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Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast. As always, my name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on the show,
retired veteran Chicago police officer and the author of multiple books, including Breaking the Barriers, Dr. Ron Ruffo.
Now in this conversation, we discuss a host of topics from his early life, entering law enforcement at the age of 40,
proactive crime prevention, the defund movement, his own extremely powerful mental health story, sexual predators and so much more.
Now, before we get to this incredibly powerful and important conversation, as I say every week, please just take a moment.
Go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and leave a rating.
Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for others to find.
And this is a free library of over 1000 episodes now.
So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories so I can get them to every single person on planet Earth who needs to hear them.
So with that being said, I introduce to you Dr. Ron Ruffo. Enjoy.
Well, Ron, I want to start by saying I'm so glad that we're finally sitting down.
You and I have gone back and forth, I think for several years, we've been talking about this topic, and we know that you've been working on a lot of different topics.
You've been working on a lot of topics, you've been working on a lot of topics, and you've been working on a lot of topics.
We've been working on a lot of topics, and we know that you've been working on a lot of topics.
saying, I'm so glad that we're finally sitting down. You and I have gone back and forth, I think for
several years now, as far as you know, what you're doing in law enforcement, and obviously what I'm
trying to do in the first responder professions in general. And we are finally sitting down. So I
want to welcome you finally to the Behind the Shield podcast today. Thanks, James. I'm so proud
and honored to be with you. Where on planet Earth are we finding you today? You are finding me in
the city of Chicago. I'm retired nine years from the Chicago police. So Chicago has been my home.
In fact, I'm 70 years old, and I've been here 70 years in the city. So beautiful. All right. Well,
let's start at the very beginning then tell me where you were born. And tell me a little
bit about your family dynamic, what your parents did, how many siblings. Okay, I was, again,
I was born in Chicago, 1954, in March, March 4. In fact, the day the city became a city
in Chicago, we celebrate March 4. And I was, I think I was an average student, an average kid.
I was, you know, I didn't excel in sports, but I did play. And I went to my, a great grammar
school. It was a Catholic education. I went to eighth grade, great high school, I mean, grammar
school. Then I went to St. Patrick High School in Chicago was an all boys school. I'm kind of glad
I went there. In fact, I'm had a security there now. No, really at my old high school being.
Yes, I'm in head of our security for St. Pat's, which is good. So you see all these young kids
where I was got 50 some years ago. I love Chicago, my mom and dad, my dad was a hard worker, he had
two jobs. And he was, he was a, he was a good person. He always said, I remember him saying
one time, you can wake up happier, you can wake up miserable, it's your choice. And that's, and then
he said, you have that privilege, you have that, you have that knowledge over you to to be happier,
to be sad. And a lot of people are so unhappy today. I say they'd like they're always on the
wrong side of the bed when they get up. I said, you know what, it's, I wish I would have heard my dad
tell them, you know, you could be happy, even though you might have some struggles and hard times.
It's, I feel that I'm happy most of the time, or I would say probably 99% of the time there's
always a smile on my face or I'm saying good morning to someone and I think I attribute to my
dad, my mom was a homemaker, she was home. My dad became an entrepreneur at the end of,
he had a friend of his say, you know what, Ed, my dad's name was Eddie, to go into
the beauty shop business and my dad was far from, he worked with tools and everything else that way,
but the guy said that's the up and coming thing and my dad went to, he went to school.
And even though he didn't do hair, he, he, he had a shop and then my mom helped him too. So
with that together, they bought a few buildings and he did well for himself at a at a young age.
And I attribute his entrepreneurship to, for, to making me the person that I am today.
What about military and first responders? Did you have any in your extended family?
You know what, I am the only one that has been, that went into the police force. I think my dad
would be shocked that, that I went into, he passed away at 58 years old. I came into the police
force at 58 years old. I came into the academy. I took the test at 35 years old, which was kind of
old to, to be in the, in the academy, but it's something that I've always wanted to do and always
thought of myself to, as a policeman. My dad had a friend, his name was Phil Onesto and a great guy.
He was, he was huge. He had huge hands. He was a police officer and he always wore that, the
police cap and everything else. And I admired him for his service and what he did. He was like a
gentle giant, but I thought I would like to be like him when I come out to the, if I can make it out
to the police force. Lucky enough, I took the test at 35, but in Chicago, they don't do anything quick.
So I didn't come on till I didn't get into the academy till I was 40 years old in the academy.
I was probably in the best shape I was ever in. I was about 175 pounds. I used to lift weights.
It was in the best shape I was ever in. And I just am so proud to, when I got that letter saying
to start the academy on, it was July 5th of 1994. That's my first day of becoming a Chicago police
officer. So what about school age? You mentioned I've been in great shape at 40 years old. What
were you playing when you were a child? I love, we had outside, we would play out football outside,
softball, fast pitching, all that kind of stuff. I enjoyed just being with the neighborhood kids
and playing out out in front of my house. So I was pretty involved that way. I wasn't great,
but I wasn't the last guy picked on the team, put it that way. I wasn't the first one picked,
I wasn't the last one. So I enjoyed being with a lot of the neighborhood kids and
had a great time. I had a good childhood. No major incidents at all. I respected the police. I
respected my elders. And all in all, I had a pretty good childhood. And I think that's important
coming on to the police department where you're not any trauma beforehand. And I think that's
what a lot of police officers and a lot of convicts, believe it or not, or people that are in jail,
have a high A score with the detriments they face when they're younger. So I'm glad I was pretty
much a normal kid. We'll stay on that for a second, because that's a really interesting point that a
lot of people on here have brought up in the past. And I've heard that a lot of us have a scores of
six and above and the same in the incarcerated population. And that just puts a lot of us at a
crossroads. What I've noticed, the difference is that if we are fortunate enough to be able to
process some of those struggles when we were young, I believe that becomes resilience,
that becomes strength. But if it's pushed down and buried down, then I think that's how we lose some
of these very young officers that have only been in uniform for a year because it's that horrendous
demon that they pushed down from early life that finally reared its head when they put the uniform
on. I agree. I agree wholeheartedly, especially if some of these younger men and women are going
into the military. To me, it's like a double whammy, James, that what they're experiencing,
the military and then going with being the police or first responder, really takes its toll
eventually on that person. So it's how much they can handle. But I do agree with the resiliency.
Sometimes they're maybe a little bit better off because they've had such problems when they were
younger to overcome that. So I agree. I agree with you. Well, speaking of that, obviously,
when we think of Chicago 100 years ago, we think of Al Capone and basically the horrendous failure
of alcohol prohibition that we then jumped into doing drugs, the same thing. Right. And then now,
and we'll get to that, obviously, this defund movement and obviously there's been a down
take again. But talk to me about Chicago when you were a young boy. Were you safe in your
neighborhood and what was the kind of crime rate as far as the whole city back then?
I was pretty. My neighbor was pretty safe. I think it was pretty safe in general.
I think the time with prohibition and everything in the 20s and 30s, I really believe that the
government made a mistake with prohibition because they started getting gangs going.
And that's what started like the mafia and the Kosovo and all that coming through and with the
gangs. And I believe it's the same thing with the drugs today. I think it was the same thing
today. In fact, when I first came on, I said they should legalize marijuana and all these other
drugs and make money off of it through taxes that way, instead of having these thugs on the street.
And especially like on the south side of Chicago, west side of Chicago, they own the streets over
there. In fact, they know when the police are coming. They have signals. They know when we're
coming by. They stop the operation until we're gone. And I think that was a downplay with Chicago,
especially with not only the alcohol and the prohibition time, but then with the
drugs coming out later. I think that really ruined a lot of the neighborhoods.
My neighborhood was pretty safe. In fact, I was just talking to a friend of mine.
When it got dark, my mom said, when it's dark, come on home. We ate dinner as a family. Today
there's a lot of families that don't eat. They don't sit down at the same time and eat. You got
soccer practice, football practice, whatever. They're driving. A lot of families are, a lot
of the moms are like soccer moms, they're driving all over. No one's having dinner at the same time.
I remember as a kid, that's what we did. We sat down. It was like 530. My dad came home from
work. We sat down and ate and then he went to his second job just to provide for us.
And it's different today. It's so different today that we're not, I don't want to say it's not as
family oriented it is, but kids are on the phone constantly and there's no communication there.
Like I think when we were younger, I think communication was good. We had nothing else to
do but talk and to interact. Today, they're all on the phones. They're not even paying attention to
anybody else. So I got a real quick story. A friend of mine was driving his two granddaughters
to school. All right, one in the front seat, one in the back seat. And he's driving them and they're
on the phone texting. So he says, who are you guys texting so early? He says, they said, we're texting
each other. Instead of talking in the car, they're texting in the car to each other. He said, put
those phones away right now. When he told me that, we laughed. It's how things have really changed.
I shared a video not too long ago on social media and it was a comedian talking about when we were
younger, there was no such thing as the word mindfulness. He said, because your whole life was
mindfulness. If you go to the bathroom, you're reading the cleaning bottle and waiting for the
bus. You're just waiting for the bus. And it was really interesting because it's true. We were
forced to be bored. We were forced to be with our own thoughts. And now as an adult, I would put my
hand up and say, I'm guilty of a lot of dead time. I'm reaching for my phone. I have to be very
deliberate to not pick it up and realize that it's okay just to sit there and think that we have
created this environment. And even in restaurants, it drives me crazy that you go, not a sports bar,
but a restaurant and there's televisions everywhere. So even now, if you try and have a dinner with your
family at a restaurant, you're constantly being distracted by news and baseball games and everything
else that's in that same room. Right. I have to admit, when I'm with my wife and there's a TV up,
I'll try to glance at the score here and there, but I'll say, you know what? I'm trying to focus on
when I'm with her. So I know. How about with your childhood, James, how was yours?
This is why I try and be very fair because I talk about all the things that are contributing to
physical health, mental health, and I was extremely fortunate to grow up on a farm in England. So I
grew up with no cell phones. I mean, this was before even computers, really. We had a computer
when I was a little bit older, but nothing that you were going to really sit there and play games
on. But yeah, I was out lambing lambs and feeding ducks and chickens and mucking out stables and
all that. So I had that built in and we had an orchard and we had meat that we would butcher.
And so we understood where the food came from. So I'm very, very lucky that my childhood set me up
for a journey of health and even the bad stuff that happened from a mental health side, there was
as much good stuff to offset it. I grew up around a big family that we always ate around the table.
My dad was a healer. He was a veterinary surgeon. So I watched him heal animals. And so there was
all these elements put together. But I look at these kids now, especially in the cities,
that they don't have that. They don't have access to playing fields that are free. They don't have
clean food being grown in their neighborhood. There's a basketball court that may or may not
be run by a gang and their food's coming from the bodega down the street. So I think it's really
important when we have this conversation to understand that there's a whole spectrum of
upbringings and some creating an environment for health and some are absolutely creating
an environment for ill health. Right. I agree with the processed food and everything else and chips.
And we never had that. We had some good wholesome food when we were younger eating. And
I kind of wish we could get back to that. I know it's kind of hard. In fact, we were just talking
about having blueberries. I haven't had blueberries. Now I'm trying to lose some weight
and to feel better and not have that processed food. I'm really watching what I'm eating.
And because I kind of ballooned up to 245 pounds from 175 when I was in the academy
to 245 when I retired, I was big. And I don't know if I can't blame stress, the whole thing is
stress, but it's what you eat. And the time you only get a half hour for lunch or dinner,
you're rushing, put it that way, to eat. And you're eating McDonald's or Burger King or
whatever, all this processed stuff that's not good for you. So after a week, you're
not working out like you should because I would say time constraints on the job.
But I'm not here to make the excuses. I think if you really want to, you can make the time
to work out how you're doing for your marathon there. And I'm so proud of you. It takes a lot
of guts. It really does. Yeah, it's miserable so far. I'm not a runner, but we'll get there.
Well, you're going to get there. I'm telling you. Thank you. Well, I just want to go back to the
prohibition of drugs for a moment because I think your community's voice is the most important
voice for us to hear. Obviously, first responders, like myself, firefighters, paramedics, we see,
in my opinion, the epic failure of the war on drugs, the ripple effect of what this has caused
and putting the power in the underworld. And we see the homelessness and the gang membership and
the sex workers and all the things. But I think when police officers who literally their job
description was to enforce these rules have the most incredible voice when it comes to talking
about the failure of this or opposing prohibition and pushing towards a more altruistic approach.
So with that being said, what impact did drug prohibition have on a lot of the crimes that
you witnessed as a police officer? Well, again, as you said, it's a ripple effect. And just to
say that prostitute that you may come into contact with on the street and she's buying from a drug
dealer or somebody's watching over her, she's buying from a drug dealer or somebody's watching
over her to collect money. It's a ripple effect and it's a detriment to them. It's not a positive
thing. And I think if getting away from that, it's kind of hard to do. It's like a catch 22.
If you can break away from that cycle of hardship or of addiction, I think that's a good thing.
Get away from the bad element. Just as you know, 95% of people are good. And it's that 5% that are
bad that caused like 85% of the, I don't want to say cruelty in the world, but the harshness in the
world. If we can get away from that and more people go the wrong way, I think that's a good
way to do it. You want to do the right way and help those people that are going the wrong way
to become better, to break away. But they've got to want to do it just like anything. You want to
do something special. You want to do this podcast. You want to be a better person. It's that want.
It's that drive that we need to put more to help people become more successful in what they do.
The worst time because it started gains and the drugs, it just sent that out of control.
You can put these people away in jail and then what happens? Even the jail is populated with
gangs and everything else too. So are you really helping them? Are you giving them a service?
Or are you taking that, again, they're spending their time in jail or prison or whatever.
What are they doing? They're just learning how to be worse than when they went in.
So I think we really need to give them a skill or give people an opportunity to become something.
We got too many young people and they're on this. I tell you with Chicago, you drive in
Chicago and some of the neighborhoods, you got 20, 30, 40 guys on the corner doing absolutely
nothing. And they're selling drugs, they're making the money and that's their way of life.
I talked to one young man and because I would do with the police department, I did the great
program, which was gang resistance education and training and dare about drugs. And I talked to
this one young man. He said, I really, you know what? I don't need this because by 18 years old,
I'll be dead already. That's their mentality. That's their thoughts that they're not going to
live much longer. So might as well enjoy what I have. It's totally wrong, personally.
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I had a gentleman, Zhao Gu Lao, who is one of the people in Portugal
that spearheaded the decriminalization of addiction in Portugal. So they still lock up,
you know, smugglers and dealers, but the addicts, if you're caught with the user's amount,
they're not even arrested. They're literally brought into an interview and educated on all
the resources that are available. And in this case, they put a lot of money into addiction
counseling, mental health counseling, job creation, housing. And so just like our food,
you know, environment right now, you know, prohibition has created the bodega with the
gang riddled basketball court. What Portugal has done is created the farm with all the food on it.
You know, so you now create an environment where you're taking away the guilt and stigma of being
an addict. You're taking away the fear of a criminal record from being an addict. And so what they saw
is most people actually voluntarily went to addiction counseling and they got better. Did
it work for everyone? Of course not. But it worked for most. Right. That gives you the opportunity to
do something right. Instead of punishing a person again, I like that word, what they did on that to
give the person the opportunity to say, I can get better because I think in their mind, they're so
down anyways. It's like it's hopeless for them. And I think that's what hurts more people is becoming
hopeless, especially through addiction. It just it takes its toll on everyone. And it could take a
toll on police officers too, or firemen or whatever. I just I don't want to say police because I was a
police, but I'm any first responder. And that's why I wrote them. That's why I wrote my book that
you're in is about first responder suicide. I said it's just police suicide is that it's across the
board from what we see and what we experience. And that hopelessness is in their life. And that's what
we need to dissipate and to bring a different light to the subject where they're getting help
for whatever they need. And to say, it's okay that I get help. We're not punished to get help.
Like how they're saying they're going to again, fresh food, the farm and everything else,
but given some of the opportunity, we're giving everybody the opportunity, but they're not taking
it for fear of getting reprimanded by their department, losing a job, losing their job or
not getting promoted. There's a lot of factors that police and first responders don't seek the
help that they need when they should. And that's the problem I see today is that I could talk to
many first responders and they'll personally confide in me, but they won't go any farther than
that. They won't go to a psychologist. They won't go to a counselor because of what may,
what this camaraderie, the people they work with may feel about them if they go seek help,
especially mental health. I didn't mean to tangent off on that.
No, absolutely. I love tangents. You came to the right place. But no, I think there's an irony too
that those in uniform, especially in law enforcement have to enforce addiction laws when
there's a lot of people wearing those uniforms that are also suffering from addiction.
Right. Gambling, sex addiction. There's so many addictions out there that again, drinking,
how about alcoholism? I remember when I came on to the job, we had, I think most cops were,
what we would do is go to the, not me personally, I don't drink, but when I first came on, it was
like, come on, we're having a watch party where all these guys were getting, they were getting,
they were getting drunk and they're back to work the next day and you can still smell the alcohol
on their breath. So how effective can they be? And they're not, they're not, they're not 100%.
And I seen that when I first came on the job, that alcoholism played a big role in a lot of
policemen's lives. And some of these guys with the alcoholism comes a divorce and some of these
guys were on the third, fourth, fifth marriage. And it's just a different person who they're with
at the bar or a different person they're going to it after shift or after when they get home.
So it does affect a person. It really does. Addiction, I think is something that most
of us, it's something that we need to address. Like how you said, you know, pro activists that
are a reactive type of issue. So.
100%.
I agree with you, James. I agree 100% with you.
Well, this is what's so amazing. I speak to so many people who are just there on the streets,
whether it's here, whether it's overseas and you know, you get such a different conversation
than what you see in your television, because what you see in your television, there's,
you know, there are people pulling strings behind the behind the curtain. But when you
ask the actual men and women that are in the trenches, you know, more often than not, you
get a very different response, a very real response. So voices like yours are important,
especially the generation that you came from. You came from one where we weren't having this
conversation, you know, 20, 30 years ago.
Right. No one talked about addiction before. No one talked about, you know, having the issues
that they did. I just think that when you're like as a policeman out there, in fact, dealing
with some of the the people that were addicted, you could you can understand their plight,
especially when you're, I want to say arresting them or talking to them that they've had a
they've had a real tough life. And, you know, why make it tougher on them? I can't tell how
many people that we have, my partner and I have we tried to give them some help or give
them some options instead of arresting them and saying, hey, why give you more problems?
This is what you should do if you can. But just like anything, and I think you know this,
a lot of people are addicted may go back to that way if if again, that that struggle is not met
or that struggle is not that struggle is always there in the back of their mind.
So if they could get past that, again, I'm always optimistic. I always see that silver lining
behind someone that may that may not deserve it. But to give that person the chance, I think is so
important. Absolutely. Well, you mentioned about not actually going to the academy till 40. So
what professions were you in prior to that? And then what made you decide on law enforcement?
James. Oh, boy. Well, I went to Loyola University and I was I was my third year there. And I had a
philosophy class. And I said, what am I doing here? This is crazy. I'm not I felt I was like
spinning my wheels going to Loyola. It was a good school. I was I should have personally, I think I
should have went away to school. But that's another story. So I was I said to my dad, I said, Dad, I
got to do something. And I said, I'm not happy at school. I don't want to go back. I know you're
spending a lot of money from you know, from both my mom and dad. So I saw how well my dad was doing.
So I said, you know what, maybe I'll go into becoming a barber. So that's what I did. I went
from Loyola University and biology to going to barber school. So I did. And so I became a barber
for a while. And it was good living. Me, my, my dad opened up another we had three shops going my
dad, my my dad got one for myself, and my mom. And I was I was cut here for a while. And I enjoyed it.
I really did. But I think there was one day a gentleman that I cut here had a jewelry store.
And that's how that's how I'm the spur of the moment I am. He had a jury says, Listen, I'd like
to sell my story if you know anybody who would like to buy it. I said, Maybe I would. So because my
my, my wife at the time worked for a jeweler. And my sister worked at a jewelry store too. So
I saw what they were doing. I said, How many heads of hair can I cut a day? You know, 101520.
I'm limited to what I can do. I said, Plus, I was starting out. I said, Let me try to do something
else that I really would like to do. And that's what I brought to the story. And then I opened
up a second one. My dad passed away. And then long story short, I got the I was got divorced.
And I was looking for something to do. And that's when I said, You know what, I really wanted to be
a cop. I remember this fellow nestle and I said, I really would like to try to be a police officer.
So that's what I did. I went again, I took the test 30. I think there was 38,000 guys I took
and girls that took the test. So it was like one out of 18. They take only 2000, I think 36,000.
So one at 18 to become a cop. And because he only took the 2000. When I saw these people taking the
test, I said, I think I had a chance but I did did well stored well. And I was able to the struggle
police has a program where once you're past your probation, you can go back to school. So I finished
my degree, my bachelor's degree and I was a scholar of the university for Lewis University.
And then I, I saw that at graduation, I saw them with the master's program where they were getting
hooded. So I says, you know what, if I can still keep continuing my education, that's what I was
going to do. And two years later, I'm getting hooded with my master's. And I said, God, I'm
really a fortunate person here to have my master's degree in the cities paying for it. Because if you
get an A, they pay 100%. If you get a B to an F, well, B to a D, they pay 75% F, they don't pay
anything. So it gives you the incentive to do well. So with that, I after my master's, I said, you
know what, I'm going to try for my doctorate degree. And five years later, it took a long time. The
city paid for me. I remember them. The last check they wrote for my doctor, I think was $48,000.
One of the last checks they wrote quite a bit with that. But I had to stay on two years later.
So I said, well, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to finish my doctorate. There was times I
wanted to quit, though it was not easy. But especially working and trying to fit everything
in with my family. And, you know, at that time, I got remarried. And to finish everything off,
it was it was kind of difficult, but I was able to do that. And then I just started writing. So
that's among my as you know, I'm on my six book right now. So I'm very proud. I'm very proud.
What was your doctorate in?
My doctor is in organizational leadership. From I went to Argosy University, my master's is in
organizational leadership. My whole goal with the Chicago Police Department was to move up
in rank. So I was a patrolman. And with my with my degree, I was hoping to make sergeant because
you got to make the first the first move as sergeant without that. You really can't move up
unless for some there was only one person that I know of that went from patrolman to like a
commander only because of the he knew the mayor real close and the mayor put him up that way.
It was what are you going to do? I mean, I didn't know any I didn't have any political
pool behind me at all. Like most people do in Chicago, you never know that you always have a guy,
but I didn't. And I figure with my all my awards that I had from the police department to with my
with my doctorate degree, I would I would like to move on to become a sergeant, which never happened,
because after a while when you get too old, then you have to look at retirement because we only
keep till 63 years old. So that 61 I retired in 2015 as a patrolman. I was happy. I had a nice had
a good career ended up on Michigan Avenue was I was a foot a foot officer on Michigan Avenue, which
was excellent, an excellent job. A lot of guys are in the 18th and 19th grade. And I was a
18th district where I was long for that job. But I was I was fortunate to to be there with the with
the Chicago police. I was a speaker with the police department for 13 years, which I seen a lot. I was
able to help out in the community about becoming helping them becoming working with the police and
like it through the caps office. We have caps is it Chicago alternative policing strategy
is where you work with the you work not only as a with the police working with the community
and making it safer and making it better. So we did a lot of promotion that way of working
with the police officers and helping them doing a better job in the community, working with the
police, maybe giving them, you know, telling them where a drug house may be or where something
may happen that was not good. So I really enjoyed my career with the Chicago Police Department.
They were very good to me and I love being the Chicago police.
When you first entered at 40 years old after living in a neighborhood that you felt safe as
as a child, what was some of the kind of jarring elements? What was some of the calls or areas
that you started to work in where you saw the other side of Chicago?
Oh, my God, I think you don't realize the domestics that are out there. People arguing
women being beaten. I think that really shocked me. My dad was my dad never hit my mom. They rarely,
rarely argued. You didn't see that. Now, all of a sudden, you're going to domestic calls almost
every day, seeing some of the poverty that it's out there that you really don't see.
The gang life that's out there and how how some of these young kids are really
entrenched in the gang. And I mean, it's it's like follow the leader and they're
they don't know anything about the leader that it's not good. And it's it's it's like almost
being in the mafia. You really can't get out of it. It's unless you're you can't just quit.
You're not going to have, you know, I'm going to quit, quit a gang. It's either you go to go to jail
or you die. And most of the time, it's they're they're so young at dying. We are still having
a big issue with drive by shootings in Chicago. In fact, when you turn on the TV, you can hear,
you know, it's not it's not like you that oh, my moment like oh, oh, my moment.
Like, oh, boy, I can't believe we had a shooting. It's like, I can't believe we only had 10 shot
yesterday. I mean, come on. That's that's it's crazy. I think when you come from that kind of
a background where I came from and then experience everything as a police officer, it does change
you in a way that I think it makes you a little harder. You see where people are not as honest
with you. They do happen. They'll lie to you more. They're a little more deceiving. But again,
it's the person that you are in to to work through that. And I think it, you know, looking deep down
inside and saying, you know what, can I if I could help you in some way, this is what we need to do.
Let's do the positive thing is to go through the negative thing each time.
I think this is what's sad when we have these horrendous shootings in schools. Obviously,
they make national news, but the number of children that are killed on our streets, you know,
that weren't in a school, but they're in a gang and they're in their teens. And it gets almost
no airplay. And it feeds again to what we talked about with the empowerment of the underworld through
prohibition. And what really irks me is you hear people say, oh, well, it's because of the broken
homes. And no one's saying, well, why are there broken homes? Well, if you know, you're in a
broken homes, well, if you know, your dad was in the gang culture and he or she may or may not have
been an addict or may or may not have been killed or may or may not have been incarcerated, or the
mother, this is the cycle that you're going to see. And you and I have seen these households where
you walk in and you go, these kids have no chance unless some incredible mentor happens to walk into
their life, a football coach or a firefighter or a cop or, you know, a history teacher, whoever it is
that they actually are able to get through to them. They are going to follow the exact same cycle as
the parent and maybe the grandparent. Right. I agree, James, the whole thing. You're in with
your environment. To me, it's like you hang around drunks all the time or alcoholics are going to
become an alcoholic or go through that period. I agree with you wholeheartedly. I think, again,
Mr. When I said previously with that catch 22, you're you're you're stuck. You just keep evolving
around that circle. And if you can break out of that to better yourself, that's the only way
someone's going to to do it. If not, you're going to be that cycle is going to repeat over and over
again each time. So that's what we need to change. So I want to get to the kind of mental health
journey. But before we do, let's talk about the community policing role that you held. I think
there are so many opportunities to educate the public on what we do. And the fire service has
done a horrendous job, especially where we do fire and EMS together. We have done a terrible job.
You think that we sit around playing cards, petting the Dalmatian and getting cats out of trees when
actually we're out dealing with everything that we talked about. And then obviously with the
policing, you know, again, you've got this now this rhetoric where it's not just they don't know
about what we do like the fire service, but they're actually being told to hate us like the
law enforcement side. So what were you able to do in that that community policing role and that
kind of crime prevention area that you were in? I was so fortunate, James, to be selected to go
into the speaking unit that we had. We I really feel we made a difference. We would go talk to
senior community. We would talk to at these meetings that they would have at different
districts where the community would come. And I did bank teller training, landlord tenant training.
We were all into about training, about getting the resources that they need to to have a better
life. I actually did. I was fortunate to the unit that I was in. We actually did things to
stop burglary in the area where we actually would have. I started with another officer that
these are burglars that wanted to.
They wanted to go on a better path and do the right thing. And they actually we actually had
a burglary seminar where I spoke about burglary, about locks, doors, and that I would actually
come to their house and do a security survey for them free of charge and let them know, hey,
you've got this door is not good or these locks are not safe or you got a brick in your house that
they could use to break your window or whatever. We would do that free of charge. But with these
burglars, what happened was we would have maybe 20 people at a seminar. The next time we said we
were going to go and we had 40, the next time we had 80, I mean, it was a lot of people. We had
the next time we said we were going to go and we had 40, the next time we had 80. I mean, it was
just it kept growing. And they actually said how they approached a home or an apartment building
and what they did so they could help these people that we were at the seminar to really learn
firsthand from them what they could actually do to not have their home burglarized. So I think
the CAPS meetings that we had were beneficial about bringing information that they may never
have had before. And just say like the bank teller training, we would actually go to banks
working with the feds, the federal government, and showing them statistics, how to handle a
situation. If a burglar did or if somebody came in to rob the bank, what they should do, how to
describe someone. I'd have them describe me. I'd have them say, hey, everybody, I would walk in the
back of the class, describe me. What, you know, how tall am I? What do I weigh? What am I wearing?
So to give them an actual demonstration of, hey, this is what you could look at to help yourself
if something did occur. So it was a great thing. I believe they disbanded this unit.
When Gary McCarthy came in as superintendent, they disbanded the unit, which I really think
was a mistake. They should have at least kept one or two officers on there. Not that they had to
keep me, but one or two officers on there to keep this going. I think it would have been beneficial
for the city of Chicago. I think it was a great attribute today. I think it would help in many,
many tremendous ways. But again, time goes on and, you know, things change.
I think it's important for us to also learn from our mistakes. And I think I'm curious to see what
your answer is to this, but I know in a lot of the US, police fire EMS, I'm sure, is a
little bit different. I'm sure dispatch as well are all struggling with recruitment at the moment.
You talked about testing against 36,000 people for 2000 jobs. When I was in California, as they
were talking 2005 when I got hired there, it was against 1000 certified firefighter EMTs or medics
all with resumes this thick for 30, three zero jobs. So when you were testing, when I was testing,
the demand was very high. What is that environment like in Chicago at the moment? We can't get anyone
right now. We're so they are promoting it like the never before to get someone to join with the,
I guess, Chicago police or just to become, you know, firefighters or anything else that way.
I think they have a little easier time for fire than an EMT and dispatchers than they do for police.
No one wants to be the police because of the chance of getting sued.
Everybody has cameras out there. I think the last test that we had, if we had five,
600 people take the test, that's a lot. So can you imagine we're losing, we lose about 100 officers
a month from attrition, from retirement, from getting hurt. We can't fulfill it. We're not,
we're not putting that, we're not putting 100 people in. So now someone has to work harder
than they ever had. They might have to take maybe 10 jobs instead of eight jobs or six jobs that
they're assigned to dispatch to. So it's, it's, it's, it's hard. And then now these officers,
I keep saying officers, but I'll say first responders because I know fires are the same,
but these officers are working harder than they ever have before. Their days off has been canceled,
which is, it's kind of, it's kind of rough or they're mandated to work on their days off or maybe
work overtime. Instead of a 10 hour shift. Now I got to work a 12 hour shift. Well, what about,
I'm supposed to go pick up my, my granddaughter from school or not great, or my daughter from school.
What about that? Or go to a soccer game or go to a baseball game with them. They can't, they got to
go to, they have to stay at work. So how do you tell your wife or your family? Hey, listen,
I can't make it. I, I've got it. I've got to go. I've got to stay. I've got to work late. And that
never, that really never happened before. We always had so many cops on the street that if you really
wanted to take a day off, you could just put a slip and say, I need this. I need, you know, Friday
office. Okay. We have the manpower. Go ahead today. They don't have that. They don't have that luxury
where guys are working harder than ever with less help than they ever had before. It's not a good
situation. James, not a good at all. I don't know how it is for fire. Um, it's similar. I, you know,
everybody wants to be, everybody wants to be a fireman. James, I gotta say, if you want to pick
a career fireman or policeman, everybody loves firemen and that the policemen, uh, you can take
it either way, but everybody loves a fireman James. And, you know, I gotta tell you the line for
fire to police always is larger for fire. Always. Well, I think what's, what's really important for
people to understand is firstly, if you have 36,000 people testing for 2000 jobs, arguably
those 2000 are going to be the cream of the crop on paper. You know, if you then have 500 people
testing for 500 jobs, you're going to get the cream of the crop, the middle and the shit bags to,
you know, to not beat around the bush. You're going to get the people that are going to be an
absolute liability in uniform that we see on, you know, on YouTube all the time now. And then as you
are dwindling, which is happening, police fire, EMS, you are not asking, you are forcing, you are
mandating the people that are already in this department to work more and more and more. You
are commanding them to be away from their family less and less and less. And not only is that
immoral and completely unfair, but also the chances of a good officer now making a mistake
are getting higher and higher and higher because they're so burnt out.
Definitely a hundred percent. A hundred, you hit it right on the nail on the head. Uh, we're getting
guys in there that maybe have been in the game or that may have issues that, that shouldn't really
be the police. And you, you know, you might be able to get them out psychologically or something
that way. But again, we're that the issue is always there. We don't have enough, enough help.
And the guys that again are working, they're struggling out there really are James. They really
are working all these extra hours, not with their family. Again, you ask any, any first
responder who they want to be, where they, what's the most important thing to them? It's, it's their
family and they can't spend time with their family. And then when they do, they're tired,
they're worn out. They don't want to, they're, they can't, they want to sleep. They want to,
they want to rest because they're not resting like they should. So I agree with you a hundred
percent. We're not getting the best qualified people in there. And I think the same maybe with
fire too. Is that, is that, do you see that happening with fire in EMS?
A hundred percent. I think that the biggest problem with fire, and I've pulled this out of
the shadows is we have always kind of allowed such a horrendous work week and it's not quite
as bad in the Northeast. Some of the areas of Northeast work, what I would argue should be the
work week, just 42 hours. So 24 72, and you know, that's, you know, around the Boston area, New
York, they kind of around that schedule. But the rest of the country works 24 48. So, you know,
what you've seen as a devolution, as a cause have gone up and the 911 abuses have gone up. And
again, the lack of support, the organizational betrayal in some areas, you know, you less and
less people want to do the job. So we're just in this absolute recruitment crisis because young
people aren't excited about it because they see, you know, like I tell people when I tested 20 plus
years ago, I Google, what's it like to be a firefighter? And it's like, oh, it's awesome.
You get a big mustache and you get cats out of trees and you ride a big fire truck and you're a
hero. You know, now you Google what's it like to be a firefighter. It's like some of that stuff.
But then as you mentioned, divorce, alcoholism, addiction, infidelity, you know, heart attacks,
drugs, cancers, you know, all the things. And then they look at the pay and then they look at the
work week. Then they hear about mandatory overtime and these young people are smart and they want to
be home with their families. And they're like, that does not sound like a good job. I'm going to go
work for UPS. And I totally understand that. So what I think is exciting though, is we have the
opportunity to finally turn this around because the way we've done it obviously is not working,
defunding the police or ignoring all the ailments and deaths in the first responder profession by
staying, doing what we're doing is clearly not working. So, you know, each department has the
opportunity to do one of two things, either be at the helm of the ship when it sinks and Chicago
doesn't have a police department anymore, or be the leader that turns that ship around and actually
puts proactive incentives, makes people excited to be a police officer or a firefighter again,
creates an environment of mental and physical health. And then you get people starting to line
back around the building, just like when you got hired and when I did.
Right. I agree. 100% James, I really do. I think that's what we need. I think in Chicago,
we have a good superintendent that just came on, Larry Sinelli. The gentleman we had previously
was a puppet. He was not good, but everybody likes our superintendent now. And I think he's
going to do a good job of maybe help getting that back again. Hopefully one day we can do that. But
I agree 100% of what you're saying. There needs to be a change because it's not going good. And
that he fund the police thing. They're defunding us almost now because there's a lot of cops.
There are a lot of people who aren't being the police officers that they should be right now.
And we don't have enough. So that's defunding us now. And look what's happening.
Crime is they're saying crime is down. Crime is rampant all over the place. It's it's
again, you turn on the TV, I can put the TV on right now and the 12 o'clock news or one o'clock
news will say, you know, eight shot today. I mean, it's it's it's just gets it gets the every day.
There's how many shootings and like enough's enough. But that defund the police, it will never
work. It just gives it gives the thief or it gives the criminals more, more opportunity to get away
with what they do, because there's no one there to hurt them, no one not no one there to supervise
or to take them or to arrest them. There's a slap on the hand. We have a we have a state's attorney,
Kim Fox. I can't wait till she leaves because she's a detriment to Chicago, detriment to all
the citizens of Chicago. She could have a career of criminals, put a slap them on the wrist and
they're not even detained. They're out before we are done with the paperwork. That's that's that's
crazy. She's not doing her job. I can't again. She's not running for another term. Thank God,
because I don't think we could have another three years or four years. I don't think we could have
another three years or four years of her. I really that's my my personal opinion. I think every cop
believes the same thing. We're we're going out there busting our butts to get that person,
the criminal in costs and know what she's letting them out. I mean, that's I think that's that's how
can you do your job? How can you do your job as a as a as a first responder when whatever you do,
it's it's it's it's it's it's it's gone. It's gone. They're they're they're they're doing all the
work that you did for nothing. And now after a while, you do it first time, the second time,
the third time. After a while, these cops are going to say, you know what? I'm laying back.
I'm just I'm not going to answer. I'll answer the call, but I'm not going to be proactive like how
when we used to. You see a guy with a bulge in the side of his pocket. It may be a gun. It may not
be. But hey, let's check him out. Let's be proactive. But not even doing that anymore, James.
And I think that's what the problem is. We're not being proactive as police officers as we once were
because we're getting slapped in on the on the risk for being that type of officer, being a good
officer and being proactive. Now you're getting cops that are reactive. They'll answer the call.
They'll just doing what they're going to do and not go any further than that because they're going
to get maybe sued, maybe fired for what purpose, for what purpose? So to what end? So that's that's
that's that's what we're facing today that we never faced before. Yes. When I first came on,
if you pulled five guys over, we pulled five guys over. Nobody said nobody said a word. We didn't
have cameras that on our person that were saying what we were doing. Did some guys get out of hand?
I can say some guys maybe abuse their power a little bit. Some guys may or not. They did what
they needed to do. But I think it works. Then I think there was more respect for the police
than than now. Nobody respects us out there, James. Nobody does. They respect fire, but I don't think
they respect the police. And they're always trying to me. It's like you ever see this like a payday.
The the the I'm not saying we're always right 100 percent of the time. Don't get me wrong.
It's like that Bell's curve. There's some excellent cops and there's some cops that
that should never have been never been on the job. But there's everybody in between. So but it's like
when they tie your hands and you can't do your job, that's that's what the that's what the
problem we're facing today. I don't care if you have we get another thousand coppers tomorrow
on the job. If they keep tying our hands, that's going to keep happening. And you're going to have
that. I don't know. I don't know. The low morale. You're going to have low morale. And that's what
you're going to have all the time. So that's what that's where I think every department
across the nation is experiencing. It's that low morale of the troops and that with mental health,
with the long jobs and not sleeping, no family life. It gets to a person. And that's why to me,
you're seeing a lot of first responders suicide out there. It could be fire, it could be anybody
dispatch police law, anyone in law enforcement. That's what we're seeing is that
the lack of the lack of morale, the lack of leadership, no sleep,
more time on working more than ever with little or no resources. It's all a factor. It's all
on the shoulders of every first responder that's out there. And a lot of these guys, again,
they're at their wits end. They're hopeless. To me, hopelessness is the worst thing because once
you're hopeless, anything can happen. That gun looks pretty damn good on that table. And where
they make because it's what's different than anybody else in the world. And that's what's
they make because it's what's different than anybody else in the world is that they don't
have a weapon on their person that they could use immediately to end it all. And sometimes it's a
rash decision. They're not, some guys may think about it, may plan. Some guys or girls too,
may not, but that with that loaded gun on there, it's an opportunity and they may not think about
it, especially if they have a drink or two, which is a depressant and they're gone. And then it
might be a little too late. So. Yeah, I couldn't, I mean, you've hit so many different topics there
that I couldn't agree more with. I mean, it's, this is the problem. And I think the talking about
being proactive, what I see is that, you know, society just goes the way it goes. And then they
point their fingers at law enforcement and go, you're not doing, you know, you're not policing
well enough. No one's saying why are the streets of Chicago so filled with gangs, but the streets
of Reykjavik or Oslo or Lisbon aren't. They're people too. What are we doing wrong? That's
creating so much crime in the first place in this multi-generational crime. And the proactive side
is, you know, looking at all of these elements, it's not just one, but the prohibition and the
mental health crisis. And, you know, of course the access to weapons is part of that conversation.
Doesn't mean you get rid of all guns, but you know, the availability in some areas to pick up
anything, all these different pieces of the puzzle that contribute to this issue. And I think that
asking you guys to solve this problem is like asking the EMTs and paramedics to just shut up
and keep running on the increasingly obese population that we have. No one's stopping
America from getting fatter and sicker. 70% of the country is obese or overweight. When do you ever
hear that? We had a pandemic for two years that your longevity, your survivability was directly
correlated to your health. If they're not going to fix it and address it then, then clearly we
understand that the government couldn't care less about preventing crime or making the nation
healthier. So this is the problem. It's been put squarely on the shoulders of the first responders
rather than these people that are on our television all the fucking time. We've apt in their mouth
about, well, when I'm in power, I'm going to do this, this and this, but they're not. Nothing is
changing. So this is why, you know, the first responder professions need to be this voice,
because we're the ones that we see it. We're the ones that are away from our families being forced
to do extra shifts because of this massive crisis. And we're the ones that are going to funerals
and police officers or firefighters or EMTs or medics who have taken their own lives,
who've been shot in the line of duty, who, you know, got run over or whatever it was.
And again, where's the support then, you know, people that literally are never going to go home
to their family again, because all they did was selflessly serve and it cost them their life.
So this, you know, we are at a critical mass nationally and only when people look in the
mirror and every single one of us take ownership of our own role in this, are we going to turn this
around? I agree, James, I agree. And you hit on the point where politicians, I think they're all
in for themselves. And I think I don't know how we strayed off from how we were before.
I think maybe becoming more of a liberal society, I don't know. And then you touched on the weight.
Again, I'm the prime example. Again, 175 in the academy, I was, I was, I had that perfect
lean body. And then at 245 when I got done, I mean, come on, I was, I was pretty big. I've kind of,
dropped down to about 220 and all. I mean, I've lost quite a bit, but maybe because of this,
not the stress or anything else that way, but my eating has been much better than before.
But you ever see sometimes on, you're watching on TV, some of these police officers, they're
have, they're, they're bulletproof vest. Their stomachs are way out from their bulletproof
vest. I said, come on, just that look alone, give somebody the, you know, again, they don't
kind of, they see them. They say, well, I don't know, maybe I won't be a police officer because
look, maybe how that's how I'll turn. What I'd like about the Illinois state police is that they
have to qualify every year in a running and everything else. And the weight, they have to
maintain their weight, which when you see a state trooper, they have that respect. They have that,
you know, look to them as a lot of, I'm not downing my, my fellow guys from Chicago, believe me,
I'm not, but a lot of these guys, they don't look respectful when they're that big and,
uh, uh, or overweight that way. So I think I, in fact, I, I always thought about if they could do
something, well, maybe have a test once a year, so to keep these guys from getting heavy. That's
what I thought when I, I think it would have been good for me. I would have kept, uh, balanced my
weight a little bit better, um, and be a better person that way. But again, as anything things
change. So I've had this conversation with many people, obviously people in uniform, people that
are strength and conditioning coaches for, you know, major football teams, baseball teams,
I mean, all the things. Um, and you know, the, the, the thing is if we're going to do this,
we've got to do it from both sides. If you're going to ask a first responder to maintain their
fitness, then you've got to give them the environment that gives them rest and recovery
as well, because sleep deprivation creates weight gain and high blood pressure and all the things.
But I also agree with the standards. And if we fix the work environment, that standard needs to be
put back up because what I, I'm just about to release one of my friends, he's been on a couple
of times, he's an ocean lifeguard, he was in New Jersey and he was in Ohio, excuse me, Ohio,
in Hawaii. And if you think about it, if you go to the ocean, you never see a fat lifeguard,
you know, that wouldn't, that wouldn't fly the lifeguard just kind of floated and never got to
the kid that was drowning. You know what I mean? So if that profession can own their lifeguard,
their national fitness standards and their requirements, why is it that police and fire
constantly reject it and fight it, which a lot of our administrations and unions do actively?
Right. I wish they wouldn't. I wish they would. I mean, if just say the union, if they really
cared about their guys, not just monetarily, but that way, I think they would help initiate something
where we're healthy. Cause again, we're dying of cancer, we're dying of obesity, sugar diabetes.
It just, it's, it's just up there. And I think it's, I don't want to just say it's just from the job.
I think it's just think the job itself and everything and involved with it. The eating,
I just, I just think it should be all the way around, brought to the table and say, hey, this
is what we need to do for our guys and let's, let's do it for them. That it's, it, it'll go
be able to retire healthy instead of, you know, how many guys, how many guys retired in a year,
year or two into retirement, they're already dead, you know? So that's, that's something we've been
dealing with James. So absolutely. Well, I want to get to your mental health journey. We talked
before I hit record and you mentioned the little girl named Maria. So kind of walk me through,
you know, when you first entered the force and then when was that kind of downward spiral and
where did you find yourself at the lowest point? Well, let me tell you, it was, I seen with in
Chicago, my first four years on, I was in the ninth district in the city of Chicago. It's by
White Sox park. It's, there's Bridgeport area. There's the back of the yards area. And then
there's also, again, the south area near, it's not the best. There's some good parts of the area,
some bad parts of the area. So, I mean, I seen quite a bit of death at a young, at again, that
I never seen before when I was younger, then all of a sudden I'm experiencing stabbing shootings,
homicides, drive-bys, whatever it was. But it didn't bother me. It bothered me, but it didn't,
if I could be to say that. But what really bothered me was one day I, in fact, it wasn't even our call.
My partner and I were getting gas for our squad car and it was in nine, I was, we were beat 924.
They were 922s beat, got called and it was a person shot with a gun. Nothing unusual
that you would, that you would, and then we would think person shot with a gun. You may,
it could have been shot in the arm, got shot in the leg, nothing specific. We were two blocks away.
So my, my, my regular partner and I, Dave, and I said, Dave, I said, let's, let's, let's go on
this one. And we were the first one there. The 922 came, but we were, we beat everybody. We went
lights and siren. We were again, two blocks away. We were there in a matter of minutes, not even
less than a minute walked in. There was a little girl. Uh, there was, it must've had a party going
on. I remember the house vividly. I remember the street. I can't go down the street anymore.
I, I, I don't go down the wood street. That's where it was. And, uh, a little girl about four
years old. All I could see was all these people around. Uh, but this little girl was four years
old shot in the eye. Uh, she was shot in her right eye, uh, blood oozing out of it. And I have,
I have three daughters from my previous marriage. So the first thing I thought was about for my
little girls. And, uh, my youngest was about near that age and, um, all I could picture was this
little girl that I'm with helpless. I'm helpless, James. I couldn't do anything.
And, uh, so I got on the radio and I said, squad, give me an ambulance. And now it's a little girl
shot, shot in the eye. Um, I didn't want to, I, my, my first instinct was to grab her, go in my squad
car and my partner and I drive to the hospital, but I didn't want to harm her any more than she
was. I didn't know how bad, you know, that, how, how serious this was. So what we did, we, the
ambulance came there 30 seconds. James felt like 30 minutes or 30 days. It just seemed forever.
I still get choked up by this. So
the ambulance came, they took her and my partner and I, uh, rode behind the, we took the mom with
us. The father, what happened was that they were, they were burglarized a week previous to when we
got there. And the father said, we need a gun. We need a gun for protection, which is the farthest.
I don't, I'm not a big gun person. I don't really believe someone needs a gun to protect their home,
especially when most burglaries occurred during the day. So the mother said, the stepmother said,
we don't need a gun. He went to work that night, I guess, obviously bought a gun from somebody that
he works with or whatever, but he bought a gun. He took it home and they had a drop ceiling in
their house. So what he did is he put it in the drop ceiling. He never told the kids and they had
the daughter Maria's four and there was a young, the brother was a nine years old or so. He never
told the kids that this was a real car. So that day, what he did is he took the gun down for some
reason. I don't know if he cleaned it, if he loaded it, whatever, but he left it on the dresser.
And the young boy, the nine year old boy picks up the gun, not realizing it's a real gun, pulls the
trigger and shoots his sister in the eye. That's how that scenario would happen. So we have the
stepmom in the car. She's telling us all this, so what was happening, we went to Cook County
hospital. It's probably, it's a free hospital, but it's one of the best hospitals if somebody ever
got shot, that Northwestern University, because they deal with so many shootings all the time.
So the doctor, we had to go into the emergency room to get the doctor's information and find out
how Maria was. And we were with the family. They must have had some kind of a party there,
but they arrested the dad while we were at the hospital for possessing a gun and endangering the
life of a child. But the doctor came out, I can remember that looking at the x-ray just seemed so
big to me, James, you know, the x-ray, you know, just of an x-ray, but it just seemed like it was
so big, obscene of the babies of Maria's head. And the doctor came and he was kind of choked up and
choked up and he said, officer, he said, this baby's not gonna, I don't think it's gonna make it.
I said, well, you can see the path of the bullet through the baby's eye into the baby's skull,
down into her brainstem. And he said, we can't operate. And if he said, even if we were, he said,
this baby won't be able to hear, to see, to think, to smell, to walk, to talk. This baby would be
brain dead, this baby is brain dead, but the baby wouldn't be able to function as a normal person
if she would be able to live. And she has a one in a million chance of living. So they decided to
put her on a ventilator and hold her there. And you could just see the blood coming out of the bandages.
Still could picture it. So they tried to get hold of the father to see if they can donate the
baby's organs to save someone else. And he refused to do anything. I guess the next day,
you know what, James, that's what bothers me is that when we got back, we were, this was like
six o'clock on a Sunday that this happened. We didn't get back to the, we didn't get back to the,
to the district, probably about one or two in the morning. And the lieutenant didn't say, hey,
I know what happened. Are you okay? Are you guys all right? Nobody asked anything how we were
personally, you know, with us. And I think that's what bothers the most is that
you're, it's being that, that hard guy and being that tough guy all the time. And
so the next, the next day I went home, I wasn't able to sleep at all. I was, I was up the whole
night. And then just like we talked about earlier, when you have sleep deprivation,
it just, you don't sleep and you're not, you're, you can't, you can't function right. You can't act,
you don't act right. And that's what happened. That's, that's what kind of progressed with me.
The next day when we went to work at four o'clock, we were on a four to midnight. And the next day
at four o'clock, the, the watch commander said, Hey, Ron and Dave, they want you back at the,
at the hospital. They're going to pull the plug and they, the family insisted you guys be there.
We lived the whole thing all over. So the next couple of weeks, again, I didn't sleep good. The
baby did pass away. Maria passed and I felt bad for her brother. I always wondered whatever happened
to him, never found out. They did save other children's organs. I mean, one positive thing
was that they were able to save some other children that needed the organs. But the bad thing is that
I kind of went to a spiral of not sleeping. And I never, in Chicago, when you have a complaint
against you, it's called a CR number. I never had a CR number. I was always that good cop.
You know, when you have a good cop, bad cop, I was a good guy. Always. I thought anyway,
I had that happy go lucky spirit and I was positive with everyone. But
I started getting CR numbers. I started being, being that cop that I didn't, I knew I wasn't
that cop. I wasn't that guy, especially verbal, a lot of verbal stuff, verbal abuse to, to citizens
that there wasn't me. Again, from going from no CR numbers, I was getting two, three, four a week.
And it was like, nobody came up and said, hey, Ron, something wrong here. I mean, this is not you.
I finally said I needed to get some help. I needed to talk to somebody about this. And,
which was kind of unusual because nobody and, but nobody, every, every older cops had brought,
just suck it up, man. Just suck it up. This is what you signed up for. Suck it up. I was so
tired of hearing you suck it up that it was like, it was always there. I finally went to go to our
EAP office. I looked like the Unabomber. I had, I had a cap on, I had a hoodie on, I parked three
blocks away. I don't want anybody to know that, hey, Ron Rufo needed to go talk to somebody.
Well, she was wonderful. She understood what I was going through. Even though she wasn't
an, ever a policeman, but she didn't understand, helped me out tremendously. And that's when I
realized, I said, you know what, how many cops are suffering and can't admit that there's a problem
and they need to talk to someone. So that's, that's what happened to me. And that's why I
started to write and to follow through about with mental health and mental, mental well,
mental wellness and to get coppers to do the right thing instead of going down that hole. So.
Well, firstly, I mean, thank you for sharing that. I mean, this is, this is what people need to hear,
you know, from all of us, all these, you know, I'm using air quotes, but the kind of alpha
professions, you know, the cops, the firefighters, the SWAT operators, the Navy SEALs and all these
things, because we were all raised in this, you know, fake two dimensional facade of masculinity
that was Schwarzenegger and Rambo and, you know, all the, all the things, John Wayne, and that's
absolute bullshit. You know, these strong selfless warriors that we have in uniform out there,
the ultimate courage is to be vulnerable, is to say, I need help. And I always point this out.
If you think of the yin yang, it's this, the kindness and compassion that sends you into
uniform. You want to make the world better. You want, you don't want someone to feel the pain that
you did when you were younger, for example. And so you become a protector.
But the problem is, as the time goes on, we start to think that we're supposed to be a white circle.
That's it. And so we lose that kindness and compassion, as you said, sometimes towards the
public, but more importantly, towards ourselves. And then that, that kind of falling into the well
of identity. Now you spat out the other end, whether you're fired, you've retired, you promoted,
whatever it was. And now that loss of tribe is so evident and that loss of identity is so evident.
So this is exactly what we need to be talking about. It is absolutely human to simultaneously
be an amazing place officer and also be vulnerable enough to accept that, you know, that you're
struggling and you need help. Right. And I think more guys are that vulnerable. They need to seek
the help again. They're fighting themselves and getting the help that they need. They really are.
So that's, that's what we're, that's what I think we're struggling with today, Jim James.
And I think that's what we, that's why I've written the books that I have. So to say it's okay,
it's okay to get help. That's the way that's the only way we are to get better. It's okay to get
help. Which of the mental health tools began to work for you? Because I think this is about another
misnomer is that all there is is meds and talk therapy. And actually, you know, obviously the
toolbox is way more expansive than that from the horses and dogs to retreats and even psychedelics.
I mean, all these things now that we're seeing are working, but back then, what were the tools
that you started accumulating that work for you specifically?
I gotta tell you, I think it was just being able to talk and to, we talked about a lot of different
things, but I, again, what we didn't have the horses and the dogs and everything. Like, like you
said, I didn't do anything with medication either. And I don't, I didn't do anything with that.
They never suggested it. I never, you know, brought it into as a proponent, but I think
just to be able to talk about it and express my feelings about what really happened again, I had
EMDR too, and I had that twice. And, but I still, I still catch myself getting choked up on this. I
really do. It's still, it still bothers me. I still think about it, but it's better. Put it that way.
I can, I deal, I could deal with it now. At then I just had, I don't know why I think because of my
children were around that age. And I think a lot of, a lot of first responders deal with the same
thing. If they just say you're on a fire call and somebody's, you're carrying out a child that you're,
you may have a child at home about the same age. A lot of people that I've talked to, and when I'm
doing it, when I interviewed other people for the book, I felt that was the same thing that they were
dealing with too, the same struggles that they related it to their own children. It seems that
a lot of people that got, I mean, again, I handle a lot of death in my early stages of being a police
officer. It didn't bother me as much, but this young girl did. And I think that happens to a lot
of first responders when you have, you're dealing with a child. I don't see anybody really getting
over that. In fact, that's, 99% of the guys that I interviewed, they were dealing with the same
issues that I interviewed in girls. That was the one thing that bothered them the most was dealing
with a child's injury or death. And it's out there. It's, it's, it's something that we need to,
administration needs to say, Hey, I heard you had this. I think you need to take some time off or
let's get some help or let's, let's deal with it right now, instead of letting it sit in the back
for who knows long, however long it's going to be same with fire. I mean, you guys go together as a
team, you come back as a team. You might be able to talk about it, but some guys don't want to open
up to the other guys that, Hey, it's really bothering me. Again, that macho thing, it's just,
we need to, to let that go. I don't know what other way to do it, but that being that macho guy is,
overall doesn't, doesn't work. No, no, absolutely. I had a call I wrote about in my first book and
it was a double fatality. The boyfriend was killed in the front seat and a three year old was
decapitated in the back seat. And I had a two year old friend then who I told, let me say that again,
like a just over a year old, actually like a year and a half, but you know, same seat, same position.
I mean, all the things, you know, and that didn't haunt me, but that was the one where after I really
felt that kind of adrenal dump. And I even had a flashback years later at Disney of all places,
someone just pushing a stroller on the same kind of blanket over two little tiny legs with sneakers
on. And it took me right back there for a second. But I think there's, you know, there's almost like
this facade though, that if we have all these therapies done, that everything is going to go
completely away. But I think we've also got to give ourselves some grace. A small child was killed.
There should still be some emotional response, just not so much that it's crushing you anymore.
Right. I kind of think sometimes she would be, I think she'd be 30 years old now or something.
I've always thought she should be, Maria should be about 30 now. And again, I shouldn't think that,
but you know, it comes, it comes to my mind every once in a while. And I, with your, with your story
too, James, I shared that with in my, in the book coming out. So, um, I, that, that had to be pretty
tough for you to handle as well. So I'm right with you in that. Yeah, it was a pretty, pretty
horrendous one. Um, it's funny cause we were talking about no one checking in one of the other
stories in that book. I had three different fatalities in one day and I had a homeless woman
that went missing that I, I went ahead as the medic and found rotten, you know, just bones and
rotting flesh, had a GI bleed cardiac arrest that we ran earlier that day. And then a man ran out
of a house fully engulfed in flames. And you know, we, we put them out with my, my partners put them
out and then we transported them to the hospital three days, three days, sorry, excuse me, three
deaths in one day. No one, no one asked us a thing. Are you okay? And if you're okay. Yeah.
Yeah. See, that's what's bad is it. I think administration has to start saying,
are my guys okay? And I think if you have a good boss, they're going to be the ones that step up
and say, Hey, uh, let's talk a little bit, sit down over here. We need to do that. I think that's what
we need to, we need to implement that now, James, not five years from now, not 10 years from now.
All the, I think that's why I spoke at, um, at the, uh, the police academy about a year ago
and, uh, supervisors, I had, uh, six brand new sergeants that they gave me to talk to them about
the exact same subject. And I said, you need to get, find out what you guys are doing. And if they
had something serious, ask you guys, are you okay? You know, simple, are you okay? And don't give me
the BS excuse. Yeah, I'm fine. No, are you okay? What happened today? Is there something that I
need to know? Um, or even get the family involved a little bit, maybe talk to the wife or the husband,
the spouse or whatever to see is, is your husband been fine? Has he been okay? Or is your girlfriend
been okay? Whatever, uh, to see how they're really, are they really okay? And not just that I'm okay
thing doesn't, doesn't work with me, you know? So, but we need to, that's what we need to change.
James says, I think from the administration down to really care about their, their, their, their
guys and girls all the way around, uh, dispatchers, the medics, uh, paramedics, firemen, policemen,
all the way down, down the line. Are you okay? 100%. Well, we talked about, you know, if you're
able to work through trauma, work through struggles that you can forge resilience. And I truly
believe that I think that's what's missing in the, the mental health conversation is that post
traumatic growth, you know, that hope of a better version of you on the other side, when you started
working through your, your own therapies and then you start writing, did you experience what I hear
from a lot of people, people actually coming out of the woodwork, people that you thought were
actually fine telling you actually, I am going through this.
You hit right on it. It seems like when you're talking to someone, then they say, Hey, can I
tell you what happened to me? I w we weren't even talking about that. We were just saying, let me,
let me talk about mental health with it and then say, well, I have a story for you or I'll even
ask them, is there something that really bothered you that you never talked about before that you
can tell me about? I won't even put it in the book if you don't want to, if you want to, but I'll
tell you about, that's fine. Or just to get it off your chest. And it's some of my interviews
normally last anywhere between 10 to 20 minutes, a half hour tops. Some I was on the phone with one
or two hours, three hours. I was in peer support. I was a team leader. So I would, they would just
keep going and talking and then I would share it. It was some I ran out of juice. I was out of time,
listen, I'm running out of power on my phone. I got to charge. I got to charge up. Never thinking
that it was going to last that long, but it was fine. So one thing as well, I don't think is
discussed enough. And I talk about this all the time deliberately because I think, you know, the
more it's out there, the more hopefully it will reach people. But doing hundreds of interviews now,
I'm almost at a thousand interviews total, but hundreds of people that were at crisis point,
some of which actually even went through their suicide attempt and survived, thank God.
But I heard the same thing over and over and over again. And it really pushes against that old school
mentality of suicide, which is, you know, racked in shame and guilt, which is how could they? It's
cowardly, it's selfish. Think of your family. But over and over again, I hear that these men and
women were there. We were at that point, their brain was so miswired. And I use that term
compassionately by all the things, the combination, the perfect storm of all the things that we've
discussed today. That at that point, they truly believe that they are the reason for their family's
pain. And if they just took themselves out of the equation, their family would be happy again.
Makes no sense to a healthy mind. Makes perfect sense to one in that psychosis at that point.
Were you hearing the same kind of thing through all your conversations?
No, or you mean, not myself personally, but yeah, I'm a lot of them. Yeah, I'm a lot of them. They
did. When I interviewed for the book. Yeah, a lot of them I did. You could tell they were really
hurting. I don't think some even said that, you know, that was a thought and it was a strong thought
towards it. Again, you were right when you said they're miswiring and they think that they're
better off, their family is better off without them. But it affects so many people. It's like a bomb
going off that people don't expect. And it's like, oh my God, I can't believe what just happened.
It hurts so many people that I don't think, again, the right mind, if someone's miswired,
they don't understand that. Like someone that understands like what we are now, that how many
people it affects from not only your family, but your first responder family as well and all your
friends and everybody else that is acquainted with you, how devastating it could be. But I guess,
again, that hopelessness takes over or vulnerability hopelessness is deep and so deep where if someone
could take their own life, it's beyond comprehension sometime about what they're actually feeling the
second before they actually take their own life.
Well, I think people, if you take a step back and imagine being in that mindset and you also
a part of a profession that is basically sworn that if needed, they will die to protect
a complete stranger while we're wearing uniform. And then as you mentioned in law enforcement,
you also have the means of suicide strapped to your head. That's just amplifying it. And then I
agree with you a thousand percent what you said earlier. I think that's a very important thing
to do a thousand percent what you said earlier. I think that semblance of resistance that kind of
part of the mind that's still fighting to survive is now quietened by alcohol.
And I say this a lot, it's kind of tongue in cheek, but when you're young and you get drunk,
you end up going home with a girl that maybe if you were stone cold sober, you wouldn't have
looked at, you know what I mean? Alcohol does dumb us. So, you know, but if you just, I think
almost kind of consoling for people who've already lost someone to suicide and there's so much stigma
around that, I would argue that if there's, if they're at this point and they truly believe
that they are a burden, if you are still with us, obviously that's a huge red flag to get help.
If you hear someone saying verbiage like that, it's a huge red flag to step in and try and be help.
But the people that we lost at that point, I would say that was a courageous and selfless act and they
were probably terrified when they did it. But in that distorted psychosis, that distorted reality,
they believe that they were the problem and they sacrifice themselves for the benefit of their
family. Now the reality obviously isn't true, but it wasn't selfish and cowardly. I would argue at
that point, it was selfless and courageous, even though it was tragic and should have been avoided.
Right. It takes guts. It really does that to actually go through with it. And that's why I
think on some of the, like the last year, I think we had six suicides. I think four were,
had alcohol in their system. So again, it's a, I'm not saying,
I don't know, it's a contributing factor, but it does play a part, I think too,
that someone may not actually do it unless again, it just happens. But I don't, for me,
we didn't have a wellness class in the Academy. We did not, now they're starting to have classes
in there about wellness, about having family days and everything else and showing everybody
that it's okay to get help. But we didn't have that. All we had was, and I don't know, the same
with you, James, but it was all tactics. It was all, you know, how to watch some person's hand.
And it's all about different tactics that way, nothing about emotional wellness that we needed.
And I think that's again, remember I said, administration has to get on board. That's what
I think is the key. Administration has to change where they never did before. They never said,
hey, they're never, I want to put accountability to them. And I think that's the most important
thing that we need to do. Make management, make administrations accountable for this,
because we're losing more people. I mean, tactical wise, you got to have tactical wise and training,
but you need, we're losing more people in suicide than we are on the street.
That's the red flag. Something is not right. Something is a misser. And that's every year.
It's not like, oh, we had one police shooting and we didn't have any suicides. There was,
I think in California, one city that they have psychologists at every district where they're
able to talk to them. They didn't have hardly any suicides at all. Now, and look what's happening
to us is that you got to have the training for, you know, the combat training, whatever training
that you have for, you know, being the police or being fired or whatever, being cautious,
but you also have to have that wellness factor in there as well. And I'm so glad that some of these
academies are starting to adapt that, that it's make, I think it's going to make it,
hopefully it's going to make a difference, but administration's got to be accepting on that.
That's got to be key. If they're not accepting, it's all for nothing. That's my opinion. And to
work with the guy that says, you know, I need some help, not punish them for getting the help that
he needs, not being a detriment or not having them, not getting a chance to get promoted,
you know, oh, this guy, he needs help. Well, he's not going to make sergeant. He's not going to make
lieutenant or whatever. Let's keep them where we want to underneath our thumb. Not a good idea.
So that's personal. That's my personal opinion. But I think, I think that something needs to be
done. Something needs to be changed. James on that. I really do. Yeah, I agree. A hundred percent.
I want to hit one more area. We're going to go on a tangent now and then we'll close up, but
you've written other books outside of the mental health conversation and one of them was on sexual
predators. That's not a topic that we, we have many discussions on, certainly not someone, you know,
you know, with you and then your co-author, as far as experts in the field. So talk to me about that.
You know, you mentioned not growing up with technology when you were younger. Now, you know,
my son, our children or your grandchildren, you know, are just surrounded by technology. So
as you started diving into this, you know, what were some of the factors that kept being repeated
and how is technology making this easier for people to groom our children? My dissertation was on
sexual predation, sexual predators and the internet. And I, in fact, I changed, I was going to,
my dissertation was going to be on taking a police test and making a better officer. And then I,
I watched to catch a predator on TV and I told my wife, I said, I'm going to ask my chair,
I got to change. I said, I couldn't believe how many people were actually coming to
a little girl's house or a little boy's house to, to have sex with them, really.
And to get away with it. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. So I changed my dissertation
topic to sexual predation. And that's, I just continued on when I wrote my first book,
my first book was on sexual predators amongst us. And what I seen a lot is that a lot of sexual
predators were mostly male, mostly white males live two separate lives. You might have someone that
is a construction worker and he does everything and they come home and watching child porn or
doing something that way. So he's living two different lives. You can just say even a police
officer out there to help people, but is again, maybe have an association for young girls or
young men or whatever. There's a, they live in two separate lives and people are shocked
when they come out of, Oh my God, I can't believe John's a, they arrested John and they took out
all his computer equipment or whatever. It's so easy now to groom. And I think that's the main
thing is that some of these sexual predators have a great way of grooming the people that they're
these young children that they're interested in. And they like to go from young children
is that they're, they're innocent. They're easy to manipulate. They're easy to take advantage of.
And I think that's what I've seen the most is, is a lot of these guys groom, especially with the
internet, with the, this, uh, tick tock and it's all, it's all this other stuff that's out there.
They're looking for someone that is coming from a divorced home,
because they're already, cause now they got mom and dad fighting. That's, that's pretty,
that's pretty prevalent. Someone that's, uh, may have a, a, a, a screen name of sexy 69 or
sexy girl or whatever. Now that they're trying to, they, these young girls don't know what they,
they're, they're in a crossroads of trying to be pretty or trying to be, you know, um, uh,
just to expound on their femininity, put it that way, uh, that these guys take advantage of that,
or they see that and say, you know, I'm, I'm lonely or on this or on that, take advantage from, uh,
uh, uh, internet, uh, point of view. So that's what I've seen the most. And that's why I figured,
let me, I wrote the, I figured with my dissertation was like a book. And I said it the next, I said,
let me just continue on. And then I wrote another one with, uh, um, another professor. We co-wrote
one on, um, one about criminal profiling with a lot of sexual predation in there. So I found a
lot of guys have strong moms and weak, weak fathers. It seems like, um, their family dynamics is a
little bit different, but again, it could happen to, could be anybody that is a sexual predator.
It doesn't have to be a certain way or a certain thing. It could be something that triggered them
when they were younger to, uh, to go that way. And I also found, remember I said about the Catch 22,
a lot of these sexual predators were actually victims themselves of sexual predation. And
instead of cutting it out, they're continuing it. So, um, continuing that, that circle of sexual
predation. I think there's been some films and shows that have done a massive disservice to
the, you know, uh, child predator and obviously the human trafficking conversation. You know,
those are the ones where, you know, the special operator is going to Central America and it's all,
you know, kid was thrown in a van and driven away and kind of like that taken thing. When I speak
to the real people in human trafficking and this kind of conversation, it's nothing like that.
Does that happen? Yes. But that's, you know, the, the anomaly, not the norm. The norm is
the high school teacher or the martial arts coach or the scout master or the church leader.
That's gaining trust. It's getting kids away from their parents, you know, creating this little
secret that they have between them. And it's happening right under our nose. And even one of
the guests I have is talking about, you know, these, these, uh, um, apps that you can get now
and you look at your kid's phone, it just looks like it's a normal app, but actually it's a fake
label on a different chat app that they can groom these kids through. So as parents, you know,
it's so important that we understand conversations like this.
I'm going to, I'll just mention one thing before we close, but I, I was teaching at two different
colleges. I was teaching at, um, tell you what college, uh, I had all officers in my class
and that were looking to, uh, you know, to get their bachelor's degree. And then I was teaching
at Westwood college where I had all young, uh, uh, students who wanted to go in criminal justice.
Okay. Two different types of class. One were officers. One were just kids wanting to be
officers or wanting to fire or whatever, anything in the criminal justice system. Well, I asked
them, I said, I'm going to give you three words. I want you to tell me what you think about.
Tell me first thing off your head, write it down. Don't, don't shut the L without write it down.
So the first thing I said, the three words are boy scout leader. My class from Westwood college
was all law, uh, criminal justice kids, probably about 80% said good person, father figure wants
to help, wants to be a good person. Everything, you know, uh, you know, excellent job, all that
kind of stuff. Um, probably 10% or 20% said that they were predators. No, I'm sorry.
That a good person that way. My class, they were all cops. Not one of them said a positive thing,
a sexual predator, not on my watch, all this kind of stuff. So look at the difference,
how somebody just, just, just what they felt being the, being a cop. They had that,
they have that animosity or that of not, not animosity. That is not a good word. Um,
they have that feeling that, that of no trust for anybody dealing with children again,
because what we see, what we deal with, um, you, you have a lot of people that are in the dancing
field or that may have ballet or something that why is, why is a 30 year old guy teaching ballet
or whatever? I mean, you, you, these are the things that they're thinking about and wondering
about, um, when it comes to what, how they, how they groom their, their individual because,
or a coach, they have that trust that's there and they use it to their advantage.
Not in a good way. No. And I know loads of people that are Eagle Scouts, sort of phenomenal human
beings that I would trust. I'm not saying you're right. Right. Yeah. You have that right. Not
everybody is that way. Believe me, I'm not, I'm not saying a hundred percent of Boy Scout leaders are,
are, but that's the way police officers, you could have the best Eagles come from the world or this,
uh, Boy Scout leader in the world who has never done anything, but they're not, they're not,
they're not doing anything with, again, to a police officer, they may have that, oh my God,
I'm not trusting him at all or not with my kid. So, you know, what's interesting too,
and I, I've watched the, uh, Michael, Michael Jackson documentary a few months ago, and I'd
love to actually get the filmmaker of this because people pick and choose who they consider,
you know, a pedo as well, you know, obviously you've got the people that actually doing it,
you know, the cancellation and let's take law enforcement, for example, the entire profession
was canceled by a huge group of people, you know, in 2020, 21, but then you've got a singer who would
invite children into his house. They would sleep in his bedroom and he'd send the parents off for
days at a time, but we're like, ah, but he has one glove and he's really good at dancing. So we know
he was innocent, you know, so this is what gets me to, there's a real hypocrisy on who people will
ignore that clearly are grooming kids. And Michael Jackson, of course, had a horrendous childhood,
and I'm sure that's part of the story, but, and you've got these horrendous parents that know
exactly probably what's going on or the dangers of what they're doing, but they're more concerned
about the money and the fame than they are their child's welfare. But we can't turn a blind eye
because someone is an NFL football coach or, you know, a dancer that can moonwalk. We've got it.
You know, if we're going to actually address this subject, you can't have favorites that are outside
of this box. So I agree. I agree. There are so many different people out there and from what
their motives are and why they, why they chose to do that. It's, it's some factors that, that
came through their life when they were younger, where they actually triggered something in them
to, to, to fulfill their fantasy, put it that way. Is it wrong? Yes. It's hard. It's harder.
I think we've reached the tip of the iceberg from what's really, really happening out there. So,
I mean, it's so hard to catch them that we could have 10,000 people out there trying to do it and
still not be able to get it because they're that good at, at deceiving everybody and playing that,
that, that second role that, that, that we're two different people and they can go easily back and
forth in either role. So, um, when no one really believes that who they are. Yeah, absolutely.
Well, we talked about the other books, your, you know, your most, I guess, red book is, uh,
breaking, breaking the barriers, um, which is incredible. And that's the one you sent me. So,
thank you so much for sending that. I hope you like it, James. I do hope you like, enjoy it.
So, yeah, no, I mean, that's my fourth one. Thank you. I was able to self-publish. I believe my,
and if anybody's going to write books, I believe self-publishing is the way to go. Um, my third,
fourth and fifth, my fourth, fifth and sixth book are, are going to self-publish. Um, I am so honored
to be with CRC press for my first three. They, they, uh, went out of their way to, uh, have me
write for them. I appreciate that, but I think self-publishing is the way to go because I could
control, uh, the price on the book. Um, when you have a publisher, they, they determine the price.
So I really want to help the officers that are out there. So if I want to, if I want to give my book
away, it's up to me. I can do it. Um, the other way they'd have to, that cost them a little bit
of change. So yeah, I just self-published my second one. So I couldn't agree more. I made it, you know,
I didn't sell it to make a profit. I sold it to get the message out there. Two very different things.
Yeah. I, and we're the same way, James, the same thing. I know I'm not going to get, I'm not going
to get rich on this. I neither want any of them. So I'm, I did it to, to make a difference in
someone's life again. Um, I hope it does. So, so what is your next book called? You mentioned,
I know that, that I'd sent you a little bit of a story for, for that as well. So what's the next
one about and what's it called? You're definitely in that one. And I have about, I think 80 other,
uh, interviews in there. It's called first responder suicide is the top of it. I don't
know if I'm going to keep that and I haven't decided on, um, the secondary title yet. Um,
but it's going to be on first responder suicide. Definitely. Um, again, I don't know if that's the
exact topic I'm still working on. I mean, the heading, I'm still working on that right now.
Um, I want it to be, I have my cover already. It's pretty good. Um, but, um, trying to,
to get it where people get actually, oh my God, I want to read this book. So,
and I'm so proud that you're in it, James. So I'm ecstatic about that. So,
well, the feeling is mutual. So when is your, uh, publication date or when roughly do you think
it's going to come out? I got a feeling it's going to be, well, I just sent in my manuscript
to my editor. So I'm looking at probably maybe the end of maybe December, maybe January. The
only thing with January is a lot of weight loss books come out and I don't want to get lost in
that. I don't want to get lost in that frenzy. So maybe in February, I'm thinking it may come out
that way. I'm going to see, it may come out sooner. I don't know. It depends on my editor,
how well, how fast she can get through it and, uh, and everything. So, but you'll be the first to
get a copy, James, a signed copy, put it that way. You know that. Thank you so much. So
I appreciate you. I'm so glad that to be on your program, really, um, uh, I know it's been some,
we talk once in a while, so that's a good thing. So, um, and I'm, and I'm proud to be associated
with you. So, well, I want to thank you so much just before I let you go though, where can people
find the books and then where's the best place to find you as far as websites or social media?
Okay. My, uh, on my, on my email, it's, uh, Ron Ruffo 54 at gmail.com. So that's R O N R U F
like Frank O five four at gmail.com. Um, my books could be on Amazon. Um,
they, uh, on Amazon, I think is probably the best, best way to get a book. And I, it's those 1795.
If I ever see at a conference, I usually sell them for 15 or if you really need it without anything,
I'll give it to you. So, I mean, I had one girl come up to me. I was at a, at a conference. She said,
I'd like to get one from my brother, but I really don't have the money. And I says, here,
what's your brother's name? I signed it to her. So here, that's a gift to me for your brother.
That's why I self published because I can, if I want to give it away, I can. And, uh, if I could,
I hopefully, if I can help her brother, that's the way to go. Uh, but I, I, I enjoy going. In fact,
I'm being a seminar tomorrow. The gentleman asked the, I'm speaking there tomorrow. He said,
please bring some books. Cause maybe somebody would like to buy a few. I said that'll be fine.
And I'm stopping at a college tomorrow. Uh, I have a, a friend of mine that, uh, teaches a class on
criminal justice, asked me to bring some books for his class. So, I mean, I get out there,
I try to do the best I can. I'm not, again, I've given more away than I've sold. I'm okay with that.
My wife, she's a little bit calm, but I said, that's me. But, um, if I can help somebody,
that's the way I, that's the way I, uh, I want to, I want to help someone that is given in my book.
And if it changes their perspective, that's the whole thing I'm looking for.
Amazing. Well, I want to thank you so much, not only for obviously the kind of areas that we've
discussed as far as mental health tools and some, you know, some of the things that culturally need
to change in our professions, but also for your courageous vulnerability and, you know, revisiting
some of these things that sent you on your own journey. So I want to thank you so, so much for
being so generous with your time and coming on the Behind the Shield podcast today.
Anytime, James, I'm so proud of what you do and how many people that you reach. It's amazing. So
thank you again. It's an honor to be on your program. So thank you.