Name: Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt. | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #584
Uploaded: 2025-05-23T15:01:25.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt. | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #584' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-05-23. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt. | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #584' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-05-23. Transcript available.

Retired Las Vegas Police Sgt. | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #584

We want to let you know that today's conversation may be a bit graphic for some
or gruesome.
It's containing law enforcement and some of their involvement just with society.
So if you don't like that sort of thing, you may not want to listen.
Today's guest is a retired sergeant from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police
Department
and a former crisis negotiator. He was born and raised in Queens, New York,
before spending 20 years on The Force in Las Vegas, where he pretty much saw it
all.
Today's guest is LVPD's finest, Christopher Curtis.
Okay, sitting here today, retired police officer.
Sergeant.
Sorry.
That's a thing with police, yeah.
That's a faux pas, yeah.
A little bit, yeah.
Yes, sir.
Sir, yes, sir.
Retired police sergeant from the Las Vegas.
Metropolitan Police Department.
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
You did 25 years of service.
Well, I did 21 plus and then I bought some of the time.
A guy actually bought my time out to go work for him afterwards.
In Nevada, you can do that.
So you can, so if you're a police officer and you have, you still have so many
years left
on your lease or what is it called?
To collect your retirement.
Okay, right.
Okay, so you want to get to your pension.
Right.
So you can buy it yourself.
But what happened was I was one of the first people, because there was a guy in
the private
sector.
You ever heard of the company Zappos?
Zappos, the shoes?
Yeah, the shoes.
Yeah.
So the guy, Tony Hsieh, who passed away some time ago, he was a billionaire.
Yeah, he had one foot in the grave.
That's an old Zappos guy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I won't tell you that anymore.
He was revitalizing downtown Las Vegas and he was investing 350 million into it.
And he heard about me doing some innovative things down there.
And he, through a friend, he asked to meet me at a bar.
And so we meet at this bar and I'm like, this Tony Hsieh?
Like this.
And he says, he told me about the project.
He's like, would you like to come work for me?
I was like, I'm not old enough to retire and I don't have, you know, the time.
And he said, can you buy it?
How much does it cost?
And I said, I have to get back to you.
But I knew it was a significant six-figure number.
And I got back to him with a number and he wrote the check.
And so at like 21 years on April Fool's Day of 2013, I retire.
So he paid your, so.
He bought it.
So at a certain, so.
If you want to collect a retirement, you have to do at least a certain amount
of time.
You get vested in the state system.
Got it.
So to make it worthwhile, to make it a significant amount of money, you want to
do at least 25 years.
I mean, 20 years, you could do it.
But at 25 years and 30 years, the money's pretty nice.
And so to get to 25, at the time he wanted me to retire, he needed to buy it.
And it was six figures and he wrote the check.
Wow.
And so within like a couple of days, you were done?
No.
I kind of was strategic about it and I planned it out.
And I wanted to see exactly what his process was.
And he was a very, very smart guy and a very forward-thinking guy.
So we kind of planned behind the scenes how to work it out.
And so I had enough time to set everything up.
And then April Fool's Day, I retired.
Wow.
Yeah.
And he paid off.
How many years did he pay off?
So it turned out to be like maybe like three and a half, almost four years,
basically four years.
Yeah.
And at that point, you started working for him?
At that point, I started working for him.
Yeah.
So I had my full police retirement and then I had a significant salary from him.
So that was nice.
Living in Vegas still at that time?
I was still living in Vegas.
I had to because I had to be kind of working in that project downtown.
Can I give you something?
Actually, I brought something for you.
Yeah, sure.
I think so.
You know, I'm a fan, man.
I really like what you do.
And I think you're awesome.
And I figured I could give you something, a Vegas souvenir.
So open that up.
Okay.
Scoot up a coaster.
Oh, this is a beverage coaster.
Police managers, supervisors, association, Las Vegas Metro.
Badge, huh?
Now open it up.
Okay.
And look at the bat.
Ooh, gang, boy.
Commemorative only.
Thank God.
Yeah, so you don't go out and start jacking people.
Yeah, dude.
Yeah.
I wanted you to have a badge, man.
And so then you can just put it on this little thing.
Oh, thanks, bro.
And then you can just put it in one of your places, man.
You do a lot of really cool stuff, man.
When I came into town, man, and the people I talk to, you know, a small group
of people,
everyone really thinks very, very highly of you, man.
I watch this stuff.
You're a good dude, man.
Well, thanks, Chris, man.
I appreciate you saying that, dude.
That's awesome.
Yeah, because we need some nice-
Put it back in the thing in order to hold it in there.
Oh, that's fair.
Yeah.
God.
That's shit.
Yeah, and I worked in zoning for a little bit, so sorry.
That should have made sense.
Dude, that's awesome, man.
Thank you very much.
Yeah, we have a nice little collection of some neat stuff that people have
given us.
Good.
And this would be perfect.
Well, now you've got a badge.
Yeah.
That's very, very thoughtful of you.
Thank you.
Thank you, man.
Yeah, and thank you for your service, too.
Right on.
Dude, I'll tell you a story.
So one time I'm at the University of Tennessee football game, and some guy, and
he was like
a drunk guy, and he was like, you know, and he just kept making sounds like
that, and
just like, and he could breathe, but he wasn't great at it.
You know, he put on some weight or whatever, and he was a sheriff or something,
you know?
And I was like, I need to go downstairs and use the restroom.
He's like, oh, well, if anybody gives you any problems, just show them this.
He gave me a sheriff's badge, right?
In a little fanflet that comes in like a little wallet.
So I'm downstairs, dude, right?
Things start kind of like, people start getting weird down there, like there's
some stuff
kind of popping off in a tunnel, and so I pull this thing out, dude, and I show
it
up in the air, right?
And now there's other police officers come up, and they're looking at each
other, and they're
looking at me, right?
How old were you?
Oh, this was probably eight months ago, and then, yeah, and then the lady
pushed me up
against the wall for having a fake identification, being a fake police officer.
But they didn't know they recognized you?
She did.
She didn't want any bullshit.
I guess she recognized I was not an officiant of the law.
You would just steal along with a badge.
Yeah, and she's like, this kind of shit is too much.
So anyway, just be careful where you use badgery.
Badgery, you know?
Yes.
So what did you do for Tony Hissier?
Tony Hsieh.
Tony Hsieh.
So for Tony, he was revitalizing downtown, and he wanted to create like an
ambassador,
you know, those ambassadors that kind of give out directions or eyes for the
police, and
he wanted someone that knew the area.
So I like hired like 60 people, and they just walked around the air because it
was pretty
high crime rate back then.
In fact, what's interesting is I had worked a double homicide on Fremont, like
maybe about
six months before he approached me.
It was pretty bad down there at one point for a long time.
When I first hired on in 92, it was like, if you wanted a cop to learn how to
be a really
good street cop, you would want to work downtown on Fremont.
So basically, to answer your question, it was to have these ambassador people
who wore
like, you know, shirts, you know, and very welcoming to people who were looking
for directions
because there was an infrastructure of people that were working and living down
there, and
he was trying to build that because he had residential businesses and all kinds
of stuff.
And in not having the police, he wanted to have a civilian group of people that
could
interact with people and make them feel safe.
Yeah, I guess it's like a business person and a connector like him.
You think of those types of things, and you start to see the value in them.
How did Tony Hsieh die?
So I, you know, I'm not very comfortable speaking about specifically how he
died.
I know there was an incident where there was a fire, and he was inside the fire,
and I
believed it was related to something about being inside the building with the
fire.
Once I, because I wasn't with the company when that happened, that was sometime
after the
company, and, you know, it got to a point where after I retired, and I had,
throughout
the years of dealing with so much death and all the craziness on the police
department,
I just tuned everything out.
I really didn't engage with people if it wasn't a positive experience, and then
it became a
point where I was just like a solitary person.
So I wasn't really very intimately involved in the details to how he died, but
that's kind
of like the gist of it.
Got it.
So we see how you finished the force, then how did it start?
Like, how did it first start that you decided to become, join the force in Las
Vegas?
I was a Marine.
So when I was 17, I joined the Marine Corps, and this was way, so this was 1987
that I went
into the Marine Corps.
Paris Island, 3rd Battalion, I Company, super hardcore, and my dad was in law
enforcement
too, and I cannot overstate the importance of having a strong male role model
in your life.
My father, I genuflect to that man.
He died in 2017, and what I can say is that my dad, I wanted to do everything
like my dad.
So my dad was in the military, my dad was in the army, but I wanted to be a
Marine, and
my dad was in law enforcement.
So while I was in the Marine Corps, you know, there was, I was on embassy duty.
I ended up going to embassy duty, which is like one of the best, most
challenging duties
in the Marine Corps, if you go to the right countries.
And I was in Belgrade, it was actually when I was in Caracas, when I was in Caracas,
there
was a-
And that's Venezuela?
Caracas, Venezuela.
There was a economics officer who took a liking to me, and he knew I wanted to
go into law
enforcement.
He said to me, he said, in the 90s, the economy in Vegas is going to explode.
I got on a plane, and within like a couple weeks, flew and took the test, and
then I ended
up in the academy in 92.
Wow.
Yeah.
Dude, I bet the streets were hot in 92, were they?
Oh, it was crazy.
It was the wild, wild west.
Vegas was the wild, wild west.
If you, you know, everyone says that their department is the best.
I'm going to say that Las Vegas policing, especially in the 90s, I call it the
golden era of policing,
was just phenomenal.
I mean, you really got to understand the psyche of the human being, because so
many people come
to Vegas to do whatever crazy thing they want to do, and you got to interact
with people
on that level, and it teaches you a lot about people.
Is that a more fun place to be in law enforcement, do you feel like?
Like, I know that's a strange word probably to use with policing, but is that a
more entertaining
place?
It is.
It is, because you deal with everything they deal with in LA, everything they
deal with
in New York, and then Vegas is just, you know, they say New York is a city that
never
sleeps.
It kind of does.
I'm a New Yorker.
It kind of does.
Vegas never sleeps.
Vegas can't sleep, because it's coked up, usually.
Yes, for sure.
Or meth.
Yeah.
Coke or meth.
Did meth, was meth a little bit popping?
It is, because you know, the area command that you, the area command that you
work would
kind of define what drug you would deal with primarily.
Got it.
And so there was a time where I was working in the Northeast, and they used to
call them,
it was called Frank area now.
They used to be David area.
They called them Frankites or Davidites, because they'd be up just tweaking out,
doing stuff
on trailers and everything.
And, you know, there was a transition for me in my life, because I was a
straight-edge
guy, and I'd look down on drugs.
And I didn't have a lot of, I guess, empathy for people who were using drugs.
And now