solemn music
You got two 20-grain federal .44 Magnums,
a six-inch barrel .44 Magnum.
These are not lead bullets.
Could use a four-inch barrel. We're not gonna do that.
We're gonna give it the real thing.
Uh, just in case this doesn't go right, there's my car keys.
Okay. [chuckles]
Uh, check the cylinder of the gun here.
-[chamber spinning] -Feel like Matt Dillon.
[sighs]
And a lot of people think I'm kind of stupid for doing this,
but if it's just one knucklehead out there
that this will make the difference to,
one guy sees this and says,
"Yeah, maybe I will get one of those,"
then it's worth it.
Easy as pie, guys.
[gunshot]
soft music
There's an arms race going on.
It's not a recent thing.
It's been going on for over 500 million years.
[roaring]
Fish would have armor on them.
Other fish have sharper teeth, stronger jaws.
The first fish develops thicker armor.
Goes back and forth, back and forth.
You have the Homo sapiens on the Earth.
They'd have crude body armor made out of vines and stuff.
They'd try to weave up a little bit.
You know, put some turtle shells or clamshells in there.
And sharp sticks would bounce off a little better.
Then the other side,
[imitates air whooshing] bows and arrows go through.
[arrows whooshing]
And the other side comes back with steel plate armor
-and chain mail armor. -[armor clanging]
And it goes back and forth
and back and forth and back and forth.
And for just a little sliver of history,
I was on the leading edge of it.
[Ramin Bahrani] In 500 million years,
Richard Davis is the only man to have shot himself 192 times
in the eternal battle between armor and weapons.
Uh, no big deal.
Ow.
Someday I'm gonna ham it up with a bag of ketchup there
and splat out and go... [imitates groaning]
[applause]
Can you get a zoom-in shot here?
[Ramin] As the inventor
of the modern-day bulletproof vest,
Richard had a product to sell.
He was a showman, businessman and a filmmaker,
creating eight hours of cult movies
that were beloved by police across the country.
Kurt, you okay, man?
I'm okay, man. He just dusted me.
-Did you get him? -I don't know, man.
I don't know.
[Ramin] At his height,
Richard was the king of a global body armor industry.
His company, Second Chance,
was worth over $50 million dollars.
His vests were being worn by police, military
-and even President Bush. -[applause]
Thank you very much for sharing your God-given talents with us.
[applause]
[Ramin] What drew me to Richard were his contradictions.
What makes a man risk his own life
in order to save thousands of people...
...only to endanger others,
time and again, over three decades,
ultimately putting over 100,000 lives at risk?
[grunts]
-Ooh. -[laughter]
The purpose of what I'm trying to illustrate to you here today,
uh, is, uh, to show you,
uh, to show you... Eh.
Seven Mile Road. Takes me back.
Uh, Petula Clark. [chuckles]
Listen to the music of the traffic in the city
Worst imitation of Petula Clark ever.
[Ramin] What used to be here?
This-this used to be my pizza store here.
Way, way back, uh, actually, 50 years ago.
Fifty-one years ago. My God, I'm old.
We'd make the pizza in the back there.
First, you take the dough,
you throw it up in the air and spin around.
Well, you don't do it with your fingers.
Everyone thinks you do it with your fingertips.
You do it with the back of your knuckles.
You put your fingertips up there, put a hole in it.
You go, flip it up.
And, boy, I can still do that. [laughs]
[Ramin] Richard's origin story as inventor
bizarrely started here.
In 1970, Richard's fiancée Karen went with her friend
to deliver an order of two large pepperoni and ham pizzas.
[Karen] We heard somebody call from the back saying,
"Bring it around the back."
So we went. We were very naive.
And there were five men there,
and, um, one put a machete to my throat
and started kind of dragging us back toward the backyard.
But then another one said,
"Let's just get the money and go."
So, we were okay.
pensive music
[Richard] Six months later,
the night after Apollo went off to the moon,
got a call in the same general area
for two large pepperoni and ham.
And that's the same order that Karen took
right into the jaws of a armed robbery.
I got a six-shot .22.
I took the revolver like this and I had it
underneath the pizza box.
I-I see these guys standing there.
I said, "Did you guys order pizza?"
And they said, "Yeah, bring it around back."
I knew it was gonna be a robbery then.
Tallest one, he had a small nickel-plated automatic
pointed right at my head.
I just kept watching his hand there, you know.
I see some stupid Western movies sometimes say,
"Watch the man's eyes. That'll tell you."
No. What the hell? Just watch his hands.
His hand started to move.
I shot inside his jaw and out his ear.
Another one went an inch off his heart,
right through him, right through him-- .22.
I missed the third shot,
and the fourth shot hit the second guy in the shoulder.
Boom, I hit him right dead center in the back,
[clicks tongue] behind the heart.
He went [blows raspberry] flat down on his nose.
Right here in this spot...
...I defeated two men in a gunfight.
Unfortunately, I was fighting three at the time.
And the guy that I thought was dead twice over
is laying on the ground.
He fired that .25 twice.
Hit me in the back of the left leg
and the right side of the head here.
And then they just shot, took off.
[siren wailing]
[Ramin] Six months later,
his two pizzerias will burn down in the same night.
There was a dispute as to how it happened.
It was definitely an arson,
and, uh... for-for a while, the policemen thought I did it.
And I imagine people r-right--
watching this right now are saying,
"Hey, maybe he did it, maybe he did it."
He did it for-- "Why would he do it?"
"For the insurance. He did it for the insurance."
I didn't have any damn insurance, okay?
[laughs] Geez.
[Ramin] Out of work
and with his alleyway shootout fresh in mind,
Richard focused his attention on the danger he saw everywhere.
dramatic music
[Richard] I kept reading stories about policemen getting killed.
And at one point in 1971, around the country,
eight cops were shot to death in one weekend.
The reason? Probably narcotics
and the lack of mandatory jail terms.
Here's the old concept in body armor.
Flak jackets.
They have two major drawbacks.
First, they are too stiff and heavy for everyday wear.
Second, the criminal can see the armor
and shoots for the officer's head.
[Richard] I realized the vest has got to be comfortable enough
to wear on a daily basis,
but nobody makes anything like that.
And I'm thinking to myself, "Well, maybe somebody ought to."
Right now...
[Richard] I got a 70-dollar roll of nylon.
It was different 'cause it was lighter than steel plates.
No metal, that's the important thing.
I made the squares and then sewed them together with an awl.
We had to make every single stitch by hand.
He cut the seat belts out of our car
to use for shoulder straps.
[Richard] I had one year
at the University of Michigan College of Engineering.
So, everything was very scientific.
[Ramin] But how did you know it worked?
Well, we shot it, yeah, we shot it.
Of course, yes.
Your bullet is right there, about halfway through.
He also shot in our basement of our townhouse,
which the neighbors didn't like very much. [laughs]
So we didn't last long in the townhouse. [laughs]
[Richard] People were saying,
if you don't have a steel plate there,
the impact of the bullet will shatter your ribs
and blow a piece of your sternum through your heart.
Very least, you'll be so stunned
you won't be able to, uh, return fire,
and the bad guy will just go over and shoot you in the head.
I didn't think that was the case,
but then again, maybe they were right.
I didn't know.
I had a scheduled demonstration at a police department.
You know, cops are very stubborn, cynical.
"Show me. Show me if this works or not."
I decided I had to do it.
I had to get shot on the vest.
"We'll go out in the woods somewhere and just do it.
Or, uh, I'll do it right here, if you guys d-don't mind."
I-I thought they would say, "Oh, God, no, liability."
They said, "Yeah, go ahead." [laughs]
[sighs]
And the cops, they go, "Wow, this really works."
They scrambled, they sent
word over the teletypes.
Teletype. That's for you young kids.
You never heard of that. [laughs]
A few hours after I got shot, everybody knew about this.
light music
And I realized
there's this window of time,
real-world here--
and, uh, don't quote me in court or anything--
but a cop just got shot.
There's a few seconds there
where he can do damn near anything to that guy.
You've been shot. You're in shock.
The guy is assaulting you.
He shot you once. Will he shoot you again?
Yeah, they will. Sometimes they do.
anticipatory music
[Ramin] Richard got into his car
with vests, guns and ammo,
and drove to police departments across the country.
[Richard] When we got an order, we put the vests in pizza boxes.
We get the vest, put it in the box, seal it up.
Off it goes.
Bam, next morning, it's in California.
The dealers are out of their minds.
Says, "I-I can't get such service like this."
So I took every dime I made
and I went and I found a four-color printer.
And inside, talking about the vest
and how you should wear it.
But I put this up here.
"Sex & Violence."
As stupid as it is, it got people's attention.
The first question they commonly asked:
"Who's the sexy blonde on the cover?"
And I would say,
"That's me. The girl ain't bad either."
[laughs]
[Ramin] What did Karen think about this cover?
Oh, she-she was cool with it.
That was the one that I kind of had a problem with. [chuckles]
[Richard] We had a little husband-wife arrangement.
It was kind of cool.
Whenever I'm going out to be working with models,
that morning, we'd go up...
[laughs]
She'd drain my bodily fluids.
[laughs]
She'd toss me to the bed there,
and the tank's empty already.
[laughs]
Oh, yes.
That girl's got the two best-looking legs in America.
You know how I know that? I counted them.
"Sex & Violence" became an institution.
I said to Karen, "Do you realize we're doing so well,
we can go to Kmart and buy anything we want?"
She goes, "Yeah." [laughs]
This is redneck nirvana here. [laughs]
[Ramin] Richard left Detroit and opened a factory
in the small blue-collar town of Central Lake
in Northern Michigan.
He hired hundreds of people who were out of work
and became the town's biggest employer.
Richard is crazy, yes.
[both laughing]
A good crazy.
[both laugh]
People would talk about him
coming into the shop with big buckets
of Kentucky Fried Chicken and passing it out to everybody.
[Ramin] He was a civic leader, a savior to the town.
Out of his own pocket,
he orchestrated an annual fireworks show
that drew tens of thousands to the region.
All these people coming in,
going to the restaurants, going to the stores, you know.
Um, and made them aware of
our-our little town of Central Lake.
[Ramin] At its core, Second Chance was a family business.
Richard's wife, sister
and father all held key positions.
He even cast his mom to act in his films.
Meet Mr. Browning.
[Ramin] And when his son Matt grew up,
he came to work for his dad.
Our carriers and our-- all of our concealer panels.
[Ramin] Richard bought a 600-acre plot of land
for his home, shooting ranges and lots of guns.
[Richard] This land is your land
No, it isn't. This land is my land, yes.
Get the hell off this land.
This land is my land
This land is my land, this land is my land
This land is my land
Some of the other companies, my competitors,
every day, I had people lying about me,
saying that the vest didn't work
or some guy got killed wearing our vest.
They were saying that I was dead.
This is normal. They would lie about me all the time.
[Ramin] And, Richard, describe for me a moment
where you didn't tell the truth.
I didn't tell the truth?
Uh, you got me there. [stammers]
pensive music
The truth is probably the most fragile
and elusive thing in our universe.
It can be bent, distorted,
turned around.
It can be destroyed.
Police! Don't move!
Freeze!
Don't move! Don't move.
[assailant] You got me. You got me.
You breathe wrong, I'll kill you.
You breathe wrong, I'll kill you!
[Ramin] Tell me about the day that you were shot.
[Aaron Westrick] I was called to
a breaking and entering in progress.
The suspect's running from the back of this house,
and I went to capture him.
And, uh, I got close,
within five feet, and I could see out the corner of my eye
with my flashlight that he had a gun
and that he was getting ready to shoot me,
and he did. [chuckles]
And I shot him back.
Where did he shoot you?
Well, a bullet went through my hand
and then lodged in my vest.
Second Chance Body Armor saved my life.
Next thing you know, I'm talking to Richard Davis.
He wanted to verify.
"Do you have newspaper articles?" and so forth.
I told him what happened, and he said,
"Sounds to me like you're a save."
When I put that armor on, I feel like
it's Richard Davis protecting me.
[Ramin] Aaron Westrick would arguably become
the most consequential person saved by Richard Davis.
-That's you. -That's me.
soft music
[Richard] When I first started the vest, I said,
"If we save somebody, I'm gonna make a list."
Here's the name, the date, the place, the weapon,
and maybe get the guy's picture with a bruise and smiling.
I jokingly call myself "Save zero-zero-zero."
I was realistically hoping for maybe a hundred eventually.
So, uh, I was very happy to be wrong on that.
We saved more than a thousand.
Sometimes you go for two or three weeks
without saving anybody,
and I'd get like a heroin addict withdrawal.
Come on, when we gonna save somebody? [laughs]
If I wouldn't have been wearing the body armor,
the .22 would've killed me, period.
If Chris hadn't been wearing his Second Chance vest,
we wouldn't have Samuel today.
-It's great to be alive. -Yeah.
[Chris laughs]
Well, she wasn't around when he got shot.
She's only six months old,
so I guess you'd call her a Second Chance baby.
[Angela Watson] This is what saved me.
The round was actually stuck in my vest right here.
A year or so later, I was getting married.
I told Richard, you know, I didn't have a real father.
My real father didn't want anything to do with me,
so, uh, I asked Richard,
"Would you be willing to walk me down the aisle?"
I said, "Angie, I will cancel an audience with the Pope, okay?
I'm gonna be there."
It just doesn't get any cooler than that.
[laughing]
dramatic music
[woman screams]
[Ramin] You became a movie maker.
Yeah.
I was a director then,
yeah, I guess, I suppose.
Writer, director,
sometimes star-- I don't know.
[woman] The impact caused me permanent damage.
[Richard] To promote the vest,
we got policemen who'd been shot in their vest,
got them all to come up here,
and they went through and reenacted their shooting.
It's a cross between a 30-second commercial
and a two-hour movie. [chuckles]
I would love to have just made a 30-second commercial
and say, "Hey, this is a vest,"
but, no, you got to, got to, got to get them intrigued
and show, hey, this guy got saved his life,
and this one saved his life.
"Oh, wow."
Die, pig.
[man groans]
[Aaron] With the reenactments,
Richard was trying to be as accurate as possible.
[gunfire]
But my reenactment,
it didn't happen in daylight.
-Freeze! -[Ramin] And the man
who shot you, he was a white man or a Black man?
Yeah, he was a Black man.
In the re-creation, he is played by a white man.
[Aaron] Good point.
The re-creation is working with what they had.
You got me.
[Ramin] In his films, we see Richard's marketing savvy.
But they also unveil his inner fears and desires.
[shouting]
In his 1975 film, Second Chance vs. UAP,
a ragtag leftist group of communist hippies gone berserk
make it their mission to murder the police.
We're killing pigs, killing pigs, killing pigs.
There's no more righteous and beautiful act
than the liquidation of the brutal fascist insect
which preys upon the lives of our people.
[men cheering]
[Ramin] What does "UAP" stand for?
Yeah, that's-that's, that's where--
that's the grabber there, see?
UAPs do exist.
"Unorganized Asshole Punks."
Ah, and, like,
you think this organization doesn't exist, but it does,
and they're killing ten policemen every month.
We'd go out to police departments,
and they'd show it at a police union meeting.
Everybody loved it, you know, and they wanted more.
Freeze! Police!
[Ramin] Richard's films instilled fear into the police
so they would keep buying the latest model vests.
[alarm ringing]
Inspired by Hollywood films,
Richard's movies also encouraged police to become rogue killers.
[crowd screaming]
So the question is, punk: Do you feel lucky?
Well, punk, do you feel lucky?
Well, do you, punk?
dramatic music
[crowd screaming]
[Ramin] The films also allowed Richard
to lampoon the media if they questioned police brutality.
Was Godzilla armed?
Well, no, but he was... he was huge.
Well, did you fire a warning shot?
No.
[Ramin] The bad guys were Godzilla,
their guilt and execution a predetermined fate.
So, you killed Godzilla in cold blood?
Well, I had to, lady. He's a reptile.
[whistling tune]
[Richard] You're in such a deadly serious business.
You got to have a sense of humor about this,
'cause if you don't, you'll go stark raving mad.
What is comedy?
Webster's Dictionary defines "comedy"
as "that form of entertainment..."
[muffled mumbling]
I think maybe a part of my attraction to Richard
is the fact that I've always been a fan of opera.
He is a truly operatic character.
[Ramin] What is the name of the Richard Davis opera?
Um...
Boom.
solemn music
[Richard] I betrayed my wonderful wife Karen.
It's the biggest regret of my life.
[chuckles] Oh, no.
Uh, yeah, it was pure hedonistic.
Kathleen.
Wow, killer body.
She's a very, uh, artistic-- She has great, great talent.
She can do an imitation of Elmer Fudd reading pornography
that will put you on the floor
with tears in your eyes laughing.
[imitating Elmer Fudd] "I was stunned out of my head
about her naked body." [laughs]
We just-- I don't know. Richard's a lot.
Richard's a lot. [laughs]
[whip cracks]
We were divorced, but I stayed in the company
because I needed to protect my interests.
I began to appreciate her difficulties immediately.
Immediately.
Richard desperately needs to be loved by people.
He has his minions, his friends, his followers.
For example, Aaron Westrick loved Richard.
[Ramin] And did Richard love Aaron?
He loved him
as one of his pet saves.
He loved him the way someone would love a champ dog.
I don't care what anybody says.
Aaron and Richard were good friends.
Their personalities were somewhat similar
with their level of energy,
and Aaron, he was always moving.
Talking, moving, something.
They understood each other.
Richard, he was very generous.
Aaron Westrick, 265.
[Kim] Take us out to eat, you know,
take us out on his boat.
Karen, you know, she sent us baby gifts,
and, um, we all kind of got pretty close.
[Richard] Our next video's gonna be,
"Aaron Westrick, Master of Criminal Justice."
And-and perched on-- you'd be on a rock, see,
in your superhero outfit with the cape flowing.
"I see a perpetrator!" [imitates whirring]
-You fly down. Okay. -[men chuckling]
[Aaron] Richard called me on the phone.
He said, "We want you to come up here and work with us.
You're-you're our best save."
I remember those words, "You're our best save."
Aaron Westrick just mentioned something off camera.
Tell-tell the whole police community in America,
Aaron, what you just told me.
[Aaron] At that point, I would do marketing.
For a while there, we had a blast.
Richard Davis here.
I was kind of, uh, his sidekick, in a way.
Ah!
[Aaron] The executives telling me,
"It's your job to keep an eye on him."
Years ago, when I was shot,
I was released from the hospital that night.
The sheriff looked at me, he said,
"Son, you did a good job,
but for 25 cents,
you could've saved this county a lot of money."
[Ramin] What did that mean, "for 25 cents"?
A bullet, another bullet cost 25 cents.
I could've walked over top of him and shot him.
And I didn't do that.
He quit firing...
He hit me, I shot him back,
he quit firing, and I quit firing.
I didn't stand over top of him and execute him.
Bad guys who shoot policemen
are deliberately trying to kill them.
I think you get a one-way ticket to hell,
not life in prison or not, uh, ten years on death row.
Uh, right there, right there, on the spot, dead.
That's-that's my way of doing it.
Just got a call.
A New York state trooper has been shot. [chuckles]
[Ramin] Richard had a policy for police officers
saved by a Second Chance vest.
If they killed their shooter, he would reward them with a gun.
[man on phone] I took my gun and fired back at him.
Did you, did you kill him?
No. Uh, he returned to the car.
You know, he was moving back at the time.
[Ramin] But without the execution,
there was no bounty.
somber music
[Kathleen] I think Richard always saw himself
as a person of destiny.
Like Prometheus bringing back something
from the gods to benefit humankind.
In the struggle between life and death,
he could tip the odds.
mellow music
[Ramin] One of Richard's most haunting
and strange transgressions happened in 1990
at the Second Chance Pin Shoot.
This annual shooting competition
was a weeklong event Richard staged on his property.
It attracted the best professional
and amateur marksmen,
even Olympians from around the world.
And Richard was the ringleader.
[women squealing]
[Tim Paczesny] That was really fun as a kid.
I, in fact, won a very large Gurkha knife,
which is about this big,
and, uh, I won it as a 12-year-old.
And, you know, my parents had to sign t-to take it,
but I won it 'cause I knew the answer to the question,
which was, "What's the name of this knife?"
And it was a Gurkha.
And, uh, it's actually a killing knife.
[onlookers cheering]
Richard Davis was an icon.
He was the most powerful person.
You know, he was the guy that employed
80% of the town.
And, uh, for me, somebody to look up to
as somebody that you might want to be someday.
When I was 16, I made a bad choice.
I was out drinking with some friends.
We had pulled behind the school
and basically said, "Hey, let's go in and do a senior prank."
I threw around some stuff.
I broke some stuff.
It was, uh, life-changing for me at that age.
And it has to do with this right here.
And that's what started the next part
of Richard's bad decision.
"Police apprehend Central Lake vandal suspects,"
which is me. [sniffs]
But right above this is another title of a article about
Richard Davis's company and himself,
and it says, "Bullet found in Central Lake woman's home."
During Richard Davis's Pin Shoot,
a bullet ricocheted and flew through the woods
into this lady's home through a window.
And, uh, she then, I guess,
proceeded to have a heart attack or have some problems
where she thought she was having a heart attack,
and they had to bring in a flight and take her.
And so there was money that was gonna be involved.
Richard saw the articles and wanted to contact me.
Thus his bad decision began and took us down a crazy road.
pensive music
He picks me up in his Mercedes-Benz,
and he takes me for a drive back to his back property.
And it's way through the woods.
There's one way in, one way out.
And along the way, he started telling me this story
about these problems that I'm having
and these problems he's having and how they might correlate.
And he said, "Well, you know what I think?
I think you might've got this crazy idea
to just go on a crazy vandalism spree
and go shoot a bullet through this lady's window.
You rode your bike or whatever up there,
took a slingshot and shot this bullet through the window."
And I was like, "Why would I do that?"
And he just said, "My company could get sued
for millions of dollars."
And he said, "Well, I would like to be your godfather.
What are you gonna do?"
You know, "What are you gonna do in life?
Are you gonna go to college? I can take care of you."
I believe this is the same time he showed me
what he called flash money.
And, uh, it was a stack of money.
He said, "That-that could eventually be yours."
When I got to my side of the car
and he got to his side of the car,
he looked across the top of his...
I believe it was, like, a lime green Mercedes.
He looked right at me and he said,
"Listen, if you tell anyone, I will kill you."
[dog barking]
Once my dad heard that,
he wanted to get a shotgun and go get him.
But of course,
that shotgun wouldn't help [laughs] with Richard.
You know, you need an aircraft carrier.
[rapid gunfire]
[Ramin] I want to ask you about Tim.
Tim.
Have you seen Tim since this incident?
No.
Do you ever see him in town or--
No. Uh, maybe.
I never look for him, don't really care about him anymore.
Don't really care about him.
dramatic music
[Tim] At that point, I ended up going undercover
for Traverse City Narcotics Team.
They came in, put a wire on me,
and we had meetings, and they explained, you know,
"Whenever he calls, set up a meeting,
and, you know, w-we'll go from there."
Richard picked me up in that green Mercedes,
and we went out to, uh...
I'm sorry, I'm getting a little shaky
'cause it just makes me anxiety-ridden.
I got in the vehicle with him, and when we parked,
the very first thing he did is looked at me
and reached over and started to pat me down.
And, uh, I didn't know what to do.
I thought, "Oh, no."
And then he touched my chest and I knocked him off and I said,
"What are you, a fag?"
Because I know that was the best thing
for me to do at that moment.
And, uh, he said, "No, no, I'm just paranoid, paranoid."
You know? And, um...
After that, he never touched me again.
pensive music
[Ramin] Richard was charged with obstruction of justice
and a weapons possession felony.
He was able to plead the charges down to a misdemeanor,
pay a fine,
and avoid a mandatory two-year prison sentence.
His Mercedes-Benz was impounded.
[Tim] With Richard Davis being the most powerful person
in the town, it's a lot easier in your mind to say,
"Oh, that kid's lying and he did it,"
but not look any further
because that man's paying your salary.
[Ramin] And what did your mom and dad think at that time?
Oh, uh, it was horrible.
[voice breaking] My mom worked at the local grocery store.
She had to quit.
[sniffling]
Sorry.
But I was very...
brought a lot of shame on my family.
[Richard] I regret ever speaking to the guy.
I never sh-should've said anything.
And, uh, I was wrong.
I was, I was wrong to, uh,
try to investigate the thing on my own.
I shouldn't have done that, but, uh...
that's another inglorious misstep there, really.
Okay, little lower. Cock it up.
[David Zeman] Richard Davis made a career
out of promoting his-his protection of law enforcement
and people who put themselves at risk every day.
But in his actions, when push came to shove,
he was more about protecting himself.
[Ramin] Did you ever meet Richard in person?
[David] No. Neither he nor his attorneys
would talk with us.
But we were able to get a lot of deposition testimony
from him and some of his colleagues.
[Ramin] Can you please read this?
I'll read a section of it.
This section here.
Oh, that's from that stupid Detroit News article.
Which, uh...
Ah. Oh, man.
This is all, God...
[David] We followed the police reports,
and he always seems to escape un-unscathed
and throw everyone else under the bus around him.
[crowd cheering]
Richard Davis had been putting on
firework displays every summer.
At the display in 1997, something tragic happened.
One of the canisters that had the fireworks
exploded on the ground,
and shrapnel just, uh, went all over the place.
[crowd screaming]
[Kathleen] People were screaming.
And one lost an arm and a leg,
and another one was killed in front of his children.
I said apologizing would've been an insult,
you know what I'm saying? "Oh, please forgive me
for killing your husband there." You know?
And you can't...
You know, I wish I could push a button, do it over again.
We had the empty boxes we took the shells out of.
There's all this Chinese writing all over it.
Well, we finally get somebody to translate it
and look up in China,
and there was no such company and no such address.
These people knew they're making crap
and th-they're deliberately disguising it.
And everybody's pointing at me like it's my fault, so--
Well, that-that's America for you.
[David] He was charged with felonies.
I-I believe those were bargained down as well.
And from what we found in the court records
up in Northern Michigan is what led us back to Detroit
and the incident with the pizza shop.
[Tim] He had a business,
and, uh, he explained that he burnt this business
for the money to finance the next business.
And, um, that's on tape somewhere in some transcript
because I was wired when that was said.
[Ramin] We searched for Tim's wire
but were told by Traverse City Police
that it had been disposed of years ago.
On December 31, 1969,
Richard took out $5,000 worth of insurance on his pizzerias.
Six days later, they burned down.
But when I pressed Richard on the arson again,
his answer was the same.
[Richard] Everybody assumed that I had insurance on it.
They're running around all over the place.
Well, if you find an insurance policy,
[laughs] I'll split the money with you, pal, okay?
I just ain't got one.
And, yeah, that drives me nuts.
F-Fifty years later,
I'm still being asked about this, you know.
Good God Almighty.
[Tim] How could somebody that I thought was
a savior of people be somebody
that's not on the other end when no one's around?
I think we all have that particle potential.
I-I'm beginning to study,
uh, Taoism and-and some ancient philosophies.
And I think it's like the yin yang.
Life is right smack in the middle,
and the yin and the yang are good and bad.
All our lives, we're gonna have good and bad come at us.
Richard Davis's and my life was a bad situation,
but he was a positive thing
in the other end of the yin and yang
in a lot of people's lives.
He saved those people's lives with those bulletproof vests.
So, um, the question is at the end of the day:
When they put you in the ground,
how big-- what does your yin yang look like?
Is there more good or more bad?
I'm hoping that mine has more good.
That's my goal.
I'm alone now.
The camera's running automatically.
This is where you're gonna be when you die, alone.
No matter if there's a thousand people around you,
you're gonna be alone.
[Ramin] Richard deleted this scene from his film.
He said it was too mushy.
Here, imagining his own death, he gives a final soliloquy
to the police officers he hopes to save.
[Richard on video] I'm scared now,
so damn scared I can feel it,
because I know
that how well this has been presented to you
is going to determine
whether or not many of you will live or die.
[Ramin] Richard, why do you have this burden?
[exhales heavily] Because I can do it.
I can save these people.
And, uh...
...if I don't, uh, it feels,
you know, to some degree it's my fault.
I didn't make the vests light enough
or [sighs] maybe if I would've shot one...
...would've got shot some-some other time,
a couple more times or something,
maybe that would've made a difference to somebody.
And, uh...
[sighs]
My dad warned me.
He says, "There's gonna be times when you don't save the guy."
Oh, gee, you know, just the... [groans]
That's the way it is.
Just, uh... go on and save the next guy.
Just don't-don't sit there and moan about it.
Just-- you can't.
pensive music
Historically, body armor would not
have saved President Lincoln.
It would not have saved John F. Kennedy.
Would've saved George Wallace.
Would've saved Malcolm X.
[gunshot]
And probably would've saved half the people
at the Battle of Gettysburg.
You know, what if?
My dad was in the Marines.
February 1945, news was full of stories about this island,
Iwo Jima, where hundreds and then thousands of casualties
were being taken every day. Every day.
[Ramin] Were they wearing body armor?
[Richard] No, none at all.
My dad's best friend, on the first day of Iwo Jima,
a mortar shell came down and blew the guy to bits.
And, uh, my dad had to spend the night
with, uh, pieces of his best friend, um,
right around, right around the foxhole, I think.
Um...
Then he had nothing else better to do on this little island
than go on a five-week killing spree.
[Ramin] Richard told me his first memory
was sitting on the porch swing
between his mother and grandmother,
waiting for the unthinkable horror
of the gray Navy staff car coming with death notices.
For six weeks, they sat there, until the sun went down,
and he knew his father had survived.
When his father returned home, he never spoke of the war.
Richard, however, spoke of it often.
Perhaps he created his persona, real and fictional,
on an experience he had never had,
his life more like an echo.
So, we grew up with the war.
That was a, you know, a good war.
They say that World War II was the last good war,
where the-the bad guys were really bad
and the good guys were really good. [laughs]
And now it gets so muddled
and, uh, twisted around and everything.
[Ramin] Richard enlisted in the Marines,
but unlike his father, he was never deployed.
Did you have a lot to prove to your father growing up?
Yeah, I-I, uh...
had a hard time, you know, getting approval, I...
mainly 'cause, uh, you know,
I-I couldn't go to Iwo Jima or anything, you know, so...
Uh, very high, very high bar there, you know?
Only a few times where I've been shot by somebody else.
And this just sounds really, boy, soldier of fortune here,
but I wanted somebody who's coldblooded enough
that he's not gonna go, "Oh," flinch away at the last second,
blow my elbow off, you know.
So this is my father.
Uh, last time he shot a man was on a place called Iwo Jima.
Right over here. Right-- oh, whoa, whoa.
[laughs]
Uh, let it go, Dad.
Unload 'em.
Okay.
You'll get the idea. One more.
That's good.
[Ramin] Despite Richard's pleas,
his father could not stop shooting,
in a silent trance, firing over and over...
...ultimately shooting at his son's groin.
[Matt Davis] My grandfather was a great salesman,
a great leader.
And he played a huge role in my father's success
in building Second Chance.
Because my father has no filter, um,
I think my grandfather played an important role
in helping to keep my dad kind of focused
and on the right path.
[phone ringing]
He pretty much ran the office
and built the sales organization.
He was also tough as nails.
One time, my dad said, "Your grandfather and I
want to have a conversation with you.
What do you want to do when you get out of school?"
I said, "Well, I was thinking about going to college
and then going to med school."
And my grandfather has a glass of bourbon
or whiskey or something,
and he just slams it down on this glass table.
Bam!
And he looks at me and he goes, "Business!"
Just like that.
soft music
[Aaron] I've always thought to myself
that his father was
his moral compass.
I think peop-- other executives
within the company knew that, too.
They were thinking, you know,
"Oh, we got to reel him in a little bit. Get his dad."
When he passed away, I think Second Chance changed.
[Ramin] Richard's father
cast a large shadow over his life,
so I can imagine his legacy looming over Richard
when he arrived in that dark alleyway in Detroit in 1970
with two large pizzas.
When investigative journalists in Detroit
looked into Richard's origin story,
they could not find any proof
the alleyway shooting had happened.
Matt and I, we searched through all the records.
We found a, we found a copy of the Detroit police report,
and we sent it to the-- I sent,
I sent it to the reporters at the Detroit News
with a "fuck you" note or something and whatever.
I don't know. Idiots, you know. And there it is.
They-they never, they never printed a correction, of course.
[Ramin] May I see that?
Jesus. Uh...
Whew.
Ah, boy, I-I don't--
Matt might have-- M-Matt might have saved it.
Saves a lot of stuff. He might have it.
[Ramin] His son Matt did not have a copy.
We found a low-resolution one in an obscure gun forum online,
but we could not verify if it was real.
I asked Richard if it was all a fabrication.
[laughs] No, I'm not making it up.
And, oh, oh, I got one for you.
Uh, geez.
The wedding book or wedding pictures.
My wedding pictures, okay?
You see me in the wedding pictures,
scar's right here, stitches, right?
Still in stitches.
[Ramin] When I look at this photo,
I do not see a scar.
I see a cowlick in his eyebrow.
And frustratingly, in all the other wedding photos,
the evidence is turned away from us,
obscured, hidden from view.
[Aaron] And not only was it me getting
fooled, perhaps, it was, like, everybody. [chuckles]
And perhaps I'm blocking it
because I... I really don't want to believe anything
but the myth.
The legend.
[Kathleen] Richard strikes me as being a narcissist.
His mind never turns off.
He thinks out loud, and that was a problem.
Richard could never be quiet.
[laughs] He just never could be quiet.
You come out of this gorgeous woods to this... just
back range where they would test explosives.
And they're running big .50-cal machine guns.
Boom-de-boom-de-boom. Shakes the china cupboard
all the way up by my house.
Richard and his followers
who come up here and blow things up,
it's as though the profane had been plunked down
in the center of the sacred.
dramatic music
They don't see it.
They don't see it, all these people coming up and,
"Oh, I love to go out in nature
and camp out and stuff like that."
There's nothing left behind them
but smoke and smell and destruction.
There's nothing really creative or reparative about it.
[rapid gunfire]
The world would probably be better off without people,
and that's probably what's going to happen.
I-I believe that it will, the way we're going now.
Um, I think that we'll become extinct,
and then the world will heal after we're gone.
-[clamoring] -[sirens wailing]
[helicopter whirring]
[Richard] On 9/11, I came into the factory.
On the TV set, one tower is burning there.
For a few minutes there, I was thinking
it was an accident, you know.
And then [imitates plane crash] comes the second one.
I said, "We're gonna get busy."
This is gonna mean doves
are gonna turn into hawks,
and hawks are gonna turn into vampires.
America united like that was
a really fearsome international thing.
Everybody just, whoa-- you got a real superpower
that's not taking a lot of bullshit from anybody.
N-Nobody's gonna stand there and say,
"Oh, we shouldn't be so cruel."
No, boom, kill 'em all.
[explosion]
[whooping, shouting]
Iraq never had a chance.
The technology was there, we just flattened them.
[soldiers shouting]
[Ramin] America invaded a country
that had nothing to do with it.
Uh, well, in all wars,
more people get killed by accident than on purpose.
[Ramin] As the war on terror began,
Second Chance's sales skyrocketed
from government contracts.
The company planned to go public on Wall Street,
and they had a new product to help them meet the moment.
We're gonna introduce to you the newest,
lightest vest ever made in the history of the world.
I am 55 years old,
about 55 pounds overweight, and this concealed body armor
only weighs 0.55 pounds per square foot.
Three, two, one.
The bullet is embedded here in the Zylon.
Along comes this fiber Zylon.
Holy moly, this is really great.
'Cause basically, lighter, thinner, stronger.
The dream of every armor maker.
Wow.
To me, it was something
that I thought was a once-in-a-lifetime discovery.
And we announced it by saying, "There's a new sheriff in town,
and it's called Zylon."
[Aaron] It was advertised as, uh, Kevlar on steroids.
It was an amazing product at that point.
[Ramin] The Zylon going into their vests was
a revolutionary new fiber,
and Second Chance had a brief exclusive window
to research, develop and sell it
before their competitors would gain access
and cut into their profits.
Aaron had become director of research,
reporting to Ed Bachner.
A former Marine from Texas, Ed is a chemist
who used to run DuPont's body armor division,
famous for its use of Kevlar.
In his basement, he showed us how he liked to relax:
making bullets.
There it is.
That's a 185-grain, .45 ACP jacketed hollow point.
I shoot them as fast as I load them. [chuckles]
[Aaron] Ed Bachner is a heck of a guy,
and he could be really stringent about,
"You got to know this."
So he trained me about ballistic testing.
In 2001, I was called in by the general manager,
and he showed me
a five- or six-page memo coming from the Zylon factory.
Obviously, I'm not a chemist or mechanical engineer,
but I can read [chuckles], okay?
And it's CYA.
It's a cover-your-ass report.
Zylon seems to be degrading.
I said, "We may have problems."
[Ramin] And did you and Richard test it together?
Yeah, right here in the shop, we did.
We took and put a phone book on the floor
and put the vest over the top of it, and he tried...
I can't remember what round he was shooting now.
But anyways, he shot at it,
and the damn thing went right through the vest
and the phone book and hit the floor.
I'm going, "Holy crap."
If I don't make it through this,
this does not mean concealed body armor doesn't work
or Second Chance ain't good.
It means that I screwed up on a new vest.
The standard for our body armor is:
Will I stand there and shoot myself on the chest?
The answer became: well, maybe.
[gun cocks]
Okay, camerapeople.
Three, two, one.
[indistinct chatter, chuckling]
Okay, wow, I felt it, even through...
whew, even through everything else.
pensive music
[Kathleen] I thought the Zylon vests
should have been immediately withdrawn.
But he didn't think that he could.
I reminded him that he owned 51% of the company,
and that up to this point,
nobody ever told him he couldn't do it.
[Aaron] Initially, Richard said,
"Aaron, you're gonna give a talk."
I had a piece of paper written
pretty much by Richard Davis saying,
"This is what's really happening."
And right beforehand,
lawyer or the general manager take it from me,
and I'd be like, "You're kidding me, right?"
And I looked at Richard, and he'd be like...
[Ramin] This was a memo your dad wrote in 2002.
Would you read it for me, please?
Yeah.
Interesting.
I remember seeing this long ago,
but, um, been a long time since I saw that.
Is this dated?
July 29, 2002.
[Ramin] In his memo to the board,
Richard stated that Zylon was degrading much faster
than the fibers they had previously been using.
He wanted the board to sign,
admitting they were selling defective vests
to unsuspecting American law enforcement
and military who could be killed or wounded in their products.
Richard was unable to stand up to the board,
and ironically, he had put into writing
an unintentional admission of guilt.
The company knew Zylon was putting lives at risk.
[Aaron] Richard must've given out one to everybody,
and then, uh, it didn't take long.
Matt came back down and wanted to know,
"Where's that memo I gave you?"
And I went upstairs. I--
Upstairs with the other board members, right?
And there, yeah, sure as heck... [laughs]
you got the lawyer
and Matt and Karen,
and they were putting it in the shredder.
[Ramin] But how do you know it was that memo and not--
Because I-I walked in, and it was.
And, um...
...I gave him back the memo, but I had a copy of it.
Richard came home and said, "Somebody's gonna die!"
And stomping around the den.
I said, "What are you gonna do about it?
You must do something about it."
Richard was just having some sort of a fight in his head,
and I couldn't touch it, I couldn't deal with it.
I couldn't do anything.
Talking to me is like talking to the dog.
From the time he said that to me...
...it was like somebody pushed a timer
and it was ticking in my head.
dramatic music
[Jamie Zeppetella] The morning after Tony was shot,
I asked them right away,
"Did Tony's vest fail?"
And they told me no.
I was really just having a hard time
believing it.
November of 2002,
a sales representative had been at Oceanside Police Department,
um, showing the Second Chance
Zylon vest.
Tony liked to have the best of everything, equipment-wise.
Especially having a baby on the way,
he wanted to be the most protected that he could be.
The news was on.
I saw a shot of the officer
on the gurney.
He didn't have a shirt on, and I saw his shoulder.
And I just knew. I knew that was him.
And now Jakob does have
the same arm and shoulder as his dad.
solemn music
[Richard] They kept saying there was,
there was a hole in the Zylon vest.
They would not let us see the Zylon vest.
We never got to see the damn Zylon vest.
They had a big production after years,
finally get to see the vest.
They go into this room.
There's pictures of the vest laying there.
And we weren't even allowed to take
pictures of the pictures.
And I went, "What the hell's going on here?"
He got shot on his Second Chance Zylon vest,
and the bullet stopped.
The bullet stopped.
A second shot hit him up on the edge of the cover,
just barely nicked the-the Zylon.
Nicked the Zylon and down into his chest.
And it's back to the old dilemma
that has been facing armor makers since ancient Babylonia.
How big do you make the vests?
Why don't you to come up here, you know?
Well, what if you get shot here?
Well, come up to here. "Oh, I can't see," you know.
[stammers] There's always gonna be an edge of the vest.
It doesn't go off into infinity of space or anything.
There's gonna be an edge.
[Jamie] I actually got to see the vest in person,
and I could see the holes that went through and through.
Tony was shot 13 times,
but he wouldn't have survived even the first shot.
They, uh, you know,
just looking for money, that's all it was.
There was no pen-- was no perforation of that vest.
[Ramin] Just before we finished the film,
we were finally granted access to the autopsy report.
The bullet had gone through and through.
It's a really sad, sad thing.
We're very saddened for him, uh, for his family.
Um...
Yeah.
In life, things happen, right?
Things you don't intend to have happen,
that have bad repercussions,
and the same is true in business.
I believe that God gave man
the greatest gift possible, and that is free will.
And when we have free will,
bad things will happen.
sullen music
[Steve Kohn] If you remember, there was this infamous case
where Ford was selling the Pinto car.
They knew the gas tank was in a hazardous position.
They didn't move the gas tank, many people died.
I'm looking at the same thing in Second Chance.
When Aaron came to us,
I had already been representing whistleblowers
for a long time.
And he told me what happened, and it took me about 11 minutes
to realize he had a very strong case.
If one cop is shot by one person, that's bad.
But if a company sells 100,000 vests
that don't work to 100,000 innocent policemen,
you can figure out which was worse.
[Ramin] It wasn't long before another officer was shot
and permanently injured,
and there were still 100,000 Zylon vests
on the bodies of police and U.S. military overseas,
and many were rapidly degrading.
The government asked Aaron Westrick to wear a wire
against the man whose vest had saved his life.
They hoped he might convince Richard to flip
and testify against the board.
[Aaron] My heart, uh,
sank, but he goes, "Would you do it?"
I said, "Yes."
I would meet with an agent at a hotel,
just on the outskirts of Traverse City,
where he would put the wire on me.
But I didn't like the idea of
meeting in a place outside of work
an hour and a half or so beforehand
so you could get wired up
and the listening van could get into position,
like, across the street from Second Chance.
You look in the mirror and you say,
"Am I doing the right thing?"
This is really hard.
I'm wearing a wire to work.
I told Aaron once before
there's certain parts of his body, I think,
that are bigger than his brains sometimes. [laughs]
[sighs]
I think that he really wanted Richard
to do the right thing and even say the right thing,
when he had the wire.
You know, it's-- this is real,
this is real torture for me to listen to this.
[Aaron on video] And you wrote a memo, too.
Yeah.
Richard just went in the building.
I'm gonna get him.
[beep]
What-what a backstabbing shit.
[Aaron] Richard.
Come on, come on, bud.
Come on over. I want to yak with you.
[Richard] There you are. Okay, what's up?
[Aaron] I want to make it real clear how I feel about this.
[Richard] God, Aaron, if I'm clear on one thing,
I'm clear how you feel about this.
[Aaron] You're in deep shit. I'm telling you right now.
I kept careful notes.
[Richard] I-I know you did, Aaron.
[Aaron] You're in serious trouble--
[Richard] Aaron, no shit!
[Aaron] If you come-- but come around
and-and point the finger where it belongs.
[Richard] What the hell you want me to do?
I mean, I may lose everything I own because of this.
Everything I own.
Everything I own I put into this thing.
What am I supposed to do, set myself on fire or something?
-[Aaron] I don't want you to-- -[Richard] I mean,
what-what can I do?
We should've acted faster.
That-That's absolute fact.
Put a billboard out there.
Should've acted faster.
I'm sorry we didn't act faster.
The abso-absolute truth is we got overwhelmed.
It's like when I told-- was told my dad had cancer.
I-I didn't want to believe it at first.
It was too enormous.
It's terminal cancer.
We're told, we're told that our vest had terminal cancer.
So we kept looking around.
Is there some way, some way we can get out of this thing?
[Aaron] But what about the vests that were already made?
[Richard] That's the past, okay?
Right now, today, what's the best course of action?
I'm trying to do right now is to save 250 jobs. You know?
I got all these people who are gonna be out of work.
What are you gonna do?
How we gonna save Second Chance Body Armor?
[Aaron] I know what you're saying,
but the truth of the matter is
our Second Chance vests have failed.
[Richard] I know this, okay? Okay?
You all set with that now?
We got that, got that established?
I'm pissed off, okay?
Everything he's saying there, he's trying to set me up.
It's-it's like playing a game of Simon Says,
only you don't know you're playing.
If I would've had one little moment of moral weakness
and said, "Yeah, well, let's see what you want to do.
Let's do that. Let's do that then."
And I'd be going to prison.
Prison.
The guy who saved hundreds of American policemen
goes into a prison, what's gonna happen to him?
How many hours do you think I'd last?
I think-- And he knew that.
[Aaron] What do you want me to do, Richard?
Do you want me to lie in front of you?
[Richard] No, I don't want you to lie in front of me.
Don't lie about anything. Don't lie, don't lie.
All-all I can ask you is to-- once a long time ago,
Second Chance saved your life.
Now you got to save Second Chance.
somber music
[Ramin] Do you think Richard was motivated by
money in his life?
No, he was motivated by passion.
The vests were his reason for being.
And, um, and it failed.
[Kim] I didn't know it was gonna be as hard
as what it was.
You know, we saw people steal our garbage.
I guess that's how they try to find dirt on people.
I mean, who else would steal our garbage?
I always told the kids, you know, you come home,
you see a strange car parked on the road
that you don't recognize,
don't go home.
Go to the neighbors and call me.
I didn't feel like I could maybe talk to him
about things that I needed to, because I...
A, I didn't think I would be heard,
and B, he was already stressed enough.
But I don't blame Aaron for taking down Richard.
Richard did that to himself by not doing the right thing.
It is ironic that, you know, he saved Aaron on one end,
and in the end, I suppose Richard couldn't save himself.
[Ramin] So how do you manage your health care
from 2004 until now?
[Ramin] When you think back to shooting that Magnum
and you had so much power,
and now you could have anything you want
that would make you feel that way again,
-what would it be? -[sobs softly]
[sobs, sniffles]
[Ramin] What would you do differently?
[sighs, sniffles]
somber music
Second Chance Body Armor
may have known its product was defective
before the shootings.
A company in Michigan knowingly sold
defective bulletproof vests
to federal officials and even to President Bush.
[cheering, applause]
[Ramin] Besieged by lawsuits,
Second Chance and the Zylon manufacturer
agreed to pay over $2 million dollars
to the family of the officer who was slain.
Both companies denied all culpability.
And in their lawsuit with Aaron Westrick
and the United States government,
they paid over $65 million dollars.
A small fraction went to Aaron.
Second Chance declared bankruptcy.
The executives did no jail time,
and many wound up in mansions by the Great Lakes.
But legal fees broke Richard apart.
His marriage to Kathleen ended in divorce,
he lost the company he had spent decades building,
and he had a heart attack.
I bankrupted my damn company, for God's sakes.
I bankrupted the company solving a problem
that I didn't cause.
And I get rattled-- hassled here in the street
like I'm some kind of criminal.
I went-- I'm bankrupt, okay? I got nothing.
That was definitely, uh, not a high point.
Um...
Yeah, definitely not a high point.
But I-I just-- I didn't take it lying down.
I started up a new body armor company
called Armor Express,
and it's trying to take in all the glory
that Second Chance was and all the good service
and all the good reputation we'd built up.
I wanted to transfer that over to Armor Express.
That's not an easy thing to do.
We had to carry on tradition.
I was gonna shoot Matt.
And I just couldn't do it.
I can't do it.
I don't have to do this to my own son.
But then Matt picks up the gun, says, "I'll go, Dad."
Oh, geez.
That's just, uh... I was so proud of him.
I was so scared.
-Go ahead, go ahead. -Two, one.
Oh, Jesus.
[sobbing]
[Ramin] The tragedies that ended Second Chance
were forgotten.
With his father's support, Matt started Armor Express.
And in a decade, it had become one of the biggest
body armor companies in the world.
dramatic orchestral music
And Matt began producing his own films.
[Matt] My father's legacy,
it's a legacy about entrepreneurship...
...controversy, storytelling.
It's a legacy about
the phoenix rising from the ashes.
dramatic music
[Ramin] When you think back to it now,
do you feel like your role was fated?
Has it all been determined?
[Aaron] My middle name is Jude,
and that's the saint for the hopeless,
the helpless causes.
And the kind of family I had,
I was pointed towards the priesthood.
[Ramin] Why didn't you become a priest?
[laughs] Well, I just decided not to become a priest,
when it's all said and done,
because I do believe that some persons...
...need to be shown the way.
Or guided, if you get my point.
I'm not a heavy-handed person, but there comes a time when...
...there comes a time when you, uh, you got to stop some people
from hurting other people.
[indistinct chatter]
I believed in his cause at the time.
My faith is a little shaken.
But I still see good in Richard Davis.
Sometimes I miss Richard, and I-I think I've said before,
in my heart, we're still friends.
Yeah.
[interviewer] Will you tell us your name?
-[Aaron] Uh, Aaron Westrick. -[groans]
-Why you torment me like this? -[interviewer] On the day
in question, were you wearing body armor?
-Yes, I was. -What type?
Wearing a Second Chance.
Uh, believe it would be a T-shirt model vest.
[interviewer] How did you come into possession of the vest?
somber music
[Ramin] And, Richard, what happened to the man
who shot Aaron?
[Richard] I heard he was killed later.
He was, uh, guarding a drug pad of some kind,
and police made a raid and he resisted and somebody shot him.
[Aaron on video] Don't move! Don't move.
You breathe wrong, I'll kill you.
You breathe wrong, I'll kill you!
[assailant] Okay, you got me.
That's bullshit.
He didn't say nothing cocky.
He watching too much Starsky & Hutch.
But, no, he didn't act like that at all.
He said, "Lord, don't let me die."
I remember that.
[chuckles] He did.
I'm Clifford Washington.
I'm an assistant professor.
I am a-a minister.
Uh, I love fishing and hunting, riding motorcycles,
and I am the man that shot Aaron Westrick.
In life, I learned that...
...we make mistakes sometime,
but very seldom do we get an opportunity...
...to right those wrongs,
and I'd like to think that's what I'm doing now.
Really.
Um...
I knew better.
I knew not to point a gun at someone
because, uh, from the time I could walk,
I was hunting with a BB gun,
a .22 shotgun.
And you know what?
I had excellent grades.
I don't say this often,
but during my undergraduate degree,
every exam I took,
I was stoned, blown out my gourd.
I got A's in everything.
I was, uh, involved in a breaking and entering,
and, um, someone heard us,
and they called the law enforcement
like they were supposed to do.
And Aaron, uh, was the first one that arrived on the scene.
And, um, I didn't want to go to jail.
And, uh, he asked me to stop, and I shot him.
At the same time, he was shooting me.
The first shot went in here and came out there.
So they had to cut it right there.
And then this one
went in here and it came out back here.
[Ramin] And what did you feel
in the moment of pulling the trigger?
Horrible. Just horrible, man.
Yeah. I-I knew-- you know what?
If I had the balls, I would've put it in my mouth
and pulled the trigger.
I-I just-- That was-- That's horrible, man.
Nothing... horrible feeling.
Horrible, horrible, horrible.
I'm-I'm just so...
...torn,
[voice breaking] even now, all these years later.
It's horrible, man.
I just can't believe I did that.
Cannot believe I did that.
[sniffles]
And I'm just...
And then my dad, he came up that night,
[sniffling] 'cause he was a pastor,
and, uh, I remember him saying...
"You got a new lease on life."
Do you think you will ever be able to forgive yourself?
[sniffles]
That's a tough question.
We are going to the location where 40 years ago,
Clifford Washington and I shot one another.
soft music
[Ramin] Clifford and Aaron had not had time
to reflect that since shooting one another,
they had both become college professors
in Northern Michigan,
or that Clifford, while serving 15 years in prison,
had fulfilled Aaron's childhood dream of becoming a pastor.
melancholy music
[birds chirping]
-How you doing, man? -[Aaron chuckles]
How are you doing?
-[laughing] -Wow. Aaron.
[Clifford sobbing] I'm so sorry!
So sorry.
[sniffling]
I'm sorry. [sniffling]
It's all right.
Starting anew.
This is all new. It's okay.
[sniffling]
Thank you.
I had a-a screw replaced in my leg
-about three weeks ago. -Yeah.
I remember in court you had a walker.
-Yeah. -Yeah, I did that.
I remember the day I was gonna fall. Remember that?
Down them back steps?
In 1982, we were going to court.
I had a walker,
and I was slipping and falling.
I was gonna fall down.
I looked.
Bunch of steel and cement steps.
Somebody grabbed me, just like this.
It was Aaron.
He stopped me from falling.
Kept me from falling.
[chuckles] I remember that.
And I-I would never forget that.
I can forget everything, I'll never forget that.
melancholy music
[Richard] If a great white light comes over the world
and nobody's shooting anybody anymore,
we'd be out of business.
That-that ain't gonna happen.
You look at animals in the wild,
the horses and the cows and the deer and everything,
they got eyes out on the sides of their heads
so they can look, look all, look all around them
and see-see if any threats are coming.
The eagles and the lions and tigers and the predators,
they got eyes right here like we do.
Like we do. We're predators.
We focus in on something.
We focus in on something we're gonna kill.
And that's what man's been doing
for, uh, you know, thousands-- hundreds of thousands of years.
soft music
[Ramin] In my final encounter with Richard,
I brought him back to the alleyway of his origins.
There is a truth to Richard's reality,
as unpleasant as it sounds.
For every moment that man prevents man from falling,
there seem to be countless more examples of violence, brutality.
-You're wearing a vest now? -Yeah.
Why?
I don't know. [laughs]
If I knew, I wouldn't have to do anything.
Are you concerned you may be shot at today?
Yeah, it ent-- it entered my mind,
since I've been shot right here before, you know?
This is the place of death. Kind of a scary place.
I made-made it out of this place once,
and I want to do it again.
[Ramin] If you could go back in time now
and meet the young Richard Davis,
-what would you tell him? -[chuckles]
Carry a couple more guns with you. [laughs]
Bigger gun, more ammo.
[Ramin] Richard, what is it
you're the most afraid of in this life?
Nothing. [laughs]
No. You know, really, getting old, going--
growing old 'cause you-you can break an arm and get shot,
and you can recover from that.
Getting old, every day, it's coming, you know.
Father Time's coming after you.
He belongs to the Immortalist Society,
and, um, he's going to have his head removed
and cryonically preserved.
And he said that I might want to think about that.
And I remember it because I said,
"It's January.
Can we talk about this in the summer?"
[laughs]
somber music
[Ramin] While sitting under the painting of Iwo Jima,
Richard told me that in the future,
when his frozen head was thawed and attached to a robot torso,
that his one desire would be to create better body armor.
[Richard] Armor makers of the future are
gonna contend with weapons that'll just keep punching.
Instead of just one big hit, they just keep drilling away.
You got to have something that'll intercept the energy
and turn around and use it against itself.
Throw the energy beam back into the energy beam
and tear apart the guys who are shooting it at you.
It serves 'em right.
[gun clicking slowly]
[clicking continues]
[gun clicks]
Well, won't somebody tell me
Answer if you can
Won't somebody tell me
Just what is the soul of a man
I'm going to ask the question
Please answer if you can
If anybody surely can tell me
Just what is the soul of a man
Well, won't somebody tell me
Answer if you can
I want somebody to tell me
Just what is the soul of a man
I traveled different countries
I've traveled in foreign lands
I've found nobody could tell me
Just what about the soul of a man
Well, won't somebody tell me
Answer if you can
I want somebody to tell me
Just what is the soul of a man
I saw a crowd stand talking
I just came up in time
Was teaching the lawyer, the doctor
Well, a man ain't nothing but his mind
Well, won't somebody tell me
Answer if you can
I want somebody to tell me
Just what is the soul of a man
Well, won't somebody tell me
Answer if you can
I want somebody to tell me
Just what is the soul of a man