789: The Runaround

Ira Glass

From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass.

Ira Glass

This is my coworker, Sean Cole, who's a producer here on the radio show. And the thing that brought him to this state is a bed-- a bed he does not have. He ordered it back in September when he moved to a new apartment.

Ira Glass

Just to be clear, the mattress for the new bed arrived right away after he ordered it. It's rolled up like a burrito near the window. The issue is the bed frame and the headboard. They're still AWOL, undelivered, absent, four months after ordering. And I'm talking to Sean about this because today's program is about all kinds of different sorts of runarounds, and he is in the middle of a sort of classic one, one lots of us have experienced.

For the record, the bed that he ordered is a queen-sized bed from the Casper online store. As a podcast producer, he told me he felt like a living cliche ordering a product that is advertised on so many podcasts, but he says he really liked the bed. It's got an angled, cushioned headboard to lean against when you're reading at night. Sean is somebody who's never really fixed up a place with nice furniture, and he was finally getting around to it, and he was excited. And at first, the delay was a completely excusable kind of thing. The bed was backordered, which, you know, happens with furniture.

It was supposed to be ready for delivery on November 18. But the 18th of November comes, 18th of November goes, it does not show up. Sean reaches out to Casper.

Ira Glass

Sean calls RXO and reschedules the delivery, this time for a date that's in the future, not the past. But this is the first of what will be many texts and communications from RXO that make no sense at all.

The new delivery date is in three weeks. That day finally arrives.

Ira Glass

Around 10:00, he gets a text telling him his bed will not be delivered. He needs to reschedule. He calls to find out why.

Ira Glass

The delivery is rescheduled for Monday, a few days later. Monday comes. They text, saying it's going to be Tuesday. No explanation why. An hour and a half after that, they text again, saying that now it won't be delivered Tuesday.

Ira Glass

I have to say, this is one of the most annoying things about this kind of runaround. At every stage, you get answers that leave you sort of squinting and scratching your head, trying to understand them. Every explanation is a non-explanation.

Ira Glass

This time when he calls, there's no explanation at all, just an apology. Thursday comes.

Ira Glass

Of course, it doesn't come.

Ira Glass

They thought it might be a mistake, and they didn't want to ship until they knew. Sean wonders why didn't they just contact him and ask if he ordered two beds. And also, has this been on his paperwork from the start?

Ira Glass

Then, after thinking they had to deliver two beds to Sean, they admitted they didn't have any. They did a week-long dock search, finally showed up with a bed, but it was the wrong size, which put Sean back at square one. Early on, Sean started to keep a record of all these interactions with RXO and Casper. And at this point, it is 18 pages long.

Ira Glass

Sean's a published poet, by the way.

Ira Glass

When we reached out to RXO and Casper, the bed company, to find out how they do sleep at night, given their treatment of Sean Cole, the answer was refreshingly honest. Casper's VP of operations emailed admitting, yeah, the last few years, because global supply chains have been so crazy, Casper has experienced, quote, "a myriad of disruptions."

He did say that only a tiny portion of the shipping is done with RXO, and they're trying to work with RXO to improve things. 90% of their customers, he said, rate their experience with RXO favorably, meaning 10% do not. Sean is 1 in 10. Pretty bad odds, if you ask me.

My take is that they never actually had a bed for him. Sean feels like he's come this far, he doesn't want to start over with a different company. A runaround hits different people different ways.

Ira Glass

True. Sean can get a little worked up talking to me about all this, but the harshest he ever got with Casper or RXO is a sternly-worded email that sounds like it was written by an English gentleman in the year 1820. Quote, "This is beyond unacceptable. Please let me know what Casper intends to do to rectify this situation. Yours, sincerely."

A runaround-- where you float in that weird information limbo where you can't tell what the truth is, where you don't get what you want, in a contest of wills with some other person or entity, and it goes on, and on, and on, it just doesn't end, it tests you. It shows you who you are.

Today on our program, some very different kinds of runarounds and some very different reactions to them from people who are being pushed to their very limits. Stay with us.

Ira Glass

Act One, "Like the Show 48 Hours, Except a Lot More Hours." So this first story is about somebody who, like Sean, is being given the runaround, but the runaround is about something much more consequential to her life than a bed frame. And the woman it's happening to, over and over, she has to decide whether to cut her losses and walk away, or stay with it and fight her way through. Reporter Brenna Smith, who first wrote about this for the news site, the Baltimore Banner, explains.

Brenna Smith

Even before this whole thing began, Renee's life involved a lot of running around. She's busy-- got three kids, works days and nights as a home health aide. When money's tight, she also drives for DoorDash and Instacart.

She spends a lot of time in her car, like a lot of busy people. But unlike a lot of busy people, Renee told me and my producer Chris, she usually chooses the slowest possible route to her next destination because--

Brenna Smith

Renee's commitment to the local roads just outside of Baltimore, where she lives, will sometimes add 20, 30, even 40 minutes to her trips. So that's Renee.

The story I want to tell you started last spring when something went wrong with Renee's SNAP benefits-- her food stamps. Her monthly money stopped appearing on her benefits card. Fixing this took five or six trips to the social services office, filling out tons of paperwork, and three months of waiting. This isn't unusual for her or anyone on benefits.

Finally, a kind woman at the front desk at social services looked into her case and found some glitch in the system. She fixed it for Renee, and the next morning, everything was made right. All three months of missed benefits showed up at once. She now had almost $3,000 on her card, the highest she'd ever had. Renee felt a wave of relief. But a couple of weeks later, Renee went online to check the balance on her card.

Brenna Smith

She called the number on the back of the card to make sure and found out, again, $66. First, she was just confused. And then she noticed large transactions at stores she's never visited near Washington, D.C., where she never goes, because beltways. She realized someone had somehow stolen her SNAP money. The thousands of dollars she'd just gotten back on her card was gone in one afternoon. And this is where her runaround began.

I've been reporting on social services, like SNAP in Maryland, and I've seen SNAP fraud happening a lot. Benefits theft skyrocketed from $90,000 in 2021 to over $1.5 dollars in 2022. SNAP fraud is actually up across the US.

The night it happened to Renee, she couldn't stop crying and couldn't sleep. This is money she used to buy food for her kids. Without it, she'd have to pick up extra jobs, get behind on rent. So the next morning, she marched into the same government building she'd been in so many times before to fix the problem in person. Maybe she'd get the nice lady again.

Brenna Smith

The woman told Renee, because the stolen SNAP money is actually federal money, Maryland couldn't pay her back. It was a statewide policy.

Brenna Smith

I first met Renee on this Facebook group for parents in Maryland who use benefits like SNAP. There were lots of parents, mostly moms, writing in, saying they had had their benefits stolen. And there was Renee, posting all the time about what had happened to her and really trying to help everyone else. "Everyone, please read this," she wrote. "If we all come together and report this to the police and social services, then something may be done." There were lots of moms who had tried to get social services to refund them. No luck. They'd also filed reports with their local police. Nothing.

I talked to dozens of them, and Renee was in a category of her own. She did far more than anyone else. When I got her on the phone back then, she'd been playing phone and email tag for days, bouncing between every authority figure she could find-- the Office of the Inspector General for Maryland's Social Services, the USDA in D.C., which funds SNAP, even the Maryland legislature where she called delegate after delegate, but it all got her nowhere.

Brenna Smith

The police weren't any help either. The cop assigned to her case, Officer Timothy Valis, would sometimes take days to answer her texts, and didn't seem to be doing anything. He was a rookie who hadn't graduated the academy yet. So Renee did something I haven't seen anyone else do. She decided to investigate her own case. She was going to find the people who took her SNAP money.

One thing about Renee, she loves true crime shows, like 48 Hours. So she knew how important the first couple of days are in any investigation. She was worried time was slipping away, so she went to the facts she had.

The SNAP benefits app had given her the details for every fraudulent transaction, all seven of them. They included a dollar amount, a date, and the name of each store. There had been big purchases, some over $500. Renee thought that maybe those stores could rewind their security footage to the times of those transactions and maybe identify the thieves. She texts all this to Officer Valis.

Brenna Smith

She suggested the police contact the stores, but nothing happened. So--

Brenna Smith

Most of the stores wouldn't help her. They don't show surveillance footage to customers, only police. But one manager at an international market agreed to check.

Brenna Smith

And all of a sudden, Renee was looking at the faces of the people who stole from her, security footage from a Sunday in early August. It looked to be during the day. It was bright out. The photo was grainy, but she could make out a middle-aged man exiting the store. Then, in a different photo, a woman with a low bun and a blue-striped skirt with a shopping cart.

Brenna Smith

$1,200 of baby formula, which seems weird, but it makes sense if you think about it. Formula is a very efficient way to convert food stamps into cash. It's in every grocery store. It doesn't go bad quickly, like meat. It's dense, so you can pack a lot of it into your car. And in the summer of 2022, there was a shortage of it.

Renee had found the suspects and the getaway car. The footage showed them driving off in a Toyota minivan. But she still had no idea how to find out their names, their identities. And even after squinting every which way at the photos of the license plate, she still couldn't make out what it was.

Brenna Smith

When Renee texted all this to Officer Valis, he didn't say much. Just, quote, "I updated the report with the information you've given me." He also said he'd referred her case to the department's investigative and cybercrime units. Then he stopped responding, for weeks.

Brenna Smith

Then, in late August, Renee receives a letter from social services. It says they looked into her case and, quote, "did not find a system error or that the card was used fraudulently." There would be no refund.

Other moms on the Facebook group had gotten the same letter, and a lot of them had given up at that point. But Renee reads the fine print. She noticed that the bottom of the letter offered her the chance to appeal this finding before a judge, with evidence.

Brenna Smith

So she was going to file an appeal. It was a lot of money. And some part of her just wanted to prove that this thing had actually happened to her, that she had been robbed. All she had was grainy footage from one of the stores. She wanted a stronger case. If she could get better quality security footage from another store, maybe she could identify the license plate, which could lead you to the criminals.

She wanted to go in person. But again, these stores were near Washington D.C., a beltway, an interstate highway, and another beltway away. And her car wasn't in great shape. And so--

Brenna Smith

And that's how I wound up picking up Renee at her red brick rowhouse outside Baltimore on a muggy August day to drive to D.C. We managed to find a time for this after Renee performed some serious scheduling gymnastics-- got a babysitter, moved around her hectic work schedule. I recognized her from Facebook, a white lady in her 30s with a round face and big green eyes. Renee was so competent on the phone. But today, faced with the prospect of doing in-person detective work, she's nervous again.

We stopped right outside D.C., a CVS. Renee had already called the store and talked to a guy named Keith, a manager. We walk in to find him.

Brenna Smith

They tell Renee what everyone else did-- they're only allowed to show security footage to law enforcement. But, they add, there is a police station a couple blocks away.

Brenna Smith

Within minutes, we're standing outside the police department for the small town of Seat Pleasant, Maryland, telling Renee's story. She explains that she had had her food stamps stolen. One of the cops has a hard time understanding how this crime had gone down. Specifically, how the thieves got their own card.

Brenna Smith

A skimmer is a device that thieves put over card scanners. It looks just like a card scanner, so you can't tell. It can capture your card information, including your PIN. Most EBT cards-- the benefits cards people on assistance, like Renee, use to buy food-- they don't have the encrypted chips that most credit and debit cards do. Cards with chips are harder to skim. On top of that, EBT cards don't have fraud detection services. You know, like those text messages you get about suspicious credit card transactions. Text 1 if it was you. And if not, they'll cancel the transaction.

And even with debit cards, you can usually call your bank and tell them that I was stolen from yesterday, and you could get your money back. Renee's EBT card didn't have any of that. All of this has turned SNAP recipients into easy marks, even people like Renee, who never lets her card out of her sight. We try to explain all of this to the officer, who listens to Renee's story.

Brenna Smith

The officer calls over another cop, Officer Bowers. His supervisor tells him to get the footage from CVS for us. Bowers hops into his patrol car, and we get back into my car to follow him. Then, as we're driving, we notice Bowers' car has its lights flashing.

Brenna Smith

When we get there, Bowers talks to the CVS employee, who shows him to the back room. We wait out front in the store for about 15 or 20 minutes. Then Officer Bowers and the CVS employee re-emerge.

Oh, they're out.

Brenna Smith

Bowers told us it was the same woman, the one in a low bun, in a blue-striped skirt, buying hundreds of dollars of baby formula.

Officer Bowers shows us the security footage, which he recorded on his phone. We see the woman getting into the same silver minivan after.

Brenna Smith

The license plate, the thing that could lead them to the criminals-- it's blurry here too. But Bowers says he'd use some fancy police tool to try to figure it out. Finally, the runaround had landed Renee somewhere. She'd found someone in a position of authority actually willing to help her.

A few days later, Officer Bowers calls me. He won't let me record or conference Renee in, so I have to tell her afterward what he said.

Brenna Smith

I tell her that Bowers said he thinks he found a match for the license plate, but he couldn't hand that information over to her.

Brenna Smith

And so Renee's case landed back in the hands of the cop who wasn't answering her texts or calls. Renee understood Bowers was just following his boss's orders, but still.

While she was trying to run down this $3,000, there was so much else going on in her life. There always is. In the last couple of months, a cracked tooth from stress, busted brakes on her minivan. She had to give away her dog. They couldn't afford it. One day, her carbon monoxide alarm randomly went off, and she had to call the fire department to sort it out.

But surprisingly, the day after I broke the news to her about Bowers, she managed to get in touch with the cop who had been ghosting her for weeks. Remember Officer Valis, the Baltimore County cop who, this whole time, was supposed to be looking into her case? She'd reached him, in a very kind of private detective sort of way.

Brenna Smith

We reached out to the Baltimore county police department. They said Officer Valis did block Renee's member, quote, "for a brief period of time." But they also said he was working on her case. And after Renee got through to Valis, he did start updating her more. He told her police found the skimmer that they think was used to steal her card number.

But then, in November, Renee lost the appeal she had filed. The judge complimented Renee's tenacity, saying she'd quote, "single-handedly and capably investigated the crime and identified suspects." But the judge also said that there's nothing in Maryland law that requires social services to repay stolen SNAP funds.

And so Renee wasn't going to get her money back. But she was still looking for some way. And an attorney who volunteered to help her with her case said, there is a way. You can appeal the appeal. Renee thought it over.

Brenna Smith

Answer-- I should. She filed a second appeal. There is actually one other way this whole thing could be fixed. Congress could do something. And, kind of amazingly, they sort of have.

The huge spending bill Congress passed last month requires states to reimburse people who have had their SNAP benefits stolen. It's not going to help Renee though. It only applies to thefts since October. Hers was in August. Also, it ends in 2024, so it's a temporary fix.

But Renee's story did get noticed. She actually testified before the state senate. And later, her congressmen, who had been following this issue, introduced a bill that would fix things in a permanent way. It has bipartisan support and looks like it might actually go somewhere.

The runaround-- it's a thing that can happen to you, but it can also be a strategy. You just stay in it until someone notices and does something.

Ira Glass

Brenna Smith. She's an investigative reporter with the Baltimore Banner, where a version of her story first appeared. The story was produced by Chris Benderev.

Coming up, a nine-year-old on a runaround that his dad does not understand. That's in a minute on Chicago Public Radio when our program continues.

Ira Glass

It's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Today's program, "The Runaround." Stories of all kinds of runarounds that people find themselves trapped in, test who they are. And other sorts of runarounds as well. We have arrived at Act Two of our program. Act Two, "Strange Loop."

So we now turn to a different kind of runaround. And the person you're going to hear about next, nobody is giving him the runaround. He's just running around, for reasons that are mysterious even to those who are closest to him. David Kestenbaum talked to him about it.

David Kestenbaum

The guy doing this running around in circles, he's nine years old. And I know him because I live with him. My son, Max, started doing this early in the pandemic.

Max was one of those kids where virtual school was really impossible. All those faces and little boxes on the screen, he just could not focus or stay with it. His handwriting was crazy. He sometimes struggled to read his own name. At some point, we realized he didn't know the months of the year. He had big hills to climb. I worried.

One day, he hit on this idea of running loops around the block. We live on a weird lollipop of a street, so these were actual loops he was running, around and around. The neighbors told us he was sometimes the only other person they would see during the day. One time, an older man came out and gave him cookies.

The running around seemed to settle his mind in a way I did not fully understand. Virtual school was tears and frustration, but running these loops reset him somehow. It was more than just getting exercise. I could see him talking to himself as he went by, but I had no idea what he was saying.

He's been doing it for years now, sometimes several times a day. "I'm going for a run around the block. Sound of door closing, and then he'll be gone, sometimes for 20 minutes.

He's done it first thing in the morning, right out of bed, when it's still dark. He does it in the rain-- annoyingly, never with a raincoat. I pile towels by the door. He'll change clothes, but then an hour later, go out again. He did it when it was -22 wind chill.

I wanted to eavesdrop on one of these runs to hear what he was saying. Something going on out there was helping him. I wanted to understand his brain. So I had this idea of pinning a small microphone on him. He was not into it. "Max, want to wear this microphone when you run around the block?" Max-- "Next time!" Me-- "Max, I only want you to do this if you want to." Max-- "Not now." And so on.

But I know how to work a reluctant source. I got him after a run one evening. It was dark and raining. He agreed to a brief interview

David Kestenbaum

A story. That's what's going on in his head out there, going around and around. He's telling himself a story. That's what the running unleashed.

David Kestenbaum

The stories have changed as he's gotten older.

David Kestenbaum

It was interesting to hear this. It has an attention to detail that is sometimes not present in other parts of his life.

David Kestenbaum

He told me another one that was like pieces of the world had lodged in his head and recombined. This one violated multiple copyrights. The Avengers were in it, but then also Spaceman Spiff from "Calvin and Hobbes." And also, somehow--

David Kestenbaum

From The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

David Kestenbaum

The philosopher, Thomas Nagel, once wrote an essay titled, "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" Apparently, he had bats in his house, and he wondered if it was possible to truly know what it was like to be a bat, to have webbing on your arms, to perceive the world with sonar, to hang upside down in the attic. His answer was, no, you could not know the mind of such a creature.

David Kestenbaum

Max did finally agree to let me put a mic on him while he ran around the block. It was like I was right there with him. He was battling some invisible monster.

[MAX RUNNING]

David Kestenbaum

"I'll be fine." "I'll be fine," he says.

David Kestenbaum

"Those cuts are deep."

David Kestenbaum

"It's fine." You're right, Max. It is.

Ira Glass

David Kestenbaum is our show's senior editor.

Ira Glass

Act Three, "Americans Most Wanted." So we now turn to criminals trying to give the runaround to the police. And in this case, choosing a route that you see now and then in the movies, they escape to Mexico. That's right, across the border to start a new life in a country where they think that they're going to be safe.

So many people do this. In fact, the numbers are on the rise. The Mexican police formed a special elite unit whose only mandate is to catch these fugitives. The unit's based in Baja California, just south of San Diego. They work with tips they get from the FBI and US Marshals. They are called the Gringo Hunters.

Kevin Sieff is a reporter for the Washington Post. He hung out with them as they ran around trying to snag fugitives.

Kevin Sieff

The cops in this special unit find the gringos everywhere-- in beach resorts, at a nightclub, called Papas & Beer, in cars with sex workers, in Carl's Jr parking lots. Some had undergone plastic surgery and acquired new names they couldn't pronounce. Some were found dead.

They were former Playboy models, amateur surfers, ex-Navy officers. Most of them are alleged serious criminals-- rapists, pedophiles, murderers. The cops have become used to the way American fugitives saunter across the border, expecting that they won't be found.

Here's Moises. He was the head of the unit when I was there. He's proud of his work, but he gets that it can be kind of funny sometimes.

Kevin Sieff

Moises has been doing the job for 12 years. Hanging out with him, he's like an encyclopedia of gringo fugitives. A lot of the gringos, he tells me, are white guys who think they can make a go of hiding on the coast, blending in with tourists, but they can't.

Kevin Sieff

Even the shoes are totally different. One officer told me the Americans wear flip-flops that are one size too big, usually with socks. Then there are the Mexican-American fugitives who are still such obvious gringos to Moises and the other cops. They're born in the US. They have family in Mexico, but they can never totally blend in either. Something about them is eventually going to betray them as American.

That's the kind of fugitive they were chasing when I was with them, a Mexican-American guy named Damion Salinas. He's 20 years old from Fresno, California.

Back in 2020, Salinas had allegedly murdered another man at the scene of a traffic accident. The killing was shocking, seemingly unprovoked, a gunshot at point-blank range. The victim was a 36-year-old mechanic named Joshua Thao. He was like a father to his nieces and nephews, his sister said. Right before he was shot, witnesses said, he shook the murderer's hand, trying to calm tempers.

After the shooting, Salinas vanished. There were no leads. He'd been a fugitive for almost two years. Now, suddenly, there was new intel. Salinas was supposedly here in Ensenada, about an hour and a half south of the border, cutting hair at a barbershop.

Kevin Sieff

Abigail, one of the unit's officers, was leading the planning. They didn't have a search warrant, so they were going to have to find a way to lure Salinas outside.

Kevin Sieff

Abigail is the only woman on the team. You'd think she's the boss, even though she's not. She's on her phone constantly, pumping her sources and colleagues for more and better intel. That's what she was doing during the Salinas case, shouting a stream of questions into her phone.

Did Salinas have any connection to Mexico? Who was he living with? Where was he getting his money from? She paused at one point to catch her breath. "Sorry," she said to her colleague. "It's a murder case, so it's a little bit urgent."

We get to the barbershop. Abigail and her colleague, Ivan, scope it out from the front seat. Ivan is a former bodyguard. He's the one on the team most likely to show up with a six pack after a big win. He gets a text. There's intel from the US Marshals.

Kevin Sieff

It was a new tip. They're sending us to another barbershop, Ivan says.

Kevin Sieff

It sounds like Salinas is in Tijuana, about an hour north. So Abigail floors it along the highway that traces the Pacific Ocean, driving close to 100 miles an hour.

Kevin Sieff

Signs of the gringo presence are everywhere, big billboards in English that say things like "Invest In Your New Ocean View House." Another said "Thong and Tequila Party." In some ways, this part of Mexico seems perfect for Americans trying to disappear. But Abigail has become a pro at drawing them out.

She told me earlier that morning about one of her new strategies. She's created a bunch of fake Facebook accounts using stock photos of attractive women that she uses to catfish fugitives. One guy had actually posted on a Facebook group looking to meet people. He even used his real name.

Kevin Sieff

Another cop from the unit cuts in and starts to troll Abigail. "Sometimes they arrive stinky," he says. "It's so you don't have to struggle with the stinky perp, right?" he says. "You just want to deliver them nice and clean, no fuss, back to the gringos."

Kevin Sieff

Abigail grew up in Tijuana, secretly dreaming of becoming a police officer. Her mother begged her not to. Being a cop was dangerous. But she says she was born to do the job. Abigail waited until her own daughter was a little over two, and then she signed up.

The stakes feel so high to her. The gringos coming across, they could just repeat their crimes on her side of the border. She told me about the case of a pedophile who fled the US. He moved into a house near a Tijuana elementary school where he was getting ready to look for more kids to abuse. She was like, if we don't catch this guy today, who knows what he'll do here in Mexico?

When we arrived in Tijuana, we parked across from the second barbershop and Ivan and Abigail began their surveillance. As always, they work undercover. Today, jeans and t-shirts, like two friends headed out for a day at the beach.

Abigail bought some nachos from the shop next door, slyly peering into the barber shop. Ivan put on a black backpack and walked by-- disguised, I guess, as a 30-something-year-old student. Then we all settled in the car and got comfortable staring through the windshield.

Usually on stakeouts, Ivan is constantly turning up the volume on Bad Bunny. Today, he's kind of bragging, showing me dozens of photos of the gringos he's arrested, like a yearbook of American fugitives. Then they get another call.

Kevin Sieff

Someone has left the apartment above the barbershop. The person got into a gold Honda Accord and drove away. One of the agents says over the radio, "I think it's Salinas." Then they take off, cutting across four lanes of traffic. Abigail cuts off the Honda and they surround the car.

I'm watching them approach the car and this is kind of a scary moment. Only a few weeks before, the cops had been in a shootout with a fugitive from California. Moises and Ivan got shot. The team told me that they were worried that Salinas too might come out shooting if he was cornered.

I watch them pull a skinny guy out of the driver's seat and push him against the car. He didn't look to me like the guy I'd seen in the Most Wanted posters. Then they take his wallet from his back pocket. There's a California driver's license with the name Damion Salinas. They get out their handcuffs.

Kevin Sieff

Even after all the build up, there was still something startling about seeing the cops catch their fugitive. It was surreal. They start figuring out logistics. Who's going to take the gold Honda? Salinas seems confused. He starts saying, "I will go--" And that's when Abigail interrupts him. "No, you're coming with us."

Kevin Sieff

Salinas doesn't put up a fight. They stick him in the backseat of the car, and I ask if I can sit next to him to ask a few questions. They say sure, but they put the biggest cop in the unit between us, in case Salinas lunges at me. But he doesn't. He looks like he'd just woken up from a nap.

This whole day, I'd been wondering, what is this guy going to be like? How had he evaded authorities for almost two years? I think I'd been expecting an angry, sophisticated criminal. This guy, after all, was being accused of homicide.

But Salinas is like a kid trying to disguise himself as a man. His mustache is wispy. He's wearing Air Jordan sandals with socks. "Forever West Coast" was tattooed on his right arm.

Kevin Sieff

He keeps saying how nervous he is, but then he spins a tale about how he'd only been caught because he let his guard down.

Kevin Sieff

Abigail weaves through Tijuana traffic with the siren on. We're headed to the border to hand Salinas over to US authorities. And then Ivan puts on "Gangsta's Paradise" and turns up the volume. He tells me, "Ask him if he's a rapper."

Kevin Sieff

And then they pull up a video on Ivan's cell phone. It's a video of Salinas rapping, taken from his social media.

[SALINAS RAPPING]

Kevin Sieff

Salinas seems calm at this point. Abigail parks the car at the border and the Mexican police march Salinas past a long line of people, the daily border crossers and migrants who are waiting to enter the US on foot. They crane their necks to look at the American fugitive. A small group of uniformed US officials is standing at the border. One of the agents bends his knees in a blocker's position, as if Salinas might make a run for it.

Kevin Sieff

The Mexican police take off the Mexican handcuffs and the Americans put on American cuffs. It feels almost ceremonial. The arrest is done, the gringo is back in gringo hands.

I watched the Gringo Hunters walk back from the border to their car. They had just arrested an alleged murderer. I look for some kind of reaction. I'm not sure what, exactly-- a high five, a look of accomplishment, but there was almost nothing. The unit chases and catches so many gringos that Salinas was just another name on their list. They already had their next day's assignment-- a woman had kidnapped and drugged a child. They too were likely living in Tijuana.

A few weeks after the Salinas chase, I was talking to Moises, the head of the Gringo Hunters, and he told me this thing. He said that sometimes he's hanging out with his friends who are not cops, and he gets this feeling that I think cops everywhere get, that regular people just don't know how many bad guys are out there. They don't know how scary it can feel to chase fugitive Americans day in and day out.

Kevin Sieff

Moises doesn't come out and say it, but chasing American fugitives all day, it has shaped how he sees the United States. Part of the problem, he says, is that in the US, it's so easy to get a gun. On some of his trips there, it seemed like everyone was armed.

As we talked, it struck me that he'd come to see Mexico as being in a perilous position, bordering this heavily-armed, crime-infested nation. I had heard that tone before. He spoke with a very real fear and perhaps a little bit of hysteria, the same way I've heard so many Americans talk about a lawless Mexico.

Ira Glass

Kevin Sieff of the Washington Post. He also did a print version of this story with pictures that you can find online at the Post website. The story was produced by Nadia Reiman.

["RUN-AROUND" BY BLUES TRAVELER]

Ira Glass

Well, our program was produced today by Chris Benderev. The people who put our show together today includes Elna Baker, Sean Cole, Michael Comite, Andrea Lopez Cruzado, Aviva DeKornfeld, Bethel Habte, Cassie Howley, Valerie Kipnis, Alaa Mostafa, Stowe Nelson, Katherine Rae Mondo, Ryan Rumery, Alissa Shipp, Laura Starcheski, Lilly Sullivan, Christopher Swetala, Matt Tierney, and Diane Wu. Our managing editor is Sarah Abdurrahman. Our senior editor is David Kestenbaum. Our executive editor is Emanuele Berry.

The voice actors in the Gringo Hunter story were Luis Bordonada and Chelsea Rendon. Special thanks today to Deborah Harris, Kimi Yoshino, Susan Davis, Patrick Creamer, Matt Bonaccorsi, Caitlyn Hodgkins, Nate Cross, Benjamin Kowalski, Nina Reinhardt, Kim McBride, Marc Butakis, Luke Vander Ploeg, Sabrina Hyman, and Fernando Monroy. Our website, thisamericanlife.org, where you can stream our archive of over 750 episodes for absolutely free. Also, there's videos There's also lists of favorite shows to listen to, tons of other stuff-- thisamericanlife.org.

This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange. Thanks, as always, to our program's co-founder, Mr. Torey Malatia. You know, he tried to give me his recipe for turducken. I don't know. I just don't think he got it right.

Ira Glass

I'm Ira Glass. Back next week with more stories of This American Life.

["RUN-AROUND" BY BLUES TRAVELER]