By Kristin Cho
I first met Brent Hopkins, a detective with the elite Los Angeles Police Department Sexual Assault Unit at West Bureau, in 2009 when I was a probationary police officer at Wilshire Division. Brent was gracious and respectful to me, which stood out in a department where kindness was uncommon. He was a thinker, not a follower, and consistently showed empathy and compassion. He has a unique sense of fashion. For instance, on a typical day at work, he wore a bow tie, double-breasted suit, and different hats, including a derby hat, a bowler hat, and maybe an ivy cap. His fashion resembled a striking image of Sherlock Holmes, the great detective from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel. I later discovered we had similar tastes in the arts.
Brent was a reporter for a local newspaper, Daily News, and spent ten years in journalism until 2008. He decided not only to write about Los Angeles and its crimes but also to combat them. After my probation, I transferred to Southwest Division, and we later reunited at West Los Angeles Division (WLA), where Brent was doing detective probation, and I was on loan to detectives. We collaborated at WLA, working with highly skilled detectives, including Brent, and our friendship grew.
Brent always supported me throughout my career, which I deeply appreciate. It’s no surprise that the initial feature profile focuses on him. We spent almost two hours discussing everything from being a detective with one of the largest police agencies in the United States to Chuck Berry, films, and books. Afterward, we spent several more hours on a photo shoot. I admit, spending the day with my dear friend and living my dream of being a journalist and photographer was one of the best days of my life.
Kristin: Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to sit down with me for this interview.
Brent: Thanks. Well, tell me about your idea first. Where did you get this idea [of doing the interview and a feature profile]?
Kristin: This was my childhood dream, I guess, a career path I wanted to take—to be a journalist. I was drawn to discover the truth and understand the subject at hand. One day, I just thought, “If I don’t do it now, then when?” I don’t know where I’m going with it. I’m doing this for fun because it’s my passion to tell stories about people. And so, when I decided “Ok, I’m going to do this,” I thought of you. You had a profound impact on me personally and professionally.
Brent: I totally understand. I think one of the most fun parts of either job is being able to ask a lot of questions, and people just want to talk to you. Even people who don’t like the police, for some reason, like to talk to the police.
Yeah, something that I love about either job is how you can start off with a purpose. Sir, what do you think about those gas prices? Or tell me about this guy who stole your car. But once you’ve already established that questioning rapport, then it can be like, hey, tell me about whatever you’re curious about. I used to love that as a reporter.
Kristin: Another reason is that I want to allow police officers to talk about what’s on their mind, to tell their story the way they see it as a police officer because we are not just a badge and a gun. I want people to see the other side of police officers: the thinkers, the storytellers, and the human beings.
Brent: I have had that discussion many times, like with our media relationships people. Like you should be telling these stories rather than just doing critical incidents, and OIS (officer involved shootings), pursuits, and other police stuff. And they had a podcast for a little while, under the previous public information director. Most people think of cops as these big, burly dudes with seventies mustaches who spend a lot of time working out and listening to talk radio. They don’t know about all the different people who want to become police officers and all the different backgrounds and stories out there. If we tell those stories more, then people realize, hey, these are cool, interesting, erudite people just like you and me.
Kristin: So, I want to start off by asking you about what it was like growing up in San Diego?
Brent: Well, I went to Gompers Secondary, which is a high school—seventh grade through twelfthgrade. It was kind of like going to Crenshaw High or something. And we’re Crenshaw. It’s a good parallel because they had a gifted program, and Crenshaw has a gifted program. I took the bus to South San Diego down by Highway 94 by Channel 10 and the big cemetery and Coca Cola plant. I loved the experience of going there, and I had plenty of interactions with the police. Like we had school police officers and stuff, but that experience totally prepared me to be a police officer later because I was surrounded by people who were different than me and who had come from all over the world. They had a huge Lao population. There weren’t a whole lot of people who grew up with background like mine.
I love the First Amendment. I was on the yearbook staff, and I actually quoted the First Amendment as the first thing that you could say in there: “Congress shall make no law.” I liked to write, and I liked the yearbook. I was a nerdy kid, and I got along pretty well with everyone. I remember in high school, that was the first time I met gangsters, way before I was in law enforcement. I got along with them great because to them, I was a curiosity. I played baseball with them; there were a lot of gang members on my team, and they were friendly because I was this curiosity. They were like, “You know what you need, homie? You need a good moniker. What do you like?” And I was like, well, I like school. “All right homes, you’re Businessman.” I was a quirky kid. I guess I had this sense of indignation of like, that’s not fair. We gotta do something about that. That’s what led me to journalism and to police work.
Kristin: And did you continue your study in journalism when you went to UCLA?
Brent: No, I didn’t. They did not have journalism major, so I studied American Literature and Culture with a minor in music history, and I wrote for the school paper for four years. I was the music editor in the arts and entertainment section. For one and a half years, I spent a lot of time in the newspaper office.
Kristin: Wow. That’s pretty cool.
Brent: That was my introduction to unhealthy workplaces because I spent about forty hours a week there and got paid $40 a week. I was getting a dollar an hour to be in there, but I loved it. Our office looked pretty similar to our office here. Big open space, beat up desks, strained rugs.
Kristin: Spotlight and All the President’s Men. Great movies about journalism.
Brent: Yes, All the President’s Men makes it look a little bit cooler, but Spotlight really showed journalism accurately.
Kristin: Yes, I agree.
Brent: There is a scene from Spotlight that I always laugh about. I don’t remember the character’s name, but when the editor comes to Liev Schrieber’s house to talk about the story, the editor has his leftovers from dinner. And the reporter looks at him, and says, “Are you gonna eat that?” That’s what a real reporter would do because you don’t have a lot of money. I remember one of my friends, he was a photographer there. He pointed out that in journalism, you never win. You might get a great story, great photos, great whatever for one day, and everyone’s like, wow, that was amazing. That’s it. The news cycle goes on, and then something new comes along, and then you gotta follow this next thing. It’s very similar to police work.
Kristin: Yes, I think we are similar in that officers are always chasing the next great caper, detectives looking to investigate a commendable case. It’s unhealthy. But we’re human beings, and we want to be recognized, I guess.
Brent: I worked for the Daily News up in San Fernando Valley, and there was a guy there who was a senior reporter in the eighties during the Iran hostage crisis. They had sent him to Iran to cover that story to get the local angle. I’m sure there was some connection to this suburb of Los Angeles, but it was awesome. By the time I got to the Daily News, it was the daily grind of what have you done for me lately? You had that front page short yesterday, but what do we got going today?
Kristin: I think that’s also the beauty of working in that industry—the grind. For me anyway. That’s something that I really enjoy.
Brent: It’s kind of fun. It’s funny. It’s good and bad, like you never get bored whether it’s journalism or police work. There’s always stuff to do. In detective work, during the glory days of police work, the eighties and nineties, we had more people and resources. If you worked in a specialized unit, homicide, robbery homicide, whatever, you could do stuff like that. I need to show these six packs, so I’m gonna fly to New York to show it to the person, face to face. And then I’ll spend another two days there and I’ll fly back—versus now when it’s like hey, I need you to handle this in twenty-four hours.
Kristin: What was your first recollection of a police officer?
Brent: The first distinct one I remember was our school police officer in elementary school. His name was Mohammed Ali Hassan, and he was this big weightlifting black dude. It was funny because he was big and buff, but he had a jolly face, big mustache, slimy hairline, and very handsome. He was physically intimidating. He was always flexing, but he was friendly and down-to-earth. That was a good introduction to law enforcement for me because he was approachable and easy to talk to. He was also tough and looked like if something happened, he would know what to do. He was my first memory of a cop. It’s a good one.
Kristin: How do the words, “protect and serve” resonate with you? What do those words mean to you in terms of your job as a detective?
Brent: It’s interesting because you see it every day on the door of the police car, and you see it posted all over the station, but you don’t think about it that much. I guess for me, I evolved in my time with the department because when you start off, you think if their neighbor’s playing his music too loud, I’m going to go over there and tell him you better turn that down, versus them having to do it. But on the service part, my thoughts have changed over the years. That’s not necessarily physical protection, you know, all the dangerous stuff that people see associated with the police. Service means being there for people when they need it, and that takes many different forms. Sometimes it’s random stuff; they ask the cops for directions 7-11. People don’t always understand the appropriate thing to use the police for, so they use us for everything. But you can comfort them and make them feel that at least the police officer listened to me when I needed it. So, that’s the long-winded answer, but that’s what it means to me now.
Kristin: Do you come from a family of law enforcement?
Brent: No law enforcement. My dad and my grandfather were both in the Navy. [Brent took out three dog tags that belonged to his father and grandfather and showed them to me]. That’s my dad’s from Vietnam, and this is my grandfather’s from World War II. He retired as a lieutenant commander and then my dad retired as a commander.
Kristin: How did you prepare to become a police officer? Sorry this question sounds a bit like a job interview.
Brent: Tell us about how your background, training, and experience…[chuckles]. I didn’t prepare that carefully because I was working on general news at the newspaper. I started doing more crime and court stuff because I thought it was interesting. And there’s a built-in narrative you don’t have to explain to people: this is what a police officer is. There’s always drama. I liked it a lot. I thought it was interesting. The cops I met had interesting lives and were doing cool things. I liked how they helped people and were passionate about doing that as part of their identity. So I surrounded myself with interesting people like that. Also, I was getting frustrated with being a reporter. I started in 1999 at the Daily News. We had about 200 editorial employees putting out the paper. When I left in February 2009, it was down to a hundred, and now it’s just a handful. I watched my friends getting laid off, laid off, laid off. It was stressful.
I guess my preparation was talking to people and that’s your strength: talking to the cops about, what was your story? What did you do? What was your path, and what would you recommend? It’s taking those experiences of others and using that wisdom to steer you in the right direction.
Kristin: What inspired you to pursue a career as a sex crime detective? Was that a conscious decision?
Brent: I didn’t really know much about it. I knew I wanted to be a detective, and I worked Wilshire Burglary and Autos for a few years and really liked that. I had taken the detective test and knew that was the path I wanted to follow. One of my partners had come to West Bureau Sex, and they told me they had a spot in sex offender registration, and you should check that out. That wasn’t particularly a passion of mine. But I was like, okay. They asked me to take over this caseload, and I got to handle everything, which was fascinating. It’s also the connection that you make with the victims and witnesses because it’s such a personal crime. With sex crimes you can’t take it lightly, it’s your body that was just violated. You have to work to establish a connection with the person and give them some hope that they’re going to be okay. It’s the service aspect of to protect and serve. You can’t undo what was done to them. It doesn’t take the person back to that moment before they got assaulted, but you can help give them closure by treating them well, by listening to them, by helping them through all their ups and downs.
Kristin: Can you describe a particularly challenging sex crimes case that you’ve worked on and how you approached it?
Brent: I think one of the hard things is that here is no template for this. It’s not like, okay, this is how you handle all the stranger rapes, and this is how you handle the intoxicated ones. There are some road maps you can follow or memories, and this was the problem I encountered in this case. The case that is currently causing me to lose the most sleep is a series of date rapes going back to the earliest one we’ve charged is 2013, and the earliest that we haven’t charged yet go back to the nineties.
The thing that’s really hard is keeping track of all the different stories and all the different evidence that pertains to each crime, which needs to be balanced by helping the people out with their current needs. And, like, hey I know you’re concerned about this aspect of things, but I gotta focus on someone else’s problems at the moment.
Kristin: Has the job as a police officer changed you?
Brent: I don’t think it has. I think it’s aged me. The job is hard. I don’t sleep a lot, and I don’t have a lot of free time. But I don’t think it’s changed my character. I’m still pretty open minded, pretty trusting, and I still believe that most people do the right thing. I still believe it until I see something that would refute it. So, I’m still an optimist and still believe in the good side of human nature. The more I see, the more I do, the more I interact with people, the more it reinforces my belief in our basic human goodness no matter how horrible their existence.
Kristin: Before I became a police officer, I was a naïve young kid who believed the world is great and everyone in it is nice and honest and morally upright. Now? Well, the world is bad and it’s getting worse. I don’t believe that I can change the world for the better, which is what I had hoped and wanted to do, to make a difference in the world.
Brent: Here is how I remind myself when I start to go down that path. I work in a unit where I just get the worst news. It’s upsetting, but you think about all the people who went out on dates last night, who had a great night, who found the love of their lives and had a really good time. And that was it, it wasn’t a dark night.
Kristin: How has law enforcement changed since you came on the job in terms of law and policy?
Brent: There’s a lot of themes in police work that are timeless. And so when you read about what cops in the 1860s were dealing with, it was not that different than what we’re dealing with. In other ways, it’s not even the same as when you and I started. We didn’t have the technological advantages that officers today have. We didn’t have cameras on, documenting everything that we did.
Kristin: Do you think the public support for law enforcement has changed since DA Gascon left the office?
Brent: I don’t know how many people pay attention to who the district attorney is or the sheriff or the police chief. You know, most people just think of cops. There’s been a lot of back and forth in our time in law enforcement between pro police, suspicious of police, and back to pro police. I think that most people have moderate values when it comes to the police. They want the cops to be able to stop problems in their community, but they don’t want the cops hassling them. I’m a police officer so I think about those things. I have a little more nuanced point of view working in the criminal justice system than the average person who tends to think in black and white.
Kristin: What inspired you to change your career from a reporter to a police officer? I kind of talked about it earlier.
Brent: One of the things I liked about being a reporter was that it was an identity kind of job. It wasn’t something you just did as a nine-to-five while working at Best Buy: “I’m just here for this shift.” I did a year-long series on two officers, Christina Ripatti from Southwest and Tim Pierce from Southeast. She had been shot while working by gangs near the Southwest police station and was paralyzed. I spent a whole year following them around and seeing how they worked through those ups and downs. I was really inspired. I remember talking to her, and I asked her, “knowing what you know now, what would you do differently”? And she said “I’d still get out of the car, and I’d still chase that guy. I wish I hadn’t been shot, but that was who I am. I couldn’t let him get away.” That is something I want for the rest of my life and the rest of my professional career. They were big inspiration for me. Ultimately, I wanted to feel proud of what I did. I had to have something where I could come home and think it was worth the time I put into it.
Kristin: Have you ever reflected on your life and asked yourself how your life has changed? Has the choice to become a police officer turned out as you expected? Do you have regrets?
Brent: It’s always interesting to think back and ask, what if I’d taken different paths in my life? I’m sure you do the same thing. I was like, what if I followed this? What if I had done that? What if I’d stuck with journalism?. What if I had joined the navy? What if I’d been more aggressive in my journalism career by trying to get to a bigger paper or a different community? Once I joined the department, what if I had tried to go to juvenile division or work gangs? The things that when I started off, I thought, oh, I’m definitely gonna do these things, and then I didn’t.
Ultimately, I like where it’s led. I don’t regret changing careers. And I like that, in my job as a detective, I can still be a reporter. It’s just a different sort. Whether it’s a twelve-inch news story or a three-page magazine feature or a follow-up report that’s gonna go to the justice attorney’s office, you’re taking someone’s recollection of events. You’re providing context, and you’re getting to a point that changes someone’s point of view. I was having lunch the other day with one of my old editors when the Pulitzer Prize Awards came out, and we both had left the industry. I’m like, oh, I guess we’re not on the list again this year.
Whenever I pick up the paper, I do wonder what might have been, but I also don’t regret changing at all. My life now is so much better and so much more stable than it was back then because of law enforcement.
Kristin: Your job is so serious and intense, I don’t know how you deal with it. How do you unwind?
Brent: Well, I have a seven-year-old daughter. That’s full time. Yeah. So I don’t get a whole lot of downtime, but that’s okay. You know? I go home, and I shift into parent mode until she goes to sleep around nine. Then I gotta get ready for work the next day. So I do that, and then I fall asleep. And then I come back, and I do it all over. I get a little bit of time on the weekend. I get my precious twenty minutes of conversation with my wife after my daughter goes to bed. I wish I had more uninterrupted time with my daughter. But it’s the time I spend with my family that makes me feel better. And, you know, they have things I like to do. I like to read. I like to listen to music. I like to go out and explore Los Angeles and find new restaurants like anyone else.
Kristin: I’m going to jump to a different subject. What’s your favorite book?
Brent: My favorite book is a historical novel that came out in the early 2000s by a guy named Glenn David Gold. It’s called Carter Beats the Devil, and it’s about a magician in the 1920s. It’s a great, weird book. He’s written one other piece of fiction in a memoir, and ever since, I’ve wanted him to write more.
Kristin: Who is your favorite band or singer?
Brent: Linda Lindas. They’re a group of teenage punk musicians, an all-girl band from the Atwater area. I could talk all day about music and poetry.
Kristin: Who is your favorite director, actor, and what is your favorite movie or movie genre?
Brent: That’s a good question because you know I’m familiar with them. I don’t think I go to see something because I like the director. I’ve seen Top Gun probably 600 times in my life, the new one is even better. There is a detective movie that came out when you and I were both at WLA called The Nice Guys with Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe. That’s a great movie too. I don’t know whether I have a favorite actor. I like Tom Cruise as a movie star. I get a lot of inspiration from movies, books, and music for how I live the rest of my life. I was teaching a new investigator a while ago. I was like, if you want to see how to do a good interrogation, watch this video of Bruce Springsteen and Chuck Berry playing Jonny B. Goode together.
Kristin: Isn’t that the best video? I can watch that every day over and over. Look at Bruce Springsteen looking at Chuck Berry in awe. I mean Chuck Berry was just going at it. It was beautiful.
Brent: Right? He’s dancing. He’s you know signature moves. I love that you know this.
Kristin: I love Chuck Berry.
Brent: Bruce Springsteen was the biggest rock star in the world. Everyone was there to see him. No one was there to see Chuck Berry. But he knew Chuck Berry was on fire. I gotta get out of the way and let him do his thing. Springsteen is, you know, if he’s gonna let me play a verse here, I’ll chime in a little bit. Yeah. But I’m gonna let this guy do it. And so I was telling my partner, that’s how you do a good interrogation. When your partner is in that Chuck Berry mode, shut up and back off and let them take it. It’s just two guys playing the guitar. Who cares? Yeah. That’s the inspiration for good police work.
