And then came along the ERT team, the Evidence Recovery Teams, who were much more professional.
Richard Rybicki:But in that time that I was a detective, I went from that where you'd find fingerprints, you'd actually get fingerprints and you'd wait months before they came back because there had to be hand searches on them. Well, from that, it involved where we finally got Aphis, the automated fingerprint system And shortly after that, DNA started coming. And that was both a blessing and a curse. DNA is great. It solves so many crimes.
Richard Rybicki:It's so valuable. But what I learned going further in my career when I became a sergeant in detective division and a lieutenant eventually, the younger detectives started relying on DNA too much. They would say, oh, we recovered DNA. Okay, they pushed this investigation to the side to wait for the DNA results, which might be a year later. And I was like, no, can't do that.
Richard Rybicki:You know, real police work is knocking on doors, you know, burning up your shoe leather. That's how you solve crimes, talking to people. My first partner as a detective, he would carry a stack of business cards and we had generic business cards. Just said the area four detective division and you would hand write your name on it and it would have the phone number for the office on it. He would do what he called salting the clouds.
Richard Rybicki:He'd pass out these cards to everybody and anybody on a scene afterwards, anybody we talked to. And he told me this is how you're gonna get information. It may be anonymous or whatever, but you're gonna get leads this way. Most of the people are just gonna crumple them up and throw them in the gutter, but you're gonna get leads this way. And another little funny story about those cards is, like I said, they were generic business cards.
Richard Rybicki:It said detective division, and you hand print your name on it, and the phone number was there. Well, the desk people would get irritated because people would keep calling, asking for detective division. Can I speak to detective division, please? Because they didn't get it.
Betsy Smith:He's not in. I love that. And that and again, that's before cell phones, all of that.
Richard Rybicki:Yeah. Yeah.
Betsy Smith:But that's I I'm glad you brought this up because, you know, I think we look at modern policing now, and and I mean, there's great kids out there, but now I'm gonna make us sound old, back in our day, right? That's how you solved crime was getting people to tell you things. And and, you know, I talk to young people now, and they're like, how did you know, people don't confess crimes. Well, they did then. Or they saw something, or we get them to tell us things they didn't wanna tell us.
Betsy Smith:I mean, that's what you did, right?
Richard Rybicki:Yeah, you talked to them, you talked to them. And the best detectives I knew were the best interviewers, the people who could talk to other people. And I learned that lesson really early on in one case. I go into Yeah, this I was working with a partner and we had a homicide where, and we had some pretty good evidence, but you know the state's attorney's office, they always want a confession. You gotta have a confession.
Richard Rybicki:Said, we've got enough evidence. We don't need a confession. He's like, no. Try to talk to him. So I'm a very young detective.
Richard Rybicki:My partner is like, you go talk to him. You go practice. So I I go in this room and I'm a hard ass. I'm just giving him a ration of crap. I'm you better do this.
Richard Rybicki:You better do that. I'm gonna get you you know, the whole gamut of an inexperienced young detective trying to be the hard ass. And this guy sat back and he just looked at me and says, Why should I tell you anything? You're just being an a hole to me. Why would I tell you anything?
Richard Rybicki:And it dawned on me in that second, I was like, my god, you're right. I said, okay, hang on. We're gonna start over. I walked out the door, I waited a couple of beats, and I came back in. And I introduced myself like I had never met him before.
Richard Rybicki:Says, hi, my name is Detective Rybicki. I'm here to talk to you and I was sweet as sugar. Hey, you want a coke? Can I get you some cigarettes? And within half an hour he gave it up.
Richard Rybicki:And that was a huge lesson I learned. It's like, holy crap, I just played good cop, bad cop by myself. And so that was a big lesson. I was kinda proud that nobody had to teach me that lesson, I talked to myself, but yeah, the best detectives are the best interviewers. The ones who are also willing to go out there and knock on doors.
Richard Rybicki:That's why I like that, the Harry Bosch TV series so much because Harry had that little note on the side of his cubicle that said, get off your ass and knock on some doors. And that's how you solve crimes. That was the absolute truest thing about that series.
Betsy Smith:I love that you brought up Bosch because people look at that series, you know, and and they ask, you know, is that really what police work is like? Or is it more like Law and Order SVU? Or is it you know? And and, you know, we're I mean, how many crimes did you solve in forty five minutes, right, with commercial breaks?
Richard Rybicki:And DNA was always done within the first half
Betsy Smith:hour. Available.
Richard Rybicki:Yeah. And literally, when we were doing DNA, when I was a detective, it was pretty much a year, a year before you get DNA back. And now towards the end of my career though, it got a lot faster and if you had somebody in custody that you really needed DNA on to get them charged, yeah, they would stop the machines and you can get it in twenty four, forty eight hours. But in the beginning there, was like, nope, you're gonna sit there and wait for a year.
Betsy Smith:Yeah, absolutely. And now we have touch DNA, we have generational, ancestral DNA, all that great-
Richard Rybicki:Rapid RNA, yeah, But all kinds of stuff
Betsy Smith:again, even with all that, you know, we still we still have to be able to communicate with communicate with the bad guys, communicate with the good guys. Let let me ask you this. Why do you think people are so fascinated with true crime and all of that now?
Richard Rybicki:I don't get it because I don't wanna watch those shows. I've maybe seen one or two that interested me only because I'm like, oh, I might be able to use something in a story. For one of my books but yeah, I I it doesn't appeal to me personally because of all the we've seen and maybe it's like I don't wanna go through that again, relive a lot of that. It may bring up memories, and here's one of my things. I think every single living copper right now on the job or retired has some degree of PTSD.
Richard Rybicki:And some worse than others. And I just don't like reliving a lot of that stuff. I'm sure you like thinking of the great memories and the people you knew and all the good times, but a lot of those scenes, I don't want to relive. I want to see that stuff or remember that stuff again. So, I guess maybe it's that fascination for the for the civilians out there who were never the police who just wonder what it's really like.
Richard Rybicki:I I just I just don't get it.
Betsy Smith:Yeah. I I really I I I'm so glad you said that because I have I have friends, you know, that are are retired, and they they watch almost all crime shows and and, you know, some real, some fiction, stuff like that. I'm the worst person you ever wanna watch any kind of police show with because I'm one of those idiots who's like, we would never do that. That's not how we do that. You know?
Betsy Smith:I'm terrible about that, so I'm no fun to watch it with. But you're right. When we talk about post traumatic stress, there's certain things that trigger each of us. So that's why I watch I mean, I obviously consume a lot of news because that's my job. But other than that, I'm watching Hallmark movies and shows about dogs and things like that.
Betsy Smith:You know? I wanna watch happy stuff.
Richard Rybicki:I wanna watch Ted Lasso.
Betsy Smith:Exactly. I wanna laugh. And and so, you know, I'm I'm glad you said that because I it every cop because of everything that we can, you know, have seen over the years, you know, you did twenty nine years, that's a lot because there is a lot of evil in this country and cops see all of it. There
Richard Rybicki:is a fascination out there with it. Every cop has had this experience. You go to a party, you're the only copper there, almost immediately somebody's gonna come up to you go, oh, you were that policeman, right? Tell me a story. What's your funniest story or what's the worst?
Richard Rybicki:Have you ever shot anybody? It's like, please, you know, I just wanna have a beer and relax. Exactly. I don't wanna do this.
Betsy Smith:Exactly. So you decided, however, to start writing. Yeah. Know, the, how did that, what was the evolution of that?
Richard Rybicki:I've always had a fascination with it. You know, I was always a big reader and I loved when I read, thinking that, geez, I'd love to be able to do this. I'd love to be able to do it. I've got some stories, I've got some ideas. And I did start writing earlier in my career and it was terrible.
Richard Rybicki:It was crap. And over time I started buying books on writing, how to learn the craft and all that. It was all the same crap, just regurgitated over and over and over again. And I found out that the way you really learn to write is two ways. One by reading, two by writing.
Richard Rybicki:You read and when you write you try to emulate the writers you liked. And not copy them, you'll develop your own what they call in writing a voice, you'll develop your own voice over time the more you write, but you have to read and you understand the process, how to build characters, how to build plots, how important a subplot is, and you learn those things of the craft. It's like it's like any anything you learn, you have to learn the basics of it first. And the more you practice, the better you get. And by no means right now do I think I'm an expert writer, and I'm still learning the craft.
Richard Rybicki:There's so much to learn, but you know, I'm keeping at it. And I've had some moderate success. So some years ago, you know, I was writing basically for myself thinking, again, this is crap, I'm never gonna get this published. And I was like halfway through a book that I was pretty satisfied with. And then I I kinda like set aside literally for years sitting in a drawer.
Richard Rybicki:And then a friend of mine, another copper, wrote and published a book. It was sci fi. I was like, oh my god, how did you do this? And I talked to him, I said, Bob, how did you do this? How did you publish?
Richard Rybicki:Where did you get a publisher from? Do you have an agent? And he's like, oh no, you you can do it for free on Kindle. I said, what? He says, oh yeah, Amazon will publish it.
Richard Rybicki:You can He's like, they'll publish any crap, you know, something. And so I thought, well, that's right up my alley. So I researched that and had a self published on Amazon, and it was right then that was the boom of the indie writer self publishing craze going on. And so I did, and again, when I looked back on that book, was like, oh geez, I should rewrite it because I don't like it anymore. I don't think it's good writing.
Richard Rybicki:Although some people still seem to like it, it's still selling. But again, I can see the progression myself from every book I wrote, how good I've gotten over those times. So yeah, the first book I published was probably in, I was already retired, 2016. And going on with that, I met Pat O'Donnell that way through his Cops and Writers Facebook page. And I joined that thinking, well, you know, I'm gonna get some tips and clues on writing.
Richard Rybicki:And as it turned out, I started answering more questions than than asking questions. Because the format is people will come in, people who are unfamiliar with any police procedure and the writers and or aspiring writers and they ask the law enforcement professionals on their Facebook page questions. Hey, can would, is this right? Would this be the right way to do it? Or how do I get a search warrant?
Richard Rybicki:How does a cop get a search warrant? All those kind of questions. I started answering more than that. And before you know it, Pat calls me up and goes, hey, you gotta be on my podcast. And so I went on his podcast.
Richard Rybicki:And from then on, we became really good friends. I talk to him maybe three times a week now. Oh my god.
Betsy Smith:That's the thing. When you look at that genre, there are people like you that are you. I wouldn't call you mildly successful. I call you really successful. Put a lot of reality into it, but your characters are also very engaging.
Betsy Smith:I went through some of your stuff. How do you make that decision about, you know, this is gonna be my main character. Here's what's gonna happen to them. You know? I mean, do you just sit down at your computer and
Richard Rybicki:Have you noticed my main characters all have a Polish last name? Chicago.
Betsy Smith:I know.
Richard Rybicki:Yeah. Yeah. I I I don't like the the that's one thing I made a conscious decision on in in my writing is, I don't want, a lot of the characters names to be generic, you know, like James Bond or or, you know, Bill O'Reilly or whatever it is. You know, I wanted more more diversity in it. And and I I figured that's the way you appeal to a larger audience also.
Richard Rybicki:And but I've had negative comments about that too. It's like, oh, you really should change that character's name. It's like, no. No. It's my decision.
Richard Rybicki:I'm I'm the writer. You write your own book and make any character's name you like. But yeah. And and a lot of my characters, they're not based on any specific person I know. But they they do take on traits of people I know.
Richard Rybicki:You know, it's like the hero in my latest series of books, Carl Drozic, who is who has the rare ability of being able to talk to the dead. He started out as my first partner in homicide. That's only because that's what gave me he gave me that idea for talking to the dead. Not directly. I haven't talked to him in years actually.
Richard Rybicki:But we would go to a homicide scene when he was breaking me in as a detective on homicide. Was a joker. And one of the things he would do is he'd walk up to the dead body and go, hey, who killed you? And he'd laugh about it like it was a joke. But when you think about it, homicide victims are the only victims we can't talk to.
Richard Rybicki:They're the only ones who can't help us. The only victim of any crime who can't help us. You know, it's like, yeah, okay, maybe their bodies, you know, the evidence we find around their body, on their body, in their body can help us, but they can't tell us what happened. And so that kind of set me off on that path.
Betsy Smith:Well, and you, I remember I had a homicide detective tell me when I was a very young detective that we, the detectives, have to speak for them because they
Richard Rybicki:have to
Betsy Smith:speak for themselves and that's what you did for years and years and years.
Richard Rybicki:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I guess this character takes it a little step further.
Betsy Smith:Yeah, clearly.
Richard Rybicki:That's so fascinating. Been really successful, but it shocked me because I was like, I kind of wrote a short story about this guy as a lurk, and Pat read it, and he's like, oh my god, you've to turn this into a novel. I'm like, no, that's not what I write. You know, I just kinda did this as a lurk. And he's like, no, no, no, you gotta turn it into a novel.
Richard Rybicki:So I did, and now this stupid novel is up for an award.
Betsy Smith:I love it.
Richard Rybicki:Yeah, but it is fun to write, you know, to get away just from that hairy bash type of writing, you know, where it's a police procedural, but, know, there's some paranormal weird crap going on.
Betsy Smith:Well, and people I mean, you and that's the thing with this especially with this latest one. I think you really have hit that sweet spot because people love true crime and they love paranormal stuff. You know? I'm I'm fascinated with the whole paranormal aspect of everything, and and you have hit that really, truly hit that sweet spot. And plus, I think for anyone who's ever been a detective, you really wish that was true.
Richard Rybicki:That you could,
Betsy Smith:you know.
Richard Rybicki:Yeah. Who killed you? And they would answer.
Betsy Smith:And and so I think there's that that kind of fantasy element to it that, you know, but of course, you also you bring the realism, you bring some humor and
Richard Rybicki:Yeah, no thanks. Yeah, I tried hard for that. I didn't wanna make it too down and depressing. It goes back to how a person would really handle that talking to dead people. And, you know, he this detective, it it weighs heavy on him, and he explains it to his psychiatrist.
Richard Rybicki:It's like, you know, when you watch the news and you hear about a terrible crime, people get killed or there's a terrorist attack or a horrible car crash on the highway and four people were killed, you feel really terrible about it. But then by the time the news switches over to the weather or the sports, you've forgotten about those people. But when you're talking to them, when you know these people, when you get to know them even after they're dead, and you learn about them, and you learn how they felt as they were dying, what their thoughts were, oh, please go say goodbye to my mother for me. It starts to bother you. It's like when you lose someone close to you, it's horrible.
Richard Rybicki:And even though he wasn't that close to them, he's learning about them and it weighs on him. That's why he winds up going to a psychiatrist. But
Betsy Smith:Yeah, absolutely.
Richard Rybicki:I That's the name of the book, Dead Weight.
Betsy Smith:Dead Weight. I love that. And, you know, so let me ask you this as we wrap it up. You probably still have young people come to you, you know, should I become a cop? What do you tell young people right now?
Betsy Smith:Should they now, in this era, become cops?
Richard Rybicki:I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. I have a nephew who came on the job the same year I retired, and he's a sergeant now in Chicago. And
Betsy Smith:I
Richard Rybicki:didn't want him to do it, but he was so into it, I didn't wanna discourage him either. My own kids, I have two boys, they're in their 40s now, and when they were growing up, there was like, there's no way you're gonna do this. You're not gonna be cops. You're going to college, you're gonna do something else, but I don't want you to become police officers. I don't want them to see what I saw.
Richard Rybicki:I don't want them to deal with what I dealt with. I think it's I'm very proud of what I did. I'm glad. I don't see myself ever really having any other job than that. I mean, it it gave me a great home.
Richard Rybicki:Two wonderful kids I was able to raise and send through college. But at the same time, there's a price you pay for that too, and I didn't want them to have to do that. And I got lucky, neither one of them went on that path.
Betsy Smith:I gotta tell you, we're so grateful that you did. Thank you. And we're so grateful for what you're doing now because you're giving people a little taste of it. And quite frankly, you're honoring the profession. And that I think that's one of the things I really love about about your book.
Richard Rybicki:That's what I try to do.
Betsy Smith:Yeah. Mhmm. And that and we need absolutely, we need more of that. So where can people find you, find the books?
Richard Rybicki:On my website, it's www.authorrichardrybicki.com, or you can even email me directly. My email address is author richardrybicki dot com. I'm also on Facebook, and if you search for my name, it'll come right up. Come on and see me, talk to me, I'd love to hear from you.
Betsy Smith:Yeah, and everybody, go on Amazon, go wherever you can get books, get them, and read all of them, because the lieutenant here is a fascinating author. I gotta tell you, I wish I had about another hour with you, but next time when you got a new book coming out, let me know and we'll bring you back on. And I can't thank you enough for spending time with us today. And if you'd like more information about the National Police Association, you can visit us at nationalpolice.org.
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