The Other Side of the Door: The Case Against Lee Baca
Crimes of the Times
L.A. Times Studios
4.6 • 42.8K Ratings
🗓️ 14 October 2025
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | We later learned about the obsession that both Mr. Baca and Mr. Tanaka had. |
| 0:08.0 | Isolation is just really one of the worst things that you can do to a person. |
| 0:12.0 | I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. |
| 0:15.0 | Mr. Baca was a popular figure. He definitely had some cults of personality. |
| 0:20.0 | This was an existential threat |
| 0:23.9 | to the Sheriff's Department, but it was up their own making because of what they did. |
| 0:36.1 | I was under shotgun escort. Like, it was the first time that somebody, like, I was around a gun that I knew could be used against me. |
| 0:45.4 | It was the first time that I was around people that were doing life without parole, like, as an inmate. |
| 0:51.3 | I'd been around lifers and stuff like that, but that's an entirely different setting. |
| 0:57.6 | That's like going to the zoo and getting in the cage with the tiger. |
| 1:01.5 | They know who you are. |
| 1:02.7 | You're a cop. |
| 1:04.5 | James Sexton, the son of a southern sheriff, |
| 1:07.1 | had come to Los Angeles looking to make a name for himself as a cop and had won a spot |
| 1:12.8 | in an elite jail intelligence unit. Now at age 29, his law enforcement career was over |
| 1:19.8 | in a particularly humiliating and final way. A federal judge had sentenced him to 18 months |
| 1:26.8 | in federal prison for blocking the FBI's probe into the L.A. County jails, |
| 1:31.8 | the saying Sexton had lacked the courage, quote, to stand up when he knew things were wrong. |
| 1:37.5 | When he turned himself in, Sexton was shuttle between different jails. |
| 1:41.5 | In one of them, a black jail guard gave him the autobiography of Malcolm X. |
| 1:46.5 | And look, it was somebody clearly telling me something, right? This is what happened. |
| 1:50.4 | That you're experiencing what marginalized communities are experiencing in America every day. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from L.A. Times Studios, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of L.A. Times Studios and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.

