- 2 days ago
When you pin on the badge you think you're chasing criminals. You don't realize you're also chasing something inside yourself that you'll never quite catch.
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VIDEO TOPICS/TIMESTAMPS :
0:00 The Cadet
1:08 The Patrol Officer
3:53 The Investigator
6:09 The Detective
8:47 The Homicide Detective
11:34 The Lead Detective
14:12 The Task Force Detective
16:41 The Cold Case Detective
20:36 The Commander
23:14 The Retired Detective
☕ Support the channel & suggest my next video idea: https://ko-fi.com/masterpov
VIDEO TOPICS/TIMESTAMPS :
0:00 The Cadet
1:08 The Patrol Officer
3:53 The Investigator
6:09 The Detective
8:47 The Homicide Detective
11:34 The Lead Detective
14:12 The Task Force Detective
16:41 The Cold Case Detective
20:36 The Commander
23:14 The Retired Detective
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Level 1. The Cadet.
00:02You enroll in the police academy at 22.
00:05You wanted this since you were a kid watching crime shows on a couch that smelled like your father's cigarettes.
00:10The academy is six months long.
00:12The first week breaks half your class.
00:15You run three miles before breakfast.
00:17You do push-ups until your arms shake and refuse to hold you up.
00:21You sit in classrooms for eight hours a day.
00:24You learn criminal law and constitutional procedure.
00:27You memorize the exact wording of Miranda rights.
00:31You learn how to clear a room.
00:33You learn how to draw your weapon.
00:35You learn when you're allowed to use it and when you aren't.
00:38You learn how to write a report that will hold up in court six months from now.
00:43Your instructors are veteran officers who have seen things they won't describe in polite company.
00:48They yell at you.
00:50They insult you.
00:51They tell you that everything you think you know about police work from television is wrong.
00:56You graduate.
00:58You get a badge, a uniform, a service weapon, and a partner.
01:02You are now a patrol officer.
01:05The real education is about to begin.
01:08Level 2.
01:09The patrol officer.
01:11Your first shift is a Friday night in a bad part of the city.
01:14Your partner has been on the force for 11 years.
01:17He doesn't say much for the first hour.
01:19He's evaluating you.
01:21He's figuring out whether you're going to be someone he can trust or someone he has to babysit.
01:26You respond to a domestic disturbance.
01:29A woman is bleeding from a cut above her eye.
01:31Her husband is drunk and screaming.
01:34Two children are hiding behind a couch.
01:36You have 30 seconds to read the situation and make a decision.
01:40Your partner takes the husband outside.
01:43You sit with the woman at her kitchen table.
01:45She tells you everything is fine.
01:47She doesn't want to press charges.
01:49She just wants you to leave.
01:52This will happen to you hundreds of times over the next four years.
01:55You respond to car accidents.
01:57You pull bodies out of wreckage on the interstate.
02:00You knock on doors at 3 a.m. to tell parents that their son is dead.
02:04You break up fights outside bars.
02:06You chase suspects through alleys and parking lots and backyards with chain-link fences that tear your uniform.
02:13You learn the geography of your beat better than your own neighborhood.
02:16You know which corners the dealers work.
02:19You know which bars have fights every weekend.
02:22You know which apartment buildings have problems and which ones don't.
02:26You write tickets.
02:27You make arrests.
02:28You fill out reports.
02:30You testify in court when the cases go to trial, which most of them don't.
02:35You learn the rhythm of the radio.
02:37Every dispatch code.
02:39Every officer's voice.
02:41You learn to read a scene before you step out of the cruiser.
02:44The body language of the people standing on the porch.
02:47The cars parked on the street that shouldn't be there.
02:49The curtains that move when you pull up.
02:52You see things that change you in ways you can't articulate.
02:56A dead child in a hot car.
02:58A teenager who overdosed in a gas station bathroom.
03:02A woman beaten so badly you don't recognize her as human at first.
03:07You start drinking more than you used to.
03:09You start sleeping less.
03:11Your wife notices.
03:12She asks you about your day.
03:15You say it was fine.
03:16You lie to her because the truth would hurt her.
03:19You love her enough to protect her from it.
03:22You ride with the same partner for three years.
03:25He becomes the closest friend you have ever had in your life.
03:29You know his children's birthdays.
03:31You know the name of his first dog.
03:33You know the exact words he uses when he's about to do something dangerous.
03:38He gets shot responding to a robbery in progress in your fourth year on the job.
03:43He survives.
03:44He retires on disability the next year.
03:47You get a new partner.
03:48You don't let yourself get that close to anyone again.
03:53Level 3.
03:54The investigator.
03:55You test for detective after four years on patrol.
03:58The exam is eight hours long.
04:00You study for months.
04:01You compete against 200 other officers for 12 spots.
04:05You make it.
04:06They transfer you to the investigations bureau.
04:09You trade your uniform for a cheap suit and a tie that your wife picks out.
04:13You get a desk.
04:14You get a caseload of 40 open cases on your first day.
04:18Most of them will never be solved.
04:20You work property crimes at first.
04:22Burglaries.
04:23Stolen cars.
04:24Shoplifting rings that hit the same stores over and over.
04:28You learn how to interview witnesses who don't want to talk to you.
04:31You learn how to interrogate suspects who have been lying to police since they were 14 years old.
04:36You learn the specific rhythms of a good interview.
04:39The small talk at the beginning to build rapport.
04:41The gradual transition to the events in question.
04:44The long silences that make people uncomfortable enough to fill them with information they shouldn't share.
04:50You learn that most confessions aren't dramatic breakdowns like they show on television.
04:55Most confessions are quiet.
04:57Tired.
04:58A suspect at the end of a long night who just wants to go home.
05:02He figures maybe telling you the truth is the fastest way there.
05:06You learn to read body language.
05:08The way people's eyes move when they're constructing a lie versus remembering a fact.
05:13The way their feet point toward the exit when they want to leave.
05:16The way their breathing changes when you mention something they weren't expecting you to know.
05:21You close cases.
05:23Not all of them.
05:24Not even most of them.
05:25But enough of them that your lieutenant starts giving you bigger assignments.
05:29He tells you that you have a good feel for this work.
05:32You don't know if that's a compliment.
05:34You also learn something about yourself that you didn't expect.
05:38You are good at this.
05:40You are better at this than you ever were at patrol.
05:43The puzzle of it fits the shape of your brain in a way nothing else ever has.
05:48You catch a burglary ring working its way across the east side of the city.
05:51You spend three weeks mapping their pattern.
05:54You identify the fence who's buying their stolen goods.
05:57You set up a controlled buy.
05:59You arrest all four of them in one afternoon.
06:02Your lieutenant reads the report and smiles.
06:05He tells you to start thinking about major crimes.
06:09Level 4.
06:10The Detective.
06:11You move up to the major crimes unit.
06:14Robberies.
06:15Aggravated assaults.
06:16Sexual assaults.
06:18Home invasions.
06:19The cases matter more now.
06:21The suspects are more dangerous.
06:23The victims are more traumatized.
06:26Your caseload drops from 40 to 15 because each case takes more time.
06:32You work a string of armed robberies at convenience stores across the east side of the city.
06:37Six stores in three months.
06:40The same suspect every time.
06:42Same gun.
06:43Same jacket.
06:44Same way of walking behind the counter.
06:47You pull surveillance footage from every store.
06:50You watch it at your desk for hours.
06:52Eating bad takeout.
06:53Looking for anything you missed the first time.
06:56You canvas the neighborhoods.
06:58You talk to everyone.
07:00The homeless man who sleeps in the alley behind one of the stores.
07:03The woman who works the night shift at the laundromat next door.
07:07The teenager who is walking home from his job at the movie theater.
07:11Someone saw something.
07:13Someone always sees something.
07:16You find a witness who got a partial plate on a car leaving the scene of the fourth robbery.
07:21You run it through every database you have access to.
07:24You narrow it down to 12 possibilities based on the make and model.
07:28You visit each address.
07:30You find your suspect at the seventh one.
07:33A 24-year-old man with two prior convictions and a drug habit.
07:38You bring him in.
07:39You interrogate him for six hours.
07:42He denies everything until you show him the surveillance footage.
07:46He breaks.
07:47He gives you the gun, the jacket, the car.
07:51He tells you about a seventh robbery you didn't even know about.
07:56You close all seven cases in one night.
07:59Your lieutenant puts you in for a commendation.
08:02Your wife reads about the case in the paper the next morning.
08:05She asks if you were the detective who caught him.
08:08You nod.
08:10She smiles a little.
08:12It's the first time she's smiled about your job in over a year.
08:16You work a sexual assault case the next week.
08:19A 19-year-old college student.
08:22A fraternity party.
08:24Three suspects.
08:25The case falls apart in court because the witnesses change their stories.
08:29The defense attorneys are better than you are.
08:32The victim stops returning your calls.
08:35You see her name on a missing persons report two years later.
08:39You never find out what happened to her.
08:41You keep her file in your bottom drawer for the rest of your career.
08:46Level 5.
08:47The Homicide Detective.
08:49They transfer you to homicide after two years in major crimes.
08:53This is what you wanted.
08:54This is also what you dreaded.
08:57Homicide is the top of the detective pyramid in most departments.
09:00The cases matter the most.
09:02The stakes are the highest.
09:04The work is the hardest.
09:06You get called at 2 a.m. to a crime scene on the north side.
09:09A young man has been shot three times in the chest in front of an apartment building.
09:13The blood is still warm.
09:15His mother is screaming in the doorway.
09:17His little sister is sitting on the curb in her pajamas staring at nothing.
09:21You take in the whole scene.
09:23The shell casings on the pavement.
09:25The direction of the blood spatter.
09:27The broken window in the apartment across the street where a witness says she heard the shots.
09:32You work this case for three weeks.
09:35You interview 40 people.
09:36You chase down leads that go nowhere.
09:39You pull phone records and bank records and social media messages.
09:43You find out the victim was selling drugs on the side.
09:46You find out he owed money to someone.
09:48You find out the someone is a man with a violent history.
09:52He was seen in the neighborhood that night.
09:54You build the case brick by brick.
09:57You get a warrant.
09:58You kick in a door at 5 a.m. with a tactical team.
10:02You find the gun.
10:03Ballistics matches it to the shell casings.
10:06You arrest the suspect.
10:08You interrogate him for nine hours.
10:10He gives you a confession.
10:12You close the case.
10:14The mother comes to the station to thank you.
10:17She hugs you and cries on your shoulder.
10:19You stand there stiffly because you don't know what to do with this kind of gratitude.
10:24You go home.
10:26You don't sleep.
10:27You have another case the next day.
10:30The next case doesn't close.
10:32The one after that doesn't close either.
10:35You start to understand the math of the job.
10:38You solve about 60% of your cases.
10:41The other 40% sit in a filing cabinet in your office, open forever.
10:46You think about those cases on your days off.
10:49You think about them when you're mowing the lawn.
10:51You think about them when you're watching your kids play soccer.
10:54The victims don't go away.
10:57They live in your head now.
10:59They ask you questions you don't have answers to.
11:02You start keeping a list.
11:04Not an official list.
11:05A mental one.
11:07The names of the people whose killers you didn't catch.
11:10You can recite them in order.
11:12The mother of three found dead in her own garage.
11:15The cab driver shot for the $40 in his pocket.
11:19The teenage girl whose body washed up in the river.
11:22You have their faces memorized.
11:25You will remember them when you are old and your hands shake.
11:29You will remember them after your own name starts to slip away.
11:33Level 6.
11:35The lead detective.
11:36You are the primary investigator on cases that make the news now.
11:40Serial offenders.
11:42High-profile victims.
11:44Cases where the department is under pressure to make an arrest
11:47because the media is watching and the mayor is watching and the commissioner is watching.
11:52You lead teams of younger detectives.
11:54You assign them leads.
11:56You review their reports.
11:57You make the final call on what evidence goes to the prosecutor
12:01and what gets held back for the trial.
12:04You work a case involving a missing woman.
12:06She disappeared from her own driveway on a Tuesday morning.
12:10Her car was still running when the neighbor found it.
12:13Her purse was on the seat.
12:14Her phone was on the pavement.
12:16She vanished in the 30 seconds it took her to walk from her door to her vehicle.
12:22You work this case for six months.
12:24Her family calls you every day.
12:26The news cycles through her face every night.
12:29You follow every lead.
12:31The ex-boyfriend who had a restraining order against him.
12:34The co-worker who had been texting her late at night.
12:37The stranger who had been seen in the neighborhood the week before.
12:41You eliminate them one by one.
12:43You start to believe she is dead.
12:46You don't tell the family this.
12:48You can't.
12:50You follow a tip from a trucker who saw a vehicle matching a description on the interstate that night.
12:55It leads you to a rest stop.
12:57The rest stop has cameras.
12:59The cameras show a man loading something heavy into the back of a van.
13:03You find the van.
13:04You find the man.
13:06You find her body in a shallow grave 80 miles from where she disappeared.
13:12You close the case.
13:14The family doesn't thank you.
13:16They're broken.
13:17You did your job, but there was no good outcome available.
13:21You drink alone that night.
13:23You wonder if this is sustainable.
13:26You wonder if any human being is supposed to do this for 30 years.
13:30You think about quitting.
13:32You think about it for three weeks.
13:35Then another case comes in.
13:37A little boy this time.
13:39Eight years old.
13:40Beaten to death by his stepfather.
13:42You don't quit.
13:44You go to work.
13:45You close that case in four days.
13:49Your captain calls you into his office.
13:51He tells you that the union representative is worried about you.
13:55He asks you if you want to talk to someone.
13:58You say no.
13:59He tells you that if this continues, it won't be a suggestion anymore.
14:04You nod.
14:05You go back to your desk.
14:07You don't talk to anyone.
14:09You never have.
14:11Level 7.
14:13The task force detective.
14:15The FBI requests your department assign a detective to a joint task force.
14:20Your lieutenant recommends you.
14:23You are now working federal cases.
14:25Organized crime.
14:27Human trafficking.
14:28Drug networks that span multiple states.
14:31The scope of the work expands in ways that are hard to describe.
14:35You are not chasing a single suspect anymore.
14:37You are mapping entire organizations.
14:40You are identifying the structure.
14:42The street dealers who move the product.
14:45The lieutenants who manage the dealers.
14:47The bosses who manage the lieutenants.
14:50The money that flows up through all of them to people you have not yet identified.
14:55You may never identify them.
14:57You spend months on a single investigation.
15:00You run confidential informants.
15:02You wire up undercover officers.
15:05You set up surveillance operations that last for weeks.
15:08You sit in unmarked cars photographing everyone who enters and exits a specific building.
15:13You listen to wiretaps for eight hours a day.
15:17Hours of small talk and silence waiting for the 30 seconds of conversation that actually matters.
15:23You work with federal prosecutors on indictments that span hundreds of pages.
15:28Every charge has to be airtight.
15:31Every piece of evidence has to be collected correctly.
15:34Every search warrant has to survive motions to suppress from defense attorneys who are better paid and better arrested than
15:40you are.
15:41You take down a drug network that moves $3 million a month through the city.
15:46The raids happen simultaneously at 4 a.m. across 15 locations.
15:5240 arrests in one night.
15:54The headlines the next morning are the biggest of your career.
15:58Your name is in the paper.
15:59Your face is on the news.
16:02Your wife is proud.
16:03Your kids are impressed.
16:05You don't feel anything except exhausted.
16:08You also feel something darker that you don't tell anyone about.
16:12You learn things during this investigation that you can't unlearn.
16:16How corrupt the system actually is.
16:19How many people on the inside were helping the organization.
16:23A prosecutor in the DA's office.
16:25A sergeant in vice.
16:27A supervisor in the records division.
16:29They weren't your targets.
16:31You had to let them go.
16:33The federal case didn't include them.
16:35Your captain told you to forget about it.
16:37You try.
16:39You don't always succeed.
16:41Level 8.
16:42The Cold Case Detective.
16:43After 15 years on the job, they move you to cold cases.
16:48This is supposed to be a quieter assignment.
16:51A step down in intensity before retirement.
16:54It is not quieter.
16:56It is heavier.
16:58The cases you work now are old.
17:00Sometimes 10 years old.
17:02Sometimes 30 years old.
17:05The original detectives are retired or dead.
17:08The witnesses have moved or died or forgotten.
17:12The evidence is in boxes in a warehouse that smells like mildew and dust.
17:17You pull a case from 1987.
17:20A young woman strangled in her apartment.
17:23No suspects were ever identified.
17:25The original detective worked the case for two years before he gave up.
17:29He died in 2003.
17:33The victim's parents are still alive.
17:35They are in their 80s now.
17:37They have waited 37 years for an answer.
17:41You go back to the beginning.
17:43You re-read every interview transcript.
17:46You re-examine every piece of evidence.
17:49You submit DNA samples that couldn't be tested with the technology available in 1987.
17:54They can be tested now.
17:56You wait six months for results.
17:59You get a hit.
18:01The DNA matches a man who is already in prison for a different rape.
18:05He confessed to this one 30 minutes into the interview.
18:08He didn't even seem upset about it.
18:11He asked if he could have a sandwich.
18:14You call the parents of the victim.
18:16You tell them you have an answer.
18:18They cry on the phone for a long time.
18:21You don't know what to say.
18:24You work another case after that.
18:26A missing teenager from 1995.
18:29Her body was never found.
18:31You work it for a year before you find her in an abandoned well in the woods behind a church.
18:37Her family had moved three states away.
18:40You fly out to tell them in person.
18:42Her mother doesn't speak for the first 20 minutes.
18:46Her father stares at a spot on the wall above your head.
18:49You are 48 years old.
18:51You have solved dozens of cases that nobody else could solve.
18:56You have given answers to families who stopped hoping for them decades ago.
19:00You are also completely alone in a way that is hard to explain.
19:05Your first marriage ended 12 years ago.
19:08Your second marriage ended four years ago.
19:11Your children are adults who live in other states.
19:14You see them twice a year at holidays.
19:17They love you, but they don't really know you.
19:21You haven't let anyone really know you since you started this job.
19:25You work a case that has been sitting in the file room for 22 years.
19:30A teenage boy shot in a park.
19:33Three witnesses at the time.
19:35Two of them are dead now.
19:37The third is in hospice.
19:39You drive four hours to a small town in the next state to talk to her.
19:44She is 81 years old.
19:46She has two weeks to live.
19:48She tells you something she never told the original detectives.
19:53She saw the shooter's face.
19:55She was afraid back then.
19:57She isn't afraid anymore.
20:00She gives you a name.
20:02You work the name for six weeks.
20:05You find him living quietly in a retirement community in Florida.
20:09He is 74 years old.
20:12He opens the door when you knock.
20:14He knows exactly why you were there.
20:17He nods.
20:19He tells you he has been waiting 22 years for this day.
20:23He confesses in a whisper.
20:25You arrest him on his own front porch.
20:28The woman in hospice dies four days later.
20:32She lived just long enough to see the case close.
20:36Level 9.
20:37The Commander.
20:38They promote you to Lieutenant and then to Captain
20:41and finally to Commander of the Detective Bureau.
20:44You are now responsible for every investigation in the city.
20:4780 detectives report to you.
20:49You review every major case.
20:51You approve every major operation.
20:54You meet with the chief every morning.
20:57You meet with the mayor every week.
20:59You meet with the media every time something goes wrong, which is often.
21:03You don't work cases anymore.
21:05You manage people who work cases.
21:07This is a harder job than working cases.
21:10Your detectives come to you with problems.
21:13Personal problems.
21:14Professional problems.
21:16Cases that are falling apart.
21:18Witnesses who are recanting.
21:20Suspects who are slipping away.
21:22You solve the problems you can solve.
21:24You explain the ones you can't.
21:26You fight with the prosecutor's office when they want to plead down cases that your detectives built from nothing.
21:32You fight with the defense bar when they accuse your detectives of misconduct.
21:36You fight with internal affairs when they investigate your detectives for complaints that almost never turn out to be true.
21:42You also carry something that the detectives under you don't carry.
21:45You carry the weight of every case the Bureau has ever failed to solve.
21:50The missing children.
21:52The unsolved murders.
21:54The victims whose families still call the department every year asking if there are any updates.
21:59You know there aren't.
22:01You have to tell them anyway.
22:03You have to find a way to say, we're still working on it.
22:07The truth is that no one is working on it.
22:10There is nothing left to work with.
22:12You sit in your office at 9 p.m. on a Thursday.
22:15You look out the window at a city that has become more complicated than you ever imagined.
22:20You think about retirement.
22:22You think about the 28 years you've given to this job.
22:25You think about what else you could have been.
22:28You don't dwell on it.
22:29There isn't anywhere useful that line of thinking can take you.
22:33A young detective knocks on your door one evening.
22:36She is 29 years old.
22:38She is sharp in the way you used to be sharp.
22:41She asks you if the job is worth it.
22:43You look at her for a long moment.
22:46You think about all the things you could say.
22:48You think about what you wish someone had told you when you were her age.
22:52You tell her that the job will take everything she has.
22:56You tell her that if she does it right, she won't recognize herself when she's done.
23:00You tell her that she has to decide if that's a price she can pay.
23:04She nods.
23:05She thanks you.
23:07She walks out.
23:09You don't know if you helped her or hurt her.
23:12You never know.
23:14Level 10.
23:15The Retired Detective
23:16You retire at 55.
23:19There is a ceremony at the Union Hall.
23:21Your former partners give speeches.
23:23Your wife, your third wife, is there.
23:27She is a woman you met six years ago who understood the job in a way the others didn't.
23:32Her first husband was a detective too.
23:35He died on the job.
23:36She knows what the work costs.
23:39The chief gives you a plaque.
23:41You shake hands with officers you haven't seen in decades, some of whom look older than
23:45you thought you'd ever get.
23:47You drink too much.
23:48You cry a little.
23:49You go home.
23:51The first morning of retirement is the strangest morning of your life.
23:55You wake up at 5 a.m. out of habit.
23:58There is nowhere to go.
23:59There is no case waiting.
24:01There is no phone ringing with a homicide in the middle of the night.
24:04You sit on your porch with a cup of coffee and watch the sun come up over a quiet street.
24:10You do this every morning for a month.
24:13You don't know what else to do.
24:15Slowly you start to fill the time.
24:17You take up woodworking.
24:19You build a table.
24:20You build a bookshelf.
24:22You plant a garden.
24:23You go fishing on weekends with men who are detectives too.
24:27You don't talk about the job much.
24:29You don't need to.
24:31The silence between you is full of everything you don't have to say.
24:35You have dreams sometimes.
24:37The victims visit you.
24:39Not in a scary way.
24:41They just appear.
24:42The young woman from 1987.
24:45The little sister on the curb in her pajamas.
24:47The mother who hugged you at the station.
24:50They don't accuse you of anything.
24:52They just stand there.
24:53You think they're telling you that they remember you remembering them.
24:58You wake up and you cry sometimes.
25:01Your wife holds you.
25:02She doesn't ask questions.
25:05You get a call one morning from a young detective in your old bureau.
25:08She has a cold case she's working.
25:11She thinks you worked it 20 years ago.
25:13She wants to pick your brain.
25:15You meet her for coffee at a diner near the old precinct.
25:18You tell her everything you remember about the case and the people who were around it at the time.
25:23You give her names and leads and intuitions you never had time to follow when it was yours to carry.
25:29She takes notes.
25:31She thanks you.
25:32She says she'll let you know how it goes.
25:35You realize something in that moment that had been hiding from you for years.
25:40The job continues without you.
25:42In ways that are larger than you ever were.
25:45The work continues without you.
25:47Picked up by hands you will never shake.
25:50The victims are still being remembered by someone.
25:53The cases are still being worked.
25:55You were never the reason any of it happened.
25:58You were one link in a chain that has existed longer than you have been alive.
26:03That chain will continue after you are gone.
26:06The way it continued after every detective who came before you.
26:10You find this strangely comforting.
26:13Somewhere in a city tonight,
26:15A patrol officer is responding to a call.
26:17She is 25 years old.
26:19She has wanted this job since she was a child watching crime shows with her mother.
26:24She will see things tonight that change her in ways she cannot yet name.
26:28She will make an arrest that matters.
26:31She will take a test in four years and pass it.
26:34She will become a detective.
26:37She will work property crimes and then major crimes and then homicide.
26:41She will get good at all of them.
26:44She will meet victims she cannot save and families she cannot comfort.
26:49She will close cases and fail to close cases.
26:53She will be promoted and burned out and promoted again.
26:57She will retire one day and sit on her own porch watching her own sunrise.
27:02She has no idea what is coming.
27:05She could not understand it even if someone explained it to her.
27:08She will learn.
27:10She will learn.
27:10She will learn.
27:10They all do.
27:11She will learn.
27:13She will stop her.
27:17She will turn to her.
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