Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Full Auto Friday - 10/10/2025

Episode Date: October 10, 2025

Nothing fancy today, just some traditional Q and A to round out the week. Of course, I only picked controversial and divisive topics, oh wait, not even close. I did actually cover:  -A wife's anxiety about hiking in Grizzly bear country  -How do I approach disagreements and arguments with my wife -Advice for law enforcement officers who don't agree with the actions they see from others in the profession. -Situational Awareness and physical security advice for women working in remote areas Enjoy   Today's Sponsors: Helix: https://helixsleep.com/CLEAREDHOT for 27% off sitewide David: Order a sample pack at https://Davidprotein.com

Okay, got to red smoke. Oh, west of the smoke. Okay, Kathy, west of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. All righty. We are off and running Friday episode just here by myself. Michael's completely abandoned me on this journey of hopefully becoming a man in Japan. I've done all the things I should do.

The lights are red. I made sure that the levels and the levers are correct. on the road casters. He tried to screw me that one time. So I think we're looking good. And if it doesn't work out, then I'm obviously clearly using the extreme ownership model. It's his fault. So shall we get this going?

As this episode comes out, I'll have completed another lap around the sun. Let me tell you. It's a wild journey. I never thought I would be as old as I am now. I certainly don't feel like I'm that old. Leah would absolutely tell you that emotionally I'm not that old. or maturity-wise, as would probably just about anybody else that knows me. But what a fascinating journey.

Very curious to see what the future holds. Let's get into it. Today's episode is brought to you by Helix. Arguably one of the easiest ad reads for me to do because I sleep on one of these mattresses every night. I've talked about this many times. Leah and I travel a good amount. And at the end of every trip, it is uncanny.

At least one of us will look over on the flight home and say, I cannot wait to be home to sleep in our bed. because these mattresses are fantastic. I had an ad relationship with them four or five years ago. They sent some mattresses decked out the house with them. Moved into town, rented a townhouse outside of the time period. I had that relationship with them. Needed to fill up the house with the mattresses.

Went straight to their website. Purchased them full retail for my kids, for Lee and I. Why did I do that? Why was I willing to pay the money? Because these things are amazing. I was literally emailing with a listener to the show the other day. They just made their order and I'd let them know. Hey, let me know when you get it and what you think because these things are fantastic.

Mattresses are a little finicky sometimes and you may not know what is tailored to you. So one of the best things about Helix that I like is they have a sleep quiz. I have the website right in front of me. You take the quiz. It'll ask you, you know, height, do you sleep on your back, your stomach, your side, firm, cool, hot, all of these things. And it'll work your way towards one of their offerings and boom, you can fire it off. You don't have to go to a mattress store. You order this thing online and it's going to show up faster than you think it should.

in a box that doesn't seem like there's going to be a mattress in there. It has the density and weight of a dying star. So figure out a way to get it into the bedroom. Because once you open this thing up, you'll be like, wow, what kind of vacuum sealer did they use? Because it's pretty impressive. It fills up. Boom.

Put it on the bed. And I'm telling you, you're going to have the best sleep you've ever had in your life. Every mattress in my house. Every member of my family sleeps on a helic mattress. Not because they're a sponsor of the show. because they're awesome. All right, so here's the deal. If you go over to helixsleep.com slash cleared hot,

it's 27% off site wide. Yeah, 27% off. Helixleep.com slash cleared hot. Question one, we are coming out to Montana from Pennsylvania for a wedding, but have chosen to spend some time near Glacier and Whitefish. Whitefish is the town about 15 miles north of Calispo where I live. GnP or Glacier National Park is into the northeast. If there wasn't a wall behind the camera,

and actually a building behind that, I'd be able to see into the southwest corner of Glacier National Park. It is unbelievable. If you have visited Yellowstone or parks like Yellowstone or your jam, you need to check out GMP, Glacier National Park. It's amazing. We'll be coming to the coffee shop for sure one of those days. And thank you for the support for these people coming to the coffee shop.

I love it when people come from out of town. We have a, it's not a cork board, but it's a map of the U.S. We got pins. If you do come and visit and you're from out of the coffee shop, state. Please put your pin in the board. We have them from all 50 states at this point. Things starting to get a little bit packed. I really like it. And we're going to try to camp along the Flathead River. We plan on doing some hiking for the first two days once we arrive and then it's off to wedding activity. We are driving out. We'll have more than a capable offroad vehicle

design for base camp in the National Forest and a dirt bike to get around on the different trailheads. Please, I'm assuming you know this, but don't ride your dirt bike in the National Park. I'm assuming mean trailheads around Flathead Valley, but just in case, since you're not from this area, do not write a motorcycle off the roads in Glacier National Park. I do not believe they would be fans of that activity. However, go to Onyx off road and open up the Flathead Valley area. Holy cow, it's going to glow at you how many trailheads there are available and you will notice none of them are in GNP. So just in case, you didn't know that.

I'm going to assume that you did. But that's just good advice for everybody. The question that comes into play has to do with my wife and her anxiety, mainly about grizzly bears. Anytime I bring up the trip, I talk about the plans or mention the words hiking or bear spray. Her sweat has more flow than Niagara Falls. She loves the outdoors. She loves camping and is excited to see some real mountains but cannot get past the potential to be mauled to death by a big furry cuddly buddy. I've asked her what I can do to help, explaining the defenses that we will have, bear spray in a 10 millimeter,

and how to act if we see one. offered to bring her some edibles, which helps with her anxiety at home, but nothing does a trick. Do you have any advice for how to handle this or help walk her through this? Or should I just jump on the trink gun and keep her knocked out the whole time? Is there a place in Calispo that's an adult daycare? Any advice with this is much appreciated it? So you remember when I opened the episode talking about I might have completed another lap around the sun, but I'm not mature enough to be commensurate with what it says.

my driver's license. My first thought when I read this, my absolute stream of consciousness first thought that I couldn't control and I gave up trying to control years ago was that this is the best opportunity ever to take your wife on a hike, get a camera up and running and just get into a slightly wooded area and just yell, oh my God, there's a grizzly and then run off the trail as fast as you can just to see what she does. Because I think she's going to freak out. She's going to hate you for it.

But I don't know if there's any better content out there that you could possibly capture. But again, that's not the advice that I'm going to give you because I do, I think, have some things that could help. But that is immediately where my mind went. And I don't know what that says about me, but I'm just being honest with what goes on in between my ears. So, Grizzlies are real in northwestern Montana in a lot of the western states with the Rocky Mountains passing through them. If you're going to camp in the Flathead Valley, depending on where, there are some areas. There's actually a Grizzly sanctuary area that is in the flak section, nowhere near the mountains. But I don't think you're going to be camping there because that's private.

And where was the river you were talking about? Different trailheads, camp along the Flathead River. If you're by the lake itself, I think the odds of encountering a grizzly are pretty low. There's also campsites in Glacier that given the tail end of the season, October, it's winding down to say the least. You might be able to get some of those. Maybe a slightly higher risk of a grizzly there. Pretty low. But if you're going to camp and you have your vehicle, you know, do the smart stuff.

Separate yourself from your food source. Keep it secure inside of a cooler. I'll say Yeti, but I'm not an endorsement of Yeti by any stretch. Just that type of cooler or something in the vehicle, all of this stuff. So all the smart things that could attract bears. The hiking, I mean, that's real. They generally, I had to look this up, but they start hibernating in November.

So they still will be out, and they'll probably be trying to pack on as much weight as possible. There are some great hikes that you can do, though, that provide wide open visibility. And that is probably where I would start. Don't go. The going to the sun road was going to go all the way up to a place called Logan Pass. It's a really cool place.

And there's a hike that you can do. that a lot of it is actually on a boardwalk, a wooden boardwalk, and then it goes to a dirt trail. And it comes up to this peak and you can look down and you can see for, yeah, I'll say miles. There's a lower high mountain lake, meaning lower than the actual peak that you're on. You could walk down to that if you want to. That's another couple miles. Or you could just do a portion of that boardwalk, but you could just incrementally expose your wife to some trailheads that are spectacularly beautiful, but you're not going to be ambushed by a grizzly. If there is a grizzly bear there, you're going to see it at a massive.

distance, you'd be able to maneuver, get the hell out of there, whatever it may be, and start with something really slow and small like that. If you can get her to go, but also consider that maybe that's just not going to be her jam. She has, people have these core fears. There may not be anything that you could do about it. I don't think I would actually recommend an edible because let's say you give her an edible and I'm not saying put her into orbit. But if you do encounter an animal like that, I would want you to have 100% of your faculties available to you. So food for thought on that one. I probably would avoid that.

And if she just can't get over that, there's hikes here in the Flathead Valley. You can go up to Lone Pine State Park. It's not a crazy hike. You know, you could go up to the Whitefish Mountain resort. And there are grizzly bears up on the Whitefish Mountain. And what you can do, though, instead of hiking it, is you can take the ski lift all the way to the top, the lodge. So instead of doing the hike, you could achieve that altitude gain and you could look down over the flathead valley. It's gorgeous.

But you don't have to worry about hiking and zigzagging these trails. My theory is, why walk when you can take a helicopter? You probably don't have access to a helicopter. So why walk when you can take the ski lift? It'll save you time. You still get the view. And it might help reduce that anxiety a little bit for your wife. Except the fact that potentially she may not be willing to go on those hikes.

And if that's the case, drop her off at the coffee. shop. We're open at six on every day except for Sunday when we open at seven. And I'll make sure that she's well taken care of. I'll even give her a free latte. And I say that because that's the only drink I know how to make. So I'll make it for her as long as there's nothing else added into it. It's going to be milk and coffee espresso. And we'll take care of her. There's plenty of stuff she can do in Calispo. Whitefish has got a bunch of places that you can walk down there. Downtown is very shoppy. That's not even a term, but plenty of shops, both sides. Really cool stuff.

Montana S. Store. If you want to actually save some money, though, just come into Calisbell. Main Street's not as packed with shops. It's a little bit more disparate, a little bit more spread out, but the coffee shop is down here in Calisbell. There's plenty of stuff to do. My best advice to you would be this. Don't push the issue until it causes a catastrophic issue between the two of you. Do your best. Expose her incrementally. Bring those safety mechanisms that you talked about. Do some research as firearms where they are allowed and where they're not, especially when it comes to national parks and start small.

But if she doesn't dig that, don't push it, man. If it's really rewarding for you to go ride a trailhead for a bit, literally drop her off at the coffee shop. We'll make sure she's taken care of. Go rip for a couple hours. If we link up at the coffee shop, I can pull up my onyx off road and show you some good suggestions that are easily rideable from the coffee shop.

You can zip out, especially even like a dual sport bike or even a traditional motorbike as long as you've got tires that can go on pavement for a bit. We got you covered. So there's ways around this. decide how much it's worth to you to go on this hike. Is it worth a galactic issue? I would say no.

So figure out a solution that is somewhere in between. It'll make both you happy. There's plenty here in the Valley for you and everybody else. So that's the best advice I got for you. And I know of nothing other in Calspo that is an adult daycare other than senior living assisted homes. And I don't think they take on-call basis for a day or two at a time. I think it's a little bit more of a long-term reservation. Question two.

I love this question or the beginning of it. Andy, I listened to your entire Monday episode convinced that Brigham was Evan Hafer. They're both wee in stature from a vertical height, but they look nothing like each other. And Bringham was talking about health care and his journey through health care. And Evan is utterly consumed with the creation and consumption of coffee. So it's fantastic that you can confuse those two. Anyway, one question for you on your Friday episode or question for you for one of your Friday episodes on marriage that maybe you could answer. Through your last marriage and in your current marriage, what has been your tactic for when you have a disagreement with your spouse?

How do you approach serious disagreements with your spouse and how do you approach arguments with your spouse? Always curious to hear how another man handles this situation. Also, please be nice to Michael. We love him too. I'll go reverse order on this. I'm very nice to Michael. Yes, I give him a hard time. I know that I do. But you know what else is going to give Michael a hard time? The real world. Life. Challenges and struggles are coming for that kid. He does very well. He's resilient. He's smart. It's not that strong. Physical in nature, he could easily be confused for well-muscled female. But it's even from behind, too, with the curly ginger locks. It's so he'll have to fight that off for the rest of his life. But, I give Michael hard time on the show, and I've said this a couple of times. People only see what happens on the show. You guys don't see the other, you know, every hour in the day or week that we actually spend together,

which we spend a good amount of time together, whether it's just in jiu-jitsu or passing. So Michael's going to be okay. The hard time I give him is from the best of intense for me trying to hone him for what I know is coming for him in the real world. But he'll be all right. All right. As far as disagreements with your spouse, how do you? I approach serious disagreements with your spouse? And how do you approach arguments with your spouse? Oh, man. I did not approach arguments well, especially towards the tail end of my relationship with my

ex-wife as our relationship was coming apart. They would escalate on both sides. They would be emotionally driven on both sides. And I think often the objective nature. of what even maybe created the argument or what we were arguing about was probably lost due to the volume of hurt that existed in both of us leading up to that argument. So I think a lot of the time, the arguments themselves, they could be easily colored or you could put makeup on it and make it seem as if it was about something in the moment

or something recent. But looking back, I don't think that most of the time that was the case. I think we were fighting through and arguing through emotions and feelings and hurt that existed on both sides. And it expressed itself on those micro subjects that would start the argument but would terminate. in a macro engagement. And it sucked. And I don't ever want to return to that. And I don't ever want anybody to experience that.

Because if you have felt that or worked your way through that, you know how horrible that is. It sucks. You don't feel good about how the other person treats you. You don't feel good about how they speak to you. The things they say can feel incredibly damaging. But you don't feel good about how you treated them either. And you don't feel good about the things that you said, your behavior, your expression of who you want to be as a person. It sucks.

And again, and I'll never get into the details of my divorce. It is unfair for me to do so. I'm the one with the larger platform. I will not talk about details. but what I will say is at least a few times in conversations with my ex or text messages, she has admitted that she realized it was the right decision to make. Doesn't mean it was a painless decision to make or an efficient decision to make and didn't damage either of our relationships with our kids or have an impact that hopefully

doesn't last for them a lifetime and shade their feelings on what marriage can be and relationships can be, but it was the right call. And I don't want to ever get to that place again with anybody, whether it's just an acquaintance, but specifically, of course, with my wife Leah. We don't have a lot of serious disagreements because I believe that the better approach, One, we, I was in my 40s and when we met. She, I'm not allowed to say how old she is. She was not in her 40s when we met.

I was in my early 40s when we met. She was not in that decade. It's as close as I can say without losing a limb in my sleep. And pretty formed ideas of who we each were. And that is a difference between when I got married at the age of 23. Actually, hold on. Yeah, I got married at the age of 23. I look back now and I don't recognize who I was at that phase of my life.

I mean, I get it. I know why I was the way that I was. But I did not understand myself. And I had a lot of growing to do. As I still do, I am a work in progress. There would be construction warning signs all around me. with flashing lights and flaggers just trying to get you to slow down because I am constantly a work in progress. I feel like I have a better sense of who I am in my fourth decade than I

did in my second. So when I met Leah, I think we both had a pretty good idea of who we were up and to that point in our life, not that people can't and don't change, but a little bit farther down the road. And I think that was helpful. I understand. who she was, who she is, who she wants to be, I think better than any 23-year-old could ever articulate. You just don't have the volume of experience to even know what is possible. And I think the biggest key, and if this was a suggestion that I could end this ramble with, it would be communicate openly as early and often as possible. I don't, you know, when they say opposites attract,

I've seen examples of people who are super similar that have incredibly fantastic relationships. I've seen examples of people that I guess in some ways seem diametrically opposed and like, oh yeah, but the opposite attracts, the magnetism, all this stuff, and boom, they slam together that are utterly fantastic. And I've seen failures on both of those as well, too. So I don't know if there's necessarily a template. I think it just comes down to whatever works for you. But if there is friction, you know, I'm using an analogy.

I'm not mechanically inclined by any stretch, but I drive a truck, a Ford F-150, It's got a bunch of lights that can light up if there are issues that are coming up. Or helicopters, a good example, too. There's yellow lights and there's red lights. You can probably imagine what the difference is. Yellow light, caution, red light, you may want to put this thing on the ground right now because we are about to have an emergency. So the yellow lights in a relationship would be you start feeling that friction.

You're not feeling great. Something's tugging at you or you're sensing something is off in your partner. Why let that wait until it's a red light? why let it wait until you have to execute an emergency procedure perfectly to save your own life? This is obviously helicopter, not necessarily relationship, but the parallels are there. Why wait to that point? Best time to solve an emergency and a crisis is upon the first indication that it might be appearing. If you can see it coming over the horizon, there's an obstacle on the road, I don't know,

maybe turn the steering wheel an 18th of an inch one direction so you can miss the rock that's two miles down the road. Or if you wanted to, you could just barrel headlong. that boulder and try to swerve last minute but lose traction and slide into it sideways your life, your call. One of the changes I have made in my previous relationship to this one where I have tried to make, because I'm not perfect in this, is that level of communication. If we do get into, I'm trying to think if we've really gotten into an argument, I'm sure we have. But the fact that I struggle to really think about something that sticks out is, you know, we're trying to keep it into the green and yellow phase as opposed to slamming over into the red.

But even a minor disagreement or an argument, one, never have a personal attack, never personally attack the person. If you have a problem with a concept or idea, man, keep it on subject of the concept or the idea. Don't attack the person, especially if this person is somebody that you love and that you want to maintain a healthy relationship with. And I try not to let it get too emotional and I'm not afraid to say, hey, this is as far as I can take. this right now. I need some time. I'm going to go for a walk around the block. I'm going to go for an hour and go. I'm going to go do whatever I need to do to get myself back into a place where I can rationally and objectively work my way through whatever it is that's going on. I think that's super healthy. I do not think there is anything wrong with doing that. If you're at a point in a conversation

that is getting that heated and emotional, it's going to be there, not the emotion and heat. That's the point of trying to take this, you know, side ramp and have some time off in between. But whatever it is that you were talking about is still probably going to be there when you get back. Hopefully you can just review it at if you were on the stove, instead of being on high, maybe you can keep it under medium. Maybe you're now just at a simmer and you should be able to work your way through that. So those are the things that I have changed. Really, I do my best for open and honest communication as early as possible. Some things get better with time, like red wine, supposedly.

I don't think arguments do. I don't think irritation and aggravation and frustration do, especially with your significant other. And I say that as somebody who has tested that theory many times and fallen short of the person that I want to be because of where I arrived at the end of that test. My fault, not the other person's fault. So don't be like me in my first marriage.

I could have done a lot better. And I'm trying to to make sure that the marriage that I have with Leah stays as healthy and as flourishing as humanly possible. So hopefully that advice helps. All right, shifting gears here quite a bit. Maybe this will be considered for a fallout of Friday. I've been a cop for about 15 years now. In short, as I watch how ICE slash DHS is being used, most recently the raid in Chicago, I find myself torn. Our job as law enforcement is to protect the citizens and uphold the Constitution. When an agency is blatantly violating rights and using unnecessary force under a guise of but the protesters were violent in quotes it's getting old

not talking about their mission but more the blatant acts on video of throwing a 79 year old man to the ground and breaking his ribs or pulling adults and children out of their apartment oh you wrote a parent but i saw that as apartment that's wild how the mind does that at midnight and flex cuffing them and people don't know who flex cuffs are their tie ties or zip ties and you can turn them with two of them together, you interweave them, and it's a set of expedient restraints. These are acts we would suspend and investigate a fellow officer for. It seems the saying of follow your superiors until they give an immoral or unethical order isn't being said anymore.

How do we know what is right and also not find ourselves fired or worse? It's a deep question. It's a fantastic question. A couple things. Our job is law enforcement is to protect the citizens and uphold the Constitution. Protect and serve is something that you see on a lot of agencies' vehicles. And the byproduct of law enforcement doing their job is exactly that. But protect and serve as a motto.

The job of law enforcement is to enforce the law. And like I said, people are protected by you doing that. But I think it is very important to go back to the very granular and microscopic specific purpose and intent of the organization. I'll pull the Constitution. Yes, it's all downstream from the Constitution. The 10th Amendment allows states to expand upon those powers because there are, obviously, the United States Constitution, state constitutions. the laws, the regulations, the restrictions, all of those things. The role of law enforcement is to enforce the law. I'm not saying you don't protect and serve. I'm saying I think it is important to specifically remember that. I know more about, I would say, sheriffs and police officers than I do

about federal agents when we're talking about things like ICE and DHS. So I can't directly answer as to whether or not there is a difference in the laws. Are they only playing at a federal level? Do they have to play inside of the state level? I believe they only play at the federal level, which is not to excuse any behavior, but not all agencies are the same and not all agencies are tasked with doing exactly the same job.

And there have been many times, I can go back to the military, where I would look at something and say, why are they doing it like that? Or why are they doing that in the first place? And if you take it back to doctrine, you realize, oh, that's actually exactly what that organization was created to do. And by doctrine, they're doing it that way because that's how they teach it.

Now, inside of that, people can get well outside of the boundaries of what is right or wrong, moral or immoral. But those are two different things. Those actions, like what you're talking about is a 79-year-old man being thrown to the ground and breaking his ribs, I think I know what you're talking about. the adults and children coming out of the apartment at midnight, flex cuffing them. I didn't see that. But what I will say is those two examples, and I'm sure there are more examples, is that

painting the norm or the anomaly of what is actually happening with those federal agencies and what they are being tasked to do? I don't have an exact answer to that. But what I will say is this is when you look at things that are on the media or let's look at your job, the job of being a police officer. And I assume when people say cop, they mean police officer because you would say, deputy if you were a sheriff but if I'm wrong there sorry about that I don't mean it in any way but we'll say when I say cop I'm actually talking to both sheriff and law uh police officer what percentage of what

you see reported about your job is accurate and reflective from your own eyes in what you see in the day to day would you say that there is an even distribution of information being put out of you and those in your occupation living up to every inch of what citizens would expect you to be and do plus magnitudes more or individuals falling short of that. I personally think the ratio is incredibly skewed towards the negative. But I'd be curious to hear what actual law enforcement officers say because I don't live in that world. But I am on the receiving end of that type of information. And let me tell you the positive stuff.

Every once in a while you'll see a video of a cop skateboarding or ride a bike or doing a, what was it? It was like a milk cart challenge. Those ended up horrifically bad. I feel like some officers got some paid time off after that. I see a little bit of that. But boy, I see a lot more of a lot more of. other things along the lines of a 79-year-old or the flex-cuffing of parents and children. And I don't know why they were flex-cuffed at that time, by the way, either.

I need some greater context. I'm just using the example that you provided. And I think it presents an unfair picture. Now, I don't know how many more times I or anybody else can say this. And this was true of the community that I came from, too. I could give you examples of the community that I came from. of drug addicts, gambling addicts, completely immoral people, sociopaths, psychopaths, criminals, drug runners, gun runners, people who, I don't know what you call

stealing demo, a demo runner, I don't know what kind of market there is for that, running criminal organizations. Now, some of those things that I just said, they all existed in the same people. So let's say I'm maybe talking about, let's just go big. Let's say I'm talking about a dozen people from a community that often numbers

somewhere between 2,000 to 2,500, but has existed also for six decades at this point. Actually, eight decades at this point. Nope, six, six decades at this point. Are those individuals reflective of the greater community? I would say no. they are not. Now, the community, though, needs to deal with those people swiftly and in the manner that is commensurate with their crime, in air quotes, or their actions and activities. More often than not, that doesn't occur publicly. So I don't know what actually happens to the individual officers that are involved in these situations.

that we see on media or social media. Sometimes I think there's an investigation. Sometimes there's not. I don't have yet to really hear much about the results of those investigations. And maybe there's a privacy aspect to that. And I'm not supposed to be seeing that. But the reality is you see the action and then everything else is left to the viewer. Look at these Gestapo pieces of shit.

I can't believe that they would be doing this. Look at these officer or look at this officer. And because of the actions of this officer, we should now taint our view of the entire organization. I don't think that's fair when you're talking about these federal organizations. Just like I don't think it's fair at the local level or state level when you're talking about deputies, highway patrol, police officers, all of those things. I'm not trying to excuse their behavior by any stretch. You should, when you encounter a bad apple, smash it. but it's the organization that needs to handle that.

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And I got the left of the way. which they were still amazing anyway, but you know they're good when she's willing to introduce it into her diet for exactly the same reasons that I am. It's that bridge in between meals, high quality, clean protein. So head on over there, get that sample pack, decide what you like, and then you can go big. Davidprotein.com. You won't be disappointed. Back to the show. That's going to stem from the others in that organization. And this did happen in the community of people that I came from. When those behaviors were identified, identified, we didn't look to somebody else to smash them. And I'm not talking about like physically

smash them. I'm talking about punitively smash them. It was handled by the community. And it was taken care of appropriately most times. Then they would go deal with the civilian side, especially if it was a crime that bridged the UCMJ and into state or federal criminal activities, of which I could give you examples of those. Because let me tell you. Okay. in the special operations world go bad. Oh boy, they go real bad. There's no, there's no criminal activity that seems to be a two on the dial. You take the 10 and you rotate it a few times through and somehow you're at a 35, which I don't know, maybe that's what makes this good at the job. You're either all in or you're completely all out. But the other officers that would be around this

person, these individuals that are taking these actions that, again, I'm only very, very peripherally aware of. don't have a lot of background and depth of knowledge on it. It is officers like yourself and your own organization that have to police your business. And I'm not talking law enforcement. I'm talking about clean up your own mess. You need to be the shepherds of what is going on in your own occupation and inside of your own house. The saying of follow your superiors until they give an immoral or an ethical order isn't

being said anymore. Why? Because it sounds to me like you're not. saying it. If you have bad leadership and they're not saying that, does that mean that that that one bad leader has to speak for the organization? Where is the collective power of all of the other officers that work inside of that organization that are going to be the ones if they are tasked with an immoral or an illegal order or unethical order of standing up against that? You still have a voice. You still have that ability. That leadership that might make that call

how are they going to force everybody else to do it if there is a line in the sand and i view this through the people who go down the path of doing the job that you do are not there because they want to bend or break the law and of course there are people who do that job because they want to do that but again super small fractional minority the vast majority are doing that job because they want to protect people they want to do the right thing nobody really knows what goes on inside of law enforcement to the degree that people who are inside of law enforcement. So I don't care if your leadership is saying that or not. You need to be a lighthouse for that.

And you need to infect the other people inside of your organization and everybody that you can to be that lighthouse as well. Because if your leader sucks, guess what? You still have to do your job. If 911 gets called and your boss sucks and you don't like the way that they treat you and you don't like your job, cool story. go do your job. When I was overseas and I worked for people that I disliked that I would rather shoot in the face than go on target with, did it matter?

No, do my job. That is the job that was expected of me and I did my job. Now, in those times where it was different, not in a tactical environment, then yes, you can directly address those issues. But when it comes to game time, dude, put your pads on and your cleats on and let's freaking go. So if you're not hearing that voice, be the voice so other people hear it. You can lead up the chain of command just like you can lead down the chain of command. I think that a lot of what we are seeing, and again, I don't know the boundaries between local police and federal organizations. Am I a fan of what I am seeing some of these officers?

Are they called agents? And again, this is like ice, I feel like it's ICE agent, DHS agent. Maybe even that's a gap between local or state and federal. I don't know. Am I a fan of everything that I see? Absolutely not. Have I ever walked a mile in those people's shoes? Absolutely not.

Am I seeing everything that led up to that point? Absolutely not. Am I seeing anything that happened after that either? No. So I'm getting a snapshot in time. Is it really easy to judge an organization improperly based off of that snapshot? Yes, it absolutely is. Does that excuse poor behavior?

No. I'm just saying I don't have a complete picture as to what is going on. But the people in the organizations do. And they are the ones, if there is a creep of immoral and unethical behavior permeating the organization, they are the ones, the only ones who are going to be able to recognize that and do something about it. So I think for officers and agents, the best way that you can actually support your organization. And by the way, it is very possible to support your organization and disagree with some of the leadership or the concepts or the restrictions or requirements. If you have to meet them, you need to meet them.

But working to make change where you see change needed while still supporting the underlying. aspect of the job is completely possible. That's actually how organizations get better and they evolve. So it's okay to criticize your own community and still support it. But what I would say is this, if you're only willing to criticize and not take action yourself to fix the issue that you are criticizing, you might be better off to shutting your mouth. And that is not a response to the person writing this email. I'm not saying that you are doing that.

But I hear a lot of people out there who are willing to bitch about something and unwilling to lift a finger. Maybe shut up, all right? I got nothing but time for somebody who comes to me and identifies something, hey, we can be doing this better. And this is how I think we could do it. And I am on it. I got nothing but time for that person. I have almost no time for somebody who is just constantly, I'm yip, yep, yip, yip, yip, yip,

bitching away. And again, I am not saying that the person in this email is doing this. I am saying if you work as a sworn law enforcement officer at a state and a federal level, and you are the boots on the ground, nobody can force you to do something immoral or unethical. And some people may say, well, what they're doing right now is immoral and unethical. But we also live in a world right now where your opinion about what somebody is doing and whether or not what they're doing is legal or illegal or two very different things. there are people who do not believe that in the United States, anybody should be deported for any reason, whether you came here legally or illegally.

Well, guess what? ICE and DHS exist to do the opposite of that. So if you see somebody out there taking those actions, you're going to disagree with them conceptually, but it doesn't mean that what they're doing is unconstitutional. It means that you disagree. And that's okay. We need to have diversity of agreement and disagreement in this country. But let's be really clear about how we are viewing, what we're viewing, and why. Why do we feel this way?

I don't like this because it's illegal or I think it's illegal, but actually I'm not even sure. But I heard somebody say it once and I saw a meme on Facebook. So we're just going to go ahead and say that's illegal or I don't like what they're doing because I don't like it. I don't support illegal in a moral behavior and activity from anybody, in myself included. But I may not like the tactic that an agency is using to accomplish their job. But it is if they're charter and legal creation to do something. so, again, we can talk about tactics and maybe present options that would have a different social optic and be as equally as effective, but they're doing the job that they exist to do,

whether you like it or not. And that's a tough conversation for people to have. Like, I get what you're saying. You don't like this. The law doesn't care whether or not you like it. The law exists to protect the greater good. At least I hope that's why some of these laws exist. So I'm rambling a little bit. But the question, how do we know what is right? Actually, how did you write that? How do we, how do we know what is right and also not find ourselves fired or worse? You don't want to find yourself fired or worse. Stay inside of the letter of the law of what you're authorized to do. What are your authorities? What are the available tactics, techniques, and procedures? What can you do? What can you do?

stay on the right side of that law or the correct side of that law or the legal side of that line. That one's not that hard. For the individual agents or officers that are stepping outside of that, yeah, they should be smashed. But just because you see something you don't like doesn't necessarily mean it's illegal or a violation of somebody's rights. And that's all I have to say about that. All right. Any last question for today? Andy, I'm a 30-year-old woman self-employed.

I own a dog service company. I sometimes feel vulnerable as I'm entering strangers' homes with people that I don't know alone, which is super reasonable. I do usually carry a switchblade knife slash taser. And now I'm fascinated. Is that one piece of equipment or two? Because I would love to see a switchblade knife slash taser or a taser knife. So I do usually carry a switchblade or taser as just something to have on me in a worst case scenario. Up to this point, I have had a few iffy encounters where I have had men act a little weird, but nothing crazy happened and I never took on those people as clients.

This past weekend, it was a late drop-in visit around 9 p.m. The clients were away, and the home is back off the road about a mile. The driveway is mostly in a wooded area and it goes into a ravine. I was going up the driveway when I noticed a car backing down the driveway. This is a very narrow driveway and is even sketchy during the day. I pulled off to the side in a gravel pull-off, things in the car would go by, but it did not. Keep in mind, these people are all on vacation and no one has been at the property. A large male stepped out of the car when,

I got pulled over off of the driveway. Thinking something was wrong, I opened my door and stepped out of the car. At this point, he is about 40 yards uphill from me walking towards me. I asked him, what are you doing? He replied, I am a grocery delivery driver. I said to him in a very loud voice, Are you going to continue to back down? I'm pulled off to the side or why not pull up and turn around at the top?

At the same time, it is pitch black in a ravine in the middle of the woods. And I do not totally believe this guy, let alone know if he should really be there. Also, I'm thinking, why is he delivering groceries when they are on vacation? Also, why is he delivering groceries at 9 p.m.? Both of those, even if they were home, is a little bit odd. He kept walking closer to me for whatever reason. I'm not sure. At this point, he had closed in from the top of the hill, about 40 yards away,

to about 10 feet from me. I finally said, not knowing what to do, stop, don't come closer. I have a gun. But I don't have a gun. He stopped in his tracks, looking at me blank with no emotion. He turned away and mumbled something to himself and walked back up the hill to his car. He pulled up to the turnaround and I followed behind to get out of the ravine but very uncertain. He got out there and I called my husband, who was about 10 minutes away,

and came to the driveway to wait at the bottom for me and make sure the guy was gone. The question, did I do the right thing by saying that? What could I have done differently? And maybe what can I do in the future to ensure my safety in these situations? In today's world, I guess I'm more aware of people and stay on high alert. Great question. First and foremost, I'm glad you made it. through this. This is an interesting one. I'm going to give you some advice and suggestions.

I am by no means an expert in this type of tactical situation. I'm not an expert in human behavior, but I'm going to try to give you, my answers are all going to be based in things that could potentially enhance your situational awareness and enhance your personal and physical safety and security. The first thing is this, did I do the right thing by saying that I had a gun when I didn't? let's not view this through the lens of right or wrong. Did it help you? First off, who knows what this person's motivation was, right? But you survived this situation.

So instead of saying right or wrong, let's say, was it the most effective thing I could have done? Or is there something that I could have done better? Because the reality is this. It worked. So I'm not going to say it's good or bad. But I will say maybe consider using with caution in the future. because there are people out there who just because you say you have a gun are not going to stop their forward movement.

There are also people out there who even if you say you have a gun and show them you have a gun by pointing it at them are not going to stop their forward movement. So in this situation, it worked. Awesome. You survived. Let's use this as a learning situation and see what we can build on from there. So, and I have some questions for you. Basic situational awareness and security. First off, where you were going seemed very isolated, both from your husband, a higher level of care in response, whether that be from EMS, you know, fire, ambulance, police, whatever it may be. So I'm not saying that is dangerous, but it moves the needle. it increases the risk associated with this and lifts it towards more danger than it does more safe.

If you were going to check in on somebody's animals that was across the street from the police station, right, we're trending it in the other direction. So you were going to an isolated location at a time of night that I'm going to assume was dark. I don't know anything about your business. I don't know anything about your financial situation. One of the first recommendations that I would suggest for you

is I have a hard and fast rule that you not do either of those things. And maybe you live in a rural area. Maybe I don't know. But let's set some hard brackets on when you are willing to go into a stranger's home in an isolated area. Maybe all of your business needs to be done before sundown. Why do I say that? You can increase your situational awareness because you can see better when it is light out. 9 p.m. is pretty late at night. They weren't home. Obviously, the animal needs to be,

maybe you were going there to do their last feeding, whatever it may be. Maybe it was required of this situation. Like, I get it. There should be one-offs. But as a hard and fast rule, when it comes to your physical security and safety, you could put some brackets up here where actually this entire situation would have been avoided because it didn't meet one of your criteria, either super isolated or at a time of night where you're not going to go out by yourself. Or you could add to that as much as your husband may not want to do this, you never go anywhere by yourself. And I hate to make that advice, but that's the world that we live in. 99.99% of time, which you wrote down here is not going to happen. But how much better would you

have felt if your husband had been in the car with you or just somebody else in the car with you? I think the answer is you probably would have felt a lot better. And there's a reason for that. So maybe if you are going to do later, add a service charge where you can pay somebody else. That way doesn't have to be your husband. You could have somebody on a contract basis or a call basis where they come with you for your own safety and security. Don't absorb that cost yourself. Charge the people for that. If they want you to come at 9 p.m., that's a little bit odd to me, but I'm not in the dog service.

I would charge you more for that. It's the same thing as a plumber. They have an after-hours rate and they have a during-hours rate. Just food for thought. Okay, so we talked about the isolated nature, the fact that you were there by yourself and the time of day. Knife and taser. Knife or taser. Do some research on the effectiveness of tasers.

I have no idea what model of taser that you have. But there are times when it might work, and there are times where it would be so wildly ineffective that you may wish. that you had something else. And for a knife to work, think about the range that that knife would have to work. At 10 feet, this person's not threatened by a knife yet. It might be threatening to him that you had a knife. But what are you going to do? Like throw it at him one time and the hopes that it hits him with the pointy end. I would be real cautious relying upon a knife for self-defense. One, because of the range that it's going to be used at. And two, have you ever trained with a knife? Do you know how to fight with a knife?

Do you have any idea, the injuries, the type of injuries that occur in an edged weapon confrontation? I would suggest you go to Google and do a Google image search, but I'm going to add to that a spoiler alert and warning. Be very careful doing so because it is gnarly. It is disgusting. If you gave me the choice of being shot or stabbed and diced up with a knife, I am taking getting plugged with a bullet, not expandable, of course, that just corks through, and I get to choose where it hits me, probably the butt cheek, or maybe one of my calves, but there's no snipers out there that good that can actually hit my tiny little calves. So I would take that over a bladed weapon, and you'll understand why if you go

do a Google image search. I'm just to choose your own adventure for everybody out there, but it will reframe for you how gnarly that is. And if you have never trained to fight with a knife, please don't carry one in the hopes that you're going to be a game time player. Same thing with a taser. Have you ever test fired your taser? Have you ever gone out? Did you buy an extra cartridge? Again, I don't know what kind it is.

Or did this thing come out of the box and go into a purse? And you're hoping that when you need it and your life might depend on it, it's going to be there for you. Don't be that person. Go train with the tools that you have. Okay. So we're doing this, though, right? It's a very narrow driveway. It's sketchy during the day.

You pulled off to the side of the road. Somebody stopped up in front of you and they got out of your car. question for the writer of this email for the listener if you could go back and redo this situation do you think you would have felt more comfortable safe and secure while still in your vehicle or would you have still made the choice of getting out of the vehicle i think most people would say upon and this is not a critique of you this is just something to think about going forward and now you have an end of at least one of how you felt when you got out of the vehicle my guess is is you felt less secure.

Vehicles are not impenetrable. Somebody could throw a rock through your window. They could break the window, all of these things. But it's also your mechanism for escape. And although in the movies, it's one punch and the punch continues through the glass and then they grab the person, they wrap their head up with the seatbelt, or whatever it is. Is that possible? Sure.

Is it likely? I don't know if it's necessarily likely. But you're in your vehicle. leaving it in either drive or reverse, assuming that you would even let the person walk up to your vehicle, crack the window if you wanted to communicate with them versus having them roll it all the way down,

if they make any move that is aggressive antagonistic towards you, trying to get into your vehicle, damage your vehicle, you're in reverse or drive, guess what? Skinny pedal on the right. Get out of there. Now in this situation, you are presented on really narrow road and you might have been in drive.

So you would have actually pushed yourself into a place where you're still in the vehicle, but you're still isolated and now that person's vehicle may be blocking you. Okay. In reverse, depending on how used to you are to driving in reverse, but even just pulling away from somebody, it's, you know, human beings are not actually capable of running incredibly fast. Some of them are, but not for a long period of time. my point in this is you're mobile and you're inside a relatively hardened it's not armored right but again assuming you don't roll the window all the way down you have a thin layer of protection that will buy you

time can vehicles be used as a weapon yeah am i advocating that you do so not necessarily but if somebody were to try to get into this if i put myself in this situation right somebody i stay in the vehicle they come to the vehicle and for whatever reason they lose their mind when they get to the vehicle and they start trying to break in the vehicle and I determine that they're trying to do harm to me. So I'm going to choose reverse and I'm reversing out and they are still coming after me. Maybe they're right next to the vehicle digging into their pockets, whatever it is. Would I run this person over? This is not advice. I'm not recommending that anybody do this. Would I run this person over? Oh yeah. 100% of the time I would run this person over.

Then I would go call 911. I would do all of the necessary steps. But the first thing I would do would be sustain my own life. Should you do that, I'm leaving that up to you. Understand the potential legal consequences that may come from that, but what I'm trying to present to you are options. You limited your options by exiting the vehicle. Could you have jumped back in? Sure. At 10 feet, 10 feet is, let me see here. Okay. 10 feet, I think, is about this, if I laid down, is about the difference or the distance between where I am sitting right now and the front of the lens on the camera that I'm looking at. Could you get back into the vehicle, close the door, lock the door, and get it into either drive or reverse before that person could close

that gap and probably get their hands on you? I'm going to say that's a coin toss at best. So, you put yourself into the place where you wanted to stop this individual. It seems like you escalated your tone of voice, which is nice. That'll stop people in their tracks sometimes. But it got to a place where you said, I have a gun. Actually, let's see exactly what you said. My grocery driver delivery. We'll get to that in a second. Stop.

Don't come closer. I have a gun. Now, that worked. And maybe you were dealing with crazy here, this guy that just mumbled off and, you know, and took off. But think about the bizarre nature of this. Somebody who parks uphill, opens their car door, gets out and starts walking towards you. What would a normal person do? You see somebody on the side of the road and they pull off to the side and you wanted to talk to them. What would you do? You'd door up next to them. You'd roll down your

window a little bit. Hey, you're doing okay. Do you need any help? That's normal behavior. 40 yards down the road, stopping with their lights pointing at you, which illuminates you and makes it hard for you to see as well. And then walking towards you and only stopping once you say that you have a gun and then telling you that they're a delivery driver, a grocery store delivery driver? First off, who gets groceries at nine and who orders groceries when they are on vacation. I'm assuming this driveway only led to one house. Those two things right there, I would hope were firing off alarm bells in your head. Those are abnormal. I would put it into an atypical behavior and an atypical verbal response. I don't have any idea what this person might have been doing out there, but I mean, that's pretty easy to think about some low-hanging fruit

options. Maybe this guy was casing the place because he realized that they were on vacation and he wanted to get a look at see what was possible and you caught him on the way out not intentionally but you encountered him on the way out maybe the guy was lost i don't know but coming up with a BS story that you are a grocery store delivery driver at 9 p.m and an isolated area no those are red flags red flags red flags red flags okay so you did stop him he went back to his vehicle ask yourself this what do you think he would have done if he didn't stop would you have had time to get to your knife or taser if not what would that have left you with? If this person truly had ill intent towards you,

you would be left with your will to live and what you would be able to pull out in that moment to try to save your life. And that is a situation that I don't want for anybody. So my biggest advice that I could give you for this is it somebody looking from the outside, seeing this, there were some cascading errors that increased the risk that you put yourself into.

And again, we started with the time and the location, but then there's the exiting the vehicle, how close you let the person get before you verbalize that last threat, the options you had available after that threat, and what you could have potentially done from there. So a lot of this is just about situational awareness. And a lot of people don't realize that they are getting, themselves into a pretty deep pool of risk. But fortunately for this, it worked out as well as it probably could have. So let's learn from it. How do we avoid these things again? Maybe consider not getting out of the vehicle. Maybe consider never going anywhere by yourself in the evening

hours. Consider the protection tools and mechanisms that you have available to you. I don't know where you live. I don't know if you feel comfortable buying a firearm for a woman. I'm going to tell you right now the number one tool that can level a playing field between height, weight, strength, stamina, aggression, all of these things between a man that wants to do you harm and a woman is a gun. Threatening somebody saying you have a gun that stopped him in this situation, that's great. Actually having one with you that you train with, that you're current with, that you're competent with and that you're prepared to defend your own life with, even better. But that's a choice that you have to make.

And I don't know where you live or your comfort level in doing that. But what if he hadn't stopped? It's tough. It's a variable. Nobody knows. But what you described in the email is somebody behaving like that, being there saying those things. It's not great. Right?

It doesn't mean they're a sociopath or a serial killer. It's not great. You got lucky. And that's okay. because sometimes we all need a little bit of luck, right? But we have two buckets, the luck bucket and the experience bucket. When you don't have a lot of experience, you're drawing heavily from the luck bucket. Now you have a real big scoop into your experience bucket.

What can you learn from it? What can you do differently? You pull, let me see here. You talked about when you called. Walked to his car, turned around. I followed behind to get out of the review. Let's see. He pulled up to turn around.

I followed behind to get out of the ravine, but very uncertain. He got out there and I called my husband who's about 10 minutes away. Yeah, you know, another thing you could do here too is if you are getting in an isolated area and you can't be there with somebody else. As you leave an area that is more populated and go into isolate, hop on the phone early and talk. Just have a conversation with your husband. Talk to them until you get to where you're going and everything seems okay. It saves you having to dial a number. It saves you having to call your husband and explain what is happening.

he could have already been on the phone at this point, and if need be escalating to a high level of response. And it, you know, maybe not always somebody's going to be able to go with you. But be in communication, positive communication with somebody as you are going out here. Manage your proximity to distance. Manage risk by the distance that you approach it. In this situation, I would say you let it get very close, but you can learn from that. So hopefully that advice helped a little bit.

Control what you can control. except that there are people out there who might be like this. So manage your proximity to these type of people to the best of your ability. Staying in that vehicle is going to be your fastest avenue of getting the hell out of there, whether it's forward or backwards. So even if you had gone in there and whatever, they block the drive, whatever it is, and it still would have bought you at least a little bit more time, maybe to get your taser, maybe to get your knife, call 911, whatever it may be.

So that's the best advice I can give. Thank you for writing in on this. If you have any additional questions or any other suggestions that you want, send me another email again. I'll try to get back to you. I probably won't cover it again on a Friday, but I'll do the best I can to help you out. That's it.

I'm out of here. See you all next week.