[siren blaring]
TOM MORRIS JR: Welcome to PD stories.
I'm your host Tom Morris Jr, crime
analyst on A&E Networks police documentary show "Live PD."
And today my guest is someone that if you watched "Live PD,"
you're very familiar with, Officer Andrea Zendejas
from El Paso Police Department.
During your rookie year, did anything totally unexpected
happen to you that you just weren't really
prepared for in the Academy?
ANDREA ZENDEJAS: Actually, like, my second week on,
I wasn't ready at all.
I don't think anybody is at that point.
But I was with my FTO, and we conducted a traffic--
TOM MORRIS JR: That's a field training officer.
ANDREA ZENDEJAS: Yes, my field training officer.
And we conducted a traffic stop on this vehicle.
And from the start, the guy was very nervous.
He didn't have any kind of identification.
So we asked him, come out of the car.
He gave consent to search the vehicle.
And my field training officer was like,
hey, keep an eye on this guy.
Keep an eye on him.
And I'm like, yeah, sure.
I'm watching him.
Nothing's going to happen.
Well, my field training officer actually looked at me
and did this, which means, you know,
like crosses arms, which means go
ahead and put handcuffs on him. So I was like--
TOM MORRIS JR: He gave the cross wrists symbol.
ANDREA ZENDEJAS: Right, right.
TOM MORRIS JR: Like an x almost, OK.
ANDREA ZENDEJAS: Yeah, like an x.
So I was like, oh, OK.
This was my first time, so I was all excited.
And as soon as I grabbed the guy's wrists, he took off.
He was gone.
TOM MORRIS JR: And did you chase him?
ANDREA ZENDEJAS: We chased him.
But he actually-- we lost sight of him.
And come to find out, he crawled through a doggy door
on a house.
TOM MORRIS JR: How big was the guy?
ANDREA ZENDEJAS: He was a tall, skinny guy.
TOM MORRIS JR: If he went through a doggy door--
ANDREA ZENDEJAS: He absolutely did.
And it just so happens we found his ID,
and we were able to work up the warrant.
And well, he's in jail now.
So for a long time, because he had other charges as well.
TOM MORRIS JR: Wow.
You know, that's a learning experience right there.
ANDREA ZENDEJAS: It sure is.
TOM MORRIS JR: If you have a doggy door in your house,
there may be some criminally minded person small enough
to get through that doggy door.
ANDREA ZENDEJAS: Put a lock on it.
TOM MORRIS JR: Put a lock on it.
I've heard of people actually sending
their child in through a doggy door
to break into someone's house.
Actually, this is true.
People have used their children to sneak through a doggy door
into a house and unlock the door.
There are some people who have actually
taught their kids to do that to further their criminal burglary
ambition. ANDREA ZENDEJAS: That's crazy.
TOM MORRIS JR: That's crazy.
But I don't underestimate anybody in this society.
Do you? ANDREA ZENDEJAS: No.
TOM MORRIS JR: You can't. You really can't.
ANDREA ZENDEJAS: Absolutely not.
TOM MORRIS JR: There are people that we see on "Live PD"
that you look at them when they first roll up on them,
you're like, oh, this person's not guilty.
Why are the police messing with them?
And then you see that the officer's
instinct was way ahead of me and the audience
sitting there watching.
Now, the audience-- we thought one thing.
Next thing you know--
ANDREA ZENDEJAS: It's that spidey sense, as we call it.
TOM MORRIS JR: You just build on that.
As your years of being an officer,
you just build on that knowledge and experience,
that gut instinct.
I've always found that your initial thought or instinct
is usually the correct one.
ANDREA ZENDEJAS: It is, for sure.
TOM MORRIS JR: It usually is.
ANDREA ZENDEJAS: And I totally agree with that.
Every time that you feel like something's wrong, usually is.
It's so crazy.
Like, you get these feelings, and you're like, you
know in, like, your gut.
You're like, oh, god, something's not right.
And we use that a lot.
It's crazy.
TOM MORRIS JR: Now what part of El Paso
are you patrolling when we see you on "Live PD"?
Where are you in the city?
ANDREA ZENDEJAS: OK, so El Paso is separated into five
different regional commands.
And I work in the Northeast Regional command.
Some people think that maybe that region's a little worse
than any of the others there.
But I'm sure they all have their--
TOM MORRIS JR: Pocket.
ANDREA ZENDEJAS: You know, yeah, for sure.
We do see a lot of the more violent crimes that happen
there, the shootings, the stabbings,
the gang-related activity, stuff like that.
So maybe we are a little bit more
on high alert than maybe some of the other areas.
But that's the Northeast.
TOM MORRIS JR: You seem to have a real gift for just talking
to people on the street and assessing the situation,
keeping them calm.
Even when they're highly agitated,
we watch you on "Live PD" talk to people
and ratchet down the tension.
And that's a gift that not everyone has.
Not all police officers have that even.
It's something that's unique to the individual.
ANDREA ZENDEJAS: Well, in the military, I was injured,
and I had a spinal surgery.
With that, I knew that I can't be acting all crazy
all the time, and go hands-on, and you know, just
get people to do what I want physically, you know,
muscle my way out of it or whatever.
So once that happened, I was kind of like more in tune
with trying to talk to people.
And it's actually-- it's helped me so much.
And I'm able to de-escalate a lot of situations
just by talking to people.
And I know a lot of people over there.
And the majority of people we run into, they know me as well.
Also, this time last year, I also had to have
an additional spinal surgery.
I had a fusion.
So it's important for me.
I can't get injured.
And if that means that I have to talk to this person,
whether they're crazy, whether they're irate, whatever
the case may be, to save myself, you know, sometimes
the mind is more powerful than having to put your hands
on somebody all the time.
TOM MORRIS JR: When we see you on "Live PD"
out there patrolling, a lot of times you're in your car,
and people will flag you down.
And we see all these wild encounters that you have--
most recently with a woman who claimed to be Snoop Dog's--
we calculated-- fourth cousin, based on how she described
the genealogy of this thing--
Brenda.
You run into people like Brenda, right?
And you knew her.
You'd met her before, right?
ANDREA ZENDEJAS: Yeah, I'm very familiar with Brenda.
TOM MORRIS JR: Tell me about Brenda.
ANDREA ZENDEJAS: Well, Brenda-- she's been around since I've
been working in the Northeast.
I usually try to check on her a little bit
to make sure she's OK, to make sure she ate,
or she's drinking water, or something.
'Cause it gets real hot out there.
And sometimes, you know, people don't take care of themselves.
And Brenda, she's a character.
TOM MORRIS JR: I believe she is really Snoop Dogg's cousin too.
ANDREA ZENDEJAS: I believe she is too.
TOM MORRIS JR: I honestly believe her.
ANDREA ZENDEJAS: I believe that.
He never reached out to confirm that.
TOM MORRIS JR: I'm sure he didn't.
But let's talk about the city of El Paso, shall we?
El Paso is a border town.
And it's a unique border town.
It's almost a million people.
900,000, I think.
Across the river, you have one of the most
rough and tumble cities in all of Mexico, Juarez, right?
ANDREA ZENDEJAS: Yes.
TOM MORRIS JR: Tell us about the environment
down there on the border with your city
and the things that cross back and forth across in terms
of policing and criminal behavior.
ANDREA ZENDEJAS: We do have a lot of issues.
I'm not actually right on the border.
TOM MORRIS JR: Because you're Northeast district.
ANDREA ZENDEJAS: Right.
That's more of a like a central area.
We do still see some of it.
We do have a lot of people passing through that commit
high crimes, try to make it across the border
before they're caught.
Sometimes we intercept those people, especially if they're
coming through New Mexico, because they
come right through our area.
We kind of already know who we're looking for anyway.
But a lot of times, people will get shot over in Juarez,
and they'll bring them across the border
for medical treatment.
We see a lot of that.
There's also a lot of drug trafficking.
I've just seen an 82-year-old lady at our county
jail a couple weeks ago--
TOM MORRIS JR: Trafficking?
ANDREA ZENDEJAS: --who had crossed,
like, eight or nine pounds of heroin.
TOM MORRIS JR: 82 years old?
ANDREA ZENDEJAS: 82 years old.
You know, you feel bad for them.
Like, what did she do?
And then you find out, wow, she crossed a lot of drugs.
But I think that comes with any kind of border town
that we're going to get a lot of this stuff from Mexico.
It's a lot of drugs that come across.
TOM MORRIS JR: What does the justice system
do with an 82-year-old woman who's been caught trafficking
large amounts of narcotics?
I mean, what does the system do to somebody that's 82?
ANDREA ZENDEJAS: From the looks of it, she was going to jail.
And I don't know if she'll sit there and wait.
I'm not really sure what the judge decides.
TOM MORRIS JR: It's just a unique situation, right?
ANDREA ZENDEJAS: It's very unique.
And I guess they think, well, nobody's going to mess
with this little old lady.
But unfortunately, she did get caught
up by the federal government.
TOM MORRIS JR: I knew a guy in DC
that was a heroin dealer going all the way back to the '60s.
And he got caught the last time at 76 years old.
ANDREA ZENDEJAS: And a lot of these people, unfortunately,
they'll die in prison.