When A Criminal Is Smarter Than The Police | Forensic Files

This I know if y'all had proof of me robbing somebody, we wouldn't even be talking.
Y'all would have cuffed me, I would be charged with it. That's what I know, bro.
In January of 2020, DaBaby, aka Jonathan Kirk, was supposed to be playing a show
at a nightclub in Miami. But when the owner paid him only 20 out of the $30,000 he owed him, things got out of
hand fast. The victim alleged that Kirk punched him in the face multiple times before he was attacked by more of Kirk's
crew. He was beaten up and knocked to the ground before being robbed for his phone, his credit card, and $80 cash.
The only footage of the event was this piece of obscured CCTV footage. Kirk fled the scene in a blank SUV before
returning to the hotel a few hours later, only to be met by both of the victims and a team of police waiting to
arrest him. He was escorted to the police station and told he was only there as part of an investigation.
Sir, we just got to do our investigation, and that's it. But as it would turn out, the investigation
wouldn't be that simple. And unfortunately for the cops, Kirk spent his hour in the interrogation room
displaying exactly what to do in this situation and making the cops' lives as difficult as he possibly could. What's
your full name? Come on. Come on. So, what do you want What do you want to get from you? I mean, this is just a
formality. Just to get your name, your date of birth, and all that stuff from This is a formality. This is all capital
letters. Immediately, it's obvious that this isn't going to be an easy one for the
detectives. Kirk starts off by refusing to answer any of the officers' questions, even just regarding his own
name. He's already been read his Miranda rights, informing him that he has the right to remain silent, so it seems as
though he's choosing to do just that. Interestingly, however, he is choosing to waive his right to a lawyer. And
let's be honest here, it's not because he can't afford it. The best course of action if you're ever put in this
scenario is to stay silent and ask for a lawyer. But this time, Kirk is confident
that he'll be able to wriggle out of this himself, as long as he chooses his words carefully. An incident occurred
at the hotel, 1500 Southwest First Avenue. That you were there for. Correct? What incident? An incident you you had
an altercation with somebody. No. You didn't. Did you have any dealings with you and somebody?
No. You didn't. No. So, somebody didn't bring you $20,000 in front of the hotel in your SUV?
No. Somebody had somebody bring $20,000 that would have paid and lied to them and told them that it was going to be on
the 31st. And lied to them, that person, once he realized they were doing bad business,
said nah and left with his $20,000. Okay, so you didn't and got my contact information to do business the right
way. That's what happened. Well, what time was this at? I don't know. Whatever time they told y'all. Whatever time
Whatever time the cameras show me not robbing nobody, that time. Kirk is claiming that he had nothing to do with
anything that happened outside. His story is somewhat unclear, but he's essentially saying that his manager was
talking with an event promoter about playing at a nightclub called Cafe Iguana Pines. But it turns out the money
that they were offering was stolen, and the promoter was acting strange during the deal. So, instead of taking it and
going through with it anyway, he told them to get their act together and left without an argument. This, of course,
does not explain the altercation outside that was clearly caught on camera, but with the footage unclear and no
witnesses nearby to identify the assailants, as long as Kirk sticks to his story, theoretically, things should
be perfectly fine. Common sense. Common sense. You know what I mean to even be down here? If a promoter booked
me at that hotel, I didn't pay to be at that hotel. It was paid for. You would have let me in my room, you
would have saw close to a quarter million dollars cash, legally hard-earned money.
I don't have to take nothing from nobody, bro. So, let me ask you this. I will go outside here right now and throw
$10,000 in the air. Like, I do not care about no money. I don't, bro. Was there an argument? No, it wasn't an
argument. I didn't argue with a soul. I didn't argue with a soul. Voice was never raised. It was never aggressive.
None of this from me. None of that. Was there a fight? None of it. No, I didn't see no fight.
And nothing was taken. We shouldn't be in no robbery unit, bro. So, when y'all get done with what y'all
doing, y'all need to do y'all job. Y'all need to file y'all process. Y'all need to arrest whoever gave y'all these false
allegations, bro. This While it may just look like Kirk is flexing his rapper money here, this is actually
a very good point for him to bring up in this situation. If he's doing random $30,000 deals on a weekday and paying
for hundreds of thousands of people per month, what does he need $80 and an iPhone for? The further he can place
himself from this event, both literally and figuratively, the better. From Kirk's point of view, he was nowhere
near that crime. He had no reason to commit that crime, and he has sound and reasonable explanation for his
whereabouts at the time. However, from the detective's side, a crime was committed, and Kirk's vehicle was right
there as it happened. So, they need to try and extract the information needed to piece his day together to come up
with a story that Kirk cannot argue with. That forces him into a confession. When I got you in the hotel, you came
back to the the concierge counter. Where were you coming from at that point? From Whatever
Whatever I I went to get some food. Where is that? I don't know the name of the place. You
don't know? No. How'd you get there? In a car. What kind of car was it? Was it a car you drove or somebody else
drove? Uber. An Uber? Yeah. What kind of car was it? Small car, SUV, truck? I don't know. Let's talk about what
matters. That's why we're That's why we're here. Talk about what y'all need to get me out
of this stuff. What I'm driving in, the car what I went to go eat, what time I went, that don't
have nothing to do with the fact I ain't robbed a damn soul. Me, nobody around me, ain't nobody
robbing nobody. Let's take the word robbery out of the picture. So, why are we here? We taking the word out robbery
out of the picture. Y'all too. Y'all are robbery detectives. This is robbery unit. That's That's the second word you
said. That's the second word he said when he came in here, robbery. Come on, bro.
Okay, listen. He told me he he has to question me about a robbery when I walk in my hotel. Robbery?
I had every answer to the question you needed right there. Well, that ain't it. That's false. I can throw that out the
window. We talking about robbery, bro. It's nothing for me to talk about. I didn't rob nobody.
you think that we we just woke up this morning and decided to just I think y'all got a phone call from somebody
that that's already a liar. I know they're lying. Got a phone call from somebody that's a liar, and y'all bought
it. Y'all believe it. Y'all got me in here and here Y'all put me in handcuffs. Brought me outside hotel in handcuffs.
Cameras and all on me. Come on, bro. This is bad for what I got going on. And I ain't even do to that man.
Even without a lawyer present, Kirk knows exactly what to do. He currently has the upper hand in this interrogation
and needs to keep it that way. The cops are searching for anything that puts Kirk at the scene of the crime, but by
redirecting the conversation away from that, back to what he thinks is actually important, there's no realistic way that
they'll be able to get what they need. But even though he's winning, it's still worth noting how strange it is that he's
not asking for a lawyer. Kirk obviously knows exactly what to do in an interrogation and has clearly spent time
learning what to do. If that's true, he should also know that there's next to no
scenarios where lawyering up will harm his case. But whether it's an ego thing or just a lapse in his thinking, Kirk is
definitely still winning this interrogation. But he's about to start absolutely dominating. We talking about
criminals. When I do business, it's legally it's legally it's legally binding. It's legally binding. Everything I do,
you have to sign a contract. You got to sign a contract. That contract right now. Well, incident
happened. Nothing Nothing went wrong. Nothing Nothing happened. There was no None None of that happened.
There was no fight. There was no scuffle. There was no I ain't fight nobody. I ain't fight nobody. What y'all know is
too much Y'all know too many lies. You get what I'm saying? That's why y'all got to move backwards like that, bro.
Like You're saying You're saying You're saying that they're lying, but you don't
You don't know what we what we have or don't have. Okay. That's why I know I know if y'all I know
if y'all had proof of me robbing somebody, we wouldn't even be talking. Y'all would have cuffed me, I would be
charged with it. That's what I know, bro. That's what I know. Now, while this isn't necessarily true in every case, it
is absolutely true here. If you're in an interrogation room and the cops are trying to find out details of the case
and accusing you of a crime instead of charging you immediately, it very likely means that they're missing the details
needed to charge you. In the vast majority of cases, an interrogation is only done to extract a confession when
they don't have enough evidence to easily convict you otherwise. There are a few other niche scenarios, such as
trying to figure out why you committed a crime, but it's often very easy to distinguish why exactly you're there
based on what you know about the event and what questions they're asking. If the cops know that you're guilty and
have irrefutable evidence, cooperation has a lot of merit. But if they can't prove you did what they say you did,
stay silent and ask for for lawyer, especially if you're innocent. I ain't no fool. That's the other side of the
story. My side of the story is I ain't I ain't done nothing I don't have a side of the story cuz I ain't done nothing to
nobody. So, that's what I was saying. And and before something could be done to me and before something could be done
to me, I realized I was dealing with with uh uh bad business. And I rewind the stuff from the tape.
What? Why do you say it was bad business? I already told y'all that you want to rewind this?
You want to rewind it, bro? I already told y'all, bro. My story not going to come out different no matter how many
times I say it, bro. It's not, bro. It's right here. So, you press stop and rewind and play, you're
going to hear why I said it was bad business, bro. Come on, bro. This blowing my phone up all day all night.
He needed my help. But, here's the thing. He already was in in deep water cuz he's
already doing and I see why. He's already doing bad business. You see what I'm saying? He has an event
that wasn't going to go as planned. He needed me to make up for that. He needed me to cover his ass. So, he
brought in another person right here. Hansel went to him. He thinking he coming to book me for a whole different
event and they tricking him, got him paying me to come do a walk through tonight.
Come on, bro. He full of As a matter of fact, check them cameras. Y'all got crime scene investigation unit
out there. Check the cameras. You see him meet up with somebody else in the lobby. Ask them hey, who's that? Ask
them. Follow up on what I'm telling y'all. That's what we're trying to get to. I mean, It At the end of the day
at the end of the day I would expect people to act on common sense anyway. The cops have realized that they're
definitely not getting anything out of him for now. He's told his side of the story and made it clear that it won't be
changing, no matter what they say. So, as is the protocol here, the detectives decide to leave the room and spend some
time outside trying to come up with their next move. This is also often done as it gives the suspect time alone in
the room to sit and build up anxiety. In many cases, they could actually be the difference between breaking through a
suspect or not. But, in this case, Kirk literally just shut his eyes and went to
sleep. This dude really does not care. However, it seems as though the detectives couldn't come up with their
next step and decided that nothing was going to make this guy budge. The next time a detective returned, it was
regarding the security of Kirk's belongings that had been left in his hotel room. Even though he hasn't been
convicted yet, he was still the prime suspect of this investigation. So, he'd be spending some time in jail while they
figured out what to do and gathered all the evidence they could. So, they just had to figure out what to do with his
stuff while he was locked up. But, obviously, Kirk refused to let them touch his stuff and just let the hotel
deal with it. Kirk was facing a possible sentence of up to 15 years in prison plus a $10,000 fine plus any charges
they could slap him with for the battery. That's only if they could gather enough evidence though. Evidence
they absolutely were not getting from Kirk or the blocked security footage that was the only evidence the crime
even took place. So, just after 48 hours in jail, DaBaby was released and sent on
his way. Just 2 months later, all charges were dropped and he remained a free man.

Interrogations like this don't happen often where the suspect outsmarts the detectives and knows EXACTLY what to do... This is the case of Dababy, who is one of the people who got out of an interrogation better than he went in.

Brief Summary

DaBaby was interrogated for robbery allegations after a nightclub incident but all charges were dropped two months later.

Key points

DaBaby's Interrogation. DaBaby, aka Jonathan Kirk, faces police questioning after an alleged robbery incident.
Charges Dropped. After 48 hours in jail, all charges against DaBaby were dropped.

Episode quotes

I know if y'all had proof of me robbing, we wouldn't even be talking.

Kirk asserts his innocence during interrogation.

0:02WatchApr 21, 2023

Tension

65/ 100Some tension

More from Dr Insanity

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.