Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Cleared Hot Episode 73 - Paul Sharp and Travis Davison

Episode Date: March 4, 2019

Paul Sharp recently retired from a twenty year career in law enforcement from the city of Elgin, located on the NW outskirts of Chicago.  He served his community in a variety of capacities, from patrol, undercover, narcotics, SWAT, and the resident officer program.  He is a firearms, defensive weapons and tactics, and bladed edge instructor, a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt, and the owner of SBG Illinois.  Travis Davison is a vice president of Straight Blast Gym International, the owner of multiple SBG facilities, and a 20 + year BJJ practitioner and coach.   

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I feel that they are under an extremely high level of scrutiny, which they absolutely should be, but that's a difficult environment to live in, and I think sometimes it is taken too far. So Paul is a 20-year veteran of the law enforcement community in an area that most people will hear about. I wouldn't say on a daily basis, but you're going to hear about it specifically when it comes to gun violence. So he worked in the Chicago area, specifically Elgin, or Elgin. I'm sorry if I'm saying it wrong. I've never been there. but it's a suburb of Chicago. And if you follow the news, you're going to hear the terms gun violence or violence and Chicago paired.

He started his career off on patrol. He worked narcotics. He worked as the resident officer program. He did undercover work. He worked on the SWAT team. And that's a lot. And I guess my point in saying all of those things, in addition to just describing his background, is that to me, it seems like he has a breadth and depth of knowledge and experience when it comes to policing.

And at the end of his career, and this is me paraphrasing, and he speaks about it on the podcast. So this is me describing it. I would say he felt the burn that is sometimes associated with massive bureaucracies that have, and like I said at the beginning, in this DNA and enhanced and perhaps sometimes unfair level of scrutiny of their officers. And I'll leave it at that because he does an excellent job of describing what has happened. happened or what did happen and I don't want to describe it improperly. We also talked about he experienced the aneurism and his recovery from that.

And I also believe we discussed ways not to deal with that particular medical situation by discussing exactly what he did, which I think could be considered a step-by-step, do not follow recipe. And we also talked about Brazilian jiu-jitsu because he was here in Calispell, Montana, teaching a two-part seminar. One was, I would say, they both were equally applicable, but one was specific for those who do not work in an LEO capacity. And the other one or the other portion of the seminar was using Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

in the capacity of executing your duties as a law enforcement officer, putting your hands on an individual. Basically, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu with the introduction of tools or weapons outside of just your hands. He's also the owner of SBG, Illinois. And to go back to the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, we talked about how his understanding and confidence in his ability to handle himself also tempered the way that he viewed his role in law enforcement. And at the end, we talked a little bit about how it can have an impact on officers and actually enhance their job. So on the jiu-jitsu side of the house, Paul is great friends with my other guest, who is Travis Davison, who's been a guest on the podcast before. He is the owner of SBG Calispell and a few other SBG gyms,

SBG gyms here in the Calispell, or not the Calispell, the Flathead Valley. He is also the vice president of SBG International. SBG is much bigger than just Montana. I know of places in Oregon, in Idaho, in California, in Ireland. So it is, I would say, definitely a global organization. Travis has got 20 plus years of BJJ experience. I mean, he's a savage. I've seen him applying that experience to other people,

and I have felt that experience applied to myself. The coolest part about that experience, though, and why it resonates so much to me and why I think this is an important podcast for a lot of reasons, you know, Paul and Travis don't share a law enforcement background, but they do share the Brazilian jiu-jitsu side of the house, and they can both talk to its impact, in your confidence in the way that you handle yourself.

And one of the beauties of the seminar out here in the Calispo Valley is that it was opened up to all law enforcement in the valley. And that's in part, one, because, you know, Paul was an expert coming here to teach a seminar. But two, SBG, specifically the SBG here in Calispole is very law enforcement friendly. And I suspect that for those of you out there who work in an environment, maybe you're a first, I don't care, first responder. and myself personally I would recommend it for everybody but specifically for the LEO side of the house

find a reason not an excuse to go find somewhere where you can enhance your skill set and give yourself some more tools between A, B, C, D, and E so you can go and you have an escalation of force instead of going from non-lethal to lethal very rapidly. Find a reason, not an excuse. I suspect I know for a fact that at least in this valley the SBG gyms, They're going to work with you.

They want to find a way to get you in there to enhance your ability. And I suspect most organizations would be exactly like that. So those are my guess. Wow. Apologies for the rant there. Episode 73 with Paul Sharp and Travis Davison. Here we go. Okay, got the red smoke.

To the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. Oh, what a minute. So I get questions. Oh, boy. We'll get to these later, though. Oh, God. That's awesome.

It's like, I have this evidence against you, sir. We'll get to that later. We'll talk to you about something else first. They come in with a stack. They come in with like a case file. It doesn't look good for you. They open it up and they pull a paper out and then I like set it over to the side but down so you can't see it. You just watch their eyes, try to read it through the page.

And they're just like trying to see it. And I'm like, trying to figure out what it is. I'm like, bro, it's my lunch. It's like my grocery list. I don't know how I got in here. Man. I think there's only one place to start, and that's to say thanks for doing 20 years on the streets,

which from an outside perspective, having spent zero days in law enforcement, seems to be one of the most thankless jobs on the face of planet. So thank you for doing that. I visited Chicago in the surrounding areas, but I have been there on brief, in one day, out two days later. But it's hard to avoid the, the headlines in the news that always surrounds the Chicago area.

So I hope at some point we can talk about your firsthand experience there because all I have is what I see on the news, so I inherently distrust it. Sure. Because I can't figure out whether or not it's boots on the ground truth or not. So walk me through your police career. Like just the positions that you held, and then I'm sure we'll dive into some of that stuff along the way.

Yeah. All right. So I started out in patrol, like everybody, you know, went through the academy. How old were you? Not to interrupt you, sorry. So I was 30. Okay. So I started late.

What were you doing before that? Construction and music. Strong. Yeah, yeah, right? Yeah, right? So, yeah, and I got into it late, but it was kind of a family thing. A lot of my family members, you know, were in law enforcement. And so I got into it, went into patrol.

I was still on probation when I went into the resident officer program. And that profoundly changed how I looked at law enforcement, or how I looked at the job, the neighborhoods, all that stuff. because the resident officer program is they buy a house or they rent a house in an at-risk neighborhood and then they place you there and you have to live in the neighborhood and so while you're living in the neighborhood you're expected to bring change to the neighborhood so the the ultimate goal is that you work yourself out of a job is that i've never heard of that in like san diego is that a chicago area specific type thing yeah so there's a little controversy about everybody always wants

to say they were first. So our department says they were the first ones to do it, you know, the resident officer program. And it's been featured in a lot of interviews and a lot of discussions around the country. And guys have had the opportunity to go to D.C. and, you know, give speeches at symposiums on how the program works and what we do. Basically, they take care of all of your bills, essential bills. Yeah.

They'll pay. Power, water, all that stuff. Yeah. So you live there. and that's in exchange for you living in a crappy neighborhood, a neighborhood you'd never live in by choice. So you live in this neighborhood, and then you're expected to bring the services of the city

to the betterment of that neighborhood. So we did everything from spring cleanups, fall cleanups. You know, we would put dumpsters in areas, clean up parks, rebuild school playgrounds. I mean, it was an, interesting approach to law enforcement that I'm glad I did it early in my career because then it changed how I did everything after that. When you say live there, do you mean were you married at the time? Yeah. They lived there as well. Yeah. And you basically, you based your police activities

out of that house. Yeah. So it was like a substation type set up. So you're, you have an office there. There's a big sign out front says resident officer lives here. People come to your door all hours of day and night. I mean, I had people, you know, like domestics, you know, people would come to my door, beat on the door like, hey, you know, my dad's beating her. My mom's boyfriend's beating a crap out of her, you know, and it's like, okay, well, you know, here's me and my sweatpants and, you know, a t-shirt and a pistol, you know, on a radio, and you run over there and do what you can to intervene and get some people rolling that way. And you're expected to work with schools in the neighborhood.

So we had, for my program, we had almost 500 kids go through the after-school program. So I got to see that. That's a whole other side of life, you know, that you never, if you grow up in a normal, whatever that might be, you know, what's the saying? Normals are setting on a dryer. But if you grow up in the average American home, you probably don't experience a lot of hunger and that kind of thing. But, man, I saw kids at, like, Friday at lunch, school lunch, that's their last meal for

the weekend. No kidding. Monday school breakfast, that's their next meal. So Saturday, Sunday, they're on their own. Friday night, they're on their own, you know, just to get what they can. So that changes your perspective, you know, about, okay, so how do we change culture rather than crime? You know, we change culture, crime will go away, you know. So what do we do to fix that problem?

So that's what I mean. It impacted me incredibly as my career went on. How long did you do it for? I was a resident officer for four and a half years. So they want you to do 18 months. They actually had to put that in there as like a stipulation. So you're an overachiever. Yeah, right?

Yeah. So you've got to do 18 months. If you don't do 18 months, like you're on the list. Yeah. Well, it probably takes a bit of time for them to have somebody new that comes in there to develop some level of rapport and trust with that individual. Yeah, that's the thing. You kind of figure out, you've got to figure out who's who in the zoo.

And it's like any neighborhood. Usually you learn a hard way that the people that are overly helpful in the beginning. Motivated by something else. You might not have the best motivations. Yeah. Yeah, they might not have the... Funny how that works. Yeah, weird, right?

They might not have the best motivations. And then... But the guy, the people that are quiet that are just out there every day, taking care of their lawn, you know, are the ones that will call you and say, hey, man, like, these guys stand here in front of this one house. all day long and you know and they'll tell you like they're like I don't care if they're selling drugs I care that gunplay happens like I shouldn't have to have and that and that's another thing like you you find these kids who sleep sorry man they sleep next to or on the side

of the house that has bricks because of the amount of gun violence yeah bullet stops so they'll they'll have their kids sleep under the windows you know or next to the brick if the has a brick facade or whatever on the front so they have their kids sleep in that area because safer you know so you look at that kind of stuff and you're like man you know like what are we going to do to fix this you know and how to fix it to even get to that level so you because i was talking to you about this yesterday you were not in like chicago chicago proper right you were in a subdivision of yeah so in a suburb a suburb of like i said i read in the news that the gun violence not even a daily occurrence, but multiple times a day, probably double digits per day. From an officer on the ground

perspective, is it better, worse, or accurate what the media portrays? I mean, is it just a daily occurrence there? There's going to be gunplay? Yeah, I would say, yeah, daily, something's going to happen. You know, you're going to have something happen daily. I think it's not as, it's in pockets, though. Yeah. You know, it's not like the whole place is just a whole, you know. It's not Fallujah, for sure. Yeah, you know, and, but when you have a 24-hour night, new cycle, you got to fill it with something. And that's the problem. You know, it's like anything.

It's like, man, and then again, man, back to the resident officer program, the best way to figure out what's going on in the neighborhood is get out of that squad car and walk, walk the neighborhood, you know? And so when you start walking the neighborhood, you start talking to people, interacting with people, and then you kind of figure it out. Like, you know, there is a code and there's an issue there because people are always like, well, how come people don't call when these shootings happen? Or how come these shootings go unsolved because nobody wants to call and say,

hey, I know who did it, you know? And what people don't understand is you still got to live there. You know, like, okay, so I call and I help the police. And I tell them, you know, like, whoever did the shooting, you know, like, you know. Your day is not over. It's just beginning if you do that. You got to live there, you know. And so, and you might have, and you might be generational, or, you know, a, you know,

a generational thing. Like, you might have lived in that neighborhood for three, four generations. So, and all your family lives there. And everybody you know lives there. Your whole world is there. So now you just drop the dime. And it's going to get out, you know. And then, so then you have that challenge.

Yep. Okay, well, okay, so they come after me. That's one thing. Well, my kids got to go to school every day. Or my kids got to walk to school every day. These guys are going to target my kids. So that's the thing. it's not that people want to live in that.

It's not that people want to experience that. Why would they by choice? But what we don't understand is that they're also up against it. You know, where are they going to go? Yeah. You know, for you or I or, you know, Travis, like, moving's a simple thing, right? Yep. You know?

In comparison to what you're describing? Yeah. Moving's a simple thing. Couldn't be easier. Yeah, I'm just like, hey, I'm going to go try out Montana for a while, you know? I recommend it. Yeah, yeah. I'm digging Montana.

I'm digging, Montana. What you just described is exactly what we were trying to do in 2010 on my last deployment and the exact issues that we would have. So we were doing, and I'm sure they've changed the name, it was called VSO or Village Stability Operations. They would implant a small unit. They would build a Ford operating base, or they would just fortify structure inside of a city with the goal of walking, talking, tribal elders, trying to actually get past the people being scared of us being there

to create safety for that. So they would come and say, hey, just so you know, don't drive your Humvees down that wash because that's where the IEDs are. But the biggest issue that we had, and I'm sure it's still the same, is in that world, if you're found out to do that, no problem.

Your family's just gone. Yeah. They just disappeared. So it was the same thing. and it would work, but then we were on a six-month cycle, not 18 months. It's not enough time. It would be, and it was interesting. We'd first arrive, oh, hello, Mr. Andy, I would like to help you.

He did it over. I'm like, okay, I'm definitely not smart, but I'm smarter than you think I am. Right, that's all I got to be, is smarter than you think I am. And we'd have the same issues, and it was the people who would, you know, quietly were a letter, you know, put underneath the gate. Oh, yeah. And, you know, and developing those networks. And then, hey, ding, the egg timer went off.

We got a roll. And that I think was one of the biggest issues that that particular type of, you have to have a pallet for staying there for a really long time. Yeah. And when you're deploying without your family, you know, 18 months becomes a stretch. There's no way you're doing that for four years. That's a long time, man.

Yeah. And that's the thing, you know, when you're kind of dealing with this stuff and you're, you know, in these neighborhoods, a lot of times like that. Like, I had to understand, right? Like, I had to, you know, kind of get a handle on how they communicate with you without violating their code. Like, everybody's got a code, you know. And it's like, well, how are they, what are they, because I would miss, like, just straight out tips.

Yeah. You know? Because, you know, like, I remember a lady telling me. So we were looking for a guy and there was some issues. And so I remember, and a lady comes out and she's like, y'all, I go find him there. And I remember looking at her. I'm like, oh, thanks for the help. You know?

And, you know, and then her thing was, y'all need to look somewhere else, you know? And I was like, if we looked over here, would we find him there? Yeah, yeah. What about that house over there? Will we find him there? But, you know, but she still has her code. You know, she's still got rules. She's got to live by.

And I remember going, what now? you know and I'm so you know I'm new at this and and I just was okay well you're going to help me out she goes I ain't going to help you out I just did yeah that's that was her thing she's like I just helped you a lot like you know you're looking in all the wrong places yeah and so it's just stuff like that once you kind of but it takes time you got to be there man and they got to know they can trust you they got to know like hey if I come over here and talk to you about this situation like Are you going to go sell me down the river the first chance you get? Yeah.

Are you going to arrest me? Are you going to make some big thing about this? Or are you going to go over to that person and say to them, well, hey, so-and-so just told me what you're up to over here. Y'all better knock it off. That's a strong move. That's problems, right? And so they got to, but they got to know. Yeah.

You know, like, hey, I can come to you. I can tell you anything. And that's it. Like, you'll never breathe a word where it came from. Yep. And you'll also give me a little bit of time before you take enforcement. action. So something's going to happen. Like, yeah, we're going to bring those

resources into play. But I got to give it a little time because maybe somebody saw you talking to me. So if I go over the next morning, that's easy to figure that out. But if it's like three, four weeks later, or a month later, you know, two months later, yeah, you give it some time to settle. Yeah, people

are like, man, I don't really remember. How'd they find this out, you know? So there's stuff like that, man. And then, so then from there I went to after I got out of that then I went to the neighborhood officer program which is kind of the resident officer program light you know so

kind of the joke right so the joke for the resident officer program was the acronym is R OPE Rope and so you know how that goes right so they gotta bust your chops so the joke about that was ripping off the people of Belgium so you're ripping

off the people of Belgian living for free and not doing anything and I'm like, yeah, okay, dude, my phone never stops ringing. My door never stops getting beat on. People are always, there's always a fire. Whether it's code enforcement, you know, school, something. There's always something I'm expected to answer for, you know, and resolve an issue. And then.

And it's just you, right? Like, there's not a bunch of officers living in this house? No, no, it's just you by yourself. So each officer is by himself in that neighborhood. So guys got, their houses got shot up, car windows got busted out. I got jumped in my driveway. Let's talk about that. Do tell.

Yeah, yeah. So I got, so when the officers, one of the officers' houses got shot, he's a good friend of mine, man. I love this guy. So his house gets, so I'm in my basement. We just got done, you know, taking care of business. We were out working doing directed patrols. And we had an officer that was jumped in a neighborhood by a gang member. And big melee occurred and in front of a gang house.

So the resident officer was right up the street. He ran down the street and helped the officer, you know So then we decided that officer, the resident officer that had intervened said hey man, you know like we got to send a message So we're going to do directed patrol so all of us together we're going to team up tonight and every street corner that they look They should see a squad car starting nose around the corner so we went out there did some good work for the night. I go home, you know, Adam goes home. I'm taking off my vest. As I'm pulling my tack vest off, I hear, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.

And I thought, are you kidding me? Somebody just robbed, because I had a little gas station down the street from my house. I'm like, my crime stats just went through the roof. I'm like, you idiots. Like, you just robbed my gas station. Now I'm going to have to answer for an armed robbery in my neighborhood because you've got an answer for that, right?

So I'm like, come on. So throw my stuff back on, start to head up the stairs, and they start dispatching it. Like shots fired in the area of, you know, Anne and Gifford. And so I pipe up, you like, hey, Elginia, I heard it, you know, I'm rolling that way. And then Adam gets on the air and goes, that was my house. It came through my windows. Wow. And what they had done was they waited for his light to turn off in the bedroom.

when he turned the light off, they cracked rounds off into the house as a retribution for the police, increased police activity. So that kind of stuff would happen. So they'd firebom me, they'd try to burn your house and stuff like that. So a couple guys from a gang jumped me in my driveway as I was getting my daughter out of the car. And so we ended up getting it on. No special Just jujitsu

Just this stuff You know Like seriously man No special sauce It was just So you're pulling your daughter out of the car And two gang bangers I see a guy coming this way

And a guy coming this way And I'm like crap I ignored everything Everything I teach people to do Yeah I did not You let your world get really small Yeah I had seen

So I had a fence line That ran along the west side Of my driveway And my squad car Was parked against that fence line and then my family car would be pulled into the actual driveway. The fence line went to the garage and there was like a little lean-to type shed thing that my neighborhood actually built onto my garage.

I violated all kinds of code. But in interest of keeping things cool in the neighborhood, I was like, yeah, it's cool, man. Don't worry about it, you know? Yeah. Well, so I come out of my house and I'm getting my daughter out of the car. And so the car is kind of nosed in facing, in south.

So, you know, the doors to the east, right? So the fence is west, doors to the east. I'm on the east side of the car between my house. And it's in, you know, in these old cities, the driveways are real narrow and everything. So, I mean, I got, like, room for me to turn. That's about it. And I see this guy going down the fence line. I'm like, that's weird.

You know, like, I thought we just deported that guy for crime, you know, for committing a crime. So you recognize him. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I recognize him. And then I look up and there's another guy holding two pit bulls. I'm like, I know that guy. Kind of.

You know, like, and I'm just like, oh, dody, do, do. You know, like, let me just go back to what I was doing here and just ignored everything. You know, like I knew, you know, my gut was screaming. It should have been, but I'm just overriding it, talking myself out of it. Next thing I know, got the door open. I'm getting my daughter. I'm a car seat. I see him.

He's here now. The guy that was going down the fence line, he had cut through. that leaned to had been built, created like a little bit of a gap between my garage and the fence, enough for him to kind of cut through. So they basically did a hammer and anvil. Yeah. Just came in behind me, and then other guy was right here with the dogs. You were the delicious portion of an Oreo cookie. Yes, I was right there, man.

Double stuff, too, you know? So, and then we got it on, man. So I landed a good shot on the guy in front of me. The guy behind me hit me. So I hit the guy in front of me, dropped him pretty good. You know, the guy behind me gets on me. We're scrapping. end up being able to get out from underneath of him and get in a good position. A dude that was coming up to drive with the dogs, he turns the dogs loose. The dogs end up spinning around and attacking him. Awesome.

Worked out great, you know. And I kind of hope it was one of the dogs that, you know, that they had tormented. Oh, for sure. That thing was probably waiting to get a bite into him. Yeah. And then that kind of resolved it. You know, everybody took off. You know, I got inside, got my daughter inside, get the radio, you know, get some help

coming over. Everybody, you know, comes running, you know, to help you. For sure. And so, yeah, but that kind of stuff would happen fairly regularly. You know, we had guys try to get sniped. You know, we had some guys crawling around on a rooftop. Really? Trying to get an angle on a resident, my neighbor resident officer. So he was in the area next to mine and they were trying to get a shot on him. So what do you suspect their motivation was? Were they trying to make a statement to you? Yeah. They think that message. Yeah. And just basically say, hey, this is where the king shit to this lock. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, just trying to send a message because the other side of it too is, you know, if you take out the what represents change in that neighborhood, then all the people that are starting to get a little more vocal, starting to come out a little more, now they're going to go back in their shell. You know, they're going to go back to, okay, I'm just, I'm not going to see anything. I'm not going to see anything. I'm just car to home, home to car. Yeah, head down. Yeah, head down and just don't look. around don't make any issues so and and you know crimes at an all-time low i think you know crime is

steadily dropped you know which helps a lot but i think also programs like that have helped a lot you know i think you make changes that you don't really see right now takes time takes a long time you know and you get these uh the neighbors that it's funny man like when you first get in the resident officer program, your problems are, so-and-so has got beef with so-and-so is probably going to be a problem, and, well, that turns out to be a triple homicide, you know. And then, you know, well, now their family's not going to let it go, so that, you know, now their family's coming for them. So this is going to, like, we've got a feud now, you know.

And then by the end of your time in the resident officer program, if you've done your job, right, you know, where you've made those connections and got things happening, you get to the into your time in Reson Os program and now the complaints are when these kids are waiting for the bus they stand in my flower bed you know I'm like right on I will go handle that I will the hammer sounds like our police blotter yeah like the hammer of the gods is about the drop on these 10 year olds yeah don't worry about your flower bed yeah we got you covered we got it we got it we got it you know when the kids are walking to school through the park that previously they couldn't walk through because of gang members and issues.

You know, when they're walking through the park, you know, sometimes they'll, it looks like they're damaging the tennis courts that couldn't exist before. Yeah. You know, okay, I'll go over there and make sure those kids know, like, hey, when stay on, keep those feet on the sidewalk, those little size fours, but not come off that sidewalk. It's cool to see that change, though, that, that, the story arc of what, what it is when you dropped in and then. Yeah.

It takes time. And I wasn't the first officer in that. neighborhood. So there was an officer before me and it's just cumulative. So by the time I got out of that neighborhood and my neighboring officer, resident officer, who was just a, you know, he's a slam dancer, like he was in it, you know. And so he was in it and then the officer that came after him, unfortunately committed suicide, but he also was down. Like we got after it, man. And we would get on bikes. We'd get on foot. And we, and then we had all kinds of assistance, man. Like you would not believe like your drug unit guys your gang unit guys the feds even like you could state police i could

call the state police and they have what they call the strategic enforcement team i think set team at that time i could call those guys and be like hey man can i have like six guys just come into this neighborhood and stop everything you know because it is an open air drug market with shootings and beatings and all kinds of stuff happening and like six hours later shut up down. Yeah, I've got more squad cars I've ever seen in my life. It looks like a, you know, a showroom full of squad cars everywhere. So guys would just jump on the opportunity to do police work, you know, and to help a neighborhood. That's good to hear, man. And then, um, so you want, uh, the residential. Yeah, neighborhood to, yeah, so nope. So nope, right? So the joke about that was nope, you know? Like here, there's a crime. There's a, you know, a bunch of car burglaries in your neighborhood. What are you going to do about it? Nope. You know, like you're going to take the report? You know? Like, you're going to take the report? You know? You're going to take the report? You know? You're going to take the report? You know? You're. port? Nope. You're going to investigate? Nope. But it wasn't. You know, so that was cool. We did that. So that was a lot of fun. Again, it was hard to do because for those neighborhoods, it was a little lighter as far as the responsibilities and the tasking. You weren't full-time there. So I really wasn't as happy with that position because I felt like, I can't really do it. You know, I still have my other

responsibilities. So I did that stuff. And then came up, while I was, doing that is when I took the opportunity to do undercover work because I just wasn't happy with what I was doing. So I did undercover work for a few years. Did that. Came out of undercover. And then once I got out undercover is when I went to patrol. And I had the opportunity also to start helping more with training, you know, and with the firearms program and doing what I could to kind of push that and take our performance levels higher as an agency and contribute what I could to the SWAT guys as well and everybody. You know, I just, you know, my goal was always to make us as dangerous as possible, so we'd be as safe as possible. Yeah.

And so then that was, towards the end of my career was where I spent my time doing that stuff. So I went into, I worked patrol. And I always picked night shift because night shift. because night shift, statistically everything happens between about 9 and 2 a.m. And so I always wanted to be there when I was jumping off.

And you were on the SWAT team during that time as well, right? Yeah, I was on the SWAT team from, I can't remember when I started. So I think it was still on probation when I got on SWAT too. So that was pretty interesting to be in that position. As a probational officer?

Yeah. That's a very accelerated timeline. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, my introduction to the SWAT team was at the time, one of the team leaders found out about the jiu-jitsu stuff. Yep. And so he was interested in that stuff. And he was actually my neighboring resident officer. So he would come, and these guys would come, like, during their shift, and we would train.

I would train them, you know, hand-to-hand stuff, cuffing stuff, just different ways to approach and solve the problem. and the standard issue police tactic stuff, we all know, isn't the best, you know. And so it's check the box type stuff. It's tough to watch from an outside perspective. Your guys' procedures obviously, and a lot of stuff were different than ours, but at some point you have to put your hands on people.

Right. Subject control, subject control. But I tell you what, even looking back, the community I came from could have done it substantially better. They put a much less emphasis on touching people than I think that, they should have. Now that I understand how little you have to understand and know to be a very, very big problem.

Yeah, yeah, right. We're looking back at it now. But I see, I mean, we all have access to YouTube, you know, and you can see some horrendous stuff and people dying who maybe shouldn't die or most of the time it's the officer getting what I would say into a situation that's over their head because they're out of tools. Too great of a deficit. Well, they just, I look at it from the perspective of your tool belt. If all you have is taser, gun, you're going to rapidly go through.

A to B to C, if you don't have that buffer of being comfortable to knowing how to handle yourself. What you were saying today at the end of the seminar, I actually really resonated with me, and it was the impact that Jiu-Jitsu had on your policing. Yeah. And I definitely wanted to get into that, because I'm assuming you two met through Jiu-Jitsu. Yeah, straight-plash, yeah, straight-plish. He got dropped on my head a bunch of times.

He got dropped on your head? He got dropped on my head. So that's a whole other thing. That's a whole other thing. But it probably was what caused the aneurism. I'm not going to take responsibility for that. Dude, I finally put those two together. It took a while, but I just put that together.

You're not a cop anymore. One of the oddest things about the aneurism is your choice to drive yourself to the hospital while suffering an aneurism. I don't know many people who do that. Yeah, I've heard about that from a lot of people. Like, that was pretty dumb. So you just realized. I would not advise that. You realized in one moment, oh, no, I need to get to the hospital.

Yeah. So something's not right. Pretty much. So here's so with that, man. And, you know, I look at that situation. When it happened, I hated it. That aneurysm? Oh, man, I hated everything about it because all of a sudden, I don't know if I'm going to work anymore.

Yeah. Like one side of my body doesn't work. I can't see out of my left eye. My speech is messed up. One side of my face still, it drags a little bit. Yeah. You say, yeah, like you notice. Is it bad?

Is that bad? I mean, I'm trying not to pay attention to it. I'm trying not to stare. Try not to stare. I'm familiar with nerve pain and damage, unfortunately. I've heard about it. I was kind of looking at your story as like, holy cow, bro. I made almost all that up.

I just Googled some cool stuff. Don't pay too much attention to it. Right. I went on WebMD. I typed in hip injury, and next thing I know, I got a whole story of things to say. Yep. It's working for. Yeah.

Were you just, did you wake up one day and something felt off? So for about a month, I had a headache, lingering headache. that wouldn't go away. And was it caused by something or you just woke up one day with a headache? They don't know. Okay. You know, to this day. So pain, you know, and I was having weird smells.

Like I was driving my wife and my family crazy and my friends because everything smelled like it was burning and I was getting mad, you know. And so I'm looking in my car. I'm looking under the seat. I'm like, somebody's messing with me. Like somebody's busted my. chops they put something in my car so you guys play jokes like we do oh god non-stop non-stop just to make sure why does it smell like fish in my car I don't know I don't

know yeah right don't know don't look inside of your hubcap there might be a trap yeah right so I you know I'm I'm going through this thing where and I'm getting like this shooting pain right over my left eye so it's just like splitting the middle of my left eye and it's going to like right here so right up into my receding hair line So right there. And it's just getting worse by the minute. And I hate, I don't hate doctors. I hate the admission that something's wrong.

So I don't want to go to the doctor. I don't want to do anything about it. And I'm at the time coaching at my judo coaches gym. So we had about like a two-week period where it got bad. So this is like the first two weeks is just the weird smells. and the shooting pain, and every now and then, like, my eye would twinge, and it would feel like somebody's puffing air in my eye, like, you know, you know, that weird, like, that test, you know.

Oh, yeah, the startle reflex test. It would feel like that, where I was like, whoa, man, that's kind of weird, but just in one eye, you know. And so I go and I'm running classes, and then I'm working at night at the police department, and then during the day I'm teaching and training and stuff, and so I go to do a Brazilian So it gets to the point now where it's getting bad

Like I'm telling my wife like I got a migraine or something You know I don't think I've ever had a migraine But I think this is a migraine It's hurting pretty bad and it just is like splitting my skull It's going like over my head now All the way down to like the base of my head And it's just at times feels like my head just wants to peel apart And my eyes twinge just and my eyes twinge

and, you know, it's watering constantly, and I'm starting to have some issues with my hand, my right hand. I'm like, this is weird, man. And I'm thinking, well, maybe I'm fatigued. I'm just tired, you know, because I'm working a lot, and I'm at the gym. In hindsight, maybe you should have gone to the doctor. I mean, I'm not your wife, but.

What are those guys now? I got WebMD. I looked on WebMD, and they're like, it's chlamydia. How am I going to explain this to my wife, you know? So I go and we have a Brazilian jiu-jitsu. seminar on a Saturday. And so I worked all night. I went to the seminar and did the seminar and it was awesome, you know. And so do the seminar. By the time we get to the end of the seminar, I'm having a hard time standing up because every time I stand up, I get this

excruciating pressure. And I just can't deal with it, man. It feels like my eyeball is going to pop out, you know. And so I go home and after the seminar and I'm trying to roll. There's like some black belts there and it's fun. this guys I know, you know, and we're trying to roll. And one of the guys said, you know, he says, dude, I can feel your heartbeat through the ghee. Like, are you all right? And you can feel like I was breathing like this weird fast.

And I couldn't get it under control. And I go, man, it's just this headache I got. It's messing with me. And so I would roll and then lay down. Because if I'd sit up, it would get like, you know, this build. So go home. Like, I'm just going to take a nap. I got to work tonight, you know.

So I go home, and then I can't sleep because of the pain, so I don't get any sleep Saturday. And I go to work Saturday night. I work through the night. Sunday, we have an open mat and wrestling practice. So Sunday, go in there, and we're doing our thing. And I'm not doing well. You're actually probably dying.

I was. Yeah, yeah. I'm not doing well. Again, maybe you should have gone to the doctor. I've seen a, I've heard a few indications. would have sent me probably directly to the doctor so far smart people do smart things right so I didn't so I'm just going to put that out there so I uh and and now it's out of control the smells are out of control everything's on fire everything's burning it smells like burnt cheese burnt whatever

it's driving me nuts you know I can't figure I think like something's stuck in my nose like I got maybe I got cross-faced hard or somewhere my nose is busted and it's just like all jacked up in there. I cannot figure it out. So it gets to the end and some of my training partners like, dude, you look like you're dying. No kidding. Yeah, maybe I was. So I end up like, I'm laying on the mat because I can't stand up anymore. Yeah. Because of the pain. So of course they do what all good training partners do, which is you good to go, bro. We'll see you tomorrow. And they leave, you know, so I got to lock up the gym. So I close up, get all the lights and everything. And it's just unbelievable the amount of pain. You know, I can't. I can. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can. I

can't at the time I didn't realize it yet but I was starting to see like this weird fog in my left eye and I just was kind of like there's something in my eye I kept rubbing you know trying to figure what was wrong on my left eye you're out of your goddamn mind it was awesome so so I don't know if I would use that term but yeah so I go to the door I go to lock the door I dropped the keys you know and I'm like that's weird my right hand's not working so I go to bend over to pick the keys up and I fall and um can you can't get my right hand to work. So I stand up, I get my left hand, lock up, I start walking to my car and I fall again. So now I'm thinking, this is kind of weird, man. This is a bad headache, dude. So I get in the car,

I start driving, and it kind of went downhill quick after that. So, which is kind of funny in hindsight, because you know how many times I've been working as a police officer and you'll get a call of like a drunk driver or someone driving erratically. So I'm driving. Now I'm starting to puke. And I'm starting to do like that weird thing where your body does this. So I'm starting to do that. Oh, like, curls up.

Yeah. So I'm driving and I'm like, I'm having to hold my hand up, my head up like this by propping my arm in the window of my car like this. Where were you driving to? Home. I was going to take a nap. Of course you were. I was going to take a nap. I just needed to take a nap.

Tile it off. Yeah. I need to take a nap and get rid of this headache. Yeah. So at this point, you are still, I got this. I'm thinking I'm all right. It's just a weird Well, I've always heard these stories about how bad migraines are

You didn't have a migraine You had paralysis And people tell you You know, you have a, you know You've never had a migraine If you didn't puke and all that stuff So I'm thinking All right, well I just started puking

So obviously it's a bad migraine I got to get home And get in the dark room And do all the stuff that people tell me You got to do when you have a migraine So I'm driving And I'm having a hard time functioning now So I'm down to probably like five miles

per hour. People are going around me, all this stuff. I'm stopping at stoplights or just stopping in the middle of the road, open the door and puking everywhere. I'm in trouble. And so I call my wife and I say, hey, I'm going to come home and take a nap. I got a headache really bad. And this headache's really, really bad. And then I hang up and I keep driving. And so I get to the intersection near my house and the fog has kind of rolled in, you know. So there's like that fog that fog that was happening before is now to the um it's just death hood ornamented yeah probably death is at your hood ornamental right at this point you saw light yeah yeah i saw go to the light go to the light christie so now you're legally blind pretty much so the fog is at the hood ornament in my car and i'm having a hard time

seeing and so then i decide like man um i got to get to the hospital i think so i call my wife and i tell look, I'm just going to go to the hospital. Maybe they can give me a shot or something and get rid of this thing, you know, make it go away. And so then I drove to the hospital. Now, did you stop at the first hospital, though? Yeah, well, yeah. So I was like, I don't want to go to that hospital because that's kind of the one we never want to go to. So I went to the other one.

The further away one. Yeah, a little bit. So I go to that one and I get there. And there was some issues with some equipment that I had on me that we had to recover later. I end up face down. I don't know where I parked my car. My oldest daughter found my car because security used the keys and heard. Oh, they hit the key fob until they found it.

It was parked like somewhere else. I hobbled over, I guess, to the hospital. Did you do a good park job? No. Allegedly I did not. I probably have a parking ticket somewhere. Yeah, three lanes over here. So the, you know how all hospitals, they have the ambulance base, they pull in and out of.

So at this hospital, there's no smoking on campus. So fortunately, a rule breaker was out there smoking in the ambulance area, you know, near the tree line. And so she found me. I was face down. So I've taken my final face plant. So you didn't actually even make it into the hospital. I did, bro. Don't take that from me.

I did. I did. I made it. It is recorded. Because I'm not done, bro. All right. So I'm face down. And I just remember pink scrubs.

I wish I knew who this lady was. I still haven't been able to figure who she was, you know. So she comes over and she's like, hey, just stay right here. I'm going to go get some help. And I remember thinking, all right, cool. I'm just going to keep napping. And when you get back, you know, I'm going to need some headache medicine or something. And then I thought, you know, like, no, I got this close.

And then that rivalry too, right? Because I'm like, she's probably going to bring some firefighters that know me out here. And they're going to walk me in. I'm never going to hear the end of this. Ever. Ever, you know, from these guys. They're going to give me grief forever about having to rescue me. So I'm walking in.

So I got up and then I walked in. And as I'm walking in, they're coming out to get me. So they take me in. And then Dilaudid's a wonderful thing. They gave me Delaudid. They did a cat scans MRI with the contrast, the die, which is a wonderful experience for a brain injury. And it was on my, so it was on my orbital nerve,

or occipital nerve. I'm sorry. So my occipital nerve on the left side right at the base of my skull is where it all happened. They were able to correct it with medication, which is amazing. You know, they had everything there to correct my skull and do the coil. And then it started correcting itself. And so me being me, I'm like, cool, man, I'll see you guys tomorrow. I'm like, I'm leaving. And then the doctor's like, you can't leave, man, because there's a D-Dimer, there's all this of this.

I mean, you've got a problem. Like, you cannot leave. You've got to go up to critical care. And I'm thinking, I feel really good. Well, in comparison, you probably felt amazing. And also, they did a spinal tap. And that's where they found where the blood was going. It was going down my spinal column.

So the blood was draining from here. That was actually pretty good, though. It was. You know what? It's wild, man, how the body works. So basically my whole body felt like when you hit your funny bone. Yeah. Every nerve was just like.

fired off firing man it was so amazing um but they uh they so they wouldn't let me leave and um so i remember like my oldest daughter she's just a bitch man like she's standing there and i'm like i'm leaving and they're all freaking out because they're like you went to the doc you went to a doctor you went to the hospital like something's wrong and they're freaking out i shouldn't have done that you know but i felt like i should tell them where i'm going you know and um in hindsight i probably would have just gone. And then after a couple of days of being missing, they'd have been like, let's try a hospital.

APB out. Yeah, you know, because they were so freaked out, man. And that's a bad feeling, you know, like when you look from a hospital bed, you look up and your family's looking at it and you see that freaked out fear. You know, where they're like, what now? Like, what's going to happen, you know? And, you know, doctor tells him like, hey, you know, he's good. You know, it's good.

I think we're past the danger, but we're going to keep him. you know for a week or two and just keep them in critical care and exam you know keep them under observation they did a bunch of MRIs on me and stuff over the course of that to keep an eye on it yeah um but just that you know that thing of like looking at your kids and like man you know like i'm letting them down you know like i'm putting them in a bad position like it also makes you think like did i set my kids up for if i'm not here uh thinking about the future yeah yeah you start thinking about all those things like man you know it's like did i do the best i could do because if i don't come out of this like you know i got i got my beliefs about that stuff but you know i'm like hey if i don't

come out of this you know what did i do to make it so they're going to have a good ride you know so that was the whole thing so that's all i was really thinking about so and i'm thinking like you know i'm going to get up i'm going to go home feel pretty good right now except from my back from that needle you know and um i'm going to go chill at the house and get my shit together and then go to work. At any point in time did a doctor sit you down and say, hey, I'd like to go over the list of things that make you a dumbass. Yeah, they did do that.

The neurosurgeon. That's a long list. The neurosurgeon was kind enough to point out. How close did he say you were? He didn't really say. Yeah. Yeah, they never really said. They just said, look, never play the lotto.

You have no luck left. Never played a lottery. That's an interesting way to describe it. like never play the lottery, never take a chance on anything. You've used all your luck, you know. And so I was like, all right, cool, man. I appreciate it, you know. And then if you're going to be in the hospital, like, I mean, you've been through it.

Like, if you're going to be in the hospital, you want to be in critical care, you know, because you have your own nurse, you know, like that's her job or his job is you. You know, you get a nice big room, you know, and you got all kinds. You got jello, DVDs. And I mean, it's like a hotel. It's like a nice hotel, man, except for because I was a fall hazard, because my right side still wasn't working. So, and my left eye was still jacked up, so I'm a fall hazard, you know.

But you're ready for work. I'm ready to rock, dude. I can get it on. You're kind of lazy. Like, why didn't you go back to work? Yeah, right? Why didn't you try it, man? So I'm like, you know, I got stuff to do.

You know, Cobber's going to be wondering what's up, you know? Yeah, you got nothing to do. Yeah, yeah, right? And so they don't. They don't have a bathroom door. Because you're a fall hazard? So I'm a fall hazard. So anytime I got to go in the bathroom, the nurse has got to come stand by.

Was she hot? No. No, no. I mean, she was a very nice lady, you know. That makes it even worse. Stage fright. Yeah. So I'm like, and you know, eventually you're eating hospital food.

Eventually you're going to have to, you know. Yeah. Remove the hospital food. Yeah, you have to do the big one? And I'm like, do you have to stand there, man? I'm waiting to the last minute. Which is making it worse. Yeah, I'm hurting.

I'm hurting. I'm like, I could probably wait until I go home. You know? Like, I could probably just go home and do this. And, yeah. So I feel bad for the nerve. Like, I have so much respect for medical people now. What they put up with from us.

Because I remember my daughter in the emergency room, right before they took me upstairs to critical care. My daughter, like, actually got my face. put her finger in my face and like get in the wheelchair. She sounds kind of like a badass. She is. She's a power lifter. She's done really well.

Taylor, the oldest one. She's a power lifter. She's done really well in powerlifting. And she's just, she's tough, man. Did she get that from your strong man competitions? My brother would say she got it from him. Yeah, from his, yeah. So she would not.

But yeah, man, she's tough. She teaches our women self-defense stuff too. She'll come in and teach that. That's awesome. But, yeah, she got my face because the nurse and the, the, the doc and fortunately for me there was a neurosurgeon at the hospital at that time so that helped a little bit um but they're all like yeah we're going to go upstairs i'm like no i'm not there's no we in this you know and they're like yeah you can't we can't let you leave we're not allowed to let you

leave and i'm like watch me bro you know and i'm sitting there and thinking like i see a pattern yeah i'm like who among you can stop me i'm full of the lauded you know you can walk through a wall I can't feel anything, and I can probably fight better than all of you. That part's probably true. Yeah, so I'm like, what's going to happen? Like, you so, okay, so security breaks my arm, twisting it behind my back. I'm not going to feel it. Yeah, like, we're still going to be scrapping.

And you guys have to fix it later anyway. Like, I'm in a perfect spot for it. I'm right here. You can fix it. So you were still a police officer at this time, though, right? Yes. How was your rehab from that? Oh, man.

Because mine sucked. Yeah, nothing compared to yours. bro. I'm positive. I did not, because yours was a traumatic injury, whereas mine was a, I don't know what you would call it, you know. What you described to me was relatively traumatic. Yeah, but it wasn't like malevolent intent. It wasn't like something got punched into my head. It was you being malevolent towards yourself. Yeah, I was like, sign after sign after sign. Yeah, yeah, I was like suck it up. There was only like 40 of them. Yeah, I was like suck it up, bro. I can't see. I just need a nap. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I can't walk.

The rehab was rough, man. Like the rehab is rough. That too, you know, like everything we go through sets us up to either, you know, like what's Kavanaugh's book, you know, win or learn, right? Yeah. Like everything sets us up to either learn something from it or we succeed, right? And I think it sets us up for success in the future, you know, I really do. Because I came out of that.

And prior to that, I don't want to say arrogant, but I was always kind of like, I looked at people with their little alleys and stuff as lesser people. Like, suck it up, dude. Try a little harder. You know, like, you don't know what it means to push yourself, you know? And I came out of that with the realization that sometimes you don't have a choice. Three months on the couch. Three months of my life was spent staring at the ceiling or on a couch.

I wouldn't even supposed to be driving, you know. Like, I'm not. Your wife ratted you out about that, by the way. Oh, the driving thing? Oh, yeah, for food, like fast food. Like, you broke the rule for fast food. I broke the rule for steak and shake. Yeah, so I was still eating a lot of meat and stuff.

It's a burger chain, right? Yeah, I was still eating a lot of meat and stuff back then, and I was heavier, you know. So one night, my wife, she's still working nights. I don't know how she held it together through all that, but she held it together because I'm not working. working, you know, and she's got to lug me around sometimes because I can't. That's what I mean. Like, I know now. Like, you know, sometimes suck it up and drive it on doesn't happen, you know, because it's impossible. You can't. Stuff isn't cooperate. My right leg isn't working. I'm like, how am I going to get upstairs, dude, you know? And so, and then also, you know, I'm on the couch.

I'm on, I'm 22 medications, right? 18 medications, preventative. And then there was like four or more that were like in case of emergency take this. So I'm taking all this dope and I'm taking propanol for my blood pressure because the official thing was a brain hemorrhage with intracranial swelling. So my brain's like trying to blow up. And they're threatening to cut a hole on my head and do all this stuff to relieve the pressure. So they put me on 250 migs a day of this propanol, which is insane. You know, like 25 to 50 is a normal dose for blood pressure.

So it keeps your blood pressure artificially low. Just give you 10x that? Yeah, to keep my blood pressure way down, so my brain would start shrinking back down the normal size. So for once in my life, I've had a big brain, right? So once in my life, I'm the big brain in the room. You know, I was really happy about that. I wanted to impress people with my knowledge.

Simpson's episodes and family guy. But so I'm drugged out of my mind. So, man, I would sit on the couch. There would be days like, I'd come downstairs nine in a morning. My wife was working overnight as a telecommunicator, 9-11 dispatcher. Yep. So I'd come downstairs.

She'd get off work, or she'd get held over, so she worked to like nine or ten. So I'd come downstairs, you know, spend some time with her hang out a little bit. And I'm all like, yeah, I'm going to get on the treadmill today, get on their airtime, you know. I'm going to show up, you know. And, you know, the thing's going to be screaming. I'm like, if you hear it tapping, don't come running. and just let it tap. I'm going to put it in its place.

And, dude, 10 o'clock at night, my wife's, like, shaking me. Like, hey, why don't you go upstairs and go to bed? Like, where'd the day go? Oh. What just happened? Where was I? I took my medication. Just zommied out.

Gone. Day gone. Lost the whole day. You're skipping over the... Yeah, I was trying to, like, not do that one. No, you're going to talk about the shaking-and-bake or whatever it's called. That's why Andy has me here. Steak and bake and bake whatever.

But, man. But yeah, so, but those episodes are what make me kind of understand when people go through that stuff, when they are medicated, when they are, or not medicated, but maybe self-medicated. Like, their brain chemistry is messed up or they got an issue and they can't get it together. Like, you need somebody to come shake the shit out of you. You know, you need, can I cut some here? Yeah, yeah, okay, cool. Internet. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, cool.

Don't be a pussy, boy. Well, I don't know, man. I don't know what you. Well, I've been on podcasts where they're like, okay, so no F-bomb. Stop. Well, don't go on those podcasts. Yeah, yeah, right. Don't ever go on those.

Those are shitty podcasts. Yeah. Yeah. So, but, you know, I'm like, man, you know, it's like, the old me would be like, do you get your shit together? Yeah. Put your running shoes on. Get out the door and go run. Even if you can't run 100 yards, run what you can and walk the rest until you can run it.

You know, the old me would have done that. The post brain blowing up me is like, okay, man, we got to work with what you've got until we get you to that place. Yeah. We'll get you there eventually. or we'll get you to the best you can be, but that side of me is kind of gone. But the key to that, both of those, is not accepting that you can't get any better.

That's the thing. And I think that's the bridge that a lot of people, I struggle with it too, because I was like, oh, pill bottle roulette, bottle of Captain Morgan, spiced rum, and two reds, a blue, three ambient, and it was, it took me a while to pull my head out of my own ass, so I could actually see better.

Yeah. And I had to start with the same thing. Like, I can't do this anymore, so I'm going to go and just try to sweat. Did they tell you, did they tell you you become dependent? They, man, this is, this is where having my wife here.

She could describe this so much better than I could because I have a, I don't have a great memory of it. I was just in a ton of pain. Sure. And it's amazing how, you know, people ask me about buds. Like, I was hell weak.

I don't really remember, actually. Right. Because it hurts so bad. Yeah, yeah. That my brain was like, you know how we're going to deal with. with this, j-go on.

But she is not a fan of the military health care system. And when her and I, we did a podcast episode together, and we talked about it, the beauty is that the military medical system is better now than it was when I got hurt. Because it was early on. It was only a few years after 9-11.

And that system, just like the kind of the U.S. warfare fighting system that was on an on-ramp, that medical system was on-ramp too. They weren't seen a lot of. people. Like when I got hurt, I went to a hospital and I waited in the waiting room for four hours while people with the sniffles were getting taken in. And I shit you not when I checked into the Corman. He was like, you know, what are you here for? What kind of injury you have? And I said gunshot wound

and he put his pencil down and he looked to me and goes, self-inflicted. It's like, oh shit, this is the system that we're entering into. And then when they finally took me back, they said, hey, can we bring all the doctors in and see the actual wound because nobody's here seen a gunshot one? and now I'm sure it's substantially better but there was no talk of any dependence it was here's Vicodin here's Perkocet

here's Narotin here's gabapet here's Tylenol here's and they just in my sister who was going through she wasn't a nurse practitioner then she was going through her nursing school she was asking me about the meds I was taking

and she actually found multiple drug interactions from the medicines that I was giving. And none of, I never received a single warning from the military. Basically you were just, you know, here's your prescription. Refills are unlimited. Right. And, you know, and there was no malicious intent from them whatsoever. No, because that's the thing.

They're trying to help you. They were. They didn't want me to be in pain. So they said, here's what we give for pain. Right. I was having nerve issues and they said, okay, here's what we give you for nerves. I can't sleep. So here's what we're going to give you for sleep.

and obviously in my infinite wisdom I assumed all of that paired with alcohol would be amazing. If that's a two, it kicks it, right? It kicks it. It makes sense. Yeah.

It does make it work faster. Yes. But you know you're in trouble when you can take four Ambien and have some cocktails and you're wide awake. So you want to talk about dependence. I think one of the biggest issues

I had was sleep and I would have this sometimes overseas is we would take Amian to reset onto the awake during the night time, asleep during the day. You take Amian for a few weeks. You try to sleep without taking some amiens, it's freaking hard, if not impossible. Right. And I think back, I'm like, oh, I was taking two, three.

And then when I realize, I'm like, I cannot do this crap anymore. And I slowly tried to start working myself off. Those were some of the darkest times, right? There's laying in bed, sweating. And now I understand what was going on. I'm just outgassing and off-gassing all this shit. Yeah, but it was, they weren't at a point, I think, where, I don't, maybe they understood. I don't know, but there was not a lot of talk about dependents for sure.

Yeah, there's not a lot of that conversation, at least when I was going through my issues. So I had three months of migraines. So, you know, my incident happened November 9th. And then I had three months from that point forward, if you count the month prior of migraines. So four months of 24-7 migraines. While they try to get the medication dialed in, they try to get everything. And so I don't have any like, you know, you guys screwed me over. You know, I don't feel that at all.

Kind of like you. It's like they're doing the best they can to put somebody who's obviously in pain to a manageable place, you know, where I'm not wanting to eat my gun quite literally every day. You know, and plus you have all the issues of am I ever going to be able to work again? Like, am I ever going to be able to do any of this again? Am I ever like, what are my skills? Like, jujitsu, you know, swat stuff, shooting. where am I going to take that? Yeah.

You know, like, hey, you know, Dill, are they hiring? You know, like Apple? There's some dark hours in those times, for sure. I mean, that's why they call it medicine to practice, not a science. Yeah, and so I don't have any, like, issues with those guys, but what did happen for me was,

after a few of those times, I just decided, you know, and that was the other thing, all the, you know, interactions with the different meds, you know, I ended up going to a neurologist, and she goes, she looks at the list of meds, and I'm trying to rattle them off from memory, you know, and so then finally, fortunately, you know, all those computers, they talk to each other, you know, because of the pain

medication issue. You know, it wasn't quite what it is now with the opiate issue, but I can see how it would get there. And so she finally looks at everything. She goes, man, some of this stuff is just compounding in bad ways for you, you know, And that, you know, it was like joint pain and stuff like that. And so I didn't have a conversation with it, really. I just go, so you're saying a lot of stuff I'm taking is not right, not good for me.

She goes, yeah, you know, it's a common mistake, you know. And she goes, but we're going to do some blood work. So they took blood from me. And she goes, I'm going to call you tomorrow and we'll start our program. So, of course, my bright idea is I'm going to go home and flush everything. Oh, man. the single worst thing you can do. Cold turkey.

Yeah, that's... You actually could have probably killed yourself doing that too. Probably. That's what I've heard. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I'm pretty fortunate. Steak and shake.

Don't think you're getting out of that. Yeah, no, I'll get back to it. So I go home, man, and I take all that stuff, and I just... Done. Done. And here's the other thing. You've got to know when to say when, right? Like, jiu-tie-tap early, tap often.

Like, admit you've got a problem. admit you got an issue fix it like ask the person how did I end up here you know tap into the arm bar the arm bar is not the issue it's how did you get there you know so we got to figure that part out so you know I I was having these issues where it's like you know see like I took my medication at 8 supposed to take it again at 11 or 12 and I'm looking at it going well if I take it at 9 You know? If I take like a half a dose at nine.

It's even better. Yeah. Like they told me not to let the pain train get ahead of me. So you got all these rationalizations, you know? And that also helps me to kind of have a little more empathy for people that are going through those issues. Because here I don't think I'm a bad person. I don't think I'm a drug addict, you know? Like I'm not a, all these things that you would think, right?

I'm not like some guy that's self-destructive by any means, you know? And, but here I am thinking these thoughts about there's got to be a way to rationalize me taking more to stope because it feels good. It's an interesting realization to have. I think I'm much more empathetic towards those individuals in that situation. I don't think I ever got to a point of dependency because I pretty rapidly realized it just wasn't working and I was miserable and I'm sure, Jamie would have a variety of four-letter words to describe my behavior and character. I've heard some of them. Yeah.

But I look back, I'm like, oh, my God, how did our marriage even start? I mean, I was just, it was miserable. In the daytime, I was fine because I was distracted. At nighttime, it was like, oh, my legs on fire. So let's just start trying to handle that. And it just, then you know. Nerve pain's a whole different thing, dude. People don't, I never understood nerve pain until my spinal cord got full of blood.

It wasn't what I have in there, you know? It's not awesome. When they did the spinal tap, so much release. man like you know there's four vows all four vows are full of blood but so much relief yeah i can imagine yeah because they're like usually there's a little blood in the first one because of the actual stick and then the rest of them are clear but they're like yeah you're some plumbing issues yeah yeah you're you're mixing your drainage issues or we've got some problems here but uh yeah man so i just i quit cold turkey i cut everything cut all the medication made myself really sick so you're not driving at this time

Not allowed to drive. Not allowed to drive. But sometimes you get hungry. Which was funny because I would get hungry. We're going to get there eventually. He's going to try to out last night. Here's another funny part, right? So I go to my neurologist.

My neurologist is like, hey, there's this form you've got to fill out. So he gives me this form. And I look at it and I go, this is like an application for a reinstatement of my license. And he goes, well, yeah, you got to get your license reinstated. You know, your driver's license. Yeah, he goes, you're a license. driver's license was probably suspended because you know of this issue so we probably you know it was probably reported to the state and um yeah you're going to need to get it reinstated and let

them and you're going to do a visual check oh for sure and all that good stuff and I'm like how you think I got here today bro I'm like well how do you think you know I've been getting around man like what in the world this island now I'm freaking out I'm driving home I'm paranoid driving home driving home thinking, okay, just hold your badge out the window, you're fine. I'm driving, you know, like, I'm suspended. Like, what am I going to? Oh, man, there's so many dumb thoughts went through my head. You know, I'm like, no, but again, it just was one of those things lost in communication.

Maybe they told me, I don't know. But I'd probably, if they did tell me, I probably, the same thing, just like blanked it out. Like, yeah, I'm not going to listen to that. Once you knew you weren't supposed to drive, did that stop you? Hmm. I love driving. No one's listening. I love driving.

I love driving. My wife will be like, where are you? You know, my kids will be like, where'd you go? Dude, I'll just go drive. You know, I love it. I love the sound like an engine just banging. Yeah. You know, it's just something about it.

It's cool, man. And so if anything, you're consistent. I like where your headspace is. Yeah, yeah. Dive in. Dumb. Just dive deep into dumb. That's what I do.

But yeah, so the steak and shake story, right? So my, I'm not supposed to be driving. And at this point, I knew I wasn't supposed to be driving. At night, I can't drive because the light will trigger the pain. Yeah. You know. Does this story occur at night? It occurs at night because my wife, my wife works at night.

So my wife works at 1030. And so she's working at 10.30. And I'm like, man, I would love to have a triple cheeseburger. And I'm Jones and, man. You know, I'm like, I'm not getting. the food I need, you know. And so I'm like, man, I want a triple cheeseburger from steak and shape. And for some, I don't know why.

Like, why that's like. Sounds good to me, actually. Yeah, I could have made my own or something, you know. And so I'm like, all right. So I've been timing her. So we live in a historic house. So our house is built in 1925. So the nicest shower is in the basement.

So she goes downstairs. Oh, I love this story already. So I'm timing her. I've been timing her. for a couple weeks. So I'm like, all right, I got about 35 to 40 minutes from the time she goes into that shower. So she's done with her ritual. So she's back upstairs getting dressed for work. I can make it to steak and shake according to Google Maps in about 13 minutes tops, like with bad traffic. I can make it. So I'm thinking eight minutes, eight minutes out, make my order,

eight minutes back. I'll sit in the driveway in the garage. I'll eat it. She'll never know. And then I'll go back inside and sit on the couch. How'd that work out for you? Didn't work very well. Because I drive down the street and start driving and I get to the first four-way stop and there's a red light, a traffic signal at the next block, next intersection. So I get to the four-way stop and the headlights from the... Oh.

...are coming straight at me and they're going at an angle so I can't get away from them. They're just blasting me right in a face. And instant pain, like instant overwhelming pain. And I'm like, crap, I'm in trouble, man. Like, I don't know what I'm going to do. So I try to turn around. So I do it, I do, you know. Ui.

I do a Ui. Probably illegal. Probably illegal. Youe right in the middle of the intersection. I turned it into a traffic circle. I'm an innovator. And so I did a Ui in the intersection. People are like, what, though?

You know, like, what is with this dude, you know? And I'm trying to get back to my house. I'm like, I got to get back. I got to get inside. before I can't. And so I'm driving. And for some reason, man, like my driveway suddenly became a moving target.

And so I'm trying to turn into my driveway, and I just hit the curb straight on with a car that's low to the ground. It's a Mercedes, so it's like real low to the ground. It was yours or hers? Both. Primarily mine. Okay. So I'm primarily driving it.

So I hit this curb and just wrecked. everything because I'm going fast because I got to get back inside before I can't drive. So I hit this curb, blow out the tires, the whole thing. So we have to get a tow truck, a flatbed to tow the car to get it repaired. And my wife was ecstatic. Yeah. Ecstatic at my efforts to like get up on get moving, get on my feet and get it. Not really.

She was not really ecstatic. Oh, man. She was ready to kill me. And so she likes to remind me of that kind of. of stuff frequently. Yeah. You know, because that was dumb, man. That was dumb.

I mean, nobody got hurt except for my feelings, you know, in my car. Yeah, insurance. Insurance, yeah, they love that. They were like, yeah, so you wrecked your car, cool. Why, you weren't supposed to be driving? Interesting. Yeah, yeah, right? No license.

Yeah, exactly. So there was a little bit to answer for that. So it was a, but the rehab process was interesting. I mean, I don't know how guys. Like, I see stories. I watch, I watch motivational, inspirational stuff all the time, you know. And I watch stories of guys that, like, lose a leg, lose this, lose that, and come back from it. And so I just kind of look at what I went through and think, it sucked, but it wasn't that bad, you know?

Probably the best senior enlisted leader I ever worked for spent over 20 years. Less than 30, but over 20. The vast majority of that time at development group on East Coast. Banging out deployments. You know, probably Africa, Afghanistan, Iraq, wherever he needs to go. To the best of my knowledge, not a scratch on him in 20 plus years. Gets out and decides he wants to contract with a government agency. Goes overseas to Afghanistan.

Three days into his first contract steps on a pressure plate, both legs. Took every pint of blood that they had in Kandahar. I think he crashed on the 10th. table multiple times. So one's above the leg or above the knee, one's below the knee. Single most positive attitude I have ever seen. Yeah. I talked to him on the phone shortly after it happened.

He just was like, I'm good. I got all my stuff. Like, I'm like, I would probably be playing Russian roulette with a freaking glock. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, high probability. High probability is born one that way. And he's just, yeah. Every time I see him, I'm like, dude.

And I tell him, like, it's so awesome to see how you have. taking this and what you've done with it. And I found it's not uncommon, you know, double, triple, quad amputees. They're some of the most positive people I've ever seen. They're grateful for the fact that they're still here. That's the thing, man. I don't know if I have that gene.

Yeah, that's interesting, right? That comes back to the whole, you know, can you teach heart or do you nurture it? Do you just bring out what's already there? Probably a little bit of both, but I think some people come to the table with a hell of a lot already. Yeah, with a hell of a lot more. And, you know, I read a really good book in the early

90s. And it's the mental toughness training for sport. I think the guy's name is James Lauer. And he talked about in there like Boom Boom Mancini would watch comedies nonstop during his downtime. So because he trained so hard, he was just a maniac, you know, as a trainer. And so to recover, he wanted no negative inputs. Wouldn't watch the news, didn't want anything in his head that would be. be negative because he felt like recovery starts in the head in your in your mindset so when i was

going through my stuff trying to come back that's dude i just watched comedies from i would listen to comedies watch comedies i watch funny stuff on youtube like self-defense videos yeah yeah pretty much don't get me wrong because i have that written down too nice well you guys are the perfect audience because i watch self-defense videos mostly because people for him to me. Yeah. Like the other one, the one I got the other day was this woman.

I have to find out who this woman is. All with the guns. Yeah, she's, she's got, Wyatt Earp's pistol. She's got Wyatt Earp's pistol. In the belly.

Yeah. Wyatt Earp's pistol is on her head. And the other guy is like, yeah, the other one is in the belly. And then I found out that she's got a channel dedicated to, because I've seen a couple from her,

the self-defense practice. And you two are the perfect audience to talk to this about. But the delta between those who teach self-dispense and those who have ever actually been in this scenario with which they're actually teaching has got to be intimately frustrating for the pair of you. Yeah. Yeah, it's a, it's a... I mean, you touch on it with, you know, how deep we want to get into it. Other, um, art

forms, if you will. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I don't always make people happy. Yeah. Tell me more. But I always tell the truth. Yeah, right? Because the funny thing is people are like, oh, just be honest with me. Yeah. But they don't mean, Because the minute you're honest with them, they're like, oh, you're a dick. I didn't want to hear that. Well, that's like the thing like, well, to be honest. Like, why don't you? So everything was, everyone was a lie?

You were lying to be the whole time, bro? Just spit truth, bro, and we'll deal with it, you know? Yeah. But it's just, okay, I'm going to tell you the truth now. I love that. All right, so now, like, I'm absolute truth. 100% honest. Yeah, what was everything else?

Yeah, what were we doing before, man? Just bullshit me? So how do you guys watch that? crap does it just you guys just roll your eyes the back of my face I watch the same videos as you yeah they just get sent to me and I die laughing yeah but the problem is people take them seriously that's probably not that lady though I don't think that lady ever gets taken seriously but there's other examples she must right by somebody yeah it's like those emails that you get from Nigerian princes I always respond to them somebody must

because we get them you never know you guys never write back to them well I mean I give money. I just write back, how can I help you? And then I never respond to me. Here's my checking account. I tell me, hey, look, I want to stage a fake crime. I need you two to help me.

That's how I respond to Nigerian guys now. That whole Smollett thing. I was going to say, immediately was thinking about that. I'm like how you dovetail that in there. I like that one. I mean, that would be funny. That's not going down in your city, man.

He's the first guy to scam them. Come on, give the guy some credit. I hadn't thought about it from that particular object. He scanned them. Think about it. Think about it. I think you might be having it. and journalism right now. Yeah.

But even with that, right? Like, if I were to have a conversation with her, the first thing I would say to her is, why are you using live guns? Okay, they're empty. They're saved. Right. But how many times have we read a debrief

on the unloaded gun that wasn't? They were certain was unloaded. Shot the student right in the chest right in front of the class. I was think back to, uh, what was it? Brandon Lee, Bruce Lee's son. Like, getting shot on set. Yeah. Right. We got blue guns, man. They're cheap. You can find it for 15 bucks, you know, get a couple blue guns, leave the live stuff out of the training area. And maybe don't get yourself to fence from YouTube?

Yeah, that might help, right? But that's the thing, you know, I look so kind of, you know, in a weird kind of roundabout way, that kind of tells me where they are in their evolution, if they are evolving, right? they don't understand that there are better ways to do something that is that dangerous. Like the most dangerous thing you're probably ever going to do in a self-defense situation is try to disarm or two dudes holding you at gunpoint. Yep. That'd be my first question. You've messed up a lot to get to that point. How many people ever in the history of the world have had two guns held to their body at the same time?

Like, what are the chances of that? like John Kavanaugh talks about all the time like he wants to train for what happens most of the time what you're most likely to encounter not what you're least likely to encounter what are the chances that you're going to have two guns simultaneously held on you ever yeah what the chances that I mean you guys are the exceptions right I pretty sure Paul has had a gun held to his head right I told you I did research shot I got stories but this is my point though but you guys are the

exception like you guys are the 1% but a guy like me I will never have a gun held to my body most likely chances of that are slim to none why would I prepare for something that's least likely to happen why not prepare for the stuff that is most likely to happen the drunk dude at the bar yeah yeah or wearing a seatbelt or a heart attack or the things that will actually kill me right like these overweight dudes in camo pants operate your cheek man smoking cigarettes talking about terrorism they're going to die of a heart attack

they really are right that's a good point yeah like how how interested in self-defense are they yeah because they clearly don't care about themselves if they did they wouldn't be smoking they wouldn't be fat and carrying knives

on the outside of your clothes just don't buy it it's just insincercerer you've got to be concealed Montana has open carry laws. I'm baffled by those individuals because they're just trying to make a statement in my opinion. I don't want anybody to know what I got. I don't know why you would want anybody to know what you have

unless you're literally saying, You're encouraging it. Come try me. Right. We remember, so we talked, you know, a little bit about Herschel. So I remember in the police academy, they do a thing where they talk about off-duty carry, you know, and concealed means concealed.

Yeah. And I just remember, like, Herschel's thing was always, if somebody comes up and asks you if you're carrying a gun right now, Your answer should be none of your damn business. You know, like, that's not something you should discuss. Your mindset should be that it's... People shouldn't know it. It should be concealed.

Nobody should know. And why would you want to play that hand? You know? I mean, there's just so many complications with Open Carry. Like, I get the argument as far as, like, the infringed and Second Amendment and all that good stuff. Like, I get it, you know? But the other side of it is, what are you accomplishing? You know, like, if your goal is...

Making people uncomfortable, essentially. Yeah, yeah. If your goal is to, you know, be a better example of somebody who is legally and lawfully armed, right? If your goal is to be a good example of that guy, wouldn't you want to be the guy that one day they're like, you carry a gun? For sure. Yeah, dude, all the time. You know, I never thought that. I never even, I've never seen it.

Yeah, dude. That's how it works. Or even you're a black belt. Right. You don't walk around going like, I'm a black belt. Some people wear a shirt. I do. I do.

Well, I mean, I have a belt that I wear with my normal clothes. Yeah. It's from Macy's though, not from wherever you guys order those black belts you guys wear. Those are fake, by the way. Yeah, fake black belts. It's a fake black belt. It's not legit. You have to tell the story of when somebody held a gun to your head because I've never encountered somebody.

Yeah, I can't do that. Oh, you can't get into that. Can't get into that. I mean, I can, but I can't. Fair enough. Because that was like a catastrophic. Not good. Failure on a lot of parts.

Okay. I see what you're saying. We're going to skip it. Yeah, yeah. You're lucky Andy's here. We'll talk about it later. Yeah, yeah. I want to hear about Jiu-Jitsu and the impact it made on you as a police officer.

Because like I said, you alluded to it today. You started before you were a police officer, and you said that it, I don't want to paraphrase what you said, but you basically said it had an impact on the way that you handled people or that you dealt with people. And I think when you were talking about having the ability or understanding, I think it was Sean talking about as you developed the capacity to be able to use those things, I find that you're least likely to use them. Because you're like, you know, I'm good. I don't want any part of this because you have nothing to prove.

That's what it was. You were talking about how you feel when you know that you can actually handle yourself. It's like, I don't want to get in the fight in the bar. Yeah, you don't have to prove anything. Yeah, you have nothing to prove. So you can walk in there and just, you know, some guy, you know, oh, man, if you didn't have that badge, you didn't have that gun, like, okay, I'd probably be worse. You know what I mean? Because then there's no rules, you know, if I'm without a badge and a gun, I got no rules on me, dude.

I'll wreck you. But, you know, when you're in those situations, you carry yourself, it's just that confidence that you have from being in the gym, constantly working against resistance, constantly being in miserable positions and realizing I can get out of them, you know? and it puts you, it gets you in a place mentally where you feel indomitable. Yeah. You know, and, and. Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, and so you carry yourself in such a way that's not blatantly like, try me, bro, you know, but you do carry yourself in a different way.

And I think the problem, not the problem, but kind of the challenge or dilemma for most people in jujitsu is they're constantly around. on other jiu-jitsu people, so they really don't recognize it. And then also the issue is, you know, we're rolling with each other constantly. And so, like today, everybody's trying to figure out how to bust up your turtle, you know? Yeah. And then I shouldn't have shown. I showed one thing. My next few weeks are going to suck.

So I showed the one thing when the hands like this, so you just push the hand down, you know, so I showed that. And then that opened the floodgates. People are like, well, what about his feet? I can't wait until tomorrow. What about his feet? So when he's like, got his foot back there, isn't there something I can do with his feet? No, I'm like, I can't do this, man. I can't do this.

I can't throw him under the bus. Let him have his one thing for now. I want to touch on one thing that you were just saying because it is so important. I find myself saying it all the time to my guys and girls. But they're going with trained people every day. And so oftentimes they're frustrated. They're like, I'm not that good at this. But it's like...

Now, the person you're rolling with is just... better at it. Do you remember what it was like, when you're a blue belt and a new guy comes in and you're like, perfect. Yes. Exactly. Yeah. It's game on.

Yeah. Well, they're a blank slate, right? They don't even know how to orient themselves. And here's the thing, martial artists don't fight each other in bars. Right. Right. That's never going to happen unless it's like an after fight party. Right.

And then it's still a game. It's still not really a fight. No. But even in the municipality that you were in, what did they teach? Did they teach anything? Some semblance of J-J-T? No, man. We started with, when I started, it was some form of P-P-C-T.

It's got to stay-ed for something. Yeah. What is that? Pressure point control tactics. No, man, that hurt. That hurt to bring that out of my brain. Is that like the Spock freaking? Yeah, I was like, oh, God.

Yeah, man. So, yeah, lots of stuff like that. Fluid shockwave principle, where you, when you kick somebody in the leg, you leave your leg on it because that impacts more force into the leg. Like the opposite of every tie kick I've ever seen thrown in my life. So they're saying kick the leg but keep the leg. Let it sit there. And like when you hit with the stick, let it sit there for a second.

So you like, you impart this energy into them. And this was being taught at the academy. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. And there's tons of case law and stuff behind it. So it's supported. It's held up.

up legally in court probably because it never heard anybody you know so uh you know when you now can you imagine like so at this point i've already had kickboxing matches like i've already you know not tie matches but kickboxing matches i've already been kicked i've already kicked people and in training and in competition and not once did they ever leave my leg on their leg to impart more damage because it doesn't work that way you know you kick through them you know you're trying to like kick the other side of you know you would spin in a circle if they weren't there right yeah i'm just trying to envision somebody letting you leave your leg on them yes exactly exactly and and we've done stick fighting you know oh yeah that's that was our jam yeah stick fighting

is part of the straight blast gym um you know part of the press pressure testing process so we've all beat the crap out of each other with sticks never once did i leave a stick sitting on somebody Because while that sticks sitting on you, you're beating me in the head with the other hand. You know, it just doesn't make any sense. And so that's what I started with. Then we went to this thing, I can't remember what it was called, like controlled force or something like that. So it was like five. That was a little better.

You know, that was a little closer to grappling. Reality at least, perhaps. Yeah. And then now they circled back around to PPCT and the Gracie stuff. Okay. Yeah. So what is it, GTC or GCT? Something like that.

So some sort of crazy stuff. But the problem with that here, here's the problem. You have, and no disrespect to anybody, you know, in the business, but you have a 40-hour wonder. So you have a guy who doesn't train jiu-jitsu, never train jiu-jitsu. They send him to this school. He does 40 hours at this school. Then he goes back. Now he's the expert.

And he's going to train everybody. I think we know a guy who did this program, maybe. We're going to send these guys back to this jiu-jitsu. We do. We're going to send us guy back to this law enforcement agency. And now he's an instructor. He's not even a white belt in my gym. They would get wrecked.

Yeah, he's a year and a half from his white belt. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so then you have stuff where you'll see these guys teaching like a headlock escape backwards. Like they're doing it all wrong. Because their only exposure was that 40 hours. Yeah.

And nothing else ever. And then they come back and they're the train. the trainer and they're the expert. And they're, and, you know, again, man, nothing against those guys because they're doing the best they can. But they're treading water and they're not doing well, you know, because they have no basis. They have no background in this stuff.

And you're not going to learn it in 40 hours. Yeah, no way, man. I can't think of anything that I've learned in 40 hours. Can you think of anything you learned that you're done? Like you don't have to keep going back to it and back to it. And refreshing and just. keeping it fresh all the time. Right, yeah.

And think, now we're talking life-saving material, knowledge. Yeah. Like, you might need to know this to save your life. Well, it also might save the person's life that you're encountering, because I've seen that,

the rapid escalation of force, because like I was saying, before, if you have verbal command, non-responsive, that's A. B is Taser, but your battery's dead.

or the barbs don't work or the barbs don't quit yeah you get a bad cartridge or it's like this it's in my shirt yeah and then C which is next to your taser

is a lethal weapon right I can understand why some of those instances spiral what I would describe it is out of control but it's also and that's why I think it's so important

yeah they could save their life but it also if they knew how to handle the person that they were dealing with it would save that person's life as well too and I don't it seems to me, and I get zero seconds in law enforcement,

but from an outside perspective, without teaching those skills, and I say this looking back at my own community, like there's things that they put hands on, certainly they could have done a much better job, but it actually will reduce the lethal use of force, in my opinion, because you feel comfortable not reaching to that because you're not out of options.

Right. Yeah, so you get into that deficit, and then you have that vapor lock moment where your brain just goes, you know so you know the fight flight or freeze you know mentally they freeze and they fixate on this one thing and the brain just keeps circling looking for an answer and while that's happened and this situation is continuing to evolve or devolve where now you look at it right and so that deficit just keeps getting deeper and deeper and they get further and further behind so then eventually

the only answer is you know my Glock 17 or whatever is I'm carrying I got to go to that bad boy and do work and so then you end up up in a situation where the shoot might be good because they were in that deficit. Yeah. We're a very real threat to life or serious bodily injury. However, maybe they didn't need to go there. I was going to say it could have been avoided. Today's climate, is there any such thing as a good shoot?

No. There's no such thing as a good shoot. Is there even such a thing as a good police interaction, it almost seems like? Yeah. I mean, everything is, right? Right. Everything is body cameras. I mean, I don't know how.

Well, look at the phones, right? The first thing's going to happen is like five phones are going to come out. Yeah. Whether you have a body camera or not, like someone's filming it. Yeah. And then you have all the internet experts who know what should have and could have been done, you know, and so they pipe in. Well, they have a robust tactical background. Yes.

Yeah, they do. Well, I've found that in the comment section is where all the experts reside. Like, they could be teaching courses, but instead they choose to donate their time and knowledge. on the internet and comments. For free. Don't pay for the higher education. Yeah, why would you pay for a class? Yeah, why go to a school with a guy that's an expert when you can listen to a dude in the

comment section? And then it goes to the court of public opinion. It goes from the comment section and like, and then it's, I don't know how you get a fair shake out of that to be honest with you. You'll get tried in the media and you won't get a chance. You won't have a chance. Well, here's the thing. So you might, so legally you might be good to go.

You'll be all right. You know, you're not going to do time. civilly. Different story. Different story because what might happen if you have a politically motivated agency or administration is they might look at everything to happen and find where you violated an SOP. And then they'll say you can resign or be terminated your choice based on your SOP violation. Because you were saying that is a cause for firing.

Yeah. Correct? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so you can go after somebody for our violating an SOP, and then now what? You know, so again, we're back to the, is there actually anything that in the wild that would be a good shoot in today's climate? Because you have chiefs that are looking at, like, their career, they don't care about it for the most part. Yeah. I know some good chiefs.

For sure. You know, and actually, you know, I've had a couple good chiefs that had my back in some situations. But, you know, there are also some guys who. their goal is whatever it is. It's politically motivated, and they're going to throw you under the bus. And it doesn't matter. It could be, you know, an axe murderer,

charging through a playground at a nursery school. And if it becomes politically charged, and there is some way in there where this chief's career, or even, not even maybe the chief, but guys under him who are looking at a chief's job somewhere, those guys might get caught up in something, your host.

can you or do you want to talk at all about what happened at the tail end of your career yeah i mean because i mean honestly i guess we're kind of describing it seems in part and parcel what happened with you yeah not just me a lot of guys i unfortunately again man you know you look at things like that and you're like why did this have to happen to me like are you kidding me and why at the tail end too i mean that was the part that i mean i remember when it came and matt called me and he's like hey man so what's going on with paul yeah yeah i'll let you lay it out what happened i mean well the thing is and i've and you know like the whole thing like you go through things you're like man what the heck you know and then but then it gives you a new um circle or i don't

know what you would call it like a new um group of people that you can now talk to and help in some way you know because i've run into so many guys that have been in that situation but you didn't know of before or had communication with yeah you know i was just like oh you know i don't know anything about that and these guys are coming like hey man I had a situation like that I got crossways with a deputy chief or I got crossways with a commander and then all of a sudden I went from being golden to like I couldn't get out of there fast enough you know so um so a situation you know a guy made a complaint he had put a cigarette in my face and all this is foiable like anybody who does or does not believe yeah what I say can foia the whole thing and read it for themselves

What is FOIA? The Federal Information Act, Freedom of Information Act, I'm sorry. F-O-I-A. Yeah, F-O-I-A. So they can FOIA everything. And actually, I have a picture of it in my phone. I have a picture of the FOIA, because a guy foiled it. Yeah.

And then contacted me through Facebook. It's like, hey, man, I read your stuff. He's like, cool, you know? Yeah. And he's like, what's improper use of force? Because the newspaper said excessive use of force. And I go, well, that's because. Funny you should ask.

Yeah, when was the last? last time the news got it right you know so which i also learned right i learned okay man you know they they would they would jump on it and they will go with what sells rather than what's true the smollett case is a perfect example run with it right and then oops we were wrong you know so uh so a guy puts a cigarette in my face it's a domestic you know um so i smacked the cigarette away from my face you know i'm like hey knock it off go to sleep you know um um He sits down. He starts to stand up again.

So I put my hand on and push him back down. You know, I go, hey, dude, go to sleep. You know, we clear. You know, I talk to the female involved again. I go, look, you know, we can't arrest him. There's nothing to arrest him on for this. But if we come back, we're going to have to arrest him or do something. Like, we can't keep coming here all night for this.

And you're going to end up getting hurt. Like, this guy's, like, you keep calling us. There's only one. into this, you know? Yeah. So, had a little brief conversation with her, and then we cleared. We were done. By the time we got to the door to leave, he was asleep. He's, like, passed out. He's that drunk, you know?

And that's what I mean. Like, he's so drunk that he couldn't stand up. So it wasn't like I had to, like, do anything to this guy. So maybe if I was brand new, I would have arrested him for some thing with me, like, you know, coming after me, putting a cigarette in my face, you know, something. There's some, you know, there's a charge, you know, so. Go out to the truck, get a book. Yeah, yeah. Oh, got you.

Yeah, yeah, you know, it's like, okay, some sort of assault. You know, he made me reasonably fear of battery. I reasonably believe he's going to, it would burn me. Like, of course, it's a lit cigarette. Yeah. You know, so, you know, I could have been petty, but 18 years on the job at that point, like, I'm beyond that. You know, I don't need an arrest to bolster my numbers, even though numbers drive everything, you know, in law enforcement now. So I don't need those numbers and just wasn't interested.

So I'm like, look, man, you know, go to sleep. We'll be done. Talk to her for a minute, let her know what I said. Come back, got to rest. It's going to have to happen. We bounce out of there. They come in and complain. That was a whole other issue.

And then the next thing I know, a few months later, I want to say, I get called in and interrogate. about it. So during this time, another commander, you know, who was over me, you know, I fell underneath of him and chain of command. This other commander's like, look, man, there's not much to this. There's nothing actually to this. And it's a complaint, yeah, but there's nothing there. You know, well, this one deputy chief that hates my guts decided there was something there. And he kept trying, but the commander kept running interference for me. And that's what I mean. He's now a chief in another agency, and they love him, you know?

well what happens he leaves to take this chief's job and open season on me so now i don't have a buffer anymore so you know he goes this other agency where they just love the guy you know and he's a he's a true leader you know leads from the front which is you know i always laugh about the lead from the front i'm like where else would you lead from bro you know you know but uh but he's one of those guys you know and he'll back you if you're right and if you're wrong, he's going to square you away, you know. So I go in and I get interrogated.

Now, at this point, I can't remember. This has been months now, you know. So I answered to the best of my ability. We go through the whole process. Long story short, man, they ended up, they tried to get me charged with felonies. They wanted to fire me. Was a lot of this driven by that guy

who had an axed to grind with you? Absolutely. 100%. you know um and uh it tried to do all kinds of stuff um ends up in the end you know they try to get felony charges denied you know state's attorneys like no you know um so end up back in the you know back in talking again like hey let's come to some sort of agreement and that's when they break out the SOP violation so like you know was there you know the push or the smack of the Is that covered by, you know, our standard, you know, our training and practices? And I'm like, we know the answer.

No, you know. But then again, you know, my attorney is awesome. You know, how people, it's like dentists and attorneys, right? Like, everybody hates them until they need them. And then when you get a good one, you're like, oh, my God, I love this guy. Yes. The most awesome person ever. And so, you know, my attorney is good, man.

He is a good attorney, you know. and so he kind of looks at him, he goes, you know the answer to that. But he made a point to him, which is, okay, so if you're going to start going after officers, every time they push someone back from them, like, hey, step back. You're not going to have any officers. Yeah, or smack a cigarette out of their face. That's every domestic or bar fight or whatever. You've got people crowding in on you.

So you're pushing people back. Like, hey, back up. Let the medics in here to treat your friend that you're freaking out about. Like, hey, back up, you know. So you push people back. You don't arrest them for it. I mean, you could if you're petty. Yeah.

But it's like, hey, man, let's just back up, you know. And my attorney, so you're telling me that you want a use of force report filled out every time an officer pushes somebody on like a bar fight or something like that. Well, yes, if that's the SOP. Oh, boy. We're like, okay, well, we'll make sure we tell the members of the union that this is the standard operating procedures now is that every time you touch somebody. So what they went after was they went after the improper use of force, a failure to report, a use of force of any type to a supervisor, and a failure to generate a report about the incident.

So they went after me for that. And then they also tried to tag team on a bunch of other, because I had no disciplinary action ever taken against me, really, in my entire career. In 18 years, and then this crap happens, yeah. Yeah, I'd never had any issues. I never, you know, because again, back to the jiu-jitsu thing. Like, I don't need to lump people up. You know, I don't need to hit them with a baton.

I don't need to do all that stuff, man. I can control you with just my body. You know, like, I just, you know, I can get a good body lock on somebody and hang on to them, get cuffs on them, you know, and end the story. Yeah. So, you know, go through this whole thing. And so they end up charging me with that. They tried to charge me with, I got another letter of disciplinary. action that's in there too.

That was for secondary employment. They tried to say that I didn't fill out secondary employment forms, but then upon further investigation, they found that I filled out in secondary employment forms all the time, because I knew this guy's out to get me. So I know this guy's out to get me. So you've got to be by the book. He hates my guts. So I would get these personal, like, security detail jobs and stuff like that.

They're all for the same company, but it's a different client or a different location. So I'd fill out another. form. I go teach a class. I fill in another form. Every single time. It's covering your ass. Every single time. So I had filled out forms as recently as a month before they brought this charge. So they were kind of like, so we're going to let that go, but then we're still going to give you a verbal reprimand that you need to understand the SOP better because there was some questions you didn't answer very well. So you know what that is. You know, that's just a little dip, you know. So I went through that process, man.

I went through the whole thing. So I took a deal. I ended up doing a 30-day suspension because my attorney, who, again, smart guy, so I trusted him, you know. And he's like, look, they got you on the SOP violation. It's a roll of the dice. I have never felt more confident in your case, you know. But at the same time, the judge's rule, right? Like, why is the dog lick its balls?

Because it can. Why do judges do what they do? Because they can. you might get in front of a judge who goes, yeah, you're right. He did violate the SOP, so his termination is upheld. So. Damn. Yeah, so I go, okay, man, so then let's do this.

So then they brought me back. They put me on the desk, which is punishment, you know. So they made me work the desk for my last stretch of my career. And that was just punishment. That was just a hate move on their part. Because they can. Because they can, and because they couldn't fire me. me.

It taint your, it taint your perspective at the job at all going out that way? It kind of did to some degree and not the guys. I mean,

I love the guys that worked with, you know. Probably just hated the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy, that somebody like that could get in a position where they could do something like that and face no repercussions.

You know, that's what really blew my mind. That changed my whole view on law enforcement. And unfortunately, the hardest part of it all is it changed my kids. view. So my kids look at law enforcement a lot differently now. And that kind of breaks my heart a

little bit, you know, because, you know, like my one daughter wanted to be the first female SWAT officer, you know, and now she's like firefighter trained and all that. I can't even say it. I can't even like spit it out, you know, like she went and joined the second responders, you know, and so. Oh, God. There really is that rift, isn't there? No. For not a lot of on our part. No, I mean, it's good natured, of course, but you guys take the shots when you can. Yeah, a lot of jockeying back and forth, you know. It exists. Yeah, but I don't think malilantly, not in my experience, you know, I have a lot of farfaders training my gym, and I'm friends with a lot of the firefighters, and a lot of those guys have my back through that

whole situation. A lot of those firefighters are like, dude, we've been on calls with him with people, you know, spit and kicking, all this other stuff, and he doesn't, he never loses, you know what I mean? Like, I had those guys coming in on my side. I had a, you You know, the guy that left, guys that were chiefs in other departments were going to come in and testify on my behalf. The funny part, you'll enjoy this during the secondary employment thing. One of those, they called Carber. Yeah, he's got your back. Yeah, they call Carver, and they're trying to pull like this read BS on the phone with him.

I'm like, you're talking to a guy who interrogated dudes for the State Department. Like, yeah, stop. He's like child. Yeah, exactly. Allow me to take over the conversation. Yeah, exactly. He was like, he laughed about it later. He's like, they didn't even have their shit straight when they were talking to him, you know.

So it was just, it was clear to him. It was a witch hunt. And then like other people have said, you know, it tainted my view on the bureaucracy. It disappointed me more than anything, you know. And then, and really just like that one person can do that. I really got this. And then, but here's the thing. I've talked to so many people since then.

And it's amazing. it's like every department has the same issues I'm sure has something like that where you have one guy and in talking to guys in the military they would tell me similar stories where you have one guy who just has it out for somebody for whatever reason some unknown like I still don't know 100% you know yeah like but they just you know

in a rank driven organization a lot of the times well especially if they have if you have a leadership problem early and you don't deal with that and handle that and eject the person if you give them enough time, they're going to achieve a rank where they can screw everything up for a lot of people. And like I was telling you last night, a lot of the times they would lateral over to a little bit outside of the SEAL teams, get a better evaluation, come back into the SEAL teams. Maybe they'd have to lateral out again. But, you know, guys are doing 20 years and they're getting out.

They're awesome guys. But this guy's sticking it out for 25. Yeah. He's going to achieve a rank. Yeah. We're in a bureaucratic rank-driven organization. He's got some power. Yeah.

And it sucks. Like I said from the beginning, man I look at what you did is one of the most thankless jobs Like people spitting on you I mean everybody hates the police Until you need him And then they complain about how long

They takes them to show up Yeah the other side of that too right Yeah what you learn in the beginning You learn early on That Your victim today Might be your suspect tomorrow Your suspect today might be your victim tomorrow

Still got to be professional Yeah Like you still got to treat Like the guy today that's motherfucking you might need you tomorrow. You can't be that guy that's petty that's, you know, small. That's why I can't be a cop. Same here.

I couldn't do it. Yeah, you can't be. He just said right there, that excludes me. Yeah, you can't be the guy that's like, you know what? I remember what you said to me yesterday. You know, you can't. I wrote it down. Yeah, yeah.

Actually, I had a tattooed on my arm. I tattooed on my arm, so I remember, you know. But yeah, it's an interesting thing. But yeah, I think the main thing that came out of that, man, was that I learned I wasn't alone. People contacted me constantly. You know, people were, you know, I mean, the day it went down, I don't know if you know Dave Harrington, he's an old Army SF dude.

I did not. Yeah, super cool. He's a firearms trainer, extraordinary, just an awesome dude. Next day I'm at Matt's house when I found out. I'm actually at dinner with Matt and Salome. And my phone rings. It's the union president. I'm thinking, that's odd, you know.

Slash, probably not good. Yeah, well, when we walked out of my interrogation, my attorney and the union president, those guys are all like slammed on, you know, like your side of the story gize with the other officers and actually jies with the guy to complainant. Like, there's nothing here. Yeah.

You know. And my attorney actually said at the time, like, you're probably going to get a day off or two because you should have reported it. Why didn't you just arrest the guy? And I said to him, like, I felt bad. He's so drunk he can't stand up. Plus, you know, I take him to the jail.

He's that drunk. You know, then we're going to end up calling an ambulance. It's just, it's going to cost a whole bunch to deal with this problem, you know. And so I was like, blah, you know. They're like, it's just a drunk guy. You know, if I was in that guy's shoes, I'd appreciate not getting arrested. Well, he wouldn't have remembered that part. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, right? Yeah, yeah, right? So, you know, we walked out of there. thinking done more just stupidity you know we're done with this so and then I get the call like hey man when you get back in town um they're going to put you on abbin leave and they're going to fire you and then I had to teach the next two days I had to teach a seminar at Matt's gym in Portland in the next two days I was out of my mind you know I got my wife from Matt yeah my wife found out about it my wife found out about it because she worked there and guys are talking oh that's terrible

finds out. Yeah, well, the union president was super cool. He called her right away. He's like, look, I know what's going to happen. Better that than the rumor mill. Yeah, so here's what up. So she had to hear people talking and all that, and she had to just suck it up and not say anything. And, you know, but like Super Dave calls me the next morning. You know, my phone rings. I'm like, what the hell? You know, I answered the phone. He's like, bro, what's up? I'm like, nothing, man. What's happening with you? He goes, quit bullshit me and tell me the fucking truth. What's up? You know? And I was like, whoa. You know, but it is spread. Yeah. Like, you know, it had already, like, shot out through that community where guys are like, hey, dude, you know, what do you need from us? Like, Cobber immediate was like, what do you need from me?

You know, like, you know, I'll do my best to get you on here full time, you know, teaching and stuff. I mean, it was just amazing, you know. I would never know I have friends like that if that didn't happen. Yeah, you can view an incident like that. I was doing a podcast last week talking about the night I got shot in the moment. It was like the worst night ever. Yeah.

And now I look back. I'm like, okay, I changed my perspective on life. Yeah. Put me down a different path. I know you guys got to go to dinner. I got one more question. This one comes from a fan that reached out to. Oh, God.

Between you. Where are these people? Where are you getting these questions from? We can try to interrogate me later. Between you and your brother, who has bigger biceps. So he's better at getting the angle. He's better getting the angle. Actually, he's a lot bigger to me now, man.

and so he's a lot stronger. I haven't been lifting weights because I'm trying to drop down to around 205. But I'm going to have to start lifting because I got to put him in his place. I heard it was a point of contention with you. It was a little bit of an argument there for a while

because I'm like, you're in a different angle, dude. You got a better angle on me. That's all it is. And he won't let it go. You know, he keeps like bringing it up. It's like fighting. It's all about angles. Yeah, we did a podcast together

and he was closer to the camera and he's standing to the side. and I'm facing straight on, I'm further from the camera. The lighting's a little better on his side. But you sound like you let all this happen. I had to let him have a little something. It's kind of like when you let that guy, you know, the guy gets on your neck and, you know, he's choking you and you're like,

that was more of a neck crank, but still, good job, bro. It was more of a neck crank than a choke, but yeah, but good, I did tap, man. Yeah, I'll let you know if I ever get to that point. Yeah, you make it, you want to let them feel like, you know, You only tapped out of... To give them a little boost. To better them, to make them feel a little boost. But still, it wasn't a real choke.

And my thoughts always to that were, but you tap, bitch. You know, but you tap. You know? Like, you still tap, dude. That's the best way to end it right there. You still tap, bitch. He's still tapped.

Yeah. Thank you both for your time, for sure. I'm going to get you on the way, eating dinner. Thank you, dude. Yeah, of course. Looking forward to tomorrow, too. Yeah, for sure. That should be what I'm going to be fun.

what I'm going to describe as a shit show. I think we're calling that episode Turtle Soup tomorrow. No, we're doing gun stuff tomorrow. I don't have a gun down there. Yeah, we're doing... We don't know that. Yeah, right?

Maybe that's what I'm hiding. Yeah, you might... That might be why you're turtling so hard, you know? Awesome. Thanks, boys. That is it for this week. Everybody, that's all I have for you. Thank you for everybody who is taking the time

to... First and foremost, I would say, taking the time to tell people about the podcast. People ask me all the time, you know, what can I do to help out? The biggest thing for me is tell somebody about it. If you like the podcast and you think it has a positive impact on your life or you think it would have a positive impact on somebody else's life, tell them about it. Personally, for me, I find it extremely cathartic to make these episodes and to sit down and have conversations with people and work through my own beliefs. Why do I feel the way that I do? Where do my opinions

come from? And to question those beliefs. And that it's even more true on the the episodes that I do Q&A where people ask me direct questions and I have to figure out exactly why I feel the way that I do. It's a healthy exercise for me. And the more people who listen, the more questions I'm going to get becomes a self-licking ice cream cone. What else? So in addition to that, if you got time, do me a favor. Go to iTunes and review the podcast. Give it a five star. Give it a one star. Give it whatever you think it deserves. If you think it sucks, write a review and say, hey, this podcast sucks. If you think it's awesome,

you could write that too if you want to, but pick your own terms and write whatever you want to write. If you have a suggestion, reach out to me directly, put it in the comments. I'll do what I can. There's some things I can change. There's some I cannot. What else?

The new t-shirts for the podcast are live on clearedhotpodcast. com. Hit the shop tab, and they're going to be there waiting for you. And I think that is about it. See you next week.