lynch at the national organization of black law enforcement executives, made up primarily of officials.nders and that is live starting at 8:00 a.m. eastern on c-span two. ♪ announcer: this week on "q&a," corey pegues. he discusses his book "once a cop -- the street, the law, two worlds, one man." ♪ brian: your book is called "once a cop." what is it about? mr. pegues: it is my life story.

policel i retired as a officer. brian: when did you retire? mr. pegues: march 2013, officially retired. i was injured september 2000 11 so i was out of work for about a year and a half, almost two years. i had two back surgeries. i was injured at work. trying to arrest someone. i popped a disk in my back. brian: at the time, what was your rank and where were you a policeman? mr. pegues: at the time it was a commanding officer of the 57th precinct and my rank was deputy inspector which is an executive position at the nypd. brian: in the new york police department. mr. pegues: yes. brian: talk about this moment because you talk about it in your book. [begin video]

president bush: this is crack cocaine. seized a few days ago by drug enforcement agents in a park just across the street from the white house. it could easily have been heroine or pcp. it is as innocent looking as candy but it is turning our cities and two battles owns is murdering our children. let there be no mistake -- this stuff is poison. brian: as you said your book almost right away, you sold that stuff. why? mr. pegues: i sold it because of the environment i grew up in. i grew up with gangsters and drug dealers and pimps. i was young. i grew up on welfare. i was in a family of 6, 5 girls and myself. my father left after the third grade. in my book i have a picture of me in the fifth grade and i'm sitting indian style of the front and i'm holding my feet because i have holes in the bottom of my shoes and i had cardboard in it so my socks wouldn't get wet. i had a rough upbringing.

i got involved with friends who were selling drugs, it was the thing to do.as the so we sold marijuana, cocaine, crack cocaine came out and we started selling that. 13 to 18 years old, five years. brian: what is the difference between cocaine and crack cocaine? mr. pegues: crack cocaine is rock form. brian: like we saw it in the bag? mr. pegues: yes. brian: what is mescaline? mr. pegues: a tiny pill that people take. back then i don't even know if that stuff is still around but they did back then. brian: what is a lucy? mr. pegues: he got killed for buying lucy, those little cigarettes. the origin of lucy was a lucy joint. a loose joint. so instead of selling a nickel

time bag ofor a weed, you roll them up your self we would roll them up for you. we would roll you a loose joint. brian: what is a louis? mr. pegues: it was a loose joint marijuana joint laced with cocaine. sprinkle a little bit of it in there. you get the high and the low. brian: smooth? mr. pegues: smooth was a very good friend of mine way grew up with. he introduced me to the streets. the irony about him was he did not have to. he had a two family home, mom worked for the telephone company, father worked for the post office. house, car, white picket fence.

just because of the environment -- he brought me in on the whole drug game and i started hanging out with him. brian: why did you want to write the book? mr. pegues: i'm glad you asked that question. nobody really asked. the role reason i wrote it is pegues generations of behind me. kids, grandkids, i wanted to know this life transformation i made. then it morphed into this book i had to write and tell my story because i was put on the front page of the newspaper in new york city. they really took some shots of my personality, my demeanor, my character, they tried to vilify me. i had to tell my story. the backdrop was that i wrote my own book and stopped walking across the stage, graduate. all this stuff i did in the streets, i was poor. i was in the streets selling drugs, which the military unit graduated and became a cop and it was over. that was the end of the book

until this newspaper hit. that i had to go to my entire police career just so i could lessen some of the stuff that was put out about me that was all lies. brian: here's the front page of the "new york post" that i think you're talking about. right there. i dealt crack as a gangsta, nypd honcho reveals." when you saw that, what was your reaction, and how did it happen? mr. pegues: my reaction to that -- i was not happy. i never was a thug cop. i did so crack when i was out in the street -- i don't know if i would consider myself a gangster. a gangster to me is like john gotti. i was not out murdering people, putting hits on people. i was a street hustler come i sold drugs, so i was a criminal. it was really bad for my family. my family had to endure that waking up in the morning. you know, there's a picture of me with the president of united states and the book, maybe a future president, hillary clinton, michael bloomberg, l

l cool j. i had such a fantastic life after those five years. then with me being on the cover it took all that away and it was not an easy time for my family. and i knew i was never a thug , cop. the nypd haveow, a federal probe going on right now where there is going to be numerous executives locked up. those are thug cops. i never committed a crime as a cop. i was probably the cleanest cop for 21 years and the reason being i thought they were always looking at me because of my past, because of how i came to work dressed, because of my tattoos. i was so clean, i always thought it was a setup. brian: let's go through some brief outline of your life. you were born in what year in where? mr. pegues: 1968 in queens. in a hospital that is close now. mary immaculate hospital in cleans. -- queens.

brian: where did you go to school? mr. pegues: in jamaica, queens. i left in the third grade. i got kicked out for pushing a girl behind the stairs. a girl downpushed the stairs and a bunch of girls fell down the stairs. i went to high school for an engineering program and invited some of my friends, some of my crack it friends to play basketball. they had a right at the school and beat everyone up out of the game, but i get kicked out of there. i went to andrew jackson high school and ended up graduating from their in 1987. brian: what were the years that you ended up selling drugs on the street corners? wetafter high school happened to you? mr. pegues: the u.s. army.

brian: how long? 1987. mr. pegues: three years and eight months. my list and was up, so george bush was the president at the time, he extended everybody's ahead to stay longer. brian: were you actually on duty the all-time? active duty in the national guard? mr. pegues: then i was in the national guard for 14 years for it have 18 years of military service. brian: that takes us up to what year? mr. pegues: march 1992. actually, march 1991, i got out of the military. in january of 1992i went to the police academy. i became a policeman january 13, 1992. brian: how long did you serve as an active-duty new york policeman? we'll talk about what happened during your promotions. mr. pegues: 21 years. as a new york city police officer. brian: i want to show some video of you on the street corner talking about where you used to sell drugs so people can get a sense of what it was like.

[begin video] >> this is my spot, right here. i spent countless hours here. 12, 24, 40 eight. this is where the drug trade was. all day, everyday. there was nothing else to do but to sell drugs. it was cool, almost like a cool thing to do. like, i hadrk was, this area here. all the lieutenants had different colored caps on their crack cocaine. so like, i might have the blue caps, so if you wanted blue you came over here. at the handball court, there was another worker, another worker on the basketball court. we had somebody down here by the baseball. there was crack over the park. brian: who was buying? mr. pegues: everybody was buying. when crack hit, it decimated

that community. i was one of the people who was supplying that poison. but everybody was buying. you had friends, family members. family members on drugs. everybody. they came from all walks of life. people who do not have money. people who were affluent. a middle-class neighborhood for the nice part. you had some people, nice houses, they were buying. you had white people coming to predominantly black communities. just driving in to buy crack. the -- ut brian: talk about vials. how much did each of those cost.

mr. pegues: we had two vials, a small and a big one, the jumbo. that will go for $10 or five dollars. five dollars for the little one, $10 for the big one or $20 for the big one. brian: how much should you make a day? mr. pegues: i worked two different places. i was a freelancer, that was with the supreme team. but i was working on my own, what i would make $1000 a day. when i worked for the supreme team, they made upwards of $2000 a week. it was a drug crew ran by this guy named supreme. his nephew worked with him and he had a bunch of lieutenants, maybe five lieutenants. they had an iron fist organization. it was actually run like a fortune 500 company. i do not know if the drug dealers are doing this today, but we worked shifts. paid on fridays. like, it was a job. thing with that was,

we worked exact same hours as the police officers. these guys are smart. they emulated the police department schedule. they were so good that they started paying the police off. i talk about that in the book. brian: did you ever get paid off as a policeman? mr. pegues: no. i could not be bought. i was deathly afraid. i always thought it was a setup. nobody ever offered me money. i talked one time in the book about, we stopped somebody with a bag of money and he said, i do not know whose money it is, as if to insinuate take it, i do not care. and i was like, no. if he had $20,000 in there and i split with my partner, i can make $1 million if i keep the job for 20 years or this could be a setup for $10,000 i am going to embarrass my family. it just did not work. brian: where did you get the drugs on a day-to-day basis and where did you keep it when you are standing on the corners? or at the park? mr. pegues: back then, a lot times we held drugs on us

because the police were not as prevalent as they are today. they were not around. there is like 50,000 police officers in new york city back then, but there's only 36,000 now, but they were not as react to. but we would just put it in a tire well, stick it in the tree. you keep some on you so you would not have to keep running to the stash. obviously you cannot carry 200. i would have a package of 300 vials for the shift. we just lay them down somewhere. brian: other any team members that are still around that you know? mr. pegues: yes. brian: in this book, there are so many names. how many of those are the actual names of the people? mr. pegues: only two. brian: those two are? mr. pegues: supreme and prints. -- prince.

and who was prince? either way, when we saw you in that video, who was the other person in the video with you? mr. pegues: smooth. he went on to become a high-ranking official in law enforcement also. people don't know. they will find out in the book. he changed his life. he went to catholic school. he went to catholic high school, and he went to a prestigious university. all while doing these things i was doing. he changed his life and become a law enforcement supervisor. he just recently retired also. brian: here's the mayor of new york city, rudolph giuliani. this is only about 25 seconds. [video clip]

>> i do not know why the morale of the new york city department is so low. he blames it on me, he blames it on you. the reason the morale is so low is one reason and one reason alone -- david dinkins. brian: you called him a clown. why? mr. pegues: i worked that detail, i will never forget. i was on the steps of city hall because it was going to be a big protest so they had to have police officers there. i will never forget that protest. these rogue cops walk around with -- these were all cops walking around with nooses, signs with the n-word. it was bad. i felt really, really bad to be a police officer. it was probably the worst day and my career. he was riling up. we just saw a snippet.

it was basically a major racist protest, that was what it was. want to call it. you can just look back at the old footage. it is a bunch of drunk, white cops and a couple of white agitators such as giuliani egging them on. nastyying these really things about the mayor, sort of like what is going on right now. a bunch of cops saying these nasty things. brian: david dinkins was black. and he was saying racist things? mr. pegues: the whole crowd. brian: what was the reason for him making that particular speech? mr. pegues: he wanted to become mayor. he had lost the election. david dinkins beat rudy giuliani. for the reelection, giuliani was going hard because he wanted to be the mayor. there were a few missteps by mayor dinkins. the riots, the washington heights riots.

he tipped the scale, and he won. brian: someone else you call a clown is bernard. mr. pegues: former police commissioner. brian: why a clown? mr. pegues: here you have a guy who had a police career. it was cronyism at its best. his only claim to fame as a police officer was being a detective, which is on the same scale as a cop. in the rank structure it is cop, detective, sergeant, lieutenant, captain, deputy captain, chief, chief, chief. he became the mayor of new york city and he made this detective down here and brought him and made him the -- the number one person in this paramilitary organization which is the biggest police department in the country. i mean, after having ray kelly as the police commissioner to bring him -- you know, he just

did four years of federal prison for corruption. taking things. that would not happen to a seasoned veteran. you go through the ranks, you know you cannot do this, you can do that. you can't do this, you can't do that. leadership don't start down here, you have to work your way to the top. you cannot spring board there because he was your bodyguard. when giuliani was running for mayor, he was a volunteer bodyguard and he was made corrections commissioner and brought him into the police department. he was the biggest joke in the department. it is well known he was not running the police. brian: what was your personal reaction when bernie went to prison? mr. pegues: i was like, basically, he was not prepared for the job. that was basically it, in my estimation. it was like he was not prepared , for the job.

brian: sent you published this -- since you published this book, you made some people very unhappy. i want to run some video of the fellow that runs the police benevolent association. you have seen this before. explain it. i think this fellow's name is patrick lynch. before we watch it, tell us what his job is? mr. pegues: he is the union president for 35,000 cops in the nypd. he is the union president. brian: right after this story came out -- by the way, before we do this, the thought of life -- the thug life thing, where did it come from? the tattoos. is what i'm getting at.

mr. pegues: someone said i had "thug life" on my neck, i do not have that on my neck. you can't write over writing. you have to laser my tattoo off, then it would have a shadow. it just don't work. if you have cat and you try to write dog, it will not be legible. you cannot write over writing. brian: where is it? mr. pegues: i have a tattoo of my wife's name on my neck. brian: you been married twice, which one is it? mr. pegues: my current one, brenda. brian: that is where the thug life thing came from? -- were you a member? mr. pegues: you go to sergeant call you tenant -- you change unions. brian: what was your highest rank? mr. pegues: deputy insepector. in a department of 36,000,

deputy inspector, you probably have 35,000 people under you. brian: here is the video. [video clip] >> a month ago a retired deputy inspector was on a podcast announcing he once sold crack in queens. >> he should not be collecting a pension. he was palling around with drug dealers. if you get information about drug dealers that killed a police officer, he never was a police officer. you should not be allowed to carry a retired id card in his pocket. that is a privilege. it is a privilege to serve, it is a privilege to say you did serve. you are not entitled to that privilege. they should look back, find out where he lied, was pension and never allow them to be a police officer. -- and video --

end video clip] brian: what is your reaction? mr. pegues: that shows the major difference of a cop and an executive. let's just say i lied to my application. he is so not informed that lying is what he called perjury and the statute of limitations is maybe five years. if he was executive you know that, but he is a cop just spewing benefit all he did was a recipe book. he never was in a -- arrest people. brian: why is he mad at you? mr. pegues: he is standing next to eddie burns'brother and he is the deputy commissioner. that is the battle they are fighting. i knowe upset because the killer of eddie burns. brian: when was he killed? he was a cop. mr. pegues: february 1988. i went into the military february of 1987. brian: was the guy who killed him? mr. pegues: three guys were in jail for decades now. brian: the one they are upset about -- he is in prison.

again, that's his brother. standing right there. mr. pegues: you know what really gets me? there's no pushback. with the reporter there. for him to say i withheld vital information on the killing of a cop, do you think for one iota of a second that if i had any information leading to probably the most infamous murder in the history of the nypd -- if my name was on any sheet, any tag, any sticky, do you think i would've been able to be a new york city police officer? no way the world. i can guarantee you that if i was implicated in any crime of a murder. forget about it any. any murder. i never lied on the application. nobody ever asked me. nobody ever set across from me and said, did you sell crack cocaine? that was not one of the questions on the application.

if they would have asked me i would have told them. i had just gotten out of the military. i had a wife and kids, i wanted to do what was right. i wanted to get this job because a new this would be a life-changing event for my entire family. first-generation police officer, the first one to get a high school diploma, first to go to college. i was ready to take life by the ears and do what is right and i was not going to say anything to jeopardize that. brian: what many circumstances of eddie burns being killed? mr. pegues: there was a murderer out there, a drug gang murdered a witness. one of the drug gangs that was pretty much friends with the supreme team. some guy in prison, this guy named happy mason, this guy ordered a hit on a police officer because he got locked up. this poor kid, eddie burns, was sitting in front of his house guarding a witness and three guys came up and murdered him. the other thing people up or -- about the uproar, i went to his memorial every year.

i met his brother, i met his mother, i met his father. i met his family, i did every year, i went there. but because i wanted to tell my life story, this transportation -- transformation from selling drugs -- i did all this crazy stuff as a young kid, but i was never arrested and convicted of a crime so why should i not be able to tell my story? every month the nypd since a few hundred checks to prisons for pension checks for people in prison. they want to take my pension, but i never did anything. make $135,000 a year tax-free as your pension? mr. pegues: yes. i have a pension.

i have a couple of million dollar lawsuit. i have a lawsuit and i'm positive it will be successful because i do not do anything. all i did was tell my story, i was on a podcast. i was trying to do a book deal. get as much excitement as i can. actually worked, we got the book deal. but i did not know i'll be on the front page next to derek jeter. brian: what year did you talk to him? combat jack? mr. pegues: 2014. july. brian: who is he? mr. pegues: a hip hop star. he has the number one hip-hop podcast in america. onry hip-hop star icon goes his show.

i was able to leverage a meeting with him through my lawyer. they were law partners. he was fascinated by my story and wanted to bring me on. brian: how long did you talk to them? mr. pegues: about an hour. that was the first time i publicly told my story. brian: after that the new york post put that on the front page. let's look at that headline again so people who may have tuned in later. there is the headline. thug cop. now just want to run a little bit of the audio from the combat jack program. you'll have to tell me which one it is? the first one or second one. this is just a brief excerpts of they can hear what started this. ringhat led to the book published by simon & schuster, one of the nation's biggest publishing houses. [video clip]

>> my friend grabbed me and said i needed to get these lossies off. i think about -- murdered, i'm a cop, he was murdered. that's what it was. at 13 i'm selling loosies. but they wasn't cigarettes, they were joints. lose joints. brian: explain more of that, what you are talking about. mr. pegues: you asked me about loosies, they were marijuana cigarettes for the most part. brian: the accusation of murder, what is that story? in case people were not following it that closely. mr. pegues: the eric garner incident. he was a young man in staten island who is trying to sell untaxed cigarettes allegedly in front of a store out in staten island. the police responded to the

location and pretty much were going to arrest him. he did not want to go at the time, it is on video. he had a little bit of pushback. was it enough for him to be murdered? i doubt that. wasn't enough for him to be arrested? i doubt that, too. he and did not being choked out. he was murdered. the nypd was doing a chokehold. he died by asphyxiation, the medical examiner said. brian: this made them mad?

you trigger another memory from reading your book. a guy named o'rourke and greely. they are both irish? you have some strong things to say about irish cops. explain that. mr. pegues: i have some strong things to say about irish cops when i was a cop. it was still the old guard. you know these guys were, i came , in 92. these guys were 17-18 years, they came in the late 70's. early 1980's. they were second, third generation. first generation. so, these guys were coming in, they had a lot of racist tendencies. they would not even speak to me. some of them would not even speak to me. i would walk in a room full of cops and say, how is everyone doing? they would treat me like i didn't exist. i write one story about me sitting in the lunch room watching television eating my

a tall irish guy comes in and turns the tv off right in front of it. the table over and we were getting ready to have a big fight and everyone had to run it at break this up. it was so nasty. and disrespectful. brian: he had been a 20 years and you had been there how long? mr. pegues: two. brian: he comes in, the but as you anything and turned the television off. mr. pegues: turns in right off. it was not the first thing he did to me. they would use the n word loosely. i was in a predominantly white precinct. there were 300 cops and 28 blacks. we were spread across. my tour from 4:00-midnight, i could remember the names. there were four of us. so, you know. it was tough. brian: how did you see racism?

despite the story you just told. give us some other examples. mr. pegues: a lot of examples i could give you. most of it was, promotions, assignments, i talk about putting papers to go to this elite unit with my partner who graduated the same day as i did. he's italian. i get the letter back saying you had two years on the job, you need three years to apply. we go to rollcall and they call him and said you have 20 minutes to go down to your interview. he was a really nice guy. he came to me, he almost had tears in his eyes. he was like, corey, i'm sorry. i was like, don't worry about it. do good on your interview. he ended up going to the elite unit. i was seeing things very early on. i had a few years on the job. nine millimeter handguns. we went from a 38.

it was supposed to go by seniority. although white guys under me with less time, they got theirs first. i had to wait in line to get mine. a lot of things. that made me stronger and wanted me to get promoted. one thing that could stop racism was being in charge. when you are in charge, they do not have to like you, but it is a proud military organization. you do it. i don't care what your feelings are. i knew if i was the boss, i can make change. brian: you mention your lawyer early. how much did he have to improve -- approve? for this book? mr. pegues: i have a whole staff of lawyers, that book has been heavily vetted. i mean, we had to go back and forth on names, places, take this out, take this out. so many draft of the book. heavily vetted. brian: how did you do the book? mr. pegues: believe it or not, when i got injured in september, 2011 and had a major surgery, i

knew i would never be a police officer again, as you have to be fit, even if you're are the boss. you have to be able to run in jump over events if somebody is chasing you down the block. i would hurt, obviously be a liability for the city. they would not let me work again except for exceptions. i knew i was not one of those exceptions. i started writing my story in the hospital bed. brian: did you write this all yourself? mr. pegues: i wrote my own story. i walked into simon & schuster with a script like this, date books. books.tack of date i don't have that picture in the book. i really should add that picture to the book. i kept a journal every single year as a police officer in direct things down. i did not write every day.

sometimes every week or every month. the juliana's story. -- the giuliani story. all the stories in the book, i wrote them already. when i walked into simon & schuster with my book agent, we sat down with harpercollins and everybody and they were looking, well, you wrote all of that and you write your own manuscript? i already wrote the book. the book was written. brian: let me read something. the words jumping a bit, but the -- i want to get as much as we can. let me read back what you wrote. give me the circumstances.

why did you tell us that story. mr. pegues: i wanted to be transparent. the worst thing i ever did as a police officer. i could have killed a handcuffed prisoner by not securing him. and, that taught me right then at that moment, almost like another incident, when they took the nightstick and stuck it up inside of him. whenever you are involved personally with a prisoner, it goes south where you are fighting, once it is over, somebody else should be the common figure that comes in and you go to the side and let them, i went from that day if i have a fight with somebody, i have to let someone else take the arrest. i was happy the guy did not die. you did not read the best part, he was hiv-positive. i had to be tested for a whole year. brian: you point to some of

these things in the book, this goes back to your earlier life. "how fly we were," what does that mean? mr. pegues: a lesson on slang. that means how good we look. brian: what is "good shooting"? mr. pegues: i kind of hate that term. it is a police term. it is the shooting, looks like it is just a fight, big call it a good shooting. any shooting where someone got hit with a bullet, not a good shooting. but in a police world, a cop would have a shooting with somebody, it shot there's an, whitney chief comes, they want to investigate the shooting. brian: why did you tell us about your personal life? correct me if i'm wrong, you

talk about having two women in your life pregnant at the same time. tina and teresa. you married teresa. the children were born to each of those women around the same time. and you -- tell us about that? why did you tell us about that? mr. pegues: i wanted to be transparent and real. i put my life out there. some friends and not happy about that. but the only way i could come on c-span and to all the shows is to be real. and honest with people. that is one thing people understand. when you are honest with people, then they believe in you. brian: what was the story, this happened twice, when was the second time? how long were you married to teresa? mr. pegues: 8-9 years. just one child. natasha. brian: you call her tash.

mr. pegues: tina had one child. corey is in queens. brian: how is he doing? brian: fine. mr. pegues: fine. i'm in touch with him. brian: which woman was most upset when they found out? mr. pegues: you could flip a coin. i was living a double life. had a girlfriend in queens cheating on the one of brooklyn. the one of brooklyn thought he -- she was my girlfriend. but i really had one. so, when they both found out, they were upset. brian: as you told us earlier, you have a tattoo. didn't you have another affair and have another woman pregnant at the same time? mr. pegues: absolutely not. she would kill me. i would not be sitting here today. brian: why do you say that?

mr. pegues: she would kill me. brian: she had children before? mr. pegues: yes. brian: how many children did you have together? mr. pegues: two. one big happy family. brian: where did you meet brendale, the other people in your family are cops? mr. pegues: i met her in third grade. the editors sitting in the corner with the big bushy hair. brian: when did you get her -- get with her? mr. pegues: after my divorce with teresa. a few years after that. brian: what does she think of this book? mr. pegues: she likes the book. she's not happy with everything in the book. brian: when did she read it? mr. pegues: honestly, i don't think she has finished reading it. you know, she is picking and choosing. it is very emotional. because of all the things, mostly but the whole new york

post thing, very traumatic for her. she don't want to involve herself in it. but she definitely read like the early parts of the book. brian: so, you are friends with ll cool j. and run dmc. mr. pegues: i'm friends with ll cool j and i was friends with jam master j. we grew up in the same neighborhood. ironic thing, a talk about that in the book, crack and rap came up together. the rappers back then, they were not making big money. the drug dealers were driving the fancy cars. all the crack dealers wanted to be rappers. that is today. so, ll cool j, i have a three or four second cameo on one of his albums. the 14 shot to the dome. brian: you were a cop then?

independent of you being on the police force? you were there and he put you in the middle of this. we have the clip. [laughter] brian: you have to listen very carefully. do you remember your lines? mr. pegues: i think you fell off kid. brian: this is from ll cool j bless." you can see the whole thing on youtube. you have to listen carefully because it comes in at the end. you can explain all of this afterwards. ] ideo clip ♪ brian: i thought you fell off. mr. pegues: he's bragging about

what he got. saying,e in basically your people saying you fell off, kid. brian: explain the world of rap and hip-hop, what is the difference? mr. pegues: it's all the same. rap is hip-hop. it is the way you walk, talk, cars you drive, everything. brian: what is your ditty bop? mr. pegues: my walk. it's a ditty bop. brian: did it tick people off? mr. pegues: i had this walk. a confident step when you walk. a more pronounced than everybody

else. brian: what is the bling thing? you say in your these people had so much money so they bought all this jewelry. mr. pegues: it is all dressed to impress, pretty much for the young guys. growing up, it was to impress the ladies and let the other guys know you are making more money than they are making. as you can see now, i am not blinged out. now, the bling is gone. brian: let me show you a clip from the movie, you talk about in your book. new jack city. tell us how close this is to the real world. [video clip] >> i think my cousin also like the fact that you're in the tradition of joe kennedy. >> who? good. he have to rob to get rich in

the reagan era. disenfranchised. act like it don't exist. meanwhile the rich get richer and the poor don't get a thing. times like these people want to get high. real high and real fast. this is going to do it. and make us rich. >> people going crazy over this? i mean, really, it looks like cracked off pieces. clip] deo brian: how real is that? mr. pegues: a lot of hollywood to that. they say that that movie was largely based on the supreme team. that is what a lot of people say. i'm quite sure, i was a street not privy to was the meetings supreme had with lieutenants. but i'm sure it was like that. brian: being a copy remember of the supreme team? mr. pegues: my advantage of being a cop, being a young black man growing up in the city, i

understood what would go on the city. so, police work came fairly easy to me. if they had put me in chinatown, it would have been harder for me to navigate. most of my precincts i worked in queens, a greek area, minority neighborhoods. easy for me to fit in. as i was going higher through the ranks, i was able to impart my knowledge on officers that worked for me to tell them, listen, every time someone in son,"reet calls you " they are not disrespecting you because you are older to them, that is how they refer to each other. i would just like drop jewels on them and impart knowledge. this is how it goes out here. in the suburbs, when they go to the park and projects, their part of the benches.

they have nowhere else to go. what will they do? a lot of police work is common sense and discretion. you have to use it. brian: nayshaun, you call it the luckiest thing in my life. the day the gun did not fire. explain that story? mr. pegues: that was probably december 12 or december 13, 1986. it was either that day i came home or the next day, i get off, come from booking and black on the block. i am happy. my son was born. sean walks up to me and pulls a pistol out and says get off the block. you cannot hustle here no more. i left. he had a gun. i ran.

i went home for two days and thought about what i was going to do. back then it was all about street credibility. i had to get my revenge. i decided i was going to kill him myself. with the gun i had. i had a nice little .25. and i was so crazy back in. -- back then. i said, i want to do this in front of everybody. i am not going to do it at 3:00 in the morning. i'm going to go primetime at 6:00 when everyone is out there and i will kill him in front of everybody. for hitting me in the face with a gun. i walked down there and he walked up to me, didn't i tell you, i pulled a gun on put in his chest. i pulled the trigger three times and the gun did not go off. he pulls his gun out and start shooting at me and i run and a friend of mine turned the corner and saw what was happening and pulled his gun out and started shooting at him. and we ran into another house. my friend's mother would not let us come into the house.

brian: what happened when the gun would not fire? mr. pegues: we were so young and crazy, i do not know anything about guns. it was a semi-automatic. there was not a bullet in the chamber. brian: it is a just and that if that gunfire, you would not be here today? mr. pegues: without a doubt. brian: did you ever should -- shoot somebody? mr. pegues: some stories in the book, i can't give away everything in the book. you have to give them something to read in the book. i had some brushes with guns, yeah. brian: i want to show a clip of you in a barbershop. there is barbershop one and barbershop two. let's watch this. you're sitting getting a haircut and listen to the dialogue between you and the barber. [begin video clip] [indiscernible]

>> jury duty. -- [indiscernible] they don't care what the charges. they are looking at you. >> it does. ask but the other thing in the room is -- i don't care about no jury duty. these cops are getting $100,000. >> hold on. hat i am saying is -- >> i'm not saying $100,000 -- >> they are not supposed to discriminated based on race, creed, color -- >> it is human nature. clip] deo brian: can you with this is?

mr. pegues: that is my you tube video series. barbershop cop. it is not scripted, as you can see. youtube web series barbershop cop. getting real feedback. that is lifestyle. that is not scripted. i just think of a topic. then we talk about it. it is not scripted. it is good stuff said that america sees how young black men feel about cops and law enforcement in general. the point i was trying to make with that particular situation was that cops are getting paid, on time at nypd over $100,000 a year to make sure that they are not discriminating against people. so like, i would tell my cops every day, check your attitudes at the door. you just had a domestic violence issue with your wife, but you will have to handle your job. you the look at everyone as an individual.

people look at the police for everything. cabinetry, police. a tree, police. you are asking somebody that is 19-20 years old and most jurisdictions, six months of training who have never looked out of their mothers basement and give them a gun and tell them to conquer the world. it's a tough job. i criticize police a lot. but when i criticize them talking about the bad place. that is a small percentage. overwhelming majority are just coming to work and doing their job, but you don't hear about them. you hear about the tamir rice, eric garner cases. once law enforcement starts bleeding them out, you look at the person's background. seven complaints, use of force, five substantially to, the guy was a mess. and we do not find out until they kill somebody.

we should be handling it from the jump. >> where do sure last name come from? -- brian: where does your last name come from? mr. pegues: french origins. i trust my roots to north carolina. brian: you say in your book your dad was an alcoholic? mr. pegues: he was a functional alcoholic. he went to work every day that was drunk every day. brian: what year of his life did he die? mr. pegues: he left in the third grade and he died my second year as a police officer. he came to my police graduation. he told me he loved me that day. i had not heard that from him before. brian: what is the different feeling for you if a guy sitting here asking you questions is

black versus a white guy? mr. pegues: it does not matter. i don't base the things on race unless it is quite obvious that there is a racial component. i'm comfortable in any setting. i have white friends, spanish friends, black friends. you know, it is just when people show me racism it does is me -- it pissesme off big time. there should be no room for that. i know what i made of and i stand on the back of the 3m's, malcom, martin and megan. i would not be listed here without them. i feel strongly about that. brian: do you notice a difference in the question that white interviewer will ask you versus a black interviewer? mr. pegues: not necessarily.

the combat jack show, no suit and tie, different environment. i got to interviews and if someone was to take a shot at me, they can try. it is hard to take a shot that that book is everything is vetted and you can fact check everything. brian: what is the question you are asked all the time? as you do this book tour? mr. pegues: how did i become a police officer selling crack cocaine? brian: you say in the book, but that you never missed a day of school. that you did never use drugs. mr. pegues: never did. my team around me smoke, that i did not smoke marijuana. that was a big thing. i very rarely did that for cold 45 even. i just wanted to make money, be able to take care of myself. did not want to waste my money. how my girlfriend. i do not mess with any of that. i never smoked a cigarette in my life.

brian: still haven't? mr. pegues: still haven't. smoke a cigar once in a while. had one last night. brian: what you want to do for the rest of your life? mr. pegues: i just want to go out and spread my message. i believe i have a transformational story that can touch the lives of some of these kids and i want to start a nonprofit and open a computer center and have financial literacy classes for these kids. try to help these kids because they are hurting out there. when they see me, they see somebody that looks like them. i can go to any community, get on the campuses and talk to these kids. because a lot of kids are going through things. they think there is a dead end. i'm here to tell them, you can make it. brian: is there a website people can go to? mr. pegues: yes. coreypegues.com they can find me on my website.

they can hit me on twitter. instagram. i'm all over the internet. google my name. everything pops up. brian: we will show you the cover of the book so people can see the spelling of your name. oncetitle of this book is " the law,the street, two worlds, one man." corey pegues. thank you very much for joining us. mr. pegues: thank you for having me. i appreciate it. ♪ announcer: for free transcripts, or to give us your comments, visit as at q&a.org. programs are also available as

c-span podcasts. announcer if you enjoyed this : week's interview, here are some other programs you might like. baltimore police commissioner discusses the challenges of policing in that community. and district of columbia metropolitan police chief talks about her 23 years ahaz and officer in the changes she has had over that time. and, author and former washington post reporter nathan mccall talks about his life, his work, and ♪ the hard-fought 2016 primary season is over. watch c-span as the delegates

consider the nomination of the first woman ever to had a major legal party and the first non-politician in several decades. seat to a front row every minute of both conventions on c-span. beginning on monday. british my minister david cameron took questions from members of parliament during his last question time as britain's top legislator. he talked about jobs, the economy and the future of the u.k. after that the nation leaves the european union. at the end, members of parliament asked his future role as politician and members applauded his time as prime minister.