Locked In with Ian Bick - I Spent 10 Years as a Massachusetts State Trooper — Here's the Cases That Still Haunt Me | Tony Bova

Episode Date: June 28, 2026

Tony Bova always felt different growing up — and the path to becoming a Massachusetts State Trooper was anything but straight. After getting rejected from law enforcement multiple times he became a Boston paramedic first before finally breaking through to the Massachusetts State Police. In this episode of Locked In with Ian Bick, Tony opens up about everything — the early days on the job the first calls that hit different why traffic stops and construction sites are genuinely some of the most dangerous situations a trooper faces and what moving into homicide and death investigations really looks like. He shares the cases and calls that will never leave him and opens up about something most law enforcement stories never address honestly — that the hardest parts of his career weren't the job itself but his personal life. After 10 years he medically retired following an injury and has been processing everything that came with it ever since. _____________________________________________ #cops #truecrimecommunity #lawenforcement _____________________________________________ Connect with Tony Bova: https://www.instagram.com/tonyjbova/ _____________________________________________ Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ _____________________________________________ Timestamps: 00:00 Tony Bova: Journey to Law Enforcement 02:00 Growing Up: Family, Culture, & Early Struggles 08:00 Education Challenges & Early Career Choices 11:00 Pursuing Law Enforcement: Barriers & Rejections 17:00 Paramedic Detour & Boston EMS 21:00 Finally Breaking Through: State Police Academy 25:00 Changing Culture in Law Enforcement 33:00 First Patrol Experiences & Stress 37:00 Responding to Major Calls & Homicide Scenes 42:00 Staying Calm Under Pressure 49:00 Getting Older in the Job & Life Experience 01:01:00 Traffic Stops, Crashes, & Public Safety 01:13:00 Transition Into Investigations Work 01:17:00 Inside Homicide Investigations 01:24:00 Personal Impact of the Job & Home Life Balance 01:32:00 Mental Health, Growth & Overcoming Challenges 01:39:00 Leaving the Force & New Direction 01:41:00 Coaching, Relationships, & Lessons Learned _____________________________________________ To advertise on the show, contact [e-mail] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/LockedInWithIanBicka Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Are you one of those media strategy people clicking through slides, scrolling spreadsheets? Yes? Good. This is for you. Because on Spotify, there's an audience that's different. Locked in. Loyal, invested. They're called fans. Fans don't just listen to music. They feel seen by it, like it belongs to them. So when your brand shows up on Spotify, that's who you're talking to. And you're right next to artists like me, Lizzo. So, are you ready to talk to fans? Spotify Advertising. You're among fans. My guest today got rejected from law enforcement multiple times,

became a Boston paramedic first, finally broke through to the Massachusetts State Police, and then spent 10 years working everything from traffic stops to homicide investigations. And he'll tell you that the hardest parts of his career had nothing to do with the job itself. They were personal. His name is Tony Bova.

He medically retired at the 10-year mark, and these are the cases he still can't let go of. I grew up in Western Mass, so like Redden Hadley, and, you know, like the UMass Amherst area, country kind of had the North Hampton vibe, so it was an interesting place to grow up. What was your upbringing like? My upbringing, so my parents, my dad specifically, his side of family was their immigrants from Italy. So I had a lot of Italian heritage that kind of came up. and mostly we grew up kind of in this church environment.

And I feel like I kind of grew up a little naive to certain things. I had a lot of black and white rules. Not like they were really pushing it. Like my parents were really great and really loving and stuff like that. But just kind of had this ideology that I was kind of growing up in and struggled a lot. Actually, I was diagnosed with dyslexia when I was like. like first grade was held back, struggled throughout school, and just always kind of felt like I was like struggling through life from a very early age, just kind of felt very different to

like what everybody else was experiencing. I felt like it was just harder for me. So it was just kind of an interesting, like when I look back at it, I'm like, huh, like, okay, it makes kind of sense. Nothing crazy kind of happened. But yeah. What kind of blackened rules were you referring to? When I think about like the Bible in like the Ten Commandments and stuff like that, my parents were high school sweethearts. And so the story I grew up in was they were high school sweethearts and had sex before they got married. And so I kind of lived with this like, you know, sex was bad, shame and stuff like that. And I ended up losing my virginity when I was like 17 and it like crushed me. Like it wasn't a good experience.

And so I actually stopped having sex until I got married at 25 and had this like really warped understanding about sexuality. and that kind of shaped a lot of like shame and like how how to operate as a man like what what actually kind of shows shows up for us time and time again and how I was trying to experience what they were saying like who Jesus was and I never really could really connect with it I thought I did and I always just felt like things were just like there was so much resistance and it was like those rules. I kind of made these rules up as I was going along in church camp and went to Presbyterian Church. I felt like I was like this sinner because that's what I was told I was that everything was predestined, that had no control and kind of lived very depressed through most of my life,

like not realizing it, but like didn't really have a lot of friends when I was in middle school. I didn't really kind of blossom until I was like a senior in high school. And it was just kind of like a kind of lonely thing to grow up in and not really realizing it. Like, I had no idea. Nobody really talked about this stuff. I didn't have an understanding of like what was going on for me. What was your parents line of work? My dad, he, so initially when I was growing up, he was a campus director for this organization called The Navigators. It was a para, it was a parish church. So they would be on college campuses doing ministry work. And he would do that full-time. and he also was a CPA.

And he started his own firm, became an entrepreneur, and grew up, grew his firm pretty big in the North Hampton area. I was one of the largest firms in Western Mass. And he did that for, he just retired like a year ago. And then my mom, she was a stay-at-home mom for a while. And she came into the business with my dad and didn't, she was like basically the operations director for his firm. I don't know, like eight or nine employees at one point.

And that was mostly like they worked seven minutes away. I didn't see my dad a lot when I was younger because we did live in New Hampshire for a brief period of time when he was doing the campus director, campus ministry director. And he was basically working two full-time jobs at the same time. So he would be gone for like four or five days and then come back. And so like between ages like one and six, I didn't see him a whole lot because he was so busy. But that was like pretty much most of my upbringing and soccer. And it's just I was like a very highly sensitive kid. It's like I just felt a lot. I felt emotions, cry easy. Um,

yeah. Do you think that's the opposite of someone that would later become a cop? Yeah. Uh, I don't know. I don't. It's funny like how I, I decided to go into law enforcement. I, I didn't, it wasn't like I grew up like, I want to be a cop, like age 12, 13, 14, whatever. For a long time, I wanted to kind of follow my dad's footsteps. Like I think most kids do. They want to fall with their parents. They see this, like, how they lived. And it's kind of that imprinting that shows up.

And so I wanted to, I remember at like 16. I was like, I want to be a business owner. I want to make a million dollars. And I just started to think about all of the things that would be required to that. And I'm like not an administrative organized person. Like I hated paperwork. I struggled in school. Like I couldn't write.

Like it was all these things that were really, really difficult. And I had a guidance counselor. It was crazy. Like, like what he had said to me. But he was like, he's like,

you're not going to make it in college. You should go to trade school. And I was like, fuck that. I'm not going to trade school. Like, and I was like, I'm going to go to college because that's all my parents,

my parents went to college. Like, that's what you're supposed to do. And I didn't get accepted into any, schools, I went to community college. And for me, I went into community college and I just was, I didn't read any of the textbooks and I still like killed it for whatever reason. Because what I found out about myself was like the determination, the focus and stuff like that. And when I was a senior in high school, I was working for this flooring, this guy, he did like

flooring work, like hardwood floors, tiles and stuff like that. And I would do deliveries. And so I was driving from Boston back for like a pick we had like a delivery that I had picked up and it was this crazy rainstorm like probably one of the most torrential downpours I've seen in my life and it stopped traffic like it was so bad that people had to stop because they were going to crash in each other couldn't see anything and then it cleared up and then I was like I saw this state trooper parked on the side of the road and I started thinking like huh that's like an interesting job like I was working at this roller skating rink and my job was like the patrol around the roller skating rink and so I don't know like how that connected but I was like huh that's interesting I like to do things

that are in front of me I want to be outside that seems like an interesting job and so that like kind of put this light bulb in my head and I changed my major I think I was in business initially but then it changed it to criminal justice I got an opportunity from somebody that was in our church She worked at the UMass police department. They had this new police cadet program. So I applied for this program. I got accepted. I looked back and I was like, man, that was actually one of the most intense hiring

process I'd been through because they had like eight or nine people doing this hiring panel for like this 20 year old kid. And like there was a bunch of kids that wanted to do this job. And I had no idea what I was like getting into. And I went there. They did this like month long academy. And it kicked the shit out of me. I was like, they're yelling at us.

I was like, I'd never experienced anything quite like that before. And I just fell in love with it. It was just like this. It was like, it was cool. One of the things I loved the most was like the camaraderie and the guys that I connected with and we like bonded. And I hadn't, I didn't really had had friends at different like different pockets. Like I had my Christian friends.

I had my friends that like drank and smoked weed. And like I just connected with these guys differently because we were kind of like dealing with like challenging things right in front of us like we were doing foot chases and we were just catching like I was catching 20 year olds packing beer as a 20 year old it was just like this weird dynamic where I'm like the same age as you I'm underage and I'm like getting you arrested or like making you dump out beer and these parking lots and stuff like that I was just like fun and I was like this is cool like I really enjoyed not knowing what was going to come up dealing with problems right in front with me and I was like man this is it and so like that was kind of like the start of like the

career aspect of it and went to community college and then I went to the four year a four year school at Westfield State that is a big criminal justice program graduated pretty like with like a three oh which was like fucking great for me didn't read any textbooks like my my papers I would stay up all night and I would finish my paper like like five minutes before they were due in the morning and struggled through all of that but still made it and like still like I think I only had like one D which was like pretty like I had like a C minus average in high school something like that so I was like pretty proud of that like being able to focus on that and because I really wanted that career and and I had an opportunity I worked a

summer job as a summer police officer in Provincetown when they had I don't know how their program is anymore because the law enforcement and accreditation stuff have changed so much but I worked a summer there and that was like an interesting job because it was like we actually had a firearm like I didn't have a firearm at UMass it was handcuffs arrest powers but no firearm and so I had a firearm it was like more law enforcement and but then we were just like standing around doing nothing and we would see like you know it was kind of crazy in Provincetown it's like a like no rules kind of thing. And I was, I had decided I was going to move with a bunch of friends to Boston because

I wanted to get on Boston PD. I had this, I wanted to be in the shit. Like I was going to join the military and be a Marine. And my mom was like, now you're not doing that. And I was like 18 at the time. I was like, oh, okay. And so I was like, I want to be in the shit. So I want to be in the city.

And so we moved to Boston because the, the, The hiring process was you had to live in the city. And so I had a bunch of friends. We all moved to the city. And there was a 2008 when the recession crashed. And it was like fucking impossible to get on law enforcement at that time. Because everybody wanted to become a cop because everybody's getting laid off. And it was that like, that was a very dark phase for me because I had been working so hard to get into this career.

and then it was just so difficult to get into it. And I was just like taking tests and I was applying to agencies and I was super honest on my background, like investigations, like smoked weed in high school. Like I think I sold a joint one time and not realizing like that honesty was like holding me back and how unhonest other people were and how they were getting on because it's just like, oh, I didn't do that. And like I was just like too honest. not realize I was like so naive to it I was like oh they'll see my integrity because integrity

is what matters in law enforcement and so they'll see that and that because I'm willing to say this then you know they'll see that I'm a good good good guy and um I got rejected so many times I think I I applied to 300 like over 300 agencies in various capacity some more just applications some were tests, some were interviews, traveled. So, like, the whole U.S., like I was out in Oregon. I took like four or five different exams out in Oregon. I took every major city on the East Coast, like New York City, D.C., Pentagon, police, everywhere.

And no one hired you. No one hired me. I got close a couple times. I think I did like eight background investigations or something like that. But it was one of the harder parts for me was the amount of fucking paperwork I had to do and like dig up all this stuff to like be able to prove how like I'm not a shit bag or something like that or whatever it was that they want all this information and it yeah it was just like fucking rejection after rejection after rejection and so I went through that for about a couple of

years and I ended up getting married at 25 and I just like kept after it I was working. I did law or loss prevention for a while. I, uh, and I got a job at Mass General Hospital. And that was a, that was actually a pretty, a pretty cool job, actually. It was, it was, I did like police and security there. I got my special state police license and like, yeah, I was like, it was like, I felt good. I'm like, oh, I'm, I have law enforcement powers. It was like some kind of segue into like feeling significant. And but I actually had a lot of fun in that job because it was just like some of the things that happened inside the hospital. Like we had shootings there.

We had like tons of fights. We like the guys that I connected with. It was we were all like a close group of people. And it was it was a lot of like I enjoyed those people and I enjoyed like the camaraderie. Okay. I have to tell you all about the sponsor because it's genuinely perfect for me, specifically. If you've watched a show for any amount of time, you know everybody calls me Mcloven. I literally built my entire brand off being the Mcloven looking guy with the glasses

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His name is Yum. Yum. When he goes in my tum-tum. in theaters July 10th that we had. What was the main reason for your denials across those 300 agencies? So it depended. So like early on, like I wasn't this fit as I am right now. I was like a little, I was, I think when I got married, I was like 235 pounds.

I was like pretty heavy. You were 235? Yeah, yeah. I was 235. There's different phases of like stuff that I went through in the last like couple of decades. But I was 235. So I had like I fucking sucked at running. I told myself I was a bad runner.

Like this was like, and so I had to like, I had to like get the discipline to get myself where I could pass the PT test. And so I finally passed the PT test. And then it would be like a background issue. And then it would be like I had one. I remember this was, I went up to Durham, New Hampshire. And that was like pretty close to where I grew up in New Hampshire. It was like actually the university of my dad worked, worked at doing college ministry.

He so it was like. it was the same town as that. And I went there, they had this hiring process that was like, it was like everything was compacted, where typically it takes like, it can take up to a couple of years to get hired by an agency. Now it's probably pretty different because they need people.

And the standards have like really dropped. But at that time, it was like, you could be a thousand, two thousand applicants for one spot. And they did this hiring process where they did the PT, the interview, the test,

one day. And it was, I had been working really hard with the PT stuff. I passed everything the next fucking day. I got a letter for them saying, hey, you passed all this stuff, but we're not taking you. I was like, what the fuck? Like, I keep just trying and trying and trying. And it was just like failure after failure. Like, yeah, I literally have like a binder at home that has like 150 something rejection letters inside of it. Like, it's, I still have it. And I don't know, like, why I kept that. But now I'm like, oh, I think this is part of my story now.

And it, like, reminds me of, of, like, everything that I went through to get to this job. And it, there was, like, so many moments. I finally got to the point where I was like, okay, I don't think this is going to happen because it'd been about eight, nine years of that. years. This is right around my first daughter was born. I started to transition. I had like this semi mentor at the hospital. I really like connect with. He's like, you got to go get your paramedic license. Get on the fire department. It's a way better job. They have a better schedule. Those guys are happier. And I was like, oh, okay, I'm going to do this. And so I got my EMT. Then I got my paramedic

license. And I ended up applying to Boston EMS and got into their Boston EMS Academy. which was actually, it was like probably, it was intellectually more challenging the state police academy because of all the medical stuff. And their standards for understanding medicine and anatomy and all that stuff was like really, really high. And so it was extremely challenging. Like the physical fitness piece of it, I killed that piece in comparison because I was like, had been prepping up at that point. And a year after, so I was like kind of on this different trajectory and I was going to go into like fire and 24-hour shifts and stuff like that. And I get on Boston,

I get fucking two letters in the mail. One of them's from the state police and one of them's from Boston police. And I was like, I just spent two years and like 10 grand on this paramedic license. Now I'm now like I'm confronted with this. Like I've been working for this for so long. I did not want to get on the state police. I just, I didn't want to go through their academy. I knew it was like one of the hardest in the country.

I like heard story after a story about like I've seen, when I was working at UMass, there was a couple guys that got on there and they didn't make it through the academy. And like just like getting to that point and then, because they had like a 30 to 35% dropout rate or attrition rate. And it was just like, this is the hardest one. Like most other ones you probably make it through.

Like, they, if they paid for you to go to the academy, they wanted you to get through it. The state police didn't give a shit. They were just like, if you can't fucking meet the standard, you can't cut this. Like, we will beat the shit out of you until you quit. And so I knew that going in. I was like, I don't know if I want to be a trooper. I don't know if I want to be, even though it was like the thing that started it, right? It was like, there was a trooper on the side of the road.

And I'm like, that's what I want to do. It wasn't, I didn't want to be on the highway pulling people over and writing good people tickets. Like, that just wasn't, didn't resonate with me. I wanted to be in the shit. And I got, I was like the first agency to give me an opportunity. I was like, fuck, well, I got to. I've been working for almost 10 years on this. I got to do it.

And I started going through the process. It took about two years to go through the process. Why did they send you a letter, Boston PD and the state troopers? So in mass, I don't know if it's changed much, but we had civil service. And so with civil service, it was like one test that was given every two years. So like if you didn't score well on that test, then you like shit out of luck for like two years. And then after that two years, you don't know how long it's going to take to get to your name on the list. And if they exhaust that, like if they don't get to your name by the next test, you have to start over again.

And so it's like this waiting game en masse. A lot of agencies like moved away from that. So some of them would be they put on their own test and they weren't a part of civil service. So they could put on a test whenever they wanted. But if you were part of civil service, you had to wait for this test. And so, like, it was, I had taken that test because I took the fire test and the police test, because they were, they would interchange every other year. I took it probably, like, eight or nine times.

I finally figured out how to take the fucking test to actually get us a high enough score because I, the first time I took it, I think I got like an 80 or something like that. And not realizing, like, you literally. had to lie on the test in order to get a high grade because some of the questions were like personally, like there weren't, they were more behavioral questions like, do you speed or do you, like, do you do you do any of these bad things? And, you know, if you're honest on the test, you're actually kind of have a really fucking low grade. And so I was like, oh, so you're one of the things that I was like talking to a bunch of different people about it. But like if you, they had like

a type of test where like there was like five answers. Like, do you strongly agree? Do you agree, neutral, do you disagree or do you strongly disagree? And if you did anything in the middle, it actually reduced your score. You had to have like an opinion. And so like finding out that, like it was never you could answer something in the middle. He had to go higher law. And like finding out, they took years to figure out these little things about the test. And so I eventually, when I took that last test, I got like a 98 or something like that. And that was how I got, I got the state, Boston. At that point, I was getting. I had gotten, it's funny how like everything just kind of comes in all at once.

And I think I had like, I don't know, 20 or 25 letters from other fire departments because I had my paramedic license. So that gave me essentially like preference. Yeah, maybe more of an asset probably. Well, based on the test, you actually, they would pull a paramedic list. So if you weren't a paramedic, you wouldn't mean be on the list. So like you had to get that to get on certain fire department. And so it was like a requirement because otherwise unless you were a veteran like veterans got extra points

Or like Boston they would You know if they wanted more minorities they pull like a like the Spanish speaking only list So you if you put down that you spoke Spanish fluently Then you could be on the special list that would get you higher soon because if they needed more people speak Spanish Then they would pull from that list and same with like female cops like they had a female only list if you they needed more female officers, they would pull from that list. So if you were, like, if you were white male non-veteran, it was like nearly impossible to get on Boston P unless you scored like a 99 or 100

at the time. And they did that for a long time. I think recently, like, things have kind of changed because the environment's changed a lot, like a lot of people don't want to be cops anymore. Just because culturally, like, it's just become a lot more difficult job. but yeah that was like and then I finally I finally got it and went into the state police academy that was it was fucking hard it was like it was I remember like when I about halfway through I was like okay like I'm gonna be able to I wasn't quite sure because I remember like

the first day they had us lined up in the chow hall they called it it was like the dining common and they had us all fucking lined up just waiting for like fucking 20 minutes like all standing at attention we don't know what the fuck's about to happen they're all nice to us for like the first like first hour or two and i had i went there with um two other buddies from mass general so the three of us drove up together and i had four of us had applied one got disqualified and then so it was the three of us and so it was the only people I knew at the academy and they split us up or something like that and I'm standing there waiting and all of a sudden the DIs come in and they just fucking start screaming at us and like there was like nothing that we could do that

was right and it was I saw this guy looking across from it he was like right across from me he's looking at me he's just trying to tell me to like knock something off and I was like what the fuck is this guy like just fucking mind your business and like worry about yourself never fucking saw him again like he either like quit or I don't know what happened to him but never saw him again. I was like and then at that the chaos inside of that environment like I didn't remember names. I didn't like maybe pick up faces because it was so chaotic that you were so focused. Like you didn't have your peripheral vision. And that was one of the things I learned in the academy was like how do I utilize my peripheral

vision differently, especially in stressful environments? Because then, you know, I'm looking out to my left and my right and I can see if a D.I is come in or like the threats and stuff. like that. It was like interesting how it all kind of played into like everything they did was so intentional and I see that now at the time. I was like, I don't know what the fuck I'm walking into. But it was and they've they've changed the standards so much. I think I heard recently with one of my buddies like they're changing the complete structure of it's too harsh, it's too hard. I'm like, oh man, like it can be a lot of weak cops coming into a job that's really fucking

stressful and very difficult and like you have to be able to have that emotional discipline to be able to stay grounded because so we especially today like you can't fucking lose your shit because you're like you're going to be gone and so it's going to be kind of an interesting transition to see what happens along for us in the next 10 years do you think they relax it because there's not that need uh or people don't want to necessarily become cops right now some of that happened we had a death in the academy a couple years ago and as a like we've had a the state police has had a lot of scandals in the last like when I came on it was like the beginning of like scandal after scandal after scandal and it changed so much from what I

remember what it was to what it is now it's just not even the same job it's It's the scrutiny and the fear. And like it used to be like so autonomy, like you had autonomy. Like there was not anything really like you could do that it was going to get you in trouble or fired or not to say like you had, you know, complete immunity to like just whatever you did. But like there was certain guy like war stories. I've heard of like like veteran officers that did fucked up shit and didn't get fired and would get fired. and would get repromoted. And it was just like a weird environment.

But now you have guys doing their job and they're getting pulled into internal affairs for shit that whoever's investigating those internal affairs, we're doing way more fucked up shit like 10, 20 years ago than what's happening right now. And so it's like all flip-flopped. And they'll say, well, you know, it's perception.

It's like, well, you know, societal, it's all about perception, like society shifts. You've got to shift. And it's like, yeah, but this isn't reality. Like he's got like, it's become such a difficult job now. Like, one of the things, like, you have, you have to make split fucking second decisions as, as a cop. Like, like, I have no time to think about this. And you're going to come and have six people investigate for fucking months and months and

months and months talking to everybody about what I should or shouldn't have done. And there's just the support on the back. backing of that is just gone now because it was understood that we made split second decisions and I think that's been like a big downfall of like the mental health of law enforcement is because like that the brotherhood's gone like guys are just fucking miserable complaining frustrated like they don't feel like they're getting paid enough and they have no support and it it it becomes like cancerous and so like that kind of spreads out and then like there's a lot of fucking good cops out there's a lot of guys that are just fucking solid human beings like most people don't realize that like you know a normal citizen doesn't understand how like most like most guys don't sign up to become a cop to be to be a fucking asshole they sign up because they want to they want to probably something that happened to them when they're younger and they felt like they need to serve and they want to give but most guys become a cop because they want to they want to do good shit and then they come into the system and they see like how huh, this is fucked up. And there's no, there's nothing for them now where they feel supported.

Because most of society is like, fucking defund the police. We fucking hate you. We only see you on the worst days of our life. And then on the other side of it is like now you got the brass that were like the hypocrisy of like what they were doing 20 years ago. Now criticizing the new guys for the things that like this is part of the job like shit happens like I've seen fucked up shit happen like like how do you um you and one of it wasn't I didn't turn into a big deal but I was like you know I'm two o'clock in the morning uh on route two and like nowhere in fucking Massachusetts pull over a car there's three kids in it I pull I pull one of the kids out of the car he starts getting funny. Like he's just like starting to like shift around and I'm like what the fuck are you doing?

And I grab him and he's like reaching into his waistband and I'm like, bro, I'm going to fucking blow your head off. Like what are you doing? Like where are you going with this? And like I had, there's three people in the car. He's outside of the car. It's two o'clock in morning. I don't backup. There's like nothing going on. And he just has a bag of weed in his pants. And weed at this point is like, it's decriminalized. It's not a fucking big deal. And like that's like but if he had a gun like and one of the first car chases i was in um it was uh after i got out of i was in break break break break which is like basically our fto training we we're following this car at one of the rest areas on the pike and we i'm like this car is sketchy

it's got new york plates whatever it is and it's like driving weird and so we just decided we pulled it over for like he was driving in the left-hand lane so if you're not passing cars you can like you're the technically it's a traffic violation so we pull them over we get up to the car they start being they start refusing things and so we call for backup get some like spike strips because this guy's refusing get out of the car and I'm like brand new at this point I'm like what the fuck are we going to do like I'm like my I'm all jacked up on adrenaline and all of a sudden and he fucking just rips off and he just like drives down the highway and we jump in the car and we fucking chasing after him and he pulls off the highway and we're following through these

streets and this and that and we spent like two hours looking for this car they abandon it we find the car we get it impounded and there's a it was like a dodge charger like a black darch charger and there's in the floor there's like a high So like underneath the floor mat was a hole in the floor and it looked like it was like a hole for a gun. It could have been drugs or whatever, but I'm like pretty sure it was like fucking gun hide. And it was like how fast that could have went because of that scenario. He was not like if he had a gun in the car, he was not coming, like he was going. So he was either going to use that, try to run, try to get away.

He gave us this license. It was a Connecticut license. I remember this way. And it looked real. So we ran it and it came back to somebody different. I'm like, what the fuck? And it was just like it's fake license. But it looked really good.

And but like in that scenario, like, so many things that could have went wrong. Or like there was a cop that was recently killed like a couple weeks before that. Might even been around the same week right around our patrol area. And it was like Webster. or something like that. I can't remember his name right now, which is like, kind of sad. But, you know, it was like when,

but it was like all these things that happened so close together. And so like these are the kind of things that guys are dealing with. This is like you, you walk up to a car, you don't know what the fuck's gonna happen. And now you don't have any backing. So now in the back of your mind, there's fear of like, well, if I make the wrong decision, I'm gonna end up an IA and I'm gonna be in trouble

and they're gonna shame me by posting my stuff, like putting me on oral orders and so like this is what's running on in these guys' minds and so like guys are now decent of they they no longer want to do work they'd rather just sit in their car and do nothing and respond to calls than actually be proactive or do do these things because they're like well why would the fuck would I do this because I'm more likely to get in trouble for doing my job and so now it's like well I don't want to do anything because if I do that then I'm going to get in trouble. And so, like, that was like that that was a transition of what I saw happen culturally.

Because when I first came on, I was like an incredible job. It was like, we were just, we own the road and like the ego piece was like crazy. Um, because I, I mean, they, they really drilled it inside of our heads in the academy, like how much better we were than even local officers. And it was like a weird thing because they, you know, we're all doing the same job. But the reason they did that was because you're in a cruiser by yourself. Like one of the most intense calls I went on was active homicide. It was like 12 o'clock in the morning or something like that. And my classmate, he's on the desk.

He's like, hey, you know, there's this call. supposedly this guy shot his girlfriend in the face with a shotgun or something like that. I'm like, bullshit. Like, no way. And we started getting more calls. Oh, shit. Like, this is probably legit. And my linemate who was like my partner, so we'd have like one guy on the desk and then two guys in the barracks, he was like at an assignment like in Boston.

So I was on patrol by myself. I'm going 30 minutes from the barracks to this location in the middle of nowhere with no radio reception, no self. phone reception, pitch black, no backup. And so they trained us for situations like that where we had to go into situations by ourselves and be able to command a room, command a scene. They would say like one trooper, one riot. And I'd seen this happen at, like, I'd show up to a scene with local officers. If I showed up, everybody shut the fuck up. And because we had this persona with the state police, like, you know, fuck with the troopers. But that's since gone away. And it's like this, for good reasons too.

Like, I mean, there's guys that did stupid shit. And they, you know, they always ruin it for everybody else. And that's kind of like, but it makes the job that much harder. And so it's like compounding thing of society and culture and the brass and stuff like that. So what happened when you responded to that call? Yeah. So I, that was one of like the, I was one of the calls at, like the hair on the back of my neck fucking came up because it was like I mean I've seen a bunch of

different things but that one was terrifying because I just didn't have there were so many unknowns and so I ended up arriving on scene and thank God I had like four local guys that were like the town over showed up so the four of us or the five of us got out and we started searching this property where it was chest high grass pitch black and all we know is there's a guy in the woods with a shotgun. And I'm like thinking, this guy's going to fucking jump out. And I'm probably going to die tonight. It was like a scene out of like a horror movie.

It was kind of, it was weird to look back at it. But I only have a pistol at the time. I didn't have a long gun. All these other guys had long guns, which was, thank God. But he had a shotgun supposedly. And so we go and we start searching this property. And we get into the house. and there's a dog barking and there's lights going off and there's loud music and it's like

you would think of like a Halloween haunted house kind of scenario and we get in there and we find her and she's deceased and you see like shotgun like shots into the door and all all over the place and she's she's gone and her apparently her son was still somewhere on the scene and it um you know by the time we got out of the house, I was like, okay, he's probably not here anymore for about 15 minutes. I was like, like, where the fuck? Like, where is he coming out of? And eventually, we found out that he wasn't there. He had left. And he went and was like wreaking havoc at his old job or something like that. He eventually got caught like a couple days later. But, yeah, that was an intense, intense scene. Why did he kill her?

it was a domestic thing it was you know it was like some i don't know if it was jealousy or i was actually involved in the investigation of that particular case i was just i was on the road at that point and he uh so i'm not quite sure of like all the factual details and um but he you know was like some it was a very typical like domestic like abusive relationship uh i mean I mean, people, people don't realize how thin the line is between life and death and how, how one decision can lead so quickly to something like that. And I saw that a lot, doing homicide investigators, I did that for about eight years and seeing, like, how quickly life could change for someone.

It's just simply because of, you know, the emotions arise and stuff like that. And people just do these things that they can't imagine that they would have done. done because it probably feels like a dream to them. And then all of a sudden now they're in this scenario where, you know, very dark. It's a very dark scenario. Now, how did the troopers know to respond to a scene like that? Does the city call them in or do you guys just respond to all homicides even as patrol? That particular one that we covered that town because so like the way what the state is, is that there's certain communities that don't have full-time police departments. So that particular community didn't have law enforcement on for that specific night.

I think they had like a chief police or something like that, but mostly there during the day and doing more political stuff and stuff like that. They don't have a lot of officers. So we would cover a lot of communities that we covered their 911 calls. So when they, when somebody calls 911, the system is so smart that it needs. knows to either direct it to the local or the state. And if it doesn't know, it directs it to the state and the state will direct it to the local. And so, like, we would get calls for that. It just kind of depended. It kind of depended on like, and we would back up the local offices.

We'd have scanners on and stuff like that. And we would be pretty close with some of the local agents depending on what barracks you were at. But, yeah, it would kind of depend. You were sharing with us earlier the first call or the chase that you went on. How, when you're a new trooper fresh on the job and you experience like something, something like that for the first time, how do you keep your cool? How do you know not to overreact? We do see that with a lot of new officers. There was an incident in Hartford, Connecticut recently, a new trooper on the job,

overreacting, lost his job and got arrested for it. So how do you stay cool in that environment when you don't have anything to compare it to? Well, I always kind of come back to like training. So one of the things that they nailed into us at the academy was like repetition, repetition, repetition. It was like really big on in firearms. Like you're always going to fall down to your lowest level of what your training was. Because when shit hits the fan, like your nervous system goes into fire or flight. Like if you don't have, if you haven't been conditioned for stress, then you're, you're going to

you're not going to react the way that you think you're going to react like we all think oh like if i get into a fight i'm going to win and it's just like part of our ego and our mind of survival but when you get placed in those scenarios where that humility kind of comes in you're like actually i could fucking die uh it kind of changes it so like you you you a big part of its training uh repetition mindset and stuff like that um i think that most guys do a pretty good job with that we kind of kept each other and checked too and like there was just it wasn't there was times where you know it was if I pulled somebody over it was either I'm writing you a ticket or I'm fucking yelling at you like you're really getting educational lessons like why the fuck did you do that

I'm not going to give you a ticket or I'd be like I'd write your citation which was very rare like you had to be an asshole for that to happen but it it kind of a lot like They gave us some training on verbal judo and stuff like that, but it wasn't that good. Like for me, it was a lot more emotional discipline through I was pretty controlled. And then like as I got on the job, a lot of shit happened in my personal life where I started to rebuild from an internal perspective and started having emotional regulation things that I was building in for myself. And so I responded a lot differently a little bit later than most guys because I just, I,

thought about things different. My perspective was different. It made me really good in the homicide investigations because I could relate and connect with people that were, it was really good with the families and like what was going on for them. Like fucking terrible at the paperwork. That was just not my game, my game. But when it came to connecting with the families and doing interviews and stuff like that, I was really patient. I really like was able to sit with them and, and, you know, I attribute a lot of that just to being very different. Like a lot of guys had a very negative mindset. And so like if you're too pessimistic, then you're going to miss shit.

Like people are people. And so when you start to boil that, like we did, I didn't just do homicide investigations. It did like child sexual assaults. I did child pornography cases. I did rapes. I did everything because we would cover two different counties. And so just like having a wide perspective of people. And one time, I remember this very specifically, like, I didn't want to be that guy that showed up on, on, on, on the media.

Like, I just, it was not my, my thing. So I wanted to make sure I was, like, pretty dialed in. And I remember one of my, like, I was, I think I was fresh in the homicide unit. And I was with a local officer. And he had this kid, he was like in his 30s or something. He had passed. And remember him notifying his sister on the phone. and I was mortified by how he did it.

Because this woman's now hearing that her brother is now passed. And the way he did it was just so detached. Like, ma'am, ma'am, I need you to answer these questions. It was like, I'm more important in what I'm doing right now. I need you to, and not even giving her a minute to process the information that she just received. Like, you don't typically do notifications on the phone. Typically, you call a local agency to have them notify somebody of a death so that they, have in person because it's it just it's more respectful like for the give them like a moment of like

their loved one just passed and i remember watching him do this he was from a local agency and i was like i'm never fucking going to do that like that's that's i would never want to be notified by somebody about my brother and my sister passing because of what like because you just had no emotional intelligence to be able to just give me a minute to process that information and so that literally, really set the tone for me, like, especially investigations, like, to be present and to, you know, you don't really fully understand what people are going through and, like, what they're experiencing. And it doesn't mean that, like, gives them any justification for poor behavior, stuff like that. But, like, honor the fact that they're human and that they're going to be

even if they've done fucked up shit. And, like, just allow that, that space and that, that, because you're going to get so much further. Like, there's so many cases that were able to be resolved easier because of that, because I gave you a moment to talk and either talk yourself into handcuffs or whatever it was. And a lot of guys want to put guilt or a, they want to put like a narrative on like what this is. And they already passed judgment before they can actually process like their investigation and stuff like that. How old are you when you finally got a lot? on the job?

33. 32. 32. I was, yeah, it was like late, later. Is that significantly older

than most new troopers? At the time, and mass now. Typically, most, like up until that point, now it's changed. There's a lot,

a lot more guy. They have a cadet program so you can transition at younger age. But typically, like, guys had worked at another local agency. there were military and they were all um most of my class was they were 28 and above so we i think we

had a guy that was like 35 or something like that which is aged out and so most of the guys i was with were most of them were military and most of them are like over 28 now it's changed a bit now you have a younger guys coming in um the reason for that was it was that was the mecca of long of enforcement was that everybody wanted to be a state trooper because they got paid the best at the time. It was like the best job. It was the one where you could go to all these units. You had the most freedom. You had the most autonomy.

And so everybody wanted it. So it was one of the most competitive in the state. And so it was pretty typical for guys to get on later. Looking back on it now, do you think it's better that you got on later rather than you say like a fresh 19, 20, 21-year-old, not mentally stable enough to take on that role? I don't know. I wouldn't change anything I went through because it's made me who I am today. So I wouldn't be like, hey, I wish I had gotten on earlier.

It was definitely a better job when I was younger because things hadn't shifted as much. But I wouldn't change anything that I've been through to this point because maybe if you asked me a year or two ago, I'd probably say, well, I wish this didn't have. happen or whatever, but it's everything that I've like being here with you on this podcast has brought me to this point. And so like I wouldn't change anything that's happening, the good, bad and everything. And so I don't, I don't really know how to fully answer that. I don't think I would change anything. But I do think there's, it's, it's one of those interesting jobs. I don't know if you should do it for 30 years. I don't know if it's like, like there's just a point where certain guys

get to where they just get really bitter because they've seen so much shit and they don't know how to process it. And it's like one of those, it's almost to be more like the military in my opinion where like you're not doing it for for 20, 30 years. Like maybe you do 10 years. And, you know, with the right, if they had, if the training was, uh, training was better. better like at a younger age. I think it would be pretty good if you actually could train these guys to like what they need. Like they didn't provide enough training after the academy. Like that was an ongoing thing that, you know, with all the money in the world, it would be great. Like you could do all these different things, right? But they don't, they don't nearly invest as much into training as they

should. Like that would be a game changer. I think if they really locked in on physical standards, if they really locked in on like, you know, providing jiu-jitsu or something like that, where they guys really felt competent with, like, being in a physical altercation, or they did more training with even the emotional pieces. Like, they're doing a better job of it now where they have, like, this be well program, or I can't remember what it is, but they're doing more mental health stuff for guys, and it's becoming more acceptable to be more vulnerable about what's, like, what you're experiencing and what's happened.

But it's still like, you know, guys fight it. And like, it's just a lot of, I had a buddy who was in the employee assistant unit. And he's just like, dude, like, these guys just want to complain. Like, they don't want to change anything. I don't want to do anything. They just want to complain about all this sucks and this, that. And so it's just, it's like a very, it can be a very negative. This episode is brought to you by Activia.

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brands championing diversity. With 25,000 professional opportunities for people under 30 worldwide and 54% of leading positions held by women, diversity is a strength that helps L'Oreal group create the best beauty products for all people. Visit L'Oreal.com to learn more. Place. Do you think having those, say, you know, 10 or 12 years of life experience after college made a difference before going on to the job? definitely. I mean, like, I was, because I was always doing something that was kind of related to it. It, uh, yeah, it was, I mean, I was always in some kind of field where I was dealing with things that were in front of me that were, you know, I was doing loss prevention.

I was like being like CVS or Home Depot by myself. And there was a couple of incidences where, like, I don't have anything. And I'm getting, get into fights and stuff like that. And so being able to, handle those situations that, you know, people don't necessarily experience every day, like, with your nervous system and processing, we're definitely helpful. And, you know, my paramedic training was really helpful because there was definitely, like, incident, like, they had one to kill incidents. There was a car crash and, yeah, in the middle of the snowstorm. And I, like, walk up to the car and I'm like, oh, this guy's got a brain injury. Like, I could tell instantaneously because of my training, and I went to Boston MS. And so I knew what a neuro injury looked like.

And most of the guys, they would operate off of ABCs, which is, you know, you would think like airway breathing circulation or something like that. No, ambulance before cruiser. So it was like, where's the ambulance? I don't want to deal with this. And so for me, I felt competent in it. So I was the one that would always, like, handle the medical issues and stuff like that. But, yeah, I mean, it definitely helped.

But then you're also doing a job that's so physically demanding that, like, like, you know, at 33 in the cat, my body just, like, took a toll. And I, you know, I've had a couple injuries. Shoulder surgery. I broke my foot. That's why I left. I have, like, three pins in my foot. And, yeah, I mean, it's kind of a mixed back.

I mean, if a guy can stay physically fit? I think one of the more important things is, like, can you stay physically fit? because like the amount of guys that just kind of lose themselves and because of the stress and because of like they're working like 100 or like 100 hours a week like trying to make as much overtime and details as they possibly can to make like to be able to make as much money as possible like guys aren't living they're not living healthy lifestyles so it's like it's uh and if you get into that routine and that rut like it's hard to break out of that because the guys out east,

they, some of them, they had to work two to three details a week just to pay their mortgage because it was so expensive to live out east. And so like they were stuck where if they didn't get those details, it actually would put them in a position where they might lose their house or maybe they got too nice of a truck and too nice of,

I don't know, but like they were kind of stuck having to work those things. So like your time is very valuable. So if you can't, like they did give us workout. time, but some guys just didn't use it. Like most of them didn't use it. What happened to him with the crash? He,

so I ended up, I saw that, like, he was having a neuro thing. I actually put, like, an airway device in his mouth, like a call an OPA. And he actually ended up making it. I actually won an award for it. It was kind of like one of the few awards I won for saving somebody's life. But, yeah, it was a,

I never really heard. what else happened to him, but I guess he made it, which was great. What would you say is the number one cause of crashes in Massachusetts? Now fucking distracting driving, like people on their phones. Like you go on the highway and you see people on their like, like on their phone, like on a highway on the left lane. Like, geez, like you pay attention to the road? Like I think because we used to have this, this is before my time.

They had the 55 team and the 55 team was like the elite troopers. And so they would they would be on the pipe. and they would literally be outside of their cruiser, they'd step out into the roadway, point in a car and pull them over. If you did that today, you'd get run over, like, absolutely no doubt. Like, there's just no way you're not getting run over because people just aren't paying attention.

And so, like, they're not paying attention. They're so distracted with, like, what's going on in their phone and all these different things. Like, that was definitely probably one of the biggest things. Like, drunk driving. pretty, you know, pretty common. Like, that doesn't really change, especially in Massachusetts because they're so lenient.

If you get arrested for drinking and driving on your first offense, there's no consequence. Like, you get a quaff. You, uh, what's a quoth? So, uh, continue without a finding. So, like, it's basically like, like, you, if you just, if you, um,

you don't plead guilty, but you plead, I can't remember the exact terminology, but basically, like, your first one, like you know there's no like you might get your license to spend it for a period of time that's about it so people are like well i got a free like i got you go to a Arizona forget about it's like it's like a zero tolerance policy like you'll probably end up in jail if you're drinking and driving there but you come in massachusetts like the judge is so lenient on on some of these cases depending on who you get for a judge it didn't matter and so like it's like prevalent everywhere

are most de ui's on the highways discovered from speeding No, I would say they're more, I would say more swerving. People are typically driving slower when they're drinking and driving because they don't want to get pulled over. And so like the speeding aspect sometimes, like it was one time I was, it was kind of, it's interesting. I was living in Boston when I first got on the job and I was commuting to Athol. Athol was like seven, it was like just under where they were going to pay me a little bit more money because I was traveling so far. It was like 73 miles. It had to be 75 miles.

and so I'm coming home off shift. I'm already off my shift. I see this car fucking flying. And I'm like, oh, I'm going to pull him over. And I pull him over. He's only 90. I'm like, why the fuck did I do this right now? Because he was fucking cocked.

Like, I pull him over and he's cocked. I'm like, fuck. So, like, get his car towed, like, handle that. But I'm like, I want to get fucking home. Like, why am I doing this right now? But like, very rarely where they be like, flying they usually be swerving or a thing that was like super common was like driving the wrong way so somebody would be drunk and they'd be in the left lane on the wrong side of the highway driving

65 miles an hour super dangerous because you're just gonna get out and if it's two o'clock in the morning there's not that many cars on the road you're gonna it's gonna you're gonna have a head-on collision it's gonna be fucking terrible so there's like a lot of different guys that had um i think like like two or three I've heard where they had a wrong way driver and they like interceded and like ended up like either T-bone on or something like that because to get them off the road and they've gotten pretty badly injured because of that. But like they don't talk about how how frequently guys would get hit. Like I've had at least four or five maybe more classmates that got into really serious car crashes.

Like just doing details or something like that. we just had a tripri that was recently killed on a detail. Construction detail? Yeah, I believe so. I don't remember all the details, but I was out. I was retired at that point. So I didn't really talk to many people about it. Really jump on that train.

Now, do you think that's all based on distracted driving? Drinking and driving. Yeah, like I think people, well, one of the things too is like, depending on the weather condition so if it's like raining out uh one of the things that happens is like especially at night you like when you think like a moth to a light like your lights and the so they've changed how the how the lights on the cruisers interact so that they're not too bright because they found that was that people will get drawn into them and so if you're drinking and driving and you see these lights you just naturally you're like trying like they taught us this it's interesting because like some of the

things I teach the guys I work with now on being focused. So like if you focus on something, you're probably going to hit it. So they would teach us in the academy and driver training. If you focus on the telephone pole, you're going to hit. If you focus on the road, you're probably going to focus on the lights. You're probably going to go and drive towards it, especially if you're drinking and driving. It's happened so many times where somebody's drinking and driving, they see the lights. They want to avoid them and they fucking crash into the car. That's happens all the time. That's crazy. Like the amount of times, the amount of times I've been almost killed on a detail or, I don't know, like five, ten times.

Like there was one, my most recent one was like, this guy was in a tractor trailer truck, didn't see my lights, and nearly, like, you get hit by a TT unit, forget about it. Like, those, those, those are so heavy that it's like literally a train. It's not the same. Like you, it doesn't matter what kind of car you have. You get hit by a track, the trailer truck. Fucking gone. And, um, he, like, it was so close. And I ended up pulling him over and, like, ripping him under him.

Like, do you not fucking see me? Like, what the hell is going on here? And, um, but like, yeah, like that, like, I mean, I'm sure every guy that's, like, because being a local officer, you don't have the highway. So the speed is different. So it's way, it's like pulling, doing traffic. It's not, it's not dangerous. It's just a completely different scenario.

and like you're you're on the highway and you're in the middle of the night people just something like they get close and man you can get that pucker factor like it's scary. Do you tractor trailers get pulled over for speeding?

Yeah. Is that more of a rare thing? I mean every now and then you got a fucking crazy ass guy that's just like driving like an asshole but like no they they have much higher standards like they have DOT standards and stuff like that

So they have to have class A. They have to have a medical card. They have to, like, they have a zero. Like, you can't, as far as, so, like, with drinking and driving, like, you have a point of weight. So, like, you can have a certain amount of alcohol inside of your system. You have a, if you have a class A license, it's way lower than that's, like, 0.02 or something like that. It's like, you can't. And so, like, the standards for these guys are much higher.

But then, you know, it's a pretty well-paying job for a skill that you, if you go and get your license, and stuff like that. You got these, like, they're kind of idiots. Have you caught a lot of truck drivers drunk driving? Like, uh, truck trailers? Me, no. I didn't pull a lot of tractor trailers over. I wasn't really, I didn't spend that much time on the highway, um, with a lot of

track trails. I was on the pike in the beginning part of my career when it was still the E-t troop before they dismantled it and changed it because they had, um, a big overtime scandal. and I spent a little bit of time on the highway, but most of my time was in these communities where we, I did Athol and Belchartown, and so we didn't have a lot of highway. I was only really like when I was working details,

and I wasn't pulling cars over when I was working at detail. It was just sitting there. When everyone's going, say, 20 or 30 miles an hour over the speed limit, how do you even decide who you're going to pull over, or do you just don't in that position? like when I was doing LIDAR and stuff like that was like you use a laser to track their speed it was I would always you had to pretty much be doing like 20 over the speed limit but like you can you can like if you you can you can totally like like per estimate how fast somebody's going

when you start to see how fast cars move and you start to see what speeds, like when you connect the actual number to how fast the car is going. So you can kind of tell based upon how fast they're going over a period of time. But like at 20, 30 miles an hour, I mean, not.

But like when you're, like if a car is flying by other cars, it's super easy to pick it out. But it's, yeah. I mean, I didn't get really caught up in like the traffic stuff. It wasn't like, wasn't my jam. Now, when you're on a construction job,

What are you doing in the car the whole night? Isn't you guys watching movies? Phone calls. Now, is that something you're allowed to do or is there really nothing else to do? It depends. Like, I think it depends on the environment. Like, you know, some jobs you had to be required to be outside your car and directing traffic. Depend on the troop, depending on the barracks.

But, like, you're just sitting there most of the time, especially on an overnight job. You're just chilling. So it's really just there as a presence with the, the lights to be that blockade. Yeah, I mean, it makes a lot of sense why they do it, especially on the highways, because one, people just drive differently when they see a cop. The second thing was that if something happened, there was somebody on scene that had a radio that would be able to be able to respond to it immediately.

And a lot of the other jobs, like setting up the actual traffic details was like, that was the most dangerous part. And to do that without cops would be really difficult. Like I know other states do it But they have like the crash trucks and stuff like that And those are super helpful But people just drive differently Like they just they see the state troopers

And they They just drive different Like it's just a People's behavior is just different when they say a cop Now when you're off duty as a state trooper You were saying earlier that you pulled someone over off duty Is that common? I don't know if I

There was one time time I saw this guy flying doing like 100 miles an hour and he like I ended up grabbing his plate and writing a ticket and sent him in my mail but that wasn't really that common because like pulling people over when you're off like you could back like I don't it's changed like it's scrutinized more but like technically you had if you're a state trooper in Massachusetts You had authority. It didn't matter if you're on duty, off duty. You could effectively enforce laws at any time.

What about when you're in a town? I feel like it's a misconception. People think, oh, they see a state trooper and you're in a city. They can't do anything. Not mass. Mass way of jurisdiction. It depends on the state. So jurisdictions, like in Florida, things are different.

Like they have county, they have local, they have state. and some agency, some states are highway patrol. All they do is the highway. In some states, the state covers the entire state. In Mass, we had the, besides the environmental police had the most jurisdiction in Massachusetts, actually. They had jurisdiction in the entire state. The state police had the second most jurisdiction in the state. So, like, it didn't matter where we were, but you couldn't.

Sometimes it would happen, like a local officer would pull, somebody over on the highway, but that was not like their jurisdiction. They, they, and they, they could cross over into certain towns if they had mutual aid or if they had an agreement with that town or if they were in pursuit or something like that. But for the most part, you had to stay inside of your jurisdiction. You couldn't be like in another community and be like, hey, that guy's doing something. I'm going to go pull them over. Will the state, we didn't matter where we were.

How long were you on the job for before you got into investigations? I was like two years. Is that quick or? It was pretty quick. It was, it was, for me, it was good timing. I was going through a lot of, like, I was going through a divorce and a lot of personal issues that, like, really kind of fucked everything up. And I needed the schedule.

So I started applying to different units to try to get on, because, like, I was going through custody issues with my kids. And I, like, if I was going to. to be on midnight. It was going to be really hard to spend time with my kids. And so I ended up applying and because I had the paramedic piece and there was not that many people that applied to this particular unit at that particular time. I got really fortunate to be able to get on it within two years. Because usually at that time they were like, yeah, it's going to take you five to seven years to get into a unit. And it was now it's different. Like I think guys get on pretty quickly. There's been a lot

of turnover. And so like, like when I, since, since I was on, like, there was like, I don't know, 12 classes that came through or something like that or 10 classes. There's a lot of classes. It was like we got seniority pretty quick because before that it was like they had only done like three classes in the last 10 years. And so some guys were waiting a really long time to either transfer to a different barracks or get into a different unit. And when I came on, it was like they started to move people around a lot. And so I got really fortunate. it to get on pretty early in my career. What's a training look like for a specialty unit?

Depends on the unit. So in your case? They didn't really. It was kind of like they paired you up with a trooper that was experienced and senior and like trial by fire. Like it was just kind of like you kind of learned as you went. And like we would, we had opportunities to go to, um,

to different trainings. Like one of my first trainings was like I did a homicide investigator school. It was like a week long in New Jersey. That was pretty neat. But there was no like, I think they've changed things a little bit where you have, there's more training for guys that are coming, especially because we had like, like, like, because every unit covered a county. And so we had like 15, 15 troopers in our, our unit.

But like there was like multiple units across the whole state. There was around three to four. hundred troopers that were doing like DA investigations more major crime investigations so there was a lot of us it was like the second biggest there was like the road and then the airfield services and then you had the DA like the investigative services and then you had smaller units with pockets so like the stop team which is our our SWAT team they had you know there's only like a handful guys at maybe 50 at most I'm not quite sure about the numbers but but they

would be these smaller pockets of units that were more difficult to get on like the air wings. So like we had guys that are helicopter pilots as if there's only a handful of those guys. So it was one of the bigger units, but they didn't really have any standardized training of like, this is how you, like they had like a checklist or something like, but there was nothing. Yeah, it was more like experience based. And what exactly was your role? So I was an event. So I was, we didn't change like we, we didn't have detective titles.

Like the only detective title would be like a, uh, uh, detective lieutenant but that was like a promotion where it was just it was more of a it was used kind of weird so we we still had the same title as trooper our pace stayed the same but we were just investigators so like we would we were going uh plain clothes on mark car um that was a monday through five at friday you'd be on call a couple a couple nights a week um a couple nights a month and um yeah like we kind of handled anything that was pretty like at all homicides we handled, all suspicious deaths we handled, we handled a lot of major sexual assaults, bank robberies, stuff like that. Pretty much anything pretty major, unless like a local

agency was pretty, they're pretty competent. Hey, y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder, what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home. Like their own detective bureau. We would handle pretty much everything.

Do you remember your first case? Yeah. I remember my first homicide was, it was a pretty sad one. It was pretty local. So it was only like a town over or something like that. And it was a murder. suicide. So it was like a, it was a domestic thing. She was going to leave him for some other guy.

He was like, you're not leaving. So he ended up shooting her and then killing himself in a small little apartment and their kids were just in the next room. And, you know, they're come on scene. They're both butt-ass naked. And these two little girls had to climb over their deceased parents' body to go get help. And it was like for me it was I'd seen a lot of like I'd seen a ton of shit in the hospital. I'd um you know I'd seen shootings before I worked at my Boston EMS. I saw like I had like one of my first one of my first um patients deceased from a shooting out in Roxbury. It was like so I've seen I'd seen a bunch of stuff but that was just like the kids involved and stuff like that was like it was just so dark like you could feel the darkness inside of the the apartment

and um you know not much to do with that because it wasn't like we were looking for somebody it was like kind of open and shut but you know i just remember like man these fucking kids are you know they're gonna like how do you they get imprinted on you at like five and eight or however the old they were and the parents are now gone. They got to either go into foster care or they're going to have to find family for them. And like that's the last memory you have of your parents. Like that's not like it just happened.

You'd be getting notified like you fucking saw it. And so it's like, wow, that's dark shit. What are you doing when you get on a scene like that? That particular scene, I... So like, when we showed up, everything was pretty much like blocked off. Like local guys or other guys, in the barracks, they already have, like, the scene pretty much secured.

And, you know, you're being mindful of where you're putting your feet, what you're touching. You know, you're just kind of keeping your eyes open for, like, like, things that you can find that are going to connect the dots. So, like, blood trails or casings or paperwork or who, like, you're identifying, like, who are these people? and then you're you know canvassing you're asking neighbors hey did you hear anything did you see anything and you're pulling out interviews and you know we had one case that um you know i think they had like 10 like 10 guys working it and it was like i think we did over 100 interviews so you're just

like you're trying to pull as much information as possible preserve a scene and then you have crime scene come in and then they do their processing their fingerprints they do photos they do stuff like that and you're just trying to pull out because like once the once the medical examiner comes and they take the they secure the body like this for the most part the scene's starting to get wrapped up and once that scene is wrapped up the body's gone and everything's cleaned up like you can't go back in time so you have to pull as much information as possible and especially when it came to homicides it was like you had to pull everything because god forbid something came up 10 years down the road and it questioned whatever the investigators had found at that time, like, there's no statutory limitation on homicides.

And so, like, you had to keep all of that information. So it was, like, it was very systematic of, like, kind of going through the motions, making sure you're securing everything, covering all your bases. How long could a body stay unseen for? Depend. So, like, you know, it could be a full day. It depended on like what typically like if it was just an unattended death and and there's no suspicion to it like it would be a couple hours or something like that. But if it was a homicide, you slowed everything down.

So like very different than traditional law enforcement or you're responding and reacting very quickly. And investigations you slow everything down. So you want to it's like slow and steady like you don't want to rush anything. So we would slow the whole scene down. It would be secured. Write a search warrant. weight. Sometimes that would take, you know, 12, 24 hours, something like that. And so it could be a day. Now what's your quickest turnaround time, I guess you would say, to solve a case? And how many go unsolved?

We, for the most part, they're solved pretty quickly. Like, they would be, like, you pretty much knew who, who did it. Like, it would be some, some witness or, you kind of, there was, there was, some connection to it. Most of the stuff that we did, we handled like, we didn't have like a big city in our, our, we covered two,

um, counties. So most of our stuff was like domestic stuff. It was, it was weird, like we had weird cases. It wasn't like, it wasn't drug cases.

It wasn't like, the gang wars and stuff like that. It was like, it was like, uh, sometimes it would be a girlfriend killed a boyfriend or sometimes it would be like boyfriend killed, you know,

like something like that or a parent. Like, we've had cases where kids were killing their elderly parents and stuff like that. But what was the question again, Ian? Was about how long it takes to solve it. Oh, so like. And how many go unsolved. Yes.

So we had a pretty high close rate for the state. So I would say it was like around 80% or something like that, which is pretty, but we had a lot of resources. So we had like multiple people working. I was like, you go to Chicago or. a bigger city or something like that. They probably don't have as many people with the number of homicides that they're getting. Like, they have to move on quickly

because the new one comes in. So we didn't have so many cases come in that we weren't able to, like, start to put the pieces together. And so we had a pretty, like, solid solver. And usually, like, I think the longest was, like, maybe a week. We had, like, maybe one or two unsolved that were pretty recent. Like, we had cold cases from, like,

you know, one case that we, like, exhumed the body even the 70s and like had to do DNA and like putting all the pieces together and it's like nearly a 50 year old case um so we do like really interesting things from time to time with cold cases and stuff like that but um for the most part was pretty quick like sometimes it'd be like they would already be apprehended before we even got on scene like the local guys would get them or something like that so it kind of depended Now you're staying with the case the whole way. It doesn't get, say, assigned to someone else unless maybe like the feds pick it up. Depends.

So like in the initial part, like when it came to a homicide, all of us, like not all of us, but most of us would show up. Because we just didn't get that many. In my unit, we only got like two, three a year potentially. We were doing like a lot of suicides, overdoses. And like there was a lot of a lot more that we did. but as far as homicides like we didn't get too too many and so like initially it was just you know we had a bunch we had a bunch of us show up on scene and then eventually we would get signed to one case officer and then they would run with it unless it got reassigned um so yeah for

the most part like at first it was like more of a team effort and then it would get assigned to one person so that they had one point of contact so it didn't get too confusing who's doing what so they had to run, like, go through the checklist of things. What do you think was a common factor among some of these homicide cases? Human behavior, man. I don't know. It was like, it was a lot of domestic stuff. So it's just like things got, like things happened fast for people.

All of a sudden, they're upset and they're angry and all of a sudden they killed somebody. So it was like, I mean, I like to see, I see the world in two different spaces, like the evolved. version of humans, which is what we would call like emotionally regulated people understand themselves that are detached from other people's poor behavior. And then we have the primal side of human nature. So when people are threatened by their own safety and however their perception of what that looks like, typically their childhood brought that into them. So they were imprinted when they were younger by what they experienced.

They continue to live out those patterns. And so they live from this place of survival. And in, you know, survival instinctual places, like, death is pretty common. And so people just, they say a lot of things, but then they do a lot of things. So they, especially inside of, like, those domestic relationship aspects, it gets so complicated because people's emotions are elevated and triggered at such a higher level. And so, like, they'll do things that they would not expect to be, like, people wouldn't expect them to do it because, like, it just happened so fast. So I think it's, you know, obviously stuff built up to that point.

Like, there's obviously there's, there's certain signals or pieces of evidence, like, or behaviors that are showing up beforehand. but most people would never call that out because they don't want to be like you know comes to like suicide and stuff like that a lot of guys will be like oh and you know what like shit like i should i should have i should have known better but nobody wants to be that uncomfortable to call that out and to be honest about like hey i see this is going on and so in those environments nobody's really saying anything when they should be saying something because they don't know because they're too scared to because they don't want to ruin the relationship or whatever it is And so it's like a compounding effect.

And then all of a sudden, everybody comes out like, oh, you know, yeah, I predicted that. You predicted it. Interesting. Did you say anything? Like, you didn't say shit. And so, like, it's just, I think it's just, it's human behavior. Like, when we go into the survival mechanisms, like, people make up weird fucking stories about what they perceive.

And the realities get distorted. And, like, I think most people don't really. how in control of their life they are because of how they perceive their reality, that things show up for them. I mean, this is my own, for me. Like, I had a certain perception of life, and I started making decisions.

Because I'm doing homicide investigations, and I also have a lot of personal shit going on, where I'm doing, like, I have, like, this divorce going on, and, like, I get into a very chaotic, toxic relationship after that, and I'm, like, seeing all of this play out my own life, and then also I'm seeing it play out my professional life, with other people. And people, you know, we don't know what's going on for people. Like, we don't know what stories they're telling themselves in their head to be able to justify why they

arrived here. Like the, I don't think most of these people are making these decisions because they think they're bad human beings. I don't think most people think they're bad humans. I think they have to have some kind of justification for why they do what they do. Because if they were bad, they probably kill themselves. They'd probably be depressed. They probably wouldn't be able to continue. So they have these survival mechanisms that they utilize to exonerate themselves from poor behavior. Because then they'll blame everything else in the book. When you have these types of scenes or cases, does it become obsessive a little bit, thinking about why they did something they went, or why they did something specifically or why they didn't or why this played out this way or why this happened

of this person and not someone else, does it haunt you in a way? Because I know me, like, I'll be on social media. You see a case about something and you do a deep dive and you just start, you know, Googling everything going down a rabbit hole. And people, you see that in true crime cases, people just obsess over it. So what's it like as like the investigator? Yeah, I'm going to be really honest. I'm not typical when it comes to the detective side of things because I just didn't attach to these things like so personally. So for me it was like a very different experience because I had this like the job was not the thing that I was experiencing that was the most difficult for me. I had my own shit going on and so I it was easy for me to detach

from what was going on because it wasn't my experience and I didn't have a lot of control over it. So I would be very diligent in wanting to do a very, like, professional job and wanting to, like, make sure that we're getting the proper justice. And I would go through the motions. I had one case where I'm on call and I get a call in the middle of the night. And, you know, the desk lieutenant at the time was like, hey, we're getting a report that this woman was kidnapped. Like, I'm not really sure if it's a, like, if it's legitimate. or not, but like, I want to pass off the information news. So I call one of the local, the, it was a trooper.

And they took, taking this report from this guy that was really intoxicated saying he witnessed this woman in this like hillbilly town get kidnapped. Like he was coming out of the bar. She got thrown into the back of a truck in a bag and all this stuff. And I'm like, like, like, I, I, I, I was in my head, I was like, this is bullshit. like this is like the way it's sounding I go and but I'm like I have to like the chance the 2% chance that it's actual I have to make sure I go to this and we have to do a thorough investigation and you know it's like two two two three o'clock in the morning I'm exhausted and end up showing up

we got a bunch of local guys a bunch of troopers I have um it's like running like eight eight guys looking like pulling video doing interviews like trying to find any remnants of like this woman being kidnapped we find nothing and we like interviewed this guy a bunch of different times and um so like it was there was a due diligence that was required in order to make sure that that we were professional but for me i fortunately just didn't get attached to these things in a way where i brought it home like when I was off, I was off. And I didn't really, like, ruminate on it. Like, I just wasn't, I always felt like it was a kind of a gift.

Because I was able to, I didn't have this, like, black, like, at that point, I had started to break up this black and white thinking. And I wasn't, I wasn't stuck on, like, the most people, they'll, they'll perceive things through a black and white narrative to feel safe. And so I didn't have that. I could kind of see both sides of things pretty easily. So I didn't get stuck on bringing that home or being like, this bothered me or like the only time something bothered me was like when I was at a fire investigation, seeing one of my buddies that was a trooper. A car chase breaks out pretty pretty close to us.

And then I hear like shots fired on the radio. And we've raced to the scene. So we're at a fatal fire investigating it. We raced to the scene. And my buddy is there stabbed from this guy from the car chase. And the kid got shot by another local officer. And I'm jumping in the ambulance. I had my paramedic train.

I'm jumping in the ambulance. And I'm like holding pressure on him and like watching this all in full because of somebody I knew. And getting him to, you know, a med flight to get to the hospital. And thank God he made it. But it was like that was like one of those moments where like fucking really hit. And but other than that, like it just never. It wasn't personal. It was like I couldn't bring that home because then it was going to affect my kids and stuff like that.

I was dealing more with other shit. It was like that was never. And it's some of the, like I've talked to a lot of guys that were, you know, special forces overseas and stuff like that. And a lot of the stuff that Sabrina and I are doing now is more working with like the mental health side for men and relationships and stuff like that. And so like these got like some of these guys I've talked to that were. overseas doing special forces is like yeah it was always the stuff that happened to me when i was younger it was always the stuff like it was the stuff that was happening at home personally it was like i could detach from like having to go through that shit because it was easy it was black and white

and so like the job was more black and white for me was like i'm not in control of this i'm not gonna i'm not going to i'm not going to bring this home the stuff i was in control of was like the stuff at home that was not going well and having to figure that out so i was more focused on that so on that What about the opposite? How do you not bring your home life into your career and let it affect you, you know, from staying focused on the job? That was more difficult for me. I think there was moments where I was overwhelmed with what was going on at home where I remember like early on I I had like nine cases and I didn't have like we were just so busy with these cases. and I went to my sergeant and was like, I'm overwhelmed. Like, I don't, I'm brand new.

I don't really know what to do with some of this stuff and this and that. And he's like, tough shit. I guess you'll have to figure it out. I was like, so, I mean, it, at some level, it was just I had to do what I had to do to show up just to make sure that that didn't fall apart. But there was like many points where almost it, like that was probably the biggest threat for me

was home life seeping into my work life. And there was many times that it had almost crossed over where, you know, it was, yeah, yeah, I was like, that was, that was embarrassing. It was like, it was pretty close to home. And, yeah, I don't, that was, that was more me doing my own internal personal development work. Like, that was me having to figure out why I'd arrive. because like for me it was i you know we just talked about like i spent 10 years trying to get this

job i get this job and i'm like on top of the world like i spent 10 years getting this i've worked so hard to get here i fucking graduated and i get this fucking cruiser and i'm like a fucking state trooper with like the uniform and the fucking boots and all this stuff i look like i'm invading Poland. Like it's it was like I was at this like level of like wow because like for me it was like I'd spent so long trying to get it wasn't just like all of a sudden 19 20 get the job like no I worked fucking really hard to get to where I was and then a year later I'm like this is fuck this sucks like this is not what I said like this isn't what I thought it was going to be like and then I started making a fucking really poor like I ended up leaving my ex my ex wife and started another

relationship and everything started to fall apart. And, you know, that was like, that was what I was dealing with mostly through my, the first couple years of my career where that seeped in, in ways that, because like, it was, I think in my mind, I was like, I'm a state trooper. I can, like, guys do fucked up shit all the time. Like, I had this weird thing that was going on inside of my head, like, not what I have now. And it led me to make the, these decisions that brought me down this path that like just I had to like you know one point like sitting in my car I was going to take my own life like it was like got so bad and um having to pull myself out through that to be able to figure out why this stuff was showing up in my life and brought me

to that point after I'd worked so hard I was like a good fucking kid throughout like like like struggled but like, but like I was a good kid, like follow the rules, all these things. And then all of a sudden, like, this isn't me. Like, what's going on? And then that unraveling and not realizing like that was like, as much as it got so close, it was the best thing that never happened because I had to fucking completely rebuild myself from the ground up. And that was one of the most challenging things I ever done in my life was like going through

that. There was like two years where I was like in this dark, dark place. and I just started that job in the unit. And it was just, I just had to figure it out. Like, that was kind of it. How did you overcome it? Well, it's funny because, you know, most of my life up until that point, I was taking these back, I was doing background investigations.

I wanted to be a cop. So I, like, stayed away from mental health because I didn't, on these background investigations, they would ask you, have you seen a therapist? Have you been diagnosed with? anything blah blah blah blah so i was like i don't want to touch that so i'm fucking not doing therapy i'm staying away from that i'll i'll i'll talk with my mentors at the church or whoever um and so i stayed away from all that shit and then i left my ex-wife and immediately jumped into therapy

and i you know between personal therapists and couples there i think probably in like nine or ten different therapists. And then there was, and that's over like a, like a five, six year window. But it was, I went to a Tony Robbins event in 2018. This was like when everything was like really hitting. And it was the first time I was like not, I was like, oh, I've been a victim my whole fucking life. Like this, I was a victim. And it was the first time I was like, oh, I can actually have free will and choice because I'd been living up to that point. What? there's the Bible saying I'm predestined, I'm a sinner, and therefore I'm bad. And there's nothing I can do, and I need to be saved.

And then I go to this event, and everything, all this stuff has happened. Why is all this showing up? And then I go to this event, I'm like, I started to see differently. And it took years of, like, seeing differently for me to reprogram myself. And then it was, like, all of my growth was, like, done through relationships, like, like having the bad relationships reveal something about myself that I was continuing to allow on my life. And it was like this good boy, like wanted to make sure, like people pleasing attitude, which I didn't realize really deteriorated my marriage when I was younger. I didn't

have the awareness. I didn't have the evolution of like what I had seen. And that just kept showing up like a pattern time and time again. And then I got a couple of coaches and started learning things about masking and feminine dynamics, started learning things about like subconscious and nervous system. And then went through like a really, really harsh breakup. And then everything snapped. I quit drinking. I lost 60 pounds. I got ripped. I was journaling. I was like really, I was doing yoga. I was doing, I was like really started to take care of myself. And that was three, four years ago. It was like a process.

And then that was like, once I started doing that, the job was like easy. It was like, it was, I started getting my shit together. And then it was, it was, I wasn't attached to things that were having at work. And my home life was starting to, like, actually become, like, peaceful. It was, like, things were, because it was showing up for me, like, a pattern. Like I didn't realize how much I had created it. I didn't realize how much my focus on becoming a trooper was the thing. Like that was actually, I thought that was going to be the thing that fulfilled me. I was married, had kids, and I was finally got my dream job and I reached the

top of the mountain and there was nothing left after it. I was like, shit. Because all the stuff I was looking for externally. And I didn't realize how much I was looking for me internally. Like, who am I? And that was the, that's been the journey over like the last eight, nine years or five, like really like the last like four or five years I've really started, really started to understand myself. Was the job what you expected it to be? Um, no, it was a lot. Actually, I was, I was, you know, it was funny because like working at the hospital, it was like a lot of, a lot of, a lot more chaos, a lot more fights, a lot more like, you know disruptive people like didn't really get into that many fights as a as a trooper like it was just

it wasn't really ex- exhilarating as I thought like then the investigation part I really really liked that um that was very interesting but I didn't my life was falling apart at that point so I didn't I didn't fully enjoy the beginning stages of that as much as I would have um so it was definitely I don't think if it was as a filling or what I thought it was going to be when I wouldn't have made, I would have made probably different decisions. But yeah, it was definitely nothing. Because I had already been in different areas of it. Like when I was a police cadet at UMass, it was, it was best. I had a partner. It was like fun. I was exciting. We would chat. When you were a trooper, like, they're very different than the local guys. The local guys that have better camaraderie.

When you, when you, like, because they would go after work, go to the bar, hang out or something like that. as trooper you have your cruiser and you're typically traveling in the first couple of years of your career like far away from where you live and you have a car like you're not going to the bar after you get out of the barracks you're going home and so like there wasn't a lot of as much camaraderies I thought we were going to have and it was pretty lonely and like one thing I've like I didn't really like to be alone I liked connecting with people that's why I wanted to be a city cop I wanted to be around people. And so being so removed, it was just, felt boring. How long did you end up staying on the force for? It was, I was like, I think I was like a week

shy of 10 years. It was technically 10 years. It was a week shy of me graduating the academy. So it was about 10 years. And you left because of an injury? Yeah. I got injured at, it was like a training exercise doing defensive tactics ended up popping one of my toes and broke it and had surgery and I have three pins and still fucking throbs every day.

So it's like I didn't realize how significant foot surgery was going to be like how much my foot was going to swell how like significant the whole process was going to be because he ended up taking like a couple of pieces of my bone out and reconstructing

and stuff like that. How did, leaving make you feel? Relieved. I felt like, you know, I, I think it was, it was a blessing. I didn't, I don't think I have like a typical, like, I retired now I'm losing something that I felt like was my identity. I didn't, like, the way that the culture and the job was going was, I wasn't, I wasn't going to jive with it anymore. or my mindset was different. I was like changing into a different person.

I was like not going to, it wasn't going to resonate with me anymore. So I actually felt a lot of relief because it felt like it was a lot of pressure to kind of fall into line what they expected, which was shut your mouth, just follow what you say.

Do as you're told not as we do. Like it was like, I was getting to that point where I'm like, I can't fucking do this anymore. And so like it was just like this blessing. Or that I'm like, okay, this, this works. Where are you at today?

Right now, me and my girl, Sabrina, we're doing men's coaching, like high performance coaching for relationships and stuff like that. So guys that don't feel respected at home, manipulation, rejections, like all this stuff I experienced throughout my career inside of relationships, we're not helping to master that, how to have that epic relationship with not like fucking Andrew Tate, fucking, masculinity and also not like this like ultra soft weak therapies feminized like man and so like what does that actually look like to be masculine uh be emotionally grounded and to create a relationship that's like I think a lot

of people like oh relationships have to look like that like how the one you want to create like how do you want to live where this is a person that you're going to be next next to the most. And how do you have an epic relationship with her that you don't feel like you're losing yourself in the process so that you can hold standards, but also connect and, like, love at a very deep level, have better sex and better conversations and all these things that, like, especially high-performing guys, they, what I found was like, their minds work so much faster. They're so focused.

They want to achieve a lot of things. And they are very good at certain things, but inside the relationship piece, like, they, they suck at it because they don't really under, they don't know what makes her feel seen her and understood and how to operate in that with her emotions and her biology and how she changes with how, you know, that, you know, how if he says no to her, if he says no and then she gets upset and he doesn't know what's. to do with that. Like, what does that look like from a practical standpoint? I just, like, theory and books and stuff like that. Because that's what I fucking lived. Like, it was like, fucking failure after failure after, like, my life was just struggle and suffering and failure. And finally at the point now where I'm like, oh, okay, I'm like, I'm figuring this out. I kind of know who the fuck I am. And, you know, feeling like I'm grounded and solid and centered and there's not, like, at this point, I'm winning. Like, there's no failing coming any longer.

like failure to me is now a lesson. Now I got to shift. And so Sabrina and I've been running respect gains, which has been fun. And, you know, guys are making insane changes after either breakups or relationship breakdowns or any of those number of things. What do you think is the most important lesson you've come to learn that you wish you knew when you were, say, a teenager? Yeah.

That would be, don't give you. up, like, stay determined. Like, the, what you're looking for is not that far away. And if you continue to move towards it, um, you'll achieve it. And so like, I think I spent most of my life thinking I was going to fail and not ever really failing, even going through insane things. So that, like, if you set your mind to something and you're focused on it, like, you can achieve it. Like, I don't care who the fuck you are. I'm fucking ADHD, dyslexic, fucking kid, fucking did homicide investigations. You can achieve anything in life with the right mindset, the right people, the right, you know, the right environment.

Life is actually not as complicated as we think it is. It's actually pretty simple. And it takes a lot of complication to get to the point where you're like, oh, this is simple. I get it now. But there's not that many people that figure that out. Well, Tony, I appreciate you taking the time to come on in the show today. 100% here. Yeah, and I wish you the best with your new business and everything in the future.

Thanks, ma'am. Appreciate it.