Rudy Diaz

Rudy Diaz was born Adolph Carrillo Diaz on October 16, 1918 in Jerome, Arizona. He was one of four children in a family of Mescalero Apache descent. Rudy served in the U.S. Army during World War 2 as a paratrooper. Over the course of his military career, he made 49 jumps, reached the rank of Staff Sergeant, and was awarded multiple medals. After his discharge, Diaz decided to make the natural progression from the military to working in law enforcement. He joined the LAPD where he remained for a 21-year career until his retirement in 1967. While with the police department he worked at various times on the narcotics squad and in the robbery/homicide division, and ultimately made the rank of Sergeant. His time doing police work around Los Angeles was where his interest in the entertainment industry originally grew. And some of his cases were even featured as real-life inspired stories on the television cop show Dragnet (1951) in the 1950s. Diaz's time with the police is also notoriously