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This episode is sponsored by NuCalm.

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And as many of you know, I only bring sponsors onto this show

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whose products I truly swear by.

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Now, we are an overworked and underslept population,

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especially those of us that wear uniform for a living.

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And trying to reclaim some of the lost rest and recovery is imperative.

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Now, the application of this product is as simple as putting on headphones and a sleep mask.

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As you listen to music on each of the programs,

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there is neuroacoustic software beneath that is tapping into the actual frequencies of your brain,

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whether to upregulate your nervous system or downregulate.

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Now, for most of us that come off shift, we are A, exhausted,

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and B, do not want to bring what we've had to see and do back home to our loved ones.

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So one powerful application is using the program Powernap,

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a 20-minute session that will not only feel like you've had two hours of sleep,

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but also downregulate from a hypervigilant state back into the role of mother or father, husband or wife.

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Now, there are so many other applications and benefits from this software,

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so I urge you to go and listen to episode 806 with CEO Jim Poole.

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Then download NUCalm, N-U-C-A-L-M, from your app store and sign up for the seven-day free trial.

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Not only will you have an understanding of the origin story and the four decades this science has spanned,

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but also see for yourself the incredible health impact of this life-changing software.

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And you can find even more information on nucalm.com.

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Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast.

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As always, my name is James Gearing, and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on the show

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police officer, author, and member of the Operation Enduring Warrior team, Jeremy Sharlow.

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Now, in this conversation, we discuss a host of topics from Jeremy's journey into law enforcement,

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working within the SWAT team, the officer-involved shooting that left him with life-changing physical and mental injuries,

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his powerful mental health story, the tools he used for post-traumatic growth,

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the power of community, Operation Enduring Warrior, and so much more.

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Now, before we get to this incredibly powerful and important conversation, as I say every week,

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please just take a moment, go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show,

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leave feedback, and leave a rating.

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Every single five-star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for others to find.

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And this is a free library of almost 900 episodes now.

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So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories

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so I can get them to every single person on planet Earth who needs to hear them.

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So with that being said, I introduce to you Jeremy Sharlow. Enjoy.

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Well, Jeremy, I want to start by saying firstly, this is a long time coming.

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You and I have known each other and gone back and forth,

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and we're at the operation during Warrior Gala together a couple of years ago.

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But the universe has a way of just putting someone in front of me when it's supposed to happen.

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And obviously, this is now. So I want to welcome you onto the Behind the Shield podcast today.

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Thank you, sir. Yeah, we have been going back and forth since what, 2020?

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Something like that, yeah, I think.

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So where are we finding your planet Earth today?

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I'm in Bay City, Michigan. Yeah, I move around a lot.

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But for the time being, I'm in Bay City.

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So I would love to start the very beginning of your story.

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I mean, you have some pretty powerful chapters when it comes to your time in uniform

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and then out the other end, but let's start at the very beginning.

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So where were you born? And tell me a little bit about your family dynamic,

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what your parents did, how many siblings?

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Okay. Well, my family, I got a crazy family, but I was born in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina,

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military kid, obviously.

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Right away, my mother, my sister and I moved up to Michigan when her and her dad,

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my sister's dad split up. And I basically lived in Michigan all my childhood.

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I lived in different parts of Michigan, Bay City area, Saginaw, Everett, Reed City.

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Standish is where I went to high school.

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I finished high school in Standish-Stirling Central, which is about 45 minutes north

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to where I'm living now.

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And then, yeah, I ended up making some poor decisions in high school,

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ended up getting my girlfriend pregnant.

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And that led me down to Illinois, where I started college.

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And how old were you when you became a dad?

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I was 18. Yeah, I was 18.

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When you look back now, what were the pros of having a child so young

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and what were the cons?

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I'm going to put the cart ahead of the horse a little bit.

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And being retired, I'm not in a relationship or anything.

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So no kids in the house at age 42.

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That's kind of nice.

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So that's definitely a pro of having your kids early.

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You know, I think also I had the energy to keep up with my daughter.

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You know, I still wanted to play.

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You know, I wasn't sitting on the couch exhausted from being at work.

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I had energy.

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So, you know, I got to play with her a lot.

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I enjoyed that.

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And what about cons?

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If you look back now, is there anything detrimental?

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Yeah, there's a lot of detrimental.

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I don't necessarily recommend it.

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Obviously, you know, in raising my daughter, I tried to get her to do better than I did.

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That's the goal for all of our children, I would think, you know, do better than we did.

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And, you know, I always explained to her, you know,

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you don't want to go the same route we did because of the struggles.

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And, you know, finances were one of the major ones.

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You know, we both still, my ex and I both still lived at home with our respective parents.

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When this occurred, we had nothing of our own.

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You know, we, you know, we ended up moving out onto our own and getting our own apartment

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and tried to be a family.

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But, you know, we were 18.

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She was 17.

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She was a little bit younger.

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And, you know, we didn't know what we were doing and not that anybody does.

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But we weren't done growing up ourselves.

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So that even made it more difficult, I would say.

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It's interesting.

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I was just talking to my son about this literally a day or two ago that a lot of more ancient cultures,

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we were having children, you know, when we were about 16, 17, 18.

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But now we've leaned into this career element and getting stable and homes and jobs.

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You know, it shifted it way back to where the idea of having a child at 17 or 18

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seems way too young to us now.

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But it actually goes against what we did probably for most of the human resistance.

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Well, I'd even say that the physiological aspects of our bodies are geared towards that as well.

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It's a cultural thing that's moved us away from it.

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You know, the way we live is through making money.

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So in order to have a job, you know, these things, it's not the manual labor.

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It's not going out in the field.

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You're not cutting your you're not hunting your own food.

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You're not building your own house with your hands.

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And, you know, when we were generally having the children at 14, 15, 16 years old, that's what was doing.

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I mean, a 15 year old with the right tools can go build a house.

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You know, that's not that's not a problem.

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A 15 year old signing a contract is a whole other thing.

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Yeah. What else is that whole concept of it takes a village?

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I think it doesn't matter how old you are trying to find childcare now,

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trying to afford childcare when you are, you know, one two person household slash income.

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I mean, there's so many people that literally by the time they pay childcare,

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they may as well not be working because it's literally that expensive to put a kid in care.

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Back in those days, you had a village and obviously, you know,

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there was a kind of sharing of overseeing children while, you know,

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hunting was done, while gathering was done and all the other things you needed to make a community thrive.

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Absolutely. And the children were always under somebody's care.

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And at that time, if you messed around and you did something wrong,

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your neighbor would put you in your place.

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You know, now, if you tried to yell at your neighbor's kid,

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you know, the cops would be knocking on the door within 10 minutes because Karen is upset that little Bobby didn't get treated right.

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Absolutely. We're going back to your childhood again for a second.

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So what about sports? What were you playing back then?

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Oh, man, all sorts of sports. I was always I was big into football.

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I was actually pretty good. If it wasn't for my size, I'm not a very big individual.

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And even then, I was smaller, maybe weighed 150 pounds,

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soaking wet, but I played on the defensive line.

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But yeah, I did football, wrestling, track, long distance running if I could,

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you know, just just the normal high school sports.

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And what about career aspirations? Were you dreaming of law enforcement then?

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Or was it something else?

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So I decided I wanted to be a cop.

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You know, this sounds cliche and they even recommend you don't say this when you're interviewing to become a police officer.

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But I actually wanted to be a cop since I was about six.

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There is an incident that occurred in the apartment building we were living in at the time and the building caught fire.

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And the police were the first on scene and they were helping get people out, et cetera.

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And that had a very big impact on me.

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You know, in addition, with some of the early stuff with my mom,

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I felt like I was the protector of her and my sister.

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And so that resonated with me as well.

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I see, you know, I'm seeing these events. I'm the protector.

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I decided the police officer is what I wanted to do.

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I wanted to continue to protect and make a difference in my community.

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So since the early age, I decided that was what I was going to do.

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And I did it.

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As I progressed through this podcast, as I learned more and more and spoke to more and more people,

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the impact of early life on us in uniform became more and more apparent.

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And so many, especially people that struggled later on wearing the uniform.

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When you look back, a lot of them had significant trauma when they were younger.

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It's not a conversation that we have, you know, Jeremy, oh, he's having struggles because he had that shooting.

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Well, they're not talking about, you know, the 18, 20 years before you put the uniform on the first place.

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So now with this, you know, wise mental health lens that you've created now,

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when you look back at your early life, were there elements of that you think that contributed to struggling later?

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I would say no. And the only reason I would say that is simply because I'm not saying I didn't have any traumas.

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I'm just saying that I don't believe they had anything.

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I don't think there was an effect on the things that I've dealt with later in life.

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I mean, to become a police officer, and actually, it's funny that you even mention that through my proceedings,

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the city, the workman's comp with the city tried to claim that I didn't have PTSD for my shooting.

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It was because of childhood trauma. And they tried to deny me services because of that.

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So, but to answer your question, no, I don't think that it did.

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And I passed a psyche valve to prove that, you know, like in order to become a police officer, I had to take a psyche valve.

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I'm sure you're familiar with them. I'm sure you've had to take them as well.

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And then, you know, when I don't pass the psyche valve later and then they tell me it's from childhood trauma, that just doesn't it didn't make sense to me.

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Yeah. Well, first, I mean, those evals are absolute crap anyway.

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I've spoken to numerous people in that field now. It was never meant to select someone in uniform.

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It just wasn't. It's just it's a usually it's one of what should be many tests that when you put them all together, give you a profile of an individual.

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But when I think about childhood trauma, I'm not thinking that you're coming in already with PTSD.

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It's more so when people have trauma and it's addressed, I think you come in with more tools.

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It becomes a strength. It really does. But there's a lot of us that had trauma that was kind of buried down,

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that just didn't rear his head and was amplified by the job.

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So, yes, 100 percent, the job was a big part of what happened.

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But if you're trying to get to the bottom of someone's struggles and you're missing those formative years,

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a lot of times that can cause the frustration of people not understanding why they're not healing us.

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Because what happened to you when you were eight was absolutely a contributing factor to why you struggle when you were 38.

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I mean, just logically, that would make sense to me.

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And I'm not saying because I didn't experience that that that isn't the case.

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You know, that would be too anecdotal. The sample size is way too small, obviously.

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But I mean, just logically, that would make sense, you know, almost as if the job was the trigger to a pre-existing trauma that maybe was underlined.

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And I can see that being a thing, you know, especially with some of the things we see on the job.

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You never know. I mean, one minute you're shaking somebody's hand, the next minute you're in a fight for your life.

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And then there's everything in between.

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So the opportunity to be exposed to a trigger for something that you didn't even know is very high.

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Absolutely. Well, you said that you wanted to be a cop since you were six.

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Walk me through your journey into police academy and then your first department.

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So obviously, you know, being a young father, I needed to start making money right away.

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And so I started I went to a community college and at the community college, I started out in computer sciences just because at the time, 18 years old, I wasn't eligible to be a police officer.

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You had to be 21 and most and most everywhere in order to have a firearm and whatnot.

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But so I started in the computer sciences and I was going to be a computer network administrator for a while.

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And then I changed majors and ended up at the University of Illinois in Springfield studying computer science as a bachelor's.

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And I kind of that transition is actually what catapulted me into the police police world.

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So while I was a student worker at the community college, I was working on their computers.

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Like I got hired as a student worker.

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So in order to have the job, I had to be going to the school.

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Well, because I changed my majors and I wasn't the best student in the world, I ran out of credit hours versus financial aid that you can use at a community college.

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And they told me either they're going to cut me off financially or the financial aid would cut me off financially or I had to go to a university.

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So I transferred to the university. I mean, the progression isn't a bad progression.

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I just probably should have done it without that motivation, I guess.

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But at that time, though, I was a student worker.

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So I lost my job as well because I couldn't I had to be a student at the community college in order to be to work there.

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While I was a student worker supporting their computers, I was one of the areas I supported was the police department.

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So in doing that, I had to get a couple of different certifications for some clearances for the state, you know, to access NCIC, things of that nature, reads and stuff like that.

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And to support their computers, I needed those certifications as well because of the privacy issues, et cetera.

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So when I explained to them, hey, I'm no longer going to be serving, you know, working on your computers, they were like, oh, cool.

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Well, we have a part time position open as a dispatcher.

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So I took it, you know, paid a little bit better, got me into the police department.

212
00:16:25,540 --> 00:16:30,040
And, you know, I was a dispatcher and this was a dispatcher at a community college.

213
00:16:30,040 --> 00:16:32,140
So we handled all of our own calls.

214
00:16:32,140 --> 00:16:35,340
We didn't if 9-1-1 got a call, it was disbatch.

215
00:16:35,340 --> 00:16:39,240
It was routed to us and then we would dispatch our officers.

216
00:16:39,240 --> 00:16:41,140
It was also a public safety department.

217
00:16:41,140 --> 00:16:44,540
So they were required to be an EMS as well.

218
00:16:44,540 --> 00:16:46,940
They were all the MTBs.

219
00:16:46,940 --> 00:16:53,740
So fast forward about six months of doing that part time, I'm still working on my bachelor's in business, or I'm sorry, in computer science.

220
00:16:53,740 --> 00:16:57,240
And a police officer position comes open.

221
00:16:57,240 --> 00:17:01,140
And of course, I've told these guys that I've been talking to them for six months.

222
00:17:01,140 --> 00:17:02,940
They all know I wanted to be a cop, et cetera.

223
00:17:02,940 --> 00:17:04,940
So they talked me into testing.

224
00:17:04,940 --> 00:17:09,840
I test, I end up getting one of the positions and I start out at the community college.

225
00:17:09,840 --> 00:17:12,040
That was my first policing job.

226
00:17:12,040 --> 00:17:13,840
They sent me to the police academy.

227
00:17:13,840 --> 00:17:16,640
They paid, my wage was paid while I was there.

228
00:17:16,640 --> 00:17:17,840
It was a pretty good gig.

229
00:17:17,840 --> 00:17:26,440
And what I was making part time as a dispatcher compared to what I was starting out as a police officer was like $32,000 a year or something like that.

230
00:17:26,440 --> 00:17:32,140
I just thought it was great and more money than I'd ever seen at that point.

231
00:17:32,140 --> 00:17:41,340
Were there any areas when you actually got into professional policing where you look back at your time in dispatch and it gave you a different perspective on a call?

232
00:17:41,340 --> 00:17:50,040
Because it's very easy in police and fire and EMS to have the kind of them and us mentality when it comes to the voice behind the radio.

233
00:17:50,040 --> 00:17:53,640
Yeah, I mean, just the way I interacted with my dispatchers was different.

234
00:17:53,640 --> 00:18:03,140
You know, I made like one of the things that I hated as a dispatcher was dispatching a call and then not knowing how it turned out.

235
00:18:03,140 --> 00:18:10,540
You know, you hear something and you might hear something bad on their phone and then you don't know what happens and you might never know what happens.

236
00:18:10,540 --> 00:18:16,040
So that that as a dispatcher for me would sit with me a little bit like I didn't like that.

237
00:18:16,040 --> 00:18:23,440
I had the benefit of those all those officers would come back to our department and I could debrief with them and find out if I so chose.

238
00:18:23,440 --> 00:18:26,840
But even that period of time where I was left there wondering, I didn't enjoy.

239
00:18:26,840 --> 00:18:38,140
So I can only imagine that would be amplified at a 911 center, for example, where they're dealing with much higher volume, much, much more serious calls than we were taking at a community college.

240
00:18:38,140 --> 00:18:44,440
You know, so when I got to the point where I was a police officer full time,

241
00:18:44,440 --> 00:18:50,840
I ensured that even if it was just a message over the NBC or even a quick phone call or just stop by the 911 office,

242
00:18:50,840 --> 00:18:57,840
if it was something major that I would have wanted to know about, I'll let my dispatcher know how it ended so they don't worry.

243
00:18:57,840 --> 00:19:00,540
They don't have that hanging on them.

244
00:19:00,540 --> 00:19:03,240
That was, I think, the biggest takeaway I took from that.

245
00:19:03,240 --> 00:19:07,040
Yeah, I love that. I've had a few dispatchers on here, a handful.

246
00:19:07,040 --> 00:19:14,640
And I think one of the things that most people don't realize is they're firstly more often than not, they're not even seeing daylight.

247
00:19:14,640 --> 00:19:17,540
You know, they might come in 6 a.m., leave at 6 p.m.

248
00:19:17,540 --> 00:19:21,640
So if anything, they're seeing sunrise, sunset, but that's about it.

249
00:19:21,640 --> 00:19:25,940
They're in a dark room, you know, obviously barely any windows or computer screens.

250
00:19:25,940 --> 00:19:28,840
But then they're getting these calls. They're getting the choking baby.

251
00:19:28,840 --> 00:19:30,840
They're getting like I had Beth Bauer Sox on.

252
00:19:30,840 --> 00:19:38,540
She was a dispatcher who lived in Paradise, California and was also working when that wildfire killed numerous members of her community.

253
00:19:38,540 --> 00:19:41,940
And they were calling her screaming before they got burned over.

254
00:19:41,940 --> 00:19:43,440
But they're sitting there.

255
00:19:43,440 --> 00:19:47,640
You know, if you have a foot pursuit, if I have to, you know, throw a ladder to a building and make entry,

256
00:19:47,640 --> 00:19:54,140
at least as a physical offload for some of that stress, a dispatcher is simply sitting there.

257
00:19:54,140 --> 00:20:00,140
So not only they're not getting closure, they're not getting any real physical offload of their own trauma.

258
00:20:00,140 --> 00:20:01,540
Yeah, and that makes sense.

259
00:20:01,540 --> 00:20:08,340
And I've actually heard a couple of different dispatching centers where they're bringing in service dogs and such to help with that kind of thing.

260
00:20:08,340 --> 00:20:15,740
I mean, I mean, it's putting a bandaid on an open wound, but at least it's something they're trying.

261
00:20:15,740 --> 00:20:21,540
Yeah, yeah, I think just getting them outside, getting them moving, you know, there's a way of rotating people through so they can literally,

262
00:20:21,540 --> 00:20:26,840
you know, yeah, be exposed to sunlight, get their blood pumping offload, some of that stuff.

263
00:20:26,840 --> 00:20:31,540
You know, it's important because a lot of dispatchers, sadly, I mean, they're not they're not in great health.

264
00:20:31,540 --> 00:20:38,440
A lot of the ones that I've seen, at least it's a very detrimental physically and mentally to a lot of them.

265
00:20:38,440 --> 00:20:43,940
And I mean, unless you work in the field, a lot of people don't even think about a dispatcher.

266
00:20:43,940 --> 00:20:46,740
They don't consider the person behind that phone.

267
00:20:46,740 --> 00:20:50,340
They don't they don't consider them at all.

268
00:20:50,340 --> 00:20:52,540
So what was your experience?

269
00:20:52,540 --> 00:20:53,940
You wanted to be a police officer.

270
00:20:53,940 --> 00:20:57,540
You had this kind of campus policing that you'd been a part of.

271
00:20:57,540 --> 00:20:58,740
Where did you find yourself?

272
00:20:58,740 --> 00:21:01,840
And was it a big culture shock for you?

273
00:21:01,840 --> 00:21:06,140
So, yeah, I went into this thinking, you know, I'm going to be a police officer.

274
00:21:06,140 --> 00:21:10,740
This is going to be great. Turns out at a community college, they don't want police officers.

275
00:21:10,740 --> 00:21:12,540
They want armed security guards.

276
00:21:12,540 --> 00:21:19,540
Essentially, they don't want you to do anything proactive because if you do anything proactive, it can skew, you know, statistics.

277
00:21:19,540 --> 00:21:24,140
And then all of a sudden, they're looking at federal funding issues or something of that nature.

278
00:21:24,140 --> 00:21:30,040
You know, so they don't want policing on a community college campus.

279
00:21:30,040 --> 00:21:36,740
Me at 20, I think I was 23 at the time, 23, 24 at the time, I wanted to be a police officer.

280
00:21:36,740 --> 00:21:41,140
And so I found myself in the chief's office a lot.

281
00:21:41,140 --> 00:21:46,340
You know, I got I think I'd written the.

282
00:21:46,340 --> 00:21:52,040
The only two do I that had been written in 10 years at that college, like they didn't even have do I packets.

283
00:21:52,040 --> 00:21:55,440
They didn't have the paperwork in the office because it didn't happen.

284
00:21:55,440 --> 00:21:59,940
Like I had to go. I had to borrow it from a neighboring agency type thing.

285
00:21:59,940 --> 00:22:07,140
So I was after about a year and a half, almost two years there.

286
00:22:07,140 --> 00:22:16,140
It was suggested that I might not make probation and that I should look for policing in a different environment.

287
00:22:16,140 --> 00:22:27,240
And so I quit. I you know, I it was a Friday night and I my I received an email earlier that day and my boss was like, hey.

288
00:22:27,240 --> 00:22:33,240
I know your last day is Sunday. We worked for for tens at the time and I know your last day is Sunday morning.

289
00:22:33,240 --> 00:22:41,940
I need you to hang over so we can come in and talk like, why the hell would my chief come in on a Sunday to talk to me that that didn't add up.

290
00:22:41,940 --> 00:22:46,640
So I made a couple of phone calls, found out what was going on, you know, talk to my sergeant and whatnot.

291
00:22:46,640 --> 00:22:52,240
And he told me that, you know, it probably is going to get fired.

292
00:22:52,240 --> 00:22:55,140
I just said, well, you know, I have my daughter this weekend.

293
00:22:55,140 --> 00:23:02,540
We had a joint custody agreement, my ex and I. I have my daughter this weekend and I'd rather spend time with my daughter than sit here to get fired on Sunday.

294
00:23:02,540 --> 00:23:06,740
So here's my gun. Here's my badge. And I walked out.

295
00:23:06,740 --> 00:23:12,140
I don't recommend that very bad, very hard to get a policing job after that.

296
00:23:12,140 --> 00:23:23,940
Very difficult. But luckily, the chief of police who was going to fire me happened to be friends with the neighboring chief of Mohammed, Illinois.

297
00:23:23,940 --> 00:23:31,040
They both retired from the Champaign Police Department and were now chiefs of these other departments.

298
00:23:31,040 --> 00:23:40,340
My chief at the college heard that I was applying for the Mohammed Police Department and he actually gave me a reference for the Mohammed Police Department.

299
00:23:40,340 --> 00:23:46,740
And so the guy who was firing me essentially got me my job at the other police department.

300
00:23:46,740 --> 00:23:50,740
He told me I was a great cop, just not in the college environment.

301
00:23:50,740 --> 00:23:57,340
OK, well, that's good, though. So he realized that you were a bad fit because you were so proactive and aggressive in a positive way.

302
00:23:57,340 --> 00:24:00,440
So it wasn't that you were a terrible employee.

303
00:24:00,440 --> 00:24:03,240
No, no. And it was never a terrible employee thing.

304
00:24:03,240 --> 00:24:06,940
It was, you know, stop taking a little bit of weed off these kids in school, man.

305
00:24:06,940 --> 00:24:11,640
Like that kind of thing. You bring a weed to school. Stop it.

306
00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:14,240
And here we are now. Right.

307
00:24:14,240 --> 00:24:17,340
Laws have changed. All right.

308
00:24:17,340 --> 00:24:22,240
Well, then walk me into your journey into the actual police force.

309
00:24:22,240 --> 00:24:24,440
All right. The actual police force.

310
00:24:24,440 --> 00:24:29,540
It's funny how when I was at the community college, I would have taken offense that we are the police.

311
00:24:29,540 --> 00:24:34,440
But when I went to the actual police department, I saw such a huge difference.

312
00:24:34,440 --> 00:24:38,740
You know, and this isn't to downplay any of the work that they do at the community colleges.

313
00:24:38,740 --> 00:24:43,940
The work there is important. And, you know, college environment is just a different type of policing.

314
00:24:43,940 --> 00:24:51,040
There's no other way to put it. It's just different than being a municipal or a state or county officer.

315
00:24:51,040 --> 00:24:55,040
So I end up going to Mohammed Police Department.

316
00:24:55,040 --> 00:24:58,240
I go through their FTO program. Don't have any trouble.

317
00:24:58,240 --> 00:25:03,140
Make it off probation. And the moment I make it off probation, I go and hit up the chief.

318
00:25:03,140 --> 00:25:07,240
And I asked to get put on the county SWAT unit.

319
00:25:07,240 --> 00:25:13,640
So he gets me the interviews I need, fill out the paperwork I need.

320
00:25:13,640 --> 00:25:18,940
And next thing I know, I'm going to SWAT school and I end up on the countywide SWAT team.

321
00:25:18,940 --> 00:25:23,040
And I stayed there for pretty much the rest of my police career.

322
00:25:23,040 --> 00:25:27,040
I mean, I just I don't know how to describe it.

323
00:25:27,040 --> 00:25:31,740
It was just a kind of got into this rhythm. You know, I work nights most of the time, you know,

324
00:25:31,740 --> 00:25:35,440
and with a small department like that, we didn't have a whole lot of turnover.

325
00:25:35,440 --> 00:25:37,340
So there was not a lot. I'm sorry.

326
00:25:37,340 --> 00:25:40,540
I should explain the Mohammed Police Department was a small police department.

327
00:25:40,540 --> 00:25:44,840
We had maybe I think it was 10 swarm total.

328
00:25:44,840 --> 00:25:49,640
So we had enough to where we were working full time around the clock and we weren't a part time police department.

329
00:25:49,640 --> 00:25:56,540
But we you know, there are shifts where there was only one of us on duty and we would rely on county for a backing officer.

330
00:25:56,540 --> 00:26:01,340
So describe the city to me, you know, when you talk about one police officer, you know,

331
00:26:01,340 --> 00:26:08,940
what is the what is a 24 hour or 12 hour shift most likely going to be for a police officer at that time?

332
00:26:08,940 --> 00:26:12,940
It depends on the day. I mean, when you go to police, when you get in there,

333
00:26:12,940 --> 00:26:15,840
you usually arrive early, get your squad car together, that kind of thing.

334
00:26:15,840 --> 00:26:21,740
You go out and do patrol. Usually there's emails from the chief telling us to do some directed patrols in some certain areas.

335
00:26:21,740 --> 00:26:27,940
The area that we were covering was upwards of about 14 square miles. It was huge from tip to tip.

336
00:26:27,940 --> 00:26:31,140
You know, it was some places it was the size of a county.

337
00:26:31,140 --> 00:26:37,740
But this was our town. You know, when you drove one end to the other, it was 13 miles across.

338
00:26:37,740 --> 00:26:42,440
So, you know, you do go out and you start doing your directed patrols.

339
00:26:42,440 --> 00:26:44,740
You had your areas that you'd want to check that, you know,

340
00:26:44,740 --> 00:26:51,140
where common where you knew criminal activity was common usually, you know, that some of the parks and we had believe it or not,

341
00:26:51,140 --> 00:26:53,740
Mohammed actually had a heavy drug use issue.

342
00:26:53,740 --> 00:27:02,640
And whereas some of the local towns, you know, they they were dealing more with weed and some of the more less expensive drugs.

343
00:27:02,640 --> 00:27:08,540
And Mohammed, they had access. It was kind of the rich suburb to the larger city champagne there.

344
00:27:08,540 --> 00:27:10,240
And all the kids had money.

345
00:27:10,240 --> 00:27:17,740
So they were rolling around with like cocaine and stuff like that that you wouldn't normally found, you know, on your just in that environment.

346
00:27:17,740 --> 00:27:22,940
I wouldn't think but so, you know, they had their drug issues.

347
00:27:22,940 --> 00:27:32,840
And so there is if you wanted to be busy, you could be proactive and I could be busy all day writing do eyes, you know, doing drug interdiction.

348
00:27:32,840 --> 00:27:34,940
And then at the same time, you're answering calls as well.

349
00:27:34,940 --> 00:27:40,740
So, you know, any any calls that come into the city, if you're working by yourself, obviously, it's your responsibility.

350
00:27:40,740 --> 00:27:44,940
Most of the time, we were able to cover it where we had two officers for most of the shift

351
00:27:44,940 --> 00:27:48,340
where there might only be like a three or four hour period where you're by yourself.

352
00:27:48,340 --> 00:27:53,640
And we would arrange that. So it was like at the beginning where it was like two o'clock in the afternoon where you're not getting any calls.

353
00:27:53,640 --> 00:28:00,340
But at seven o'clock where it's busy, you got two officers type thing, you know, like a power shift situation.

354
00:28:00,340 --> 00:28:02,240
So, yeah, just every day was different, man.

355
00:28:02,240 --> 00:28:03,940
And that's kind of what I loved about the job.

356
00:28:03,940 --> 00:28:06,740
I never would I go to work and expect the same thing.

357
00:28:06,740 --> 00:28:10,840
You know, I had my places. I like to run traffic, but I really wasn't into writing tickets.

358
00:28:10,840 --> 00:28:15,140
I use traffic more for interdiction than anything else.

359
00:28:15,140 --> 00:28:22,240
When I told people in law enforcement and bearing in mind, this is a firefighter observing your community from the outside looking in.

360
00:28:22,240 --> 00:28:28,840
One of the things that seems to be insanity to me is riding one to a car, no matter one to a whole city.

361
00:28:28,840 --> 00:28:36,340
So, you know, because, you know, the the false multiplier effect of a second person is way more than two people.

362
00:28:36,340 --> 00:28:38,540
It becomes, you know, much greater than that.

363
00:28:38,540 --> 00:28:43,040
Did you feel vulnerable at those times, even if there was two of you, especially if you were on your own?

364
00:28:43,040 --> 00:28:47,440
Because, I mean, literally, you had no one watching a six at that point.

365
00:28:47,440 --> 00:29:00,140
So, yes and no. I can think of specific times, even when we had two officers, but we knew a county backing officer was still an hour away or 40 minutes away.

366
00:29:00,140 --> 00:29:04,740
You know, there are times that, you know, we weren't doing something proactive.

367
00:29:04,740 --> 00:29:13,940
For example, there's a traffic stop I made and there are four individuals, obviously gang members.

368
00:29:13,940 --> 00:29:18,040
And there I saw open alcohol in the car.

369
00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:21,740
Well, there's two of us and five of them and our backup's 40 minutes away.

370
00:29:21,740 --> 00:29:25,340
I have all the reason in the world to pull them out and start searching.

371
00:29:25,340 --> 00:29:28,840
And but again, the force multiplier there.

372
00:29:28,840 --> 00:29:33,940
So I call my partner over, she comes over and she was like, no, we don't have the manpower.

373
00:29:33,940 --> 00:29:38,440
We don't have the ability, if this goes sideways, to do anything about this.

374
00:29:38,440 --> 00:29:41,540
So maybe we just let this one go.

375
00:29:41,540 --> 00:29:45,940
And so I wasn't happy about it, but I kind of agreed with her at that point.

376
00:29:45,940 --> 00:29:52,840
And so instead of pushing the issue, I kind of said, hey, I see the beer, dump it out and they dumped it out.

377
00:29:52,840 --> 00:29:58,840
I checked her of the traffic issue that I originally stopped him for, but I didn't pull them all out to search the car.

378
00:29:58,840 --> 00:30:04,840
Specifically because we were outnumbered out and I guarantee you had to search that car. There was guns and drugs in it.

379
00:30:04,840 --> 00:30:13,540
I mean, it was writing as if it was a, you know, they'll place people in certain positions and a gang car when they're moving stuff.

380
00:30:13,540 --> 00:30:15,340
And that's what it appeared to me.

381
00:30:15,340 --> 00:30:23,840
Yeah, yeah, it's an interesting way of looking at it, you know, with the whole defund conversation, like minimizing the ability to just simply make an arrest.

382
00:30:23,840 --> 00:30:35,340
You know, that's the person that, you know, killed someone's child minutes before. And now you've only got two of you and you physically don't have the option, you know, in that case, to overpower five people.

383
00:30:35,340 --> 00:30:39,240
You know, I mean, obviously, if it was guns drawn, it might be a different story.

384
00:30:39,240 --> 00:30:43,140
But up until that point, if they're not resisting and all of a sudden it kicks off.

385
00:30:43,140 --> 00:30:49,140
Yeah, I mean, sometimes you see this even in some of these horrific videos that we're seeing at the moment in Mexico.

386
00:30:49,140 --> 00:30:57,940
And I think Ecuador just happened where gangs are literally coming out and kidnapping police officers and corrections officers, and they just simply outmanned them.

387
00:30:57,940 --> 00:30:59,240
That was it.

388
00:30:59,240 --> 00:31:07,740
Yeah, so a hundred percent. And because we were always at the risk of being outmanned, we we learned to talk a lot.

389
00:31:07,740 --> 00:31:16,340
Like instead of fighting, you know, I'd rather talk to somebody for an hour than wrestling for 10 minutes, you know, just because you 10 minutes of wrestling somebody.

390
00:31:16,340 --> 00:31:19,840
That's that's a fight like you're going to be winded after that.

391
00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:23,440
But imagine having to do that by yourself with no backup now.

392
00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:29,940
So if I can sit there for an hour talking to you and then talk you into the handcuffs, that's what I'm going to do.

393
00:31:29,940 --> 00:31:35,540
We relied a lot of I call it gerbil voodoo, but verbal judo.

394
00:31:35,540 --> 00:31:37,240
I'm sure you're familiar.

395
00:31:37,240 --> 00:31:39,340
I like the first name better though.

396
00:31:39,340 --> 00:31:43,140
Right. I mean, because it is it's kind of like a voodoo. If you do it right, it works.

397
00:31:43,140 --> 00:31:52,740
I don't know why, but it does. But so yeah, you rely a lot on talking and communicating and trying to reason with people.

398
00:31:52,740 --> 00:32:03,140
And so I think that's a that's a huge difference of policing in a small community and a larger community where you roll up with five deep to a traffic ticket.

399
00:32:03,140 --> 00:32:06,240
Absolutely. Well, you talked about wrestling.

400
00:32:06,240 --> 00:32:18,540
You were testing for SWAT. How much did all the athleticism of your early life factor into not only succeeding physically just in regular police uniform, but SWAT selection as well?

401
00:32:18,540 --> 00:32:29,940
Yeah, so. I think it helped give me that no quit that that I think the sporting as a child helped develop me into that type A personality, I think.

402
00:32:29,940 --> 00:32:34,940
And if you're going to be successful in SWAT, you're going to be a type personality, type A personality.

403
00:32:34,940 --> 00:32:44,740
They're actively looking for that type of an individual because generally speaking, type B personality don't want to run towards into buildings with gunfire and whatnot.

404
00:32:44,740 --> 00:32:51,640
So at any rate, not to say they can't, but that's just a generalization.

405
00:32:51,640 --> 00:32:54,640
That's what they're looking for in those tests that they made us take.

406
00:32:54,640 --> 00:32:59,640
They're putting us into those categories so they can see which direction that we would likely go.

407
00:32:59,640 --> 00:33:09,040
But at any rate, I feel like I really learned not to quit. And then when it got to some of the SWAT training, you know, it was difficult.

408
00:33:09,040 --> 00:33:12,940
You know, there was a two mile run. There was an obstacle course.

409
00:33:12,940 --> 00:33:19,940
Then, you know, the moving and shooting. When we were training as a police officer, they just did these triangle stance, you know, push out and shoot.

410
00:33:19,940 --> 00:33:24,040
There wasn't a lot of moving. It was it was horrible training, to be honest.

411
00:33:24,040 --> 00:33:29,740
You know, it really wasn't functional training. And then I got to SWAT and all of a sudden they're like, what are you doing?

412
00:33:29,740 --> 00:33:34,740
No, we're rolling on the ground. We're shooting under cars. We're, you know, we're running while we're shooting.

413
00:33:34,740 --> 00:33:39,840
We're moving while we're shooting. And I think just.

414
00:33:39,840 --> 00:33:44,040
The higher level of activity.

415
00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:51,840
And in that decision making that you learn how to do on the spot while playing sports.

416
00:33:51,840 --> 00:34:00,640
I think those are probably what helped push me into the SWAT school and help and help me succeed as well.

417
00:34:00,640 --> 00:34:08,640
Now, prior to 2016, what was some of the notable kind of career calls that you ran in that time period?

418
00:34:08,640 --> 00:34:17,240
Oh, one of one of the SWAT call outs we had, we had an individual armed with a 308 rifle and a scope.

419
00:34:17,240 --> 00:34:24,040
And we were at his home for seemed like 15 or 20 hours, but I think it was like 13 hours.

420
00:34:24,040 --> 00:34:27,640
But it was like negative seven out the entire time.

421
00:34:27,640 --> 00:34:33,640
And so I was on the react team right next to the door and we weren't 100 percent sure he was in the building.

422
00:34:33,640 --> 00:34:38,640
And this was in 2008, 2009 ish.

423
00:34:38,640 --> 00:34:45,940
And. I don't know why I thought of it, but just right away, I'm like, why don't we ping his phone and see if he's at least here?

424
00:34:45,940 --> 00:34:50,740
So not chasing our ass off, sitting outside this building for no reason.

425
00:34:50,740 --> 00:34:53,740
And everybody looked at me and was like, holy crap.

426
00:34:53,740 --> 00:34:57,240
It was like, wow, nobody thought of that.

427
00:34:57,240 --> 00:35:03,240
So we think it's when we find out he's inside and that helped, you know, we send in a robot,

428
00:35:03,240 --> 00:35:07,940
we start breaking windows and things like that to break and make contact, throwing a phone.

429
00:35:07,940 --> 00:35:15,040
And as soon as he sees the SWAT truck pull up up front, because we were doing stuff off to the side for a react team.

430
00:35:15,040 --> 00:35:21,940
But when we started making notifications, we pulled up with an MRAP is what it was, is a converted MRAP.

431
00:35:21,940 --> 00:35:29,640
I'm sorry. It was a bear cat at that time. And we used a loud loud haler and we're blasting, hey, come out.

432
00:35:29,640 --> 00:35:33,440
He tried to go out the back window instead and get into our perimeter unit.

433
00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:38,840
So and took him down without an issue. But that was a very memorable one.

434
00:35:38,840 --> 00:35:44,140
I had a car fire that I responded to in the county and I had my actually had my wife with me at the time.

435
00:35:44,140 --> 00:35:47,240
And she was a ride along. We were allowed to do ride alongs if we so chose.

436
00:35:47,240 --> 00:35:51,840
And she I get bored once in a while. So she rode along with me this evening.

437
00:35:51,840 --> 00:35:58,740
And it was a car. Some kids were driving a van. They lost control.

438
00:35:58,740 --> 00:36:04,340
They had a tree van caught fire with entrapment.

439
00:36:04,340 --> 00:36:07,840
So I haul asked to get there. It's outside my jurisdiction.

440
00:36:07,840 --> 00:36:13,440
It's about a mile outside my jurisdiction. Not quite a mile, but at any rate, I get there.

441
00:36:13,440 --> 00:36:18,240
I'm first on scene and I see the fire. I grab my I tell my wife to stay in the car.

442
00:36:18,240 --> 00:36:23,840
Obviously, I grab my fire extinguisher out of the car.

443
00:36:23,840 --> 00:36:28,640
And I run up there and I see three, there's four kids total in this car.

444
00:36:28,640 --> 00:36:33,440
And I see three of them with obviously broken legs and stuff trying to get out of the car and they can't.

445
00:36:33,440 --> 00:36:36,140
So I helped drag these three kids out of the car.

446
00:36:36,140 --> 00:36:40,240
And then I go back for the driver, who was the one who was entrapped.

447
00:36:40,240 --> 00:36:46,840
He was fully entrapped, not out at all. And I he he as I was walking up to him,

448
00:36:46,840 --> 00:36:53,240
I the fire kind of wrapped around him completely like flashed up on us.

449
00:36:53,240 --> 00:36:59,840
And I'm hitting the fire with the fire extinguisher and I'm getting flash burns on my arm and my face from this.

450
00:36:59,840 --> 00:37:05,840
The coming up right there. And and unfortunately, we weren't able to save him.

451
00:37:05,840 --> 00:37:13,040
But he burned to death right there. What made it so much harder is right after that,

452
00:37:13,040 --> 00:37:16,940
because one officer, county, county contacts me.

453
00:37:16,940 --> 00:37:22,040
He I actually knew this kid. We dealt with him a couple of times for not anything major,

454
00:37:22,040 --> 00:37:25,440
but he lived inside my jurisdiction.

455
00:37:25,440 --> 00:37:28,640
So now came the time for the death notification.

456
00:37:28,640 --> 00:37:31,640
And the coroner contacted our department.

457
00:37:31,640 --> 00:37:33,440
And of course, I was the only one working.

458
00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:41,240
So I just watched this kid burn to death. And then I had to go assist the coroner in giving the death notification to the child's mother.

459
00:37:41,240 --> 00:37:49,940
And. That was probably the hardest thing ever did as a police officer.

460
00:37:49,940 --> 00:37:54,040
I mean, it sounds horrendous. I mean, kudos to you for the rescues that you made.

461
00:37:54,040 --> 00:38:01,940
But I think the I've said this so many times, we in our training in fire and police and EMS,

462
00:38:01,940 --> 00:38:05,940
you do A, B and C, you get outcome D and you get out into the real world.

463
00:38:05,940 --> 00:38:10,340
And you discover that a lot of people don't make it no matter what you do.

464
00:38:10,340 --> 00:38:16,340
And that inability to save can be a crushing weight just within itself.

465
00:38:16,340 --> 00:38:21,840
I wrote an article about that. It's actually on my website and I posted it a couple of different times.

466
00:38:21,840 --> 00:38:27,040
It's called a mother's death. And I wrote it as a it's more of like a poem, I guess.

467
00:38:27,040 --> 00:38:34,840
And it talks about how. It sometimes feel like death is just following us.

468
00:38:34,840 --> 00:38:41,940
No matter what we do, we can't stop it. And it's almost like death asks in that, you know, like the concept of death.

469
00:38:41,940 --> 00:38:50,640
It humanizes death and so, yeah, but it's really it's really sad.

470
00:38:50,640 --> 00:38:59,140
To experience those things and then look back at them and realize how much.

471
00:38:59,140 --> 00:39:04,540
More you should have done like in terms of getting help like that hurt me bad.

472
00:39:04,540 --> 00:39:08,540
And looking back now, I'm sitting there thinking I didn't go talk to anybody.

473
00:39:08,540 --> 00:39:12,740
I didn't do a critical debrief. You know, like I went home that night.

474
00:39:12,740 --> 00:39:16,840
I took my wife was a little freaked out.

475
00:39:16,840 --> 00:39:23,540
I took a shower and proceeded to cough up soot and stuff from the fire for the next week.

476
00:39:23,540 --> 00:39:29,340
You know, and I should have went and talked to somebody, you know, I should have went and, you know,

477
00:39:29,340 --> 00:39:33,340
and sought that help just, you know, seeing how it's even affecting me now.

478
00:39:33,340 --> 00:39:36,540
And I'm losing my train of thought. I'm shaking a little bit.

479
00:39:36,540 --> 00:39:42,540
You know, that tells me that maybe I didn't deal with all of the emotions and feelings behind that.

480
00:39:42,540 --> 00:39:48,940
This isn't as acute, but I was on a plane a few weeks ago about to fly from London back here to the US

481
00:39:48,940 --> 00:39:56,940
and the passenger had a cardiac arrest and I ended up working a code and it was a really interesting perspective.

482
00:39:56,940 --> 00:39:59,240
The gentleman didn't make it, which is horrendous.

483
00:39:59,240 --> 00:40:01,940
And we did everything we could with the I mean, I was the only one.

484
00:40:01,940 --> 00:40:05,940
I think that any sort of pre hospital experience whatsoever.

485
00:40:05,940 --> 00:40:10,740
And so the stewardess, the flight crew were slowly able to get bits of equipment

486
00:40:10,740 --> 00:40:14,040
because they had protocol and everything that needed to be open needed permission.

487
00:40:14,040 --> 00:40:21,540
I mean, there was, you know, not a good system when it comes to getting a responder to help the equipment that they need.

488
00:40:21,540 --> 00:40:26,540
Very long story short, I'm helping the London ambulance crew doing compression still.

489
00:40:26,540 --> 00:40:30,640
And then finally it gets to the point where we change it off and I tell them, look, I'm probably in the way now.

490
00:40:30,640 --> 00:40:35,540
Now I've done my bit on the chest. Do you need me? And they're like, no, we'll come find you when we're done.

491
00:40:35,540 --> 00:40:39,040
So I went, washed the blood off my hands and went and sat back down.

492
00:40:39,040 --> 00:40:43,040
And it kind of, it struck me, it hit me hard.

493
00:40:43,040 --> 00:40:51,540
And I was like, wow, you know, 14 years of literally wiping down gear after someone's died and just going back in service and doing it all over again.

494
00:40:51,540 --> 00:40:57,740
But what was striking was I realized what I was feeling is what actually is supposed to happen when someone dies.

495
00:40:57,740 --> 00:41:01,340
And so when it happens to us, like as you sit here, when you're shaken,

496
00:41:01,340 --> 00:41:10,340
it was because of what you saw was horrific and tragic and you felt completely helpless in helping the young man that was trapped.

497
00:41:10,340 --> 00:41:12,740
And sometimes we look at it as like, what's wrong with me?

498
00:41:12,740 --> 00:41:18,040
And actually that's how it's supposed to feel because it should be because it was horrendous.

499
00:41:18,040 --> 00:41:23,940
But when we wear a uniform, we try and burrow it down at what's wrong with us because you've got another call to go to.

500
00:41:23,940 --> 00:41:30,540
So it's kind of like, where is that medium between feeling because you're supposed to feel,

501
00:41:30,540 --> 00:41:34,940
but obviously, like you said, not being overwhelmed where it consumes you?

502
00:41:34,940 --> 00:41:39,440
Yeah, I don't have an answer for that, but I think those are very, very good points.

503
00:41:39,440 --> 00:41:49,240
And I think that's essentially what I've been trying to highlight is, you know, we need we need to pay more attention to our mental health.

504
00:41:49,240 --> 00:41:52,440
I mean, there's just no doubt that I know it sounds cliche.

505
00:41:52,440 --> 00:41:56,940
Everybody says that nowadays, but damn it, it's true.

506
00:41:56,940 --> 00:42:02,540
Especially in these fields that we're working, you know, we're all these again, type A personalities.

507
00:42:02,540 --> 00:42:06,140
I can handle anything. I was in a shootout last week.

508
00:42:06,140 --> 00:42:12,540
Like, come on, we can be Billy Badass, but that only goes so far.

509
00:42:12,540 --> 00:42:16,640
The way I've framed it recently is I'm almost 50 now.

510
00:42:16,640 --> 00:42:20,840
So I grew up in the Rambo Schwarzenegger, you know, the 80s movies.

511
00:42:20,840 --> 00:42:26,740
And that was a manly man, you know, the bodybuilder and the emotionless face.

512
00:42:26,740 --> 00:42:31,240
And then you get into this profession and that kind of bleeds over into us.

513
00:42:31,240 --> 00:42:34,040
You know, now we're wearing uniform, believing that same thing.

514
00:42:34,040 --> 00:42:40,540
And you see a lot of these, you know, firefighters, police officers, you know, that still believe that kind of rub some dirt in it.

515
00:42:40,540 --> 00:42:43,040
You know, don't be a pussy, boys don't cry.

516
00:42:43,040 --> 00:42:46,940
But then when you take a step back and ask yourself, why did you become a police officer?

517
00:42:46,940 --> 00:42:48,540
Why did you become a firefighter?

518
00:42:48,540 --> 00:42:55,340
It was kindness and compassion. On the yin yang, it was the yang, which is the black, which is, you know, the soft,

519
00:42:55,340 --> 00:42:57,340
the kind of, you know, feminine energy.

520
00:42:57,340 --> 00:43:02,740
And I mean, in a positive way, but somewhere along the line, we think that we're just a white circle.

521
00:43:02,740 --> 00:43:04,440
We're all yin or might have a back.

522
00:43:04,440 --> 00:43:05,540
I think yang is actually white.

523
00:43:05,540 --> 00:43:13,840
But, you know, we're all we're all hard and we forget to show ourselves the very compassion that led us into this profession,

524
00:43:13,840 --> 00:43:17,440
the very compassion that we show other people when we go on calls.

525
00:43:17,440 --> 00:43:24,840
So that's the disconnect is that we believe this two dimensional facade of what Hollywood told us masculinity was.

526
00:43:24,840 --> 00:43:29,340
And I always say you want a perfect example of what a man actually looks like.

527
00:43:29,340 --> 00:43:34,540
Watch the band of brothers and listen to the real men talking about something that they did.

528
00:43:34,540 --> 00:43:41,940
It was 60 plus years prior to that filming and they're still broken and they're still in tears because that's what's supposed to happen.

529
00:43:41,940 --> 00:43:44,540
When you lose people, it should affect you.

530
00:43:44,540 --> 00:43:46,840
You're not this Robo cop.

531
00:43:46,840 --> 00:43:53,840
And that mentality, I think, is what a lot drives a lot of our men into the ground because they feel too proud to reach out thinking that they're weak

532
00:43:53,840 --> 00:43:55,840
and thinking that they're alone when they're not.

533
00:43:55,840 --> 00:43:59,340
They're just simply being human beings.

534
00:43:59,340 --> 00:44:01,640
That 100 percent happened to me.

535
00:44:01,640 --> 00:44:03,840
You know, I had that mentality.

536
00:44:03,840 --> 00:44:05,240
I was I was a Billy.

537
00:44:05,240 --> 00:44:06,540
I was swat. I was this.

538
00:44:06,540 --> 00:44:08,540
I was that I have all these trainings.

539
00:44:08,540 --> 00:44:12,340
I've been you know, I have these degrees, you know, nothing can hurt me.

540
00:44:12,340 --> 00:44:16,140
And then I got hurt and I didn't know how to handle it.

541
00:44:16,140 --> 00:44:19,940
I'm sure we'll talk about that a little bit more as we as we progress.

542
00:44:19,940 --> 00:44:22,140
But that's exactly what happened to me.

543
00:44:22,140 --> 00:44:32,440
I was that guy who would have talked shit and probably did talk shit to other officers at some point prior to experiencing it myself.

544
00:44:32,440 --> 00:44:42,140
And, you know, so I'll be the first to say I was wrong then, you know, like when I was when I had that attitude that I'm invincible,

545
00:44:42,140 --> 00:44:44,840
I can handle this all by myself.

546
00:44:44,840 --> 00:44:47,340
A, there's no need to handle it by yourself.

547
00:44:47,340 --> 00:44:58,440
I mean, there's just too many other options and there's no there's no reason to burden to carry a burden like that on your own.

548
00:44:58,440 --> 00:45:00,040
I completely lost my train of thought there.

549
00:45:00,040 --> 00:45:00,640
I apologize.

550
00:45:00,640 --> 00:45:04,740
No, you were saying you saying that you used to buy into that yourself that you were that guy.

551
00:45:04,740 --> 00:45:06,140
Yeah. Yes.

552
00:45:06,140 --> 00:45:10,840
Yeah. So so I was that guy, you know, especially when I was doing the SWAT callouts.

553
00:45:10,840 --> 00:45:15,440
I thought I thought I was Billy badass and I didn't I didn't think it would happen to me.

554
00:45:15,440 --> 00:45:25,440
You know, you know, you joke around with the guys after, you know, you're on an armed subject column, even if there were shots fired or whatnot, you're still joking around.

555
00:45:25,440 --> 00:45:36,840
And then something so horrific happened to me in May of 2016 that I just it it scrambled my head is the best way I can put it.

556
00:45:36,840 --> 00:45:38,640
It put me into a different dimension.

557
00:45:38,640 --> 00:45:41,440
I didn't know where I was.

558
00:45:41,440 --> 00:45:44,340
You know, I didn't know where I was emotionally, what was going on.

559
00:45:44,340 --> 00:45:48,440
And I turned out the hall, unfortunately.

560
00:45:48,440 --> 00:45:50,340
So let's talk about it now since you opened the door.

561
00:45:50,340 --> 00:45:58,840
So May 7th, 2016, how did that day start for you and then walk us through how it obviously evolved?

562
00:45:58,840 --> 00:46:05,940
So May 7th, 2016, Saturday, normal day, not a big not a big nothing was going on.

563
00:46:05,940 --> 00:46:07,940
I'd actually been texting friends prior to work.

564
00:46:07,940 --> 00:46:08,740
I worked to three p.m.

565
00:46:08,740 --> 00:46:14,440
to 11 p.m. shift and I've been texting friends off and on about going and seeing a movie.

566
00:46:14,440 --> 00:46:18,840
I think it was a new Avengers movie or something that came out that weekend.

567
00:46:18,840 --> 00:46:23,040
I was supposed to meet a state cop friend of mine at the PD at 11 o'clock.

568
00:46:23,040 --> 00:46:27,540
He was going to him and his wife and I were going to go see this movie again.

569
00:46:27,540 --> 00:46:30,040
So I didn't want to do anything that day.

570
00:46:30,040 --> 00:46:34,740
And like I said, this was one of those departments where I wanted to find a hiding spot.

571
00:46:34,740 --> 00:46:36,140
I could find a hiding spot.

572
00:46:36,140 --> 00:46:37,140
Nobody would see me.

573
00:46:37,140 --> 00:46:41,740
I wouldn't get a call like I could literally disappear and just sit around.

574
00:46:41,740 --> 00:46:42,440
That's what I did.

575
00:46:42,440 --> 00:46:43,540
Didn't make a traffic stop.

576
00:46:43,540 --> 00:46:45,340
Nothing.

577
00:46:45,340 --> 00:46:46,340
Fast forward to the end.

578
00:46:46,340 --> 00:46:48,340
So this was a Saturday.

579
00:46:48,340 --> 00:46:49,540
So at 7 p.m.

580
00:46:49,540 --> 00:46:57,540
we had a power shift officer come on his name doesn't matter, but he came on and so we had two officers for the remaining of the shift.

581
00:46:57,540 --> 00:46:59,740
He actually stayed till 3 o'clock in the morning.

582
00:46:59,740 --> 00:47:01,740
We had another officer that came on at 11 p.m.

583
00:47:01,740 --> 00:47:02,540
when I got on.

584
00:47:02,540 --> 00:47:07,840
So, you know, 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. we had two officers.

585
00:47:07,840 --> 00:47:16,440
So I'm chilling through my shift making arrangements to go see the movies and whatnot and about 20 minutes till the end till 11.

586
00:47:16,440 --> 00:47:21,640
I go and I get dinner at McDonald's at sit at the edge of town doing my fat kid thing.

587
00:47:21,640 --> 00:47:22,540
Eating.

588
00:47:22,540 --> 00:47:26,940
I mean, if you look at the crime scene photos, you can see my McDonald's in my squad car still.

589
00:47:26,940 --> 00:47:34,840
It's funny, but but like five, I'm just sitting down getting ready to eat.

590
00:47:34,840 --> 00:47:40,940
I hear my my partner make a traffic stop and I was at the FTO and during the FTO, he would do that all the time.

591
00:47:40,940 --> 00:47:46,640
I get on his ass about making traffic stops at shift change because I didn't want to be over time.

592
00:47:46,640 --> 00:47:49,840
I had plans like I would always just give him shit about that.

593
00:47:49,840 --> 00:47:51,540
And he thought it was a joke.

594
00:47:51,540 --> 00:47:54,940
So I thought he was just fucking with me.

595
00:47:54,940 --> 00:48:02,040
So he makes a traffic stop and within two minutes, you know, I'm asking him if he needs backup and he's saying he's good.

596
00:48:02,040 --> 00:48:04,240
He doesn't need he doesn't need a back.

597
00:48:04,240 --> 00:48:06,540
So I finished my I'm sitting on the edge of town.

598
00:48:06,540 --> 00:48:07,940
I just finished my lunch.

599
00:48:07,940 --> 00:48:09,740
I hear him clear a stop.

600
00:48:09,740 --> 00:48:10,940
I'm OK. Cool.

601
00:48:10,940 --> 00:48:12,340
Send it a shift.

602
00:48:12,340 --> 00:48:19,040
So I'm headed back to the police department and as I'm headed back to the police department, I'm about I'm a block away from the police department.

603
00:48:19,040 --> 00:48:24,340
I see a car turn towards me from a road and it didn't have any headlights on.

604
00:48:24,340 --> 00:48:27,640
And I'm like, well, shit, I can't really say I didn't see that.

605
00:48:27,640 --> 00:48:30,240
Like it's coming directly at me with no headlights on.

606
00:48:30,240 --> 00:48:33,540
So I can't I can't just ignore that one.

607
00:48:33,540 --> 00:48:38,540
So I reach out to my I reach out over the radio to my partner, make sure I wasn't stopping the vehicle.

608
00:48:38,540 --> 00:48:43,440
He had just stopped if he'd already addressed it, then I don't need to address it per se if it's a mechanical.

609
00:48:43,440 --> 00:48:46,040
At any rate, he says it's not the same vehicle.

610
00:48:46,040 --> 00:48:48,640
So I flip around, I get behind it.

611
00:48:48,640 --> 00:48:55,140
And as I get behind it, it pulls in, it turns onto Vine Street and then it turns right into a parking spot.

612
00:48:55,140 --> 00:48:58,440
I'm thinking to myself, it's 10 minutes before the end of my shift.

613
00:48:58,440 --> 00:49:00,840
No harm, no foul. Dude made it home.

614
00:49:00,840 --> 00:49:07,140
I can roll down my window, do a little community policing and just tell this gentleman, hey, you know, your lights are out.

615
00:49:07,140 --> 00:49:09,540
Get it fixed. You know, maybe you just forgot to turn them on.

616
00:49:09,540 --> 00:49:12,140
Maybe you didn't pull your break down all the way.

617
00:49:12,140 --> 00:49:15,540
Whatever your home, your safe, no harm, no foul.

618
00:49:15,540 --> 00:49:21,440
As soon as I rolled down my window, I heard another individual yell.

619
00:49:21,440 --> 00:49:25,840
Sorry, I heard him yell fucking Charlo.

620
00:49:25,840 --> 00:49:35,240
And right then I was just like, like when you hear somebody screaming your name, yeah, I knew something wasn't right right away.

621
00:49:35,240 --> 00:49:41,740
I look over and I see this individual just running directly at my squad car from the house.

622
00:49:41,740 --> 00:49:47,740
So I open my car door and by the time I open the car door and have time to stand up, he is on top of me.

623
00:49:47,740 --> 00:49:51,040
And I put my arm up, my left arm up to stop him.

624
00:49:51,040 --> 00:49:56,640
And he just starts punching, just punching it fist after fist.

625
00:49:56,640 --> 00:49:58,740
This is not the guy who is driving the vehicle.

626
00:49:58,740 --> 00:50:04,040
This is a third party that was actually the person my partner had just stopped.

627
00:50:04,040 --> 00:50:09,840
So. He just starts punching me.

628
00:50:09,840 --> 00:50:13,640
I go, I try to get out over my radio like I'm blocking with one arm.

629
00:50:13,640 --> 00:50:15,240
I'm blocking these punches with one arm.

630
00:50:15,240 --> 00:50:16,540
I've closed distance.

631
00:50:16,540 --> 00:50:17,240
So he's like right.

632
00:50:17,240 --> 00:50:18,840
I'm right on top of each other.

633
00:50:18,840 --> 00:50:23,540
So his hits are kind of hitting me in the back of the head and they're not really strong.

634
00:50:23,540 --> 00:50:30,140
I guess is the best way because I close that distance so they they don't have the force.

635
00:50:30,140 --> 00:50:32,440
I try to get out of the radio, can't get out over the radio.

636
00:50:32,440 --> 00:50:35,440
My radio had changed in that little scuffle.

637
00:50:35,440 --> 00:50:41,340
The channel had changed and I was going out over some channel that wasn't even being watched.

638
00:50:41,340 --> 00:50:44,040
I go, I see my taser on my belt.

639
00:50:44,040 --> 00:50:49,940
I grab my taser and I pull the trigger and I see the probe sit him in the chest and it doesn't do shit.

640
00:50:49,940 --> 00:50:51,340
It was like nothing.

641
00:50:51,340 --> 00:50:54,140
So I'm like again, holy crap, what do I do?

642
00:50:54,140 --> 00:50:56,740
I shove the taser into his chest and it has a second mode.

643
00:50:56,740 --> 00:51:04,440
It's called a drive-stun mode and I hit him in the chest and that pain compliance was enough to push him off me.

644
00:51:04,440 --> 00:51:15,040
So as I push him off me, I clear the car because obviously I don't want to be trapped by that car anymore.

645
00:51:15,040 --> 00:51:24,940
And I start backing away from him with my arm raised and I'm yelling, please stop, please stop.

646
00:51:24,940 --> 00:51:37,140
I maybe made five, six, seven feet away and I see him reach into his pocket and pull out a pistol and start firing.

647
00:51:37,140 --> 00:51:40,940
Yeah, I see him start firing and I was hit.

648
00:51:40,940 --> 00:51:42,440
Like I knew right away I was hit.

649
00:51:42,440 --> 00:51:46,640
Like some of these people are like, oh, I didn't know I was shot.

650
00:51:46,640 --> 00:51:49,840
I fucking knew, man. It hurt like a, it didn't feel good.

651
00:51:49,840 --> 00:51:54,740
It felt like it was hit with a sledgehammer and it burned and everything was numb.

652
00:51:54,740 --> 00:51:56,240
My entire arm was numb.

653
00:51:56,240 --> 00:52:05,140
And so based on the injury, it looks like there's a little hole here in the elbow and there's a big hole here in the arm.

654
00:52:05,140 --> 00:52:07,940
So it looks like entry and exit.

655
00:52:07,940 --> 00:52:10,240
However, I never had my back to him.

656
00:52:10,240 --> 00:52:12,640
I never turned my back to this man.

657
00:52:12,640 --> 00:52:20,040
So the best I can figure is when I saw the gun, I went like that and the round went through my arm.

658
00:52:20,040 --> 00:52:21,140
I went back down.

659
00:52:21,140 --> 00:52:23,940
I drew my pistol, even though I was hit and drew my pistol.

660
00:52:23,940 --> 00:52:25,740
I returned fire.

661
00:52:25,740 --> 00:52:28,940
I hit him in the neck and the leg.

662
00:52:28,940 --> 00:52:30,040
Dropped him right there.

663
00:52:30,040 --> 00:52:31,640
He dropped there.

664
00:52:31,640 --> 00:52:34,440
I emptied my mag.

665
00:52:34,440 --> 00:52:36,040
He got up.

666
00:52:36,040 --> 00:52:45,540
He went into the house and I went to my, I started running towards my squad car to get my AR because he was still shooting at me.

667
00:52:45,540 --> 00:52:50,440
I got to the, I got, as I was running to the car, my training just kicked in.

668
00:52:50,440 --> 00:52:51,640
I'm like, that's a bullet magnet.

669
00:52:51,640 --> 00:52:53,240
Don't go back to that car.

670
00:52:53,240 --> 00:52:55,840
So instead of going to the car, there was a building right behind it.

671
00:52:55,840 --> 00:52:58,840
I went to the building that had a brick facade.

672
00:52:58,840 --> 00:53:05,840
I thought it had a brick facade, but at any rate, I went to the building and I pied the corner and kind of had eyes on.

673
00:53:05,840 --> 00:53:12,340
And that's when I was able to change the channel on my radio and finally get out to my dispatcher and call for help.

674
00:53:12,340 --> 00:53:14,740
From there, I've got this corner pied.

675
00:53:14,740 --> 00:53:15,940
You know, I'm checking my wounds.

676
00:53:15,940 --> 00:53:18,240
I'm letting dispatch know I'm hit.

677
00:53:18,240 --> 00:53:19,940
They're trying to get there.

678
00:53:19,940 --> 00:53:21,240
They didn't hear me at first.

679
00:53:21,240 --> 00:53:24,640
When I went back over the radio, you know, this was 1052 at night.

680
00:53:24,640 --> 00:53:29,640
They had no idea that even I tried to make a traffic stop because I didn't try to make a traffic stop.

681
00:53:29,640 --> 00:53:30,640
I didn't go over the radio.

682
00:53:30,640 --> 00:53:34,040
Nothing, you know, so.

683
00:53:34,040 --> 00:53:47,540
I go over the radio and met had six George to two shots fired on hit and there's silence like you can hear like there's a pregnant pause or like you can hear people like I can just picture them looking at one another and the dispatcher being like, what did he just say?

684
00:53:47,540 --> 00:53:56,040
So then I come back over the radio, make it six George to two shots fired on hit and then it starts lighten up and officers coming from everywhere to try to back.

685
00:53:56,040 --> 00:54:00,540
But the closest officer was still I mean, I had my partner there.

686
00:54:00,540 --> 00:54:02,140
He actually was in town.

687
00:54:02,140 --> 00:54:11,140
So he pulled us that direction and it just so happened that our night shift officer was coming to the police department at that same time.

688
00:54:11,140 --> 00:54:16,240
So while I'm while I was returning fire, I was also moving backwards.

689
00:54:16,240 --> 00:54:19,240
So that's where the moving and shooting with accuracy came into play.

690
00:54:19,240 --> 00:54:21,840
My SWAT training saved my life.

691
00:54:21,840 --> 00:54:28,040
My ability to move and shoot, put him down to stop him from shooting back at me has saved my life.

692
00:54:28,040 --> 00:54:31,040
But he saw all she couldn't see who I was shooting at.

693
00:54:31,040 --> 00:54:36,240
But as you this happened in the backyard of the police department, I told you it was only a block away.

694
00:54:36,240 --> 00:54:37,440
So that block was the block.

695
00:54:37,440 --> 00:54:44,040
The police department was in and she pulls into the parking lot of the police department and I'm on the road right across from from there.

696
00:54:44,040 --> 00:54:47,940
And she sees me backing up moving and shooting.

697
00:54:47,940 --> 00:54:51,140
So now so now there's three of us there.

698
00:54:51,140 --> 00:54:52,640
I tied the corner.

699
00:54:52,640 --> 00:54:55,040
She's trying to tell me to come back to her to get away.

700
00:54:55,040 --> 00:54:58,240
But I want to set up a perimeter because I want to get him.

701
00:54:58,240 --> 00:54:59,440
He got me.

702
00:54:59,440 --> 00:55:01,340
I want to get him.

703
00:55:01,340 --> 00:55:09,040
So I start trying to set up a perimeter and then I see him come out of the house with an AK-47 and I'm I looked at my pistol.

704
00:55:09,040 --> 00:55:13,940
I remember strictly looking at my pistol and looking back at his AK and being no.

705
00:55:13,940 --> 00:55:15,640
I was outgunned.

706
00:55:15,640 --> 00:55:16,340
I knew it.

707
00:55:16,340 --> 00:55:18,440
I already went through a mag.

708
00:55:18,440 --> 00:55:21,540
My extra mags were in my car.

709
00:55:21,540 --> 00:55:24,840
I believe my AR was in my car, but I later found I didn't bring it to work that day.

710
00:55:24,840 --> 00:55:28,740
I was actually sitting at home still, so that wouldn't have done good anyway.

711
00:55:28,740 --> 00:55:33,440
But I only had two mags left on me and he now had an AK-47.

712
00:55:33,440 --> 00:55:38,240
And as soon as I ducked back behind cover, he opened fire.

713
00:55:38,240 --> 00:55:42,140
He believed I was in that squad car and he just shred my squad car.

714
00:55:42,140 --> 00:55:49,640
He emptied a full 30 round mag into my car, specifically targeting the driver's area.

715
00:55:49,640 --> 00:55:54,040
Went through the steering column, the computer, the driver's seat, driver's door.

716
00:55:54,040 --> 00:55:57,640
And those rounds, the 7.62 rounds went through both sides of the car.

717
00:55:57,640 --> 00:56:01,640
Like you see in movies people hiding behind cars.

718
00:56:01,640 --> 00:56:05,240
Those rounds go through so easy.

719
00:56:05,240 --> 00:56:06,740
So he comes out of the house.

720
00:56:06,740 --> 00:56:14,440
So after he mag dumps into my squad car, my partner is still yelling to me to come back.

721
00:56:14,440 --> 00:56:16,040
I hear the gunfire stop.

722
00:56:16,040 --> 00:56:18,240
So I'm knowing he has to reload.

723
00:56:18,240 --> 00:56:22,140
I think I had a good opportunity to cross that field to get back to her.

724
00:56:22,140 --> 00:56:25,840
So she kept lethal cover down across the field to get back to her.

725
00:56:25,840 --> 00:56:29,640
So now we can get that force multiplier two on one.

726
00:56:29,640 --> 00:56:31,740
And she sees my injuries.

727
00:56:31,740 --> 00:56:33,440
She starts checking me out.

728
00:56:33,440 --> 00:56:35,440
And then we hear a wreck.

729
00:56:35,440 --> 00:56:40,640
He had ended up getting into a truck to escape and rammed my squad car.

730
00:56:40,640 --> 00:56:43,340
So hoping I was still in it, I guess.

731
00:56:43,340 --> 00:56:44,840
Rammed my squad car.

732
00:56:44,840 --> 00:56:47,940
And because of the situation, we didn't have officers.

733
00:56:47,940 --> 00:56:49,540
We didn't have a perimeter.

734
00:56:49,540 --> 00:56:54,840
He was able to escape the perimeter which started about a two week long manhunt.

735
00:56:54,840 --> 00:57:04,540
That ended when he broke into a church in southern Illinois and changed his wounds from where I had hit him in his neck.

736
00:57:04,540 --> 00:57:06,440
He dressed his wounds.

737
00:57:06,440 --> 00:57:10,040
He was a survivalist, that kind of an individual.

738
00:57:10,040 --> 00:57:18,840
And he left the bloodied rags and a garbage can inside a church and the preacher saw him, called the police.

739
00:57:18,840 --> 00:57:20,240
The police called.

740
00:57:20,240 --> 00:57:21,840
The FBI was involved.

741
00:57:21,840 --> 00:57:24,040
The FBI SWAT team came out.

742
00:57:24,040 --> 00:57:30,640
He opened fire on FBI SWAT, shot one of the FBI SWAT guys also in the arm.

743
00:57:30,640 --> 00:57:33,040
They opened fire, returning fire on him.

744
00:57:33,040 --> 00:57:39,840
And the autopsy wasn't able to determine how many rounds he was hit with.

745
00:57:39,840 --> 00:57:41,840
Meaning a lot.

746
00:57:41,840 --> 00:57:45,340
Yeah.

747
00:57:45,340 --> 00:57:46,540
What about the backstory?

748
00:57:46,540 --> 00:57:50,640
I want to obviously get into you and the hours and days and weeks after that.

749
00:57:50,640 --> 00:57:55,840
But did you ever find out motive, why he shouted, Sharlow?

750
00:57:55,840 --> 00:58:01,240
I mean, the reason he got to this point of basically kill or be killed?

751
00:58:01,240 --> 00:58:05,240
So I dealt with him a couple different times in the past.

752
00:58:05,240 --> 00:58:16,040
The first time I dealt with him, I was responding to a gas station for a domestic, I'm sorry, a disorderly conduct.

753
00:58:16,040 --> 00:58:22,040
There was an individual yelling racial slurs at a black individual at the gas station.

754
00:58:22,040 --> 00:58:27,840
So I get there and I speak with the black individual and he's telling me, he gives me a description.

755
00:58:27,840 --> 00:58:31,740
I'm able to get information from the cameras.

756
00:58:31,740 --> 00:58:35,840
I get a license plate and I go to the end of it, the suspect's house.

757
00:58:35,840 --> 00:58:40,540
I get to the suspect's house and at this point, I'm just trying to talk to him, find out what's going on.

758
00:58:40,540 --> 00:58:46,640
Because as long as it's only words, I mean, that's a very fine line of freedom of speech for disorderly conduct.

759
00:58:46,640 --> 00:58:48,540
It's a fine line. Is it right?

760
00:58:48,540 --> 00:58:50,140
No, it's never right.

761
00:58:50,140 --> 00:58:56,340
But I don't know that we can necessarily arrest somebody for just being an asshole.

762
00:58:56,340 --> 00:59:03,640
So I walk up to try to talk to him about the situation and immediately he starts yelling,

763
00:59:03,640 --> 00:59:05,540
you have a warrant, get off my property.

764
00:59:05,540 --> 00:59:08,340
He balls his fist up and he starts running at me.

765
00:59:08,340 --> 00:59:14,140
So at that point, I draw my taser and I put it on him and I held him at taser point until I got a backup officer there.

766
00:59:14,140 --> 00:59:16,340
We stood there for like 15 minutes.

767
00:59:16,340 --> 00:59:20,940
We just with my taser pointed at him because it was me, him and his wife.

768
00:59:20,940 --> 00:59:23,340
I didn't know if anybody else was in the house, but I didn't want to go.

769
00:59:23,340 --> 00:59:27,440
I didn't want to lower my taser and go hands on with this guy one on one.

770
00:59:27,440 --> 00:59:29,340
So I just sat there waiting for backup.

771
00:59:29,340 --> 00:59:36,540
And during that time, he was yelling at me, telling me how I am the problem with our society

772
00:59:36,540 --> 00:59:40,740
and that it's a police state and all this kind of other stuff.

773
00:59:40,740 --> 00:59:46,740
And then once we got him into the squad car, as I'm taking him to jail, he started yelling at me in German.

774
00:59:46,740 --> 00:59:48,840
I know it was German because I've heard German.

775
00:59:48,840 --> 00:59:52,140
I don't know what he was saying, but I can imagine it wasn't friendly,

776
00:59:52,140 --> 00:59:58,540
especially seeing he was yelling and spitting at the partition in the car.

777
00:59:58,540 --> 01:00:05,540
And then he went and told me how he started yelling at me about how I was just protecting those animals

778
01:00:05,540 --> 01:00:10,840
and that I was the reason that good white men were being put in prison.

779
01:00:10,840 --> 01:00:12,740
So that was the first interaction I had with him.

780
01:00:12,740 --> 01:00:14,940
He ended up going to jail.

781
01:00:14,940 --> 01:00:19,840
He was found guilty of disorderly conduct and aggravated assault to a police officer.

782
01:00:19,840 --> 01:00:22,040
They actually charged it. I was shot.

783
01:00:22,040 --> 01:00:28,140
Me being the assaulting, the one he assaulted.

784
01:00:28,140 --> 01:00:34,040
But he was ordered to do some anger management and whatnot.

785
01:00:34,040 --> 01:00:36,640
And we saw how well that worked.

786
01:00:36,640 --> 01:00:47,040
But so fast forward maybe a year after that, I stopped a car for speeding like 30 miles an hour over.

787
01:00:47,040 --> 01:00:51,640
It was in a 35 mile an hour zone and she was going like 65 or 70 or something like that.

788
01:00:51,640 --> 01:00:53,440
So she was flying.

789
01:00:53,440 --> 01:00:57,040
So I get her stopped and when I get her stopped, she's in tears, bawling.

790
01:00:57,040 --> 01:01:00,840
And it's clear that she's not just upset about being stopped.

791
01:01:00,840 --> 01:01:06,040
And speaking with her and investigating, I find out that her and her husband had had a domestic

792
01:01:06,040 --> 01:01:11,540
and that he was at his house and she was trying to get away to get to her parents house.

793
01:01:11,540 --> 01:01:13,240
He lived in the county.

794
01:01:13,240 --> 01:01:16,240
They lived in the county and outside my jurisdiction.

795
01:01:16,240 --> 01:01:19,940
So instead of just to make sure everybody was OK,

796
01:01:19,940 --> 01:01:22,540
we tried to call him and try to get his side of the story.

797
01:01:22,540 --> 01:01:27,740
And as soon as I call him, he goes, he tells me to fuck off and hangs up.

798
01:01:27,740 --> 01:01:30,240
I call him back and he won't pick up, etc.

799
01:01:30,240 --> 01:01:33,940
So like the man just wouldn't speak with us at all.

800
01:01:33,940 --> 01:01:36,740
The very next contact I have, he shoots me.

801
01:01:36,740 --> 01:01:40,040
So I don't do I have do I know why?

802
01:01:40,040 --> 01:01:43,140
No, I don't know what brought him there.

803
01:01:43,140 --> 01:01:49,640
I guess is the apple simply doesn't fall far from the tree because fast forward two years after that,

804
01:01:49,640 --> 01:01:55,240
my police department was notified by a confidential source that his father was making threats

805
01:01:55,240 --> 01:02:00,540
and had vowed to kill me, which prompted me to leave Illinois altogether.

806
01:02:00,540 --> 01:02:04,140
Yeah, I think this is I'm glad we got the backstory of that as well,

807
01:02:04,140 --> 01:02:07,940
because, you know, especially in twenty twenty three in the last couple of years,

808
01:02:07,940 --> 01:02:13,140
you know, any officer involved shooting a lot of times certain sides of the media will run with it

809
01:02:13,140 --> 01:02:14,340
and they'll be the slump.

810
01:02:14,340 --> 01:02:18,440
But, you know, hearing, for example, the rescue you made a few years prior

811
01:02:18,440 --> 01:02:24,640
and then the obviously sheer psychosis through mental ill health that led to this person getting to this point,

812
01:02:24,640 --> 01:02:27,040
you know, now it humanizes both sides of the story.

813
01:02:27,040 --> 01:02:32,640
And if you've got, you know, a parent who is full of hate and then their trauma was never addressed

814
01:02:32,640 --> 01:02:36,040
and they raise a child to be the same way, this is the problem that we have.

815
01:02:36,040 --> 01:02:41,440
And in the law enforcement conversation, you never hear anyone say,

816
01:02:41,440 --> 01:02:43,940
why are our streets so dangerous in America?

817
01:02:43,940 --> 01:02:45,740
And this is a perfect example.

818
01:02:45,740 --> 01:02:48,040
You know, oh, why did Jeremy shoot that poor guy?

819
01:02:48,040 --> 01:02:51,040
Well, now you learn who that fucking poor guy actually was.

820
01:02:51,040 --> 01:02:54,940
Now it adds a lot more color to the whole scenario.

821
01:02:54,940 --> 01:02:58,440
You know, and you see you see both sides and his empathy even for that man,

822
01:02:58,440 --> 01:03:04,640
because once he was a little toddler, that all he thought about was kicking a ball and drawing the crayons.

823
01:03:04,640 --> 01:03:07,040
So if we don't have both sides of the conversation,

824
01:03:07,040 --> 01:03:12,640
making sure that the bar is high and law enforcement, but also fixing the violence in our country,

825
01:03:12,640 --> 01:03:15,540
we're never going to get to the bottom of it.

826
01:03:15,540 --> 01:03:21,340
Well, unfortunately, he has last night, the person who shot me,

827
01:03:21,340 --> 01:03:24,940
he has two kids, two boys that I know of.

828
01:03:24,940 --> 01:03:29,240
You know, so how are they going to grow up?

829
01:03:29,240 --> 01:03:30,940
Are they going to grow up with that?

830
01:03:30,940 --> 01:03:35,540
Oh, my dad was killed because of a police officer is how that story is going to go.

831
01:03:35,540 --> 01:03:37,540
It's not going to go.

832
01:03:37,540 --> 01:03:44,640
They're not going to be told no dad chose to shoot a cop and the cop shot back.

833
01:03:44,640 --> 01:03:46,940
Like that's not how that's going to go.

834
01:03:46,940 --> 01:03:51,040
I'm going to be in those child's minds because of the way this family is.

835
01:03:51,040 --> 01:03:52,740
I am the bad guy.

836
01:03:52,740 --> 01:03:59,040
And even after the shooting, I was torn apart and social media and the news.

837
01:03:59,040 --> 01:04:03,740
There is rumors going around that the reason he shot me is because I was sleeping with his wife.

838
01:04:03,740 --> 01:04:06,740
Like people are just disgusting.

839
01:04:06,740 --> 01:04:10,340
And they don't understand that we are people too.

840
01:04:10,340 --> 01:04:14,540
And you know, it was horrible.

841
01:04:14,540 --> 01:04:16,440
It was just such a horrible experience.

842
01:04:16,440 --> 01:04:23,740
The vitriol afterwards, the number of people I've had people on my social media that I've arrested

843
01:04:23,740 --> 01:04:28,040
reach out and straight out say they wish he would have killed me

844
01:04:28,040 --> 01:04:31,940
and it couldn't have happened to a better guy, meaning me.

845
01:04:31,940 --> 01:04:35,040
You know, that's the type of people that we're out there dealing with.

846
01:04:35,040 --> 01:04:36,340
Yeah, that's disgusting.

847
01:04:36,340 --> 01:04:40,740
It really is, you know, and there's times where us in uniform make mistakes.

848
01:04:40,740 --> 01:04:43,140
And when that happens, we need to be held accountable.

849
01:04:43,140 --> 01:04:50,640
But we also need to support our men, women who leave their families and go and protect complete strangers.

850
01:04:50,640 --> 01:04:57,840
You know, and this this this narrative that's been created recently is just it's disgusting because yes,

851
01:04:57,840 --> 01:05:00,140
there are people that should never be wearing uniform.

852
01:05:00,140 --> 01:05:02,340
And yes, there is absolute leadership failure.

853
01:05:02,340 --> 01:05:06,740
And yes, there are low fitness standards and training standards, like for example,

854
01:05:06,740 --> 01:05:11,940
qualifying in a triangle stance with six shots once a year that contribute to this

855
01:05:11,940 --> 01:05:15,440
and mandatory overtime and sleep deprivation and all the things.

856
01:05:15,440 --> 01:05:20,140
But if you just vilify a cop because they made a wrong decision at that moment in time,

857
01:05:20,140 --> 01:05:25,440
and I'm not talking about the George Floyd's, I'm talking about the the gray area ones

858
01:05:25,440 --> 01:05:29,240
and it's immediately to them and nothing about why the person was resisting

859
01:05:29,240 --> 01:05:32,340
on their rap sheet that was a foot long.

860
01:05:32,340 --> 01:05:36,140
Then again, you're not you're not looking to even try and solve the solution.

861
01:05:36,140 --> 01:05:37,340
You're just looking for a demon.

862
01:05:37,340 --> 01:05:41,040
So you have to do fucking nothing yourself to fix it.

863
01:05:41,040 --> 01:05:42,640
I fully agree with that.

864
01:05:42,640 --> 01:05:48,340
And it's you know, do you know who hates bad cops more than anybody else?

865
01:05:48,340 --> 01:05:51,640
Good cops, because it makes it so hard.

866
01:05:51,640 --> 01:05:52,940
So do you know what happens?

867
01:05:52,940 --> 01:05:56,040
Those good cops will turn in those bad cops.

868
01:05:56,040 --> 01:06:01,040
There's a myth that, you know, that these cops are looking out for one another, blah, blah, blah.

869
01:06:01,040 --> 01:06:07,340
I've had I the internal politics of a police department are sometimes like a high school.

870
01:06:07,340 --> 01:06:10,240
There's clicks. It's not fun.

871
01:06:10,240 --> 01:06:15,440
It's by any stretch of the imagination to think that there's some huge criminal conspiracy

872
01:06:15,440 --> 01:06:19,240
where these people who can sometimes barely even stand each other are going to cover

873
01:06:19,240 --> 01:06:22,940
for one another while they're committing constitutional violations.

874
01:06:22,940 --> 01:06:23,840
Come on.

875
01:06:23,840 --> 01:06:26,140
Like it's just not you watch too much.

876
01:06:26,140 --> 01:06:27,240
They watch too much TV.

877
01:06:27,240 --> 01:06:29,140
Cops aren't the bad guys.

878
01:06:29,140 --> 01:06:32,940
Well, it's even this notion that, you know, a cop wakes up ringing their hands,

879
01:06:32,940 --> 01:06:37,940
hoping that they're going to shoot someone today when someone has to shoot another person

880
01:06:37,940 --> 01:06:41,340
that can haunt them the rest of their life, you know, say they weren't even shot,

881
01:06:41,340 --> 01:06:45,040
you know, whatever it was a situation they reached for something they ended up having to.

882
01:06:45,040 --> 01:06:47,140
It was a gun they shot first.

883
01:06:47,140 --> 01:06:49,640
You know, they weren't shot themselves, but that's going to haunt them.

884
01:06:49,640 --> 01:06:54,540
They were forced to take a life and the notion that cops want to kill, you know,

885
01:06:54,540 --> 01:06:56,740
only a complete sociopath would want to.

886
01:06:56,740 --> 01:07:00,640
So I know every every profession has them.

887
01:07:00,640 --> 01:07:04,540
There are sociopathic plumbers and accountants and lawyers and firefighters,

888
01:07:04,540 --> 01:07:09,740
but we do everything we can to try and make sure that that doesn't happen in our profession.

889
01:07:09,740 --> 01:07:15,840
But apart from those cases which need to be addressed with the full force of the law,

890
01:07:15,840 --> 01:07:20,140
the other men and women are just simply trying to do a good job, protect their community

891
01:07:20,140 --> 01:07:23,240
and make it home safely to their family.

892
01:07:23,240 --> 01:07:25,840
100% and it makes me so angry.

893
01:07:25,840 --> 01:07:28,740
All these people are like, well, most cops are good.

894
01:07:28,740 --> 01:07:34,740
If I said that about any other grouping of people, if I said most white people are good

895
01:07:34,740 --> 01:07:38,440
or most Asian people are good or most black people are good,

896
01:07:38,440 --> 01:07:41,940
they're immediately going to call me racist because I'm grouping people

897
01:07:41,940 --> 01:07:44,640
and then putting a group at blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

898
01:07:44,640 --> 01:07:48,640
But why is it okay to group police officers and say most of them are good?

899
01:07:48,640 --> 01:07:50,040
Like it's the same thing.

900
01:07:50,040 --> 01:07:51,540
It's the same mentality.

901
01:07:51,540 --> 01:07:55,540
It's just a different it's just showing in a different way.

902
01:07:55,540 --> 01:07:56,940
Absolutely.

903
01:07:56,940 --> 01:08:01,640
So you have this, you know, very, very acute shooting, this acute trauma.

904
01:08:01,640 --> 01:08:05,640
Walk me through, you know, the next few weeks,

905
01:08:05,640 --> 01:08:11,440
both physically as far as the actual injury itself, but also mentally and emotionally.

906
01:08:11,440 --> 01:08:14,340
So physically, I get to the hospital.

907
01:08:14,340 --> 01:08:15,840
I need to act quickly.

908
01:08:15,840 --> 01:08:19,040
I was supposed to get a helicopter ride, but they determined my injuries weren't bad enough

909
01:08:19,040 --> 01:08:21,240
and I still I've never been on a helicopter.

910
01:08:21,240 --> 01:08:25,740
If anybody wants to hook me up with the ride on a helicopter.

911
01:08:25,740 --> 01:08:29,540
But at any rate, I get taken to the emergency room

912
01:08:29,540 --> 01:08:36,640
and that was the only time I actually felt any support for from my local police community.

913
01:08:36,640 --> 01:08:38,340
They were lined up.

914
01:08:38,340 --> 01:08:45,140
There was 50 officers lined up at the emergency room showing support for me when I arrived.

915
01:08:45,140 --> 01:08:48,040
And that was amazing.

916
01:08:48,040 --> 01:08:49,040
I felt safe.

917
01:08:49,040 --> 01:08:50,840
You know, the guy was still out on the run.

918
01:08:50,840 --> 01:08:55,440
You know, I even questioned is he going to come try to find me again, you know?

919
01:08:55,440 --> 01:08:59,540
And at that moment, I was probably the safest I could have been.

920
01:08:59,540 --> 01:09:05,240
I had a 30 man deep detail making sure I was okay.

921
01:09:05,240 --> 01:09:06,140
But that didn't last long.

922
01:09:06,140 --> 01:09:10,140
They left the I mean, they left the hospital within a couple hours.

923
01:09:10,140 --> 01:09:12,840
I was treated and released the same day.

924
01:09:12,840 --> 01:09:16,340
My you know, my injury was it didn't strike any major arteries.

925
01:09:16,340 --> 01:09:18,840
It didn't go through even any major tendons.

926
01:09:18,840 --> 01:09:21,040
It was a straight through and through.

927
01:09:21,040 --> 01:09:22,740
It was a 380.

928
01:09:22,740 --> 01:09:25,240
So it was a smaller round, but it was a hollow point.

929
01:09:25,240 --> 01:09:28,740
I still got some of it in me.

930
01:09:28,740 --> 01:09:33,540
But no surgery was required and they packed the wound.

931
01:09:33,540 --> 01:09:35,540
That was painful, by the way.

932
01:09:35,540 --> 01:09:38,240
Especially the deep reading is that what they call it?

933
01:09:38,240 --> 01:09:43,140
Yeah, where they yeah, where I have to pull away the dying flesh and it was horrible.

934
01:09:43,140 --> 01:09:43,740
Yeah.

935
01:09:43,740 --> 01:09:51,340
So so I'm released from the hospital the same night, like three, four o'clock in the morning.

936
01:09:51,340 --> 01:09:56,140
But while I was at the hospital, the investigators came and took a statement from me.

937
01:09:56,140 --> 01:09:58,140
They took all of my clothing.

938
01:09:58,140 --> 01:10:00,140
They took my cell phone.

939
01:10:00,140 --> 01:10:01,840
They took everything from me.

940
01:10:01,840 --> 01:10:08,440
I left the hospital in a hospital gown naked underneath and nobody brought me anything else.

941
01:10:08,440 --> 01:10:09,440
They took my firearm.

942
01:10:09,440 --> 01:10:11,940
They took everything.

943
01:10:11,940 --> 01:10:14,340
Nobody in my department brought me another firearm.

944
01:10:14,340 --> 01:10:20,240
I mean, there's there's some there's some best practices that suggest after an officer is involved in a shooting.

945
01:10:20,240 --> 01:10:28,640
Yes, you have to take that firearm for a forensics, but you immediately give that officer a new firearm

946
01:10:28,640 --> 01:10:30,940
because it can wreak havoc on the officers.

947
01:10:30,940 --> 01:10:33,140
Well, did I do something wrong?

948
01:10:33,140 --> 01:10:34,540
Am I the wrong?

949
01:10:34,540 --> 01:10:36,340
It can really cause problems.

950
01:10:36,340 --> 01:10:38,140
None of that happened.

951
01:10:38,140 --> 01:10:43,040
I had my own weapons at home, so I felt safe still, but as safe as I could at that time.

952
01:10:43,040 --> 01:10:48,540
But I still had my service weapon taken from me and it did affect me.

953
01:10:48,540 --> 01:10:49,940
Like why? Why?

954
01:10:49,940 --> 01:10:57,940
Why isn't my department supporting me the way they've always been told I would be supported?

955
01:10:57,940 --> 01:11:01,240
So I get home that morning and I couldn't sleep at all.

956
01:11:01,240 --> 01:11:02,940
I mean, I was wide awake.

957
01:11:02,940 --> 01:11:05,640
I at that point I hadn't slept since Saturday.

958
01:11:05,640 --> 01:11:11,840
Like I woke up at Saturday morning at like nine o'clock, worked my entire shift, been in the hospital.

959
01:11:11,840 --> 01:11:13,440
They pumped me.

960
01:11:13,440 --> 01:11:19,440
They did give me like morphine or something, but even I like I stayed awake through the high.

961
01:11:19,440 --> 01:11:23,140
And then that morning I just felt like I was on cloud nine.

962
01:11:23,140 --> 01:11:27,940
I hadn't felt I had so much energy.

963
01:11:27,940 --> 01:11:29,540
It was shot. I was shot.

964
01:11:29,540 --> 01:11:31,940
How much energy I had.

965
01:11:31,940 --> 01:11:37,140
Fast forward another eight hours to Monday night or so that would have been Sunday night.

966
01:11:37,140 --> 01:11:45,640
I crashed. I crashed out like hard, like just done, like dead to the world.

967
01:11:45,640 --> 01:11:48,540
But then nightmares started almost straight away.

968
01:11:48,540 --> 01:11:53,240
Like and the nightmares were horrible and they were never the same.

969
01:11:53,240 --> 01:11:56,140
But they always had kind of the same gist.

970
01:11:56,140 --> 01:11:57,240
I was always dying.

971
01:11:57,240 --> 01:12:03,440
I was in and I would always wake up right before I died in every single one of them.

972
01:12:03,440 --> 01:12:07,340
And it just got to the point where and this is going on weeks now.

973
01:12:07,340 --> 01:12:10,640
It got to the point where I'm not sleeping.

974
01:12:10,640 --> 01:12:16,740
I started believing that maybe some of the dreams were actually memories rather than dreams.

975
01:12:16,740 --> 01:12:21,940
I was only sleeping maybe 30 minutes a night for to the point where I started having

976
01:12:21,940 --> 01:12:24,940
hypogalogical hallucinations.

977
01:12:24,940 --> 01:12:28,340
It got bad.

978
01:12:28,340 --> 01:12:34,440
And so I the only I didn't know how to treat it, but I was still thinking I'm Billy badass at this point.

979
01:12:34,440 --> 01:12:36,940
And I don't need no doctor and blah, blah, blah.

980
01:12:36,940 --> 01:12:38,040
Other cops can handle this.

981
01:12:38,040 --> 01:12:39,940
I should be able to handle this.

982
01:12:39,940 --> 01:12:41,640
So I did what most cops do.

983
01:12:41,640 --> 01:12:44,340
I started drinking.

984
01:12:44,340 --> 01:12:48,940
And what I found is in order to sleep if I drank enough, I could sleep.

985
01:12:48,940 --> 01:12:52,640
I mean you call asleep if you drink enough you pass out and that's what I was doing.

986
01:12:52,640 --> 01:12:58,140
I was drinking a fifth of whiskey a night just so I could sleep.

987
01:12:58,140 --> 01:13:01,840
As I continue to do that, my behavior just became erratic.

988
01:13:01,840 --> 01:13:06,640
Like I wasn't making it wasn't firing with on all synapses.

989
01:13:06,640 --> 01:13:12,140
You know, I was making poor decisions and just in general, I was jumpy.

990
01:13:12,140 --> 01:13:14,740
I was scared of my shadow.

991
01:13:14,740 --> 01:13:15,840
Somebody knocked on the door.

992
01:13:15,840 --> 01:13:18,940
I'm answering the door with a pistol in my hand type thing.

993
01:13:18,940 --> 01:13:27,840
And as the sleep continued to evade, I just started getting deeper and deeper in this

994
01:13:27,840 --> 01:13:30,440
depression where all of this was my fault.

995
01:13:30,440 --> 01:13:32,340
My department's not helping.

996
01:13:32,340 --> 01:13:36,440
Nobody, you know, I had reached I do need to step back.

997
01:13:36,440 --> 01:13:37,440
I forgot to mention this.

998
01:13:37,440 --> 01:13:40,340
So I got that on Saturday.

999
01:13:40,340 --> 01:13:42,540
I'm home on Sunday.

1000
01:13:42,540 --> 01:13:44,340
I reach out to my police department.

1001
01:13:44,340 --> 01:13:51,640
So I was told I can't talk to anybody including a doctor anybody until after I've been interviewed

1002
01:13:51,640 --> 01:13:59,540
by the state police for their their their on duty shooting team, whatever it is.

1003
01:13:59,540 --> 01:14:02,340
Usually that should be within, you know, 24 to 48 hours.

1004
01:14:02,340 --> 01:14:03,840
They give you a time to go home and sleep.

1005
01:14:03,840 --> 01:14:10,040
But then you're supposed to enter you're supposed to go back for this interview right away.

1006
01:14:10,040 --> 01:14:13,640
It was Wednesday and I hadn't heard anything and I'd already been dealing with nightmares

1007
01:14:13,640 --> 01:14:17,140
for two nights and I asked chief.

1008
01:14:17,140 --> 01:14:18,140
So I called my chief.

1009
01:14:18,140 --> 01:14:19,840
I'm like, look, I'm having these nightmares.

1010
01:14:19,840 --> 01:14:21,700
I need to get a debriefing or something.

1011
01:14:21,700 --> 01:14:23,240
This isn't right.

1012
01:14:23,240 --> 01:14:25,540
And he's like, you can't talk to anybody.

1013
01:14:25,540 --> 01:14:26,540
We'll see what we can do.

1014
01:14:26,540 --> 01:14:31,900
They ended up scheduling my appointment for the interview for that Friday.

1015
01:14:31,900 --> 01:14:37,340
So I got shot Saturday and I had I couldn't even talk to anybody for an entire week about

1016
01:14:37,340 --> 01:14:39,940
anything involved in it.

1017
01:14:39,940 --> 01:14:46,940
And then after after that, he scheduled a debrief, like a critical critical stress debrief,

1018
01:14:46,940 --> 01:14:50,220
which was another four or five days out, which I didn't want to go to.

1019
01:14:50,220 --> 01:14:51,220
I hated that thing.

1020
01:14:51,220 --> 01:14:56,060
It was especially because I actually find some fault with some of the other individuals

1021
01:14:56,060 --> 01:14:57,060
involved in my shooting.

1022
01:14:57,060 --> 01:15:01,100
For example, if that first police officer would have called back up like he should have

1023
01:15:01,100 --> 01:15:04,460
on the initial traffic stop, we would have been dealing with them right then and I wouldn't

1024
01:15:04,460 --> 01:15:07,900
have got shot because that's the same person who shot me.

1025
01:15:07,900 --> 01:15:13,100
So, you know, there's just.

1026
01:15:13,100 --> 01:15:17,580
So I wasn't getting the support I needed from my department that I felt I needed it.

1027
01:15:17,580 --> 01:15:20,660
And they were telling me I directly couldn't talk to anybody.

1028
01:15:20,660 --> 01:15:22,340
I started just drinking.

1029
01:15:22,340 --> 01:15:24,860
That's when I started just drinking to shut it off.

1030
01:15:24,860 --> 01:15:28,720
And then after I started drinking to shut it off, it never occurred to me to go try

1031
01:15:28,720 --> 01:15:35,900
to get help again, because I was already denied once, you know, and that's obviously means

1032
01:15:35,900 --> 01:15:38,100
I need to handle it.

1033
01:15:38,100 --> 01:15:40,340
I need to be that Billy bad ass.

1034
01:15:40,340 --> 01:15:41,780
That's what they're telling me.

1035
01:15:41,780 --> 01:15:43,100
So I try.

1036
01:15:43,100 --> 01:15:50,660
And as the depression got worse, as the drinking got heavier, I found myself one night just

1037
01:15:50,660 --> 01:15:53,900
blaming myself for everything, wanting the pain to end.

1038
01:15:53,900 --> 01:15:55,540
Just I didn't want to die.

1039
01:15:55,540 --> 01:16:01,820
I just only knew one way to stop this, to stop everything.

1040
01:16:01,820 --> 01:16:09,880
And I would continue to drink, charged my Glock, put in my mouth.

1041
01:16:09,880 --> 01:16:13,820
Next thing I know, I wake up the next morning.

1042
01:16:13,820 --> 01:16:14,820
I passed out.

1043
01:16:14,820 --> 01:16:18,740
I don't I don't remember if I took the gun out of my mouth and continue drinking.

1044
01:16:18,740 --> 01:16:24,100
My next memory is waking up the next morning with the pistol still on the bed, laying next

1045
01:16:24,100 --> 01:16:29,220
to me and bottle of whiskey empty in bed with me as well.

1046
01:16:29,220 --> 01:16:31,340
And I realized, holy shit.

1047
01:16:31,340 --> 01:16:35,100
I almost made a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

1048
01:16:35,100 --> 01:16:38,500
And right away, I went to my personal doctor.

1049
01:16:38,500 --> 01:16:44,220
I was still feared using any department resources because I feared that they would try to use

1050
01:16:44,220 --> 01:16:49,580
that to make it so I could never come back to work, which ended up happening anyway.

1051
01:16:49,580 --> 01:16:54,700
But I went to a my personal doctor and I said and he'd heard about my situation on the news.

1052
01:16:54,700 --> 01:16:56,420
And he's like, absolutely.

1053
01:16:56,420 --> 01:16:58,540
You need to get into talking to somebody.

1054
01:16:58,540 --> 01:17:00,580
He sent me up with a counselor.

1055
01:17:00,580 --> 01:17:06,820
They did an intake and they sent me up with a shrink and that started my actual treatment.

1056
01:17:06,820 --> 01:17:12,940
So up until this point, well, firstly, I want to go back before I even hit that one again

1057
01:17:12,940 --> 01:17:19,860
of the seemingly least discussed elements when it comes to suicide is the feeling of

1058
01:17:19,860 --> 01:17:21,060
burdensome.

1059
01:17:21,060 --> 01:17:23,140
And I want to preface this with myself.

1060
01:17:23,140 --> 01:17:27,940
And I think a lot of people out there, if you'd asked us 10, 15 years ago about suicide,

1061
01:17:27,940 --> 01:17:30,860
you'd be like, oh, it's so selfish, it's so cowardly, how could they?

1062
01:17:30,860 --> 01:17:33,180
You're leaving your family behind.

1063
01:17:33,180 --> 01:17:37,580
And then you talk to lots and lots of people like yourself who have either been there or

1064
01:17:37,580 --> 01:17:39,740
have even had people that survived their attempt.

1065
01:17:39,740 --> 01:17:42,780
They actually did jump or did pull the trigger.

1066
01:17:42,780 --> 01:17:46,980
And over and over and over again, there's, of course, the element of wanting the pain

1067
01:17:46,980 --> 01:17:48,300
to end, the suffering to end.

1068
01:17:48,300 --> 01:17:52,540
But also, you know, people say, well, how could you leave your family behind?

1069
01:17:52,540 --> 01:17:55,180
There seems to be this universal thought.

1070
01:17:55,180 --> 01:17:58,980
And I think it's through the miswiring of the brain, and here you are underlining what

1071
01:17:58,980 --> 01:18:03,100
I talk about all the time, which is sleep deprivation as well, which causes more and

1072
01:18:03,100 --> 01:18:06,940
more psychosis, alcohol, which causes more and more psychosis.

1073
01:18:06,940 --> 01:18:11,780
But now the brain is trying to convince the individual that they are a burden to the people

1074
01:18:11,780 --> 01:18:15,440
that they love and they would be better off without them.

1075
01:18:15,440 --> 01:18:17,340
Did that factor at all in your self-talk?

1076
01:18:17,340 --> 01:18:18,340
Yes.

1077
01:18:18,340 --> 01:18:19,340
Yes and no.

1078
01:18:19,340 --> 01:18:22,340
I mean, that was part of the depression.

1079
01:18:22,340 --> 01:18:29,940
I mean, that was a regular thing, but when it the memories I do have of the night that

1080
01:18:29,940 --> 01:18:38,100
night where I put the weapon in my mouth, I don't recall even caring.

1081
01:18:38,100 --> 01:18:44,260
I still look at, I believe I was selfish in my actions that night.

1082
01:18:44,260 --> 01:18:46,820
I mean, I would have robbed my daughter of a father.

1083
01:18:46,820 --> 01:18:50,780
I would have robbed my grandson of a granddad.

1084
01:18:50,780 --> 01:18:55,700
I'm getting ready to have my second grandson.

1085
01:18:55,700 --> 01:19:01,060
There's so much I've experienced that I never would have gotten to, and all of those experiences

1086
01:19:01,060 --> 01:19:08,300
involve other people and other people I care about, my daughter, my mother, my sisters,

1087
01:19:08,300 --> 01:19:10,300
my brothers.

1088
01:19:10,300 --> 01:19:14,420
And I would have been taking all of that away from them as well.

1089
01:19:14,420 --> 01:19:21,180
So I do, people, when they talk about suicide being selfish, people talk about suicide being

1090
01:19:21,180 --> 01:19:24,500
selfish, two things can be true at once.

1091
01:19:24,500 --> 01:19:26,180
It can be selfish.

1092
01:19:26,180 --> 01:19:32,740
And I do think the action itself is selfish, but that doesn't mean we can't understand

1093
01:19:32,740 --> 01:19:36,060
why somebody is making that decision.

1094
01:19:36,060 --> 01:19:42,300
And that decision is bigger than selfish.

1095
01:19:42,300 --> 01:19:43,980
That part of it isn't the selfish part.

1096
01:19:43,980 --> 01:19:45,820
The action is selfish.

1097
01:19:45,820 --> 01:19:48,540
And just by definition, it is.

1098
01:19:48,540 --> 01:19:51,100
By definition, it is.

1099
01:19:51,100 --> 01:19:55,220
That doesn't mean we can't understand what got us there.

1100
01:19:55,220 --> 01:19:56,220
People are selfish all the time.

1101
01:19:56,220 --> 01:19:59,300
We're selfish when we pick out a car that we want.

1102
01:19:59,300 --> 01:20:00,620
Why is this any different?

1103
01:20:00,620 --> 01:20:05,540
Well, also, I think, you know, the people say, oh, no one in their right mind would,

1104
01:20:05,540 --> 01:20:06,620
for example, do that.

1105
01:20:06,620 --> 01:20:08,140
And like, you're absolutely right.

1106
01:20:08,140 --> 01:20:09,700
And I think that's just it.

1107
01:20:09,700 --> 01:20:16,300
These people I'm talking to are police officers and firefighters and people that have vowed

1108
01:20:16,300 --> 01:20:18,260
to give their life to others.

1109
01:20:18,260 --> 01:20:20,840
That's how good of a human being they are.

1110
01:20:20,840 --> 01:20:25,900
So when the brain becomes miswired and I say broken, I mean it with compassion.

1111
01:20:25,900 --> 01:20:27,500
But it is, you know, it is broken.

1112
01:20:27,500 --> 01:20:31,660
The chemicals are off and, you know, synapses aren't firing the way they're supposed to.

1113
01:20:31,660 --> 01:20:35,420
In that moment, the person believes that it's selfless.

1114
01:20:35,420 --> 01:20:40,940
I believe to the core that I am a burden to my family and they will be better off.

1115
01:20:40,940 --> 01:20:42,420
And it terrifies me.

1116
01:20:42,420 --> 01:20:45,900
But I'm going to sacrifice myself so they'll be happy.

1117
01:20:45,900 --> 01:20:47,600
Makes no sense to a healthy brain.

1118
01:20:47,600 --> 01:20:51,420
But at that moment, we have to understand that that makes perfect sense to someone in

1119
01:20:51,420 --> 01:20:53,180
crisis.

1120
01:20:53,180 --> 01:20:56,380
I think that is a very accurate way to put it.

1121
01:20:56,380 --> 01:20:59,340
And that is a lot of what I remember.

1122
01:20:59,340 --> 01:21:01,340
Like I can make this all go away.

1123
01:21:01,340 --> 01:21:02,500
I am the problem.

1124
01:21:02,500 --> 01:21:06,180
I can make it so nobody else has to deal with these problems.

1125
01:21:06,180 --> 01:21:09,340
I can fix this by going away.

1126
01:21:09,340 --> 01:21:11,700
And I know how to do that.

1127
01:21:11,700 --> 01:21:12,700
That's the kind of thing.

1128
01:21:12,700 --> 01:21:17,860
So I mean, I guess in that sense, yes, it was similar.

1129
01:21:17,860 --> 01:21:26,340
But going back to me having a belief though, like you said, the way you described it, that

1130
01:21:26,340 --> 01:21:28,660
seems sane to that individual.

1131
01:21:28,660 --> 01:21:30,740
It doesn't seem selfish.

1132
01:21:30,740 --> 01:21:33,500
But they're wrong.

1133
01:21:33,500 --> 01:21:35,620
You can just be wrong.

1134
01:21:35,620 --> 01:21:37,900
And it's no fault of our own, like you'd mentioned.

1135
01:21:37,900 --> 01:21:44,540
It's the wiring, the chemicals, the injury to the actual brain that is causing it.

1136
01:21:44,540 --> 01:21:48,420
But it doesn't make it any less wrong.

1137
01:21:48,420 --> 01:21:49,420
It's still wrong.

1138
01:21:49,420 --> 01:21:50,420
Yeah, absolutely.

1139
01:21:50,420 --> 01:21:53,780
Well, what about the upswing thing?

1140
01:21:53,780 --> 01:21:59,020
I know it wasn't a perfect upswing, but what began to start helping?

1141
01:21:59,020 --> 01:22:01,300
Obviously, alcohol is not going to work.

1142
01:22:01,300 --> 01:22:03,620
Not sleeping certainly isn't going to help.

1143
01:22:03,620 --> 01:22:07,220
As you start meeting these professionals, what are some of the things that you start

1144
01:22:07,220 --> 01:22:12,980
adding into your life that allow you to start beginning to grow from the trauma that you've

1145
01:22:12,980 --> 01:22:15,020
been through?

1146
01:22:15,020 --> 01:22:19,100
So I was held up in my house.

1147
01:22:19,100 --> 01:22:21,100
I wouldn't go anywhere unless I was drinking.

1148
01:22:21,100 --> 01:22:24,460
I didn't want to go in public at all.

1149
01:22:24,460 --> 01:22:29,260
And a buddy of mine was retiring from the county corrections.

1150
01:22:29,260 --> 01:22:33,700
And a bunch of cops were getting together for his retirement party.

1151
01:22:33,700 --> 01:22:37,860
And my girlfriend at the time was like, all you do is sit in the house.

1152
01:22:37,860 --> 01:22:38,860
You don't do shit.

1153
01:22:38,860 --> 01:22:40,140
You are coming to this party.

1154
01:22:40,140 --> 01:22:41,140
You'll know people there.

1155
01:22:41,140 --> 01:22:43,420
You're in a safe place.

1156
01:22:43,420 --> 01:22:44,420
Stop being a dick.

1157
01:22:44,420 --> 01:22:45,420
You're going.

1158
01:22:45,420 --> 01:22:50,220
So I went.

1159
01:22:50,220 --> 01:22:57,860
Later I met a guy who, again, I won't name him, but he worked for another jurisdiction

1160
01:22:57,860 --> 01:22:59,740
Champaign Police Department close to me.

1161
01:22:59,740 --> 01:23:03,180
And he was really big into the workout world.

1162
01:23:03,180 --> 01:23:04,820
And he'd been involved in a couple of shootings.

1163
01:23:04,820 --> 01:23:06,460
He did a couple of tours overseas.

1164
01:23:06,460 --> 01:23:11,300
And he had expressed to me that he understood what I was going through.

1165
01:23:11,300 --> 01:23:16,500
And that he'd actually talked to my girlfriend prior, I guess, and knew what I was dealing

1166
01:23:16,500 --> 01:23:17,500
with.

1167
01:23:17,500 --> 01:23:20,100
And he's like, look, come to my gym.

1168
01:23:20,100 --> 01:23:21,100
I have this gym.

1169
01:23:21,100 --> 01:23:22,100
Come to my gym.

1170
01:23:22,100 --> 01:23:23,540
Start working out with me.

1171
01:23:23,540 --> 01:23:24,540
I was fat at the time.

1172
01:23:24,540 --> 01:23:25,540
I weighed like 220.

1173
01:23:25,540 --> 01:23:28,260
I was a big kid at the time.

1174
01:23:28,260 --> 01:23:30,460
And I was like, no, I don't want to go.

1175
01:23:30,460 --> 01:23:31,660
And he's like, it's not about the gym.

1176
01:23:31,660 --> 01:23:32,660
It's about brotherhood.

1177
01:23:32,660 --> 01:23:36,560
It's about talking, being around people with similar experiences who might know a little

1178
01:23:36,560 --> 01:23:37,560
bit that you don't know.

1179
01:23:37,560 --> 01:23:38,560
So just show up.

1180
01:23:38,560 --> 01:23:40,660
And I'm like, all right, cool.

1181
01:23:40,660 --> 01:23:41,660
I'll come.

1182
01:23:41,660 --> 01:23:43,620
So I come to this guy's house and I start.

1183
01:23:43,620 --> 01:23:47,100
I agree to start coming Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

1184
01:23:47,100 --> 01:23:51,060
And I just I get there, we're shooting the shit.

1185
01:23:51,060 --> 01:23:56,140
It felt like I was back in the locker room at a police department with the guys.

1186
01:23:56,140 --> 01:24:01,540
But at the same time, everybody there had dealt with something similar, either in wartime

1187
01:24:01,540 --> 01:24:04,420
or at a police department that I dealt with.

1188
01:24:04,420 --> 01:24:08,380
And so when I'd have a bad night, I could come in there and I could be like, man, I

1189
01:24:08,380 --> 01:24:10,160
didn't sleep through shit last night.

1190
01:24:10,160 --> 01:24:12,300
And I could explain what I was feeling.

1191
01:24:12,300 --> 01:24:16,940
And and these and they were they would talk about it while we're doing manly stuff, lifting

1192
01:24:16,940 --> 01:24:18,060
weights, you know.

1193
01:24:18,060 --> 01:24:22,140
So we're sitting here talking while we're lifting.

1194
01:24:22,140 --> 01:24:24,860
And it really I found it.

1195
01:24:24,860 --> 01:24:29,260
I found the more I worked out and the more I was doing this.

1196
01:24:29,260 --> 01:24:33,620
The less anxious I was about everything.

1197
01:24:33,620 --> 01:24:39,980
And it seemed that the more I wear my body out, the longer I would get restful periods

1198
01:24:39,980 --> 01:24:43,040
of sleep without needing alcohol.

1199
01:24:43,040 --> 01:24:49,220
So when I started so take this out a couple of months now, now I'm working out every day.

1200
01:24:49,220 --> 01:24:56,260
And I'm finding that the anxiety, I'm able to control the anxiety with medications.

1201
01:24:56,260 --> 01:24:59,740
I mean, at this point, I'm using medications that the doctors have all prescribed.

1202
01:24:59,740 --> 01:25:05,420
You know, I'm on seven different medications, including Xanax, trazodone for sleep, prazes

1203
01:25:05,420 --> 01:25:06,980
and for nightmares.

1204
01:25:06,980 --> 01:25:07,980
What?

1205
01:25:07,980 --> 01:25:10,340
There's another depression one.

1206
01:25:10,340 --> 01:25:11,900
I don't even remember all the names.

1207
01:25:11,900 --> 01:25:17,100
But between the energy I was burning off of the gym, like you mentioned earlier, like

1208
01:25:17,100 --> 01:25:21,140
a good thing from dispatchers and things, be able to just go outside between burning

1209
01:25:21,140 --> 01:25:25,940
off that energy and that physical activity and the medications, I was starting to actually

1210
01:25:25,940 --> 01:25:29,060
get real sleep, really restful sleep.

1211
01:25:29,060 --> 01:25:34,540
And I was able to interrupt the nightmares with the medication, not needing alcohol.

1212
01:25:34,540 --> 01:25:39,020
So I started cutting back alcohol big time.

1213
01:25:39,020 --> 01:25:40,580
And that helped huge.

1214
01:25:40,580 --> 01:25:41,580
It's amazing.

1215
01:25:41,580 --> 01:25:44,660
Because first of all, the sleep I was getting when I was drinking wasn't real sleep.

1216
01:25:44,660 --> 01:25:46,620
I mean, it's not restful.

1217
01:25:46,620 --> 01:25:50,420
It doesn't recharge the body the same way that the mind doesn't work the same way while

1218
01:25:50,420 --> 01:25:51,420
you're drinking.

1219
01:25:51,420 --> 01:25:52,700
It just doesn't.

1220
01:25:52,700 --> 01:25:56,420
So cutting out that alcohol, and I had to cut out the alcohol because Mark did a really

1221
01:25:56,420 --> 01:25:58,380
smart I'm sorry, I wasn't gonna say his name.

1222
01:25:58,380 --> 01:26:01,740
But he did a really smart thing.

1223
01:26:01,740 --> 01:26:06,900
But he set the gym time so early that if you were drinking the night before, you were in

1224
01:26:06,900 --> 01:26:08,860
a world of hurt that morning.

1225
01:26:08,860 --> 01:26:13,900
So it got to the point where instead of going out drinking the night before, I'd be like,

1226
01:26:13,900 --> 01:26:16,580
No, I can't drink because I have to be at the gym.

1227
01:26:16,580 --> 01:26:20,100
And if I didn't show up at the gym, my phone was getting blown up by these guys, where

1228
01:26:20,100 --> 01:26:21,100
are you at?

1229
01:26:21,100 --> 01:26:22,100
You better be here, blah, blah, blah.

1230
01:26:22,100 --> 01:26:25,940
So they were holding me accountable.

1231
01:26:25,940 --> 01:26:28,860
And over time, I learned that I didn't need the alcohol.

1232
01:26:28,860 --> 01:26:34,700
And so I went a couple years without drinking at all.

1233
01:26:34,700 --> 01:26:36,460
It took a while to get there.

1234
01:26:36,460 --> 01:26:37,860
That didn't happen overnight.

1235
01:26:37,860 --> 01:26:39,700
It took a long while to get there.

1236
01:26:39,700 --> 01:26:42,380
But I was able to cut the alcohol completely.

1237
01:26:42,380 --> 01:26:45,380
And now I'll have a drink now in the then it's not like it's a problem.

1238
01:26:45,380 --> 01:26:50,220
But I what I was using the alcohol for at the time was absolutely unhealthy.

1239
01:26:50,220 --> 01:26:51,860
It was self medicating.

1240
01:26:51,860 --> 01:26:55,740
And if I would have continued that path, that would have caused my death.

1241
01:26:55,740 --> 01:26:59,680
So you're you're finding this community this tribe.

1242
01:26:59,680 --> 01:27:05,500
If my memory serves me right, you were kind of tripped again when your department circle

1243
01:27:05,500 --> 01:27:08,100
around when you almost hit the EMR.

1244
01:27:08,100 --> 01:27:09,100
Yeah.

1245
01:27:09,100 --> 01:27:13,660
So in the state of Illinois, there's a law and I write about the need to change this

1246
01:27:13,660 --> 01:27:16,940
law.

1247
01:27:16,940 --> 01:27:22,620
The law states that an officer one injured on duty must return within one year of the

1248
01:27:22,620 --> 01:27:27,620
injury or they can be terminated.

1249
01:27:27,620 --> 01:27:31,580
So I start these processes with the strengths.

1250
01:27:31,580 --> 01:27:37,100
I'm doing everything that the psychologists and psychiatrists are telling me to do.

1251
01:27:37,100 --> 01:27:44,940
And my psychiatrist is telling me that PTSD is a long term issue and that a year's timeframe

1252
01:27:44,940 --> 01:27:50,180
is not long enough to determine if you're going to be able to make any difference that

1253
01:27:50,180 --> 01:27:52,980
you would be able to return to work type thing.

1254
01:27:52,980 --> 01:27:56,100
Well unfortunately, that doesn't line up with work time frame.

1255
01:27:56,100 --> 01:28:01,020
The doctors refusing to sign paperwork saying I can return to work because he says my mental

1256
01:28:01,020 --> 01:28:07,020
health situation is such that it would be unsafe for me and the public potentially.

1257
01:28:07,020 --> 01:28:13,740
And he's also saying that he won't sign the paperwork that says he doesn't see that I

1258
01:28:13,740 --> 01:28:18,020
can make any significant improvement, which is the standard that they need for medical

1259
01:28:18,020 --> 01:28:19,560
retirement.

1260
01:28:19,560 --> 01:28:23,620
So I'm caught in this limbo where my doctors won't sign the paperwork either way.

1261
01:28:23,620 --> 01:28:29,380
But work is yelling at me to either come back to work or start the retirement process, do

1262
01:28:29,380 --> 01:28:34,940
one of them, but I can't do any of that until the doctors do that.

1263
01:28:34,940 --> 01:28:38,780
So I'm going back and forth with them on that issue.

1264
01:28:38,780 --> 01:28:43,580
While I'm doing that, the workman's comp decides that they are going to send me because I physically

1265
01:28:43,580 --> 01:28:45,120
healed from the physical injury.

1266
01:28:45,120 --> 01:28:52,780
So physically I was cleared, mentally I was not.

1267
01:28:52,780 --> 01:28:58,700
So the workman's comp decides to send me to one of their doctors for an evaluation.

1268
01:28:58,700 --> 01:29:06,020
And that doctor, after his psychological evaluation, determines that I did in fact have PTSD, but

1269
01:29:06,020 --> 01:29:12,820
it had to have been from my childhood trauma and not from the shooting.

1270
01:29:12,820 --> 01:29:18,300
This is enough for the village insurance company to deny my workman's comp claim for the shooting

1271
01:29:18,300 --> 01:29:19,800
and the PTSD claim.

1272
01:29:19,800 --> 01:29:23,660
So they denied my PTSD claim right there.

1273
01:29:23,660 --> 01:29:27,020
Because of the way that law is written, the police department still had to keep me on

1274
01:29:27,020 --> 01:29:29,500
the payroll for that year.

1275
01:29:29,500 --> 01:29:32,780
They just didn't, the workman's comp insurance just didn't pay my wage.

1276
01:29:32,780 --> 01:29:35,440
They had to pay it directly.

1277
01:29:35,440 --> 01:29:36,440
I continued to do that.

1278
01:29:36,440 --> 01:29:40,820
I continued to talk to my doctor about trying to either get back to work or retire.

1279
01:29:40,820 --> 01:29:44,300
He won't sign the paperwork either way.

1280
01:29:44,300 --> 01:29:49,700
Finally a week before, finally I get the doctor to sign the paperwork.

1281
01:29:49,700 --> 01:29:55,000
This is one week before my year is coming up.

1282
01:29:55,000 --> 01:29:57,660
So I start the retirement process right away.

1283
01:29:57,660 --> 01:30:01,100
My chief calls me, tells me, hey, I'm expecting this phone call.

1284
01:30:01,100 --> 01:30:02,760
I knew it was coming.

1285
01:30:02,760 --> 01:30:06,860
But he calls me on my one year anniversary, says, hey, Jeremy, I need you to meet me at

1286
01:30:06,860 --> 01:30:07,860
the edge of town.

1287
01:30:07,860 --> 01:30:08,860
I'm like, okay.

1288
01:30:08,860 --> 01:30:14,980
So I meet him at the edge of town and he asks me for my badge and my credentials and says,

1289
01:30:14,980 --> 01:30:16,620
you know, we have to terminate you.

1290
01:30:16,620 --> 01:30:19,060
You've been one year, you're not able to return.

1291
01:30:19,060 --> 01:30:21,220
And I'm like, what am I supposed to do?

1292
01:30:21,220 --> 01:30:25,180
And he's put his arms up and figured out.

1293
01:30:25,180 --> 01:30:26,180
That was that.

1294
01:30:26,180 --> 01:30:33,800
See, what's so infuriating, I mean, I've heard firefighters in states that even have cancer

1295
01:30:33,800 --> 01:30:38,220
presumption where people have said, I have literally heard people in insurance companies

1296
01:30:38,220 --> 01:30:42,780
say we will just keep fighting them till they die, you know, denying their claim.

1297
01:30:42,780 --> 01:30:44,640
And the same with the workman's comp.

1298
01:30:44,640 --> 01:30:51,200
If I became a police officer and didn't really see any acute calls and six months in, I'm

1299
01:30:51,200 --> 01:30:57,940
saying PTSD, then maybe there's an argument that what I did before was the biggest part

1300
01:30:57,940 --> 01:30:59,820
of my mental health challenge.

1301
01:30:59,820 --> 01:31:05,580
But if you spend years and you have these saves from that wreck and some of the horrors

1302
01:31:05,580 --> 01:31:09,620
there and you still went back to work and you've worked for all these years and then

1303
01:31:09,620 --> 01:31:14,420
you have an acute event where someone tries to murder you and you actually get physically

1304
01:31:14,420 --> 01:31:21,180
injured and you have this gunfight with this person and then he's free somewhere for two

1305
01:31:21,180 --> 01:31:28,100
weeks and you determine that that wasn't traumatic enough to be the main reason for the PTSD

1306
01:31:28,100 --> 01:31:29,420
diagnosis.

1307
01:31:29,420 --> 01:31:31,140
That's fucking disgusting.

1308
01:31:31,140 --> 01:31:32,140
You know what I mean?

1309
01:31:32,140 --> 01:31:36,060
I've had people on here that were, you know, hit by a car wearing uniform, shot wearing

1310
01:31:36,060 --> 01:31:39,340
uniform and their department turned their back on them.

1311
01:31:39,340 --> 01:31:43,140
And you know, if you are going to show up every morning with that badge on your chest

1312
01:31:43,140 --> 01:31:47,180
and do the thing that you're paid to do and you get hurt mentally or physically doing

1313
01:31:47,180 --> 01:31:52,780
that thing that you're paid to do and your department betrays you, that is absolutely

1314
01:31:52,780 --> 01:31:56,640
behind some of the suicides that we have in this profession and a lot of the struggles

1315
01:31:56,640 --> 01:31:58,940
that our men and women have.

1316
01:31:58,940 --> 01:32:00,100
I would agree with you.

1317
01:32:00,100 --> 01:32:01,380
I absolutely agree.

1318
01:32:01,380 --> 01:32:06,580
And you know, it's just a shame that the other thing that I don't understand about that is

1319
01:32:06,580 --> 01:32:12,440
we all, at least I thought most of us got in this profession like you and I talked about

1320
01:32:12,440 --> 01:32:15,020
early on, kindness, compassion.

1321
01:32:15,020 --> 01:32:18,700
Where is our kindness and compassion for an injured brother or sister?

1322
01:32:18,700 --> 01:32:20,220
Like where did that go?

1323
01:32:20,220 --> 01:32:22,060
Why did I become the enemy?

1324
01:32:22,060 --> 01:32:23,700
I don't understand.

1325
01:32:23,700 --> 01:32:31,620
The only thing I can figure with that is I represented a fear that they had.

1326
01:32:31,620 --> 01:32:37,500
Like I am the worst possible scenario.

1327
01:32:37,500 --> 01:32:38,780
My job's taken away.

1328
01:32:38,780 --> 01:32:41,740
I'm struggling with this mental health stuff, et cetera, et cetera.

1329
01:32:41,740 --> 01:32:47,180
And so they don't want to look me in the eye because they're worried they may end up looking

1330
01:32:47,180 --> 01:32:50,060
in a mirror eventually.

1331
01:32:50,060 --> 01:32:54,620
Now for people that, as we talked about, that are in the profession, that identify with

1332
01:32:54,620 --> 01:33:01,140
that role, that are part of that tribe, that have purpose every day, when they leave, retire,

1333
01:33:01,140 --> 01:33:04,460
you know, get hurt, whatever it is, that is very, very jarring.

1334
01:33:04,460 --> 01:33:09,920
But when that tribe basically turns that back on them, that can be extremely detrimental.

1335
01:33:09,920 --> 01:33:13,220
So now you get this termination notice.

1336
01:33:13,220 --> 01:33:17,740
Talk to me about that, that impact of that mentally and emotionally on you.

1337
01:33:17,740 --> 01:33:22,580
And then again, how you were able to pull yourself back up at the depth.

1338
01:33:22,580 --> 01:33:26,980
So that actually, I mean, that actually led to another round of drinking and another round

1339
01:33:26,980 --> 01:33:31,340
of bad problems.

1340
01:33:31,340 --> 01:33:38,260
It ended up, I ended up mixing some whiskey and some Xanax and mixing those two things

1341
01:33:38,260 --> 01:33:40,860
together isn't a very good combination.

1342
01:33:40,860 --> 01:33:44,780
I don't recommend it.

1343
01:33:44,780 --> 01:33:51,740
And I ended up finding myself admitted into the hospital on an in-ball, you know, it wasn't

1344
01:33:51,740 --> 01:33:52,900
anything that was sustained.

1345
01:33:52,900 --> 01:33:57,180
It was just a temporary, you know, get the alcohol out of the system type thing.

1346
01:33:57,180 --> 01:34:03,820
But I, it threw me so hard.

1347
01:34:03,820 --> 01:34:07,260
I didn't, I wasn't me.

1348
01:34:07,260 --> 01:34:13,860
It was almost like I was, I didn't recognize that person.

1349
01:34:13,860 --> 01:34:19,060
And while I was doing that, and I was acting these ways, I said some of the, I said some

1350
01:34:19,060 --> 01:34:21,180
of the most vile things to other cops.

1351
01:34:21,180 --> 01:34:26,060
Like when I was being taken to the hospital, I accused these cops of some really bad, vile

1352
01:34:26,060 --> 01:34:34,980
shit that I never, that I don't believe, A, and that it was, at that time, I felt like

1353
01:34:34,980 --> 01:34:40,460
they had all abandoned me, so I needed to lash out and make them feel what I was feeling.

1354
01:34:40,460 --> 01:34:43,940
So then, and like I said, that landed me in the hospital.

1355
01:34:43,940 --> 01:34:52,260
But one of the hardest things I had to do after that was forgive myself because I had

1356
01:34:52,260 --> 01:34:57,580
to forgive myself for the feelings, because it's not something I can control.

1357
01:34:57,580 --> 01:35:00,740
I had to forgive myself for how I acted.

1358
01:35:00,740 --> 01:35:03,680
I was embarrassed, you know?

1359
01:35:03,680 --> 01:35:08,140
During this time, I ended up getting a DUI, you know?

1360
01:35:08,140 --> 01:35:11,580
And that was, talk about embarrassing.

1361
01:35:11,580 --> 01:35:17,420
Here I am a police officer, 13 years, SWAT, you know, alcohol enforcement officer, led

1362
01:35:17,420 --> 01:35:21,220
my department in DUIs for multiple years in a row, you know?

1363
01:35:21,220 --> 01:35:26,340
Like, and here I am doing the same fucking thing.

1364
01:35:26,340 --> 01:35:30,540
You know, I felt useless.

1365
01:35:30,540 --> 01:35:35,420
And as I was going through this, that, I had to find an outlet.

1366
01:35:35,420 --> 01:35:37,820
So that's, I turned to social media.

1367
01:35:37,820 --> 01:35:41,180
And essentially, I created a Facebook page.

1368
01:35:41,180 --> 01:35:43,140
And I just started bitching.

1369
01:35:43,140 --> 01:35:48,940
I create videos of the mornings when I'd wake up, and I would be hungover or I'd want to

1370
01:35:48,940 --> 01:35:51,580
go to the gym, or I'd need motivation to get up to the gym.

1371
01:35:51,580 --> 01:35:58,660
And I was just making all these videos about how hard everything was and how I felt about

1372
01:35:58,660 --> 01:35:59,660
everything.

1373
01:35:59,660 --> 01:36:02,140
And lo and behold, people were listening.

1374
01:36:02,140 --> 01:36:03,140
I was shocked.

1375
01:36:03,140 --> 01:36:06,540
Like, right away, people wanted to hear this stuff.

1376
01:36:06,540 --> 01:36:08,500
They wanted to know what was going on.

1377
01:36:08,500 --> 01:36:13,740
And then, lo and behold, I started getting private messages.

1378
01:36:13,740 --> 01:36:19,580
And nine times out of 10, it was from the spouse of a cop, either female or male, but

1379
01:36:19,580 --> 01:36:21,660
it was never the cop that was dealing with it.

1380
01:36:21,660 --> 01:36:25,260
It was always the spouse of a cop.

1381
01:36:25,260 --> 01:36:26,540
Can you help me with this?

1382
01:36:26,540 --> 01:36:27,540
Can you help me with this?

1383
01:36:27,540 --> 01:36:28,540
He is doing this.

1384
01:36:28,540 --> 01:36:29,540
She is doing this.

1385
01:36:29,540 --> 01:36:34,940
They want to explain the entire situation and how it was similar to my situation and

1386
01:36:34,940 --> 01:36:41,140
then ask me how I was able to still get out of bed or still go to the gym or still climb

1387
01:36:41,140 --> 01:36:44,580
XYZ mountain or do whatever I was doing.

1388
01:36:44,580 --> 01:36:50,420
And so I was like, okay, maybe there's something to this.

1389
01:36:50,420 --> 01:36:53,580
Maybe there's been sharing my story.

1390
01:36:53,580 --> 01:36:56,700
Maybe I'm going to be able to reach that one person.

1391
01:36:56,700 --> 01:36:59,380
And maybe it's not even something I know that I say.

1392
01:36:59,380 --> 01:37:02,740
Maybe it's some random thing that I've said in this conversation that somebody is going

1393
01:37:02,740 --> 01:37:04,140
to key in on.

1394
01:37:04,140 --> 01:37:09,340
And that's going to be the difference between them pulling the trigger or not.

1395
01:37:09,340 --> 01:37:16,980
And if that's the case, if I can reach one, if I can stop one person from having to experience

1396
01:37:16,980 --> 01:37:22,460
some of these things that I have, or if I can help one person to know that they're not

1397
01:37:22,460 --> 01:37:26,140
alone, that's what it's about.

1398
01:37:26,140 --> 01:37:27,140
And that's everything.

1399
01:37:27,140 --> 01:37:31,300
You know, it's even with this podcast, you know, you look at the metrics, oh, how many

1400
01:37:31,300 --> 01:37:36,700
people have hit download, you kind of remind yourself again, a single person, if anything

1401
01:37:36,700 --> 01:37:41,760
that you do helps one single, but even if you put your whole life's work into something,

1402
01:37:41,760 --> 01:37:45,780
if it changes one life, it was worth everything.

1403
01:37:45,780 --> 01:37:46,780
Absolutely everything.

1404
01:37:46,780 --> 01:37:47,780
One is enough.

1405
01:37:47,780 --> 01:37:54,620
You know, and then it has a synergistic effect as well, because I help one, maybe that person

1406
01:37:54,620 --> 01:37:59,980
that I help buys into that mentality, and then they help one, and then they help one,

1407
01:37:59,980 --> 01:38:02,300
and then they help one, and then they help one.

1408
01:38:02,300 --> 01:38:09,100
And then now you've built this community of like minded individuals who are struggling

1409
01:38:09,100 --> 01:38:12,860
and are sharing their struggle together.

1410
01:38:12,860 --> 01:38:15,180
So this is the story.

1411
01:38:15,180 --> 01:38:17,300
This is the persona I was putting out there.

1412
01:38:17,300 --> 01:38:19,820
This is the things I was saying.

1413
01:38:19,820 --> 01:38:24,900
And randomly, one day, I get a Facebook message from a guy named Chris Thorpe.

1414
01:38:24,900 --> 01:38:27,420
And do you know Chris Thorpe?

1415
01:38:27,420 --> 01:38:30,260
We actually, we've never actually crossed paths, even though I know he's part of the

1416
01:38:30,260 --> 01:38:31,260
family.

1417
01:38:31,260 --> 01:38:33,420
Yeah, he isn't anymore.

1418
01:38:33,420 --> 01:38:36,260
He used to be but Chris Jacobson and Chris Thorpe.

1419
01:38:36,260 --> 01:38:41,780
So Chris Thorpe at the time, he they were just starting up the Chris Thorpe calls me

1420
01:38:41,780 --> 01:38:45,900
and says, Hey, I'd like to I'd like to talk to you about this organization called Operation

1421
01:38:45,900 --> 01:38:48,500
Endurance Warrior.

1422
01:38:48,500 --> 01:38:51,740
And I'm like, Okay, what do you what do you want?

1423
01:38:51,740 --> 01:38:53,340
You know, I'm thinking it's a scam at this point.

1424
01:38:53,340 --> 01:38:56,460
I've gotten so many scam calls and emails from my social media.

1425
01:38:56,460 --> 01:38:59,100
I'm like, All right, here's another one.

1426
01:38:59,100 --> 01:39:04,220
And then he starts talking to me and he's any and he's like, this is what we do.

1427
01:39:04,220 --> 01:39:07,900
You know, we're an organization who honors and powers motivates injured law enforcement

1428
01:39:07,900 --> 01:39:14,420
officers and veterans to show them that there's no reason to struggle alone.

1429
01:39:14,420 --> 01:39:19,560
And you've been showing me your mission is the same as ours.

1430
01:39:19,560 --> 01:39:21,540
Why don't you come and help us?

1431
01:39:21,540 --> 01:39:24,060
And I'm like, Oh, wow, these guys want me to help.

1432
01:39:24,060 --> 01:39:25,060
You know?

1433
01:39:25,060 --> 01:39:27,100
Yeah, I would love to.

1434
01:39:27,100 --> 01:39:30,460
And then I'm like, and then he goes, Yeah, we'd love you to help by becoming an honoree.

1435
01:39:30,460 --> 01:39:33,380
I'm like, Whoa, wait a minute, you bait and switch here, buddy.

1436
01:39:33,380 --> 01:39:35,260
You said I was going to be helping you.

1437
01:39:35,260 --> 01:39:38,780
Now you want to you want to make me an honoree?

1438
01:39:38,780 --> 01:39:41,100
Come on, what's this about?

1439
01:39:41,100 --> 01:39:46,260
And then he explained that, and then he went into the asking for help sometimes and allowing

1440
01:39:46,260 --> 01:39:54,700
others to help you can in itself show other people that their strength and allowing that

1441
01:39:54,700 --> 01:39:56,460
to occur.

1442
01:39:56,460 --> 01:40:03,120
And then he also suggested that that the organization may help give me a platform where I can share

1443
01:40:03,120 --> 01:40:07,920
my story and maybe touch more and help more.

1444
01:40:07,920 --> 01:40:11,780
And so I was like, Okay, I'll give it a shot.

1445
01:40:11,780 --> 01:40:13,500
And they brought me on as an honoree.

1446
01:40:13,500 --> 01:40:21,340
I went to my first event with Operation During Warrior in October of 2018 in Kedua, Kentucky.

1447
01:40:21,340 --> 01:40:24,020
It was a Warriors Challenge.

1448
01:40:24,020 --> 01:40:28,180
And Adam Francis was one of the masked athletes that was there.

1449
01:40:28,180 --> 01:40:33,500
And that man, if you've never met Adam, he's a big old teddy bear is the best way to put

1450
01:40:33,500 --> 01:40:34,500
it.

1451
01:40:34,500 --> 01:40:35,500
He's a police officer in upstate New York.

1452
01:40:35,500 --> 01:40:43,340
He's a former field medic with the army, and just an all around amazing human being.

1453
01:40:43,340 --> 01:40:48,580
And he had actually gotten my information from whoever with the Operation During Warrior

1454
01:40:48,580 --> 01:40:50,320
a couple weeks ahead of time.

1455
01:40:50,320 --> 01:40:54,420
And this man out of the blue is texting me calling me, you know, just, you'd have thought

1456
01:40:54,420 --> 01:40:57,380
we were best friends and I'd never met this guy.

1457
01:40:57,380 --> 01:41:03,380
And he's sharing with me, you know, things that he's dealt with in wartime and, you know,

1458
01:41:03,380 --> 01:41:06,700
dealing with himself as a police officer.

1459
01:41:06,700 --> 01:41:11,220
And I'd lost that brotherhood with the police department.

1460
01:41:11,220 --> 01:41:15,860
And here I'm finding this group of guys and they're wanting to they're saying, hey, not

1461
01:41:15,860 --> 01:41:20,700
only are we here, but there's a bunch of us and we're all across the country.

1462
01:41:20,700 --> 01:41:23,340
Come be part of that.

1463
01:41:23,340 --> 01:41:29,380
And so at my first meeting, a masked event, I'm there, I'm doing this Warriors Challenge.

1464
01:41:29,380 --> 01:41:34,100
So three and a half miles through like crazy terrain.

1465
01:41:34,100 --> 01:41:35,100
It was hot.

1466
01:41:35,100 --> 01:41:39,500
It was like 97 degrees with 130% humidity, I think.

1467
01:41:39,500 --> 01:41:45,700
And during the course, Adam actually vomited in his mask.

1468
01:41:45,700 --> 01:41:48,540
It's a gas mask that they wear and he vomited in his mask.

1469
01:41:48,540 --> 01:41:52,460
But they have a rule, the masked athletes, that they will not remove their mask on a

1470
01:41:52,460 --> 01:41:54,780
course because it's not about them.

1471
01:41:54,780 --> 01:42:00,980
So the man broke the seal, let the vomit drip out of his mask, resealed the mask and finished

1472
01:42:00,980 --> 01:42:01,980
the race.

1473
01:42:01,980 --> 01:42:04,940
That's the dedication these guys have.

1474
01:42:04,940 --> 01:42:09,580
Right there, I was like, the SWAT guy in me kicked in and I'm like, I want to be like

1475
01:42:09,580 --> 01:42:12,860
him.

1476
01:42:12,860 --> 01:42:17,500
And so I started kicking up my training schedule, I started getting more involved in Operation

1477
01:42:17,500 --> 01:42:19,100
Enduring Warrior.

1478
01:42:19,100 --> 01:42:22,760
I started making training or workout videos to get others involved.

1479
01:42:22,760 --> 01:42:25,900
And I just continued to do what I was doing on social media.

1480
01:42:25,900 --> 01:42:33,740
And as I continued this path with OEW, I continued to speak about the issues I was having as

1481
01:42:33,740 --> 01:42:35,940
I was having them in real time.

1482
01:42:35,940 --> 01:42:38,940
If I was having a bad day, I'd go live and man, I'm having a shitty day.

1483
01:42:38,940 --> 01:42:40,100
I didn't sleep last night.

1484
01:42:40,100 --> 01:42:42,060
This is the anxiety I've been dealing with.

1485
01:42:42,060 --> 01:42:44,140
This is how I've dealt with it.

1486
01:42:44,140 --> 01:42:47,900
And then I started sharing different ways to deal with them, some of the different methods

1487
01:42:47,900 --> 01:42:53,100
like the 54321 method, the stop method for grounding and things of that nature that I

1488
01:42:53,100 --> 01:42:57,020
use on a daily basis to get me through rough times.

1489
01:42:57,020 --> 01:43:04,860
And it just kind of snowballed from there to I was able to become an active member of

1490
01:43:04,860 --> 01:43:06,940
Operation Enduring Warrior's honoree team.

1491
01:43:06,940 --> 01:43:13,100
But then I became the program manager for their Warrior's voice team.

1492
01:43:13,100 --> 01:43:14,140
And I continued to work.

1493
01:43:14,140 --> 01:43:17,860
It took me about a year and a half, but I finally was able to make their mass athlete

1494
01:43:17,860 --> 01:43:18,860
team as well.

1495
01:43:18,860 --> 01:43:19,860
Amazing.

1496
01:43:19,860 --> 01:43:24,580
Were you the very first honoree in Task Force Sentinel then?

1497
01:43:24,580 --> 01:43:27,700
No, I was the second, second or third.

1498
01:43:27,700 --> 01:43:29,380
I think the third.

1499
01:43:29,380 --> 01:43:33,660
The first two, I believe was a gentleman by the name of he goes by PJ.

1500
01:43:33,660 --> 01:43:35,980
He was a tribal police officer.

1501
01:43:35,980 --> 01:43:36,980
I had PJ on the show.

1502
01:43:36,980 --> 01:43:37,980
I'm getting confused.

1503
01:43:37,980 --> 01:43:41,220
Yeah, PJ was number one and Drew Stokes was number two, wasn't he?

1504
01:43:41,220 --> 01:43:49,580
No, I think Bones, New York City police officer was at 911 when the buildings came down.

1505
01:43:49,580 --> 01:43:52,140
He was a plainclothes officer.

1506
01:43:52,140 --> 01:43:54,740
Stephen Bones is his name.

1507
01:43:54,740 --> 01:43:55,740
He looks like a pirate.

1508
01:43:55,740 --> 01:43:57,780
He is one of the coolest guys in the world.

1509
01:43:57,780 --> 01:44:00,500
That man will tell you stories.

1510
01:44:00,500 --> 01:44:02,060
The stories that man can tell you.

1511
01:44:02,060 --> 01:44:03,060
Great guy.

1512
01:44:03,060 --> 01:44:04,620
And then I believe I was the third.

1513
01:44:04,620 --> 01:44:05,620
Yeah, definitely.

1514
01:44:05,620 --> 01:44:08,220
Drew came in, I think shortly after I did.

1515
01:44:08,220 --> 01:44:10,180
I think I was the third Task Force Sentinel.

1516
01:44:10,180 --> 01:44:16,700
I believe I am the first police officer honoree to become a mass athlete.

1517
01:44:16,700 --> 01:44:17,700
Beautiful.

1518
01:44:17,700 --> 01:44:18,700
Yeah.

1519
01:44:18,700 --> 01:44:23,900
So when I interviewed Drew in his home, and again, very powerful story and all the poor

1520
01:44:23,900 --> 01:44:28,740
guy was trying to do was buy some supplies for some evacuees they brought from Puerto

1521
01:44:28,740 --> 01:44:33,380
Rico and some psycho tries to murder him in a public's parking lot just because he's wearing

1522
01:44:33,380 --> 01:44:35,740
a uniform.

1523
01:44:35,740 --> 01:44:37,580
But I got to see it.

1524
01:44:37,580 --> 01:44:41,020
I did this interview with Drew and then he becomes an honoree.

1525
01:44:41,020 --> 01:44:44,660
And I think it was, I forget, it was a few months later.

1526
01:44:44,660 --> 01:44:49,420
And watching that man at the beginning, I ran, I'm not wearing a mask.

1527
01:44:49,420 --> 01:44:52,180
I'm doing along just kind of doing the support.

1528
01:44:52,180 --> 01:44:55,780
Obviously, the mask athletes are doing most of the real heavy lifting and we're there

1529
01:44:55,780 --> 01:44:58,060
just to kind of bring the masses over.

1530
01:44:58,060 --> 01:45:03,660
But at the end, Spartan actually gave us a little area and I did an interview and it

1531
01:45:03,660 --> 01:45:07,100
was Drew Lopez and a few others.

1532
01:45:07,100 --> 01:45:10,500
And hearing, I mean, so it was we're talking like real time.

1533
01:45:10,500 --> 01:45:11,860
He just finished the race.

1534
01:45:11,860 --> 01:45:19,220
We sat down and hearing just the hope, the realization that he wasn't as broken as he

1535
01:45:19,220 --> 01:45:24,260
thought he was, that he could do more than he realized really underlined.

1536
01:45:24,260 --> 01:45:25,700
This is what OEW is about.

1537
01:45:25,700 --> 01:45:28,820
It doesn't matter if it's first responder or if it's military.

1538
01:45:28,820 --> 01:45:32,620
You get this people, you know, they're broken physically, they're broken mentally.

1539
01:45:32,620 --> 01:45:36,580
And again, I say that term broken with compassion.

1540
01:45:36,580 --> 01:45:38,780
You know, it's like it's like any injury mentally.

1541
01:45:38,780 --> 01:45:39,780
We're very scared.

1542
01:45:39,780 --> 01:45:41,260
You fuck up your back deadlifting.

1543
01:45:41,260 --> 01:45:44,860
It's really hard to start deadlifting again, even if your back is solid.

1544
01:45:44,860 --> 01:45:49,700
So just watching the growth of and I've run with multiple now watching the growth of these

1545
01:45:49,700 --> 01:45:55,460
people from beginning to end operation during Warrior is doing incredible things.

1546
01:45:55,460 --> 01:45:56,460
Absolutely.

1547
01:45:56,460 --> 01:46:00,940
I mean, I credit them with saving my life.

1548
01:46:00,940 --> 01:46:06,860
If I would have been stuck in that in that cycle that I was in where I was turning to

1549
01:46:06,860 --> 01:46:11,100
alcohol and mixing it with the drugs, it would have been a matter of time before I was back

1550
01:46:11,100 --> 01:46:12,100
in that same position.

1551
01:46:12,100 --> 01:46:17,060
I would I found myself in, you know, prior, you know, waking up with a pistol next to

1552
01:46:17,060 --> 01:46:18,060
me.

1553
01:46:18,060 --> 01:46:22,820
It changed the organization itself.

1554
01:46:22,820 --> 01:46:29,860
The the individuals in the organization showed me that there is no reason to be alone.

1555
01:46:29,860 --> 01:46:37,220
And in addition to that, they empowered me to kind of redefine who I was.

1556
01:46:37,220 --> 01:46:41,820
They created a situation where I could get out of the organization, whatever I was willing

1557
01:46:41,820 --> 01:46:42,980
to put in.

1558
01:46:42,980 --> 01:46:48,260
So I put in the work to become a master athlete and I reap the benefits of that.

1559
01:46:48,260 --> 01:46:52,220
What they tell you is there's healing and helping others.

1560
01:46:52,220 --> 01:46:58,340
And so each one of these events that I get to go and I get I have the honor of taking

1561
01:46:58,340 --> 01:47:03,780
one of these injured police officers or injured veterans or injured firefighters.

1562
01:47:03,780 --> 01:47:10,340
And I get to sit there and see that transformation and then through the course of a weekend,

1563
01:47:10,340 --> 01:47:12,460
that's rejuvenating.

1564
01:47:12,460 --> 01:47:14,460
There's power in.

1565
01:47:14,460 --> 01:47:17,900
And so I regularly say there's healing and helping others.

1566
01:47:17,900 --> 01:47:24,700
But even further than that, when I lost my position as a police officer, I hadn't really

1567
01:47:24,700 --> 01:47:29,380
done anything other than police work in 13 years.

1568
01:47:29,380 --> 01:47:35,680
In addition to that, I chose the the side of police work, which is more militaristic

1569
01:47:35,680 --> 01:47:41,620
in terms of, you know, SWAT and those SWAT skills don't necessarily translate to the

1570
01:47:41,620 --> 01:47:45,660
the public, the private sector.

1571
01:47:45,660 --> 01:47:46,700
I'm sorry.

1572
01:47:46,700 --> 01:47:52,140
You know, kicking in and clearing a building in less than a minute doesn't really matter

1573
01:47:52,140 --> 01:47:54,860
when you have to make copies.

1574
01:47:54,860 --> 01:47:59,900
So they didn't care how accurate I was when I was shooting to press start on the copy

1575
01:47:59,900 --> 01:48:00,900
machine.

1576
01:48:00,900 --> 01:48:03,780
But so I didn't have the skill set.

1577
01:48:03,780 --> 01:48:04,780
You know, I did have it.

1578
01:48:04,780 --> 01:48:05,780
I had a couple of degrees.

1579
01:48:05,780 --> 01:48:08,940
I had a bachelor's in business and a master's in legal studies.

1580
01:48:08,940 --> 01:48:15,540
But I didn't know or couldn't articulate the skill set I had in order to even try to get

1581
01:48:15,540 --> 01:48:17,860
employment outside of law enforcement.

1582
01:48:17,860 --> 01:48:19,220
I didn't have any other passion.

1583
01:48:19,220 --> 01:48:20,380
That's what I wanted to do.

1584
01:48:20,380 --> 01:48:21,660
It was taken from me.

1585
01:48:21,660 --> 01:48:26,100
I felt as though I was lost.

1586
01:48:26,100 --> 01:48:30,940
And so the more I worked with Operation Enduring Warrior, the more fundraising I did, the more

1587
01:48:30,940 --> 01:48:37,420
event planning I did, the more CRM work I did, you know, customer service or customer

1588
01:48:37,420 --> 01:48:44,980
service stuff I did, you know, the more leadership positions I was I was putting.

1589
01:48:44,980 --> 01:48:52,100
And with the experience over the course of it, so I began with OEW in 2018.

1590
01:48:52,100 --> 01:48:54,060
Here we are in 2023.

1591
01:48:54,060 --> 01:49:01,500
Over the course of that five years, I gained the experience to get a position where I work

1592
01:49:01,500 --> 01:49:07,580
now with the Child Abuse and Neglect Council here locally as a development coordinator

1593
01:49:07,580 --> 01:49:11,920
raising money for child abuse victims.

1594
01:49:11,920 --> 01:49:18,460
So I mean, I was able to take what OEW, the tools OEW gave me and translate them into

1595
01:49:18,460 --> 01:49:23,380
my personal life to find a way to continue to give back to my community.

1596
01:49:23,380 --> 01:49:26,660
I might not be on the front line anymore as a police, like I was as a police officer,

1597
01:49:26,660 --> 01:49:30,620
but I'm doing everything I can with OEW to make sure those guys are okay.

1598
01:49:30,620 --> 01:49:32,660
And I'm helping my family there.

1599
01:49:32,660 --> 01:49:37,060
I'm still doing that as I'm on this podcast doing right now.

1600
01:49:37,060 --> 01:49:46,220
But I'm also getting to go to work every day now and raise money to stop people victimizing

1601
01:49:46,220 --> 01:49:47,420
our local children.

1602
01:49:47,420 --> 01:49:49,380
Like how amazing is that?

1603
01:49:49,380 --> 01:49:58,540
Like, so it's not just about these races that OEW teaches us skills and helps empower you

1604
01:49:58,540 --> 01:50:03,580
to reach any goal that you want to achieve.

1605
01:50:03,580 --> 01:50:06,580
It underlines what I've heard over and over and over again.

1606
01:50:06,580 --> 01:50:11,020
You know, I mean, firstly, it's finding that tribe and OEW is a beautiful tribe and you

1607
01:50:11,020 --> 01:50:13,900
and I are going to see each other again a week, sorry, a month from now when we're in

1608
01:50:13,900 --> 01:50:15,040
Tampa for the gala.

1609
01:50:15,040 --> 01:50:21,820
So anyone listening, February 17th, OEW gala, if you want to help support, there's an opportunity.

1610
01:50:21,820 --> 01:50:25,420
But also its purpose, as you said, you know, and this is the problem, I think, you know,

1611
01:50:25,420 --> 01:50:29,500
when we, when you're a firefighter and you transition out, like, oh, I'll go teach at

1612
01:50:29,500 --> 01:50:30,500
the academy.

1613
01:50:30,500 --> 01:50:31,700
When you're a cop, you transition out.

1614
01:50:31,700 --> 01:50:36,460
Oh, I guess I'll go do security, you know, but no, we have developed an amazing array

1615
01:50:36,460 --> 01:50:39,580
of skills, you know, soft skills, as they say.

1616
01:50:39,580 --> 01:50:44,900
And so where I think a lot of people stumble as they transition out, you know, whether

1617
01:50:44,900 --> 01:50:48,740
it's retirement, whether it's after injury, whether they just have had enough, you know,

1618
01:50:48,740 --> 01:50:55,620
halfway through a career, but you still need to have that service woven in somewhere.

1619
01:50:55,620 --> 01:50:57,260
Service that took you into uniform.

1620
01:50:57,260 --> 01:51:01,140
Now you become a realtor or, you know, whatever it is.

1621
01:51:01,140 --> 01:51:06,500
If it's a company that's money focused, you know, you're probably not going to feel fulfilled,

1622
01:51:06,500 --> 01:51:11,420
but you have an organization like OEW, we are literally in a tribe, you have that community

1623
01:51:11,420 --> 01:51:17,160
again, you have that purpose, all of a sudden it's taking the skills that you had and applying

1624
01:51:17,160 --> 01:51:22,060
them in a different way, in a different uniform, but making a positive impact on the world.

1625
01:51:22,060 --> 01:51:25,760
And I think that's key for a transition story.

1626
01:51:25,760 --> 01:51:27,060
I think you're correct.

1627
01:51:27,060 --> 01:51:29,540
And you said you nailed it on the head purpose.

1628
01:51:29,540 --> 01:51:34,820
When you find that purpose, when you find your why, the farthest distance you're ever

1629
01:51:34,820 --> 01:51:38,300
going to have to travel is the six inches between your ears.

1630
01:51:38,300 --> 01:51:40,820
That's the farthest distance you'll ever have to travel.

1631
01:51:40,820 --> 01:51:44,420
And if you understand your purpose and your why, that's nothing.

1632
01:51:44,420 --> 01:51:46,660
You can do it every time.

1633
01:51:46,660 --> 01:51:50,700
It's when we lose our purpose or why that we find ourselves in a bottle.

1634
01:51:50,700 --> 01:51:55,220
We find that anxiety is taking over, that the darkness of the depression is taking over.

1635
01:51:55,220 --> 01:52:01,740
And we don't have that reason to keep pushing forward, your purpose, your why.

1636
01:52:01,740 --> 01:52:02,740
100%.

1637
01:52:02,740 --> 01:52:05,480
Well, I want to get to where people can find OEW.

1638
01:52:05,480 --> 01:52:09,140
Before we do, you ended up writing a book, My Brother's Keeper.

1639
01:52:09,140 --> 01:52:11,160
So what made you write the book?

1640
01:52:11,160 --> 01:52:15,140
And then tell me about that process, if there was any catharsis or anything in that process

1641
01:52:15,140 --> 01:52:16,140
too.

1642
01:52:16,140 --> 01:52:24,140
So, I told you very early on, I mean, I didn't start seeing a psychologist, you know, a couple

1643
01:52:24,140 --> 01:52:29,660
months after my shooting, I think it was maybe two months after my shooting.

1644
01:52:29,660 --> 01:52:37,700
And he started telling me, one of the big things that he preached was exposure therapy.

1645
01:52:37,700 --> 01:52:43,700
It's a type of cognitive behavioral therapy that is very common to help people deal with

1646
01:52:43,700 --> 01:52:50,140
to reframe the stressors that would potentially trigger them with PTSD.

1647
01:52:50,140 --> 01:52:54,860
One of the methods that they can do it is obviously physically take somebody to a place

1648
01:52:54,860 --> 01:53:00,380
or, you know, physically do something exposing you to whatever that trigger was.

1649
01:53:00,380 --> 01:53:04,420
In my case, with it being a shooting and such, it's a little bit difficult to put myself

1650
01:53:04,420 --> 01:53:08,700
in another shooting situation to expose myself to that.

1651
01:53:08,700 --> 01:53:14,700
And I was exhibiting a lot of avoidance.

1652
01:53:14,700 --> 01:53:16,260
What's the word I'm looking for?

1653
01:53:16,260 --> 01:53:17,260
Avoidance behaviors.

1654
01:53:17,260 --> 01:53:19,020
I was avoiding talking about it.

1655
01:53:19,020 --> 01:53:22,500
I was avoiding anything to do with my shooting.

1656
01:53:22,500 --> 01:53:27,380
And so, he's told me to start writing a journal.

1657
01:53:27,380 --> 01:53:29,700
And that journal was twofold.

1658
01:53:29,700 --> 01:53:35,900
It allowed me to vent, it allowed to get that stuff off my chest so I could potentially

1659
01:53:35,900 --> 01:53:37,580
understand it.

1660
01:53:37,580 --> 01:53:39,620
And it was a form of exposure therapy.

1661
01:53:39,620 --> 01:53:44,760
In addition to the journal, he had me writing daily what happened.

1662
01:53:44,760 --> 01:53:47,220
He wanted me to write down what happened.

1663
01:53:47,220 --> 01:53:49,500
Not just, I feel shitty today.

1664
01:53:49,500 --> 01:53:56,580
No, Jeremy, write down from the moment you went to work that morning through now, I want

1665
01:53:56,580 --> 01:53:57,940
you to write that out.

1666
01:53:57,940 --> 01:53:59,700
So it brings me back.

1667
01:53:59,700 --> 01:54:04,100
And the intent there is to bring you back to that moment when you're in a safe environment.

1668
01:54:04,100 --> 01:54:10,220
And over time, it's supposed to lessen the affect on the individual.

1669
01:54:10,220 --> 01:54:12,740
And their emotional response will kind of diminish.

1670
01:54:12,740 --> 01:54:15,420
I mean, we see it when we learn how to do anything.

1671
01:54:15,420 --> 01:54:17,460
When you learn how to ride a bike, you're scared first.

1672
01:54:17,460 --> 01:54:20,180
And then you learn how to ride a bike and you never think about it again.

1673
01:54:20,180 --> 01:54:23,340
Same kind of concept.

1674
01:54:23,340 --> 01:54:24,620
Is it working?

1675
01:54:24,620 --> 01:54:27,860
I don't, I mean, I'm better than I was.

1676
01:54:27,860 --> 01:54:29,740
I don't think it'll ever go away.

1677
01:54:29,740 --> 01:54:35,020
And you know, there's still times, there's still times I'll go to sleep and the moment

1678
01:54:35,020 --> 01:54:39,540
I shut my eyes, I see the muzzle flash and I can smell the gunpowder.

1679
01:54:39,540 --> 01:54:40,540
Will that ever go away?

1680
01:54:40,540 --> 01:54:43,300
I'm told it might not.

1681
01:54:43,300 --> 01:54:47,440
But that's the nature of the beast, I guess.

1682
01:54:47,440 --> 01:54:50,340
So tell people what's actually in the covers of the books.

1683
01:54:50,340 --> 01:54:54,240
You have obviously, you know, you storytell the event itself, but there's some other great

1684
01:54:54,240 --> 01:54:55,740
information in there too.

1685
01:54:55,740 --> 01:54:56,740
Yeah.

1686
01:54:56,740 --> 01:54:59,900
So I spent a lot of time thinking about how I wrote it.

1687
01:54:59,900 --> 01:55:03,780
So the first half of the book or three quarters of the book, first of all, it's very short.

1688
01:55:03,780 --> 01:55:07,540
The reason it's so short is because I know you pot people don't like to read.

1689
01:55:07,540 --> 01:55:09,740
So that was actually an incentive.

1690
01:55:09,740 --> 01:55:10,740
You're tired.

1691
01:55:10,740 --> 01:55:11,740
That's the problem.

1692
01:55:11,740 --> 01:55:12,740
Right.

1693
01:55:12,740 --> 01:55:13,740
Exactly.

1694
01:55:13,740 --> 01:55:19,980
So it was actually written so short on purpose because I wanted somebody to pick it up and

1695
01:55:19,980 --> 01:55:21,820
actually take something from it.

1696
01:55:21,820 --> 01:55:25,740
If I can reach one, I thought there'd be more likelihood with it being short that that might

1697
01:55:25,740 --> 01:55:26,740
occur.

1698
01:55:26,740 --> 01:55:32,180
But the first couple chapters are due detail, the story.

1699
01:55:32,180 --> 01:55:40,140
And then I go into how some personal reflections about what I did wrong, what I could have

1700
01:55:40,140 --> 01:55:43,140
done differently.

1701
01:55:43,140 --> 01:55:48,380
And that I think was a huge turning point for me.

1702
01:55:48,380 --> 01:55:56,580
While I was writing the book and I was looking at my personal reflections, I took an extreme

1703
01:55:56,580 --> 01:56:02,540
ownership and our extreme responsibility perspective when I was writing that.

1704
01:56:02,540 --> 01:56:11,780
And when I did that, I kind of reframed my thinking that even if I'm triggered, even

1705
01:56:11,780 --> 01:56:21,420
if I have this emotional issue, I am still responsible for my behavior and my actions.

1706
01:56:21,420 --> 01:56:27,620
And that allowed me like a little break, I guess is the word.

1707
01:56:27,620 --> 01:56:31,860
So when I start to feel like one of these emotional things or whatnot, it allows me

1708
01:56:31,860 --> 01:56:35,740
this break where I can say, okay, how is this going to affect me?

1709
01:56:35,740 --> 01:56:38,700
So I slow everything down and that's the direction I go.

1710
01:56:38,700 --> 01:56:42,260
So I talk about the personal reflections.

1711
01:56:42,260 --> 01:56:44,300
I talk about finding OEW.

1712
01:56:44,300 --> 01:56:47,500
I talk about and then I go on to make some recommendations.

1713
01:56:47,500 --> 01:56:53,740
I make a couple different recommendations about how to help change this for police officers.

1714
01:56:53,740 --> 01:57:00,380
The major change I recommend would be, you know, like you mentioned the cancer, you know,

1715
01:57:00,380 --> 01:57:02,420
they'll just wait people out for cancer.

1716
01:57:02,420 --> 01:57:07,020
There's some professions in which there is an assumed responsibility.

1717
01:57:07,020 --> 01:57:13,020
If you're in this profession and you have this ailment, it's assumed that that ailment

1718
01:57:13,020 --> 01:57:16,380
is from your job just because it's so prevalent.

1719
01:57:16,380 --> 01:57:23,260
I think I suggest that every police officer who has been hired has given a psychological

1720
01:57:23,260 --> 01:57:24,540
evaluation.

1721
01:57:24,540 --> 01:57:25,540
That's just standard now.

1722
01:57:25,540 --> 01:57:30,340
If they've been given a psychological evaluation at the beginning and this will require policy,

1723
01:57:30,340 --> 01:57:39,380
policy change, it should be and they pass and are hired a subsequent failure of a psychological

1724
01:57:39,380 --> 01:57:44,580
evaluation should simply indicate that the job caused it.

1725
01:57:44,580 --> 01:57:51,180
Like the burden of proof should be moved to the village or the city or the municipality

1726
01:57:51,180 --> 01:57:56,860
to prove it wasn't work related instead of us having to prove it was.

1727
01:57:56,860 --> 01:57:59,260
That's the major, one of the major changes.

1728
01:57:59,260 --> 01:58:05,620
And I also make reference to making sure that there's policies in place for your officers

1729
01:58:05,620 --> 01:58:10,260
to seek mental health, making sure that you have the best practices in line before an

1730
01:58:10,260 --> 01:58:11,940
incident happens.

1731
01:58:11,940 --> 01:58:15,060
My department didn't even have a retirement plan set up for an officer.

1732
01:58:15,060 --> 01:58:17,100
They'd never had an officer retired.

1733
01:58:17,100 --> 01:58:19,860
So that prolonged my situation and made it worse.

1734
01:58:19,860 --> 01:58:25,380
So I make a bunch of different policy changes and then I kind of put it on anybody who's

1735
01:58:25,380 --> 01:58:26,380
reading it.

1736
01:58:26,380 --> 01:58:30,620
I'm hoping that there's active officers in the command staff who are reading this right

1737
01:58:30,620 --> 01:58:33,460
now, people in the position of power.

1738
01:58:33,460 --> 01:58:36,980
We don't have to wait for the lawmakers to make a change.

1739
01:58:36,980 --> 01:58:41,340
Most of these things can be done at a policy level within the command staff.

1740
01:58:41,340 --> 01:58:46,500
A command officer can make the decision to bring in mental health advocates to a police

1741
01:58:46,500 --> 01:58:52,420
department and put other policies in place to make it easier on the officers.

1742
01:58:52,420 --> 01:58:53,420
Absolutely.

1743
01:58:53,420 --> 01:58:57,900
Yeah, I think the barrier to entry is the big problem that we have now.

1744
01:58:57,900 --> 01:59:01,980
We're still stuck in the whole stigma conversation and that's not the issue anymore.

1745
01:59:01,980 --> 01:59:06,180
There, of course, are pockets of the country where they maybe still believe that.

1746
01:59:06,180 --> 01:59:12,460
But it's now the EAP Russian roulette horror stories that we hear, the counselors that

1747
01:59:12,460 --> 01:59:14,020
aren't culturally competent.

1748
01:59:14,020 --> 01:59:19,340
How do we remove the barrier between the person who might be in complete crisis, might be

1749
01:59:19,340 --> 01:59:25,700
just struggling, might be okay, but just simply want to stay okay to access the right mental

1750
01:59:25,700 --> 01:59:32,100
health tools that they need without financially ruining them or having to schedule six months

1751
01:59:32,100 --> 01:59:34,640
ahead or all these things that you hear.

1752
01:59:34,640 --> 01:59:36,200
This is what we need to be talking about now.

1753
01:59:36,200 --> 01:59:37,340
We get it.

1754
01:59:37,340 --> 01:59:40,580
Mental health is also applicable in the first responder professions.

1755
01:59:40,580 --> 01:59:43,260
How do we actually make it work?

1756
01:59:43,260 --> 01:59:45,260
Absolutely.

1757
01:59:45,260 --> 01:59:47,860
Where can people find the book?

1758
01:59:47,860 --> 01:59:50,060
The books available anywhere books are sold.

1759
01:59:50,060 --> 01:59:51,060
Most of the time it has to be ordered.

1760
01:59:51,060 --> 01:59:52,860
That's just the way everything is nowadays.

1761
01:59:52,860 --> 01:59:55,220
It's available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble.

1762
01:59:55,220 --> 02:00:00,500
It's available on my Facebook officer, Officer Jeremy Sharla, retired.

1763
02:00:00,500 --> 02:00:03,300
It's also available on my website relearningtolive.com.

1764
02:00:03,300 --> 02:00:04,300
Brilliant.

1765
02:00:04,300 --> 02:00:06,100
And what about OEW?

1766
02:00:06,100 --> 02:00:11,540
If people want to contribute, if maybe they want to join as a masked athlete or even be

1767
02:00:11,540 --> 02:00:15,620
an honoree, where are the best places to find them?

1768
02:00:15,620 --> 02:00:16,620
Facebook page.

1769
02:00:16,620 --> 02:00:21,660
They have a Facebook page with a probably a hundred thousand plus following.

1770
02:00:21,660 --> 02:00:23,540
Their logo is a mask.

1771
02:00:23,540 --> 02:00:25,260
So it's pretty gas mask.

1772
02:00:25,260 --> 02:00:26,900
It's an Avon gas mask.

1773
02:00:26,900 --> 02:00:31,740
For those who know the difference between them, but go ahead and check them out on Facebook.

1774
02:00:31,740 --> 02:00:33,660
They have Instagram as well.

1775
02:00:33,660 --> 02:00:34,660
And they do have a website.

1776
02:00:34,660 --> 02:00:40,900
I'm trying to remember if it's operation enduringwarrior.org or enduringwarrior.org.

1777
02:00:40,900 --> 02:00:42,940
But I can't recall off the top of my head.

1778
02:00:42,940 --> 02:00:46,780
Brilliant, I'll put the link on the show notes for this episode.

1779
02:00:46,780 --> 02:00:49,260
Well, Jeremy, I want to say thank you so much.

1780
02:00:49,260 --> 02:00:52,380
I mean, we've been chatting now for basically two hours.

1781
02:00:52,380 --> 02:00:57,380
As I said before, it's been a long time coming, but you've got a very powerful story, but

1782
02:00:57,380 --> 02:01:02,700
it's not just, this is what happened to me and I'm kind of coping ish.

1783
02:01:02,700 --> 02:01:06,180
It is infused with what people need to hear, which is hope.

1784
02:01:06,180 --> 02:01:10,740
Are we going to be the same person prior to a traumatic event than we are after?

1785
02:01:10,740 --> 02:01:11,740
No, of course.

1786
02:01:11,740 --> 02:01:15,700
There's going to be a change, but it's a new version of you and the fact that you found

1787
02:01:15,700 --> 02:01:17,660
this new tribe and this new purpose.

1788
02:01:17,660 --> 02:01:23,020
And I've saved, I'm sure, way more than one, but at least one.

1789
02:01:23,020 --> 02:01:24,020
It's empowering.

1790
02:01:24,020 --> 02:01:25,740
And like I said, it really infuses hope.

1791
02:01:25,740 --> 02:01:29,140
So I want to thank you so much for being so generous with your time today and coming on

1792
02:01:29,140 --> 02:01:30,140
the Behind the Shield podcast.

1793
02:01:30,140 --> 02:01:41,780
Thank you, James.