This episode is sponsored by NuCalm, and as
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software. And you can find even more information
on NuCalm .com. Welcome to the Behind the Shield
podcast. As always, my name is James Geering,
and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome
on the show 25 -year veteran of the U .S. Secret
Service and the author of Tell Me Everything,
Brad Beeler. Now, in this conversation, we discuss
a host of topics from his journey into the Secret
Service, protecting George H .W. Bush, lessons
learned from Butler, the truths and myths around
polygraphs, a cautionary tale for law enforcement
interrogation, crimes against children, Brad's
own powerful mental health story, the takeaways
from his book, and so much more. Now, before
we 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
almost 1 ,200 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 Brad
Beeler. Enjoy. Well, Brad, I want to start by
saying thank you so much for taking the time
and coming on the Behind the Shield podcast today.
James, I appreciate the opportunity to come here
and talk to your wonderful listeners. So where
on planet Earth are we finding you on this beautiful
winter's day? South Carolina. And it's starting
to feel a little bit more like winter. We've
been spoiled for a long period of time this winter,
but they're calling for snow. So the state is
about to shut down, literally shut down. They'll
just cancel everything. So I prefer this to where
Chicago winters. I didn't really get used to
that. I like this. It's funny because whenever
you get an unusual weather, it's really interesting
watching the response. When I moved from Florida
to California, when they had even a tiniest bit
of rain, you'd think it was, you know, a typhoon.
And obviously I get the whole landslide element.
But yeah, and then obviously here when we get
cold, you know, people freak out too when it's
actually gorgeous outside. It's still sunny.
So yeah, we're all great in some weathers and
awful in others, depending on where we live.
Well, let's start at the very beginning of your
timeline then. So tell me where you were born
and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic,
what your parents did, how many siblings. Yeah,
I grew up a small town in Missouri, about an
hour west of St. Louis. My parents were, my dad
was a math professor for about 50 years, was
an author as well. And my mom was a legal secretary.
And I had three wonderful sisters, all athletes,
kind of an athletic family, and kind of grew
up where I kind of got the bug for law enforcement.
I think I grew up watching Chips, and that's
obviously dating myself. A lot of your listeners,
what's Chips? Who's Poncherello? Who's John Baker?
But I kind of grew up watching that on a daily
basis and kind of, I think, thought, hey, I want
to be the person with the white hat. Went to
undergrad and graduate school for criminology
at University of Missouri -St. Louis. Played
soccer there and did an internship with the Secret
Service. And it was one of those things that
was really eye -opening for me to see, you know,
hey. These are really good men and women, morally
sound people that travel throughout the world
trying to support the interests of the United
States and suppress counterfeiting, suppress
financial crimes. A lot of people don't know
about that dual mission and then obviously the
protection aspect. So that really kind of set
me in. And after a couple of years in juvenile
justice, I was fortunate enough to get with the
Secret Service, start in Chicago and be assigned
to the counterfeit division within the Chicago
field office. What did your parents do profession
-wise? Yeah, so my dad was in mathematics. So
he taught mathematics for an extremely long period
of time at the college level. And my mom, she
was a teacher as well and also in the legal profession.
Public service was really, really big to them.
I think that's how they instilled it into all
their children. And we've all kind of followed
suit and kind of kept in that public service
vein, so to speak. So, you know, you follow your
parents' footsteps for sure in the example that
they set. This is a very random question, and
you may not have had this conversation with your
dad, but one of the criticisms I have of higher
education is when people are required to do prerequisites
that really don't pertain to the ultimate goal.
And math, sadly, is usually one of those scapegoats.
Did you ever have that conversation with him
as far as the application of his particular subject
in areas where it just wasn't needed at that
high level? The interesting part about it was
in college, I used his textbook. So that was
a lot of pressure when you're using your dad's
textbook in college. But his math genius definitely
skipped a generation, maybe two generations if
you ask my son. So I didn't get it. But what
he would always say is he goes, the ability to
have that complex thought, you know, he goes,
it's one thing if you got to take a philosophy
class. And I personally, I think philosophy is
great. But, you know, if you got to take certain
prerequisites that don't have a real world experience.
That's one thing. But the way he would equate
it to is he goes, you take those math classes
so you could figure out a tip. So you could do
this. You could you could calculate things quickly.
And you don't realize how many times you do use
basic mathematics on a daily basis. My problem
is, well, when you start throwing in letters
and all these other things into the math, it's
not really math anymore. So I agree to disagree
with that. But I think basic mathematics, I think,
definitely has its use. But there's other things
that I would agree with you we need to get away
from. I think my son, he's at the Citadel now.
And this semester, I think he's got kayaking
and he's got something else. It's hard to pay
that bill for kayaking and a couple other things.
My wife just graduated med school and she had
to go all the way up to calculus, but she still
struggles with the tips and what I call the street
math. I'm good at the street math, but the complex
algebra, I am completely lost. It's like alphabet
soup to me. Yeah, absolutely. Well, you mentioned
soccer, football. Talk to me about the sports
that you were playing and then what level you
got to with that particular sport. Yeah, I played
through college. I don't think I sat two years,
so I wasn't the greatest player. I was a goalkeeper,
which I think it had its benefits because I just
like communication. You want to listen more than
you talk. I think for me and the soccer pitch,
I got to watch more than I got to do. And you
had that situational trauma where 99 % of the
time. You know, if you don't do anything wrong,
everything's good. But if you make that one mistake,
it can cost you the game. And, you know, unfortunately,
it's the same way with the Secret Service. We
do 100 ,000 protective missions. And then you
have something like Butler, which, you know,
happens and is a huge failure. And that's what
people remember. So it just goes to show you
that you can, you have to, it's a zero fail mission
in law enforcement. You have to be perfect every
day. And I think that's the same thing with goalkeeping
on the pitch. But I really loved it. It was really,
for me, a way to get away from the school and
stay in fitness. And it also paid some of the
college bills. So that was great. And parents
loved that. Have you seen the show Welcome to
Wrexham? Yeah, absolutely. I just started watching
it and was so blown away how well it was done
because it could have been a narcissistic project
for Ryan and Rob, you know, the American actors
that bought the club. But the human stories that
it tells is phenomenal. And I have to say, as
an Englishman, honestly, it educated me on what
football is supposed to be about. Because, you
know, as I got older, it was Liverpool, Man U,
and it was about money and trades and all these
people from all these different countries playing.
But when you see a game at that level and the
impact that that had on the people of the community
that are working their ass off five, six days
a week, and that's their time to decompress,
it literally reframed the sport for me, and I'm
literally from that country. Yeah, and I think
you're right. I think it did that for a lot of
people. We always had the issue in America of,
you know, a lot of the athletes early on would
go to football, baseball, other things like that.
I mean, can you imagine Bo Jackson, Deion Sanders,
people like that if they grew up in England and
the main sport was football? football, soccer
as we call it here on this side of the pond.
But you can imagine having those elite athletes,
what American soccer would be, what it could
potentially be. So it's always been like that.
St. Louis, where I grew up, was kind of a hotbed.
I think we had five or six people on the 1950
World Cup that actually beat, I want to say they
beat England in 1950, which was one of the biggest
upsets of all time. So it was always a hotbed.
And so I was blessed to take part of that. For
me, the highest level I got was Division II,
and the levels between junior college, Division
II, Division I, and then obviously you get into
developmental stuff. There's just so many levels
to soccer that blow you away. So to go from fifth
division or fourth division, whatever Wrexham
is, and then now they just beat a Premier League
team, that truly is rags to riches, so to speak.
It is amazing. And one of the episodes, I'm just
in season two now, the father of the goalkeeper.
was a British policeman that got into the same
position as you, basically protecting the royal
family. And you see his estranged mother and
the father talking at first. And then it's revealed
that the father left his wife for another man.
And it was it was so beautiful because they underline
the fact that, you know, when we were young,
that was still frowned upon. And the dad actually
joked that when he told his father, the father
said, well, we'll go to the doctor. Can you get
a pill for that for being gay? And now and they
made the comment that if people watching the
show that are younger now, they probably can't
even wrap their head around. an environment where
it wasn't acceptable to be gay anymore so that
was kind of also the the metamorphosis again
of where we are today there's some things i would
argue that are worse you know i think we're in
a very divisive uh environment at the moment
but the fact that something that people had to
hide 50 years ago now is completely normalized
it was another one of those kind of human aha
moments from that show Yeah, the internet has
definitely changed that where if you go back,
you know, 50, 60 years, you didn't even see people
kissing on TV. You know, if you go back to that,
that was taboo to see that. And obviously things
have changed quite a bit. I think one of the
things that I really enjoyed about the Secret
Service was just seeing people are people and
cultures are cultures. Every year at the United
Nations General Assembly, typically 150 to 200
heads of state come into New York. And the Secret
Service, we protect the head of state for whatever
country comes in. And for 17 years in a row,
I missed my wedding anniversary because I would
always be up in New York. But those were 17 years
where I got to see. people from all over the
world. I got to see their protective details.
I got to see their staff. I got to see their
way of life, eat their food. And it just lets
you see that people are people. And it was very
eye -opening for me to see how big this world
is. And I think it helped me kind of have better
empathy on the job as well. Because you grow
up in certain parts of the country, you only
see certain things. It's really easy to get a
tunnel vision as to your thought processes. So
I think that's one of the things that truly helps
the Secret Service do its mission is we protect
Republicans, Democrats, independents, and then
also all kinds of foreign heads of state. So
definitely a force multiplier in our mission.
Absolutely. I think that's what's needed. We
need people that pull people together, that show
that shared humanity and celebrate the differences.
You know, rather than if you don't do exactly
what I do, then you are the enemy, which I think
has been shouted from the rooftops more recently.
What about the protective details? What were
some of the other nations, bodyguards, Secret
Service parallels that you were really impressed
with? You know, I had, I mean, obviously I had
some great stories. I know you obviously do long
form, so maybe we can get into a couple of those,
but just fascinating. One, you would typically,
if we went overseas, we would typically have
a day or two on the ground because they would
want to get the vehicles there ahead of time
and get set up ahead of time. So we would usually
jump on the C -17 and fly ahead of the protectee,
whether it be the president, vice president.
So you would get to see the culture a little
bit as much as you could. And so since we only
had a day or two, we would get out there and
try to go see the Taj Mahal or the Great Wall
or wherever we were at. So it was really, you
know, once again, as a kid growing up in a very,
very small town, it was wonderful to see that.
And then just to see how they did their protection,
how they did their even hiring of how they brought
people on. I remember being in a stairwell in
Tokyo and for three days, this isn't in the recruiting
brochure, you know, it's a lot less running next
to the limo and it's a lot more standing next
to a dumpster, you know, in the Secret Service.
But as far as I was in Tokyo, we're in a stairwell.
Stairwells aren't climate controlled, so you're
either burning up or freezing. But I've got this
amazing Japanese counterpart from their Secret
Service and he was actually from Hiroshima. which
if you think about it, you know, just 70 years
prior, we're dropping an atomic bomb on that
city and now people are living there and we're
mortal enemies for a five -year stretch of time.
And now we were using, you know, I don't know
if it was Google Translate or one of the other
apps to kind of go back and forth. And we just
had the most amazing conversations. And he would
bring in desserts every day that his wife made.
And I'm telling him about American barbecue and
his kids were into K -pop, but they loved, it
wasn't NSYNC, but whoever the boy band was at
the time. And it was just amazing to have that
conversation. And at the end, I remember I took
a little pen off, a little American pen and gave
it to him. It was a Secret Service pen. It was
about $1 .50 if you buy them in bulk. And I gave
it to him and I presented it to him and there
was no ulterior motives. And literally, he took
off his cufflinks that his father had given him
for his equivalent of his high school graduation,
and he presented them to me. And I was shocked.
I was, one, appalled because, oh, no, no, no,
please don't do that. And he was shocked that
I would say that because he's like, no, you gave
me something. You made my heart full by doing
this. Thank you. Please appreciate this. Wear
this with your suits around the world and tell
people the story and so on and so forth. You
know, not a month later, I'm on the Iranian detail
when they came into the United Nations and it's
Ahmadinejad's first trip to the United States.
And you have these beliefs about people, right?
So the Iranians come in and their kit was phenomenal.
Their training was phenomenal. Their personnel,
their training standards, you could tell were
up to par. They looked the part, you know, shoes
were shined. Everything was up to par and they
were always on time. And they kept us informed,
which is, as you know, in the emergency services,
man, communication is everything. And it was
great. And at the end, I took that pen off and
I gave it to their detail leader and he took
off his Iranian serial numbered color of the
day protection pen and gave it to me. And it
just goes to show you, people are people. The
media pulls us away and this, that, and the other,
and you get in your little echo chambers. But
of all the world leaders, of all the protectees
that I was able to be around, They were all great.
They all treated me and my family wonderfully.
I spent most of my time with H .W. Bush, so we
would split time between Houston and Maine. It
was great. They looked out for you. They wanted
to make sure that you were fed. They didn't travel
on Christmas Day because they wanted the agents
to be with their family members on that day.
So they would actually travel on the 26th or
the 27th. And you just appreciate that so much
because of the amount of travel that you're doing.
So those are some of the takeaways I got from
protection was you're not part of the event.
You're just a fly on the wall. But because they're
important people, you get to see Michael Phelps
win a gold medal. You get to see these amazing
moments in time. You get to see these peace accords.
These things on TV that you're right there. And
hopefully no one ever sees you and you don't
have to react because that means something bad
unfortunately happened. I'm jumping ahead in
a way because I want to get your 2026 perspective
on this, but it just seems to fit after the couple
of stories that you told. working with a group
of men and women that are protecting, like you
said, Democrats and Republicans and independents,
so arguably Americans, some of whom I'm sure
were probably more fun to work with than others.
And that's something that I'm not even going
to ask you. But with this interesting lens of
being really immersed in all these different
cultures, from the leaders themselves to the
men and women that are protecting them, as you
said, if you were king for a day, How do we come
back to seeing each other with that shared humanity,
this group of humans that are sharing this round
rock that's hurtling through space, rather than
this increasingly divisive kind of rhetoric that
we're seeing where we're kind of almost fueling
the fire for yet another conflict? Yeah, it's,
you know, in a perfect world, if I'm king for
a day, I kill the algorithm, right? I kill the
bots. I kill the echo chamber that... takes us
over because from consuming your kids and making
them want the latest this tick tock whatever
the case may be to targeted violence where people
go down a rabbit hole and they keep going down
to a rabbit hole until that violence is directed
it's something that they think they have a grievance
to um yeah that it's tough because echo chambers
are a real thing even before the internet was
something you know the election of 2000 i was
on um w bush when he was running as governor
And I wasn't, I would say I was a card carrying
Democrat at the time. And it's amazing because
you're in an echo chamber for three weeks on,
three weeks off. You'll go out with that protectee
and you're around the protectee. You hear the
stump speech three times a day in three different
cities. You are around their staffers. You're
around their very avid supporters, financiers,
so on and so forth. And within a couple of rotations,
guess what? You start. leaning a little bit and
you start hearing that echo chamber and you become
a fan, you become a fanboy. And the same thing
happens the other way. And we laugh about it
during elections, but it's that Stockholm, I
don't want to say it's Stockholm syndrome, but
it truly shows that echo chambers are a thing.
And unfortunately, before that prefrontal cortex
is established, these kids, and I'm interested
to see if the UK, if they go forward with the
banning of social media for kids, similar to
your brothers down in Australia, just to see
what that does. I'd be interested to see in that
experiment is that we're worried about it, taking
things away from people, but is that something
that we should do because they can't control
themselves? I was having a conversation literally
just an hour ago with one of my friends who's
a helicopter pilot. We were talking about that.
I know a lot of us, a lot of our generation will
do cell phone detoxes, for example. When I go
on a cruise, I don't pay for the Wi -Fi. I lock
my phone away. It's awesome. So we know that
that works even for adults. But a lot of what
I'm seeing now is a lot of Gen X and my son's
generation. are so romanticized with the era
that we grew up in i think gen gen x um you know
we're so fortunate because we've literally got
a foot in each side of this kind of technological
um revolution that we're in that they're going
back to unplugging now which i find fascinating
like my son has a record player and records you
know what i mean so that's great i love that
that i think that even that generation is starting
to have an awakening on how destructive it is
because we're telling them it's destructive even
though we're glued to our own devices ourselves
so i think that what the australia and the uk
and some of these other places around the world
are doing is brilliant and these schools even
if they you know if their governing bodies don't
say it the schools are locking away the phones
that you can have it on the way to school. You
can have it on, you know, on the way home. But
while you're here, you're here to, to socialize
and to learn. And I love that. Yeah. You'll see
the effect because they'll put the, you know,
they'll put the phones in the Faraday bags when
the kids go to the high school. And it's insane
because the moment they get out of that high
school, they will rush to that device and they
will turn it on like a heroin addict that hasn't
had their hit their fix. Right. So it, I think
it just needs to be consistent. You know, is
that that validation that they get, that dopamine
they get, it's a casino in their mind that they
got to keep pulling the lever to. So at a certain
point, we got to we got to intervene in some
respect. You know, parents do it with their kids.
But like you said, who are my parents? If I check
my mom and dad's screen time, it might be as
much as my my 14 year olds. You know, so I think
we're all guilty of that, unfortunately, is we've
went from Shakespeare. back to cave paintings
and hieroglyphics when it comes to communication.
I grew up, my best friend was deaf and I had
to look him in the eyes. He had to look me in
the eyes. He had to read my lips. He had to read
my sign and we had to connect. He had to use
his body language to accentuate. I had to use
my body language to accentuate because the words
are the lyrics. The way we say the words, the
paralinguistics are the soundtrack. And the way
we look is the music video. Well, what carries
the day? Why did MTV make it? Because that's
the music video. You know, no one knows what
Eddie Vedder is saying in any Pearl Jam song.
Nobody knows the lyrics, right? But why do we
listen to it? My Brazilian jujitsu instructor,
he never spoke English. He spoke Portuguese for
the first 18 years of his life. But his favorite
band growing up was Red Hot Chili Peppers. Why?
Because of Chad Smith on the drums, because of
Flea, because of Anthony Kiedis, the way his
voice was almost like a musical instrument, the
highs, the lows, the vocal tonality. And that's
what we've lost is when you see these people
come in on panels now, if you sit on panels for
promotion, if you sit on hiring panels and you
see these kids that they just can't look in the
eye, they're very soft -spoken, they can't control
their volume. It's like a really bad audio book.
You know, that just has no range or vocal tonality
to it. You know, there's a lot of things you
can do to increase your voice. Your voice is
the only weapon I have in an interrogation room.
And I got to be able to use it. I don't have
a gun. So I got to be able to use that voice
effectively to keep access with this person.
Because if I have access to them, I can impart
the information that I want to put out. And then
I can use strategic silence to hopefully get
the information that I need. With that all being
said, the last few minutes, what are the dangers
of our political figures using social media to
interact with, you know, even international other
leaders? It's tough. And, you know, I've seen
some of this. I got to be careful about what
I say. But, you know, you got to be very, very
careful about. Obviously, disclosing certain
things, conversations with world leaders and
making that be known because that's going to
break down, obviously, that trust. It's a problem
from a security standpoint because you may have
a secure phone, but when you go to an app, the
keys to the castle are with somebody else. So
from a safety standpoint, it's very, very problematic.
I miss the days and we'll never go back to these
days because our world leaders are just a product
of us. We're the ones that vote them in. But
I miss the days of somebody like an H .W. Bush,
a Reagan. And I don't mean that from a political
standpoint, but I mean that from a they would
go to a conference and they'd go behind closed
doors and they wouldn't signal what they were
going to talk about. And they'd come out with
an agreement, an accord, a stark treaty, whatever
the case may be. And, you know, when. h .w bush
would be interviewed about the no new taxes thing
and about uh not going to west berlin and dancing
when the wall came down he said well of course
i wasn't going to do that that would have put
gorbachev in a horrible position and the staffer
said well yeah but you get a 10 -point bump and
you'd probably win the election he's like it's
not about a 10 -point bump it's about trying
to avoid nuclear war and Too many people now
are transactional in how they view things, right?
Everybody. I mean, not just politicians, but
everything's about who's going to get elected.
Where do we get this seat? How do we gerrymander?
How do we do X, Y, and Z? It's red and blue.
It's black and white. It's this team, your team.
And we view everything reflexively through who
came up with the idea. I'm sure you've seen all
these studies they do where they... say that
your side came up with this, but it was actually
the other side. And it could be something they
don't agree with at all. But if they heard their
side came up with it, that's a wonderful idea
or vice versa. It's just reflexive. We don't
think anymore. We're lemmings and constrained
to whatever our party ideology is, sadly. One
more area, then we'll go back to your kind of
professional timeline. But again, I mean, this
is just an interesting perspective. I don't think
many people would argue against the fact that
certainly the last 10 plus years, so we're talking
both sides of the aisle, there has been a shift
from the best interest of the American people
to maybe the person who's in that position now.
It's about them. And that can everything from
some of the poor decisions made through the COVID
to more recently, et cetera, et cetera. And one
observation as someone who moved here. God, when
was it now? 23 years ago. It seems to be a repetition
of the same kind of person. And as you said,
we're the ones that vote these people in. When
you have a system of voting where you have to
really be a million or billionaire to even play
the game, and then you've really got to be...
ethically challenged if you are taking money
from companies that are leading to the deaths
of americans you know drug companies and industrial
military complex etc that then that environment
obviously ignores or disqualifies a large portion
of americans who would be great leaders for this
country so i guess king for a day crown back
on for a moment How do we go back to a system
where we can elect people? Because, I mean, in
my opinion, say you've got a Republican and Democrat
in the room. Mine is this person. Yours is that
person. Yours wins. And I go, well, I would have
preferred mine, but yours is still a great leader.
We don't have that now. It's 50 -50, World War
I, trench warfare. And I would argue that none
of the ones we've had recently, if you got to
choose from the entire country of America, would
have made the top. 1000. So if you could redesign
it so that we truly do find the servant leaders
of the United States of America, how could we
shift that system to get to that so it wasn't
so divisive every four years? Term limits. That's
it. Term limits. I mean, you can't force a third
political party, right? I think the last time
we really saw that closely was Ross Perot. And
some people would say that just allowed Clinton
to get elected. um and why was ross pro able
to do that because he was one of the first billionaires
right so he had obviously had the the financial
resources but if you're just spitballing it you
know 12 years two senate terms six representative
terms you wouldn't see somebody coming in at
175 000 salary and leaving as uh worth 20 million
dollars right you just wouldn't see that um Some
people would say you lose the experience. I mean,
look, you can learn how to be a police officer
or a firefighter in six months. I think you can
learn how to vote and be a politician in that
same amount of time. So, yeah, I think term limits,
I think most people would agree upon something
like that. You can say campaign financing reform,
but to me, there's always going to be money in
it. It's kind of like if you follow American
college NIL money, there's always been money
in college sports. It just was kind of done under
the table. Now it's done out in the open. So
if you put campaign fund in there, would it change
anything? I don't know. But if somebody can only
serve in office for 12 years, similar to the
two terms as a president, I think that may change
some things. I think having to actually say where
your money's coming from, front and center as
well. So for example, if Purdue Pharma is sponsoring
you and they are responsible for 100 ,000 Americans
dying every year from the opioid crisis, maybe
that should be put at the front. And I love that
whole kind of NASCAR analogy where your suit
is covered in everyone that paid for you to get
there because then maybe you'd choose more wisely
next time. Yeah, if you can shroud where you're
getting your money, that obviously allows you
to be a little, it would force you to be a little
more selective, like you said, if you're Dale
Earnhardt Jr. and you've got to put everything
there on the car. Absolutely. All right, well,
let's get back to the timeline then. So as you
enter this profession, you talked about financial
crimes. So before we get to the protection detail,
what was that world? It was great working counterfeit.
You know, the good thing about working counterfeit
and how it kind of tied in with detection of
deception is the first thing you do when you
learn U .S. currency is you learn how real currency
is made. You learn where the paper's from, the
countermeasures we put in that. You learn how
it's printed. Every little aspect of genuine
currency, you know what genuine currency is.
And the advantage of that is anything that's
not genuine is counterfeit. There's a million
different ways you can counterfeit something,
but there's only one way you can make it genuine.
So that's the best way to learn something. And
it's the same thing with learning detection of
deception. When I ultimately got into polygraph
was you learn what genuine behavior is. And then
if it's not genuine, you have to assume there's
a red flag associated with it. So it makes it
a little bit easier because there's a billion
reasons why someone may choose to lie to you.
But if you understand the truth, then you can
hopefully identify that, hey, I need to explore
a little bit more here because something's not
right. We're very bad at detecting deception.
We're tribal communities for the last 500 ,000
years. That tribe was built upon lying to stay
in the tribe and not detecting lies so that we
wouldn't upset the tribe. So people tend to do
it a lot of it a couple of times a day. It's
just, what's the reason for that lie, I guess.
So, but as far as financial crimes, loved it.
Credit card fraud, worked a lot of organized
crime task forces. And then why was there? I
was really blessed to see a couple of great polygraph
examiners that one thing the Secret Service does
is we leverage our polygraph program to assist
the locals. And I always thought, man, this is
great. I get to go out and work homicides, child
sexual assaults, these types of cases. And I
got to see them really be a good force multiplier
in those cases because polygraph is a very divisive
thing to a lot of people, both in the fire industry,
law enforcement, so on and so forth, especially
when it comes to applicants, those types of things.
However, it's the best mousetrap we've got. We're
50 some percent effective at, if you told me
a story, James, I'd be about 54 % effective at
determining if you were being truthful with me.
With polygraph, I can get that up in the high
80s. It's not perfect. It shouldn't be used in
court. It should have a very rigid set of rules
and regulations. You should have quality control.
It should have guardrails. We should only use
it in very, very specific types of cases. When
you start making it into Jerry Springer type
stuff, that's when it gets a bad name and it's
misused and who's the father type stuff is very,
very problematic. Got to go do six months of
training at Fort Jackson. And that's where we
have our federal polygraph school. And then got
out and was just blessed that in my next three
assignments, Chicago, St. Louis, and Columbia,
South Carolina, that got to work the most criminal
polygraph cases in the history of the Secret
Service. So talked to a lot of very, very bad
people. And then we're also fortunate to exonerate
a lot of people who had been falsely accused.
You know, trying to shape these investigations
and then sometimes every once in a while stepping
into one and being able to have a good outcome
and bring justice was great because, especially
with the kid cases, James, because, you know,
as you know, in the fire industry, you know,
if you, you know, anytime you see a kid hurt.
Right. I mean, that gets to you, that messes
with you. I mean, that causes a lot of PTSD with
people that, you know, from medical examiners
to firefighters to law enforcement, when they
see a kid that's severely hurt or a death of
a child, it's just terrible. So kids, anytime
you can bring justice to them, our protectees.
Many of them have money. They could probably
get their own private security. We give them
protection, but we don't give our most vulnerable
the protection that they deserve, which is the
kids. So for me, I think that's when I found
my career calling as far as working those cases.
Going back to Polygraph first, backstory. When
I first graduated from Fire Academy and I went
down south, there was a thing that was called
the Fire Teams. You did a test. You did a physical
test, a written test. And then they kind of put
your application to all the places that were
hiring. And at the, I think it was the physical
agility test, Miami Beach was there. And they
were doing pre -apps. The first time I'd ever
applied for a fire department in my life, coming
from another country, didn't have any kind of
relatives or anything in the fire service. So
answer this application very honestly. Have you
ever tried this in the past? Yeah, a long time
ago, I tried this and this. literally screwed
it up and threw it in my face and said, you're
disqualified. And I was like, oh, so you have
to lie to become a firefighter in this country.
Okay. Cause it wasn't bad. It was a long time
ago, but you know, that was how it is. So the
next time, you know, I went through the application
process and I'm told I'm going to do a polygraph.
Now I'm obviously shitting myself because a long
time ago I had tried, tried a couple of things
in another country. One of the things was legal.
So it was kind of complicated, but hadn't touched
anything for a long time. Didn't do anything
wrong with those apart from dance a lot. And
so now I'm sitting in front of this person. And
I'd actually researched it. And there's some
things that we know of that you can do prior
that will set the baseline. And I think it was
either two or three polygraphs that I went through,
through different agencies as I got hired and
then moved to a different part of the country.
But there was a lot of smoke and mirrors with
that level. And it parallels to me when you...
talk about psychological tests for police and
fire, we do the MMPI, the Minnesota Multiphasic
Personality Interview. And every person I've
had on from the mental health world, when I've
asked them about that, they said, well, that's
supposed to be part of forensic psychology. We
do a gamut of tests, create a profile, and then
you have it. So that on its own cannot determine
if you're supposed to be a firefighter or a cop.
So now kind of unraveling this whole thing with
the podcast, And learning that in that particular
case, it really is, you know, it doesn't have
a lot of value. It's box checking for someone
to turn around and say, well, we told you James
was crazy because, you know, we didn't know he
was crazy because we tested and you said he was
fine. And the same with the polygraph. The two
things that I tried now are very, very successful
for PTSD. So there's an irony. There's a full
circle where the very chemicals that I had are
now healing our police and fire from the things
that they see in the job. So with that massive
monologue. What is your perspective on polygraph
use in potential fire and police? And if you
want to expand more, are we expecting choir boys
and choir girls and turning away what might be
a good candidate because of some of these arbitrary
things that we're throwing in there as a dismissal?
Yeah. And, you know, obviously. It's something
we always deal with, right? The whole person
concept is, I think, the way most agencies operate
on, where they realize, when I came into the
Secret Service, it was extremely difficult regarding
marijuana, obviously any other drug use, any
type of felony. They pretty much don't even apply,
right? But it's changed a lot because what they
realized is, especially if something happens
early on in your life, so if you're talking about,
hey, I'm over in, you know, you grew up in...
wherever, Manchester, and you're like, hey, let's
go to holiday to Amsterdam. And you did something
as far as something over in Amsterdam that was
legal in Amsterdam, right? Maybe I'm hitting
on something there. You're getting close. Maybe
you were like 16, potential, right? So, hey,
you're 16, you're going over there, so on and
so forth. You come back, you put it down, you
put it on your application form. Now there, that
didn't involve a polygraph. Whatever they had
going on, they had a zero tolerance policy. Maybe
they had enough applicants where they could just
Maybe there was an inside game. They had the
person they wanted to hire. Don't know. But I
would say what gets people in a lot of problems
with Polygraph is people do lie on the application
because of preconceived notion. And sadly, you
have to know what that agency's and most of them,
FBI, Secret Service, they put it on their website.
You know, hey, you can't use marijuana in the
last year. You can't use hard drugs in the last
whatever it is. You know, I don't want to give
specifics because I don't know them right now.
They constantly change. But they definitely went
down to accommodate that whole person concept
because what we realized we were having. Green
Berets, you know, people that had trigger time
in Afghanistan and Iraq that were amazing applicants.
But maybe when they got back, you know what,
they used marijuana one time. And that was three,
four years removed. And that was potentially
excluding a really good applicant. So we would
look at patterns of behavior and things like
that. What I will say about Polygraph is it's
the best adjudicative tool that we have, meaning
I've had people admit to rape, robbery. I've
had an individual admit to killing another person.
some things I won't get into that are just more
embarrassing, but can be problematic behavior.
But an agency, you know, child sexual abuse material
is a very, very common thing that we get. And
you're not going to get that in a background
check where you, because they've never been arrested.
You're not going to get that when you go talk
to neighbors because people keep their doors
shut or they don't want to talk to law enforcement.
You're not going to talk to the, it's not the
references that you put down on your. forms probably
are not going to hand you up. They're probably
not going to snitch on you. Whereas what polygraph
is, I want you to equate it to a magnetometer.
It's not perfect. Magnetometers aren't perfect.
But what it does is it does, you know, it does
show there's an issue here we need to explore.
So there needs to be some additional testing.
We need to look into this area. And when done
in that manner, when it's successive hurdles,
okay, and not just, hey, you failed this one
question in this one second and you're done.
you tend to find it's much more effective. It's
a more robust tool. Anytime I would fly, James,
I would, we travel armed. And if I was traveling
for polygraph, the pilot, he or she would say,
where are you going? I'm going to Toledo. What
are you going there for? Polygraph to do some
polygraphs. Polygraph, man, that doesn't work.
And I heard you could beat it. And I'm like,
well, there's about 300 people about to get on
your plane and you're trusting them with a magnetometer.
That's not perfect, but you know what? It's going
to keep some people from walking through that
magnetometer. It's going to catch people that
made mistakes walking through that magnetometer.
And it's going to catch potentially somebody
that's going to bring that bad thing on the magnetometer.
And I said, that's the purpose. I said, that's
the same thing with polygraph is it deters certain
people from a pine. It deters when you do, let's
say. you know certain national security agencies
it deters those people from uh potentially engaging
in certain behavior of a national security interest
and i hear this all the time on these forums
oh polygraph's never caught a spy it's never
done this it's incorrect okay it just it just
is it's a safer place because because of polygraph
but it needs to be done very very rigidly and
then i would follow up the the next question
from the pilot by saying countermeasures okay
Do you think we don't look at the same boards?
We don't look at the same things? We don't know
what normal physiology is or unnormal physiology?
I say to the pilot, I said, I could probably
learn the schematics of this plane, right? If
I read 300 pages of what to flip as far as the
pre -flight checklist, all that, right? I could
probably learn on paper how to fly this plane.
Yep, you could. Okay. But if I came in on game
day and the windows were covered, And the instrument
panel was dark. And I was flying. And I wouldn't
know what my inputs were doing, what the rudder,
what the throttle, what it was affecting as far
as my orientation in the air. I would probably
crash, right? And he said, oh, absolutely, you'd
crash. I said, it's the same thing when somebody
looks up countermeasures is we know what you're
doing. We wouldn't know what normal physiology
is. And you don't know what I'm seeing. So you're
doing too much or too little of what you think,
whether it be the tack and the shoe or some other
things that I won't get into. People can believe
me all they want, but after having been in Polygraph
for 17 years and worked this aspect of it and
seen from many other agencies, many, many more
people are excluded from hiring because they
tried to do countermeasure than are false positives.
Now, many of those people had something to hide.
They rolled the dice, but many of those people
were afraid. Hey, I got to take it. I don't want
to take any chances here. We all want control
in an environment. So I'm going to do X, Y, and
Z to try to help myself out. And that's the sad
part is that thousands of people do that and
we see it and they get terminated for that reason.
For something that many times it would be that
one mistake in Amsterdam, where if they just
would have put it on their forms, they'd either
passed or we would have just been like, oh, you're
good. Don't worry about it. So that's my little
spiel on polygraph. And it always, when I say
it like that, people are like, you're an acolyte.
You're this. Of course, you'd say those things
because you work for the government. Of course,
you'd say those things and be like, okay, that's
fine. I say those things because of the truth,
because I've seen it. When we do polygraph in
child sexual abuse investigations, in which you've
all seen the to catch predator cases, right?
What we really started doing when I was in Illinois,
Missouri, South Carolina, and we've started doing
across the nation over the last 15 years and
many other agencies, not just Secret Service,
FBI, and then many local agencies. We now do
tactical polygraphs and shouldn't use the word
tactical with polygraph. But what we do is we
polygraph these people that show up to meet these
undercover police officers and we polygraph them.
We offer them a polygraph. Many of them take
it. And what we found is 60 % of them, James,
admit to previous hands -on contact with a minor.
that we never would have came up with because
we got them dead to rights on the chat logs.
We got them dead to rights because they showed
up. They picked up the sandwich before they came
to the house, whatever. But when they sit down
for a polygraph, 60 % admit to hands -on. And
we do the same thing for people that download,
we don't call it, we call it child sexual abuse
material, CSAM. People that download that, when
we test them, once again, 60 % admit to actual
hands -on contact. So it's not just images. So
by leveraging Polygraph at the right time in
the right place with the right person in their
right headspace, when we're in the right headspace
and we got quality control, it's a great tool.
When you're going out there like a cowboy and
when you have no guardrails, meaning we have
a very wide gulf that's inconclusive, meaning
I'd rather walk out to the detectives and say,
hey, James, man, I don't know. I'm going to have
to retest them. Huge gulf. And that's good because
we know it's not perfect. So that imperfection
typically will fall into the inconclusive range.
If you have an organization that's just making
calls yes or no with no inconclusives, I wouldn't
want that. So that's the problem is it's sometimes
misutilized within an organization. And that
makes all use of polygraph come into question,
unfortunately. See, that was kind of my experience
just because I saw the same routine. Like after
the second, I can't remember. I think it was
three I did. Certainly, I mean, definitely two,
I think three. But it was the same guy with the
same spiel and all the plaques all over his wall
and that he had this storied history. And it
was like, then I'm thinking, would you guys go
to a class to learn this stuff? And again, I
have a full understanding that there's that.
and there's what you're talking about. And this
is why I think this is a good conversation. But
if that is that, then the question is, well,
should we be using that to qualify or disqualify,
like you said, on a single test, someone who
could potentially be an incredible police officer,
firefighter, paramedic, or this is the whole
point of the show, is there a better way of doing
it? That's what we're working on. We're trying
to get a better way. And part of that's going
to be, Getting a better polygraph. And we're
looking at things that can literally be contactless.
And, you know, in a perfect world, man, I could
put a hat on you, James, and it would be an FMRI
and it would look at your brain light up and
recall versus creation and all this stuff, right?
It'd be wonderful. We just don't have that. And
we've tried. I was at the Federal Polygraph School
for seven years, and there's a lot of money that's
spent on research. And yet. The basic components
are the same components that we used in 1939.
I'll tell you a quick story, James. The first
federal polygraph that was done was by a man
named Frank Seckler. He was a Secret Service
agent. He goes out to Chicago, learns polygraph.
At then, it wasn't a three, four -month school
with a year -long internship after. You go there
for three days, and it was the old pen and paper,
right? And he goes out there. He gets trained
with two other Secret Service agents. He goes
out to New York when he's done. He's an agent
in New York. And they're trying to track down
this famous counterfeiter. And this counterfeiter,
they've got him under surveillance and they're
trying to find out where he's printing at. And
it's like the French connection. They're taking
trains. They're taking streetcars. They're doing
a good job of not being, you know, hinking the
guy up as far as on the surveillance, making
him know that they're after him. But they see
him going to an eight -story tenement building.
And he goes in and they can't see him either
getting the elevator or the steps. I don't think
they had elevators then. So whatever the steps
were. And, you know, they don't know what floor
he went to. So they wait and they wait till he
comes out. He's got about, I don't know, a thousand
dollars to counterfeit, which was a huge amount
of money back then. Right. He doesn't want to
talk. He doesn't want to participate. So what
they do is they bring him back and we're going
to test him with this whole polygraph thing.
Right. So they do what's called a guilty knowledge
test, which even the people that don't like polygraph,
they'll say that this is something that people
are very comfortable with because. you only a
guilty person should respond to these questions.
So what they did is they said, did you go to
floor one through eight? And they ran that multiple
times. And it just so happened he kept hitting
on number four. And then did you go to room A
or did you go to room H, whatever it was? And
he kept hitting on D. And I'll be darned if they
don't go there, the Secret Service agents, and
they kick in room 4D and there's the counterfeit
operation. Now, 1939. So if you go back to, hey,
Hitler's invading Belgium at the same time. you
know and we think how long ago that was and if
you had that instrument mr seckler must have
thought they had invented magic right um now
obviously there's been a lot of uh you know,
changes to polygraph since that point, but it
has its wins. It has its applications, but it
also has its limitations. And that's what we,
we have to realize. We can't have an ego when
it comes to these things and think we can't get
better at something. And that's, that's where
we're at too many times when it comes to law
enforcement, the fire service. And then we, Hey,
we've always done it this way. Cause this is
the best way. There's probably a better way out
there or a way to enhance the way that you're
currently doing things. So that's something we're
looking at. And also The best predictor, James,
of future behavior is past behavior. I mean,
I still believe that. Sometimes with targeted
violence, that's changing a little bit just because
of the way in which people can accelerate how
that cycle of aggression goes now with the algorithms
and that type of stuff. But typically, looking
at people's last five years is going to give
you a very good indication of how they're going
to do over a 25 -year career. So instead of focusing
on just the polygraph. Just a MMPI. Absolutely.
You talked about interrogation a little while
ago. While we're on this topic. One thing I've
said, and obviously I've had people talking about
this, and this really pertains to the insane
overworking that we're seeing at the moment through
this recruitment crisis in law enforcement and
fire and EMS. Literally, I just told you before
I hit record, I just learned of a local firefighter
of exactly my age, just took his or her life,
I don't know if it was a man or a woman, 26 years
in the fire service. The way that sleep deprivation
is used deliberately, is special forces selection
interrogation and torture and that's it and we
wonder why our first responders are falling apart
when we work them into the ground like this with
that being said talk to me about if if any at
all a perspective of using sleep deprivation
when you are interrogating some of these people
yeah never never do it the last thing i my goal
and what i teach all our students all our agency
personnel is we want to get the truth The worst
outcome is to get a false confession. Okay. And
if you go back 60, 70, 80 years, there were certain
psychological techniques that were utilized.
Obviously, you know, without getting into specificity
in recent history, there were certain things
done to try to get people to make disclosures
in overseas locations that might've involved
sleep deprivation. You'd see that in serious
school. You would see that, you know, you see
that in the movies, you see that. But when people
don't have a rest cycle, it obviously causes
them to make poor decisions. We all know that,
right? You look at when the, you know, in parts
of the country that have the, what's that called?
The change, the fallback, spring forward. Oh
yeah, the time change. The time change. You got
a 20 some percent increase of accidents on the
short change, you know, the fallback. um or spring
forward i'm sorry so there's like a 24 increase
in traffic accidents the next day with just one
hour less of a change can have that much of a
dramatic effect and we all see you know we know
what happens in shift work i know it's terrible
in protection when you have to short change back
when you go from that midnight shift to the afternoon
shift or you go from that afternoon shift to
the day shift and you short change that it's
just awful right you get Four or five hours of
sleep and you're expected to be at 100%. Very,
very difficult. So there are certain things that
we know that we don't want to do. I don't want
to talk to juveniles in an interrogation setting.
That prefrontal cortex is not set. They're very
suggestible. They may just want to go home. If
you look at the Aaron Crowe case or Michael Crowe
case from many years ago, I think 20 years ago
now, where basically he was. I don't want to
use the word tortured, but there was psychological
tactics utilized against him, multiple interrogators,
a voice stress analysis test, false evidence
ploys that basically made a 16 -year -old kid,
15 maybe, admit to killing his 16, 17 -year -old
sister. And it was terrible. And that's obviously
an awful outcome that we would never want to
see happen. I'm also going to make sure they're
not on drugs or James, most importantly, not
withdrawing from drugs. Imagine a heroin addict
that hasn't had a fix for eight, 10, 12 hours,
they're going to tell you anything to get right
if they think they can get out and get that next
fix. So suggestibility indexes, there's certain
people that will just, yeah, they'll agree with
anything. I mean, you've probably met those people
where we have to be very, very careful about
that. People that have had traumatic brain injuries
can be more susceptible. I want to make sure
they're fed. I want to make sure they're watered.
I want to make sure they have bathroom breaks.
I want to make sure they're comfortable because
I want to treat them. with respect above all
else. My mentor once told me, he goes, every
interaction, my goal should be to try to get
a Christmas card the next year. And he was an
FBI agent and it's amazing. He would get Christmas
cards from people that admitted to murder, rape,
robbery to him. They're in federal prison. They're
sent into the field office. They're sending Christmas
cards because he was so respectful. And you have
to create a space where somebody feels safe enough
to open up. Pressure does not... cause disclosure.
I want you to think of this and James, I don't
know if you're Catholic or not, but you can probably
answer this question just from understanding
why do people talk in a confessional? Why does
the Catholic faith, why is it so effective in
getting people to talk inside a confessional?
Because they feel safe at that moment. They feel
safe. What makes them feel safe? Anonymity. Anonymity,
100%. What else? Well, they're in a place where
You know, supposedly a church is supposed to
be a safe haven as well. Yeah, they can get some
type of salvation or whatever we want to call
it, right? We get some professional guidance.
There's that privacy aspect. You get this in
doctor's offices. There's also legal protections
many, many times that those disclosures, unless
they're serious felonies, aren't made public.
But if there was a microphone, like one of these
fancy microphones that we have here, if it was
in the confessional, how comfortable would we
feel like talking? If it was being broadcasted
live, probably not buried. If it was like a fishbowl
and everybody in the congregation could see a
walk in and that type of stuff, would that be
a problem? That'd be a huge problem. If we could
see the priest, if we could see his reactions
and maybe he furrowed his brow when you said
that disclosure about that thing you did in Amsterdam
when you were 15, right? He does that little
look, right? Or if you make that disclosure and
he says, really? Seriously, you did that? To
me, that's what shuts people down is that body
language, is that vocal tone, is that lack of
opening things up. And I want people to feel
like they're around the campfire with me, that
we're just having a discussion. And when you
can create that space and you get them in the
right headspace, emotional contagion is real.
Calm leads to calm. I never want to see them
upset. I never are them to see me upset or aggravated
or anxious. I want them to have, see my vocal
tone just like this. I want to have an amazing
handshake with them. That's dry. Uh, that's warm.
That's at a 45 degree angle. That's a hold, not
a shake with eye contact. I want to use their
first name, not my title, not their title. Um,
because that's when people feel that they're
safe. And when people feel like they can tell
you anything, they'll tell you everything. There
are obviously so many examples of wrongful convictions.
Central Park Five is a good example. Our current
president called for the execution of all of
them when it happened and they were actually
innocent of that rape. But I mean, it is terrifying
because like you said, when you see, you know,
as in some of these documentaries, they actually
show the video footage of these interrogations.
You see this exactly. the opposite of what you're
talking about, how it should go. The sleep withdrawal
was, you know, withholding sleep and the pressure
and the, you know, the, the projection of what
you should be saying to the point where, you
know, if you say, we know this, I mean, if you
repeat something enough, you know, on a, especially
on a sleep deprived mind, it might even become
the truth in their mind. And we have people confessing
to things that they never actually did. So. you
know talk to me about that what you know what
do we have to be careful of in in regular law
enforcement um communities so we don't create
these wrongful convictions yeah diminishing culpability
is a big thing uh and the innocence project has
talked about this um you know i don't believe
false confessions are as prevalent as certain
people think they are but they do happen and
many times when they happen they happen to the
same detective or agent so That's where we need
to identify these agents that need to be trained
up or held accountable because they're doing
things that are not what the training that they
get. You hear, oh, the read technique is terrible
and this. The read technique does not teach you
to interrogate a juvenile for eight hours and
bring in multiple detectives and bring in false
evidence. If you tell a kid we have your DNA,
what's the kid going to – I mean they're looking
for a life preserver. So false evidence ploys
have to be eliminated. And that's the distinction.
Frazier versus Cup is the Supreme Court ruling
that talks about you can lie to a suspect. Yeah,
we can. And sometimes we do. OK, but I'm not
going to say I have satellite footage of you
there. I'm not going to say I have DNA. You know,
there's been detectives, sadly, and agents that
would fault that in the past have falsified a
DNA paperwork saying you did it. In their mind,
their heart was in the right place because they
had a bias that this person did that thing. And
if I can only get them to admit it, they can
lead me to the body. And that's a very, very
dangerous thing when you're playing God in that
room and you're breaking rules and regulations
because you think you have. So you got to be
very, very careful. False evidence, diminishing
of culpability. And what I mean by culpability
is when you start talking about treatment and
we need to get you treatment, we need to get
you treatment, we need to get treatment to somebody
that's accused of murder. you know they're not
getting treatment. You know they may get the
death penalty. So why are you talking about treatment?
So that can be very, very problematic. So for
me, people talk about this type of approach should
be outlawed, go to the peace model, go to the
strategic use of evidence. There's a common ground.
I still have to be able to theme people. And
the thing I like to do, let me do a little exercise
with you, James, if you don't mind. what do you
think should happen to this person i guess what
we we focus on is what should happen to this
person and what i mean by that is let me give
you two people and let me give you one bullet
and you you can you can use it however you want
on however you think is going to change history
for the better and i get answers on both sides
of this fence one's a very very short guy he
was born in the late 1800s very introverted uh
served his country uh in world war one was actually
awarded a medal for the service of his country
in World War I. His country obviously went through
some dark economic times. He got into politics.
He obviously became a much better presenter in
public. Okay. When he took over his world's,
you know, his country's juggernaut, he, if we
just want to focus on burning this, he burned
to death with his actions over a million people.
Okay. So that's the short guy. Then we got the
tall guy. Tall guy, Unbelievable wealth. Very,
very religious. Used his wealth for his own means.
Fought against one empire on the behest of the
other empire and then switched roles about 20
years later and fought for the other empire,
for this empire. He was unbelievably tall. I
mean, he would stand out on satellite footage,
right? He fought in these battles. So it wasn't
just all talk and it wasn't just religious, but
he made up what many people consider to be 3%.
of what the world would believe his group is.
So he was very radical in his beliefs. So you've
got one bullet, James. Who gets that bullet?
And he caused the deaths of, let's just say,
30 ,000 people, if we look at a 20 -year period.
I mean, again, it sounds like we're talking about
two people that we're very familiar with. I mean,
from sheer numbers, obviously, it would be the
short turn of the century guy. But I mean, this
is a kind of... Yeah, we're going deep here,
James. I don't think you're expecting this today,
right? Well, my whole thing is just to not to
shy away from the question. I'm still holding
the bullet and trying to figure this out. But
it's reverse engineering. the thing beneath the
thing in the first place and who is the air quotes
bad guy. Because if you look at the story in
the Middle East and the occupations and my country's
participation with, or if you look at a nation
that's beaten down after a world war that they
didn't do well in and now they're starving, you
can see the origin of both, but I would still
shoot the short guy. Okay. So you would shoot
Harry S. Truman instead of George Washington?
I thought it was Hitler. I know you thought it
was Hitler and you thought it was Osama bin Laden.
I did. And that's where confirmation bias kicks
in, right? Absolutely. Where if I come into a
situation and I think this person did it or they
didn't do it, I'm going to view everything through
that prism, right? Whether it be punishment,
whether it be how I should talk to them. But
then let's take this exercise the next way because,
look, George Washington fought for the French
before he fought for the US with the French help.
He was 3%. Patriots were 3 % of the American
colonists. He was very, very rich. He was very
fervent in his religious beliefs. So there's
a lot of parallels there, right? Obviously. I'm
not going to go too deep with that. But Harry
S. Truman, when he took over in early 1945 after
FDR died, he authorized multiple fire bombings
of Japanese cities using napalm on basically
wooden civilian centers that created vacuums
of fire, right? And when that didn't work, we
harnessed the power of the sun and dropped it
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, right? So I sit there
and say, okay, now we've identified who this
person is, Harry S. Truman. How would you interrogate
Harry S. Truman? And for me, when I talk about
this, I would be his buddy. That's the acronym
I like to use. And it's blame other people, understand
where they're coming from, not agreeing with,
diminish the impact of their actions, not their
culpability, demonstrate tactical awareness through
the use of stories, and then focus on their why
in order to shape an understanding. So if you
were Harry, I'd say, Harry, look, we were isolationists.
We were trying to stay out of the war. We were
providing material, but that was it. Since Teddy
Roosevelt, we were trying to stay in the Western
hemisphere, Monroe Doctrine type stuff. And then
all of a sudden, what happened on December 7th?
The Japanese changed all that by killing 3 ,000
of our soldiers, sailors, and airmen. Of course
we had to fight. And I understand where you're
coming from because you had to write letters
back to the American widows and mothers and fathers
that had lost their sons and daughters at Peleliu
and Iwo Jima. and Okinawa, and you saw the Japanese
empire was going to fight to the end. And then
I would diminish impact by saying, Harry, you
saved lives. Look at how many people were going
to die if we had to take a million of our soldiers,
sailors, and airmen and go to mainland Japan
and fight on the main island of Japan. It would
have been millions of people on both sides. And
think about what would have happened if the Russians
would have continued to come down into Indochina
while this was all taking place. It would have
been awful. And then I would demonstrate tactical
empathy by saying, Harry, it's kind of like,
you know, if you were a surgeon late at night
and you get a call, horrific car accident, there's
a three -year -old kid that has a leg partially
amputated. And you have to come into the OR and
you're gonna make a terrible decision. Am I gonna
take the leg? Am I gonna try to fix the leg?
If I take the leg, I know that the boy is going
to live. He's going to have to have some type
of device to walk, but he's going to live. And
you make that tough decision to take that leg.
It was the best of the worst decisions. And that's
what dropping those A -bombs were. It was the
best of a worst decision where you saved lives.
You made a tough choice because the buck stops
there, Harry. And then I'd focus on the why.
And I'd say, Harry, above all else, any other
person in the history of time that had harnessed
godlike powers like you had for five years unabated.
with the atomic weapons would have tried to take
over the world what did you immediately do you
rebuilt it you immediately rebuilt europe you
immediately rebuilt japan and you were the policeman
because you're a great man that's how do you
interrogate harry s truman for dropping two atomic
bombs it's the same way you'd interrogate somebody
for shooting somebody for somebody stabbing somebody
you wouldn't pound on the table you wouldn't
be disrespectful you would focus on their why
because james we all have a why the the one thing
that You know, in grad school, I would go down
to the city lock up in St. Louis and it was the
highest paying job I could get on college. It's
the only reason I took it. But I would go down
there and I'd interview arrestees and murder,
rape, robbery, prostitution. And I would try
to get a urine drop for them and understand what
drugs they took. And I'd give them a Snickers
and a sun drop. And I got paid by the hour. So
I just wanted to hear their stories. And it was
amazing, right? It was amazing to hear their.
their life trajectory and amazing to hear their
choose your own adventure and they didn't have
a dad they didn't have a mom they had horrible
schooling they had you know a drug addicted parent
They were molested. Whatever it was, there was
always a trigger that caused them to end up in
front of me in that jail. And it doesn't make
it right, but what I think it did after talking
to thousands of people is you get this pattern
recognition of, one, we're all the same, and
we all didn't have the great opportunities that
I know I had and maybe you had, right, to live
the way that we live right now. So I think that
shaped a little bit of empathy that when you're
in the room, you can have that tactical empathy
with the people and understand, look. Something
went with this trajectory that caused this person
to be here. And it's hard to do that. It's hard
to not be just so mad at somebody that did horrible
things to infants. But if you do that, you're
not going to get their what and you're definitely
not going to get their why. So for me, having
those experiences early on in life, I think really,
really helped me kind of be able to talk to these
monsters. I wrote my second book just over a
year ago. And one of the core themes is generational
trauma, because I really wanted to storytell
that there are dominoes that are falling. If
you go down our timeline, I would argue, if not
World War II, certainly prior to that. And the
beautiful thing about having these conversations
today and using this technology for good, the
way we are at the moment, is that our generation
can look at these dominoes. hold the damn thing
up and stop it falling from our kids onto our
kids. And I think that there's a lot of areas
from homelessness to addiction to sex work. I
mean, you name it, places where people struggle,
obesity, where we can really turn this around.
What's interesting though, is when I've asked
people in the psychology world about sexual predators,
I've had a kind of mixed review. Some say, yes,
there's a common denominator of sexual trauma
in their past. Others have said, no, this was
not the same case. What have you seen with this
incredible lens that you have as far as common
denominator is in their upbringing? Yeah, that's
a great question. So the research that we operate
on a lot of is about 24 % of people that molested
individuals had something bad happen to them
from a sexual standpoint. But we also see that
number dramatically increase when they were also
physically abused. So is it causality? Absolutely
not. Is there some correlation? Yes. But there's
just as much correlation with physical abuse.
It's almost as if their role model, the person
that they look up to, their father, their uncle,
whoever did this horrific abuse, that's what
causes and shatters their understanding. And
sometimes it locks them in that age where that
bad thing happened. And when they get to that
age, they almost go back to that age to try to
understand why did this happen? I mean, it's
sad to say that. So yeah, just that victimization
in general that happened to them is prevalent.
But when people think it's a vampire complex,
that if something happens to somebody that they're
going to go down that road is absolutely not
the case. So definitely would want to dispel
that. But it's a very, very hard thing to research
too, because you're asking people to self -report
because most sexual assaults are not reported.
most sexual assaults happen to somebody that
knows who the offender was. And that's the scary
part is we're so worried about stranger danger,
James, is that it's happening in our house. It's
happening with the people that we trust our kids
with. And these individuals that do this, they
are very high level of what they do. They are
almost like, if you want to think of counterintelligence,
when we learn counterintelligence for spies,
you know, how they spot, assess someone, how
they determine vulnerabilities, how they approach
them. That's what a... You know, a pedophile,
that's what a child sex offender, hebophilia,
that's what these people are doing. They're looking
for a weak link. They're looking for somebody
who is, I don't want to use the word bad victim,
but maybe that won't be believed. They're looking
for somebody that maybe doesn't have that parent
in that type of situation or at least a parent
that's working and not around. So they're spotting,
they're assessing, they're taking advantage,
they're exchanging in secrets. And that's what
makes our job in this space very, very difficult
because you're dealing with a high level predator.
It's very, very tough to catch. So we do catch
them. That's obviously why we always like to
use polygraph because we may never get another
opportunity to kind of put this down. So we want
to have all hands on deck when we do this. So
technology has obviously made this much more
problematic in that now you can do your best
to keep the people. Outside your house, you can
have the great security systems. You cannot do
the sleepovers. And what are you doing? You're,
you're, you're given this phone and you're letting
them go into these applications to play games
in which there's many 30, 40 year old men in
there that now have chat functions. And then
they can take those kids offline to Snapchat
or wherever the case may be. And now they got
the end to end encryption. And it's not just
somebody that's looking to actually victimize
them, but that's where you start seeing sadly
the, the extortion. Where they exchange in the
photos and then, hey, you need to give me $500
or $1 ,000. And then sadly, these kids are committing
suicide. We just had this happen with Mr. Guffey
here. And he's since got an office and he's really
fighting against this Brandon Guffey here in
South Carolina. But sadly, his son took his life
within 45 minutes of this taking place. He thought
he was talking to a 17, 18 -year -old girl. And
unfortunately, it was a scammer overseas. This
device is the outlet to the world and you need
to put those protections on it. And that's why
it goes back to what we talked about earlier
with the UK and Australia is I hate seeing governmental
control of things like this, but it's gotten
to the point where the manufacturers of these
devices and the manufacturers of these apps,
they know where the money's made and they have
a need and a want to make money. And a lot of
that involves privacy. So I don't want to paint
a broad blood brush and say that these applications
are not helpful to law enforcement because many
of them are dramatically helpful to us. But there's
these internet crimes against children's task
forces, and you've got one of the best. You've
got three of them there in Florida that are amazing.
But these internet crimes against children's
task forces are just overwhelmed with these cyber
tips because, you know, these people get on.
the various apps and send, you know, pictures
of themselves and they're underage. And, you
know, every one of those cases is going to get
referred and it's going to have to be looked
at. Imagine the vicarious trauma of these investigators
that have to actually look at the images. I talk
about it, but I never have to look at the image.
And we're trying to develop the ability to not
have to look at all the images, but that is just,
you talk about. messing with people. It got me.
I mean, it definitely stung me because I didn't
realize it. But after doing that two, three,
four times a week, rationalizing, minimizing,
projecting behavior with these type of offenders,
luckily I had a good support group that goes,
Brad, are you doing all right? And I wasn't.
And there are certain things that I would do.
I would wear the same shirt on every op and I'd
take that shirt off before I went in the house.
I'd launder it the next day. Kind of like what
medical examiners, when they leave their, you
know, their, what they use in the operating room,
the procedure room, they leave that cloak. They
don't take that home, obviously. I would play
a game. on my phone, like risk or chess or whatever,
something I had to be very present and analytical
with. I would never write my reports at home.
I'd never talk about it. Obviously with my kids,
I'd talk about it with people outside of work
that understood. And then I would go do a jujitsu
session. That's why I got into jujitsu 11 years
ago was to deal with this because I had to be
100 % present or you get choked out or somebody
really does a bad thing to one of your joints.
So for me, two or three times a week, getting
out there in the gi and My wife calls it rolling
around with other sweaty guys that are going
through a midlife crisis, whatever. That's what
I needed. So to me, that's how I coped with it.
But lowering your ego and realizing there's very,
very smart people out there. And if you start
to feel that, or if you start to see that in
somebody else, see something, say something and
intervene, because we never want to see what
you were just talking about with a 26 year old,
26 year veteran, you know, who should be enjoying
the twilight of his career. Absolutely. One thing
that really struck me as well on that theme.
Having these deep conversations with so many
people now is, I was amazed. And a lot of us
that are drawn to wearing a uniform, to being
in the professions that we do, there's an understanding
now a lot of us have had struggles when we were
younger. And that's what leads us into this beautiful
profession. If left unaddressed, could definitely
be a fracture in our foundation. If talked about
and processed, I truly believe it becomes a strength.
I really do. But I was blown away how many men
had been sexually abused. When you entered this
whole world, what was the prevalence? Was it
more than you realized? Were you surprised at
the beginning of this? I was surprised by the
prevalence of that. So yes, there were certain
stereotypes, the presence of that, but also the
presence of female offenders. Some of my worst
offenders were female offenders. We used to view
that as the unicorn. You know, you're not going
to see a female offender. Where I first started
seeing that was in traumatic brain injuries.
So what we would traditionally call shaken babies
had to work a lot of those cases. And I would
see that and that made sense. But when I started
seeing that on CSAM cases and I started seeing
that, you know, females traveling. to engage
in this. I mean, we all see the high school teacher
with the freshmen and that, and you see that
and that's what makes the news and so on and
so forth. But I didn't really think I'd see that
prevalency of it, but that shocked me. And then
also, yeah, the numbers of when I would talk
to a male offender for them to say, hey, when
I was 10, this happened. When I was 12, this
happened. And there was a lot of pattern recognition
there is that access is everything, okay? Is
that... Back then, most of these kids didn't
have cell phones. So the access came from, we
would stereotype Boy Scouts and things like this.
But when it came to boys, you typically will
trust a male to be with a male at a higher prevalence
than obviously a male with a female. Who's going
to let a male take a girl someplace? That's odd,
like a parent taking somebody else's kid. It's
not as... problematic in most people's eyes to
have a male take care of a boy. And that's the
problem is they tended to get more access with
that. So that's something that people to be careful
about is who are you giving access to your kids?
Because you have to have access to be able to
commit the act. So, and, and the sad part is
this happens a lot of times in people that are
in desperate need. They, they, they get a babysitter
on a whim because they don't have enough money.
They have a extended family member watch the
kid cause they don't have enough money. You know,
so sometimes it's unfortunate because they're
working 60 hours a week and they're not in the
home to watch what's really going on. But if
there's one thing anybody can change, stop the
sleepovers. And not just from parents, but from
older siblings. We hear a lot of that as far
as a first offense might have happened, you know,
on a sleepover. And just also understand your
kids will sleep to a fire alarm. You probably
understand this in the fire service, James, but,
you know, kids in their early years. they sleep
so deeply, right? That I don't know how many
times somebody's went in a house and you've had
to go get the kid because they're sleeping, right?
So these offenders know that and unfortunately
they take advantage of that. So there's no outcry
that could be made because the kids sleep through
it, you know? So I guess there's a blessing and
a curse. They slept through it, but it still
happened. So sleepovers, don't do them. One more
area, then we'll shift over to the protection
side of it. One thing that really doesn't sit
well with me, and it's obviously very topical
at the moment because we have a list that's probably
got a lot of sex offenders on it that we're still
not being told who they are, or more importantly,
that they are being sent through a court process
as we speak. But one of the most jarring hypocrisies
to me is the Michael Jackson case. Every element
of grooming from children being in the bedroom
to sending parents away to testimonies, outcries
later on in life. And again, people are kind
of discrediting that. But I mean, how often does
that happen where it is suppressed? It is buried
down. So kind of with that lens, some of these
high profile wealthy people being able to get
away from the same criminality that if they were.
most of these people that ended up sitting in
front of you were actually, you know, put through
the justice system. Yeah. You're going to see
that the offenders, the way I like to kind of
look at it, the analogy I use is when you see
a great white shark, you think it's scary, right?
Like it's a great white shark, right? That's
going to bite me. It's going to eat me. People
look at that and they think this is vicious.
But really when people get attacked by a great
white shark, it's because they're doing something
stupid. They're wearing probably a you know,
a black wetsuit and they're surfing in a very
dark, murky water during dawn and dusk when it's
their prime feeding hours and they're kicking
their feet as if they're wounded prey. Like,
I'm not going to say that's the Darwin Awards,
but you're putting yourself out there to be attacked.
But Jacques Cousteau said long ago, the world's
most dangerous shark was the oceanic white tip
because it was an open water shark. When it saw
its prey, it went for its prey and it didn't
look scary. That's the kind of offender that's
scary to us is that they blend in. They don't
look problematic. They can groom somebody because
they don't look like that Chester person with
the horns. We put a halo on them. They walk amongst
us. And that's why we got to be very careful.
And I think, yeah, fame obviously might've helped.
And who knows, Michael Jackson, I don't know.
I don't want to make assertions. But yeah, as
people that are famous, they get that benefit.
They don't look scary. Okay. And that's the problem
is that offenders don't look scary. We always
used to kid about that. And we work a lot of
these cases. You'd think you could see the disturbance
in the force, right? When you see somebody, but
when somebody looks odd and they act odd and
they're awkward, that's not the person I'm scared
of because they're not going to be able to socially
engineer a situation because anybody's going
to pick up on that person's weird. That person's
off. Jenny's not hanging around with that guy.
The person we're worried about is the Ted Bundy
type, right? That looks. fine, you know, handsome,
whatever the case may be. I mean, Ted Bundy made
a great first impression, right? He made a terrible
second impression, but he made a horrible first
impression or a great first impression. So that's
what I'd say about people is, yeah, people do
get a benefit of maybe socioeconomic status that
we need to be very, very careful about. Don't
trust your gut when it comes to walking down
an alley late at night. Police officers, trust
your gut when, hey, I should call for backup,
something's not right. That mind -body connection,
trust that in that moment, but don't trust it
in personal and professional relationships because
when people say, I trust my gut in those types
of situations, that's not what your gut should
be used for. That's when we get in very, very
big problems when we put those horns and halos
on people too quickly. Because we stay consistent
with that initial placing of those items upon
somebody's head. So I try not to, I make a great
first impression, but I try not to look at someone's
first impression. I try to have multiple interactions
because it's very hard for a narcissist, a gaslighter,
a bad person, whatever the case may be, somebody
with bad intent to engage in multiple, to stay
consistent with that. Same thing with lying.
It's hard for people to stay consistent. Where
you have to be afraid of, James, now is we used
to put our diaries under our bed. Now we put
them online. So anybody out there that's on a
dating service that gets scammed, one of the
main ways they get scammed is because of the
familiarity that they have with that person.
That person is becoming the mythical Prince Charming
to you because they know what makes you tick.
They know your likes, dislikes, pain points,
and they create that curated social media reel
of the person you'd most likely to want to interact
with because of what you put out into the world.
They watch your TikToks. They do this. They do
that. And sadly, that's what a lot of offenders
do or a lot of... People that are trying to scam
you for Bitcoin or whatever the case may be.
They look at your social media reel and guess
what? Now they're your bestie. And you go, oh,
I got such a good gut feeling with this person.
Well, you just read it wrong. You need to have
multiple interactions. You need to slow the process
down. Quick is not good when it comes to business
transactions or personal relationships. So much
great advice. I really, really appreciate it.
Let's go to the protection detail side then.
Which president were you first assigned to? So
I, if I, when I first started out, it's not nose
kid. I was a little bit of a runner, not great
runner, but W was running like crazy and he was
beating up a lot of our agents because you have
to wear a radio, you'd have to wear a gun and
he was in good shape. And so we had to kind of
stock up some of our shifts and I was blessed
to be on one of these shifts that had. people
that were a little bit better runners. And, uh,
he would do a typical 5k and he'd go out and
run. And that was a good time because we, um,
that was my first taste of protection. And to
see it at that level was something because you
would go from, we were in Austin, then we go
to Waco and then you go to LA and then you go
to New York and you're like, wow, you know, as
a 26, 27 year old kid, it was pretty eyeopening
to, uh, to do those things. You know, Leno one
day you're on Letterman the next day. Um, And
some of those things, like I said, I don't want
to say it would get to your head, but as a young
kid, you thought, oh, this is what the Secret
Service is all about. And it's not. Shift work
is not. protection. It's obviously part of it.
It's probably the most visible part of it, but
so much goes behind the scenes. So that first
election was crazy because we got held an extra,
I think, two or three weeks with the hanging
chads and the election controversy in 2000. So
we were waiting on the great state of Florida
to come back and the Supreme Court ruling. So
that was my first real taste of protection. And
then it would become more intermittent because
we don't do full -time protection in the Secret
Service. You would get... absolutely worn out.
I know after Butler, people have said, you know,
we need to drop investigations. What makes a
good protection agent is a good investigations
agent because you have to be able to do both.
Plus you just can't travel. Your divorce rate
would go through the roof. It would just be very
problematic with the work -life balance. So for
me, I went back to investigations and then about
the four -year marks when I went into polygraph
and I did that for four years in Chicago. And
then I had an opportunity to go to H .W. Bush
when he was former president. And it was magical
because summer in Maine and wintering in Houston
is a pretty good mix. So I did a former president.
So it was wonderful for me. Great family. Got
to see some amazing things. Went to St. Louis,
got back into investigations and polygraph. And
then from there, you do intermittent protection,
obviously during the campaigns, during the United
Nations, those types of things. And then I took
a job liaison position at the Federal Polygraph
School, where we have about 30 different federal
agencies, intel and law enforcement. So I would
teach interview interrogation to them and also
polygraph. So that was kind of my career arc.
I would say it was more investigations heavy,
especially when you talk to other people that
were on the presidential detail and obviously
saw things at that level. There's levels to protection
and the difference between a former president.
And the current sitting president is definitely
night and day as far as resources. I was trying
to, and it was at the end of his lifespan, but
I was trying to get Jimmy Carter on the show
through one of the mutual friends in the Secret
Service. And that's an interesting one because
I think most of us would agree that he seemingly
became more and more and more of an altruist
after he was president. So I think if you're
going to use that platform, he's definitely one
of the ones that I admire the most. Oh, and he
went to some places that it wasn't the Ritz where
he was staying. He was staying in tents and building
houses. And like you said, he went to Africa,
he rebuilt down in Dominican and Haiti and things
like that. So yeah, absolutely. He did a lot
of great things after office. So you mentioned
Butler, this again. It's not by any means the
focus, but with your background and the lens
that so many people that obviously the armchair
quarterbacking, you know, that event and some
of the other ones that are kind of surrounded
recently through your Secret Service lens, you
know, what were the things that were done right
that people vilified and what were, if any, some
of the mistakes that resulted in the assassination?
Well, if you start with the riot, obviously the
working shift and the counter -assault deployment
were amazing. When I came into the Secret Service,
right after I got to Chicago, Tim McCarthy was
the individual that took the bullet for Reagan.
And that was somebody you always revered because
he made himself big and took that round from
Hinckley. So when you saw, obviously when you're
not left to bang, meaning you don't stop it on
the front end and it happens, you failed. So
obviously zero stop, like that's a failure. But
when the shift responds instantaneously and the
counter -assault team deploys instantaneously
and they, you know, people can criticize this,
that, and the other. But from my standpoint,
that was textbook as far as after the bad things
happened. So the fire already lit the building
on, but. So we didn't stop the fire, but at least
we got the protectee out of there after that
happened. Now, unfortunately, another fellow
firefighter lost his life in the stands. So that's
a failure at multiple levels. And that's what
I think sometimes people forget is they're like,
well, yeah, but Trump didn't get killed. Another
human being got killed and two other people got
injured. So terrible failure. And things leading
up to them, there were assumptions that were
made. And it was a perfect storm of events. Everybody
going from the Democratic National Convention
to the Republican National Convention, you have
an agency that's stressed with personnel and
funding. And to go forward before I go backwards
there, I think that's something that they've
done a great job with of realizing that, that
we are making too many assumptions and we're
relying on local and state law enforcement too
much. That would be like if we had Secret Service
agents go out and try to do work domestic cases
or run fire calls. That's not what we're meant
to do. I think we got to where outer perimeter
posts, we were utilizing local state assets too
much. And we made assumptions that, well, hey,
that SWAT team or that counter sniper team is
going to be stationed in the AGR building. And
they've done this before. And their law enforcement,
they'll be able to take care of it. That area
was huge. There were multiple buildings. So the
assumptions that were made, asynchronous communications,
you've got, it's always a problem having people
communicate in real time when you have encrypted
radios, you know, with multiple different agencies.
We had a security room and then there was another
command post. Well, you had, whether it be Beaver
or Butler, they're in one command post and then
you've got the Pennsylvania State Police and
the Secret Service in another command post. You
need to have everybody either all in the same
command post or on the same security room. So
the comms are, you may not be on the same frequencies,
but you can, you know, kind of filter that down
to one person that you can push that out. You
probably need additional people in the command
post to push those instructions out. You probably
need additional people in the outer perimeter
that can respond to counter sniper, so on and
so forth. Yeah, the counter sniper, that was
amazing. Once that individual sadly got those
shots off, the individual got on target. And,
you know, eliminated the threat unbelievably
quickly, not quick enough. But assumptions, you
know, you had, you know, maybe us not adopting
drone technology and counter drone technology
quick enough. I don't know. I know that that's
been an unbelievable focus since and they're
trying to move heaven and earth to try to make
that happen. But what are the chances that drone
technology on our end goes down right when Crooks
has his up? You know, it's just, but like I said,
we have to get it right every time. They've got
to get it right one time. And like I said, it
just, as people were going this way around the
building to look for him, he was going that way
and vice versa. It was just a series of, you
know, of errors. And we can't make those assumptions.
We have to own it. We screwed up. And, you know,
that's. You know, I think for anybody that really
wants to look, if you go to Senator Grassley's
website and you look at the Senate hearings and
you look at the Homeland Security, you can see
all those interviews. So it's not conjecture.
It's not what you heard from a buddy. It's not
what you heard from any news source, from some
talking head. You can see what the agents, HSI,
Secret Service. locals, state troopers, what
they testified to under oath. And it really opened
your eyes about that scenario. So you take a
couple hours and do that. I think it really makes
someone a more informed consumer. We learned
something from the JFK assassination. We learned
we don't do uncovered arrivals for the Reagan
assassination. And you have somebody in the hospitals,
you have a dedicated line. We learned a lot from
this situation. And hopefully we learned that.
you know certain things that we're going to do
you know you had a situation in which you had
a protectee that liked to do outdoor events and
what we've seen in ukraine is that outdoor events
are very very problematic in today's you know
uh you know threat environment so um but when
our protectee says they want to go somewhere
anywhere in the world we need to make that happen
and we didn't do it that day we failed and i
was retired at that point and yet I felt the
pain for those agents on the job because I know
anyone in the agency, that was the worst day
of their career, even if they had nothing to
do with it, because everything was a reflection
upon them that day. The one thing that I find
unusual, and I'm looking forward to you educate
me on this, when shots are fired and whoever
the person you're protecting is held down, the
ability for them to stand up and then punch the
air, I found strange. So educate me on that.
Yeah, I mean, I got to be careful with what I
say, right? But when you're trying to, you know,
just from jujitsu, I will say it is hard to hold
another human being down when they don't want
to be held down. And when you're assessing somebody
for injuries or you're, I mean, if you want to
call it a meat blanket, that's what you're pretty
much forming in that situation because, you know,
at a certain point, you're going to take those
rounds. You know, through, you know, once again,
I won't get into any more specifics than that,
but that's just what you're trained. You're trying
to make yourself as many obstacles between you
and the vital organs of the individual that you're
protecting. It's not about catching a bullet
or whatever. You're just getting in the way.
You know, some people say that, would you take
a bullet for something? You're just getting in
the way. You're not consciously thinking about
that. So when everybody dove on that pile, I
think it took for a second to say, hey, it's
our principal hit. And then it took them for
a second to say, hey, we're going to get the
cars where they need to get. And then as we're
standing up, yeah, somebody could say, why didn't
you carry them off? It's very, very difficult
to carry, you know, an individual, you know,
you know, through that, through the fire service,
you know, somebody that's, you know, maybe moving,
it's very hard to carry them. And you're a lot
of times better off to have them, you know, walk
or run or jog on their own accord than trying
to carry them. Because anytime you're trying
to carry them, Any type of protection around
them is going to be affected. And now you're
potentially open up an avenue where they can
get shot again. Gotcha. I appreciate that. Thank
you. So I hope I didn't dodge that too much.
All right. Well, you mentioned about being retired
at that point. So let's talk about the transition
and we'll get to the book. So what made you pull
the trigger as far as the transitioning out?
We hear, you know, that transition can be very
jarring for a lot of people in uniform. You know,
we have this tribe and purpose and identity.
What was the transition like for you specifically?
Yeah, so I was blessed to pick up another job
to be able to do what I'm doing now as far as
teach, interview, interrogation, to keep interviewing
people, to still be in federal law enforcement.
So I was blessed. But yes, for four months in
between that. How many times can you paint a
room or can you work outside in the yard or get
a new cigar, look up bourbon or whatever the
case may be. You run out of things to do. And
yeah, that sense of purpose is gone because you're
used to that every single day as far as you've
got your routine. And sadly, we've seen that
where people will work 25 years and they're amazing
and they're in great shape. And then the next
week after they retire, they have a heart attack
because they're just... You know, they've worked
so hard and that was their purpose and their
purpose is gone. It's almost like when people
lose their wives and then they pass shortly thereafter
because that was their identity, right? That
was their everything. So yeah, that was a big
thing for me is I always tried to stay active
and read up. And luckily, that's when I really
started hitting the book hard. So I treated writing
the book like a job. I had a bunch of kind of...
material I'd put together over the years, stories
to accentuate how to communicate effectively
with people. And when I was off for those four
months, I just really treated it like a nine
to five job, putting it together and started
off as a law enforcement book. Like, Hey, how
can we help out any type of individuals in law
enforcement? uh get the truth and then i realized
and had a great editor that said hey this is
for parents teachers coaches this is you're creating
an environment where people can open up this
is a more universal book so let's reshape it
a little bit and that's what we did is we kind
of took the sandpaper to it and uh ended up with
what i hope lands here uh in a couple weeks as
a communication book in general so the book is
called tell me everything you've kind of got
it separate into about four So I'm just going
to hit each of those just to give a kind of overview
of what people will find between the covers.
So the first one, mastering first impressions
and preparation. Yeah, absolutely. Is that recency
bias, primacy effect? Is people remember the
first and last things in our interactions? And
what do we do first thing? We shake hands. And
yet, how many times have you got the world's
worst handshake? It's cold, it's wet. Yeah. It's
too strong. It's too light. And so literally
we spend, you know, a little bit of time talking
about the world's perfect handshake. I'll warm
my hands up. I'll make sure they're dry. I'll
sit on my hand. If I'm seated, I'll make sure
something warm, like coffee's in my right hand.
We all shake with right hands. I identify early.
I'm at a 45 degree angle. I show the white of
my palm to show that I don't have a weapon. I
give him a little eyebrow flash, a little tilt
to the side, give him a subtle smile because
neutral codes negative when it comes to first
impressions. When we were a tribal based society.
Hundreds of thousands of years ago, our eyes
and our ears identified threats to our well -being.
So I need to hack that. And when it comes to
hearing, I need to be able to have a slightly
deeper voice at about 120 to 140 words per minute.
When I'm first meeting you, I need to really
try to avoid that anxiety, that higher pitch
voice, because that codes as you're nervous,
you're unconfident, or you're scared. And emotions
are contagious. And I obviously don't want that.
I want to be wearing something that's professional.
After COVID, what happened? We all got comfortable
wearing leisure activities in. And I see so many
interrogations in which. agents are wearing an
ACDC concert t -shirt or whatever the case may
be. And it just looks unbelievably unprofessional.
So you don't have to have a suit and tie, but
you don't have to have a jacket on, but put that
button down shirt on and look professional. You
don't, I think, what was it? Deion Sanders says,
look good, feel good, feel good, play good, play
good, you pay good. And I think there's a lot
to that. as far as looking good. So we go through
all five senses. I try to make sure everybody's
fed. They associate me with that. It looks good
in court. There's a reciprocity benefit to providing
food to people and water to people and obviously
a restroom break to people. So trying to create
that, once again, that environment where people
feel safe enough to make a full disclosure. Brilliant.
Just tangenting for a moment. I had a guest on
from your community and I forget his last name.
It was Mark and it was a Greek last name that
I would butcher if I tried it. But he had a great
perspective on, you know, just threat recognition
in public, whether it's, you know, an angry person
in a pub, whether it's someone who might be carrying
a backpack full of something that we don't want
around a crowd of people. when we're talking
about that kind of evolutionary protective element
that we have as human beings what are some of
the the things that the average person can look
for as far as unusual behavior without pigeonholing
too much yeah i mean obviously you know if you
want to think of it as you know what's everybody
doing in the crowd if everybody in the crowd
is you know looking a certain way if they're
excited and somebody is very very neutral very
negative why is that no you know that that That
pattern recognition, it could be because they
just got a phone call and their girlfriend broke
up with them. And it may have absolutely nothing
to do with you. But what are some signs of aggression
that we see before somebody, you know, we watch
these videos online of somebody punching somebody,
knocking somebody out. What's their face look
like when that happens? Obviously, their jaw
is clenched. They're breathing through their
chest. Their nostrils are flaring. They tend
to have that brow furrow. They tend to have their
body bladed. You know, they tend to be animated.
in their movements, meaning uncoordinated. And
that's because of fight or flight, that blood
is pooling. Anytime somebody's felt fight or
flight, you know what that means is your blood's
pooling in those big muscles of your body and
you get those jelly legs. So when you see that,
yeah, why am I seeing that? So I guess what I
look at is it's not, maybe this person's a threat.
It's why does that person look this way? And
now I want to have my focus be there for a consistent
period of time to see, did that just change or
did it? Is it staying that way? Is it escalating?
So, yeah, those are as far as pre -attack indicators.
That's something that you're going to look at,
because obviously, if we can stop it before it
happens, you know, that's a win. What about because
we obviously have, sadly, issues as far as violence
in our schools, you know, some of the domestic
terrorism. What about the person in the crowd?
As far as what you're looking for? Yeah, so now
rather than directed at you specifically and
that clenched door and that aggression, now it's
just something on a train, in a stadium. Yeah.
Yeah, it's tough because if you watch some of
these videos, right, you see these people that
didn't really display too much. And then all
of a sudden they act and then they almost revert
back to that. You know, if you see that attack
in Charlotte on the train, you know, that individual
wasn't displaying too much as far as pre -attack
indicators. He acted and he just pretty much
went back to chilling. You know, I don't know
if there's mental health issues there or not,
but yeah, that one's very, very hard. to display,
but I would say consistency of behavior. If,
um, very rarely do people go from zero to 60.
Um, you know, you, you don't see people laugh
and then cry. You just don't see that the barometer
switch that, that much. So what I'm going to
do is I'm going to look and see what's that baseline
behavior. And then all of a sudden was there
a sudden change and what brought that on? When
you look at personal safety, when you look at
things, a lot of times these things happen in
transitional areas where you park your car. when
you're going into your house. It's very rarely
happening when you're in transit. So that's when
your antenna needs to go up is the arrivals,
the departures, when we're moving, you know,
towards an entrance and towards a departure,
because people know you're going to be there.
So, and there's a lot of activity, there's a
lot of movement, there's a lot of things going
on. So people can kind of get lost in the wash,
so to speak. So someone in a crowd, they're going
to stand out. So a lot of times that's maybe
not when they would. they would act you know
whereas when you see a rope line there's a lot
of activity so that's something you'd be more
concerned about it's funny because you're absolutely
right you know there's videos we're watching
and like this there was no science but you'll
see all these guys on instagram do these videos
about how that person got stabbed and if they
just didn't do this thing it's like no they were
just sitting on the bus for christ's sake there's
a certain point mind in their own business and
you can't live like that you can't live ultra
vigilant you would go insane right um You shouldn't
have to be like that on a bus thinking, hey,
somebody's going to stab me in the neck. But
unfortunately, we live in a dangerous world.
So yeah, if I'm going to sit facing the door,
there's certain things that we all do. In emergency
services, we tend to where we sit somewhere and
are we armed? Are we not armed? Where's the exits?
Those are easy things that we all want to do.
But too many times we let our guard down when
we're walking to our car. We walk aimlessly to
our car. We don't walk confidently. And especially,
you know, and this is not just a female thing,
but I say this to women's groups all the time
is how you walk confidently. If a tiger, a lion
or a human who's wanting to victimize somebody,
if they're looking at a threat, what are they
looking at? They're looking for the wounded gazelle
or the one that's disoriented or lost. And so
if you look like you know where you're going
and you're walking there with a purpose, they
tend to say, all right, I'm not going to mess
with that. I've heard that even from law enforcement.
A lot of my friends who are brown, black belts
in jiu -jitsu, they're in great shape. They're
the ones that have the lowest reports of hands
-on because these criminals are looking at them
going, I'm not going to fuck with that guy. They
see the color flower ear. Or they just see the
command presence. You know, what is command presence?
I don't mean that. Sometimes that's misstated.
The confidence. They see the distance between
somebody's earlobe and their shoulder. They see
the separation in their shoulders because somebody's
just comfortable. My professor, Gibson Tsai,
he came from Brazil at 18, was a world champion
at 18, won multiple world championships. He's
a very, very large man. I don't know if he's
ever gotten in a fight because he just walks
away. Right. What's the greatest self -defense
thing that you can do? You use your feet and
you walk away because even when you win, you
lose. You might get sued. You never know when
your chin goes from here to here, you go to sleep.
I don't care who you are. I'm a brown belt in
jujitsu, but if somebody catches you, you're
going to go to sleep and bad things are going
to happen. So I always want to avoid a confrontation,
but also you want to be confident if every law
enforcement official should be a blue belt. Um,
when I see, I helped teach the beginners class
at our gym and we had a law enforcement officer
come in and he, larger guy, um, but was, was
trying to pick up, uh, jujitsu and he was having
these problems with, um, handcuffing. He's like,
Brad, I tried the Kimura here and I'm getting
stuck here. And so we worked on it and we repped
it and we repped it and we repped it. And one
of the most proudest moments was the next week
he came in and he said that same exact thing
happened. Guy was going for his gun. He used
that Kimura. And he was able to put handcuffs
on it and he did it confidently. And he didn't
have to go down his tool belt and either tase
the guy or he might not have been able to tase
him. He may have resulted in a fatal confrontation
and he may have got hurt. And that to me was
that confidence he had. He said, Brad, man, before
my heart rate was going to be like 120, 130.
I'm fighting. I'm doing this. I'm using too much
muscle. He goes, we repped it 20, 30 times. And
he goes, my heart rate was probably 80. And I
was very controlled. And that's what every law
enforcement officer needs is that you see a lot
of officer involved shootings where it starts
off two to one, whatever the case may be, and
they can't keep that person down. They can't
get those handcuffs on. And then it turns into
something else where deadly force is used. And
a lot of times that doesn't have to be the case.
So we spend so much time on the range and we
don't spend time in communication. We don't spend
time in jujitsu is that to me. uh even just a
blue belt in jiu -jitsu is a superpower against
an untrained person just with minimal training
absolutely what about chokes this is always an
interesting conversation but especially with
someone who's well versed in jiu -jitsu i'm a
i'm a blue belt i think i've got what three stripes
now or something um and i'm i'm a neck hunter
it's just i've got long skinny arms yeah absolutely
i find myself guillotining a lot and and here's
the thing look i got i got a bigger neck but
james I don't know how many pounds I got on you.
I probably got 60 pounds on you. But my neck,
if you get it, it doesn't matter that I have
a weight advantage. When I don't have blood,
oxygenated blood going to my brain, I stop doing
what I'm doing and I make poor decisions. And
my hands go from hurting you to try to getting
this off. And you know what they're not reaching
for? They're not reaching for your tool belt.
They're not reaching for your gun. They're trying
to do self -preservation. And so the problem
of not having rear naked chokes is I've probably
been choked. Oh, 10 ,000 times. And it works.
I've probably choked 10 ,000 times and it works.
Not one time did I have a heart attack. Okay.
But the problem is you have untrained people,
maybe multiple people. You do have compression
on them, maybe at other parts of their body.
And what you see in some of these cases is these
people that we are wrestling around with, what's
their heart rate? what drugs do they maybe have
on board, what underlying health conditions they
have. And we extrapolate from that, that it's
the choke that caused that and not some underlying
health issue or some drugs that they were under
the influence of. And I'm not making that specific
to any case. I'm just saying is that by taking
that away, now I have to go to joint manipulations,
which may lead to in the heat of the moment,
destroying somebody's rotator cuff or breaking
their elbow. So the liability with that. the
pain compliance that maybe that person really
freaks out now because the pain that's going
associated with that, or I may have to go to
strikes and we all know how that looks on camera.
Um, but yeah, rear naked choke, or just even
if I'm doing an Ezekiel or some type of choke
where I'm using a. using someone's coat to choke
them, what do they have to do with their hands?
They have to bring their hands off. So if I'm
in mount, I can now get a higher mount. What
can they not do? They can't oompa off. It's very
hard for them to transition off of me because
my weight's much higher on their body now. So
all these things kind of play on one another.
I mean, is a gift wrap, is it a choke? A gift
wrap is one of the greatest control moves you
can do on somebody because they can't turn into
you. They can't turn away. One of your arms is
basically controlling their entire body. You
can get to your radio, you can get to your phone.
And yet I have some CT people that say, ah, if
you do a gift wrap, you're really cutting off
half their blood supply. So we can't do that,
man. So it's just so many things are being taken
off the menu as far as what we can do that that's
problematic. When I speak to the canine specialists
in law enforcement, let me see here. Mike Goosby,
I was blanking for his name for a second. Mike
is the LAPD guru in that world. And you hear
the optics of the canines and they're trying
to take him away. It is a fraction of the number
of calls that canines use where they ever actually
even bite anyone. So you send a canine in, not
only do the cops not got killed, but the perp
doesn't get killed either. So everyone goes home.
And even if there is a bite, the perp usually
still goes home. Maybe they might be shredded
their arm a little bit, but they're still alive.
And it's the same to me with this conversation,
having, you know, done jujitsu for a while and
I haven't been a striker for a long time. You
know, if, even if you put someone out for a moment
and you got people watching you doing it, where
you're going to let go. And now that you've cuffed
them, that person wakes up and then. They go
to prison and they're not dead and their loved
ones still have a son or a daughter or whatever
it is. And, you know, life goes on. But this
is a very dangerous conversation where you start
taking away tool, non -lethal tools that then
are increasing the likelihood of an officer then
going for lethal response instead. Yeah, you're
right. And we've lost, I want to say three dogs
here in South Carolina, maybe two with South
Carolina Law Enforcement Division. And one of
these individuals is a great. a jujitsu practitioner
at my gym and just horrific to see him lose a
family member, you know, to him. But that dog
saved their lives. This individual was in a hallway
with a high power rifle and the dog took it and
saved that entry team's life. But yeah, not having
that dog would have cost us, you know. a great
officer. So it's tough because you're right.
The optics, people look at that. And I think
some of it is, did the dog just take the person
down? The handler, don't let him gnaw on the
leg for 60 seconds, right? But yeah, you got
to have that. You got to have those capabilities
because if not, then unfortunately, there's going
to be more lethal interactions or more law enforcement
individuals are going to get hurt. But I think
the easy thing is, let's just start getting some
people in jujitsu, man. I know my professor will
pretty much give 75 % off to law enforcement
to come in. And yet people still don't do it.
We find other things to do. We got to level up
and call of duty instead of go to jujitsu. Just
come to jujitsu, man. It's fun. The hardest day
is the first day walking on the mats. And I know
you'd probably agree with this. The hardest day
is walking to the gym and being like, I suck.
We don't want to suck at something. But you know
what? In one week, that version of you would
kick that previous version's ass. would absolutely
destroy him. And then another week that it's
just this common, this, this metamorphosis of,
of who you are as an individual, you get so much
better. And even as a brown belt, you know, it's
so frustrating because I want to get my black
belt. I want to get my black belt, but I'm not
ready. I have so much more to learn. Um, and
that's the chase. That's the beauty of this is
that we can go a hundred percent. I used to love
doing Krav Maga and stuff, but you can't go a
hundred percent, you know, jujitsu. I go a hundred
percent. And at the end, i tap or the other individual
i'm rolling with taps and we smile at each other
and you know what we learned something we can
battle test something hey i saw this buggy choke
online let's try this that doesn't work for me
so i'm just going to throw that out of the toolbox
but what other thing in the world can you red
team something with different shapes sizes ethnicities
and see if it fits in your toolbox or not in
such a timely fashion and throw things away or
adopt things um that's that's what i love about
it is you can change who you are um kind of plug
and play um and There's no better place to meet
people because there are felons, there are law
enforcement, there's military, there's housewives,
there's the whole gamuts of people in there.
And people I probably wouldn't associate with
if I didn't do jiu -jitsu. That's my tribe. So
please go try it out. It may save your life.
Absolutely. Well, on that theme, one more area.
We are seeing in... I would argue quite a lot
of places that fitness standards and other standards
are being lowered with the, in my opinion, facade
of increasing recruitment. What I've seen from
my career working for four agencies is the one
that actually had the highest standards that
would lose or terminate. 25 % of the probationary
class after the first year because they hadn't
reached that bar, not because they were being
dicks, but they just, you know, you didn't reach
it. Those are the ones that had the biggest line
outside the department. So with your, you know,
kind of perspective on this, talk to me about,
you know, recruitment and where standards should
be. It's tough because you got to fill the seats
in the training academy, right? And at the end
of the day, what's causing that funnel to, and
you see it in the military too. You see it out
of basic training. You get individuals that can't
meet the standards, so they put them in remedial
at basic training because you have to put the
individuals in the seats, unfortunately. But
yeah, we're definitely seeing that standard.
And I think a lot of that's society -based, right?
Is that you got more people sitting down, less
people walking, eating processed foods. And when
that happens, you're going to put on weight,
your joints are going to get all jacked up, and
you see it in the gym this time of the year,
right? People are going to turn over a new leaf,
right, James? You're going to go down to the
Planet Fitness or the Gold's Gym and everybody,
man, I'm going to sign up for the year. And here
in about three or four weeks, things will start
to thin out because consistency beats intensity
any day and people are not very consistent. So
the way you have to look at this is, once again,
best predictor of future behaviors, past behavior.
If you have a 25 -year -old applicant that's
morbidly obese, that's running a whatever mile
and a half time and can't do a pull -up, Are
they going to be able to turn their life around
and be like David Goggins and all of a sudden
they're a Navy SEAL? Chances are. That's why
we love those redemption stories, right? That's
why we love when we do see a story like a David
Goggins or whatever. But very rarely do you see
that. That's the exception to the rule. So as
an organization, you've got to sit there and
make decisions on who do you want representing
you? What do you want these people to look like
representing your organization? And when there's
a foot chase and after 80 meters, this person.
can't breathe. And on the radio, they sound like
they're about to fall over. How do you remediate
that? That's a problem. But, you know, at the
end of the day, you've got to have the streets
patrolled. You have to have people in the firehouse
and you've got to have, uh, seats and basic training.
So, um, I don't know what the answer is. Maybe
some of these GLP ones, twos, and threes that
are coming down the pipeline, you know, people
can take the red of true tide and, uh, you know,
it'd be the magic drug so that you can just eat
whatever you want. I don't know. But, uh, Maybe
there'll be a magic pill in the future. Yeah,
I doubt it. Because even if you lose the body
weight, you still haven't learned what it's like
to actually work out. So it's horrible. You're
correct. Yeah. I mean, from my profession, I
know because we're seeing it happen now is that,
you know, our work weeks have devolved to the
point where, as I mentioned earlier, we're just
losing people left, right and center. And now
there's a progressive movement to shorten the
work week to fill all these vacant spots and
therefore give these men and women the rest and
recovery and the environment to forge performance
and go home to their families. Law enforcement,
obviously, I think there needs to be also an
element of support again and training and getting,
you know, reversing this kind of anti -police
element. But nationally, I couldn't agree more.
You know, we spend 20 % of our GDP on health
care. So, you know, I don't think in a year you've
just removed food dyes from it. It cuts it like
we have an obesity epidemic. No, red dye, whatever,
is not going to change everything. You're correct.
So 73 % of the nation is overweight or obese,
of which I think 43 is clinically obese. So if
that's not front and center of whatever political
party is in power at that moment. then that's
what we need to, you know, that's the revolution
we should be having is the mental health and
the physical health of this country. We turn
that around, we would free up so many funds to
support fire, law enforcement, education, etc.
No, you're 100 % dialed in on that. It's just
getting people to get off the couch is the hard
part, right? They have to want to do it. And
unfortunately, people have gotten comfortable
being comfortable. Absolutely. All right. Well,
we kind of hit the first benchmark of the book.
Next one, using all your senses to build trust
and influence. Yeah. So I already talked about
sight. We already talked about hearing. As far
as when I meet people, I'm going to have a little
bit of a deeper tone to avoid that. first, uh,
chase somebody got involved in and they get on
the Rover and they sound like the 12 year old
version of themselves. That's just a higher pitch
voice carried further into the fields and forests
to summon help in a tribal culture. And we identify
it as that, like that person's stressed out.
Right. So we try to hack that a little bit. Um,
you know, slowing, slowing down helps, but also
deepening that tone helps smell. Look, my son,
uh, he's in college now, but when he was in high
school, he was using Axe body spray as a shower,
deodorant, whatever. Like you should never, your
scent really should never. factor into that equation.
Scents are important. I've had people in an interrogation
room before, almost at that breaking moment,
and they're like, man, this smells like jail.
Because it did. The interrogation room smelled
like stale cigarettes and urine, right? And that
caused them to say, you know what? I want to
talk to my lawyer. So I'm not saying we should
put a Glade plug in in every interrogation room,
but smell matters. And there's a lot of research
associated with that touch. I'm a big fan of
it. Haptics is important. Obviously, that's why
we're shaking hands to start and finish, but
also a little hand on someone's shoulder every
once in a while, that connection. We got to be
careful in today's culture because people misread
things. And sometimes we're socially awkward
and don't have the emotional intelligence to
understand when's the right time and when's the
right place to use it. But it can be very, very
effective. And then when it comes to emotional
regulation, before I go into a big event. I'm
going to make sure that my headspace is right.
I'm going to make sure I've eaten. I've had something
to drink. I've got that good night's sleep. I'm
wearing that comfortable but professional clothing.
I've done the vocal warmup. I've got a little
app on my phone. It just takes me 10 minutes
to do a couple of tongue twisters and some stuff
with my lungs. It's like a free app. I mean,
there's no reason not to download it, but it
gives you a little bit more vocal range when
you're talking to somebody that lets you, because
I may talk to somebody for two, three, four,
five hours potentially. So I want to prepare
for that. And then I want to have things ready
for them. Food, water, whatever. When they come
in, I can get that reciprocity by providing them
those things. So that's what it is as far as
getting in that right headspace. What's the name
of the app you use? I think it's Vocal AI is
what I use. I know there's a ton of them. I've
tried several. This one's pretty slick. They
do have a paid version as well, but I just use
the free version. I get a lot out of it. Brilliant.
All right. The next part, timing, mindset, influence,
and listening. Yeah, so we're not approaching
the person at the wrong time in the wrong place.
So when we would do a lot of our search warrants
on internet crimes against children cases in
one of the states, we would always hit the house
at six in the morning. And the other one, we
would try to tactically determine, hey, if this
person's at work, can we set up surveillance
on this person so we can catch them in the parking
lot? And when we hit people in the morning, the
kids are there, their spouse is there. They have
a little fight or flight dump when they get woken
up. I'm sure if you're in the firehouse and that
call comes on at four in the morning, it takes
you a little bit to kind of get your your situational
awareness. Plus, it's dangerous. You know, people
get woken up. You know, we all have weapons in
the United States. We have more weapons than
we do people. So that can be a problem. So. I
have to then kind of work to separate the person
I'm talking to away from, because privacy is
so important. It's that cash, that confessional,
right? They're going to be a little hesitant
talking around their kids and their wife about
something that's so personal in nature. What
I found is when we would do these afternoon search
warrants, where we would pick up the person coming
home from work or whatever, we could say, look,
you know what? We approached you in this manner
strategically because we're going to let you
tell your wife. We're going to let you tell your
kids. It comes off as respectful. And that's
what it's all about. It's all about respecting
every human. human being that we talk to. So
the timing is very, very important. If I'm going
to go ask for a raise or I'm going to go ask
for a new position, I'm not going to do it at
8 .45 when my boss, when he or she just got into
work. They got emails to check. They're not into
this. I'm not going to do that at 4 .30 either
when they're trying to come up with dinner plans
with their spouse. So there's that 10 and 2.
Those tend to be the good times to have that
timing of those difficult conversations. Beautiful.
And the last one, how to spot lies and elicit
the truth. Yeah. So spotting lies, we haven't
talked about this. So the key for me is we suck
at this. And then we're going to talk about incremental
change. Anybody on a TikTok that says this is
a hundred percent, they're lying to you. Just
skip it. All right. But if we could get you 10
or 15 % and headed in the right direction, I
mean, you get lied to 20 times a day. So that
may help you quite a bit. Most of them are very
innocuous, but the way I look at it is this,
let's start first with a mission is the number
one way people lie to you. And it's them telling
a story and they can take you wherever they want
to take you. And they can lie with anywhere in
that story. We have to do open -ended questions.
It's important. But that's where people lie to
you very, very easily. So let me say this. James,
do you have anybody that tells tall tales about
their bench press totals, their luck with the
ladies, their salary, the cars they own, their
hunting, fishing exploits? Do you know anybody
like that? I'm sure I do. I don't. seek them
out too much but yeah i'm sure sure well let's
say they're telling you a tall tale and you don't
want to be disrespectful you don't want to call
them out you don't want to call them a liar but
they're telling you you know what i caught 47
peacock bass when i was down at the whatever
they're talking about some fishing exploits and
you're like i don't think bob's much of a fisher
and there's no way he caught 47 of them they
weren't this big right the way you get around
that is you let them tell their tall tale and
then you put the dog on the leash and you put
a yes or no question you say bob uh man you caught
You caught 47 fish. Here's what's going to happen.
Now he's got to make a choice. The spotlight's
on him. You've made it into a yes or no question.
And what typically will happen is they will say,
man, I don't know how many it was, but it was
a lot. All right. Why did they do that? Because
they know it wasn't 47. But by them saying it
was a lot, now they're hedging their bets. They're
not getting that adrenaline release. The spotlight's
subtly off them. So turning everything into a
yes or no question at some point is very, very
helpful because you're forcing something. You
may be also forcing the next thing, a delay.
So when I get a yes, yes, yes, no, no, no. And
that's the typical pattern, but it goes, yes,
yes, no. And there's that subtle delay. And now
it's also not a no with an exclamation point.
It's a no with a question mark. If I asked my
daughter, did you clean your room? Yes. That's
not an exclamation point. So I'll, and I'll just
say, okay, so that's a no. Yeah. Or lying specifically.
Did you get your homework done? I got my math
homework done. Okay. What other homework do you
have? My biology homework. LY statements. Usually,
normally, typically. That's usually when usual,
normal, and typical didn't happen. Whatever they
just said. You know, when I go to the gym, I
usually go there for three hours. Okay. Well,
you didn't go there for three hours this time.
Why did they put usual in there? There's a problem
with that. shake in the head yes while they say
no or nod in the head no when they say yes. It's
really hard to do. And when it happens, it's
ask the question again, put a red flag next to
that. So those are some common things that we
see, delay, equivocation, exclusive qualifiers.
the mismatch between the spoken word and the
body language. Body language is a terrible for
detecting deception. It's usually discomfort.
But when it's the yes, no contradiction, that's
when the congruence isn't there. That's something
that we really, really highly look at. So we've
determined, hey, they haven't been honest with
us. Then we move on to how we get the truth.
And that's when I kind of use that buddy methodology
that I kind of used with the Harry S. Truman,
where I blame, I understand, diminish impact.
Tell them a story that somewhat relates to that
and focus on their whys, and that usually will
open up the what for us. Totally going out left
field again with this question, but how have
we got to a point where it is acceptable for
our politicians to lie, yet every other avenue
we are held to such staunch truth when it comes
to true leadership? Our politicians are our citizens.
Sadly, that's what we've all devolved to, but
without getting into specifics, I'll just go
no comment on that. Okay. All righty. Well, for
people listening then, let's get to the book
first. Where can they find the book and when
can they find the book? Yeah. February 17th.
So I don't know when the, uh, when the episode
will drop, but yeah, a couple of weeks, I think
27 days from this taping. So I'm excited. Uh,
bradleybeeler .com, uh, Barnes and Noble, uh,
books a million. Uh, and then most people buy
their books now on Amazon. So it's all on there
already. You can pre -order it. Um, but yeah,
and I, on Instagram at bradbeeler1865, also the
same moniker on LinkedIn. I try to put a lot
of content on Instagram just to help. And anybody
can feel free to connect me, direct message me,
anything. If I can help in any way or point you
in the right direction, I'd be absolutely happy
to. Brilliant. Well, a few closing questions
for you. The first one I'd love to ask, is there
a book or are there books written by other people
that you'd love to recommend? It can be related
to our conversation today or completely unrelated.
Yeah, I love Spy the Lie. Great book. I also
like What Everybody is Saying by Joe Navarro.
Those are two very, very good books. I've got
them over here. Cues by Vanessa Van Edwards is
excellent. And that's about first impressions,
body language, how to make yourself more charismatic
and all your interactions, which can help anybody.
So those are three really good books that I like.
And I'm probably missing a couple off the top
of my head. But as far as universal books that
almost anybody can benefit from, those are three
definitely. Excellent. What about films, documentaries,
TV shows that you love? Man, I hit the Americans
like once a year and I roll through it and then
Homeland. Just literally once a year, I'll probably
hit that. And then every other year I watch all
five seasons of The Wire just because it's the
greatest show ever made. It really is. I literally
was the only introduced to it. I mean, people
have mentioned it on here in the past and I finally,
you know, it clicked and I went and found it
on HBO. So well done. The Baltimore PD and they
went to the politics, they went all those different
angles, but the Baltimore PD doing the assisting
in the production, that's just solid, solid work.
Yeah, absolutely. All right. Well, the next question,
is there a person that you recommend to come
on this podcast as a guest to speak to the first
responders, military and associated professions
of the world? Wow. That's great. Somebody that
helped me a lot, and I'd reach out to Dr. Stacy
with Obsidian Forensics. She works with the Washington
Internet Crimes Against Children, and I'll give
you that information. But she really helped me
with the mental health aspect of dealing with
these types of offenders, pedophiles, hebophiles.
Hebophiles are people that offend from post -puberty,
but... you know, that are, can't legally give
consent. Um, that's really most of the people
that we, we deal with that 12 to 15 year old,
uh, offender range. So, um, she really, really
helped me deal with that and came up with some
strategies. So I think she'd be great on the
show, talking mental health issues, those types
of things. Um, so yeah, that'd be banger guests
for you. Brilliant. We'll have to make that happen
then. Thank you. All right. Well then the last
question before we just reiterate where everyone
can find you, what do you do to decompress? choke
people out me too smother them murder yoga i
love that that name yeah murder yoga that's it
all right well then so you mentioned uh you know
the book is coming out next month then so let's
just kind of underline one more time the website
and then the uh social media handle yep bradleybeeler
.com and then bradbeeler1865 on Instagram and
LinkedIn. And then you can just type in Brad
Beeler or tell me everything in Amazon and it'll
pop up. So appreciate you guys picking up the
book. Well, Brad, I want to thank you so much.
I mean, we've been all over the place. I mean,
picking apart polygraphs and obviously the horrendous
crimes against children and all the other conversations.
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. It was a pleasure,
James. Thanks for all the great questions. You
went some places I haven't gone before.