Locked In with Ian Bick - I Was A Connecticut Cop For Two Decades | Charles Grady

Episode Date: October 29, 2025

Charles Grady grew up in Connecticut and embarked on what many only dream of—a career in law enforcement. With over two decades on the front lines tackling violent gangs, drug traffickers, and homicides across the state, Grady made his mark as a relentless detective and federal task-force agent. After more than 20 years, he transitioned into groundbreaking work in community reintegration and gang violence prevention, founding programs like Hang Time to help formerly incarcerated individuals rebuild their lives. #PoliceStories #LawEnforcementLife #FormerCop #RealCrimeStories #PoliceExperience #ConnecticutPolice #BehindTheBadge #truecrimepodcast Thank you to PRIZEPICKS for sponsoring this episode! Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/IANBICK and use code IANBICK and get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup! Connect with Charles Grady: https://hangtimerealtalk.org/about/ Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Shop Locked In Merch: http://www.ianbick.com/shop Timestamps: 00:00 Opening – How Drugs Shape Crime in America 02:00 Who is Charles Grady? Becoming a Respected Cop 05:20 The “Us vs. Them” Documentary & Why It Matters 08:30 Labels, Judgment & Giving People Second Chances 13:00 Childhood, Family Values & Early Lessons 17:20 Why He Became a Police Officer 24:00 Race, Identity & Policing in America 28:40 Addiction, Crime & Cycles That Repeat 34:00 Personal Growth, Redemption & Transformation 41:40 Motorcycle Unit Stories & On-the-Street Moments 45:45 Narcotics Work, Youth Education & Evolving Policing 50:00 High-Stakes Cases & Task Force Work 56:00 How Police Can Truly Impact a Community 01:02:00 The “Good Guy vs Bad Guy” Mindset 01:06:00 Gun Violence, Numbness & Public Safety Today 01:13:40 Joining the Federal Task Force: New Challenges 01:21:00 Documentary Work & Changing the Narrative 01:27:00 Retirement, Purpose & Building the Hangtime Movement 01:32:00 Advice for People Re-Entering Society 01:41:30 Final Reflections & Life Wisdom Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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For me, personally, I believe that drugs are the worst thing that ever hit, this country, this world. When you're continuously witnessing the worst and the worst of people, how does one see the good in people? In the process, they ended up beheading one of the guys. They wrote around with the guy's head in a bucket of muratic acid that they got at Home Depot, all in video. And we've never retrieved the body. Tell us about your transition to working with the U.S. Attorney's Office later in your career.

You remember there was a time when there was a school shooting, and the whole country was like crying and tears and everybody would come together. There's been so many school shootings that now, when I walk in the house and I see it on the news, another school shooting, three students dead. Oh, hey, Jimmy, go out to the car and get, I don't even put things down and go, oh my God, what's going on? Imagine chasing gang leaders and drug traffickers by day, then spending your nights wondering if one mistake could cost you your badge or your life. For over 20 years, Charles Grady was that cop. From violent Connecticut streets to federal task force investigations, he saw the system from the inside, and now he's pulling back the curtain on what really happens behind the badge. Charlie, welcome to Lockton.

Thanks so much for coming on the show. You have for me. Yeah, of course, I'm glad we just, we spent like almost an hour outside connecting before this interview and a lot of good synergy between us and I'm excited to do some work with you in the very near future and all the good stuff you got going on in Connecticut. You're amazing, my man. You got a lot going on. Like, I didn't know.

I'll be honest with you, you know, I've heard your name in many circles, but I didn't know all that you do. So kudos to you. You're amazing. I appreciate it. A lot going on. I love it. And thanks to Mary for connecting us.

I heard about you earlier this year. Yeah. And then I left for the Mr. Beast thing. Okay. So we never connected. And then I've been chasing down Mary for like over a year now for the interview and she wouldn't do it. And then she was nervous.

And then Matt got her on the phone one day. And all of a sudden, okay, I'll be there that Wednesday and she did it. And she did phenomenal. Mary's amazing. I call her my Mary. So whenever I talk to her, I'm like, hi, my Mary. And she's like, Charlie. I go, yeah, my Mary, because you're mine.

Yeah. She's amazing. I love that. She's so inspirational and she's doing a lot of really good things. And she's brilliant, too. I mean, she's come so far. You know, what I find is a lot of people that are self-educated, meaning they take it upon themselves to go out and educate themselves on issues and topics that are of concern to them. Those people tend to be like extremely brilliant, right? Because they retain it. They're not learning it just for the sake of learning it to take a test. They're learning it and, and, and, holding on to it. And that's what Mary does. She's phenomenal. Do you want to tell the audience about the documentary coming out or anything you want to plug in? So I'm excited about it. It's a short documentary film called Us versus Them. And it's really touching on an uncomfortable zone that people tend to not want to talk about or think about, which is individuals that have come home from incarceration that have gotten full pardons,

turn their lives around, and now are pursuing careers as law enforcement. enforcement, police officers, prosecutors, doctors, you name it, but the one that makes people most uncomfortable because psychologically, it's hard for people to picture a guy or a woman that used to be in the streets, selling drugs, you know, involved in violence. And now that person carries a firearm and they're helping to enforce the law. And so the film really touches on, are we going to be a society that actually forgives? forgives and allows people to change and the transformation is real. So when you have somebody who's been in prison from the age of 18 and 19 through the age of 20-something, 35, that person is no longer

the same person. And so that person should be offered the opportunity to reinvent themselves. And if they want to be a police officer, they should be allowed to once they get a full and absolute pardon. And it's not easy getting a full and absolute pardon. So this film, focuses on our society, this big us versus them. Us meaning there's so many people that look at the world with their lizard brain and go, everything's black and white. There's good guys and there's bad guys.

And if you broke the law, you're a bad guy. And if you didn't break the law, you're a hero, you're a cop. And that's not real. Because at any given point in time, any one of us can end up in prison. You know, I mean, one too many drinks at a holiday party, flip your car, kill a passenger. and that's a real example where someone had the world, you know, at their fingertips,

and then one too many drinks, killed their friend in a rollover and ended up in prison. And so is that person a bad person for the rest of their life? No. So this film really focuses on making people have to stop, look in the mirror and think to themselves, am I part of the problem of not allowing people to change? All right. If I continuously call you the bad guy because you went to prison or because you used substances, if I continuously continuously try to label you as the bad guy, then what is that?

What am I doing? Like, I'm stunting you. I'm besmirching your growth in the whole bit. So I'm big on changing culture. So a big part of the film is to try to get people to stop and look at how many people that live that street life could help stop that street life. Now, think about what I'm saying. If we were out in the streets and you were hiding drugs

and doing all this crazy stuff, you know how it works. You also know what's driving that activity. So you might be able to tap into those young people and even adults that are doing that from a real place of credibility. I did it too. And here's how I got past it.

I'm going to help you get past that. So this culture of us versus them makes me crazy because there's right and there's wrong, but there's no such thing as the good guys and the bad guys. Because even the good guys go through a traffic light. Even the good guys, you know, put one too many things in their shopping cart at the scanning machine and they don't realize they did it until they got out to the car.

And do they bring it back and go, hey, I got this? No, they don't. Right? So minute examples, but for me, having grown up with family members, good friends that have ultimately gone to prison, come home, I recognize that there's no such thing as the good guys. Now, do people need to go to jail? Sometimes they do. In fact, I've had people thank me for the fact that they've gone to jail behind some of the cases I worked because they said, if not for going to jail, I'd probably be dead. The streets would have probably killed me. And so going to prison, help save my life, and hit the reset button on how I look at myself

and proceed in life. So the film touches into a lot of that, and I can't wait for people to see it. What was your upbringing like? So I came up with five uncles who were cops. My father was a police officer, and there was a great migration from the housing projects in New Haven, Brookside,

into the suburbs. And it was a culture shock. I went from everybody in my neighborhood around me being an all-black family, so forth, and I moved to West Haven into an all-Italian neighborhood where there's only two black families. And, you know, it was just this real culture shock. But my father was considered a good guy, quote-unquote, because he was a police officer. And he was accepted. My mother was a good woman.

and she was very active in the community, and I think that's where I get my real drive is from both of them being public servants in many ways, not because they had to, but because they chose to. But I grew up in a very unique situation where my parent, my mother would bring me back and forth. She'd bring me back to the neighborhood that we left from because it was starting to get rough,

and she said, you're no better than your cousins just because you live in the suburbs, so don't ever lose sight of that. So I had that luxury of getting this well, well-balanced and well-rounded look and view, not just of myself, but of different communities. And I became a master at code switching and how to fit in in both sides.

And I tell the story often about, you know, up until the age of like 13 or 14, you couldn't tell me I was in Italian, you know what I mean? I was like, you know, Pastor Vazoo, it was everything, you know, Papine Azul Lijila, my vatazoole, like, it was it. You know what I mean? And then I never lost sight of the color of my skin

because no one would ever let me lose sight of that. But I learned how to cope and how to deal with it and be well-balanced and well-rounded. So growing up with law enforcement in my family, I knew law enforcement like the back of my hand just from being around it my whole life. But I swore I wasn't going to be the police. I didn't want to be a cop.

I was going to be a white-collar guy, you know. And I went to school, took up electronics. I became a bench tech. And I went to work for a company, brand new company, startup company called Anton Bauer. And if you know anything about filming, Anton Bauer, they're like back in the early mid-80s, they created the portable battery pack for TV cameras.

And I would sit there and make those and do QC on them. And I was bored. out of my mind. I'm a people person, so like, what am I doing? I'm connecting the red wire to the blue wire and passing it over to Joey.

Hey, Joey, did you get that? Okay. I was dying inside. So my buddy dared me to become a cop, dared me to take the test. And I actually took the test and became a cop on a dare,

not because I wanted to save the world, not because I, you know, I want to go out and catch the bad guys. No. Pension? Pension. And pension, right? And steady paycheck.

That's why I became a police officer. But ultimately, I was good at it because, again, my environment sort of trained me early on. I was indoctrinated into law enforcement culture. How'd your dad feel about you becoming a police officer when you told him? Yeah. He was happy, but he also worried for me because he knew that I was a different kid, right? In other words, he was worried about me not fitting in with the routine, typical law enforcement culture.

And he warned me. He's like, look, a lot of these guys ain't gonna like you coming in being a cop. Because I was a drummer at the time. You know, I was playing professionally all over. And, you know, I like my fancy cars. I like, you know, so I was a little arrogant young guy, right? And he's like, you know, you gotta watch out

because these guys, you know, they're all like salted earth. They don't want anything. And I'm like, yeah, Pop, no problem. I got this. And sure and shit. You know, a lot of guys, they didn't, they didn't not like me. They didn't like what I was doing, right? Because they couldn't comprehend.

Like, you're supposed to be a cop. That's supposed to be what identifies you. That's supposed to be your identity. You're a cop. 24-7. You eat, sleep, and drink cops. And I was like, mm, not so much. I'm a drummer.

You know, I, I, I, I write music, whatever. So I'm not going to be sort of put in a box as a cop. And I never happen. I've done everything that I wanted to do, thanks to my mother, Jackie Grady, wrist her soul. She was one of those women that said, do what you got to do, do whatever you want to do. Just make sure you do it well. And my father was proud of me becoming a cop, and he was really proud when I surpassed his career.

He says that to people. that's not me saying it. He says that he's happy that I went from being a police officer to work for the U.S. Attorney's Office to ultimately working for the FBI. And, you know, my career, I've had a really, really good career. I tell people all the time, I've had one of the best careers of anybody that I know because I never let anything or anyone put me in a box. When you first started, you weren't envisioning a career like that, were you? No, not at all. When I first started, when I first started, like I said, it was just about a steady income, steady work schedule, and in 21 years, I can retire and I can have money still coming in for what I used to do. Sign me up.

That's what I did. But once I got in the profession and started seeing the impact that police officers can make negative and positive on the community via human beings, Then I started to really recognize the power. And I always try to use my power and authority for good. This episode is brought to you by prize picks. You and I make decisions every day, but on prize picks, being right can actually get you paid. Don't miss any of the excitement this football season on prize picks where it's good to be right. So here's what I'm running with this week.

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up prize picks it's good to be right when you first became a cop what do you think we're the biggest community issues between the community and police officers at that time period so keep in mind when i first became a cop um there was still an older racist regime of of white cops in hamden so i was a hamden police officer and um when i say racist you know a lot of times people hear racist and they immediately think, you know, KKK and cross-burnings and so forth. And anyone that's called a racist, that's what they envision. You're calling them. And that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is they had racist ideologies. They weren't bad people, but they just came up in an environment in a world in believing that black people were a certain way, right? The picture that was painted

of black people. So they had racist ideologies. Many of those guys that I worked with were good dudes. Like I got along with so many of them. But the struggle was still rooted in race because people in Hamden didn't want New Haven coming over the line and starting to creep into Hamden and bring crime and bring, you know, a negative connotation, ruin our housing. And so as much as I.

knew that that was the root, I was determined to prove them wrong. Like, listen, black people aren't going to ruin your community. Sometimes they did. And I don't care who's listening. I'm speaking truth because sometimes we don't like to say the truth because we're trying to make it seem like, no, no, no. But the truth of the matter is,

I watched the lower end of Hamden start to become more diverse. And that's when the crime started to increase, little bit now the crime increase could have been I don't want you here but yeah I'm here I don't want you here and that could have been a cause for a lot of the the increasing crime at the time but the biggest hurdles that I dealt with was misconceptions there were three black cops on the police department when I got on and I was the youngest and I was a little flashy you know and the other two guys kind of said to me you might want to tone that down a little bit but I was young and arrogant I was You know, the struggle was based in perception, race, and ageism, right, and gender.

Like, they, I was 21 years old when I became a cop. I was a kid. I was a kid. I had guys in the department that was 65. And they looked at me like their grandson, and they're like, knock it off, kid, you know. And I'm like, who are you? But there was a whole bunch of hurdles to overcome in that culture. but I think one of the biggest ones for me because of the police department that I worked on

was an issue at the root was race and generational division. That was a huge issue for me at the time. But the crime in the community, nothing's ever changed. It's always been substance addiction at the root of gun violence and burglaries. I mean, if people realize that a lot of times the, the, the society we lived in and the crime that we experience, there's a root for it. And so there used to be a saying that said,

money is the root of all evil. And then I think it was a famous black preacher said, the lack of money is the root of all evil. And so if there's sort of science done or some sort of research done, you'll find that a lot of the crimes that are committed are rooted in drugs, substances. For me, personally, I believe that drugs are the worst thing that ever hit this country, this world. Because so many things are related to drug addiction, drug trafficking, drug sales, even if it's not directly related.

You know, car accidents, you know, who's high, who's drunk, whatever. for me that that has been a real issue and the United States is brutal and we don't do enough to prevent it. Now at that time period, you were saying that you had friends in different neighborhoods. Was it hard for you at that age to go into law enforcement, whereas some of them might not have taken that route? Sure, sure. I got called Uncle Tom. I got called the police, you know. I got called a lot of that.

And what's funny is that it didn't bother me. It didn't face me. because again, it was a job. It wasn't my identity. Like, I was not a police officer saying, here I come to save the day. I am, that's not who I was. So it would be like you being a plumber.

And people saying, you shovel shit for a living, you know, you're just a plumber. Well, that's not your livelihood. That's how you make, that's not your life. That's how you make money. And so that, to me, it didn't phase me that much. as I grew older and was really rooted in helping to make change in the community,

it was a part of my mission to make people see, yeah, I may wear this uniform, but I'm still in here, right? And me as a person, as a character, is who you're dealing with. You're not dealing with this uniform. Even though the uniform shows up at your door when you call the police, I'm going to make sure that you understand that you're dealing with me, Charlie Grady, and not just a uniform. on both ends of the spectrum, good and bad.

And I think I had success at doing so. I did catch flack. I mean, there was one time where a couple guys from New Haven thought that they were insulting me by saying, ah, you're a sellout, you're a cop or whatever. Now, they're making those comments as they're being arrested by a bunch of, not a bunch, by several really highly racist police officers.

And what the fools didn't understand was, I didn't have to be at that call, but I knew the officers that were going to that call. And I knew if I didn't stand by, you as the arrestee, you might not have made it to the cell. Your ass would have been whipped up pretty good. And so without them even realizing,

I was there sort of protecting them, making sure that they didn't get an extra few lumps. And yet they were giving me hell, you know, for being there. Oh, you're a sellout. Okay. You know, I tell that story in particular because people in law enforcement are coming for various reasons. And if you're coming into law enforcement thinking you're going to save the world, I'm going to put the bad guys in jail, you might want to go do something else because it's not that cut and dry. Do you think it ever was that cut and dry at one point?

Again, there are people who it's easier to have good, right, wrong, good, bad, us, them. I look at it this way. And again, it's my opinion. It's easier for people to accept this is what I was taught. This is why I do what I do. And I'm going to continue to because thinking outside of that, now I got to look at the mirror and go, Wait a minute. Why do I think that all people of this color

or all people of this are a certain way? Well, that might be what I've taught, but that's not really what my real life examples have been. So I think ultimately people want simplicity in their life. They don't want to have to think too hard all day about why they're doing what they're doing. And so it's easier to say, you good, you bad. It's easier rather than to go, well, you did something good, but you also did something bad.

Let's talk about it. Let's kind of evaluate it. Let's see how we get. No, people in their everyday life, they're busy trying to work their job, whatever. It's easier to identify with one side of the other. It's easier to be a Giants fan or a Patriots fan, right? You can't just say, I love all the teams in the end. NFL, I've got to pick a team. I've got to be simplified. This is my team. You know, we see it in

politics, right? This is my team. And I'm going to rock with this team no matter what, because it's easier. When you challenge people in the depth of what they believe and why they think it, now you just made it real complicated. I just want to be simple. I just want to be done, you know? When was that change in your career in the beginning where you looked at more than just a paycheck and more of you wanted to help people and be the change yourself. When I got assigned to the narcotic unit. And again, you will find that most of my, most of the shaping of my view of this world is when I became a police officer assigned to the narcotic unit in Hamden and then Connecticut

State Police Narcotics and then the FBI and the DEA Narcotic Joint Task Force, I got to see the worst of the worst in people. I got to see the things that people don't want to see. I got to be in the living room with people's intimate family moments where Joey molested his little sister because he was high. You don't see that on a regular basis. I got to see, you know, this man who had his 13-year-old daughter pregnant. Most people don't get to see the worst of the worst. And so when I started realizing that at the root of this, human human,

Human beings are fractured. We're really broken. We put on a great face in front of an audience that we go to every day, our jobs and so forth. But, man, so many of us are walking, walking trauma. Right? We're trauma-based, so many of us. Now, your trauma might be different than my trauma, you know?

But at the same time, in law enforcement, when I was assigned to the narcotic squad, I saw the worst. I saw two 16-year-old, a 16 and 19 year old brother overdose one behind the other and die because they thought that that's what they were supposed to do. They were supposed to shoot heroin when they turned 16. It was a right of passage.

My neighbor did it. My brother-in-law, my cousin, I started to realize that I'm in a position to actually help people rather than go down this downward spiral just because this is what they've been taught or this is all they know. Let's help people see things a different way. And again, I'll say it all day, every day and twice on Sunday.

Drugs are the worst thing ever invented in this country, in this world. Because at the root of so much is substances. And it also, we know, it masks pain of trauma, right? So a lot of people that have been in trouble who have, I mean, people have psychological issues. And they mask that with substance addiction because they can't afford. to go see a doctor and get prescriptions filled, you know, whatever the case may be. So when I realized that, boy, our society is built up of, I don't care how polished people look, you dig deep enough, there's some shit.

And I started to see that. And I realized, wow, I'm in a position where I can help people. And that's when things change for me. When you're continuously witnessing the worst and the worst of people, how does one see the good in people, especially when you turn off that switch from your job? Yeah. Like you see the worst and the worst in someone from 9 to 5, and then at 5 p.m. you're going home to your family. Yeah. So here's what's amazing.

Great question. When you see that person that was in the living room crying, bawled up, coming down withdrawals from drug addiction and the family standing around and calling them all kinds of names, whatever. When you see that person after you've brought them to the ER and got them to help and you follow up with them two days later and you say, hey, how you know and Joe? You're already. I saw this, you know, I know some place where you might be able to go. When you see that person start to become whole again and move away from the damage that has been their life and they smile and they thrive and they get a job and they get a girlfriend. They get married and they look back and they say, hey, man, thank you. You believed in me. To me, that's the payoff, right? I'll give you an example. There was a young lady in high, back in the, or mid-80s, I used to go into Hamid high school and do the DARE program,

talking about, you know, drugs are bad for you, all that stuff. And I made connections with a lot of the kids. Now, mind you, I was only a few years older than these kids, right? And, uh, asked forward from that period, I'm at a raid. We're doing a raid in the house. And every time I'd enter the room and walk out of the room, this one girl that was in the place would hide her face.

And I'm like, that's weird. So I stood in the doorway and other people walked out and she didn't hide her face. I came in and she'd hide her face. I said, young lady, how come you don't want me to see you? I said, stand up. Tell me who you are. And she stands up and she says, I'm so embarrassed.

She goes, you came to my high school. when I was in school, and you preached to us about getting high and how bad drugs were, and you showed us a slide of heroin needle and someone shooting a heroin into their arm. And I vowed at that moment, I will never. She said, I was smoking weed. But I remember you saying that it begins as something small, alcohol, weed, pills, and then it moves up. and the same people who thought they'd never stick a needle in their arm,

once they've tried everything else and progressed, they start sticking needles in arm. And she says, and here I am in this house during this raid, and I've been shooting heroin. She goes, I'm just embarrassed that you saw me. Of all cops, it was you. Because I really liked what you had to say. I said, well, then let's fix it.

And she got arrested because she was there with a bunch of substances and drugs and so forth. got arrested. But then I stayed in touch with her and she ended up getting her life together. She became a nurse, got married in the whole bit. You know, so those are the kind of things that make me say, okay, so we do have power. We do have the ability to influence people's lives, even when we don't know it. Even when we didn't, I didn't realize the impact I had on that young girl in that moment when I was talking in her class. But here it is, you know, fast forward. She's sitting there going, this is it. I'm at rock bottom. That guy.

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So you got to keep in mind, again, you're going to hear me say culture. Law enforcement culture is ingrained in certain ways in people. And you know yourself, even on, remember TV show cops? Yeah, of course. So those shows depict that cops show up, they're called upon to solve the problem, right? Whether it's a violent issue, whether it's eviction issue, whatever the case is, cops get called to everything. And they show up. And their job is to fix this problem. And so that's the mentality they bring to the table. I'm the fixer. I'm here. But they also have embedded in this

mentality of, I got to hurry up and fix this problem so I can get on to the next call because the calls are coming in from dispatch. So at that moment, how can I really take the time to defuse your situation, come up with solutions, your situation, if I know I've got to go to the next call in my area. So then it becomes this time thing. I'm here. I got to fix this problem. All right, stop talking. I'm sick of hearing you. You, what happened here? All right, does that one happen? Okay, great. You're under arrest. So you become desensitized over a period of time. And I don't think that police officers are evil people. I think just like corrections officers inside, when you start to do the same thing robotic over and over it,

you have to disconnect to some degree so that you can survive. So you can go home to your family and be okay, right? But I think the issue that you raise lends itself to more training of how to connect and disconnect, right? There's an emotional element of it all. And there's a survival mechanism. And I think that's where law enforcement training. lacks. I don't care what anybody says. We all have certain biases based on our life's experience.

Based on what we've been through our life. Look, if I got my ass kicked by a guy with a bunch of tattoos and glasses, every time I see a guy with tattoos and glasses, I'm going to have an opinion about that guy, right? But what has to happen as a developed human being, you have to go, this guy's, he's not the same guy that beat my ass, you know, but it's hard. It's, but it's hard. So now with law enforcement, apply that same mentality. Here I go again. I show up. There's a guy in the corner.

He's got his pants hanging down. He's selling weed. Or there's a guy in a nightclub. He's selling pills. And he looks like, you know, John Travolta. Whatever the case we be, I know this already. I know how this goes. So now I'm desensitized to it.

But I think there really has to be more emphasis placed on the human stain and how police connect in the moment. And again, This is not about emergency situations. Emergency situations dictate a different response, right? Police officers don't have time to be your buddy and your friend during a shootout or during, you know, some massive physical altercation. De-escalation techniques work sometimes, but other times, no, that shit's not working

because someone's high, someone's, you know, enraged, emotionally spent, they're hurt. You can talk all day. They're going to swing on you, you know what I mean? And so there's a lot to take into account. And again, I love good cops, right? And you've heard that phrase, nobody hates a bad cop more than a good cop. I don't believe that bad cops start out that way.

They start out trying to do good. If only in their black and white definition of good, but somewhere along the line, repeated use. or repeated exposure to the same type of situations sort of really degenerates what they came for. And the culture of get in, fix the problem, quick, move on to the next one, here I am to save the day. That's challenged a lot, and that's where you get the problem.

So stop and thinking about five minutes more. If you're like amped up because your girlfriend left and you caught her with another guy, hope that never happens. But you catch him with another guy and you're infuriated, you're hurt, your feelings, right? I'm there for 10 minutes and you start to calm down a little bit. Imagine if I took another five minutes, if I didn't have to worry about the call coming. Now the dispatcher's going to go, is everything over there okay?

And you go, yeah, I'm good. Give me a couple more minutes. Now, that's the way it should be handled. So now I get you from 10 down to a four and now we can have a real conversation. And now I take a little time and go, well, listen, man, you might want to talk to somebody. You know, we have resources available for you to talk to about this because you seem a little. But oftentimes there's no time for that. It's like he's amped up.

Let's take him to jail. That's it. And you really do a disservice. A little bit more time. It goes a long way. Do you think that's a difference between experienced cops who have been on the job for years and a new recruit? No. And you would think so, right?

You would think that the experience cops that have been on the job long enough would know it's all about personality because I've been on the job 20 years, but I don't have the patience for this shit. I'm tired of this kid screaming in my face and telling me, you know, I'm tired. Whereas a younger cop coming on, it just got fresh training might be willing to go, hey, sir, come on. So it's not always this dry, cut and dry. You know, I mean, and I think that's like the biggest thing. That profession is not black and white. It's not cut and dry. And I think people want it to be because, again, it's easier, right?

And I often say, like, there are some hero cops. There's some cops out there that are phenomenal that do great things. They're heroes, quote unquote. But we also have more heroes in the ER as nurses than we have hero cops. Nobody talks about that part, right? We have individuals. I just watched a video the other day. police officer standing up in the platform and a guy falls onto the tracks, live tracks, train.

And the police officer goes, hey, you know, better get the ambulance over here. We got somebody fell. While he's on the radio, civilians in shorts and t-shirts, jump onto the live tracks, pull this man off the live tracks and start doing CPR. And meanwhile, the police officer is still doing this. Now, who's the hero? And who is getting the benefit of being the hero? Right.

So I often say, just because you're willing to be a hero, doesn't make you a hero. It's commendable that you put this uniform on. You're going to protect and serve. You're going to do this great thing. That's awesome. As long as you're doing that, you should be commended. When you do something heroic, you should be commended.

But I worked for years with guys who never did anything heroic in their career. Nothing. And they got the benefit of being a, quote-unquote hero, whether it be a free car wash, whether it be, you know, tickets to a show, whether it be cutting the line at Toad's Place to the front, whatever it was, you know what I mean? And it's just our society, you know what I mean?

You know, our society is really, really, we're in such gray. We live in gray every day. When you experience an actual hero moment, do you think that changes you for your law enforcement career? Absolutely. Absolutely. I had a hero moment, and it definitely changed me for the better, right? And the hero moment was an individual had a heart attack. His wife was trying to bring him to the hospital because he was complaining the chest pains.

And this is not some bang, bang, shoot-em-up hero story. But what it is is they come off the Merritt Parkway and Hamden exit 60, and she had called and said, my husband's having a heart attack. You know, can someone meet me off the exit? I'm getting off. And I was a motorcycle cop and I met there and I jumped up and he came off the exit. She came off the exit and I pulled him out of the car and I started doing CPR on him. And it was really ugly.

It was really dirty, nasty what happened. But he lived and me. So when you realize that you have the power to actually save a human life by blowing air into them and pumping on their chest, like that's some shit right there. Like you're like, wow. like this person would otherwise be in a casket, if not for me helping to do this. Medical professionals in the ER, I witness them do that every day all day.

And no one's like, yay, what a hero, you! And so it blows my mind, but that was the beginning of a hero moment for me where I realized, yeah, like, that was some hero shit, you know, and because I didn't have medical staff team around me. I had to wait for the ambulance to get there, but in the meantime, and then, you know, I had a couple of other instances where it would be deemed hero action.

And it made me feel better about what I was doing. And it made me understand the power that we yield as police officers and the ability that we have to change people's lives for the better and for the worse. What was it like to be a motorcycle cop? It was awesome. So I told you there was three black cops on Handenpede at the time. And at the time, there was a TV show that was real popular called Chips. California Highway Patrol, and it was Ponch and John and so forth.

And so I was the first black motorcycle cop in Hamden's history, and the people in the community used to call me chocolate chips, right? So, again, was I offended? Not at all, right? I was proud to be the first black motorcycle cop. But again, that mentality. And back then, people could say a whole lot more than they can say today without getting canceled or in trouble, you know.

But it was a unique experience. It really was because I didn't have the shield of this metal roof and I couldn't roll up on certain scenes and just kind of jump out like a spaceship. And, you know, I was overlooked a lot in traffic. And there's a reason why motorcycles are so loud so that you hear them as much as you see them. But I've almost been here.

hit twice. I actually did get run off the road one time by an elderly man on Shepherd Avenue. He never saw me. And he just veered over, ran me right off the road, and I jumped back on my motorcycle after I fell off and went after him and pulled up and I'm going to pull over. And he's like, what's wrong officer? I said, you just ran me off the road? He's like, no, I didn't. I was like, how old are you? And he's like, I'm 90. And I'm like, give me your license. Give me that damn thing, you know? And I called his family. I said, come get Popok because he almost killed me. And I said, I'm going to take his license if you don't come get him. He may not get at the back.

He don't need to be driving. You know, a little stuff like that that I was able to see and do. We also were responsible for doing escorts. You know, we rode together. It was a great, you know, visual to see the motorcycles. Funerals and wakes and that sort of thing. We rode and, you know, we took a lot of pride, you know, and parades. You know, it was a lot of fun.

You were always a good cop when you were on the motorcycle. It's really weird. People looked at you as the good cop. If you took the same cop, put him in a car. Not so much. How do you make an arrest as a motorcycle cop? Do you have to just wait for the backup? No, no, no.

There was an incident where a guy stabbed his wife or girlfriend, and he disappeared into the woods. And while all the squad cars were going, year I was going up there right and on the opposite side of the woods he came out and I see him and he's all bloody and everything and I'm on the motorcycle and to your point I'm like shit like I got I'm right here but what do I do with him you know once I get him you know and so I got in the radio and said hey he's coming out of the woods blah blah blah and I get there and you know he didn't fight tackled, as I'm tackling him trying to get him, his arms behind his back,

here comes the cavalry, right? Two detectives show up, and they literally push my motorcycle out of the way and put him in the car and they're like, hey, thanks, kid. And they took off. And I'm like, but, but I got him. No, you didn't. We got them. It was really weird.

It was bizarre. But to your point, you're on a motorcycle. You got to wait for somebody to come help you out. You know what I mean? I mean, you still have to do your job, but what do I do? If I arrest somebody, I got to stand there with them. Hold on to them, wait until the police come.

Do those go faster than the cop cars back then? The motorcycles? Yeah. No, it's a Harley. They were big old Harleys. They're just about the same. You know, it wasn't like, but I could maneuver and get through traffic

easier than the squad car. Even with the siren, I could get to a lot of places quicker than some of the car traffic. Now, when you were working narcotics in the beginning and you were talking about the DARE program, do you find that the DARE program was effective? Yeah, for its time. It was effective. And then ultimately, like anything else, it starts to lose its effectiveness or its impact.

The more you hear it, the more, you know, so, yep, this is this great concept. We're going to talk about drugs. We're going to educate people on drugs and how to. And then once after a while, you go, well, this is old now because people don't do that anymore. Now they're doing this. You know, when you started, it was huffing. You know, there was weed. But now people have graduated to opiates and pills and they're crushing up pills and snorting it.

And like it's really kind of, it just became outdated. It was effective initially. And it became outdated like anything. And it just had to be updated. How long were you with the police force before you started to think about further beyond that? I did 21 years on the police department. But when I first started thinking past the police department was probably about 12 years in, because I was assigned to the FBI and the DEA for many years.

In fact, the FBI actually threw my retirement party for me when I left because I had been there so long and done some phenomenal cases with some phenomenal guys. So that changed, you know, had me thinking that there's more to this game than just being a drug cop and just being a police officer. I say it all the time. You don't really become a great cop until you've been in the narcotic squad. That's just my opinion. Because I was a good cop,

you don't become great until you get the investigative background until you start actually doing longer-term investigations. I wrote a little song to remind you, Choice Hotels gets you more of the experiences you value. The Canberia Hotels got it all.

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It was a drug case. There's a few cases that I did that were just sort of like, wow. But the one that really made a difference for me was an individual moved to Connecticut from New York. And he was a drug dealer. And everybody, we had information about this new guy. He's moving weight. So I'm a drug cop. I got an informant.

I'm getting him. Right. And he lived like literally two streets behind the police station. Had a nice house in a whole bit. So I'm like, I'm going to get him. And got a few buys, did some garbage pulls. and we execute a search warrant there. And garbage pulls, for anybody who's not familiar,

is when you take garbage from someone's house that they put at the curb to be disposed of, and you grab that garbage lawfully, and you go through it and you find contraband, right? You find straws, you find plastic baggies with residue. You test a residue, pops up blue means it's cocaine. you now are one building block closer to getting a search warrant to get in that house. So I actually am case set precedent in Connecticut Law Journal.

One of the garbage pulls I did yielded us a search warrant of a house where we actually ended up seizing the house, Florida property, cars, furs, everything, just based off of getting contraband in the garbage. So, but this particular guy in Hamden, we're there. We kicked the door and we're finding heroin everywhere. And he's sitting at the table, big dude, you know, tough guy. And he starts crying. And he's watching me walk.

And I'm case agent. And he says, can I talk to you a minute? And I'm like, I ain't got time to talk to you. I'm getting heroin. I'm like, you're in trouble. He says, yeah, yeah, can I talk to you? I said, yeah, what's up? He says, man, he says, I know this was, this was bad.

I shouldn't be doing this and this was actually going to be my last run. I was like, yeah, whatever. Everybody says that, you know. He says, but I really want to turn my life around. He says, I see how you're moving here. A young guy. He says, would you help me turn my life around? I said, man, are you trying not to go to jail?

I said, because all this heroin, you're going to jail. He said, no, no, no, I know that. I said, okay, if you're sincere and you want to turn your life around, when you get out of jail, if you go to jail, I'll work with you and turn your life around. And I did. I work with that guy. He became a New England Tractor Trail or school poster child. We got him enrolled in there.

And then he got a job working for a company, big company, driving a truck. He now owns several of his own trucks. He and I are still in touch. This was 1986. 1985 somewhere around and we're still in touch you know his name is fredi he's amazing young man and uh that's when i realize yeah um there's a there's a lot to be done with this career there's a lot of good that you can do everything doesn't have to be bad how did you link up with the task force the DEA and the FBI in your career I was assigned so what happens a lot of

times is if you're doing a lot of good work and you're getting recognized in your PD for doing great case work so forth when they create these task force back in the early 90s there was task force everywhere they had an auto theft task force they had excuse me um every kind of task force you can imagine and then they would pick handpick who from the department would be a best fit for these task force so i got put on a joint task force with DEA FBI uh uh u.s. Marshalls were part of it and ATF were part of the task force. So I had credentials through those agencies to do state and federal jurisdiction cases in state and federal jurisdiction.

So there were cases that started here in Connecticut that I ended up going to Arizona for and Texas, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, you know, that started in Connecticut. So you got assigned to those. And when I got assigned to that task force, I don't think I ever left. I was there like 12 years. And I retired from the task force. But never officially becoming a federal agent? Is that how it works?

No, not until I didn't become a federal employee until I took the position as public affairs specialists in 2016. I was community outreach and public fair specialist 2016. that's when I became an actual Fed. Other than that, I was assigned to the feds. How do people in your department when you're working with the city look at you when you join the task force?

Because you're kind of focused just on the task force. No, so that's a good question. A lot of people don't understand. What happens is you're assigned to these task force so that the city or the town benefits as well. So in these task force, let's say we seize a house, like I just described, we sees a house because it's used for trafficking.

that house value once the house is sold that money gets divvied up to the police departments to help buy vests to buy cars whatever the case may be so that's why it always behooved local police departments to put people on these federal task force because the assets were divvied up and a lot of this stuff went back to the police departments like so let's say we seized four cars in a case right um two to the two a cities say we don't have a van in our department, an undercover van, can we get that van? Sure. You got a guy who put in X amount of hours. The van's yours. Back then, was there a lot of hostility between agencies? So not like what you're seeing in the movies, right? Every movie, every TV show was predicated on, oh boy, here come the feds, you know, and yeah, they're going to come in and try to take over the case, you know, there was a little of that, but nothing like what you, what is depicted in film and TV,

especially in Connecticut. So there were some states that we dealt with where it was really hostile, right? But here in Connecticut, in the tri-state area, we had great working relationships with state, local, and feds, you know. And if there was a rub, it was a personal rub.

You know, like you were a sergeant over here and you dated my girlfriend, and now you're over there. I mean, it was personal, you know, behind it. So nothing like TV. What was one case you worked on with the task force that you'll never forget about to this day? Several.

I'm going to actually do a documentary about one of the cases. So I won't mention it now because it's probably the best case. But second best case was a case of cocaine traffickers in Meriden, Connecticut. where a bunch of local guys in Connecticut that were drug dealers, they were getting supplied cocaine from some Dominican guys from New York. But little did the Connecticut guys know that the Dominican guys were being supplied by the Ariano Felix cartel from Mexico.

So they had stumbled into some real big, big time stuff, but they didn't know it. So they decided to kill their supplier, the Dominican guy, and steal all of the drugs. And in doing so, they put a spotlight on themselves for guys from the Felix group to say, hey, where's our money? And in the process,

they ended up beheading one of the guys. They wrote around with the guy's head in a bucket of muratic acid that they got at Home Depot, all in video. And we've never retrieved the body of the person they killed. killed. But it was a textbook movie to be made, very in depth. And you wouldn't think that it was happening in Connecticut, but it was happening right here in Wallingford and Merritt

in Connecticut. And it was unbelievable. And yeah, I'm going to do something with that one, too. Working in a place like Connecticut, especially investing in those types of cases, you'd probably run into, let's say, suspects or people you've encountered. Was that scary at all? Yes and no. Most often people don't challenge the police on or off duty. They challenge you more on duty than they do off duty because they're challenging the uniform. They're challenging the authority more so than you as a person. And again, I started out by saying, I've had people say to me, thank you.

If not for you, I went to jail. You did a great case. And it saved my life. there are many people that that talk a lot but don't do a lot. So give an example. There was two guys years, years ago, early 80s, that shot up a high school event, a middle school event. And they came in, they had rival gangs, Newhallville, and New Haven,

and I think it was the hill or the tray. And they, on-site, they saw each other. And these young kids, they're like literally 16, 15 years old, and they're shooting at each other. And so many, you know, people got hit with the stray bullets. And both of those guys that were responsible for shooting easily identified. And I was the case, you know, I got a sign of the case. I ended up arresting both of them. And they were going back and forth to court.

And I'd see them in the hallway and I'd say, hey, look, you guys got to get your life together. what you're doing is wrong. You know, you don't want to be out here in these streets. You're going to get killed. You're going to die. And they kind of looked at me like they liked me because I was young and I would make them laugh and we joke and I treated them with respect. But they could not turn on their boss who they were selling drugs for at the time,

who I ultimately got later. But they just kind of like, hey, thanks, Grady. Thanks for being good, right? both of them ended up going to prison. Fast forward, I retire, and I'm running hang time. And my neighbor says to me, hey, there's a kid that's selling shirts, and he should come to hang time, and you should give him a chance to sell some of his shirts. He's only like 13 years old.

He's an entrepreneur on the rise. I'm like, yeah, have him come. That'd be great. Kid shows up, and he brings his grandfather. And the grandfather's got a cap on in sunglasses. It's kind of weird because it's nighttime. But, you know, smooth daddy, cool daddy. Who knows, right?

So they sit down and I recognize that this kid's got a box of shirts, whatever. And I go around and I introduce everybody. And I said, okay, young man, before I get to you, tell me who's with you. He goes, oh, this is my granddad. I said, all right, granddad, tell me who you are, where you're from. And he stands up and he takes off the cap and he takes off the glass. and he takes off the glasses, and it's one of the kids that I arrested 20 years earlier.

And he's all grown up, and he's a pastor now. And he said to everyone at hang time, I want to thank this man because he really tried to steer us in the right direction. And because of him, I'm still alive. I'm a pastor. And now he's also helping my grandson. So the room erupted. It was just, it was like one of those moments, right?

the other individual that was with him ended up getting killed later. So when you say, do they come at you, I was in a restaurant when they first came home and both of them came over to me, well, they sent a drink to me first. And I saw them and I said to my wife and a friend, I was like, yeah, we might want to leave because I don't know how these people are going to react because I put them in jail. And then the waitress comes over and says, hey, those guys, want to buy a drink and I'm like, oh, shit, they're going to shoot me when I leave here. It's like lacostas, noostra, you know what I mean?

And they came over and they said, hey, listen, we wanted to thank you because we were out there while and out as kids and you treated us for respect. We didn't listen to you and we ended up in jail, but we're alive today. And one of them went back to the streets after that and got killed. The other one came to hang time with his grandson. So, yeah, they come at you a little bit, but not much. Everybody's Billy badass until. Yeah.

Do you find that the criminals that do the most talking and threatening do the least amount of violence in your experience? Well, that's just in general. I mean, anybody who's talking a lot of shit, usually not doing a lot of shit, you know, physically. You see all these TikToks and everything, and the person who's buffing up and talking and talking, the other person's quiet and just looking at them. And they're buying. Right? Same as, you know, with the crimes sort of culture. The people who are doing the most talking, the most fronting, typically not.

They're not the baddest. I mean, what's crazy to me, though, is a lot of people don't realize that. I've met some really bad dudes, you know what I mean, in the sense of they're doing bad shit. And even within that, I like them. I can find a way, something within them to be like, listen, Jeffrey Dahmer, somebody loved Jeffrey Dahmer, right? So it's, but the ones who talk the most typically are the weakest, right? The weakest.

Like, you have no idea how many really tough dudes, you know, tattoo, face, the neck, whatever, and when they get God, come on, Brady, come on, man, I'll tell you anything. You know, you know so-and-so? Yeah. All right, man. Ken, you got to help. me, I can't go back to jail.

I can't. Shut up. You out here ruining your community. Being Mr. Billy badass, got everybody scared of you, shooting at people. And now you sit in this room with me. Oh, come on. And don't get it twisted. They all do it.

Listen, if three people commit a crime, at least one of them is telling it. Period. The end. So it's really funny. How do you think? Crimes get solved. This is how crimes get solved.

Somebody's telling the story. You know what I mean? Somebody's striking a deal. I mean, I've had people, we didn't even know about certain people, but because I'm sitting here caught, I'm like, I know you guys don't know about Pito, but Pito,

he, you just gave me a hole, you know what I mean? And yet you want to get out in front of people, snitches, get stitches, you know, shut up. Just shut up. You know what I mean? It's crazy. Yeah, there's got to be a lot.

Because now that social media has a lot of those guys that are broadcasting that, I wonder if I would love to see the minds of like the law enforcement that arrested them that really know the true story. That know the true story. Yeah. That look at that. That would never say anything but just no. Right. Like, wow. That's totally different.

Because we couldn't make the case without them. So you're not going to put them on blast, right? But we do laugh. We do laugh. And I can't tell you how many. And like, you know, I see them. And they're like, even today, I'll see some of those guys that that gave up. other people

and we don't talk about it you see him hey what's up man how you doing good all right that's it you know what do you think was the most

infamous case you worked in Connecticut um there's a bunch probably um the mayor of Waterbury case

that was it that's all I'll say it was good it was I didn't even know he got arrested huh there's a lot you don't know

there Ian Bick and this is an old mayor or? Yeah yeah Yeah, yeah. This is years, year, years ago. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It was a very, very interesting, interesting case.

And I'll be talking about it. Yeah, I look forward to that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of corruption from politicians in Connecticut. So listen, when I was working in private industry, traveling the country, and I'd say I'm from Connecticut, like a lot of the investigators would go, you mean, corrupticut? Because we had politicians going to jail left and right, you know what I mean, for corruption. So they nicknamed us corrupticut. Do you think that a lot of corruption in public office stems from low salaries?

No, greed. It's all greed. It's very little to do with salaries. Because people take those jobs, knowing the money isn't going to be much. So why would you take it? But they also know the potential of getting payola, right, and making more money. But it's not because the salaries are so low. It's greed.

Simply put, greed and power. Yeah, it's very easy, I think, to fall into that. Yeah. Especially when you get into a position of power. Yeah. And we see that all the time. Right. You know, it has become so commonplace that it's not even viewed as corruption.

It's favors, aka corruption. You know what I mean? And you got an elected, and so let's be clear about what corruption is. Corruption is an elected official of using their power and getting things favorably because of their position. So if I'm the mayor of Whoville and you want to build new apartments in Whoville and I go, yeah, I don't know that you're going to get that contract

because I got Peter, Tom, and Mary over here that are coming in with a better project. And you go, come on, mayor, I know you need a deck on your house. You know, you just bought a big built-in pool. How about if I throw in a deck for you at no cost if we get the contract? That's it. Something as simple as that is corruption.

Do you think those individuals know what they're doing is wrong, or do you think they're just caught up in the moment and make that decision to agree? Which individuals? The politicians that agree to it. They 100% know it's wrong. They go through ethics training. They 100% know it. But they think, eh, nobody's going to know.

Tell us about your transition to working with the U.S. Attorney's Office later in your career. U.S. Attorney's Office was a real unique position. I was an investigator, contract investigator for them. And I ended up actually being involved in investigations of local law enforcement at times. In contracts, I did a lot of different investigations for different AUSAs, assistant U.S. attorneys. So whatever they needed, you know, they needed follow up here to interview here. That's what I would do. Some of the cases went very well.

But I also got wrapped into doing outreach for the U.S. Attorney's Office, which meant bringing community members and federal agencies together to sort of build trust and build better working relationships. Do you think there was not trust in that community at that time? There's always non-trust of the criminal justice system. And in most instances, there's reasons of non-trust. Listen, there's no way around it. You got money. You got freedom. Well, we see that now more than ever.

That's right. Yeah, you know what I mean? Come on. You got money. You can buy freedom. And especially if your crime isn't a messy one with blood and guts. You know what I mean? So it's really bizarre because, again,

let's go back to the good guy versus bad guy. I stole millions of dollars. I got this, that, and the other, and you shot your neighbor in the leg during a heated argument. You got the money. You get away with it. You don't have the money.

You go to jail for two years. Our system is broken. Just like the bail system too. And then that discrepancy between the federal bail system and the state bail system. Indeed. Indeed. Very, very different.

But again, people who aren't involved in these systems have no idea. So it doesn't matter to them. You know, what we're having a conversation about right now, if you have never experienced it, if you've only heard about it on TV, it don't matter to you.

Pass me to mustard. You understand? I say that our society has become so numb. You remember there was a time when there was a school shooting and the whole country was like crying and tears and everybody would come together. There's been so many school shootings that now when I walk in the house

and I see it on the news, not me in particular, but when I see in the news, another school's shooting, three students dead. Only three? Oh, hey, Jimmy, go out to the car and get, I don't even put things down and go,

oh my God, what's going on? What is happening? We've become numb to it because it's so commonplace. And that's terrible for society that death and degradation mass shootings, killings of kids is commonplace. I was in London a couple months ago.

I had to go for a wedding. I intentionally watched the news 12 days in a row to see how many murders, how many shootings were happening in London, one of the biggest cities in the world, right? Ask me how many. None. There wasn't a single shooting.

Not a single shooting in 12 days, at least not on the news. Not a single murder in 12 days. You can't go 24 hours in this country without a shooting and or a murder on your news feed. I was blown away. And I purposely sat and I watched. I'm like, okay, they got to. Now, the irony is that they don't favor guns the way we do in this country.

They favor knives. So they cut each other. They stab each other up. but the likelihood of killing people by stabbing them is a lot less than shooting them, right? I cut you up pretty good, you don't die. I stab you, you still have an, I shoot you from across the room, it's over, it's a rap.

And so I didn't hear any violent instances in London, right? Which was bizarre to me. Like, how is it that we live in the greatest country in the world? and we can't go 24 hours without murders and shootings. This June, the world comes to Los Angeles. Kick off FIFA World Cup 2026 at the FIFA Fan Festival of the iconic Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Watch matches live on Giant Scream.

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Overrides it. Overrides it. And actually, it's funny you say that, because I told people all the time, Yuvalde, Newtown. Oh, my God, oh my God. until the next one. And then it's like, you guys remember Yvaldi? Yeah, which one was that? How many kids died in that one?

Oh no, I'm thinking of the, are you kidding me? That's where we're at. But guns don't kill people. People kill people. Really? How about people with guns kill people at greater numbers?

And yes, if people want to kill, they'll find a car, they'll do a bunch of stuff, but in this country, no, it's guns. This country, a bunch of punks, guns. Guns is the answer to our problem. You know, we don't strap bombs to ourselves in this country and go in and, no, we get guns. We can be up on the roof.

We can be across the room, take somebody out. Yeah. Do you think it's a mental health issue? Some of it. Some of it. It's also a culture. We are a gun culture. We've been lied to that guns, your right to have a gun, is the answer.

And I ask people all the time, how old are you? So I'm 56. How many times you've been in a shootout? Never. How many times a stranger come to your house, knock in your door, rape your daughter, beat your kids, and you had to shoot them? Never. You need a gun? Why?

And the answer is, well, on that one time that they might, it's insane. We had an incident in Connecticut where doctor and his family were brutally assaulted. That is so rare that a stranger invasion happens that the reason it became worldwide news is because it's so rare. Yet every fool that has a gun, unsecured in their nightstand draw

will tell you, I got to protect my family. If you really are securing your firearm the way it's supposed to be, you've got to have the magazines separate, here in Connecticut at least, magazine's got to be separate. It's got to be locked in a safe.

Somebody comes in your house at 2 a.m. You got to get up. You got to go to the safe. 13 left 22 right get the firearm then go to the other place and get the clip

loaded up really your dad you're done the reason people are victims is because they didn't see it coming because they're not ready for on the street

at home so the fact that you have a firearm is your right good good it's your right you want to have one go ahead chances are great you're going to get shot with your own firearm where somebody's going to take it from you

and sell it in the street. And while you're watching the news, talking about, oh, another shooting. Wow, it's terrible. You've eaten your little dinner sitting around the table, not realizing that the gun that was using that shooting

was yours, right? You just contributed to all the gun violence that you hate. But I got my gun, safe gun owner. Shut up. It's just me. It's just me. I carried a gun for 37 years. I don't, there was never a day when I had to shoot somebody,

where I had to shoot someone. Never. You make better choices, safer choices by walking the other direction. Maybe you don't go to the nightclub where you know somebody's there that doesn't like you. Now granted, you could walk into the mall and it could be mass shooting that happens. And if you have your gun, you might be able to get to it. That's great. But you don't hear about that often because it doesn't happen very often.

There are some here and there where it says a civilian did save. Here and near. That's why you hear about them because they're so far and few between. Do you think there's underreported ones or do you think every instance that has happened it's reported? I could not tell you that every instance where it's happened has been reported. But let me back that up. In my opinion, if it happened, those are the ones that.

you will hear about. So my thought is, if you have a legitimate self-defense using a firearm, you hear about those a lot because it helps to bolster the claim of, I must have a gun to be safe. Do you think law enforcement's divided on the gun issue? Or do you think the law enforcement community feels similar?

I know a lot of police officers who don't carry their guns in certain circumstances off duty, right? A lot of them do, like when I was a police officer, I carried my firearm because you asked the question earlier, what if somebody had decided they want to retaliate? But if you're not a police officer, don't know how great that is that that's going to happen.

But I don't know if too many, in fact, as I sit here, I don't know if a single police officer who off-duty was confronted by the people he or she arrested and had to use their firearm. I don't know for a single instance. No, you don't hear about that. We have been told you must have a firearm to protect you and your family. And yet, so many Americans that don't have firearms haven't had to protect their family. Right?

With a gun. You make it through your life, make it better decisions. And again, whoever's listening, and they go, well, what about that one time where, you know, you're mine your own business and somebody pulls up next to you in the car. Maybe that's your, maybe that's your fate. Things happen for a reason. I don't know. I don't have the answer for that one. But what I do know is that most people have lived their entire lives without ever having to pull a firearm and shoot anybody.

When you were with the U.S. Attorney's Office where you still assigned to your police department, to? No, no, that was after I retired. So you retired from the police department, went to the U.S. attorney's office? Yeah. What was the, can you give us an example of what you would investigate at the U.S. attorney's office? So let's say we had someone who we suspected was lying in a case. I'd have to go out and interview that person and, you know, try to get a statement, a better statement. So nothing really major. It was not, it was no real major case. I think there was a case in East Haven where cops were overstepping their authority with immigration issues. And I got involved in that on the periphery. I was not a case agent because I was no longer

involved with that aspect of it. But on behalf of the U.S. Attorney's Office, so let's say you gave a statement as a witness and something. And you talked about, well, I was there. I saw four guys and all four of them had guns. Now, the video shows that there's only two guys with guns. So I might have to go out and sit down and interview and go, hey, look, you said in your statement that there was four guys, where were they? Where did you see him?

Because we don't see four. Tell me what, that's it. That was the kind of thing that I had to do. So are you the prosecutor's version of the defendant's private investigator? Like when I went through my case, I had a private investigator. Absolutely. Okay. And are you interviewing people on the defendant's side?

too or it's only the prosecutor said? Sometimes. Yeah. Sometimes we had the interview both sides with, obviously, with approval from a defense attorney. Did you would go to court as well? Did I have to go to court for any of it? Not for those. I didn't have to go to court for any of those.

Did you enjoy doing that kind of work? I did. Compared to, you know, the actual police work and being in the action of it all? So, you know, I was never an adrenaline junkie. when you say the actual police work, for me, the actual police work was the development of leads. It was the development of building a case. It was getting a wiretap. It was all of these different elements that you had to actually use your brain, not your brawn for.

To me, that was the rush for me. It wasn't, I kicked in the door and like I've never been that rah-rah cop. You know what I mean? I just, to me, that that wasn't my thing. And, you know, some of those weekend warriors, cops, you know, they make it bad for others. How long were you at the U.S. Attorney's Office? Six years. Why did you decide to switch to working for the feds?

Because it was a steady paycheck with a pension. Another pension. So you get two pensions back to back? That's pretty cool. You know how to work it. Listen, you got to capitalize on what you know, right? Now, you became like the press type person? Yeah, it was the public affairs specialist.

So let's say, for instance, the Danbury Trashers was a documentary that was done about an organized crime case here in Danbury, Connecticut. They would have to come through me, film producers, and work with me to set up interviews, agents, get approvals, get pulled. pull up, you know, actual reports, make sure that everything's factually based. So I worked with, you know, various different organizations and companies. I also taught agents and officers how to be in front of a camera for crisis situations, which is something that I still do, and it's just kind of funny. Because you've seen it, everybody's seen, you know, when there's a tragedy or a crisis, the guys come up to the microphone and they look down and they talk and then they look over here

and they look over there and they look down and they talk. And I teach different. I show them a different way. What's a different way? Just to be a little bit more in tune to connect with your viewing audience to be a lot more sincere than just reading from a piece of paper. And it works. Now, do you find over the course of your career that law enforcement is more open to getting

on camera and doing documentaries. I mean, you look at Netflix now, there's all of these different law enforcement on the state and the federal level that are doing interviews. Yeah. So it's always, the desire to do so has always been there, but there wasn't the platforms.

There wasn't so many platforms to do so. And now, it is now like a final machine where if you want to do a documentary about something, you subpoena this, you subpoenaed that. They have a whole format that you go through. You pick out who's going to be interviewed, what they add to the story, how much they can and can't say.

let's redact this. You know, it's much easier to do today than it was years ago because of the digital era. And you guys got a lot of requests from Netflix and the big platforms? No, not a lot. I think in my nine and a half years, I think we had maybe six or seven requests for, you know, big, big type stuff like a Netflix series or a, a full-length documentary. You know, a lot of times we got, we got requests from overseas

to talk about American cases, American criminal cases, so that they would profile or they would highlight certain things because, again, they get a kick out of how violent America is. What's your view on those types of documentaries, just about crime in general,

the true crime genre? So I must admit, I love forensic files. And the, the programs that highlight technique and investigative excellence and how things, I love that sort of thing. I lived it, I worked it, so therefore I relate to it. I love it.

I do not like to watch movies that highlight violence. Every movie in the United States has some violent streak in it, whether it be a car chase, flipping gunshots. it's insane. A love story. We make love stories in this country with gun violence in it. You know what I mean? It's insane.

So I don't like to watch a lot of fictitious stories like TV shows, like FBI, stuff like that. Because they exacerbate a stereotype that just promotes more ignorance and violence, in my opinion. And it promotes this, I want to be that guy. going through the door. I want to be that guy that's repelling from the ceiling and jumping in and shooting the bad guys. It promotes that. We are addicted, addicted

this country to violence. Especially cop violence. The TV show cops, I talked about it a minute ago. People love that shit. They want to see somebody get knocked out. They want to see somebody get chased. They want to see somebody get handcuffed and bloodied. It's really

odd to me. So I kind of shy away from it, I'm more interested in seeing real life what worked, how they came to the conclusion, how DNA made a difference in a case and exonerated someone, you know, all that stuff. That's what I'll spend my time watching. But a lot of these other commercial shows, it's just, it's just hype for the camera. It's hype to keep the violence levels at a peak in this country. Why do police departments agree to do shows like that, whereas you don't necessarily see the FBI agreeing to cameras following them around and capturing, working a case and everything like that? So stop and think about it. I have this small city or small town Hampton, and we did a great case on a murder.

And I want to bolster and I want to brag about look at what this small town department did or a big city. You know, everybody's talking about Chicago and this. Look at what we do. you need to see what we really do versus what you think we do. And I think that's a lot of why police departments engage in media because for years there was a lot of secrecy around how things are done. But recently, people tell you flat out, we wiretapped them. You know what I mean?

Like there was a time we, you didn't say you did a wire, you know? But yeah, we got a wiretap on these people, you know what I mean? because we thought that if you let that be known that they were going to change up the way they operate and we wouldn't be able to get wires anymore. They don't care. They think it's happening to everybody else but them. You know what I mean?

Things are very open now. There's a lot of transparency. I mean, body cams are a big portion of that too. And again, that leads to this whole wow factor. Like, look. And so the same way it helps police officers, the body camera, it hurts as well, you know what I mean? Because you get to see both sides of the story, both sides of the coin.

A lot of cops, you know, are hurting as a result of their actions on camera, you know, and people go, this has been happening all along. It just, there was no cameras there. Maybe so. Maybe so, but now we know for sure. Now, there's a lot of people that retire that kind of enjoy their life, maybe, you know, take trips or do whatever they do they want to do in their retirement, but you chose to double down and build more projects.

your community, why was that for you? And how did you get into those projects? So for me, after I retired, so I started in law enforcement very young. And I always knew that I'm going to put my time in so I get a pension. I'm going to serve my time, do this job. And at the end of it, I'm going to start a whole new life for myself. And when I actually did retire, actually just leading up to my retirement, I started mapping out what I want to do next. And so I want to have my first book done. I want to have my first short film documentary done. In fact, I'm going to make sure that those two come out around the same time so I can promote both of them. Then I'm going to work on my next documentary film leading up to my full-length documentary that I want to do. And like I had it all mapped out. And so right now, excuse me, come December 7th, my first book comes out with a, My co-author, Dr. Vesna Markovic from, she's down Lewis University now, and it's all about the formation of hang time programs and the pitfalls and the lessons learned about starting up 501C3. I didn't know nothing about a 501C3. You know, I was just volunteering, doing work and bringing people together and trying to help them reset their lives.

And, you know, I learned so much from being in the game of nonprofit. And let me tell you some, nonprofit world, they eat their young, bro. The nonprofit world is no joke. You know what I mean? And when you throw a little bit of money in the middle of the table and tell nonprofits the best program gets it,

they cut each other's stroke to get that $50,000 or $100,000. Whereas if not for that methodology, they might work together and be better or more impactful at help in the community. But now, you know, you just pay, hitting them against each other.

And so learned a lot there. And so I've got some other things that I want to get done before I fade away into vacation heaven. I got two more years of running at 70 miles an hour. I used to run 100 miles an hour. I'm running 70 miles an hour. If this is 70, I wonder what 100 was. A hundred was, yeah, it was brutal.

Listen, I was playing drums professionally on the weekend. week nights all up and down the east coast playing with a lot of jazz artists. I was acting. I was going into the city in Boston and Philadelphia, doing TV series, soap operas, movies, and I was full-time task force guy. So that was 100 miles an hour. How do you think law enforcement views you being so public out there and, you know, talking about things and doing documentaries. And is that frowned upon or is that positive? No, from what I can tell, I mean, believe me,

I'm sure there's officers out there that, you know, wish I would shut up. You know what I mean? But for the most part, anybody who knows me knows that I'm coming from a good place. And I've said it over and over again. And even with this documentary film, I know some incredible officers.

I work with some of the best officers in the world. But I also know some shitheads that probably shouldn't have been a cop. And they may look at me and go like, oh, you're too liberal, you're too, you're too soft to, you shouldn't have been a cop yourself. That's your opinion. And I don't name names of anyone

because I don't want to, you know, I'm more concerned about their families. You know what I mean? Because every person's family thinks that their father or their uncle or their sister-in-law is a great cop. That's what they think. So good.

Yeah, I'm not going to do anything about that. But it's funny because most cops know that I speak the truth, so therefore they don't have to say anything. Are they upset that I'm out there publicly? No, I've been out there publicly. I told you, since I was a young guy, I've always been out front with law enforcement, policing, my views and opinions.

Some people probably don't care what I think, right? That's fine. But I don't think anybody's going to be like, oh, now that he left, he's making noise. I made noise when I was there. You know, I mean? And, you know, I didn't, I didn't, I wasn't very controversial in a way of cops didn't like me because of what I was saying. Because, again, I do believe that most people go into law enforcement for the right reasons.

And so I don't have a problem with you if you're going into law enforcement for the right reasons. But if you're the person who goes into law enforcement because you love the adrenaline and you want to be a superstar and you want to repel down the building, you want to be on the SWAT team and you want to kick in the indoors and you want, you might want to rethink it because your job isn't all that. And if that's what you want, maybe you should join the military, right? Maybe I just, it's really, the job has become more of a thinker's job and more of a compassionate job. And people are like, oh, that's why the violence is so high. Violence comes in waves, bro.

This is years where violence are really out of control. Right now, the city of Bridgeport, to my knowledge, only has like five or six homicides. And we're in November. We're coming up on November. You understand how unheard of that was years ago? And will it change? It might.

And then who comes home from prison, how many feuds get started up. You know, Hartford, New Haven. their murder rates are higher than they have been or lower depending. So there's no real 100% guarantee that homicide rates or crime rates are going to go down because this, this, and this. It's a combination of a bunch of things. Who's out? Who's aligned with who?

Who's in charge? All of these things play a role in what Connecticut violence and Connecticut crime looks like. And so to answer your question in short, there may be some guys who wish I'd shut up about what I do or how I do it. But I think there's more people who are like, yeah, Charlie, you know what, keep saying the truth. And if it's only my truth, there are people who agree with it. With over two decades and law enforcement experience, what's the biggest lesson you learned over the course of your career? Drugs. I learned, and I said this earlier,

our society is such a medicated society and at the root of so many issues of crime is drugs. Substance addiction, abuse, sales, lack thereof drugs, mental health and drugs. Those two things, that's what keeps law enforcement in business. Someone who's just getting out of prison now, what advice would you give him or her? Be fair to themselves.

If they've been, depending on how long they've been locked down, any time lockdown. But I think what happens is, and I work with people every day coming home from incarceration, people come home with fire in their heart. Like, I'm going to succeed.

I got to catch up to what I lost. I've been locked down for seven years, 21 years, 35 years. I've been locked down. I missed the whole portion of my life outside, I got to catch up and make up for that. No, you don't. No, you don't, because you can't. And not because you don't want to, not because you don't have the heart to, but there's no way that anybody can catch up to 35, 7, 5, 3 years of their life being missing. What you need to do

is make sure you're focused on starting anew with the lessons you've learned from your life's mistakes and your life's successes, start fresh and new, implementing the things that you know can work. And if you project too far ahead and expect to much of yourself, you're going to fall short because the society that we're in is a bitch as far as coming home from incarceration. There's a lot of resources out here now that weren't out there years ago, but even at that, I've seen people come home with fire in their heart and their belly. I'm going to come out.

I'm going to talk to these young kids in the schools and on the street corners, and I'm going to stop them from doing what I used to do and what led me to jail. They don't listen to me. I'm going to make a difference. And I go, yep, but how are you going to feed your family? How are you going to pay your restitution?

You might want to get a W-2 job and then do that stuff on the side. No, I'm going to start my own 501. see three, I'm going to do this. Brough, that, it's incredible how many people think. I don't want to work for nobody. I'm going to be my own boss. That's great.

But you ain't never been a boss. Being in the street hustle, selling drugs, pimping women, whatever case you were doing, you've never been a business person. Yes, you ran an empire where you made money, but there was. There's no taxman come knocketh on your door. You understand? There's no human resources saying to you, oh, you can't make a comment about Betty Joe's toes in those open-toed shoes.

You get fired, bro. Like, if you don't know how to run a business, learn. And I tell people all the time when you come home from prison, if you're a hell bent on being your own boss, good for you. But it would behoove you to go to work for someone first in the field that you want to be your own boss in. So let's say you want to have a youth mentoring program. Don't start your own program yet.

Find out what's missing in your community in youth programming. Work for someone. See how they do it. Learn. And then fill the void of what they're not doing. That's the key to success in doing your own business. Research. You want to start any kind of business.

You've got to research your competition. You've got to research how it's working. But no, people come home from incarceration. Bro, they want to jump in the frying pan. They're like, yo, I'm going to be this. I'm going to do that. And I feel bad because I don't want to be a dream killer. But I have to say to them, it took you seven and a half years,

10 years of your life, selling drugs, doing what you were doing. You think you're going to erase all that in the first year you came home? I don't care even if you do get a great job. and you do reunite with your kids. The trauma that you live with it up here ain't going, bro. It's going to manifest itself somewhere, especially when that woman who waited for you

or that guy who waited for you to come home from incarceration decides, yeah, I don't like this anymore. I don't want to be here. Emotion set people. It's a huge setback for people. Yeah, if I started this when I got out of prison, it wouldn't have, we wouldn't be here today. It wouldn't have worked.

It would have failed. I wouldn't have had the foundation. Exactly. Mentally and physically to be able to even go down this road. Yeah, exactly. And there's so many people that come to me fresh out that I'll interview and they want to do this. Right. There's just so much mental and physical work you have to do before you can even do that.

Say it again. And I didn't even have a, like I didn't have a family where it was like I didn't have kids or anyone I had to really support. There's a lot of these people that come out that want to go and start that have that. And you have to square that up first. Yeah. And the craziest part about it is when you say that to people, they get offended. Like, as if you're challenging their ability. Not challenging your ability.

I'm trying to give you a reality check. To your point, and I said it before, how are you going to feed your family? If you're trying to start this whole thing from nothing, it takes money, it takes capital, it takes connection. And even if you have those things, you get, this is the killer. You get so wrapped up in trying to start this business, this 501C3. You haven't dealt with the real trauma. You haven't dealt with, I'm free now, I'm home now. I got people out here that ain't so happy that I'm home.

I may not be able to survive in the streets the way I used to, right? I may not be able to go certain places because people know I'm home from prison. And the people that I did damage to, I'm home and I'm happy. My family's happened. they're not so happy. So, but you're, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. And in the meantime, you're not dealing with, who am I today?

Who am I? What am I all about today? I know who I used to be when I was out in the street or when I was breaking the law. I know who I used to be, but who am I today? And I tell people all the time, you have a unique opportunity to redefine yourself every day. You get to look in the mirror when you wake up as a free person. and say, man, you know what? I never went to museums before.

I think I'm going to go to a museum today and check it out and see if it's something I really like to do. That could open up a whole new world for you, right? I had this one young guy come to me, he goes, I had several people who have said to me, you've had success. You know, you can't really say you're successful at a nonprofit until you've made it past five years.

That was what was told to me. Now, I knew I had success. long before five years, but I fell into the formula, five years. So we're 11 years now. And so I get a lot of young people fresh out coming to me. I'm going to start my own business. I'm going to do a halfway house. I'm going to do a transitional house.

I'm going to, bruh, you ain't even never paid rent. How are you going to, like, stop already? But I read a lot. I know, okay, great. Redefine yourself. This guy calling me, he says, I'm going to start this program. He says, I need your help. I heard that you've done things.

And I was like, yep. I said, what's the program? And he said, I'm going to go into schools and I'm going to talk to them kids that look like me and that come from the same streets I come from. And I'm going to make a difference. I'm going to teach them how to. I said, bro, you realize that everybody that comes home from prison wants to do that. Yeah, but I want to get back. I said, everybody wants to.

I said, you got to show that you're unique. What's unique about you? I said, there are so many programs doing exactly that. What's unique about you? He said, well, I'm me. They're not me. And I was like, I was like, okay. I said, bro, and I gave him the same advice.

I'm saying, here, anybody listening. Go to work for someone first. Fill that gap that they're not filling. and then I wish you the best of luck building your own nonprofit. But if your goal is to create a nonprofit solely because you don't want to work for anyone else, and you haven't had a lot of experience managing a staff, managing finances, taxes, human resources, bro, stop it.

Learn the game. Learn the game. That's the only way you succeed. It took me six years to learn this. game and I succeed only because I realize what I didn't know before and I try to tell people all the time you can make it you can run your own business that's great but you got to have patience you got to have a real plan and you got to execute you know so many people that that I deal with their idea of a job with selling rocks from the front porch of their auntie's house

or making a delivery. And like, that's not a business. Like, you got to stop with that. Understand the world has passed you by in order for you to catch up. You got to be grounded. Like you said, you've got to create a foundation or else you're going to get so frustrated,

you're going to go right back to the streets, doing what you used to do, and you're going to end up back in prison. Because you just can't seem to make everything come together like you did. while you were locked down. You saw it. You saw the vision.

This is how it's going to go. I'm going to make a difference. And then it didn't work that way. Now you're just like, all that trauma comes back. And you're like, yo, I got to make a move. When I hear a dude say that, I got to make a move, you know. Never ends well. Yeah, you know what I mean?

That's it. And that's that. Well, Charlie, I appreciate you coming on the show today, man. This is a great conversation. I love your energy and I'm excited to do stuff with you in the future. Yeah, man. We're going to do some stuff together. I'm really proud of what you've built, right?

And like you said, you took your time. You saw, you went to work. And a guy like you is a real good example of it can be done and it can be done right. And the circles you're running in, the things that you've accomplished, amazing. I'm real proud of you. And I love being here. I didn't want to talk all about police stuff, but I guess that's a little intriguing because I come from that world of law enforcement and now I'm working with reentry.

Hey, that's a promise of the show, but it drives attention to what you're doing now, you know? Yeah, yeah. And it's good to have those conversations. Yeah, yeah. Appreciate you. Yeah, I appreciate you. Thank you.