Lawrence J. Rupp is the kind of cop who walks into a group of drug dealers in South Los Angeles and pulls up a milk crate for a chat. He's the officer with all the good stories.
Even on his honeymoon in Mexico, on a chartered flight, along with twenty-one other passengers, the new couple's plane crashed into a swamp mixed with sewage water overspill and loaded with hundreds of crocodiles, snakes and leeches.
In his mostly hilarious, sometimes sad, and always honest debut book, The Duck Theory, Rupp shares a cross-section of some of his most hair-raising experiences on the police force. He describes patrolling the streets on the hunt for crooks; in the world of law enforcement, sometimes the old adage, "If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, it's probably a duck," is true-but sometimes it's not. Rupp candidly details having to confront and analyze offenders' daily behavior in order to categorize them as a threat or simply as people enjoying themselves on the wrong side of the law.
Full of stories that could each be its own action movie, The Duck Theory will surprise you again and again with its honesty, humor, and insight into the baffling world of Los Angeles crime.
Lawrence J. Rupp, a Catholic-schooled kid from Long Beach, California, began his police career serving the city of Compton-which had the highest crime rate per capita in the United States.
Larry went on to serve with LA county's Sheriff's Department at multiple stations, including the infamous Firestone Park station as a patrolman and training officer. He then transferred to the Special Enforcement Bureau as special weapons team member, positioned as backup and scout for eight and a half years, and then went onward as an advanced officer training instructor. He was then promoted to a patrol sergeant and transferred to Lynwood station for three and a half years.
As a drill instructor at the LA Sheriff's Academy, Rupp taught many cadets and in-service personnel in crowd and riot control, command post operations, weapon retention and weapon takeaway. He then went to the College of the Redwoods, in northern California, where he taught officer survival, ambush techniques, counterterrorism, and weapons training.
After retiring, disabled, from the East Los Angeles Station, Rupp briefly worked as a private investigator in Riverside County for several years and then became a bodyguard for a trio of female country singers, that traveled throughout the United States and into Canada. He then was hired as a bodyguard for a well-known movie actor and his family for four years, and enjoyed the "red carpet" experience with the celebrity and his entourage at the Academy Awards.
Currently, Larry works as a security specialist on a large organic agricultural/cattle ranch in North San Diego County with his brothers Vince & Hank, and a good friend and former big city motor cop from the L.A.P.D.
