This episode is sponsored by TeamBuildr, yet
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if you want to try Team Builder, they are offering
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I'll spell that to you because it's not as you
think, T -E -A -M -B -U -I -L -D -R .com. 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 Canadian
law enforcement veteran and the man behind setting
my sights on stigma, Mark Bouchard. Now in this
conversation, we discuss a host of topics from
his journey into policing, tactical medicine,
catharsis through writing, sleep, moral injury,
and so much more. Now, before I get to this incredible
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 1 ,100 episodes now. So all I
ask in return is that you help share these incredible
men and women's 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... Marc Bouchard. Enjoy. Well, Mark, I
want to start by saying two things. Firstly,
thank you to our mutual friends at The Collective,
Sean and Chance. And secondly, I want to welcome
you onto the Behind the Shield podcast today.
Well, thanks, James. It's a real honor to be
here. And yeah, fortunate to have been on that
podcast with you. So for any of your listeners,
it's worth checking out. And yeah, thank you
for having me. Honor to be here. So where on
planet Earth are we finding you this morning?
I live in the outskirts of Ottawa, which is the...
the capital for Canada in Ontario. Brilliant.
Well, I would love to start at the very beginning
of your timeline and then we'll progress through
to all things mental health and first responder.
So tell me where you were born and tell me a
little bit about your family dynamic, what your
parents did, how many siblings. Sure. So I was
born in a Vancouver suburb. Up in Canada, but
it's on the far west coast for anyone who's not
familiar. It's in a suburb called Delta. I'm
the fourth child. My parents, they run an accounting
company. My dad still does. He's about to turn
78. Still just loves helping people save money
on their taxes. Nothing gets him more excited
than that. My mom worked there for a long time.
My brother works there. I come from a whole family
of accountants. I don't know how I managed to
become a cop, but somehow I found quite a different
profession. So yeah, I'm the fourth kid. I actually
also have an adopted brother. Not in the same
way a lot of people would. His mother died from
cancer when we were fairly young and just was
a bit of a lost kid wandering around the neighborhood.
He would come to our house a lot. So yeah, he
basically became my brother. He was the best
man in our wedding. So I actually get a bit emotional
about that. Oh, good. I mean, it's a beautiful
story. So reverse engineering, what was it about?
your parents and maybe even their upbringing
that gave them the kind of uh compassion to bring
in the child of someone who'd lost their mother
yeah it's a great question i think my mother's
mother my grandmother uh very much brought people
in like that and it's actually um my uncle married
my aunt and she was someone who they had brought
in my mom's mom they lived in north vancouver
uh so i think my mom came by that a bit naturally
and she had been friend with friends with barb
barb is duncan's mom who who died so um my brother
my adopted brother duncan his mother uh passed
away from cancer and his birthday my birthday
and mother's day are all within a week so he
kind of just kept coming around the house more
and more and then eventually i started calling
my brother and next thing you know we'd come
out to everything like all our family photos
and we'd go on family trips and he was coming
to everything Um, and very, very fortunate. I
think he was a bit of a lost kid for a little
while, like struggled in high school. Um, and
I think in a way it was, so we were kind of helping
him at the time, but then I ended up going through
my own hard time and he was one of the best supports,
you know, and even, like I say, he was the best
man at my wedding. Cause just developed this
awesome, awesome relationship. It was almost
like a little brother for me in a way, even though
he's two years older and he's six foot six, he's
kind of a big brother too, but, uh, yeah, pretty
fortunate for that. And I think my parents just.
are kind of those giving people who try and help
in the community. And, you know, they're part
of Rotary and part of like, just trying to find
ways to contribute. And I think they saw, you
know, just created a nice place and then where
Duncan fell safe, just kept coming and then developed
a great relationship from there that we're all
fortunate for. I think just that whole philosophy
is something that we need to re -find as a society.
I think it was there for a long time, you know,
tribally. And then even if you look at a lot
of smaller communities, you know, villages and
towns around the world where they say it takes
a village, you know, it's not just one family
left to fend for themselves. And if another family
is doing better, well, you know, I earned this
and, you know, screw you. And going back to this.
As they say, you want to change the world, start
a home, and then step outside your front door
and reach out to your community. If we all did
that, we would see such a global change as far
as not only kindness and compassion, but also
crime and addiction and all the other things.
Yeah, it's connection. It's meaning. It's belonging.
I think we don't really get taught those things
growing up and as kids. We have this perception
that we just need to make a lot of money and
be successful and have status, and then we'll
be happy. I wrote a bit about suicide in that
chapter of my book, and I lost a loved one to
suicide, which was my godfather, Bill. And Bill
had millions of dollars, and Bill died from suicide.
We don't talk about that, especially in relation
to men. So I hear you. For me, like getting into
law enforcement and then into like SWAT or emergency
response work, we call it in Canada, that connection,
that brotherhood, that bond, really it's the
intensity of the experiences that you go through.
And that's what love is, right? You build this
really intense bond. And when you go through
something like a war or these really intense
things, you have that brotherhood. And there's
guys where, you know, I worked with them and
got super close and we might not talk for a year
or two. But when you see them, when you talk
to them, it's just like you haven't missed a
beat. And that's what they say. Hey, this is
just like seeing my best friends from high school,
my best friends I grew up with. And I don't know
about you, but is that what your experience has
been like with fire as well? That same kind of
tight knit brotherhood or I shouldn't say brotherhood,
sisterhood too. But I mean, in earthwork, we
have very few women. It's largely men. That's
why I often would say brotherhood. But what's
your experience been, James? Yeah, no, it has.
I mean, you know, throughout my career, but especially
Anaheim, California, that, that crew, you know,
really was the most cohesive tight knit group
in an extremely. In the kind of department that
sets the bar extremely high. So even just making
it through the year of probation was a crucible
in itself. And then you start running these calls.
And they went to a lot of stuff, a lot of horrible
wrecks, a lot of fires. And there were times
where, yeah, absolutely, it was very dangerous
situations. And those same men, because my crew
in that particular case were all men, 10 years
later were my groomsmen at my wedding. And I'd
moved 2 ,500 miles to the other side of the country,
and they all flew over. So a hundred percent.
I mean, if I pick up the phone now, just talk
to my firefighter partner the other day. And
it is, it's always just like, we've, we just
spoke the day before. So, you know, I think that
shared suffering and that community that we experienced
in the first responder professions is something
that I think the whole world would benefit from.
Yeah. I often cite books cause they've helped
me so much. There's a book called the. The Like
Switch by Jack Schaefer. And he described something
called the friendship formula. And there's four
factors that build friendship. Proximity, frequency,
intensity, and duration. And I think the huge
one there is intensity. Because when you go through
something super intense together. like things
that involve life and death situations where
people have your back. And for me growing up,
that was sports. I played a lot of hockey and
a lot of my best friends are people I grew up
playing hockey with because they've had your
back. They've been in fights with you. Like they
literally helped save you when you were in a
bad spot. And then seeing the evolution of that
for me, when I got into police work, same thing,
you go through really intense things and it's
not always danger. Sometimes it's emotional pain.
Sometimes it's the tragic sadness and suffering
and death of innocent people or child victims.
Like there can be totally other reasons where
the intense experience comes. They aren't just
danger. But then I transitioned into what we
call in Canada, the emergency response team.
I did about 10 years there, but it is our SWAT
team up here. And same thing. Then you get such
intense experiences and that just forms these
bonds. Like I have so many, you know, what I
call best friends for life. And I may not even
talk to someone a year, but I call up tomorrow
and they do anything for you, right? And that's,
to me, that's what life's about. That's a meaningful
life. It's a life of purpose, a life of service,
a life of connection. And I feel very fortunate
to have got those opportunities and to have learned
that. I think that's one of the sad things about
the way American sports has devolved. And I mean
sports as in what people see on their actual
screen. And I've had this conversation a lot
coming from another country. When I first moved
here, I kept meeting all these broken, you know,
25, 30 year olds with these, I could have, would
have, should have dreams. I call them my Uncle
Rico's. And it's not to, you know, make fun of
them. It's just, it's like, how did you go from
such a high level of performance in high school
and college? to now be broken and overweight
and kind of beat down. And it's because the focus
was on winning. And yes, of course, when you
are in, for example, I've always been a martial
artist. I don't want to go in there and just
drop my hands and get my head knocked off. I
want to win. But it's the crucible that you go
through with your team or with your martial arts
team that you fight side by side with, whatever
it is. That's actually where the value is. And
the laughing and the joking. And when you fall
over, I mean, all the things together. And we've
kind of discarded that and say, oh, no, no, no.
The only thing that matters is if you stand on
the podium. That's it. And I could not disagree
more. Of course, trying to win is the biggest
element. But how many teams have won every NHL
Stanley Cup? Every Super Bowl, of course, only
one team and you're discrediting all the hard
work and all the support staff and everything
else that goes into that. So the huge takeaway
from sports is, you know, humility, teamwork,
community, shared suffering. It's not whether
you got a gold circle on a ribbon. Yeah, I totally
agree with you. I often think of like outcome
based decision making where it's just like, well,
that outcome happened. We won or we didn't win.
Therefore, I'm happy or unhappy. I actually,
I played on some basically like championship
teams. So we won provincials for hockey three
times, won Westerns. And one year we went right
to the overtime of the gold medal game and we
lost. I couldn't stop crying. I was devastated.
It was my last year, 20 years old. We'd won it
in the past and we didn't win it that time. And
after being upset that day, I've never been upset
about it again. Because we got every game we
could have got. We got this amazing experience
together. That's what it was really about, was
the bond and the brotherhood and the friends
for life that it helped create. It wasn't just
about the championship kind of represents the
experience, not so much defines you. And back
to kind of how that evolved into my police time.
I just saw my job like I was excited every day
to try and get better. Like I felt like I owed
that to both the people we serve, but also really
to those people around me. because you go through
these intense things you know things like yeah
there's lots of just regular days where nothing
crazy happens but when something's going to happen
it's either you prepared for it and you're ready
and you can actually do what you need to do or
you didn't and that's one thing i really value
of what you bring james is you set that high
bar you basically say hey we should we should
be like athletes we should take this serious
we should hold ourselves accountable not just
take it easy because we can today because nothing's
coming in Well, that means get training, get
physical, like do all those things ahead of time.
You know, it's like the will to win and the will
to prepare to win, right? Everyone wants to win
when it's game day. Everyone wants to win when
that moment comes. The question is, did you actually
prepare for it so that you're ready for that
moment and you can be successful? Yeah, absolutely.
Well, you mentioned about being the son of two
accountants. So as you were progressing through
the school years, were you dreaming of law enforcement
or was there something else in your mind? No,
I just want to be a hockey player. I'll be honest
with you. You know, I had dreams of the NHL.
I'm only 5 '10", so that was probably never going
to happen. And my mom worked there, but she was
more like the receptionist, so she wasn't like
a full -blown like CA, CPA accountant. No, and
you know what I always said when people would
ask me, do you want to be an accountant like
your dad? I would say no, I don't want to work
that much. And not to sound weird about it, but
like I watched my dad put in 100 -hour work weeks.
All the time. And it's not that, you know, there's
lots of accountants who don't, right? That's
fair. But he ran his own business. So I think
part of that was actually the entrepreneur side.
You know, they say entrepreneurs are the only
people working 80 hours a week, so they don't
have to work 40. So he, you know, if you're not
putting in the work, the income's not coming
in. And he has a lot of people that work there,
so they all get paid before you do. So there's
times when there's not a whole lot left, right?
There's good times and hard times. So no, I just
had this mindset. I didn't want to work that
much. And what I had seen was the impact of crime.
So my dad's business has been broken into more
times than I can count. And they'd always find
a new way. They'd cut a hole from the neighboring
business. They'd come in through the ceiling.
They drove a truck through the front of the business.
They did tens of thousands of dollars of damage
and they stole two flat screen monitors. They'd
steal vehicles from the parking lot. And it was
so angering for me. very upsetting to the point
my parents would be sleeping in the office sometimes
to try and prevent people from breaking in and
sealing things. And then really you just want
to do something about it. And then I went to
university. I got a poli sci degree. And then
you find out no one really wants to pay you to
political science, certainly not pay you well.
And then you look around at what to do. And I
liked the idea of being physical and doing something
different every day and just trying to find a
way to help people. And that's, I think, a common
theme of what I've seen even as a recruiter within
policing. I've sat in on recruiting interviews.
And so often everyone comes in. Why do you want
to be a cop? I want to help people. And I think
sometimes I can get a little bit lost. But that
was my way of trying to find a way to help. And
then after doing it, what I learned is those
doing the job needed a lot of help. And I say
that because I lived it, like many of us. And
then as I healed and started getting better,
I looked around at all my buddies. And I'm like,
man, there's so many of us really suffering.
And then that became the new mission is how do
you help the helpers? It's funny. I remember
when I was testing to be a firefighter, we're
talking 2004. I was very competitive back then.
I've talked about this a lot. What you could
learn about the profession on the internet was
very, very limited. And there was one site, I
think it was called the Golden Nuggets, where
it would kind of teach you how to ace your interview,
air quotes. And they said, you know, if you get
asked, you know, why do you want to be a firefighter?
Don't say, I want to help people. And it's funny
because when I reflect back now, that's exactly
why. I don't need to pull some story because
I was actually ironically in a fire when I was
four. So I could have pulled that ever since
then. I was, you know, practicing to be a firefighter.
That's bullshit. I just want to help people.
I don't want people to feel pain. I don't want
people to die when it was preventable. The end,
period. I shouldn't have to zhuzh that up for
some interview. And so it was almost discouraged
to use that as a response. And it's a shame because,
as you said, ultimately, most of us get into
this job simply because they want to make the
world a little bit better. Yeah, and I think
that's important for us to help educate the public
on. Because I even say specifically for policing,
I think policing... has a little more challenges
with public perception. I mean, one of the topics
I write about and I even do my presentations
about is lethal force psychology. Because it's
really hard to wrap our heads around how we're
this kind, giving person. We sign up to help
people. We want to be a cop. And that's what
we see at a community event. And then you end
up in this no -win situation where your life's
in danger and someone else's life's in danger
and you're even forced to use lethal force. And
then you're left with this pain because of how...
big our resistance is to doing it and then you're
labeled in the media sometimes as you know even
like you would have seen in my book but one of
my best friends was charged with murder after
shooting a hostage taker like it never should
have happened but society is so much like we're
disconnected from our food source from our fitness
and our health in some ways we're disconnected
from our protection we think that oh violence
is bad violence is bad but if you're doing violence
to keep innocent people safe then actually maybe
it's this weird way that it's actually a good
thing today. You're being a protector, a guardian.
You're not using violence for a bad way. Absolutely.
Yeah, it's funny because depending on which news
station you watch, either A, police are all racist
and they're just waiting for the opportunity
to kill someone of color, or every single police
shooting is justified. And obviously the truth
is in the middle. Of course, there are some bad
apples in the profession, but most people, I
don't think people understand the ripple effect
of being an officer involved shooting on the
officer themselves. Because they did not wake
up that morning saying, oh, I hope I shoot someone
today. Yeah, there's a... There's a book called
Shots Fired by Chuck Ryland. There's actually
a bunch of great books on lethal force psychology.
But in that one specifically, they follow, I
think it's about 10 or 12 officers after their
shooting. So they chronicle a little bit of the
experience of the officer of the event, but largely
it follows them after. And basically all their
lives fall apart. Many of them, several of them
end up suicidal. They're sitting there contemplating
killing themselves and largely feel super misunderstood,
both in the media, by their loved ones, and just
how... emotionally painful it can be. And I know
officers who've been through shootings and sometimes
they're okay. And sometimes, you know, for whatever
reason doesn't impact them in that way. But for
many, I've talked to some who have hit the point
of, you know, suicidal ideation and just really
life falling apart for them. And that's where
as a profession, I think we in policing, much
like you're trying to change fire profession
and fire culture, we need to change our culture
to start teaching this early. Don't wait until
someone's already injured and off work and sending
them to rehab. Like, yes, let's have those supports
when we need them. But what if we actually taught
you this at the start of your career? Much like
you talk so much about sleep and wellness and
all kinds of these good things that if we can
teach people, we can prevent things from getting
so bad 10 years later by having you have these
healthy thoughts, habits, etc. early on. That's
where we need to get within the policing profession.
There's a ton of great books out there. Part
of why I've started doing little book summaries
on my website and on a YouTube channel is just
trying to help share that knowledge within the
profession. My hope is that one day we'll actually
teach a bunch of those. Say a great book like
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk.
It's a fantastic book on trauma. For any of those
in trauma -exposed professions like first responders,
you need to be able to learn how to... heal yourself
how to take care of yourself after these traumatic
events and what if we taught it to you right
at the start of your career in the course curriculum
you know even sleep science like a book like
why we sleep uh matthew walker fantastic book
that will really help you so if those are issues
someone out there that's listening to this is
struggling with a little bit grab those books
and they'll help you before we go into your journey
in law enforcement and start unpacking all these
elements that we just discussed when you reflect
back now What were the contributing factors to
so much crime in the neighborhood that you grew
up in, in the business that your dad was trying
to protect? Wow, that's a big question. I think
the drug trade is a central aspect, right? So,
I mean, just in my own experience since then,
like your average person is not going out doing
crime. Random people are not just going down
the street, breaking into cars, breaking into
businesses. And from my experience, Pretty much
universally, those who are, are addicted to drugs.
They're caught up in a cycle within the drug
trade where they owe a lot of money and now they
need to do crime to be able to get that money,
but they don't have it. So what do they do? They
steal things from your car, your garage, they
break into your business, and that's how they
get their money. Now, to take a step back even
further in the cycle, why are they doing all
those drugs? And often I would say there's a
massive issue around pain. Many of them, it's
neglect, it's childhood abuse, it's sexual abuse.
When you really sit down and listen to people
who are addicted to drugs, there's a story behind
what got them there. And that's one thing I'll
say from reading your book. I really sensed a
lot of compassion and empathy. It's how do we
relate to this person? How do we actually feel
a little piece of their pain? And then connect
with them to try and help them. And that's what
I would try and do. Even like I would arrest
a drunk driver. Now, alcohol, drugs, similar,
slightly different. But many of them, it's just
extreme pain. They've lost a parent. They've
lost a child. And they don't know how to cope.
And especially as men, then they have this shame
around, I don't know what's wrong with me. I
don't know why I'm crying. They'll be like, I
don't know why I'm being such a little bitch.
And I'm like, you're not. You're being human.
And I would literally just try and sit down with
them and be that space and also say like, hey,
man, what's going to happen is you keep doing
this. You're going to end up killing someone
else's kid. I don't want you to have to live
with that. And I don't want to be my kid or your
kid or anyone else's kid. Like, let's try and
get you some help. And there were times people
would thank me. Like, literally, you arrest them
for drunk driving. And at the end of the day,
they're thanking you. And that's the same thing
I would try and do when I would arrest someone
for property crime and they're drug addicted.
I would just say, hey, man. I'd much rather be
trying to put my time into getting you help than
just throwing you in jail. At the end of the
day, until we can fix the issue of the drugs,
you're likely not getting away from this lifestyle
of crime. For many of them, it's very hard. I
would say, hey, it might take you seven attempts
of going to rehab. It might take you 12. That's
okay. Let's start with number one right now.
Let's start you on a path towards better, and
let's look at long -term solutions of the problem,
not just trying to deal with this today and just
blaming you like you're the only source of the
issue here. This is always an interesting question
to ask anyone in law enforcement because they
were told to enforce drug prohibition laws. But
a quick backstory, I think I've talked about
this for a little while now. When I started my
podcast, my mom had actually said, hey, did you
know what they did about drug prohibition here
in Portugal? Because she moved to Portugal about
25 years ago now. And she goes, yeah, they basically
had a national vote. It was spearheaded by this
one doctor. And they said, look, we've tried
this whole arrest the addicts model from America.
It doesn't seem to be working. They had this
massive epidemic of addiction after one of the
wars in a Portuguese colony in Africa. And the
soldiers came back addicted to opiates and it
kind of spread through the country. and so they
were like look we want to try something different
and portugal is a really interesting country
because it's very small it's kind of almost looked
down on by some of the the more well -known uh
mediterranean countries if you like but um at
their core they're actually very progressive
you know or or if you want to look at a different
way they've stayed attached to more traditional
values you know more tribal values and so the
country voted yes and what they did is they poured
all their resources into mental health counseling,
the creation of mental health counseling, addiction
counseling, job creation, housing, and it was
fully funded. So not this piecemeal where we
see in the US or in Canada, oh, we just decriminalize,
but that was it. We just don't arrest them now.
We didn't give them any resources. And Portugal
saw such a success. They went from the highest
addiction rate to the lowest in less than 10
years. And what that did for law enforcement
then was, of course, it reduced crime, but then
it allowed all the resources that they had to
go after the dealers and the smugglers. And the
court system was freed up so they could process
those people fast and get them behind bars if
needed. So to me, and I sat down with his name,
Zhao Gulau, with that doctor that spearheaded
it. I sat down in Lisbon a few years ago, and
then we just did one about six months ago again.
And to me, that is the solution. You know, we
have to stop. arresting addicts like you said
people that are just drowning in pain it's totally
socially acceptable to down a bottle of scotch
but god forbid you have you know an illicit drug
then you're a scumbag according to our laws so
with all that monologue aside i'm not trying
to load the question your response what is your
um philosophy on the war on drugs as we've known
it for the last few decades and any proactive
solutions that can change this Well, let me start
with an analogy. Just think about if you could
make a place where you had full control of everything.
You build giant walls. You put up fencing. Control
who comes in and out. You search everybody. And
now you still can't keep drugs out of there.
Right? Let's be honest. It's jail. And people
can still get drugs in and out and use drugs
in there. So we're kidding ourselves if we think
we're heading to a drug -free society. And we
do need to relook at some of it, but it needs
to be done in a smart way. And I will say in
Canada, I think we've gone a little bit too much
towards just, okay, decriminalize, you know,
legalize all that kind of stuff without what
you said about the supports. Like, because it's
really sad to see people addicted to drugs where
it's just, yeah, we'll give you all the free
drugs you want. And we have stuff around giving
out, you know, free morphine. And then it just
makes its way back onto the market being sold
by drug dealers. I know anecdotal examples of
people telling me about they get their drugs
from their doctor and then they go and sell them
to their drug dealer because they want the fentanyl.
They want the higher drug that we're trying to
keep them from that is more deadly. But it's
also informed from those anecdotal experiences
of speaking to people addicted to drugs. And
I will say, like, we end up getting these cards.
We're supposed to hang a handout. to people addicted
to drugs about destigmatizing drug use. And I
remember as I started trying to do it and people
who are addicted to drugs would say to me, yeah,
this isn't a good plan. And I'm like, when the
drug addict and the cop both think it's a bad
plan, it's probably not going to work very well.
And it's not that we want to destigmatize drug
use. We want to increase their access to help.
right to have the supports there that they can
go take and it's would we rather pay for you
know mental health treatment and housing and
all those kind of things that are going to come
as costs and upfront costs would you rather pay
the long -term cost of having your business broken
into again and your things stolen out of your
garage and all those kind of problems that are
going to come with it so i'm like you like i
believe in a society where We take care of each
other. And some people might call that socialism.
I think there's this balance between capitalism
and socialism where it's not meant to just be
me out for me. It's meant to be that I have responsibility
to my community and to take care of others. And
I think there is no easy answer, but I do believe
in funding some of those kind of holistic approaches
of how we can help people. And I will say there's
also some people that... probably never able
to get off. Like even just from talking to them,
they can't function in life and they've probably
done 20 to 30 years worth of damage to their
brain. Like they may never be able to go back
to just a normal functioning member of society.
So the plan needs to include people like that,
that are going to struggle to function on their
own, no matter what. And again, there's no easy
answer to these things, but that view from the
inside, which, you know, I think you've had some
from your fire experience as well. It's a different
picture than just blaming someone and we're not
trying to make excuses for any kind of bad behavior
happening but it's let's look at systemic level
solutions of how do we make this better i forget
what the current prison um rate is, but I know
in the seventies, I think it was a few hundred
thousand and now we're in several million. And
America, we're talking about the US, America
makes up 4 % of the world's population and has
almost 25 % of the world's incarcerated population.
So again, like if we're just crunching numbers,
if that worked. then there would be a relationship
between prohibition and incarcerated people.
Because as you said, a lot of people that are
behind bars are related to, in some way, shape
or form, some sort of drug. And then even we
have this Doge thing going on at the moment where
supposedly they're analyzing all the wastage
in government. We have a lot of prisons that
make a lot of money by having prisoners. Some
of them are private prisons. So if you're going
to look at wastage, then there is no greater
wastage than taking someone who potentially could
pay tax and instead make the rest of the nation
pay for them to be behind bars for 10, 20, 30
years. So even from a fiscal point of view, it
benefits the nation when you allow someone to
heal. Like you said, not everyone will be able
to do it, but a majority get them rehabilitated,
get them back to work, and now they're taxpaying
citizens. No matter how you look at it, every
single angle, changing the way we do it has to
be front and center. And to have this, again,
with the stigma too, it was interesting with
Portugal, when they decriminalized it and they
gave all these support mechanisms, so they showed
their people, no, we actually want you to get
better. The addict now wasn't afraid of being
arrested. So then they were able to ask for help.
And then they were able to get help. And then
there was job creation and housing. Now they're
truly put back on their feet again. And everyone
listening now is a perfect example. I'm sorry,
the perfect word stigma, because how many people
are afraid to reach out about how they're dealing
with their own mental health, alcohol, you know,
drugs or just simple, you know, depression because
of the stigma. So we live that stigma. So imagine
being an addict in an area where it's illegal.
I mean, you know. There's so many people that
wear our uniform that are struggling with addiction.
So if we don't even have compassion for our own
police officers and firefighters and paramedics
and soldiers who are battling addiction, then
we sure as shit aren't going to care about the
average person. So the only way, in my opinion,
that we turn this around is we look at the addict
the way they should be looked at, as a patient,
as someone who's hurting, whether it's a broken
pelvis. or a crippling addiction and we we encircle
them in the medical community we give them support
that they need and as you said there will be
some people that will slip through the cracks
but this is something that we seem to love doing
in the west is we point at the one person it
didn't work for and go see it doesn't work and
turn our heads to the 99 or what you know whatever
percentage people that it did work for so i think
the stigma word is so important because our community
understands what it's like to be pushed in the
shadows because of stigma and that applies to
addiction and the regular people too yeah yeah
i definitely agree with you i think with stigma
too the more like i've obviously read a chapter
about it on my book and i given a lot of thought
to stigma and i think self -stigma is such a
key part It certainly was for me. Like, I think
when we talk about removing stigma and reducing
stigma, it's a lot easier to look at stigma when
it's, like, about someone else. Like, oh, that
person's having a hard time. Like, oh, okay,
yeah. I hope they're okay and I wish them well
and all that kind of stuff. It's so much harder
to wrap our heads around giving ourselves permission
to have a hard time. And, like, just understanding,
like, for me, I had this idea that I needed to
be RoboCop. That I put on a police hat. and i
wasn't human anymore and you know one of my examples
after we had this bad fatal car crash and i did
the next of kin and i was at scene for several
hours and i saw a recruit from my recruit class
the next day and he asked me about and i started
tearing up and this is probably about 2009 and
he said like what's wrong with you nothing was
wrong with me I was a human having a normal emotional
reaction to an incredibly tragic event. But I
didn't understand it. He didn't understand it
either. So no judgment on him either. But how
do we teach that so that we can make it normal
for our fire recruits, police recruits? And honestly,
can we start teaching in high school? Can we
start teaching kids? Like, you know who needs
us the most? Men. right how many men you know
that have unhealthy relationships with emotion
like no one can ever see me cry no one can ever
know i cry i don't have emotion and it's like
you know the number of times i've talked to suicidal
men as a police officer and they're shaming themselves
so much because they feel emotion for sadness
and hardship they've gone through when that's
just part of being human and i think when we
disconnect from some of those things we also
disconnect from the good. Like, so, and it's
like part of my story, but like my dad, I used
to say to him, like, it was hard for me when
I was 20, I first told my parents, I love them.
That was hard for me. I was afraid to do that.
That's, that sounds weird to say now, but that
was my reality. I was so scared to tell him I
love them. And for 10 years, if I said to my
dad, dad, I love you. He'd say, I know. And then
I'd say, Hey dad, when someone says, I love you
too, or I love you, you're supposed to say, I
love you too. And he'd go. OK, because that's
how hard that was for him as a 60 year old man.
Never told his kids you love them. Couldn't couldn't
even say I love you, too. That's not healthy.
That's not good. And to kind of bring back into
some of my story, as I went through my own hard
time, I was off work on stress leave. I failed
a psych exam like I got really impacted. And
my dad phoned me one day to tell me he loved
me. And that's the good that came out of the
bad. And what I often say is we kind of need
to integrate the experiences we go through. Because
I've seen a lot of death and sadness and bad
things in the world. And what I do to make it
make sense in my world is I go call my dad and
tell him I love him every day. Or whatever, not
quite every day, but fairly often, both my parents.
Because one day I won't get to. And that has
brought more good into my life, the good that's
come from the bad. And like today, I tell my
kids how much I love them. I tell him every day.
My son even said that to me. Why do you tell
me you love me so much? Because I do. It's also
that I grew up in a house where I had a dad who
couldn't tell me he loved me. So maybe I'm overcompensating,
but that's to me a little bit of how you, we're
going to, if you're going to be a first responder,
frontline, long -term, you're going to see some
hard things and you got to find a way, not just
to repress it, compartmentalize it and carry
that pain around, but to integrate it into who
you are and find ways to learn from it, grow
from it. and not just suffer from it. We talked
about obviously the kind of pseudo adoption of
your brother and kind of jumped into the kindness
and compassion. When you reflect on your early
years, knowing that our childhood experiences
can absolutely contribute to the fracture of
our foundation if left unaddressed, if they were
negative, what, if any, were the downside, some
of the struggles of your early life? if you go
back another generation um you know have you
been able to see a relationship between the way
your parents were raised yeah so i actually think
i had a really positive childhood um and everyone
has their own challenges that they go through
i had loving supporting parents my mom was a
stay -at -home mom until i was like basically
i think finished or finishing elementary school
my dad worked a ton So he wasn't always there,
but he did his best. He coached me a bit. He
did come to some things. My dad loved me. He
just couldn't tell me he loved me. And I was
in a home where I felt loved. It just wasn't
something that was talked about. And I think
that has impacted some of those other members
of my family. Some of my siblings struggled with
some of those kinds of things, being able to
say it and whatnot. And when I look back to some
of their upbringings, well, they had even more
siblings. right my dad had a whole whack of siblings
i think he had six siblings and then his dad
had like 13 siblings so how much room do you
have and how hard was life back then how different
was life like i often asked my dad about what
life was like he had one bath a week you know
you got shipped out to like boarding school away
from your family right like it you know you see
your grandparents twice ever in your entire life
Instead of this world where we have FaceTime
every day and airplanes taking us. It was an
absolutely different reality. I would also say
the mental models around what a man was. A man
didn't show. And I've seen it. I have a lot of
nieces and nephews. And I've seen it where someone's
yelling at them. They're six or four or whatever.
And like, what's wrong with you? Boys don't cry.
Stop crying. That's the kind of stuff that programs
us for later in life. When I'm talking to that.
often suicidal male as a frontline police officer.
And they're saying, I don't know what's wrong
with me. I don't know why I'm crying. And I'm
like, because you're human, because you're in
pain. Just because you can't see it like your
broken arm doesn't mean it's not the exact same
pain. And just that shaming yourself only makes
it worse. Absolutely. Yeah, I didn't know where
that came from. Like, it'd be really interesting
to go back in time to be like, where did boys
don't cry come from? Because the first thing
we do when we're born is cry. You know what I
mean? That's a good point. And then you get all
these manly men that are playing, you know, the
win the Stanley Cup or the World Cup or the NFL.
And they're in tears and they're hugging each
other. All the ones that lost are in tears. We're
not saying, oh, suck it up. Stop being a bitch.
You know, lineman 12. You know, we're OK with
that. So there's such a it's a complete facade.
Yeah, of course, you graze your knee and you
cry every time. You might have to work on your
pain tolerance a little bit. And then every time
you smell a flower and you burst into tears,
maybe there's some underlying stuff that needs
to be worked on because you seem extremely...
um sensitive and maybe you need to lay off the
testosterone because your restaurants go estrogen's
gone through the roof but uh you know overall
yeah i mean to shame someone to just be tapping
into a human emotion is ridiculous and you talked
about that kind of robocop thing i've said this
about identity in the fire service you know we
were we were raising similar um generations than
it was i mean literally robocop rambo you know
stallone i mean uh schwarzenegger you know these
stone -faced bodybuilder actors were supposedly
what men were and that's bullshit they were bodybuilders
you know that that red lines off a page not saying
they're bad people but they didn't represent
a real human being in those movies and so then
you go into uniform and then you know you see
some of these salty guys in your profession like
oh that's what i'm supposed to be don't cry stone
-faced you know this fake stoicism but then you
come out the other end and instead of the yin
yang now you're you're a white circle And like
I said, the reason why most of us went into this
profession is because we actually care about
people. And then you get in and then you have
this compassion fatigue and it's kind of ground
out of you to actually show caring. And then
you come out the other end, you wonder why these
retirees are so lost because they've been led
to believe that a real man is, oh, I'm a cop,
I'm a firefighter. No, you're not. You're Steve
or Jennifer who became a cop, became a firefighter.
But you were a yin and a yang. And that soft,
kind, compassionate part of you that put you
into uniform, you can't let go of that. And as
you come out the other end, you've got to understand
that you're still that same kind, considerate
person. And I think that's where there's that
real confusion in the mental health space is
because now that loss of identity, once people
retire or transition out. you know that white
circle is is a complete delusion you're not but
you you didn't allow yourself to feel the very
emotions that we're talking about boys do cry
yeah and when we try to be someone who doesn't
it almost is a bigger weight we add on to ourselves
so if you're undergoing that pain say you lose
a loved one or whatnot and then you add on that
layer of shame of what's wrong with me how can
i be so weak you know that's the kind of stuff
or even just more like explicit versions of that
back to the whole like you know where the boys
don't cry comes from and that mindset i think
it's often insecurity like i think there's an
element of like what we think we're supposed
to be and it's just out of alignment with our
biology with how we've evolved and it's it's
not good for us but so often it's i think it
takes actual confidence to just be yourself and
i don't care yeah i cry about some things and
stuff impacts me and that's fine that's i'm a
man and i have zero if anyone doesn't like it
I don't care. That's their problem, not mine,
right? And it took me years, literally years
of repeating to myself, I don't have anything
to be ashamed of. I haven't done anything wrong
before I finally believed it. And part of why
I wrote my book was my hope was to spread that
out to other people. Like I spent years trying
to teach it to myself. And is there a way to
then shorten that learning curve and pass it
on to others? The other thing that you mentioned,
talked a bit about retirement. And I think what
happens, just my own take a little bit with retirement.
we lose some of the identity, as you were saying.
We also lose some of the connection because it
used to be this big thing. I'm Mark, I'm a cop.
There's a book called Emotional Survival for
Law Enforcement by Dr. Kevin Gilmartin. It's
a fantastic book, but he basically says how the
police identity takes over our life. So when
I got hired, I was Mark and I was a hockey coach
and I'm all these things. I'm a husband, I'm
a father and whatnot. And then those get pushed
out. and it might my police identity just starts
to take over and i would suspect there's comparable
with things like fire and military and other
professions so when we leave we lose that sense
of identity we have to re -find it we have to
find a new identity and we lose some of that
connection belonging meaning but we're often
still left with some of the downside we're still
left sometimes with some of the trauma right
you're still having nightmares or having those
the impacts of traumatic events, but you lose
some of that protective buffer, which can even
be another risk factor to take on. Absolutely.
Well, you mentioned about the crime in Delta.
You ended up becoming a Delta police officer.
So walk me through your journey through the door
of law enforcement and how you started seeing
the other side of your community. Yeah. Okay.
Interesting. I mean, I didn't really grow up
around drugs or drug addicts or any of that.
And like I was in training, I was a couple months
on the job and I ran into somebody, I ran into
multiple people that I knew growing up. People
that were like a roommate at a hockey road trip
and now they're drug addicted and in crime every
day. And now it's my job to chase them around,
arrest them, try and convince them to stop and
ultimately often chase them out of town. That's
what we do. We just dislocate crime. Okay, I'm
going to bother you enough until you leave and
you move somewhere else. And we try to find a
way to drop you off at your mom's house instead
of your dad's so that you're not in our town,
right? Yeah, so it was a real eye -opener to
just get exposed to the drug world, the drug
culture, to just see the town differently. You
know, I've had files where you're... you're writing
a warrant, you're kicking in the biggest crime
house in town, you know, where often the drugs
and property crime is so interconnected. And
actually the way I usually got in was frauds,
right? They'd pass fraudulent currency or things
like that, set up identity fraud, cell phones,
and most of them aren't very smart about it,
but we don't really even investigate most of
it. We don't have the resources. We have to prioritize.
We prioritize violent crime, sexual assaults,
all that stuff, murders. And some of the frauds
often, oh, it's not violent. We just make it
go away so uh that was kind of my road why i
started investigating a lot of frauds and then
it got me some awesome files like you know actually
you'd go shut down the biggest crime house in
town you'd find drugs you'd find stolen property
you'd find guns prostitution like all that stuff
would be coming out of that same central hub
so if you can shut that down you can try and
help your community become safer so seeing that
um I would say the other one was impaired driving,
drunk driving. I've obviously, sadly, I'm sure
you've seen some too, but saw the impacts. We
actually changed the laws here in British Columbia,
where I was living, in Vancouver area. There
was a young girl who died, was struck by a drunk
driver. It was my old patrol watch that had taken
that call. It was shortly before I joined the
watch, but they passed a law to change the drunk
driving laws to make it a lot easier for the
police. and that made the community a lot safer
so those would be a few of the ways i saw it
um yeah and then you get out to community events
too there's good too right it's not all bad so
i'd get out and try and go to some of the community
events and it's actually really nice when you
can have positive interactions because like even
for me joining policing i actually i signed up
want to be a school liaison officer I actually
almost became a teacher because I really like
working with kids. I like coaching hockey. So
it was good to get to go into schools. And I've
been a part of a lot of student police academies
or youth academies where you spend a week instructing
kids from 6 in the morning until 10 at night.
And some of them I maintain relationships with
even years later. You still go for lunch or they're
in their mid -20s now. in a way you're almost
like a little bit of a mentor like you stay in
touch and kind of check in with them as they
go along uh so that again really cool to see
some of the positive sides of policing too What
is the philosophy in the departments you've worked
for as far as the kind of person that is an SRO
that is in the school? Because I've had some
really interesting conversations with people.
I just had Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman on
again. So we revisited that subject. He's got
a great book, Assassination Generation. But,
you know, more often than not, you see it as
an overtime position or, you know, a kind of
retirement position. But then when you think
about the zero to 100 element of someone walking
in with an assault rifle, for example, you know,
it's the reverse. I would argue you need a very,
very competent police officer to be responding
to that particular event. You've got the proactive
side as well. So that person can't be Robocop.
They've got to be able to be that mentor too.
God forbid, you know, hoping that there isn't
any violence in that school. So what was the
kind of person that they were looking to put
in the schools in your department? Pretty varied.
It really depended, you know. It is a crucial
position. First off, you mentioned Dave Grossman.
For anyone listening, go check out that episode
once you're done because his wisdom is just awesome.
He's got tons of good stuff to share. But really,
it should be some of our best people. I think
at times, a lot of people seek the action in
policing. So like when I got hired, I went to
a chief's interview and they said, what do you
want to do in your career? And I said, I want
to be a school liaison officer. And the entire
management board just burst out laughing because
nobody comes in and says that. People come in
and say, I want to do canine, I want to do ERT,
I want to do homicide, I want to do IDENT. Who's
coming in saying, I want to teach kids in schools?
Like most of those people went off to be teachers.
But maybe that means that's the kind of stuff
we need to look for. We need to look for people
that want to have that impact in their community
and not just in that reactive way. You mentioned
that, you know, I kind of agree with you. There's
two sides. One is like the safety side. You need
someone who's tactical enough to be ready to
respond. It basically, I say there's no disrespect.
It can't be a dumping ground. It can't be we
have this person who's a problem. Let's send
them over to schools. It doesn't matter. That's
the wrong way to look at it. It needs to be,
you know, a high accountability, the kind of
position where you make it sought after. You
find ways to make it a place that people want
to go that maybe in whatever systemic changes
you make to do that, maybe it's part of the promotional
system. Maybe you need experience there to get
promoted to the next level or whatever things
you can do within the culture to make it positive.
But yeah, I've seen personally my anecdotal experience.
I mean, we've had lots of positions for that.
I've seen what I would describe as some very
high performers. Like one of my mentors was someone
who spent a significant amount of time in schools
and was awesome. Awesome. But I think at times
it's also been the place where this person isn't
really doing well. I don't really want them on
patrol. So we're going to go put them somewhere
that seems a little easier or whatnot. And I
think that's the wrong way to go about it. Absolutely.
Yeah. My son had a bad experience with a horrendous
SRO in middle school. And between her and the
principal, it was a nightmare. And we uncovered
that basically, long story short, they were sending
kids off for a 5150, a Baker Act, a psychological
hold. So they would send them to a psych facility.
you know, take your shoelaces 72 hours in a cell
because these kids were having emotional issues,
not threatening suicide, not threatening to shoot
up the school. And it was horrendous. And now
the law has changed. And I've said this many
times, if those two idiots did the same thing
now, they would be behind bars. And yet I believe
she's still working in schools, which is just,
you know, ridiculous. But when I went to her...
The sheriff's department blamed the school system
and the school system blamed the sheriff's department.
So obviously there's just a cancer of cowardice
in the leadership there. But imagine now that
same turd, someone walks in with a gun. I just
know the kind of person that she is, that there
would be a lot of dead kids because that wasn't
the right person at all. So it terrifies me.
Because I've had, in my son's elementary, we
had a near miss. They had a code red. And thank
God it was a threat, but it never went through.
I think it was a boyfriend of one of the parents
who said he was going to come to the school and
shoot it up. And I was in the school. I happened
to be dropping my son off after a medical appointment.
And so I got to see how vulnerable they were.
So to me, having not only the first responders
lens as far as being trained from the outside
in, but being a parent on the inside, absolutely
you need to have a hard charger in there. Now,
like you said, it could be someone right off
the bat. It could be someone that spent 15 years
in the worst areas in town and now they've got
that experience, but they're looking to be in
a little different environment. But to put the
problem cop. You know, the obese cop, the elderly
cop that can barely do anything anymore in a
school where you're protecting, you know, the
ratio is one to, you know, whatever, a thousand
children. You know, we've seen the results. You
know, we've seen whether it's poor leadership
in Ovaldi, whether it's cowardice in Parkland.
You know, the wrong person results in numerous
deaths and that is unacceptable. Yeah, I'm sorry
to hear you had such a bad experience. James,
the other thing I would, I would add some more
kind of layers to it. Number one is, is training,
right? We have like active shooter training.
And in my opinion, I think sometimes it's, it's
a little more fixated on like move this way,
move that way. And I think instead back to lethal
force psychology. Like, okay, how much time do
you have in training? So let's say up here, you
got 26 weeks before a police officer leaves the
academy, hits the road. In other places, it's
40 or whatnot. It's different. So much of your
time is spent on marksmanship, on shooting, pulling
a trigger in a range at a piece of paper. And
a very, very, very tiny portion is anything around
lethal force psychology and actually preparing
for your human. And when this happens, you're
going to have your, oh my God moment. You're
going to be scared for your life. And now you've
got to take a breath and then you've got to keep
going. And I think we've got to actually teach
a little bit more about some of that kind of
stuff. And I say it because, I mean, I've done
10 years in an ERT program or SWAT program. So
I've had some calls that have been a little like,
oh, wow, that was kind of close. Like, you know,
a few times when you're like, today, this is
real. Excuse me. And I think we need to do a
much better job of training cops for that tactical
aspect. I think, you know, if you can watch YouTube
videos, you can find all kinds of examples of
horrendously handled calls, horrendous tactics.
And I think it's because we're not yet doing
a good enough job preparing ourselves within
the culture. So that's one side is the tactical
side. The other side is almost like that education
understanding piece. Because, you know, I can
tell from speaking with you, from reading your
stuff, like how much you know about trauma and
suicide and all these kind of topics. you have
a very advanced understanding that your average
person does not. And your average police officer
does not, right? I mean, I see it from talking
to people. I've even had doctors where you talk
to them and they don't know that much about it.
I've been shocked at how little at times some
people know, even those in, you know, professions
and in those that are adjacent to this kind of
topic, including law enforcement. What do cops
really get taught about suicide? I would argue
almost nothing. We literally just get taught,
yeah, suicidal person, take them to the thing.
And then if you don't, you're at risk. Then if
they go and die, then you're going to get fired
and sued and whatnot. And I'll say, I've been
on that other side of it. I've talked to someone
who had made some sort of suicidal comments.
And then they say, no, I'm not suicidal. I said
it, yes, but I didn't mean it. I was just trying
to get something from my parents or whatever.
Well, that person actually did go jump off a
bridge after. And I remember coming back into
work going, oh my God, am I getting fired? Am
I getting sued? Am I getting charged? No, we
made the best decision we could with a very challenging
situation. So I think that's where we need to
teach cops about those topics. And there is so
much good information, but it's like turning
the Titanic. It's such a slow evolution of police
culture and subcultures to actually educate them.
And I think there are... many of us who haven't
learned this and i've learned a lot of it because
i've gone and done the research on my own out
of my own interest my own mental health and i've
seen all my peers it's then helped me when i've
interacted with people who are suicidal or in
those kind of traumatized situations but just
from speaking to peers there's lots of officers
who don't know very much about it and they're
they're trying their best without really having
the sufficient knowledge and resources to do
it you know at a level that i think you and i
would want them to do it It's interesting hearing
you say that story because, I mean, that's so
tragic. But it reminds me of the way that a lot
of us in the paramedic side are told by medical
directors, we'll just take everyone to hospital
because of liability. And what ends up happening
is, you know, ERs are completely overwhelmed.
And a lot of people just... don't not you know
don't need to be there but you've got organizations
that are too scared not to take them because
of the what if now i'm not talking about chest
pain and stroke obviously those have to go to
a hospital you know partial decapitation but
you know the the tummy ache or whatever it is
if all the vitals have come through and you know
the the patient doesn't want to go whatever it
is there are a lot of people that go to hospital
some of them don't even really want to go they've
been talked into going and it's because of litigation
and so As professions, if you've done the right
thing as a paramedic, as a police officer, that
should be enough. But what you see is people
will take that one case. Oh, this person, the
paramedics left and then their head exploded
and that's why we have to take everyone. It's
like, no, it's not. Just like you can't save
everyone when it comes to addiction or suicide.
And I use this example with government support.
We always talk about that. that person who abused
food stamps or government housing or whatever
it is, when do you ever hear a story of all the
good that those programs do? Of the mother or
father or whatever that got back on their feet
and have now, you know, working and they've bought
themselves a home and, you know, you don't hear
those stories. And so... Of course, if the officer
leaves them on the side of the bridge and they
jump, that's a different story altogether. But
if the officer was diligent and they listened
to them and they said, look, I was just upset,
which is exactly what, you know, my son didn't
even make any comments like that, but he was
just upset. The protocols that should have been
followed is they should have called the mental
health place, come, they would have evaluated.
De -escalation was the absolute priority in this
whole process. Because you're talking about elementary
school kids. But they also kept the parents away.
They did not contact me through this whole thing.
I only found out because I was calling the school.
So my child was basically kidnapped. But you're
doing that because after Parkland, there was
this kind of knee jerk. And literally, when my
son was in this facility, numerous other elementary
school kids from this one school kept cycling
through. So that means that there was a revolving
door constantly. And when I pulled the police
records, I mean, like over 100 children in one
year had been had been Baker Act. Now, I can
count on one hand how many people were Baker
Act in my 14 year career as a firefighter working
in the shittiest parts of town. And you're telling
me, you know, over 100 children from that elementary
school were deemed an absolute threat to themselves
or someone else. So it goes back again to what
we were talking about. You can't take one example
and then blanket a policy because of a one what
if, because sometimes things happen, even though
everyone did everything right. And we've got
to have the courage to say and stand by your
men and women and say, look, they followed everything
that we taught them to do. And the rules and
regs were in place that were, you know, they
were good protocols. Sometimes things happen
that are, you know, so far out of left field
that you cannot be ready for it. And you can't
then make everyone terrified, paralysis by analysis,
to make a good decision because of this anomaly
what -if situation. Yeah, I think even when we
look at it from a risk perspective, when we are
attempting risk avoidance to just fully do everything
we can so there's no risk, often that comes with
its own problems. And to me, I think what you're
describing, what little bit I know from this.
that discussion, that sounds to me likely the
kind of situation. And I see it a bit in like
our emergency response work, where we go, there's
risk, there's risk, whether you use some of these
tactics, whether you take action, and there's
risk of inaction, there's risk of doing nothing.
So what we're meant to be doing is like, doing
everything we can to mitigate risk, to give ourselves
the best odds for a positive outcome. But we
may not have full control. And the answer may
not be, you know, it's almost like, you know,
Jocko Willink and the dichotomy of leadership.
When you go too far to one end, you're usually
going to have a problem. And I think that's a
little bit of what you've described. And the
other big one is just is to me is partly training,
knowledge and education. Like we throw cops into
these situations. They're supposed to be the
expert at everything. Expert tactically, expert,
you know, on de -escalation, expert on communication
and all these things. And I don't think we're
yet investing the resources that they are. And
I wish they were. I wish we had more resources
and better training. Like, awesome. We need it.
Let's do it. But I think so often, you know,
just due to costs and budgets and whatnot, we
really don't yet have that. And I would love
to see us do more. I think what I saw in this
particular situation was a lack of humility because
there was this resource that all he had to do
was pick up the phone. It was the end of the
school day. And I saw two jobs worth just wanting
to go home ultimately is what came out of this.
But having the humility to say, and this obviously
comes from leadership, like, hey, you are not
psychological evaluators, teacher and cop. So
use these resources, you know, be there, obviously
mitigate anything that's within your scope of
practice. If it's outside that, then, you know,
ask for help. Go to the people that we are provided
with these protocols and ask the real experts
to come and evaluate or, you know, interact or
counsel or whatever needs to happen. But I think
that's where that arrogance comes. If you're
from an arrogant agency, which I see locally
here, then that's going to then be pervasive
all the way down. And you're not going to get
people to be humble enough to say, look, I don't
know what to do in this. This is outside my capabilities.
Let me be humble enough to say we need to use
the resource that we've been told about. But
if you have that arrogance, then you're like,
you know, we'll just send them to this place.
And then you're ultimately doing so much damage
because I can tell you in this school particularly,
I'm sorry, it was a middle school. I've been
saying elementary school. This is middle school.
I apologize. Do you think any of those kids were
reaching out when they were struggling after
hearing what happened when you reach out? Not
a fucking single one. So you have now destroyed
any mental health cause for help now. Because
just like we talk about in law enforcement, someone
says they need help and now they take their badge
and their gun. Same thing with these children.
You just destroyed all trust. And who knows now
the ripple effect of all those incarcerations,
wrongful incarcerations, as these children progress
into adulthood. Because I know my son was traumatized.
Because like I said, there's no other way to
describe it. He was kidnapped. You know, he was
already seeing counseling. He was going through
some stuff emotionally. We were divorced. There
was a tension in his mother's household. So,
yeah, he was upset, but he wasn't threatening
himself, wasn't threatening anyone else. He was
just upset. And now, you know, I mean, even to
this day, you know, trying to get him to even
consider going to counselor now is hard because
they completely destroyed that. So, like you
said, you know, the damage of. doing the wrong
thing more often than not far outweighs having
the courage to do the right thing yeah well let
me maybe add a little more context for you james
um i would say looking back in my career the
number of people i've dealt with that were in
emotional distress suicidal you know all that
kind of thing is extremely high like way beyond
what i can count it well into the hundreds and
i will say some of those i could have done better
some of those i made mistakes Early in my career,
when I think back to how I handled something
at a one or two -year cop, and I actually have
one in particular I can think of where I had
to use some force to apprehend someone. So that's
what we call it up here, mental health apprehension,
person suicidal, that kind of thing. And in my
mind at the time, I was concerned they would
kill themselves if I did not use force at that
point. And they were basically trying to lock
me out of the door when I was trying to get them
because the information I had was they were suicidal.
I think knowing what I know now, I would have
been slower. I would have been softer. I don't
think I did anything illegal nor wrong. I didn't
think I breached policy. But with a greater understanding
of the holistic aspect of it, I think I made
a mistake. I think I could have done that a lot
better. And I share that because you're probably
not the only person who's had a bad experience
with someone from law enforcement. We need to
be honest and take a look at the big picture
of what we can do better. And the answer isn't
always we did it perfect. And I think that does
come back to training and to education where
those of us who've been there and done that and
who've had more experience now help teach the
newer people better ways of doing it. And I think
we have evolved more de -escalation. There's
improvement, but there is probably still a long
way to go on what we can continue to improve.
So I share that just to try and take ownership
of some of the mistakes I've made in my career
and to apologize to you. Like, I'm sorry, that
sounds very hard. I have two sons. It would be
very hard for me to experience something like
that as well. I mean, my sons are much younger
right now, but I can, you know, I'm sorry to
hear you went through that. I just wanted to
share that little, like take ownership of what
things I could improve in my own experiences.
and apologize to you for what you went through.
Yeah, well, no apologies needed. But I think
by talking about this, it's not blame as much
as just, all right, let's grow. Let's learn from
these mistakes because they were mistakes. And
like I said, this law has changed now. And I
don't know what's happening in the agency anymore.
Thank God my son just graduated from the school
system. And again. Outside of that great school
system, he's had an amazing group of teachers
that have led him through. But those particular
people, those bad apples can ruin so much. But
if it's learned from, if it's changed, if there's
evolution, then it's worth talking about. It's
like COVID. You can't just sweep it under the
carpet like, oh, let's not talk about all the
pre -existing conditions that are still killing
people. No, you have to reflect back on COVID
and go, what did we do right and what did we
do wrong? So that when the next virus comes,
we've got a more resilient population. I want
to go back to your career path, though, because
obviously 2016, 2017 was, I'm sorry, 2015 was,
you know, a kind of the beginning of a struggle
for you. So walk me through any, you know, what
we call career calls that you had prior to that,
anything that started kind of. questioning your
your morality a little bit and then what was
that downward spiral for you specifically yeah
sure i think mine was more ongoing continuation
of chronic aspects as opposed to a singular you
know some people have a massive trauma that just
they go from zero to 100 kind of thing uh mine
started within a couple months it's the one i
referred to of a the first fatal next of kin
notification i did and i think it was partly
that i went to the scene and i did the next of
kin so you have the on -scene trauma for several
hours you know quite graphic scene and i won't
share the details just due to vicarious trauma
and whatnot but then it's you know going to the
house and then seeing the emotional pain of the
family you know and i'll share that little piece
but after telling them their daughter had died
The mother falls to her knees, just crashes to
her knees and starts praying for the other driver
to survive. And doesn't even know if the other
driver is at fault, drunk, anything. You just
found out you just lost your daughter and you're
just praying to God that other person lives.
It really crushed me. I carried a lot of pain
from that for like 10 years. And it wasn't time
that healed it. It was eventually starting to
work on it. So I had a lot of those kind of things,
the adding up, you know, even. Working in a community
I grew up in, I would go to, for example, a suicide
of someone I knew, grew up with, and I would
keep the call. And they were found by their daughter.
And again, very unfair, very tragic situation.
And with what I know now, I wouldn't keep the
call. I would have said, hey, someone who doesn't
know this person should take this. I didn't do
that. That was my mistake. But I didn't know
what I didn't know. And then I had... Two people,
well, at that time, two people tried to make
me kill them. Two suicide by cop attempts. I
didn't actually shoot either of them, but those
both really rocked my world. So if I had to pick
a couple of my big rocks in my backpack, those
ones really hit me hard. And I just suffered
from all these nightmares. That was my big thing.
And then I suffered from what I would probably
describe as alcoholism, trying to cope with the
nightmares. And then every night I relived needing
to shoot and kill people. And I so badly didn't
want to. And what I learned from a book like
The Body Keeps the Score, I wasn't remembering.
I was reliving because your body is going through
the same, you know, getting into brain science
of you're actually, you know, re -experiencing
those same feelings as though it's some of the
worst moments of your life over and over again
every night, which then led to the drinking to
try and kind of cope with it. And then I also
would say I had some kind of moral injuries.
Like, I felt like I was kind of being screwed,
lied to, deceived, let down by those that are
supposed to support you. I didn't know what a
moral injury was. I just knew I had a lot of
anger about it, right? Of the, what do you mean
you're lying to me? You're lying to me about
the lies. Like, you know, and then six months
later, you're lying saying I never said that.
And what I learned, you really should get things
in writing so that people can't do that. And
I also learned how that's such a leadership failure.
when we're afraid of conflict and we can't just
say the truth even if this person doesn't like
it we lie to them well eventually they're probably
going to find out and it's going to get even
harder and that's a little bit of where i got
to and i still kept trying to work and everyone
around me is telling me they're worried about
me and people come and ask me if i'm suicidal
and uh but i so badly with just the stigma i
was worried that people would never trust me
Uh, I was told basically I would have a PCSD.
If anyone ever knew that you'd never be deployed
again, you couldn't work frontline, you couldn't
work or work. Uh, so tried to hide as best I
could. And then eventually just ask for help.
That was really hard. I went to our chief and
I told him, I went to, um, the head of our, our,
uh, emergency response team and same thing and
fortunately i had two fantastic leaders and not
just those two i had other ones in my chain of
command great leaders who did a great job of
helping me and a team that really supported me
and that was a part of what helped me as i healed
before we go into your kind of healing journey
it's really interesting unpacking the psychology
of death by cop one person told me that if someone
is a devout Christian, for example, and suicide
is perceived as a sin. It's almost viewed as
a biblical loophole if you get a cop to shoot
you instead. You've obviously taken a deep dive
into this world. What are some of the other contributing
factors of these people choosing a cop to do
it rather than other means? We have such a powerful
resistance to causing our own death. For anyone
who wants to know more about suicide, there's
a guy named Dr. Thomas Joyner. I write a little
bit about his insights in my chapter on suicide.
He's got two books I'd highly recommend, Myths
About Suicide and Why People Die From Suicide.
Now, he's one of the top researchers I can find.
He lost his father to a suicide, which is where
his passion comes from. So what he describes
is basically, you're going to have two categories.
People are not necessarily in the same category,
but they might be in both. One is your desire
for death. So that basically can come from massive
emotional pain, psychological pain. I've seen
you post things about feeling like a burden to
others. So that's one of his big underlying factors,
perceived burdensomeness. His other one is like
thwarted belonging, which would be kind of like
isolation. Often things like the breakup, relationship
breakdown, right? That'd be one of the primary
or a top risk factor. So you have that desire
for death, perceived desire for death, which
what you don't actually know is your brain's
tricking you into thinking it wants to die. And
I would describe this just my own mark hat on.
I have a chapter on like the subconscious mind,
intuition essentially. But when we're overwhelmed
with pain, I think our subconscious is looking
for an out to that pain. And that starts to kind
of become seductive. where you have a constriction
of thought. So you start thinking, okay, remove
the suffering, remove the situation I can't change.
And often when you can't, then this becomes this
greater and greater perception of our only answer.
But what we have is such an overwhelming resistance
to killing ourselves that's ingrained in us.
So even if you have all this pain and you feel
this desire to die, you often are not able to
enact lethal self -injury. And that's where people
will do things in an attempt to have someone
else cause their death. So I actually use the
analogy in my book of a car crash. I've seen
it where people die from a car crash by driving
into oncoming traffic, stepping in front of traffic,
things like that. And one day, it was only a
couple of years ago, I interviewed a truck driver,
commercial truck driver, and he had survived
one of those fatal head -on crashes. Someone
had died in a suicide, left a suicide note and
tried driving into oncoming traffic. Spoke to
the driver in the vehicle ahead of the truck.
They actually managed to dodge that assailant
who was coming in their lane. And obviously a
giant semi truck was not able to get out of the
way. Thankfully that driver survived. But just
from speaking to them, like obviously was deeply
traumatized from the experience. Like, you know,
massive fire everywhere. It was an absolutely
crazy scene. And I think that's a comparable.
for suicide by cop. You have someone who feels
all this pain, who's intending to die, but as
they think about it and become seductive to them
in a way, they're not able to do it. They're
not able to overcome that powerful resistance.
And then they seek other ways of doing it where
I can provoke someone. So in my first suicide
by cop attempt, someone pointed an imitation
firearm at me. And they provoked a police response.
They purposely had us come. He waited for 30
minutes laying in a bed. Just sitting there with
a gun next to him. Just not answering, not moving,
nothing. And then sat up and pointed the gun
directly at me. And I got out of the way. My
brain screamed, shoot or move. And I moved. I
wasn't ready for this. Back to this whole lethal
force psychology. And I couldn't believe I didn't
hear gunshots. We had eight cops all around this
guy. No one shot him. And someone, my cover,
less lethal taser operator, went on the radio
and said, he just pointed a gun at us. And then
I went, this guy's pointing a gun at the police.
I have to shoot him. So I came back up with my
gun and he now dropped it. Like we're talking
within a few seconds. I couldn't understand what's
going on here. And I can now explain it so much
better because what will often happen is your
self -preservation instinct will kick in right
after you try and die. And I cite Kevin Hines.
He jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge trying to
die. And he's now a big suicide prevention advocate.
I'm guessing you know who he is. I could see
you kind of nodding there. And he talks about
wanting to die, wanting to die. His hands are
on the railing. And as soon as he lets go of
the railing, all he wants to do is live. And
I think that's a similar experience to what many
people would experience with thoughts of suicide.
They think they want to die. And then as soon
as they start to enact that death or start to
overcome that resistance, then they realize there's
another girl I cite in my book named Emma Benoit.
And she shot herself. And after thinking she
wants to die, she shoots herself and right away,
oh my God, what have I done? What have I done?
She doesn't want to die. And so it's actually
the same for my follow -up suicide by cop attempts.
The second one, the guy actually had a gun in
his waistband. Again, an imitation gun. Came
out, prompts a police response, comes in as more
of like a hostage call, but eventually comes
out and it's just me there. Kind of a long story.
I won't get into too much details, but lifts
up his shirt. I can see the gun. He's reaching
for it. I take my gun off safe and he takes the
gun and throws it on the ground. And I, same
thing. He didn't point at me that time, but I
couldn't wrap my head around. You're trying to
die, but then you have this overwhelming urge
to live after, right? So that's where I've read
some of these things have helped me so much to
understand it. You have a lot of deep knowledge
from speaking to a lot of people on this topic.
What do you think, James? Well, it's funny because
I quote Kevin and Emma all the time. They've
both been on the show separately. And that is
exactly their responses that you've worded because
I think they've only had... Those two, and then
I think there may be someone else I'm forgetting
that actually went through with their suicide
attempt and survived. So your eyewitness account
is obviously a few and far between. But that
really underlines what I talk about all the time.
And this is a statement of compassion and empathy,
not judgment. The people that are in crisis,
their brain is miswired. Through this perfect
storm. And you hit some of them. Everything from
unaddressed childhood trauma. To the trauma that
we see in our professions. To relationship issues.
Financial issues. The sleep deprivation from
a shift. Sleep deprivation from alcohol. All
these things. The perfect, perfect storm. The
brain's reality becomes distorted. And A, of
course, the most obvious one is people that are
suffering. They want the pain to end. But the
one that I hear over and over again is. If I
just remove myself, I will take away the pain
from my family, which makes no sense to a healthy
brain. And so what is so sad is when you hear
Kevin or Emma talking about the moment after,
that's when that self -preservation element finally
comes through again. And I'm speaking to Elizabeth
Pohl, who's a police officer that started doing
forensics or autopsies, informational autopsies
on police suicides. Every single suicide that
she had, alcohol had been consumed within 12
hours. So you've got this distorted brain. Then
you take this drug that we know distorts reality,
because as I say, tongue in cheek, many of us
listening have probably been with someone of
the same or opposite sex, whatever you're into.
on alcohol and then had that kind of next morning
moment where you're like, ah, so your judgment
was distorted. So it's so powerful to hear what
you've said, what Kevin talks about, what Emma
talks about, because it underlines that people
do want to live. But that devil in their voice
has been given so much power by that miswiring
and then amplified by alcohol in many, many cases
that it wins. And how many people right when
that hammer fell or they left the bridge or they
stepped out in front of that car, immediately
shot back to, I don't want to do this. And so
to hear this in your two stories, traumatic as
it was, but what a beautiful story on both events.
Even though it left you with moral injury, there's
two people that were given a second chance that
if you'd made a different decision, wouldn't
have been. Yeah, well, there's a third story
I share in my book, and it's Dakota Meyer, who's
like a Medal of Honor winner from the military.
And he tells a story of putting a gun to his
head and pulling the trigger. And now firearms
is such a lethal means of suicide. And I think
it's one of the issues around police suicide
is our access to firearms is one of the challenges
that we face. Dakota Meyer is still alive many
years later. All he would have had to do, he
had a loaded magazine. He just didn't have a
round in the chamber. And someone with lots of
firearms expertise and with what we know of firearms,
that is within a couple seconds you rack around
and if you want to die from suicide, you're dead.
Well, he didn't. Because I think that to me is
that it shows that what so often happens, people
don't know until that exact moment when they
think they've now caused their death and then
they realize it. And tragically, what I suspect
happens for all these people dying from suicide
is they experience that same thing. They attempt
to die from suicide, then they realize they don't
want to die. And sadly, so many of them do die,
which again, is part of where my passion comes
around this topic. Again, having lost a loved
one to suicide. One of the things I've seen Kevin
talk about, when he asked, I saw him be asked,
what would you tell someone? you know, what would
you say to someone? He talked about just breathe.
And he talked about long, slow exhales. And really
what I think he's trying to do is teach you to
regulate your physiology, teach you to help bring
yourself right back, right from that edge moment
to activate your prefrontal cortex, to slow down
your breathing, which will impact your physiology.
And again, I'm not saying the answer is that
of just like waiting to the crisis moment. I
really do hope it's earlier education. I'd also
like to come back to that Dr. Thomas Joyner.
and his model and i think it really connects
with your audience now i'm sure lots of audience
are first responder and fire because one of the
things he talks about is that desire for death
desire for suicide perceived desire for suicide
um but he's also talking about acquired ability
for lethal self -injury and he basically is explaining
why those of us with military first responder
fire police are at higher risk And it's because
we have learned how to push past. We've learned
how to push past danger, hardship, pain, fear
that, you know, he basically says we have this
courage to go do hard things, to risk ourselves
physically, to experience pain. And we have often
an exposure to death. And that's a part of essentially
it's like building up what becomes an acquired
ability for lethal self -injury. And I can say
there's a study of police officers. It was 4
.4 million decedents from Dr. John Violante.
And it found police officers had a 54 % higher
rate of suicide. I don't know the numbers specifically
for fire. I'm guessing you probably know lots
because you know so much about this topic, James.
But I think we need to start teaching these kind
of things at the academy level. And if I can
draw in one more person, which is John Violante,
I just referenced him. He's got a book called
Police Suicide Epidemic in Blue. One of the things
he says in there. is we need to start teaching
this at a recruit cadet level before you're impacted
by the culture before you show up to the firehouse
or the police station and you're impacted by
the cynicism and the stigma and some of the things
that are there in that culture we need to start
teaching people about these problems ahead of
time and then we also need to wrap it around
in a culture that is informed and proactive and
supportive about it because we actually can make
cultural changes to make it you know, more signs
that it's okay to get help, to process pain early,
to not just wait for the last minute crisis line.
And I'm not saying we shouldn't have something
for like the last minute type situations, but
just to invest so much more in the downstream,
like even to bring it all back to what we talked
about, like homelessness and drug addiction,
it's pay me now or pay me later. And unfortunately
for so long, we haven't invested in those things.
And we've seen this ongoing problem where we
go, I don't know why it keeps happening. Well,
until we start changing things within our culture,
within our training. You know, we need to. Let's
just leave it that way. What are your thoughts,
James? Well, it's interesting because first going
back to what you said about courage. This is,
again, I think why we see a higher, you know,
such a high level of suicide. And I know some
people say, oh, it's the same as the average
person. I disagree. I think that the problem
is you're looking at the wrong statistics. And
I've talked about this a lot recently. The official
statistics in our profession, woefully. under
-report how many of us actually are lost to overdose
and suicide. I did a slide on the presentation
I did the other day on the 24 -72 work week,
and supposedly we lost 74 firefighters in 2024.
Well, I can think of 74 people we lost in the
state of Florida. Now we're talking about that
who are wearing the uniform. That's not even
bringing in the massively under -reported group,
which is the retirees. I truly believe that we
absolutely have a much higher, and for the reasons
that you're talking about. Firstly, for your
profession, you have the means of suicide strapped
to your hip, which certainly doesn't help. But
as I've said, firstly, this is a group of people
that said, if needed, I will die trying to rescue
someone, a complete stranger in my community.
So now you go back to that distorted mind. I
said this many, many times on here, but I think
it needs to be said. When we were young, people
said suicide was cowardly and selfish. And how
could you think of your kids? Well, now take
that same person who's courageous, who's basically
prepared to die for strangers. And now you've
distorted their mind to where they truly believe
that their kids are scared of them, that they'd
be better off without them, that they're the
reason for their wife's pain or their husband's
pain or whoever it is. And if they just remove
themselves. everyone will be happier that's where
the courage comes in it's tragic because it's
distorted but if you think about it at that moment
my opinion is that at that moment they were terrified
and it was a courageous and selfless act through
a distorted mind now the reality of course is
it passes the pain on to everyone that's left
and you know now they have trauma too but when
we understand it and we stop casting this guilt
and shame that they were a coward they were selfish
and we actually listen to the experts and the
lived experience of survivors, you realize that
that is the case. And when you have a courageous
group of men and women that put on a uniform,
then, of course, you've got all the ingredients,
God forbid, if their mind starts lying to them
for their own self -harm as well. Yeah, I'm sure
you've heard so many examples. from your you
know you have so much anecdotal wisdom from just
speaking to people and then and then seeing those
patterns and i can find when i speak with you
about this i often recognize what you share from
that lines up with some of the things i've read
from different experts and academics and books
but i want to draw an example of what you're
saying like that element of perceived burdensomeness
and why someone thinks they're doing good even
though they're not it's a perceived burdensomeness
it's not true you're not truly a burden your
family's truly not better i totally want to acknowledge
that But I have someone I know, a coworker, and
he went on a podcast, heard him speak about it.
And he talked about his son saying to him, why
do you hate me? Now think about that for a minute.
So what you have is someone who loves their family,
who goes to work as a police officer to keep
people safe, and then is traumatized through
work. Injury, loss of identity, lots of things
went wrong in that person's world. And then what
happens? Now you go home and you're yelling at
your kids, and maybe you're drinking too much.
There's all the things that are now piling on
that now that little voice in your head saying,
see, they're better off without you. And I don't
think it's often a one -off thing. I think it's
this accumulation as you go further and further
down that road and you have no answer. And the
pain feels so unbearable and your brain is so
badly seeking an out. Because I think for those
of us that aren't there and that have never been
in any kind of suicidal ideation, it's hard to
wrap our heads around how someone could perceive
that. how someone could actually think what do
you mean you think your family's better off without
you right it's like it's because of moments like
that i talked to someone else who was a police
officer and they had a moment like that where
they're i can't remember what was said exactly
but a quote kind of like that from one of their
kids of like you know why does dad hate me and
they quit policing that was their answer it was
like i can't tolerate that my kid thinks that
so i'm gonna leave and i'm gonna go do something
else and that's certainly a much better option
than suicide like you know that's the We got
to normalize other decisions, but we also got
to create that cultural impact where what can
we do to make it safe to talk about? And what
do we do with someone who's experienced this?
And I'll say like, I have had suicidal ideation.
So I didn't even recognize that as suicidal thoughts.
But like for me, mine was like always envisioning
driving into oncoming traffic over a certain
period of my life when I went through my hardest
time. That was so common for me. And it was actually
later. It wasn't the part I write about in my
book. Certainly earlier on is when I was off
work on stress leave. I kept working throughout
this whole period. I had a young son. I was married,
you know, but I never told a soul. I wrote a
chapter about suicide, yet I experienced that
afterward. And I still never said a word, never
asked for help about it, never did anything.
So this idea that, well, if only people would
ask for help and access the resources that are
there, I think we're looking at the problem wrong
or incorrectly. And we need to instead look at
the culture. How do we make it safe to be human?
How do we build connection? How do we build in
healthy habits so that the earlier intervention
and less people reaching that point of severe
suicidal ideation? You just reminded me when
you're talking about oncoming traffic. The other
person I had who survived their own attempt was
Angela Lee, MMA fighter. I think she was one
champion, one FC champion. And then she ends
up losing her younger sister to suicide. And
Angela has become this huge voice now in the
mixed martial arts world when it comes to mental
health, especially in a women's mental health,
because it's a quieter voice. But, yeah, I mean,
I think going back to what you were saying as
far as being proactive, and you talk about this
in your book, I mean, all these different pillars
that are contributing to it. You know, the reason
why I harp on the work week, you know, the progressive
work week and full staffing in first responder
professions is the impact of sleep deprivation.
That is an actionable element that we know contributes
to all things mental ill health that we can address.
Another one, as you alluded to, at the front
door. education on all these elements, but also
understanding that if you put on a uniform, there's
a good chance that you had some challenges when
you were younger. And so if addressed, that becomes
resilience, that becomes a strength in uniform,
hands down. And I love the hope of post -traumatic
growth. rather than the doom and gloom of a ptsd
diagnosis you know we need to talk about you
know you wouldn't break your leg and just walk
around you know giving talks on how your femur
sticking out your leg you get your fucking leg
fixed you know it's no different so but understanding
at the front door that these young people were
driven to serve for a reason and be proud of
that be like look you are gonna have some shit
going on it is okay because that It's what made
you step up, toe the line when everyone else
is like, no, I'm good. I'll just go and do the
other thing in my community. So be proud of that,
but let's be aware of it and let's start working
through it. So I've been a big proponent of why
not do counseling from day one? You do PT, why
not have X amount of counseling sessions in your
rookie year and then the tune -ups there on in?
Because A, you've normalized that conversation
at the front door. You've created a strong relationship
with the mental health counselor. And either
A, someone had a Disney -like childhood and they
end up just having great conversation with the
counselor. Or more likely, someone's going to
start unpacking some things that needed to be
unpacked. And that's going to serve them well
and reinforce that foundation rather than further
damage it. Yeah, so I would describe, you know,
what you're saying is like a systemic level,
you know, improvement. And my old agency actually
was very progressive. And the previous chief,
the chief while I was there, his name is Neil
DeBoard. He actually wrote one of the recommendations
on the back of my book. But I really look up
to him as a leader and how he does things. So
what they did is they made it normal. So when
you're an applicant to Delta, they have a form
and they say, Kate. who's your dentist, who's
your doctor, and who's your psychologist. And
then they also say, okay, we'd like to know how
much we need to prepare for. Please tell us the
frequency of use of which you're going to use
these things we're going to be paying for. And
what they're trying to do is just normalize it.
You basically make it okay in our culture to
say, not only is it okay, it's expected. And
what I say, what you'd also want to do as your
leaders, from your senior leaders, is you tell
your frontline leaders. I am asking you to make
an appointment with a psychologist once a month.
And I'm asking you to say it at briefing that,
Kate, you know, what you're trying to do is make
it okay for all of your team to do it. I don't
care if you actually need help. I don't care
if you talk about the football game and the hockey
game or whatever you want to do. What I'm actually
asking you to do within the culture is give all
your people permission to do this. and i would
say from my own i did a master's degree in leadership
and i studied police culture and police officer
mental health and that was what i heard doing
my interviews is people talking about the stigma
they over half my participants said they wanted
to be ordered to go and see a psychologist on
a recurring basis and yet many of those same
people describe many years of symptoms of trauma
like i can't diagnose them but very extreme symptoms
of trauma and yet they've never done it once
so they're saying Order me to go. Cops don't
want to be told to do anything. And yet they're
literally saying, please order me to go. To translate
what they're really saying, make it safe for
me to go. Even though I can already go for free
and no one needs to know, I don't feel safe doing
it. I'm worried that I'm going to be perceived
as crazy and a problem and someone's going to
find out. And so what they're asking us to do
is to de -stigmatize it. And that's a big challenge.
How do you measure that? That's not a simple
thing to do. But back to what you can do, that
intake form, that what your expectations are
from your leaders, make it so they can do it
on duty. Can you go to physio on duty? Can you
go to the doctor on duty? Again, I don't know
about you guys for fire, but like as a police
officer, depending where you work, that might
be possible. Well, can you go to a psychologist
on duty? Could you do a Zoom call or whatever?
Like I would argue that you should be able to,
and that back to the staffing levels, if we normalize
those kinds of things. we'll have less people
off work and unable to work. And we will have
less of a long -term problem because we're back
to investing in those problems in the short term.
100%. Well, I want to go back to, you mentioned
obviously that you had your own PTSD diagnosis
at one point. When you reflect back now, where
were some of the darkest places that you got
to? And then talk to me about discovering your
own toolbox. What were the accumulation of elements
that you started using that work for you specifically?
Sure. So my biggest factors, one was the nightmares.
Like I didn't understand them and I knew they
were coming every night and they were just so
hard for me because I was re -experiencing the
same feelings of some of the worst times of my
life. A second one was rage. I remember one day
someone didn't put a turn signal on and I screamed
at them for like 30 seconds at the top of my
lungs to the point like my throat couldn't stop
hurting. And it wasn't about that turn signal,
but you don't see it in the moment. And then
ultimately had what I describe as panic attacks.
I still don't know if that's what they were.
I can tell you what happened. I went out to a
restaurant. It's like a busy Denny's on a Saturday
and crowded Vancouver restaurant. And we're just
having a regular conversation. I couldn't tell
you what about. And I just couldn't stop crying.
Like I couldn't even speak. I couldn't catch
my breath. I was trying to say things like what's
happening and what's wrong with me. And I can't
even say what. And eventually I have to just
run out of. the restaurant, I ran out to my car
and no idea what to do. I started working on
my breathing. It's like, you just, you're not
doing well. I had one of those again the following
day. And I'd been working on our emergency response
team that whole week before and that whole next
week. I wasn't really ready for the next crazy
call. Not at all. You know, but I was too, you
know, unwilling to ask for the help that I needed.
So sorry, that was the kind of symptoms. And
what was the next part you asked for? Kind of
what helped me? Is that? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And I think this is one of the things that's
so powerful, too, is that everyone's toolbox
is different. You know, some people talk therapy
and psych meds might be the perfect match. You
know, more often than not, there are other things
that are needed. So what were the tools that
started working for you specifically? Oh, wow.
The number one thing I realized for me, and it's
very universal, was to take action. Like just
doing anything, doing something. So the biggest
thing for that was journaling. I had someone
I look at as a mentor and a peer and a friend
who recommended it to help them. And I tried
it. So I have about 40 pages of journaling about
my time on stress leave. And I share that in
my book. I share large portions of it. Just trying
to destigmatize it. You know, that's what I learned
we can do since then. I also sought professional
help. I went and saw a psychologist. I remember
I had gone a few years before and I thought of
it like surgery. I went one time, took me three
hours to drive there, drive home. And I went,
I'm never doing that again. Nothing seems better.
I didn't realize it's more like physio. It's
the thing you go do and then you got to go work
on it. It's not a surgery where you just show
up and you're all fixed. It's now here's how
someone helping you navigate your way through
it. And then it's on you to go practice things.
You got, you know, say one hour a week or one
hour a month and you got the rest of your month
or week to work on things. So for me, what did
some of those look like? Like things like trying
to control my physiology, trying to control my
breathing. Honestly, one of the biggest ones
was stop drinking. I had no idea how bad alcohol
was for me. nor that I was coping through it.
Like I'd become an alcoholic. I just didn't know
it. And I've seen that in so many of my buddies.
And usually they're having a hard time and they
tell you about it and you ask, and where's your
drinking at? And it's not in a good place because
that's how they're coping. And so often we can't
hear you got a drinking problem. But like I did,
I woke up one day, it's like nine in the morning
and I went, I need to quit drinking. And my next
thought was, I can't. And then I'm like, okay,
well, can you go an hour? And so that's what
I did. I just, I'm going to go one hour. And
that one hour turned into one day that I said,
like, I literally wrote on my whiteboard on my
fridge. I won't drink today. That turned into,
I didn't drink yesterday. I won't drink today.
That turned into a week because a month was too
long, right? And a day was too long at first.
And so I would encourage anyone, if you're struggling
or you know someone who's struggling, start thinking
of micro goals. It's what you do when things
get really hard. If you want to go on, you know,
Navy SEAL tryouts or SWAT tryouts, all that kind
of stuff, it's going to get super hard. You don't
need to worry about the rest of the week. You
just need to worry about running to that next
post. You need to worry about doing the push
-up you're working on right now, not all those
other things that's just too overwhelming. So
eventually that not drinking for a week turned
into not drinking for a month. And now I've got
back to the point where I can have a social drink.
It's fine. But I don't drink like I used to.
I'm not having like, you know, I hit a point
where I think I had 226 ounces of rum in a week.
And I'm basically a non -drinker. So that was
a lot of alcohol. Whereas now, I might go a month
and not have a drink. But like, I don't know,
maybe a week ago, my wife said, hey, let's have
a drink. Sure. Sounds great. Hey, let's celebrate.
Let's do this. Awesome. I'm in. But it's not
a big part of my life anymore. And the reason
is because my life got so much better. And that
actually is what led to me. I yelled out in my
kitchen one day. I was all alone, off work on
stress leave. And as I've been learning, I'm
getting better. I actually yelled out, why the
fuck don't they teach us this? And I was so angry
that I'd suffered for 10 years and I didn't need
to. And then that's where my mission came from.
And just seeing all my buddies around me and
how many had suffered in their own ways. And
I actually met with our head of training one
day, someone in charge of training about a thousand
cops a year. And the fourth psychologist. And
I told them the chapter topics of my book, essentially.
I said, we need to teach all these things. Stigma,
emotional pain, suicide, organizational stress,
moral injury, sleep science. And they listened,
but they weren't going to change. You're turning
the Titanic. We can't change. So again, they
were nice. There's no disparagement of them.
And I just said, I can't make you teach this,
but you can't stop me. And I said it in my head.
I didn't tell them. Again, I'm not trying to
put them down. But I just decided I'm going to
do what I can to start helping with this. Like
I can't accept the current reality. So I'm going
to do something. And I read there's an Ontario
coroner's inquest into police suicide from nine
suicides in 2018. They did the inquest in 2019.
And that was one of the top recommendations was
we need to reduce stigma, normalize mental health.
And what I realized, the very first thing in
my journaling is like, no one can ever know.
Don't tell anyone. Because it was an email to
my brother, right? My brother, not my real brother,
but a brother on the team. And then I realized
I had to do the opposite. The best way I could
help people is to actually share, put that out
to the world and normalize that. And since then,
I've heard from so many people about how it's
helped, whether it's a spouse, whether it's a
first responder, and even just civilians. And
because there is so much good information. And
what I would love to see one day is not just
that we teach it to first responders. This is
the kind of stuff we need to teach in school.
We need to teach about suicide and emotional
pain and trauma. You want to make sure we don't
have drug addicts? Then teach people to help
themselves. So again, I appreciate what you're
doing, James, with your books and your podcast,
because you're an awesome advocate in the fire
profession, especially. And my hope is to do
something similar in our profession, like what
you do about the sleep schedule for firefighters.
Well, I just came off two days, two nights, you
know, like, why are we still doing this? There's
no worse schedule that we could find. What are
we doing? And just trying to advocate, well,
let's try something different. Let's be willing
to risk failure. And let's try and make some
positive change within our culture too. It's
amazing how many phrases I hear now that really
are just born out of cowardice. And I say that
absolutely deliberately. That will never happen.
They'll never go for it. Oh, but it's complicated.
You know, it'll take time, all this shit. And
I'm like, you know what? Bollocks. When the planes
hit the towers, how many people turned on a fucking
dime and said, I'm going to go sign up? The military,
police, fire, whatever. One single event changed
the entire landscape of people in uniform. When
COVID hit, how quickly was it to shut down the
entire planet? But you're telling me that putting
in some proactive mental health tools or restructuring
a work week and taking the money that you're
wasting in lack of retention and overtime and
putting it proactively and hiring young recruits,
oh, that will take time. No, it fucking won't
take time. this is what pisses me off the departments
that have made it happen they just went into
a room and they said hey this isn't working kind
of like we were talking about with drug prohibition
and in portugal let's try something different
and all the grown -ups in the room go yeah that
actually makes sense let's just do it and then
they fucking do it So this is what is so maddening
is, you know, you and I probably have been aware
of this more, as you said, than some people,
because we have a kind of echo chamber because
we just dove headfirst into all these great minds
that have already been out there in the mental
health space. But this information has been out,
even just in my little insular world, it's been
about 10 years that we've been talking about
this now. And yet. the inaction that's happened
we've proven without a doubt for example that
sleep deprivation is hugely related and like
you said the swing shifts the the days and the
nights the days and the nights is the worst schedule
on the planet because our anyone that works those
cannot regulate their circadian rhythm you know
in my profession 56 hour work week again you
look show look our police officers work 40 our
firefighters work 56 what the fuck is going on
oh but it's complicated Oh, but it'll take, no.
Why are they working 16 hours more than everyone
else? So this is what really is a call to action
now. And I think that we're really seeing this.
I think politically we're seeing the person on
the spinning wheel, the potter, the clay. When
it gets off kilter slightly, that thing starts
wobbling and then flies off into the wall on
the side. That's what's happening now because
I think we're really starting to see who the
good leaders are. and who the charlatans are.
And that could be nationally, or it could be
at the head of a police or fire department or
the head of a union, whoever those people are.
And so the ones with the set of balls or a female
version of that are truly selflessly advocating
for their people are the ones we need at the
helms. And the ones that say, oh, I need to see
studies. Oh, that'll never happen. Oh, we just
don't have the budget. Need to step the fuck
aside because our men and women are dying every
single fucking day. And enough is enough with
this fucking cowardice. I'm so sick of it. The
information is there, it's irrefutable. Now it's
time for yours and my generation to step up and
say, we're changing this. Yeah, that's leadership.
That's culture change, right? And that's hard.
That's super hard, but that is their job. And
unfortunately, not everyone's good at their job.
We have some great leaders too. Like I don't
want to only kind of rip on management. We're
very fortunate to have some fantastic leaders,
but it just comes with setting that vision. And
I mean, I cite, as far as schedules, I talk about
the Vancouver police schedule. They have this
rotating pattern where you do four consistent
days and four afternoons and four evenings and
four nights. And one crew is just on early mornings,
right? So there is better ways. It's just, we
have to be willing to try. We have to risk failure
of some of them. And the default of not changing
anything is what's easy. Easy mode is just show
up, keep the status quo, rocking the boat, making
changes, securing extra funding to pay for some
of these things. That's what's hard. But we need
those kind of leaders. And if you're going to
lead like that in your organization, your people
will go through a wall for you. Because I'll
say I've had bad leaders and good leaders. And
when it's a bad leader and they're saying, hey,
I need you to stay late. I need you to work at
three in the morning and blah, blah, blah. I
say, no. I'm not doing it. Why? Because you treat
me terribly. So I'm not going to go the extra
mile for you. Versus I have leaders, I'd do anything
for them because they'd do anything for you.
So I think that's what you're saying. And James,
I appreciate your leadership on this. Like I
look up to you for what you've done. Look at
what you've done between your books and your
podcasts. Like you really have advocated for
this. You've really helped to spread a good message
and help teach people about what they need to
know. So keep the leadership that you're doing
because I think you're doing a fantastic job.
Well, I think just with it's all the people that
care enough that I'm standing side by side with.
I mean, you know, to me, it's I mean, yeah, I
would absolutely as leadership as well. But it's
just connecting the dots. I mean, people like
yourself who are advocating your profession have
written an amazing book, just getting the person
that needs it to the person that has it. I posted
I was just looking at what you're talking then
this morning. So I've got the music playing.
There was a quote that popped up on my social
media. It says. The coward calls his chains peace
and offers them to his children. Supposedly,
that's a Viking saying. The coward calls his
chains peace and offers them to his children.
So basically, apathy, doing nothing, passes on
to the next generation, whether it's the next
generation of cops, whether it's your own family,
generational trauma. And so the only way you
stop that is to have the courage to say enough
is enough. And so that really resonated with
me today. But, you know, again. This isn't someone
standing, you know, holding a candle on their
own. There's so many, there's a community of
people way ahead of us that already had the answers,
the Gil Martins, like you said, all these people
that we've talked about. But it's now about disseminating
this knowledge, getting people to understand,
and then getting people to realize that they
can change, you know, empower them. And it's
the same thing I said with post -traumatic growth.
This conversation shouldn't be a doom and gloom
conversation. Whether you're struggling with
your mental health or whether you just want to
operate at the highest level and get in a flow
state as a SWAT or ERT operator, it's the same
thing. The healthy mind not only prevents you
from going into a dark place, it allows you to
operate at the highest level. So in my profession,
that might be finding a kid in a building because
my mind is clear, or it might be pushing the
right drugs at three in the morning. So, you
know, there is no downside to this other than
having the courage to say the way we've done
it isn't working. We need to find other ways.
And the beautiful thing is people have already
figured it out. All you've got to do is have
the courage to actually enact that change. Yeah.
And I would say when that change happens, it's
so slow. You often struggle to see it in the
moment. But like I have friends who are firefighters
and over these last several years, they've switched
from a two days, two nights to a 24 -72. So I
think we are seeing positive changes. It just
feels so slow in the moment and so hard to see
at times. But I think that's a part of what culture
change can look like. And I think it's something
we all will need to keep working on through our
whole careers and our whole lives. And then we
basically need to pass it on to the next generation.
And back even to families, like that's my hope
for my kids is that I can take what I got. And
I think I got pretty good from my family. And
I hope I can give them a little bit better, a
little bit of a better world, a little bit better
upbringing, and just then hope to pass on to
them to try and make it better from there. And
my hope is the same within the profession that
we'd mentor the next generation. I'm very fortunate.
I've gone out to our national training center
four times now to present to like an auditorium
of our cadets and just trying to normalize. being
healthy and that it's an action. It's, you don't
pass your physical once. And now I did it. I
ticked the box. I'm good. You need to be fit
to do the job because the citizens rely on you.
Your partners rely on you. And one of the guys
that does it with me or has done it with me,
he says, asking for help was the most courageous
thing I've ever done. And that officer has done
some absolutely insane things in his career,
what he's been through, but yet asking for help
was the most courageous thing. And I tell him,
You coming here and saying that to these cadets
makes it so they'll never have to say it one
day. You're giving them permission to be human.
You're giving them permission to ask for help.
You're giving them permission to stay healthy.
You're also setting the expectation to do it
by modeling it for them. And James, I think that,
again, comes back to what you're doing with your
stuff. And again, it's what I'm trying to do.
I think of it as just healing out loud. I'm not
doing this because I need social media likes
or I need to sell a book. I just found a way
to help people with an asymmetrical use of time.
which I think is what your podcast is, what your
books are. It's instead of being able to help
people one -on -one. In an organization with
20 ,000 cops, it feels like you're not doing
enough, even though every time that matters.
And my hope was to just put out resources in
a way that I can help someone while I'm asleep
or while I'm not there or who I've never met.
And again, I think that's leveraging technology
to help on a bigger scale and create that culture
change. Absolutely. Well, your book is Setting
My Sights on Stigma, Thoughts from an Injured
Mind. What made you write the book and then tell
people listening what they can find between the
covers? Wow, thank you. It's the book I wish
I had had. It's the book I needed. I spent four
years writing it. I did a master's degree studying
this. I followed up with all the academic literature.
I have about 10 years on a SWAT team or emergency
response. We call it up here in Canada. about
10 years of peer support. So compiling those
anecdotal examples, the lived experience, the
peer support, what, you know, research journals
and books. And, and, you know, you talked about
Dave Grossman. He's a big source for my lethal
force psychology chapter. Cause he's, he's awesome.
And just, then I tried to break it down into
topics. What were the problems I faced? So for
me, stigma, stigma was so huge. Police culture,
lethal force psychology, emotional pain, right?
I struggled with that, but I didn't understand
it, especially as a man. suicide i share getting
into like experiencing some thoughts of suicide
without understanding it uh my journey of post
-traumatic growth right post -traumatic stress
yes being diagnosed yes i i got so bad i failed
my psych exam my my first attempt at return to
work psych exam but then i got so much better
and some of these things will change us you can't
always go back to who you were but it doesn't
mean you can't find a new or better version of
yourself and change in positive ways So I just
broke down the book into these different chapters.
I start with a story in every chapter to try
and make it an engaging read and fun. And you
can remember the story to teach the lessons.
And then I share all these insights from different
psychologists and the books that really helped
me as I was healing. Even things like sleep science.
That's my last chapter. Sharing what it's like
to have one of these nightmares from trauma.
And then sharing all this whole whack of science
from melatonin to prescription sleep meds to
sleep hygiene. All the things that you can do.
My goal is that this is something that can help
you. And for anybody who's debating whether you
want to read it, you can go to my website. Just
my name, markbouchard .ca. It's Mark with a K.
And then you can download it. You just put your
email address in. I'm not going to spam you.
I'm not looking to send you anything. I wrote
it to help you, not to sell it to you. I've probably
given away a few hundred copies myself because
I know it's what I needed. I know so many people
who did. Talked about some of these great books
like Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement.
Well, there's nothing in there about sleep. There's
nothing in there about trauma, right? And I wish
that guys like Dave Grossman and guys like Kevin
Gilmartin had written a book on some of these
kind of things. And actually, Dave Grossman,
I said this to him. I got to interview him once.
And I told him hearing him on a podcast talk
about sleep was what motivated me to write a
chapter about sleep. to compile all the best
research I could find from Matthew Walker and
Kirk Parsley, Nick Little -Hales, and a bunch
of these world -class experts, teach myself,
and then try and pass it on to others. So my
hope is that my book can help you. If anybody
listening wants to reach out, you can find me
on different social medias, or you can find me
on my website. And I just want you to be happy,
healthy, and be able to take care of those around
you, whether you're a first responder or whether
it's your family. Beautiful. Well, I want to
thank you so much, Mark. It's been such an amazing
conversation. Just that there's a lot of people
that come on here and for some of them, you know,
their mental health challenges that take them
out of the profession, but to have you operating
at a high level, going through this, finding
your own unique toolbox of your healing journey,
but then writing about this. And then again,
I love the fact that you do touch on post -traumatic
growth in the book. It's just so important. And
it's like you said, I mean, people say to me
early on, you know, when they would start podcasts,
oh, I don't want to tread on your toes. I mean,
what are you talking about? The more of us that
are out there giving a platform, talking about
these things, the more chance that that's going
to resonate with a particular person. And even
with your book, like you said, there are some
police mental health books already out there,
but. It's a completely different perspective.
It's your perspective. And ironically, Dave Grossman
was talking about sleep a lot in the most recent
interview I did with him. So I want to thank
you not only for your courageous vulnerability
today, but for also what you're doing and the
book, because it's an invaluable resource for
people listening. And this layer now, this conversation
and the resources themselves. Every single layer
of that is saving more and more lives. 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. Thank you, brother. It's been
my honor and my pleasure. So thank you very much
for having me.