Locked In with Ian Bick - I Was An FBI Task Force Cop - Then Addiction Nearly Ruined Me | Keith Shibley

Episode Date: October 30, 2025

Keith Shibley was the kind of cop who ran toward danger—until the danger followed him home. Starting his career with the Virginia Port Authority Police, Keith transitioned into the Richmond Police Department, where violence, shootings, and high-stakes calls were a daily reality. Seeking a new path, he returned to the Port Authority and eventually became part of an FBI task force, responding to domestic terrorism threats, high-profile shootings, and federal-level criminal activity. But while he was protecting the public, the trauma was destroying him privately. Years of front-line exposure led to crippling PTSD, driving Keith into a spiral of painkillers, alcohol, and self-destruction—all while still wearing the badge. His life and career were on the brink. Instead of losing everything, Keith made a life-altering decision: he asked for help. #FBITaskForce #AddictionRecovery #FormerCop #LawEnforcementStories #AddictionSurvivor #TrueCrimePodcast #PoliceToPrison #RedemptionStory Connect with Keith Shibley: Facebook: Keith Shibley Instagram: @keithshibley and @official_mindovermadness YouTube: @mindovermadnessmom 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: Inside the Mind of a Cop — Processing Trauma and Tragedy 02:35 Meet Keith Shibley: From Virginia Cop to FBI Task Force Member 08:09 Childhood, Family Struggles & Early Trauma 17:02 Why He Chose Policing & His First Steps Into Law Enforcement 24:05 Police Academy Stories & Port Authority Beginnings 29:44 Life in Richmond Police — Violence, Chaos & Hard Lessons 36:16 Coping Mechanisms, Brotherhood & Police Culture 43:35 The Calls That Haunt You — Death, Grief & Emotional Toll 52:40 Working Domestic Terrorism & High-Risk Operations 01:00:56 The Navy Yard Shooting — What Really Happened That Day 01:12:32 Addiction Takes Over — Pills, Alcohol & Denial 01:24:52 The Breaking Point: Intervention, Rehab & Recovery 01:35:23 Overcoming Stigma & Inspiring Other First Responders 01:43:40 Mental Health, Programs & Breaking the Silence 01:49:44 Final Reflections — Healing, Hope & Purpose Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day, like superheroes and sidekicks or auto and home insurance. With USAA, you can bundle your auto and home and save up to 10%. Tap the banner to learn more and get a quote at usaa.com slash bundle. Restrictions apply. 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 screen. Feel every goal with thousands of fans.

and celebrate with music, culture, and flavors from around the world. Join us June 11th through 14th opening weekend as the tournament kicks off in Los Angeles. Tickets are just $10 and kids under 12 were free. Get yours now at Los Angeles FWC26.com. They had duct tape around their feet in their hands. Their necks were cut and their heads were bashed in with hammers. When you go onto a crime scene and you see horrific things like that, how do you process that? The one that really was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back for me was the

Navy Yard active shooter in 2013. When you're in the pits of your addiction, did you feel like you were living a double life being in law enforcement, but also using drugs and alcohol? Keith Shibli chased down domestic terrorists, responded to active shooters and worked side by side with the FBI, but behind the badge, Keith was battling a hidden addiction that nearly destroyed his life and career. Keith, welcome to Lockton. Thanks so much for coming on the show today. Thanks, man. I appreciate you having me. Yeah, you drove from D.C.? Yeah, northern Virginia, D. D.C. area. Yeah, I want to get back out to D.C. When I was younger, we went as a family trip to see, like, the museums and everything.

Didn't really appreciate it when I'm younger, but now that I'm older, I want to go and check everything out and spend a weekend there. The crazy part is I've been back in D.C. since 2007. I think I've been to the museum, a museum once. It's just when you live right there, you try to avoid the city as much as possible. You just don't want to go in there. But it does have a lot of, it has a lot of cool stuff, a lot of good history in there. Yeah. Yeah, good restaurants and stuff too.

Yeah, it does. You said you wanted to plug a charity in the beginning of this episode. Yeah. I started working a little bit earlier this year with a charity called Frontline Healing Foundation. If you just Google Frontline Healing Foundation, you can find them. It's a 501C3 charity that helps financially support Meeling Foundation. military and first responders that need to go to a rehab for either mental health or substance abuse issues. So yeah, those that get out that may not have insurance, they can scholarship people.

And, you know, last year they had about, I believe they had over 100 people apply for scholarships. But their finances only allowed them to, I believe, support like half of that. So I'm just trying to get the word out there to, you know, if anybody wants to donate, go to Frontline Healing Foundation. And any donation is greatly appreciated. And it just helps those coming back from war or, you know, firefighter, police officers, EMS people that might be struggling. It helps them get the help that they need. Yeah, and if you send me that link, I'll put in the description this episode for you. Thank you.

Where do you grow up, Keith? I was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia. So my childhood was great, man. I've got an older brother. He's a year older than me. I've got two younger sisters. Mom was a stay-at-home mom. My dad was a pharmacist.

And it was just a really good upbringing. He, you know, he owned his own pharmacy for a while. So thankfully he didn't own it later in my life or I would have been in real big trouble. But it's just, you know, we were always working. You know, 10, 11, 12 were sweeping and stocking shells and that kind of stuff. through high school. So it was really good to childhood. Very big family. I come from a Lebanese descent. Both my parents, all four of my grandparents are Lebanese. So I was raised in like an old school, pretty strict Middle Eastern Catholic style. You know, I went from

kindergarten all the way through 12th grade. I went through Catholic school. High school, actually went to an all-male Catholic military high school, which was fun. Fun? It actually was a good time. Now, St. Gertrude was right down the street. The dirty Gerties were a block away, so it wasn't too bad. But it was... Is that the female version?

Yeah. It was a female... St. Gertrude's a female high school down there. But it was a day school. We didn't sleep there. It was just like, you know, you show up at... We had to show up a little early because we had to do the military stuff. So we showed up at 6 in the morning.

And then, you know, pretty much done by 330. But it was a family thing. My dad graduated there in 1970. Both of my grandfathers were there. One graduated in 52 and one graduated in 53, I think. So it's just kind of like a family tradition. A bunch of cousins, uncles, all that stuff. I went to that school.

But I grew up in a very tight-knit family. Our family's huge. My dad's one of five. My mom's one of four. Each one of them had three or four kids. So I grew up with a lot of first cousins, second cousins. We were all just really close. The Maronite Catholic Church, which is like a Roman Catholic Church, just kind of like the Middle Eastern version, we had a church that was, it sits on 15 acres, I believe.

So I wasn't really excited to go about church when I was younger, but, you know, we had, there was basketball courts, tennis courts, a baseball field, a swimming pool. So after church, you know, you got to stay there all day and just go swim in and play basketball. And it was just kind of like a really big close-knit community, really. But very tight with my family. My mom's parents I was extremely tight with, especially my grandfather, we spent a lot of time with him. And he loved, he knew that we liked fishing. So we were looking to get a family Lake River house to, you know, just kind of go on vacation or just something the whole family could use. And he knew a lady that had a house on, I believe it was a Rappahannock River.

So we went and looked at different properties when I was 12. A brother was 13 and we went back to this lady's house and spent the day there, ate lunch, and we went fishing. and my grandfather was he kind of like had a he had a personality like me he was very short short-witted you know he wasn't afraid to say it was on his mind or whatever so I just remember him coming down the hill and he just said he said you boys ain't catching shit it's lunchtime let's go get let's go eat lunch so I remember just packing up our stuff and um as we're walking up the hill, he just takes like two steps, falls to his knees, falls face down. And, you know, my brother and I were right there, so we kind of roll him over. And it was just, it was,

he had a massive heart attack. So, you know, the face was blue, all that kind of stuff. But I say that for this reason. It was, it was my first experience with a traumatic incident in my life. And I was 12 years old. And I really didn't realize how much it affected me to later on in my life. But, um, so, you know, we called EMS and they took about 30, 40 minutes to get there. We were out the middle of nowhere. He passed away, unfortunately, at the age of 61. Um, but I remember I was just losing it. I was bawling. I was crying. You know, I'm 12 years old. And, um, you know, being in the old school kind of Middle Eastern upbringing, I just remember my father coming up to me and he just kind of grabbed me up and he was just like turn that shit off right now he said

you got to be strong for your mother and your sisters and it was just like boom it was just it was cut off so it'll go on to my you know story as we go on but from a very young age i was just learned that emotions are bad you're a man you shove that stuff down and you know you just keep moving um so um that'll kind of come into play later but that's what i was taught as a year young kid. And as I was growing up, it was just like, you know, men don't cry. You don't show emotion. And if you do, it better be in a room where nobody else can see you. Knowing what you know now, do you think that's the wrong ideology? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And, you know, they didn't know any better, man. That's how they were raised. So that's how they raised us. And it, it,

that's not how I raised my kids, especially my son. My son is 20 years old now. It's just I believe that that's just what they thought, and that's how they were raised. And, you know, especially coming from, you know, my grandparents' World War II generation to my dad's Vietnam generation. It's just like hardcore men, don't show emotion, don't cry, do what you got to do, and then just keep moving on. How would your friends have described you in your teenage years? Oh, Lord. Hmm.

I was, I was, I was very loyal to my good friends. We had a very small circle like a friend. So kind of growing up in like going to, you know, mostly Catholic high schools and stuff, it was, you had your kids that got in trouble in public school where their parents sent them there. Then you had, like, you're really rich kids that were kind of, you know, the preppy type version. then you had, you know, your academic-ish people. And then there was just like four of us that just kind of didn't really fit anything. But I played a lot of sports growing up, but I was, I'm very short. So I learned at a very young age, I needed to stick up for myself.

So I believe I was, I was pretty short-tempered as a kid. I would get I would get set off kind of easily as a kid and it was out of it was more out of like the insecurities of being you know shorter than everybody else and all that stuff but but I would think they would say it's mainly just loyal you know if I didn't see something if I saw something that I didn't agree with I was not afraid to speak out about it Like, you know, if I saw one of the, if I saw one of like the bullies messing with like one of the academic kids or whatever, I would step in all the time. It was just, I just felt like somebody needed to do it. So I think that's what they would say.

Did you ever envision yourself becoming a cop when you were a kid? Oh, yeah. That's, it was all I ever wanted to do. From the time I was in, you know, third, fourth, or fifth grade, it's all I talked about. It's all my parents said that I ever talked about, you know, wanting to be when I grew up. I wasn't good at school. I had to, I would study for C's and Ds. It just, me and academics didn't really come into play.

And I think, you know, a few times, like the teachers would be like, they believe I had some sort of learning disability. But back to how, you know, my folks were kind of raised, it was, he's not even getting to, he just needs to study harder. He doesn't, there's nothing wrong with him. He just has to study harder. But I just, I remember sitting in a class. Yeah, I could sit there in a class and my brain would just go off into wherever. And I had no idea what the teacher was talking about. But, but I always wanted to be a cop.

I think it's like third or fourth grade. My mom found it about a year ago and I need to try to get it. But, you know, like in grade school, you make your own books where you make a cardboard thing and you make your own book and you do whatever. I wrote a story about robbers robbing a donut stand and cops chasing them. But it was, I mean, I was like in the fourth or fifth grade. So that was definitely my goal even as I got older was to become a cop somewhere. When you graduated high school, where did you go?

This was still where in college was pushed pretty hard. So I went to Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia. It was one of the only schools. I could get into really with my with my grades but uh it was great I had a black coming going from an all-male Catholic military high school to a college setting was fun maybe a little too fun actually because um it was a good time I will say this going back it was even in high school like alcohol wasn't a big deal in my house um it wasn't something that was completely frowned upon in high school you know, going to parties or people coming to our house, we could drink in the backyard.

You know, dad or mom would collect the keys and make sure if you're drinking, you're staying in the night or whatever. But alcohol was never really a big deal. So, I mean, my dad, my dad and one of my best friends' dad, they bought us kegs for our high school graduation at 18. So they just, you know, they taught us as long as you're doing it responsibly. I'd rather you do it here than somewhere else and try to drive home type thing.

But because I wanted to be a cop, the one thing I didn't touch was I wouldn't touch drugs, man. My friends in high school actually tried to get me to smoke weed on several occasions. It was like, let's see if we can get Keith to smoke weed this weekend. I wouldn't do it. I just, it was frowned upon still if you wanted to get to law enforcement to smoke weed.

So I just stayed away from it. But there is a caveat. We do dumb shit for women. and I started dating this new girl my senior year of high school, and I tried weed twice. I didn't like it really, to be honest with you. But that was the only time I've ever touched any type of illegal substance in high school or college. And college was the same way, man.

I drank, you know, like any normal college kid, Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night type stuff, tailgated, even bartended in college for about a year and a half or two years when I was there. And, you know, you started getting introduced into the ecstasy, the cocaine, the this and then that. And I just stayed away from it. I had a goal that I wanted to reach, and it didn't include that kind of stuff. And, you know, people are like, oh, man, come on, Keith, you'll love it, you'll love it. And I'm just like, I probably will.

But that's probably why I just shouldn't do it at all. I met my wife, my wife now. I met her in college in 1998, I think we met. And we started dating and stuff. And it was, it was good. I knew I was good. She'll tell you that we weren't going to get married, but I knew right away that we were going to get married at some point.

But she was a year ahead of me in school. So about the time she was about ready to graduate college, I, college just wasn't working out. I was bartending. I was getting home at 4 a.m. The 12 noon classes I had were way too early to wake up for if you're getting home at 4. So I just, I wasn't really going to class. I took out all the loans myself.

So a lot of the surrounding police departments started recruiting out of college. They would come to the criminal justice classes and, you know, they were like, just take the test. You don't need a college degree. So they kind of planted the seed like, why am I spending all this money if this is what I want to do anyway? So when my girlfriend at the time graduated, she was from Northern Virginia, the D.C. area. She moved back to D.C. doing dumb stuff that for women, I moved back to Richmond. And we just kind of long distance dated. It's about a 90-mile difference from Richmond to the Northern Virginia area.

So I just started doing, you know, construction type work and applying for police departments. And 9-11 hit. and I had an application in for the Port Authority up in the D.C. area, and I got hired in 2002 was when I started the Police Academy. As a Port Authority cop. Yeah. We went to a regional academy. The Academy has like, I don't know, 10 different departments in there, but it was fun, man.

I didn't mind it at all. The academics were, what the academics were, but for the most part, you know, you got paid to work out, learn how to shoot guns and drive cars, and then, you know, learn the legal stuff, the self-defense stuff. I just, I was really interested in it. So I did well. What's the difference between butter and butter made from real California dairy? It's the real California farm families behind it. Real people, real care, real intention. Why? Because real matters. So whether you're pouring mills, melting cheese or just grabbing one more spoonful of yogurt.

Keep it real. Look for the seal. Real California milk by Real California Farm Families. Own it all. Pay off your home, travel for life, drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Buckslot Machine by Aristocrat Gaming, Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is giving one person a $1.6 million dream package. The biggest prize in Yamava's history.

Club Serrano members can earn daily instant prizes and secure a spot in the finale May 29. Don't pass go and own it all. Only at Yamaba, celebrating its 40th anniversary. U.N. Details at yamava.com must be 21-20. Please gamble responsibly. Monopoly is a trademark of Hasbro. Hasbro is not a sponsor of this promotion.

Crack a Cayman Jack margarita and taste your escape. It's America's number one for a reason. Camin Jack is a premium malt beverage with flavors. Please drink responsibly. Kamen Jack beverage company, Chicago, Illinois. In the Academy. What is a Port Authority cop?

I mean, we hear that famously. with New York. I think that's what resonates with people the most. Just transportation. Like we do the major airports in the D.C. area. And so Dulles,

Reagan, Dulles actually has, they own a large portion of highway in between Dulles and Reagan. So it's like 20 miles each way of a four-lane highway. Each way. So when I graduated the Academy,

that's where I was. station was dullest and that's the one I wanted because it had the highway and you could get into more stuff kind of thing but um I think generally port authority is like New York port authority is everything I think it's the boat ports the trains the airports I think it's all like just all the transportation type stuff um DC's a little different the airports have their own the metro has their own um um Amtrak has their own type police department so I think it's just a little different in the areas you go to and some are not even port authority some are you know just the local jurisdiction in that area

um like bw i has they they don't have just a the baltimore airport it's just the local police police the airport so it just depends on your jurisdiction were you stationed at the airport once you first got in yeah at delis um it was fun i mean it was it was uh i had to do after a six-month out of me. I did 12 weeks of field training and then you were cut loose on your own. And I like the highway. It was just, it was the major highway from D.C. into Virginia. So you could get, you know, you could get all kinds of stuff. There was D.U.I. Galore, if you wanted them because they're coming from the clubs in D.C. back home. You know, you could get your, your large money seizures coming from D.C. to North Virginia or vice versa. Your, your, your narcotics going in and out of D.C. and

So it was, it was fun for me. But, you know, growing up thinking about being a cop, realizing what being a cop is, they don't tell you everything. You know, and it's, they don't, what they, people don't tell you is whether you're a cop for one year or 25 years, you're going to pay a price mentally and physically. It's everybody has to pay it. It's just nobody's ever going to go in or come out the way they went in. you know so i mean i realized that three months in to uh being cut loose on my own i i saw a kid well i saw a vehicle it was going like 30 miles an hour weaving in and out of the roads and i was like oh i got one here at 30 in a 55 mile an hour zone so i stop him i go up to the

window and he's uh i mean he's all the telltale signs of drunk it's he's got liquid on his shirt um his flies unbuttoned he smelled he smells like a bar. So I get him out of the car and, you know, he does his field sobriety test. He fails them absolutely miserably. I give him a breath test, which he agreed to take. And I think he was, he was either a two, two, two, three times the legal limit. So that's pretty drunk. So, you know, I handcuff him and I take him to the back of his car and my backup officer comes. And thankfully, a sergeant showed up. And they usually don't show up to those. So he was just passing by so he showed up. And back in early 2002, you know, 2002, we didn't have cage cars

like they have now. We might have one or two, but most cars were just an open vehicle. So what would we do, if they weren't combative, is we would just transport them in the front seat next to us. So I arrested for DUI and I looked at the backup officer and I was like, hey, can you watch this guy so I could clear out my front seat? Because your front seats where you keep all your duty bags and all that stuff, your lunchbox, whatever. So he's like, yeah, I'll watch them. And thankfully the sergeant heard that. Because as I went back to my car, the sergeant went to his car to do the impound.

And he was supposed to be watching the arrestee. This kid's handcuffed behind his back. And as I opened my door to grab my back, I just see kind of like a flash. And I look up and he's in handcuffs. And he's looking left down the highway. And there's an 18-wheeler. coming and he runs the back officer was not watching him as the 18 wheelers come and he runs and he just jumps um and he mistimed it a little bit he did so he didn't get hit head on he didn't get hit head on

but uh he hit the side of it and it's like it was a car carrier one of those big metal you know 18 wheelers that carry all the cars so it spun him like i don't know it spun him through him about 50, feet ripped him out of his shoes um so i run over there and and he's a mess uh he's a mess but he's still alive he's still breathing so we do all the other stuff we shut down the road we call ems all the other cops start showing up and uh i remember a state trooper showed up and he was an old crusty state trooper and um i'm brand new man i think i'm 23 years old and he comes up he goes hey young fellow who's whose traffic stop was this i was like mine and he goes your career's fucked and he just walks away and i'm thinking like i'm brand new i'm like oh god

i'm like i knew it was bad but you know is my career done already um so helicopter lands flies the kid to the hospital um and i get to the hospital and i'm sitting there waiting while he's in you know the trauma room uh he ended up living he was pretty jacked up but he ended up surviving but i was talking to his parents His parents showed up. And I thought he was just a drunk. I thought he was just a two-three man, like a three-times illegal limit.

But his parents were telling me that he was a special needs kid that had stolen his parents' car and got hammered at a bar. And I forgot what he had. I think he was either severely autistic or ass burgers. I forgot which one it was. But his parents were very nice. I mean, they didn't hold any animosity towards me whatsoever. But they're telling me the story in how the kid grew up.

And they were saying when he was, he would get bullied in school, he would run head first into like a brick wall and knock himself out. So it started putting the puzzle piece together of why he did what he did

on the side of the road. He knew he was in trouble. I guess he kind of saw me as the bully and I guess that was his out. But I remember going home at 7, 8 o'clock in the morning and I felt awful. I just, I felt bad.

I couldn't get the sight of the collision out of my brain. And I just felt like shit. You know? I felt guilty. He was my prisoner. He was my responsibility. This happened to him.

But who you're going to tell? I'm brand new, man. I'm a rookie cop. I'm not going to tell another cop that that bothers me. Then I started questioning myself, am I cut out for this? Can I handle this shit? So those are all the things that are kind of going through my head. But then, you know, my upbringing kicks in.

And it's like, stop being a bitch, push that shit down and get back to work. So that's what I did. And, you know, shortly after that, the dark humor starts in law enforcement. I show up the next day and there's a matchbox 18 wheeler with a little GI Joe getting run over on my locker and shit like that. And it is funny. It's funny now. It wasn't funny the next day. I was like, oh, my God.

What's up, Lockton listeners? It's your host, Ian. And I want to make sure you guys are aware we just launched our official Lockton with Ian Bick figures. I personally sign each and everyone. And you can opt in to get a special message written on the box as well. if you choose to do so for no extra cost. These figures are selling for 2499, and they include wristbands and stickers,

and there's also a 20% discount. That is available on the site when you go to check out. There will be a message that pops up to insert your email. These figures are great. It's an awesome collectible item, and I appreciate you guys for support in the show. All these years later from that incident, do you think it'll ever leave your mind,

or is that something you're always going to think about? Oh, it's always going to be there. And, you know, I'll get into it. But I've done a lot of work to minimize the effect it has on me. Like, I'll talk about it a lot now and actually talking about it helps. But it, it's not going anywhere. It's a memory that is just etched in stone, I guess, you know. But, yeah, I just, I was really quick.

questioning whether, you know, like I kind of had what it, what it took to do the job. So what made you stay? Why did you figure out in your mind that you did have what it took? It was just, I just, I convinced myself that, uh, yeah, I kind of convinced myself. It's like, like, you're being a little bitch. Stop, dude. Like, stop. Just get back to work.

Push it down as far as you can go and get back to work. And that works for a little while, you know? but you can only put so much shit down in a cup before it starts overflowing but that was just one of the big ones that I shoved down there and I just got back to work and then I started joking about it because I guess I don't know

it made me feel better at the time just to joke about it or whatever but it was one of the first that I can just recall bothering me. The thing that we do in law enforcement, um, not so much now than we did 20 years ago when I started was,

uh, choir practice, man. It's, we called it choir practice, but what it was was, half the shift gets off at 10. You collect the money and get the booze. The other shift, half gets off at 11. You meet in the police parking lot. And from 11 to 2 or 3 in the morning, you just sit with the guys and hammer back some, some beer. Um, So through high school and college, you know, I party like a regular kid on the weekends and stuff. Alcohol started to become more of a regular, you know. I was living with my, well, my wife, but my girlfriend at the time. I got engaged right after the academy, so my fiancé at the time.

She was a teacher. She went to bed at 9 or 10, and she was out of the house by, you know, early in the morning. So I got off at 11. There's no need to rush home. She's already in bed. So I might as well just hang out with the fellas and drink beer in the parking lot. And it was condoned. I mean, our supervisors, we had sergeants, we had lieutenants, we would all just kind of sit around and drink beer.

And it's how we decompressed and unwound for the day. If you had a really shitty day, choir practice. If you had an amazing day and had a great arrest, choir practice. If people were just bored, choir practice. It just became a regular event, not just at that police department, but, If you talk to most police officers, they'd been there for a minute. This happens all over the place. That's what we were taught to do, you know?

It was kind of just self-medicate with alcohol. How long did you stay with Port Authority for? So I was only there for about two years. I wanted to do the stuff I saw on TV. I wanted to get into car chases. I wanted to get in the foot pursuits. I wanted to go somewhere where the action was really hopping. So I convinced my wife that, you know, we were about to get married.

I convinced her, I said, hey, look, Northern Virginia is way too expensive. If we moved to Richmond an hour and a half south, it's a lot cheaper cost of living. We can get a house. I could probably get on a police department down there and, you know, we'll be better off. So she agreed. And I applied for the Richmond City Police Department and got hired. And end of 2003, beginning of 2004. And that's what we did.

down there, bought a house, started with the Richmond police. I was like, I've been a cop for two years. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but it was crazy. You know, they stick the new guys in the worst areas. And I mean, right away, it's just robberies, shootings, stabbings, vehicle pursuit, domestic assaults, your gamut of law enforcement. But it's what I wanted to do. I was actually having a blast at the beginning, you know? And I'd come home so excited.

I'm like, I got a car chase today. And then I got a foot pursuit and I caught this guy and this, that, and the other. And my wife stopped me because I worked 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. 12 hour shifts down there. And she just looked right at me. She goes, she said, stop. She says, you are gone from seven at night to seven in the morning. And I worry enough.

I don't want to know what you do at work. I don't want to hear any of it. So some wives, I want to hear all of it. Some want to hear none of it. So it just shut another door, man. It shut another door for me to vent what happens during the day. So just like at the Port Authority, Richmond had choir practice. And that's how I decompressed, man.

We would either sit in the parking lot and drink or we would go to Third Street Diner. Third Street Diner was open 24 hours a day. MCV hospitals right there in downtown Richmond. And MCV, the medical college is, Virginia's there. So you show up at Third Street Diner at 8 o'clock in the morning, and it's full of nurses and doctors and cops, and they had drink specials for breakfast. So we would regularly go to Third Street, man, order pitchers of beer and Jack and Cokes

and bacon and eggs, and it was packed. So again, it just became a regular thing to kind of decompress after a 12-hour shift in the city. What was one case that really stuck out to you in those early days of the Richmond Police Department? Man, there's so many. This is going to sound strange. Murders didn't bother me much. It just didn't. We averaged, I think, about 120 a year down there.

So I saw a lot. But I think I could compartmentalize that as, hey, I know you, you're a drug dealer. It's part of the game. You got shot. Gang on gang. It, you know. there's very few innocent innocent people that just got you had a few that that were uh you know that truly just innocent people but it's a lot of times you knew the guys because you're in the same

neighborhood every day um and that might sound cold but it was just i could my brain could could put it in a different file somewhere i did get a call one day for um it came out as a car wreck into a house and I get there and the car had rolled into the house. It wasn't like an accident. It was left and drive and it was in July and it was a red Toyota. And I look in the back and the windows are up. The car is off and it's July and I look in the back and there's a toddler in the car seat. And you could tell right away that toddler had been there way too long. So I did break the the pasture window, opened the door. There's nothing you could do that baby had been deceased for a minute.

That's one of the first times I remember that choir practice was not happening for me. I didn't want to hang out with the guys. I didn't want to go to Third Street Diner. I knew my wife would be leaving as soon as I got home. And I went home and just got absolutely obliterated by myself. It just, I think, I think I can categorize, you know, the certain deaths differently. I think fatal car accidents really bothered me. They stuck with me for some reason.

The kid they got hit by the truck stuck with me. The baby stuck with me. I think it's just because it could be anybody, man. A fatal car could be my sister, brother, cousin, wife, kid, you know? It's just the randomness of it. Those always kind of stuck in my brain a little more than anything. But I remember after dealing with that toddler that it was, I just didn't want to be around anybody. I just went home.

And that was probably one of the first times I remember going home and absolutely just getting drunk as pissed by myself. I just want to turn the brain off, dude. So that's what I did. In those early years, do you feel like you had a drinking problem? Either in the moment or looking back on it now. I don't think I had a drinking problem because I didn't need to drink. It was just my outlet for that time. And it wasn't like an everyday thing for me yet.

But like the culture of it was definitely not good. It just, it introduced alcohol into, it wasn't just a party thing. It wasn't a weekend thing. It was like everyday decompression thing that, that I was taught, you know, and it just, it becomes habit-forming because you just, you feel like that's what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to go and have two drinks to relax before. you go to sleep, you know, kind of thing. What was the worst call you ever responded to?

The worst call I ever responded to was January 2006 on January 1st, 2006. I was getting off work at, I think I worked eight to eight that day. And a call came out for house fire. And we get to the house and the fire departments in there doing what they do. And I think like when a house is completely engulfed in smoke and they can't see, I think what firefighters do is they hug a wall and they kind of just walk the wall to see if anybody's in there. Well, there was people in there and they brought out a woman and a child into the front yard. And immediately you could tell that it was, they had duct tape her on their feet. their hands, their necks were cut, and their heads were bashed in with hammers.

And it was a mom, a dad, a nine-year-old, and a four-year-old girl. And what had happened is these guys from Philly got out of prison. They were in prison, I believe, for 10 years for robbery. And when they got out, they swore that they were going to keep robbing, but this time they were going to kill everybody they robbed. and at 7 o'clock in the morning in Richmond it's a Sims Avenue it's separated by like to the left of it

it's kind of more section 8 and to the right of it is like big money houses it's we're literally separated by street and what they did was they just they went to several houses and tried doorknops man and their front door was unlocked and they just went in there with kitchen knives and duct taped them robbed them and killed them and set the house on fire

And then literally like two or three days later, the same guys, I was eating, I'll never forget it, man, I was eating pizza. Me and my partner went to a piece of pizza. And we got a call saying, hey, we got to make entry in this house. We think there's, there's been a homicide. So we go to the house with the team that's making entry. And as soon as they kicked the door, there's three people the same way that these people were. And it was just, they just went on a spree in Richmond. I think that was, I know that was the absolute worst thing I think I've ever seen.

To see two little girls in that kind of condition was just not, you can't imagine it, you know, until you actually see it. Did you guys catch them? Yeah, they were caught, they were caught back in Philly. The second three people that they killed was actually, what happened was when they got out, when he was in prison, they were pin paling a girl in Richmond through prison. So when they got released, they came down to see this girl. And she drove the getaway car for the first homicide. She started talking.

So the second three people that were killed was the girlfriend, the girlfriend's mom and the girlfriend's dad. Because when we went in there and found those three people, the wedding ring from the first lady was on the dead girlfriend's finger. And then there were some other Christmas gifts and stuff that were in that house. but they stole that van and they went back to Philly and that's where they found them. They, I think they killed three or four more people, three or four more people on the way down from Philly or back or something like that. But yeah, they caught him in Philly within a week, a week or so of that.

And I believe one's doing life and then one was killed by the state in like 2018. When you go onto a crime scene and you see horrific things like that, how do you process that mentally? When you're there, it's not a big deal. When you're there, it's just like you're focused on your job, your training kicks in, and you kind of, you're just doing it. It's just, it's part of the gig. It's not to like you go home or a couple of days later that it really kicks in. And, oh, I guess we can get into it now or at the end, but I work that. the

the Reagan National Airport helicopter plane crash this past February Oh you did Yeah tell us about that plane crash It was awful man I got off work and I was at home And one of my first cousins

Is in the Navy And he works at the Pentagon And he texts me He goes are you at Reagan I wrote no And he goes He writes he texts back thank God Like what's what's that

Then my mom my mom texts me are you at regan it's like what's what's going on at regan so you know obviously i hit i i started looking at my phone and it's just you know text messages start coming in about about the plane crash um and now i'm on now i'm on our police department's like peer support team so um ran upstairs through a uniform on and and got to regan and when i got down there um I went, I called one of my bosses and, you know, he was like, I'm going to be here. He goes, once you meet me here, I said, we're very tight with our fire department because it's such a small department. So I said, where are the fire guys bringing the bodies?

And he said, they're coming to the North Pier. I said, I'll be at the North Pier. And I went down there to kind of support the fire guys and the other cops that were down there. And it's like, you know, you, you know it's going to be bad, but you don't know how bad it is until you actually get there. So for the first about three hours, I was at the casualty collection point

where they were bringing the remains of the people. And it was pretty bad, man. But like I said, it's work time. So it's like you're kind of focused on work. You don't anticipate, we didn't anticipate a junior Olympic ice skating team being on the plane. So there was a lot of children

on that plane. So when that started, when that started, you know, when you started getting the knowledge that how many kids were coming on, you kind of prepare yourself a little more. But it was, it's just, it's something you, it's something your brain really can't process until, until it happens type stuff. It's also a scenario that not every law enforcement officer is going to experience in their career. I feel like it's one of those things where you might not necessarily even be prepared to see

or trained for because it's not as common as, say, a shooting or another incident. Yeah, I mean, a massive, a massive plane clash, like, especially, like, you know, I guess historically when they go down, it's not right at the airport. It's off somewhere where, so, yeah, it's, it was, it was unexpected. Long days for a couple weeks. I think I did, you know, double shifts for, like, 16 straight days there. it's a lot of work to be done, you know. It was mainly a fire department, a fire department case with the recovery and all that stuff.

But as far as, you know, controlling the evidence, because it still needs to be investigated by the FBI, the FAA, all that stuff. So, you know, every little piece was collected and put in this big hangar, and we kind of had to assist with that. But the prior to that, and I guess we can go back, is I've done a lot of work to help myself through situations like this. So, but I violated the cardinal rule, man. I went home the next couple of days and started looking at Facebook and Instagram. And the pictures of the people on the plane started coming up. And then I started reading about it. This girl did this and she was this in the Olympics.

And what it does is it took. what I categorized in my brain is like evidence, police work, crime scene, and it gave it real life type stuff, and that jacked me up for a little bit. We're almost halfway through the year, and a lot of people are running on empty without fully realizing it. Grow therapy helps you find care that's covered by insurance before burnout becomes the baseline. Whether it's your first time in therapy or your 50th, grow makes it easier to find a therapist who fits you, not the other way around.

They connect you with thousands of independent licensed therapists across the U.S., offering both virtual and in-person sessions nights and weekends. You can search by what matters like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability, and get started in as little as two days. And if something comes up, you can cancel up to 24 hours in advance at no cost. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments, you just pay per session. Grow helps you find therapy on your time. Whatever challenges you're facing, Grow Therapy is here to help. Grow accepts over 100 insurance plans, including Medicaid in some states. Sessions average about $21 with insurance, and some pay as little as $0,

depending on their plan. Visit growtherapy.com slash book now to get started. That's growth therapy.com slash book now. Growtherapy.com slash book now. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. because it started just humanizing everything you saw. When something like that happens, is it weird in your mind to see life go on around you? Like a lot of people, say you're out of Starbucks and you were just on that scene and you walk in and those people have no idea what you just witnessed and they're just going about their normal everyday life.

And that happened so close to that area. Yeah, I think it bothers me more that people were complaining if flights were canceled. I mean, it's just the way of the world, people just don't give a shit, man. They just, they wanted to get on their plane. And it's like, we just had a major crash with 70 plus people dead. And, you know, you're worried about your plane being delayed for a day or so or whatever. So it's aggravating, I think, a little bit.

On a lighter note of things, can you tell us maybe a funny story about responding to an airport, maybe to pull off an unruly passenger or anything like that. Yeah. You wouldn't believe how many naked people we have just run around the airport, bro. Like people get high and stuff and just run around the airport nude. But we had, there's so much stuff. I can't.

A lot of, it's not funny because it's actually kind of sad, but there's a lot of like mentally ill people that show up at airports and stuff. But I would say the most, the funniest stuff is what we do to each other because it's, I mean, we can fuck with each other like nobody's business. I remember with the long highway, we have a lot of deer strikes. And I remember we went to a call and there was a brand new rookie officer that I guess was getting on people's nerves or whatever. They wouldn't lock their car or something like that. And there was a little dead deer on the side of the road. when he came back to his car, that deer was zip-tied driving, like, on the steering wheel and stuff.

It's just a lot of weird, dark humor stuff. But you have a lot of people get pulled off planes. And I don't know if it's very comical. It's just, I don't know if it's comical. It's just, it's like all they care about is themselves. You know what I mean? Like, it's, they'd rather everybody get off the plane, then the cops have to come on the plane and get them up.

Instead of just getting up and leaving. A lot of people just like to, I don't know, inconvenience to everybody else if they're having a bad day sometimes. When the pilot puts in a call that there's an issue, is it the feds that respond or is it Port Authority or the local police that respond to the airport? Yeah. So if something happens and the door is shut, so if the door is shut and the plane is moving at all, even if it's taxiing out to the runway, it's federal. If the door's open and it's out of gate, it's local. Okay. Yeah. Will you guys still respond to back up the feds?

Yes. Okay. And a lot of times, yeah, a lot of times we'll get there and either detain or do whatever until the feds have to get there. But, yeah, so, Richmond was fun. I had a good time, but, you know, it definitely took its mental toll on some calls. My wife hated Richmond. She couldn't stand it. We had my son in 2005, and she's a Montessori school teacher.

So there's one on every corner in northern Virginia. There's none in Richmond. So she was working at a daycare, and she wasn't making any money. Richmond paid a lot less than the airport authority. So we were barely paying bills. And I was gone all the time. So I ended up getting hurt on a call. It was a call at a illegal bar.

We called it a nip joint. A house turned into a bar, basically. And the call came out of someone getting stabbed in the bar. So I get on scene and you're not supposed to go in by yourself. So I'm just sitting there. And the backup officer is lost. I think they worked at headquarters, but they were working in overtime shifts.

They didn't know the area as well. I'm just sitting there like, come on, man. Like if somebody's getting stabbed, he got to go. And it got to the point where I just did the stupid thing and went in by myself. I was like, if somebody's getting stabbed, I need to stop it. So I go in this bar by myself in the middle of the city of Richmond off Jeff Davis Highway. And I got my ass kicked pretty severely. I thought it might be it that day.

to be honest with you. I thought it was it was kind of going to be over. But the Calvary came pretty quick. So after that, you know, get some staples in my head. I had to have, my bone was popping out of them. I had to get my ligaments reattached in my hand. And it was the week my son was getting baptized at our church in Richmond. So after that, the wife was just done. She said, I'm done with this place like we're we're we're leaving and uh i couldn't blame her you know so uh in o eight i called the airport authority back and that's how i ended up back at the airport authority uh so i got back there in 2008 and i was on patrol again and everything was fine she got a good job that she liked um and an investigative job opened up so i applied for the investigative job

And I got it. And the investigative job was assigned to the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Course out of Washington, D.C. Man, that was the best job. I loved it. I was on a domestic terrorism squad. My partner and I did mostly white supremacy investigations. I went to several undercover schools, did some of that. And we just, our squad kind of was a response squad to.

It was domestic terrorism, but if something big happened in the district or Northern Virginia, we would respond to it. So like any major shootings, any, like, bomb threats, stuff like that, we would go. And then we would determine whether it was federal or local, then we would take it from there. One of the first ones I went to was a shooting at the Family Research Council in 2000. 12 maybe 11. I don't know if you remember this, but back then in like 2012 to 11 and 12, Chick-fil-A came out against gay marriage. I thought they were against it to begin with. But it was all over the news.

It was like the big thing. And the Family Research Council was like a right-wing religious think tank in D.C. And Floyd Lee Corkins was a gay rights activist. And he went into the Family Research Council, went to the front desk, unarmed guard. And they said, who are you here to see? And he came up with some name. He goes, oh, it's written down somewhere. Let me check.

So he puts his backpack down, comes out with a gun. And his plan was to shoot as many people as he could. And he had a bag full of Chick-fil-A. He was going to put Chick-fil-A sandwiches on the dead people. But what he didn't expect was the first round literally went right past. the security guard's head. The second one shattered his left forearm. But then that security guard beat the brakes off that kid, took his gun from him,

and basically held him after the cops came. So he prevented a mass shooting that day. But when he was getting arrested, you know, he just, he kept yelling, it's not about you, it's about this place and their political stance. So violence to change a political narrative is that's the definition pretty much of domestic terrorism by threat or acts of violence. So that was one of the first cases I worked. And it was just interesting to see how it went, you know. How do you guys get brought on once that happens?

Who calls you and then what's the investigation process? So DC police got there. And I don't know who called, but very quickly, our boss comes out and it was like, you guys get down to family research council. I had an amazing partner, Tom O'Connor. He did 20 some years doing domestic terrorism. And that's very rare. Most feds hop from job to job to job sometimes or move up in the ranks.

He loved it so much. He stayed there his whole time. So he was kind of the subject matter expert. And I was lucky enough to be his partner. So Tom ran point on the investigation. And basically, D.C. called because of the statements he was making and said, we think this might be federal. So we went down there and we did the preliminary work with D.C.

Like we just shared information, put it all together and then the bigwigs, you know, determine who was going to take it. So they never gave it to us. And it was a good investigation, man. It was one of the first investigations I had where everything was caught on video. from him buying the gun to his metro trip in, the day before he actually ran surveillance to see if he could get into the building.

She had to get buzzed into the building. So even the day before, he rang the bell and said, I'm here for an interview and they let him in. He's like, then he went in and said, oh, wrong building and left. So he just did the same thing the next day. But the crazy part is when he bought his gun

to do the mass shooting, there was a French news reporter at the gun store who was literally doing a documentary on how easy it is to buy a gun in the U.S. and become an active shooter. And they interviewed him. And we got all the foot, like we went to the French TV station in D.C.

And they gave us all the raw footage of him being interviewed about it. And it was a good case, man. He ended up pleading guilty. And I think, I believe he had 25. years. But, but, I mean, there were great cases there. The public looks at a lot of these, you know, massive tragedies and shootings. And there'll be people on social media that flood these videos and news stories and say, how did this happen? It doesn't even seem possible. And then

you go down in that rabbit hole of the conspiracies of it was someone else or they got the wrong suspect. What do you say to those types of people? Like the Charlie Kirk stuff? That, I mean, all of these young shooters or guys that you would think it's impossible. I just think it's crazy, man. I mean, I can't imagine anyone having someone come up to you and be like, hey, Ian, you don't like Charlie, right? This is what we're going to do. We're going to have a trained assassin shoot him, but I want you to write two letters confessing to it, jump off a roof on video and then admit to it. I just, it's, I just don't.

And then. Then you got to bribe the corner saying that it was a 30 out six, but the bullet didn't go through. And it's just too much, man. I just, sometimes it just is what it is, you know. Conspiracy theories are fun. I can go down a rabbit hole myself, too. I mean, I can look at some of the stuff and be like, how did Building 7 fall down in New York, you know? I mean, you also have to look at that.

Some of America's greatest tragedy shooting-wise has been carried out. out by individuals who you would never expect to do something anyways, but it's proven that they actually did it. Yeah. So it's not, you can't say that that guy, say the Charlie Kirk shooting didn't do it. Yeah. It's very possible that he did. 100%.

Um, and it's, um, I don't know. I don't know how, it's fun. It's entertaining to go down rabbit holes. It's fun for me to read some of the stuff. And even though I think some of the stuff's comical. It's just, it's, uh, It's good entertainment is what it is. And a lot of people, it gets you clicks, right?

So people participate in it, I guess. Working in that, you know, I'm sure you've responded to a lot of threats made against schools. Threats made against schools are more local, local police type stuff. That wouldn't fall under domestic, like if there's a school shooting or anything like that? So, no. So a school shooting would be more. it's a mass criminal event, you know. The only way it goes into like the domestic terrorism is if they're doing it for

ideological or political reasons. Now if you go shoot up a, if you go shoot up a mosque because you don't like Muslims, domestic terrorism. If you go shoot up a school because you got bullied there and you don't like the people, it's criminal. Does that make sense? Yeah. So if you go shoot up like the Family Research Council is because you don't like their political, and religious beliefs, that's how it's domestic terrorism. Oh, interesting.

So, yeah, like the baseball shooting. Oh, with the congressman? Yeah. You responded to that. I remember when that happened. Yeah. I saw the list that was in his pocket. So, yeah, that was a complicated one because the FBI management at the time classified

it as criminal. and it was the definition of domestic terrorism. So our squad was a little perturbed that it was classified that way. He was really lucky to be alive after that shooting, right? Who's that? The congressman. Oh, yeah, 100%. He was an intense.

I think they thought that he wasn't going to make it. Yeah, we didn't think he was. But, I mean, if you've got a list of Republicans you want dead in your population, because you want dead in your pocket when you go shoot them. It's you're doing it for political reasons. And it's the definition of domestic terrorism. And getting into why the management at the time classified as criminal is above my pay grade at the time, you know.

But, you know, the one that really was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back for me was the Navy. was the Navy Yard active shooter in 2013. So we had radios along our window still of all the D.C. police channels. And the call came out as an active shooter, two Middle Eastern males with AK-47 shooting at the Navy Yard. And my boss ran out at the time. And he was like, he goes, you guys get there. And it was me and this guy named Shea.

He was a D.C. police officer, a great cop. and so we hop in my car and we go the mile and a half two miles to the to the Navy Yard and usually a lot of times in police work like it's over before you have time to think about it like I got shot out a few times in Richmond and stuff and it's usually it's like oh damn that was close but it's over um this is one of the few times where it was like active and you had time to kind of think about it before you got there and um we get to the Navy Yard and you know I popped my trunk and I'm throwing my I was in plain clothes and I throw

my tactical tactical vest on and I remember like I was like shit why am I even putting this on dude because an AK-47 rounds gonna go right through this son of a bitch and he's just like hurry up man we gotta go so we throw our vests on and the gate was shut at the Navy Yards so we had to run the two blocks down to the front of the building

and initially the I don't know if as a captain or lieutenant didn't want us to go in because we were in plain clothes and he was worried about like a cop-on-cop shooting but we had the attack vest on it said big police on the front so basically what they did was they split us up they let Shea go in with the first group of five so it was

two uniform people She and then two uniformed people and they were uniforms and they had a bunch of them had long guns all we had was our pistols and then I went in with the second group And I remember going in because as soon as you cross the threshold of the building, there was a deceased security guard like right at the door. So he kind of had to step over him.

There were a large, because I remember the large bottle of blood. I was like, you think about the dumbest shit. I was like, I just bought these fucking shoes, man. And now I got to step through. But I remember thinking that for some reason. And then I remember like it was an atrium. The Navy Yard was two city blocks long. one building two city blocks long, four stories high with an atrium.

And I just remember thinking if he's on the second or third floor with an AK pointing at the front door, I was like, we are all done as soon as we walk in this place. So to say I wasn't scared shitless would be a lie. But there's no way I'm not going in. So thankfully he wasn't there. And we go in and we're looking for this guy. And it's skiffed out. So it's sensitive material.

Each cubicle had like five foot high walls on each little cube. And I'm like five four, five five on a good day, bro. So seeing over a five foot wall looking for a bad guy was not fun. It was a maze, dude. It was like a maze trying to find that guy. And then you start coming upon, you know, injured people and, uh, and, and people that were killed. And I believe 12 people were killed in that building before, um,

before we got there. But the first lady I saw was a black female in a royal blue dress right by her desk, and she was just missing half her head. And I think it just goes back to like that. She's just sitting at her desk, man. She's just a civilian sitting at her desk doing work. And now like half of her head is gone. And most of the people that were killed in that building were, it wasn't an AK-4.

47. It was a shotgun and they were, I'd say over half of them were point blank to the face with a double-out buckshot shotgun. So it was a very gruesome. It was a very gruesome scene. I didn't get in a shootout with the bad guy. I wasn't even around. I was on the other side of the building when it was a DC. Please Ready or not, summer is coming And Wayfair's Memorial Day clearance Is on now. Right now through May 25th, get up to 70% off everything home at Wayfair.

Plus score amazing doorbuster deals All sale long and surprise flash deals on Memorial Day. We're talking thousands of products at every style and budget. Now is the time to save big on must-habs for your patio, backyard, and beyond. These savings won't last. So don't wait. Shot Wayfair's Memorial Day clearance now through May 25th.

Wayfair, every style, every home. Officer in a capital, police officer, they ended up shooting a bad guy. I can't even imagine responding to a call like that while the shooter's still active. And you have to kind of navigate processing who's alive, who's not alive, and while you're searching for the shooter.

It was definitely, it was a cluster, man, to be honest with you, because the building's so big. I believe 77 cops went in that building looking for him that day. I think that's what the number was. But D.C. is D.C. Everybody in D.C. has their own police department.

So going to that building, you had D.C. police. You had us to FBI. You had U.S. Marshals. You had Park Police. You had Capitol Police. There was like six different agencies in there. Everybody's on different radio channels. Nobody knows what each other's doing.

Somebody pulled the fire alarm. So now you're hearing the fire alarm going off. You know, then you got your injured and you're screaming and all this other stuff. So it was very chaotic. And we're lucky it was a shotgun to some extent because you can only hold so many shotgun shells and a shotgun. But what he had done was after he killed that security guard at the door, he took the security guard's pistol.

So he had both. And yeah, it was after a while, we're like, all right, we got to find the second shooter. And I mess with the SWAT guys Because SWAT guys love to blow shit up And we're like All right, this is over There can't be another shooter

And all of a sudden we start hearing gunfire again So then the oh shit factor happens again And what it was was it was SWAT guys Shotgun Breaching doors that were locked To see if anybody was in there And then you know Somebody finally had the bright idea of Let's get absolutely everybody out

And then we'll systematically send they sent SWAT teams back in. So like the FBI SWAT team had the fourth floor, Secret Sir or Capital had the second floor, DC had the third floor. And that's how they ended up completely clearing the building. But after that was ever, you know, our squad started the investigative portion

because you don't know if it's domestic terrorism or a crime at that or criminal at that point. So, you know, Shay and I meet up and we start going into the video room looking at video to see if we can see if there's anybody else or all. this other stuff and after that was over we go outside and uh i was like shay it's got to be lunchtime bro i'm starving it was like 4 30 in the afternoon i had no concept of time my fbi issue blackberry

was in my car um so finally make my way back up to the car take my vest off get my phone my wife called me like 15 16 times man um after talking to her she said when she was teaching i guess one of the ladies she worked with said there was an active shooter in dc and she said, I knew you'd go. She said, I knew you'd be there. So she wasn't happy that, you know, nine hours went by from the time she found out about it to the time I called her. But that was all right.

We ended up going and find it. We're like, where is everybody at? Like, we have a whole squad. Where is everybody at? So we end up finding them and they're at a, the weird part is it's called Central Command now, if something big happens, you have a central command because after the Navy yard,

what happened was FBI had a command, D.C. had a command. And nobody knew what each other was doing. So that's, I guess, how the, the D.C. area started to have like one big one to share information, but we couldn't find our people. So we finally found the FBI command post.

And I was not anticipating this, but we started getting our ass reams, man. Why did you go in the building? Your fucking rogue officers, rogue task force officers, you self-dispatched. You should have come here and waited further instruction. And we're just like, what did we do? Because we're both patrol cops or street cops. And we're trained a certain way to handle an active shooter.

And it didn't really, like, that's not the FBI's function. You know, the FBI's function is to investigate kind of after things like that happened. but that wasn't our train of thought and we were just told to go down there you know so we started getting reprimanded from supervision there and we were told to go back to the Washington Field Office

they're like I want a report of everything you did everything you saw everything you touched blah blah blah and where's like yes sir fine so me and Shia go back to D.C. The Washington Field Office and I'm just sitting there man my computer screen is just black. It's not even turned on. And I'm just trying to compute what happened today. Like,

I'm trying to process what just happened. And, um, she's like me, man. We sat there for about 10 minutes and she just looks at me and she goes, hey, ship, fuck the FBI. You want to go get a drink? And I was like, fuck. Yeah, dude. We just got up and went to a bar, man. Um, so that's how we were trained and kind of conditioned to treat a bad day. And, uh, and that's what we did. And we dealt with the, uh, We dealt with the fallout later And You know, I've watched your show a lot I've heard some of the cops on here

And they're 1,000% right A lot of times it's not Just the traumatic incident It's how you're treated by your department afterwards And You know, you put your ass on the line And you think you do a good job And then you're treated like a piece of crap afterwards

It just compounds the The stress of the job you know um worrying about like if you're going to get in trouble for everything you every little thing you do when you get back to the station is like um it's one of the big problems in law enforcement now man and as a years go by like um a lot of these supervisors are great managers man they can manage people they can tell you what you're supposed to do where you're supposed to be um what time you're supposed to be there but we Law enforcement now lacks leadership.

Like, come out there and do it with us, dude. Like, show your people how it was 20 years ago. Like, they were out there doing it with you. They were leading by example. And I think that's just lacking in today's police world. But, and then, you know, my department gives me a medal for the Navy Yard. And the three people sitting in the front row and I'm getting the award of the three people yelling at me telling me I shouldn't have been in the building. And it's just like, what?

Like, what's going on here? And then that, you know, then that reprimanded the FBI. Kind of just went away after that because, I guess, you know, what were they going to do after my police department was happy with what I did? Because that's how the police department trained me to handle that stuff. So shortly after that, man, my brain just, my cup was overflowing. It was just overflowing. By this time I had a son and a daughter. My daughter was born in 2010.

So this was 2013. Around 2014, I don't really, the timeline's fuzzy, bro. But I ended up having two ruptured discs in my back. And it wasn't work-related. I think it's just being a short little dude that's worn a duty belt and a vest for, you know, I guess, what, 13 or 14 years at the time. But my discs were blown out. I could, you know, and I don't like doctors.

So I wait until I can't even tie my shoes before I go see a doctor. and my doctor refers me to this spine clinic and I go and the doctor said hey man look we can do two things we can do surgery or we can give you epidurals but the epidurals are going to take a while I was like I don't I was in what my young mid 30s I was like I'm not doing surgery at 30 I've heard horror stories about back surgery so I was going to go with epidurals man and he gave me my first shot and he handed me a prescription of opiates uh game over bro from day one i love that shit the first purpose that i took i fell in love with it

i felt amazing it cleared my head of anything i slept like a baby um it gave me energy if i took one when i woke i was cooking cleaning building shit i was like i was like this is i've been missing this my this is this is what i'm I'm talking. Screw alcohol. This is what I'm talking about. Um, and, you know, having wanted to be a cop my my whole life and never doing drugs, I thought nothing of it. You know, I thought, this is amazing. And, uh, so it was fun for a while. And then, you know, I'd go back a couple months later to get some more shots. And I remember asking the doctor, because I guess addiction started creeping in a little bit. I said, hey, doc, I said, am I getting home?

hooked on this shit and he said why do you say that i said i got to take two like what the bottle says take one one doesn't do nothing i got to take two and he goes nah man you're just getting used to it man we just got to up your dose i was like okay so we up my dose um i rode that train down the tracks for a little bit man and uh i'm drinking on top of them because i'm just used to having beers and stuff at home started getting kind of bad you know if I went through my medicine too quickly

I was wondering why I had the flu I had no idea what was going on I couldn't compute what was going on and then it finally hit me dude like you're dope sick dude it's because you don't have that there's freaking pills in your body and a switch in my brain

had flipped when I took that first one man and I went back to that doctor again and by this time I'm hooked and I don't give a shit I don't care I go back to the doctor I'm like doc I'm getting used to it again buddy he's like do we need to up it again I said you're damn right we do here you go man out the door up it again um so stuff at home started getting pretty difficult um wife was not happy with me um you know I wasn't being the father. I should be to either one of my kids.

And it just got bad, but, you know, the addictive brain does not care. It just tells you that you've got to have this one thing, man. And if you just have this one thing, everything else will be fine. I was definitely doctor shopping a little bit, going to different doctors. And I work at the FBI, buddy. I got a top of your clearance. What do you need? Out the door, you know?

I mean, I played that shit. So the timeline's so fuzzy. So after a while, I realized I couldn't sustain this, man. It was getting too bad. And I go back to the doctor and he's like, well, your discs look good. And I'm like, they've been fine for a while now. But I said, I need off of this, dude. I've got to get off of this stuff.

And he goes, okay, but you can't just stop because you might. I was like, oh, no shit. but he's like, I'll give you a taper. I'm like, okay. So I was dead set on the taper the way he tells me to do it. And I tapered off of it and it sucked. I mean, it was pretty bad. Like the dope sick, this is just no joke.

Your brain goes to some crazy places to convince you to keep doing that stuff. But I didn't. And once that was done, my alcohol took off buddy it went through the roof it went my brain said you got to have something and it was every day drunk every day days off starting in the morning as soon as you woke up

drinking um and that's when the house fell down um I became a even worse dad, a despicable husband. I never touched my wife or kids. Nothing ever got physical, but the stuff that came out of my mouth was file. I said the nastiest shit to my family, man. So that went on for a while.

I mean, I remember having to drink too tall boys just to coach Peewee football. and, you know, why the wife stuck around, I have no idea. But work never knew. Nobody at work ever said one word to me. I do presentations at different police departments and police academies now about subsabuse and law enforcement, because it is a problem, even a lot of times people don't want to admit it. And my boss from the FBI actually comes with me, and we'll get to her part in a second. she'll tell you she had no clue and she saw me every single day she said she never smelted on me

never ever complained about it um i don't know if it's going back to the undercover stuff but i was pretty good at being different people in different environments wherever i had to be so uh the only place that it was very relevant how messed up i was was home um so in 2018 i'd been on task course for eight years and uh it was during the big ISIS stuff. So I was out of the country and I have two little sisters. My little sister closest to my age is two years younger than me. She had married a Lebanese guy from the Lebanese church in Richmond.

He still has family in Lebanon. And they went back to Beirut every summer before it got bad, you know, for a month or two months or whatever. And she was like, hey, aren't you going to be kind of a lot? around this area. I said, yeah. She was, why don't you take a week off and go party with me in Beirut? I was like, that is a fabulous idea, Natalie.

So I took a week off, flew to Beirut, and I don't remember any of it. It was, it's a blur. I look at pictures that she took and I kind of remember some snapshots of it. I was staying at her in-laws, just embarrassing, man.

Drunk the entire time. I mean, I'm usually pretty polite, and I'm just rolling up to these people's house that I've never met at 8 o'clock in the morning in their liquor cabinet and just drinking what they got. You know, it's, it was pretty disgusting. So I was there for a week. I don't remember it. I go back to what I was doing, and my sister flies to Dallas. my house is roughly eight miles from Dulles airports. So she flew to Dulles and then she was going to sleep off her jet lag and then drive to Richmond the next day.

And, you know, unbeknownst to me, she set my wife down. And she was like, I don't what the fuck's going on here. But what Keith just did last week is insane. And if we don't do something, he is going to die. So about four days later, I fly here. home and I come into the house man and my wife was so nice to me and I was like she must really miss me you know she must really miss the drunk asshole um but the detective in me said something's not right here I mean I knew I knew something was what's going on but I'm not going to complain you know so I go

to sleep and I wake up the next day my parents show up my wife's there my in-laws but I'm like I've seen this show, dude. I know it. I know what this is. And I'm trying to play it off, you know. So I don't have a lot of police stuff up in my house. And I've got one little shadow box with the Navy Yard Award and a couple other little ones. And I remember my dad was over there looking at the shadow box.

And I just walk up next to him. And he just put his hand on my back. He goes, you had a great career. I'm like, my ego was up here. Like way up here, man. I was the only person in our entire police department with a TSSC clearance. I worked to the FBI. I answered to the chiefs of police only because they were the only ones cleared for me to tell them information that I had to tell them.

I put my job above my family for over a decade. Like if my phone rang, I don't care what was happening at home. I was gone. I had to go save the world. I'm so important. But it's like How do you How do you pick up the phone and call your boss

And tell them that you're jacked up When like you're their go-to dude for this You're the only person they can do this job right now Or it's cleared to do this job right now Many people can do it But I was the only one to sign there and cleared for it So how do you pick up the phone and just do that Like my ego wouldn't let me do it

So We sit down and You know my parents said with it is I listen to everybody but it I really didn't it was kind of one ear not the other you know I'm in my mid-30s you're not going to yell at me in my own house but my wife said what she had to say and that that devastated me and uh you know she's she gets she just she laid it down man she goes I'm done she goes rehab tomorrow or get the fuck out that's it uh you will never see me and the kids again or you go to rehab tomorrow and she's never said anything like that ever um

even when it was really bad when I was at home. And, you know, I wanted to get help for so long. I knew I was messed up, man. I knew I was messed up for over a year and a half. But like I said, my ego just wouldn't let me admit it. Like, who am I going to tell? So, I mean, I remember being in my basement bathroom where all good alcoholics hold their vodka, you know,

under the basement sink. And I'd just be down there drinking it. And I'd be staring at myself in the mirror, like, how weak and pathetic are you that you can't stop this shit on your own? because I try to stop 50 times. I'd last a day. I might last two days. If I lasted three days,

I just convinced myself I wasn't a drunk and then I'd just start drinking again. But I couldn't stop it on my own. So, you know, I'm not going to lose my family over this stuff. So it's time to pick up the phone, man, and I was scared chitless. I was more scared to pick up that phone than I was going in the Navy Yard.

I tell you. So I pick up the phone. And I text someone in my upper chain of command. And I just, the text simply said, Sir, Shibli, can you give me a call when you get a chance? And he texts me back. I'm on vacation. Is it important?

Yes, sir. It's pretty important. Can you give me calling when you get a chance? And so he calls me. And I'm a mess, man. I'm like, sir, I'm pretty embarrassed about this, but I've got a drinking problem. and I need to get some help.

And he says, how's this going to affect your clearance? I don't know, sir. I don't care. I need some help. And I'm just like you know. And he says, well, call this other person. He hung up the phone. And I was like, that went over like the fart in church.

I was expecting, you know. So the next person he had me call was it was a new deputy chief that I did not know very well. And he's pretty intimidating dude, man. He came from a huge department, um, inner city department. And I was like, oh, this guy's going to eat me for lunch, dude. As soon as I open my mouth, he's just going to start just hammering me. So I call him and, uh, I couldn't have been more wrong. He talked to me for over an hour. And he was like, Keith, let me tell you something. He goes, uh, he goes, your priorities are all fucked up. He goes, you've been putting this job in front of your family for,

I don't know how many years. And he broke it down for him, man. He goes, it doesn't matter how many medals and awards you get. He goes, the day you leave the FBI, they're not going to give a shit who Keith Shibbley was. And the day you retire from the police department, they're really not going to give a shit who Keith Shibbley was. I was under the impression.

They were going to put a Keith Shibbley stacked you next to Reagan at the fucking airport one day. But he was right, man. And it just kind of all kind of clicked. And like I said, he talked to me for a while. And I'll always be appreciative of that phone call. And then I called my boss of the FBI, Jen May. Jen May is a special person, man.

She simply said, thank you for calling me, and I'll have your job waiting for you when you get back. And I was like, whatever, Jen. So, you know, I didn't know how to do it. And I started calling rehabs, and they were like, yeah, we can't, You need to go to a detox, man. You've gotten way too much stuff in your system to, you have to go to a medical detox. So I start calling all the detoxes in Virginia, D.C., Maryland, everybody's full.

Like, we can take you next week. We can take you in 10. I'm like, I got to go right now where I'm probably going to get loaded. And it's, I don't know what's going to happen after that. So the Maryland place says, look, man, they call me back. They say we don't have a bed. We have a sister detox in union. New Jersey.

We'll send a car to pick you up. I said, send the car. And a car comes. Four hours later, I'm in, you ever been a Union, New Jersey? No. It's not a nice place at all. So I get there, man.

And I just, I'm scared. I don't know what to expect. And, you know, I've done some undercover work and stuff. And I'm like, what happens if someone I arrested is in here? You know, is it just going to pop off immediately? I'm really not in the right frame of mind or physical condition to be, you know,

defending myself at this point. And so I was pretty nervous. And, you know, they do the intake part of it. And I find myself in this little room. And it's a nurse and two big security dudes. When I say big, they've got to be at least 5'8, right? So, and, you know, they do the blood pressure, the temperature, all that stuff.

And she's like, all right, take off your shirt. Take off your shoes, take off your pants. I'm like, whoa, what, what's going on? Like, take it off. I was like, drop your drawers. I was like, bend over, cough, lift up your, and it was at that minute that, you know, it just, everything just kind of flashed back.

I was like, how in God's name, did I go from the kid that would not smoke marijuana in college to lift it up my junk in a closet in Union, New Jersey? It's just like, how did I get here? You know? Because before it happened to me, I would have argued until I was blue in the face that someone addicted to something was their choice. I would have. I would have argued it for years and years.

I mean, I dealt with plenty of people on drugs as a police officer. And I was like, it's your choice. Do you, you decided to do that shit. I could tell you, I didn't choose to be this way. I went to the doctor and took a medicine that he. gave me and all was my it just it flipped something off in my brain man um so i did my week in detox which sucked um and i thought i was fixed i called my wife i said baby i'm coming home i'm all better and she said the fuck you are um you need to go to a 30 day inpatient so uh i's like as long as it's not

union new jersey i'll go wherever the fuck you want me to go so they find me this rehab in uh Falls, Virginia, which is the highfalutin rich place with man. It's like where all the redskins and all the professional sports players live and, you know, houses are, you know, tens of millions of dollars or whatever. So I get to this house, I'm like, this is what I'm talking about. And it was a mansion. There was 10 guys in there plus me or 12 of us, I think. And it wasn't too bad, man.

You know, no cell phone, no internet. You call home every other day for 15 minutes. minutes, but someone sat next to you while you called so you didn't order, you know, dope or beer to the house or whatever. But we had a chef. The chef was awesome, dude. That chef could cook. We had massages on Thursday, acupuncture Tuesday.

I tell my wife and kids now when we argue, I'm like, I'm going to relapse just to go back to the fucking mansion, dude. I have a chef and a massage and peace and quiet. But it wasn't too bad. The things that stick out is I did not participate in the group stuff. because even with 12 guys there, there were plenty of fuck to police people there. And I just wasn't comfortable sharing what bothered me

with those people there, you know? So, I mean, I'll talk a little about, like about my grandfather's death and some other little things, but I generally didn't participate much in there. My individual therapist was groundbreaking men. She was the wife of a D.C. police officer. So she didn't know what it, she knew more about cop life than most therapists would um i just started unloading it man just unloaded

it from 12 to present day and i just started feeling better like this shit might there might be something to this because if you would have told me five years before that to go see a therapist i would have laughed that you had made fun of you you know um but it it did something it it's it just started working. And I told them when I got there, I said, I was so mentally, physically and spiritually broken

when I got there. I said, I'll do whatever y'all. If y'all could fix this, I'll do whatever you want. So, you know, that's what I did.

And she was like, I want you to take this test for PTSD. I was like, I've not a soldier. I've never been to combat. I don't have that. You know, they explained to me

that that's not what it is and all its other stuff. So, So that started helping. The other thing they made us do was they made us go to 12-step meetings every day. So we loaded in this little van. We called the druggie-buggy. So all the druggies got into the druggie-buggy and off to meetings we went.

And I thought they were stupid. You know, it was just I convinced myself I was not one of them, you know? I didn't sell dope. I didn't commit sex acts for dope I didn't steal shit I've got a house I pay my bills like I'm not those people

I just saw I just sat in the back you know I stared at two or three good looking chicks in there and just call it a day and when my 28 days was up I was scared man like I was really nervous about leaving

because that security bubble like I didn't I didn't trust myself out there I'm sure you might have, I don't know if you felt the same way when you came home or whatever, but I just, I was nervous about coming home. So I remember talking about therapist. She goes, Keith, just get to one of those meetings tonight.

She goes, just go home, spend time with your family and get to a meeting. I'm like, I'm not going to that dumb shit. So I go home and it was just, I was just pacing, just pacing. I couldn't settle down. And finally my wife was like, I talked to your therapist, just go to a meeting. I was like, I'm not going to a meeting. So after about an hour of listening to that, I went to a meeting and sat in the back and didn't participate, but it worked for that day. So the next day I just did the same thing.

And then I just did the same thing. And you know what? Like I started meeting people and participating and I still go to stupid meetings. I don't like seven years later. my little core of inner circle people in recovery are awesome and you know

I'm not afraid to say it when I talk to I trust people that I've met in recovery more than I trust 90% of the police officers I work with hands down they're amazing people man the sponsor I got knows more about me than my wife and if you would have told me that

a guy from Las Vegas who used to smoke meth would know more about me than my wife, I would have laughed at you. But he's got decades, man, and he's just, he's, to have someone not in my police circle, not in my family circle,

and not in my friend's circle, my original friend's circle, that I could tell whatever I want to and know that it's not going anywhere has been the best thing in this whole thing, man. I talk to that dude almost every day. I do jiu-jitsu with a guy that would make a health angel's guy scared.

I mean, he's got, he's just, he's six, four, he's got the beard, he's got the big holes in his ears, he's got tattoos everywhere, and he's one of the nicest guy. He's one of my best friends, man. So you just, you meet some really, the GLP1 pill you've been waiting for is now on row. Yep, it's finally here with the same clinically proven ingredient, now in a pill, and now on row. It's the first FDA-approved GLP-1 pill for weight loss. At the lowest price available,

that's one daily GLP-1 pill for big results. Now, on R-R-O. Go to row.com slash listen to see if you qualify. R-X only go to row.com slash safety for serious side effects and boxed warning associated with GLP-1s. You've probably heard of filmed for IMAX, but what does it mean? It means some of the world's biggest filmmakers

partner with IMAX on everything from cameras to sound. to ensure audiences fully experience their vision on the biggest screen possible. When it's filmed for IMAX, the only way to experience the movie as the director intended is in IMAX. The Mandalorian and Grogu is filmed for IMAX. Buy your tickets now at IMAX.com. Looking to start 2026 with an unforgettable getaway? Fiji Airway's sale is on now.

Fly non-stop round trip to Fiji from just 748. Or enjoy a sunny Fiji stopover. on your way to Australia with round-trip fairs starting from 839. As a one-world alliance member and American Airlines Advantage program partner, your miles go further across the South Pacific. Book now at Viji Airways.com or contact your local travel agent. Conditions apply. Good people in there.

People I would have never met if this stuff didn't happen, you know. When you're in the pits of your addiction, did you feel like you were living a double life being in law enforcement? but also using drugs and alcohol. Oh, yeah. Yeah, 100%. I felt like a fraud. At some points, I did.

You know, it's like when I'm going on, let's say, my very first undercover I did, I went to sell a AK-47 to a neo-Nazi. And his favorite place to me was Hooters. You know? So I was getting paid to sit at Hooters and drink beer with the dude, you know? So, yes, I did feel like a fraud because I knew in the back of my mind that I had a problem. But on the other hand, I have to drink beer to fit in with these people.

So it's kind of like a back and forth, man. I would know it was a problem, but then I would convince myself that it wasn't because of certain things that I was doing at work. You know what I mean? But it's been it's been harder after, I think. It's been harder getting clean and coming across kind of those people than it was before for some reason. So one is like when I was drinking a lot, I definitely drove when I shouldn't have a few times. But for the most part, I did it at home and wouldn't, I didn't, I didn't want to. anybody to see. I wanted it to be the secret. So for the most part, it was at home. I made sure I

had enough at home for that day, and I didn't leave. But yeah, man, you definitely feel like, you definitely feel like a fraud at some point. Now that you're opening up and talking about it, do you feel like your coworkers judge you? I'm sure some do, you know, but I can tell you, my phone rings off the hook now with people wanting to get help from all over. I mean, I've gone to several states and talked and stuff, and it's, that's what I'm saying. It's a problem that law enforcement has known it's had for decades and just would not address it. You know, this is how it worked for the first 15 years of, 20 years of my law enforcement, easy, is, you know, who the drunks are for the most part.

Like some people might hide it really well, but you know the people that probably have a problem. And how management said, it's like, okay, well, let's just wait until they mess up enough so we can fire them. And that's traditionally how it would work. And then, you know, that leads to them doing something to themselves, you know, a lot of times after that happened. So it's like, why don't we try to tackle this? It's like a different way. You know what I mean? So the message I try to get out there to police officers and even plant the seed in academies is if you raise your hand before you get in trouble, it's not a career ender.

You know? But if you get the DUI, you get the accident where you kill somebody or the bar fight or the domestic violence, it's a lot harder to come back from that than I was just. fortunate I had a strong enough and loving enough wife to call me out and make me do it because I wouldn't have done it on my own. I mean, I'll tell you that. So, um, but, yeah, I mean, I look back on some of those days and it's just like, oh, just disgusted with yourself, you know, with a bunch of that, um, stuff. So it was, uh, and it was rough coming back to work, man. At first, the police department didn't know what to do with me. So I sat at a desk for three or four weeks playing Candy Crush, bro. I mean, I got good at Candy Crush, too.

I went up to one of my supervisors, like, just give me something to do. Like, I'm dying here. Yes, I, you know, I realize the situation I put myself in, but give me something. And he looked right at me. He goes, you're lucky you still have a badge. You're a fucking liability. Just shut up and sit at your desk. You got it, man. And that's what I did. But this is where my FBI boss comes back into play, man. She is, her nickname was the Honey Badger.

You don't fuck with the Honey Badgers people. So she would call me every other day. When are you coming back? When are you coming back? And I'm just like, Jen, I'm not coming back. The chief has definitely told me you are not going back to the FBI. I'm fine. Like, my pay hasn't changed.

I might not like my new job, but it is what it is at this point. And that was not satisfactory for her, man. So she made me, after a few weeks, schedule a meeting with him. And she came in and I don't know what was said in that room. But I think it was something to the effects of Keith raised his hand and said he had a problem and asked for help. And that's what we tell people to do if they find themselves in this situation. situation. What message are you sending your other officers if you punish him for what he just did? And she comes out of that officer with her little smirky New York attitude and says, I'll see you on

Monday and just walks out the door. And I'm like, what just happened? And so the deal was this. My FBI Simon was supposed to be four years, four years max. I had been there for nine already. So I was called in and they said, you got a year. You got a year to go back, finish up what you got to finish up. Don't start any long-term stuff. And we're going to rotate you out. I was completely happy with that, man. At least it let me walk out kind of with my head up a little bit higher than just never coming back and being, you know, kind of gone.

So I'll always be appreciative of that. And she goes around with me and talks about why she made that decision. to kind of, and she put her career on the line for me, to be honest with you, she did. She said she'll be responsible if anything happens. I did overhear someone tell her that's why she won't get promoted because she cares about her people more than she cares about management. And she just cared about her people, man. And that's the kind of leadership that's lacking in today's law enforcement from the feds all the way down. she was invested in her people.

And it wasn't a blanket investment, man. We had people that would come on task force, and she was like, you're not working out, and she'd kind of get rid of them. But I guess she felt strongly enough, you know, she put her career on the lawn. So we go around and do talks together now. I will always be indebted to Jen.

And I did make the grave mistake about three weeks ago of me and my wife, going out to dinner with Jen and her husband because now they're besties and it's just oh my God dude it's like having a workwife interrupt it's just so but no all jokes aside she's awesome and I owe a lot to Jen so the year was up and uh you know I just started I didn't know how I was going to handle it at work and I just start I just decided to rip the band-aid off man I mean either you're going to talk about me or you're not so um a guy was like hey man where you been i was like rehab bro he was like he started laughing he's like no seriously i was like

no seriously i just got out of rehab um and then you know uh i was asked to do like a small video that another county was putting on about mental health and substance abuse uh they was having a hard time finding a cop talk about their substance abuse so i was like i'll do it i don't care And from that video, you know, I started talking to police academies and different police departments about stuff. But it's the phone rings off the hook, man. I had a guy call me about two years ago now. I've known this guy for over 20 years. He was a Marine.

He was a SWAT guy. one of those guys that you just look at and you're like that's the definition that's the definition of a guy like just physically fit tattooed swat guy Marine he called me one night at uh one quarter two in the morning

just bawling and I'm like what's going on dude he was like Keith I can't stop drinking man I said okay I said I need to ask you a question if you thought about killing yourself said I've had a gun in my lap for two straight days and a bottle of whiskey I said, all right. I said, I'll be at your house an hour. And COVID messed a lot of people up. A lot of people didn't have anything to do. So for a year, he would go to work and they go home and drink because there was nothing else to do. And by the end of COVID, he just, he crossed that imaginary line and he couldn't, he couldn't come back. So I went to his house and talked to him for a while. He was very apprehensive about going to a rehab.

But by this time, I'd found out that there's several first responder-friendly rehabs. There's a Harbor of Grace in Maryland. There's Warriors Heart in Texas and Virginia. Frontline Healing Foundation, the foundation that I try to donate my time to is pretty connected with Warriors' Heart. And it's for military and first responders only. They have inpatient detox, so you're not in a closet in New Jersey. And then they have their own rehab. So you're surrounded by people, like-minded people, so you feel free to open and get stuff off your chest.

So after a while, I convinced them to go to one of these places. And, you know, I just like, it's not going to fix itself, dude. Like, you've tried. It's not going to fix itself. So I got him in the car and drove him four hours to one of these places. And in the car ride, you know, he's just, he's a mess like I was. It was very familiar. Like, it was pretty emotional, actually, just to see him like that.

And he just kept looking at me. He's like, how did I get here, dude? He's like, how the fuck did I get here? I don't know, man. But we'll figure it out. You know what I mean? And when I dropped him off, you know, he looked right at me and he said, he said, Keith, he goes, if you weren't open about your addiction

I would have killed myself three days ago and it's just like you can't put a price on that man fuck the medals and all that the deputy chief was right none of that stuff matters it's a job like none of it matters

like that mattered you know what I mean um and that was just the first one you know it's it it's uh it's busy

it's been pretty busy um you're not just with first responders. Like I had a first responder call me on Tuesday, but it was about his nephew who has nothing to do with the one.

I don't care, man. I don't wish this hell upon anybody. I mean, I'll help whoever get into where he have, you know. So it's been a crazy turn of events, man, but, you know, I was talking to one of my kids the other day and I don't know how spiritual you are or whatever, but, you know, my kid asked me,

he goes, he said, dad, do you think, you think you, do you think your purpose was to go through this so you can do what you're doing now? I was like, 100% man. Like, there's a reason. When I said, how did I get here from a kid that wouldn't smoke weed to being in this closet, like, it's what was supposed to happen. I mean, so I can do shit like this, you know what I mean? Because the amount of cops that kill themselves outnumber the cops to get killed on duty

every year by a lot. And that's just active cops. because if a retired cop, if a retired cop takes his own life, the police department that's responding might not even know he was a cop. So it doesn't get, like, it doesn't count, really. So out of that big number of police officers to take their own life, and it's too much, and a lot of it, a lot of it has to do with substances, mainly alcohol, but, you know, alcohol and prescriptions, really.

whether it's benzos or whatever. But so, yeah, man, that's what are they. I try to go spread the message, man, help stop cops doing that kind of stuff, you know. What advice would you give to a law enforcement officer or just anyone in general that is turning to a substance like drugs or alcohol to help deal with things that they're going through? It doesn't help.

it just it hives it for a little while but it's going to come back until you truly try to get help for that particular incident and after i got out of after i got out of rehab i elected to go to a 12 week intensive outpatient three days a week it was like two and a half three hours a day um because i needed that accountability for myself when i got there my first therapist was really cute actually and after the second session she started crying and left and said she can't handle my stories and I got my third therapist and she was amazing man she introduced me to EMDR I don't know if you ever heard of it eye movement

desensitization reprocessing and for anybody dealing with any kind of trauma that that was pretty groundbreaking for me so like when you have a big tremendous event, your brain doesn't want to think about it. So it shoves it in a box and it puts it back here in the back of your head. And, you know, when you see or smell something or something triggers that box,

it kind of explodes and it just overwhelms your brain. And that's when you get like the anxiety and the oh shit kind of stuff. So what EMDR does is they do it two or three different ways depending on who's doing it. But it's not a fun process. but it takes that event out and very meticulously goes through it step by step by step then you stop and you're ask questions and you just keep going through it and what it does is it allows both sides of your brain to process the traumatic event and then it puts it back so now when something kind of triggers that thought or whatever on a scale of one to ten it's a

two and not a ten and that was that was pretty ground. breaking for me. So I would tell someone right now that, you know, the substance isn't going to make it go away. But there are programs that it's never going to go away. It's there. But there are programs that can help minimize the negative effects it has on you if you look for it. But I get it, man. It's hard to it's hard to push that easy solution away that makes you forget for a few minutes. But there are out there. And, you know, being hooked on stuff is you're either going to be dead or in jail. Those are your two options, really.

Keith, I appreciate you coming on the show today. This was a great interview. Thank you. The guy I brought with me, we do a YouTube, Mind Ever Madness, where we talk about, you know, this kind of stuff a lot. And yeah, if you just look at Mind Ever Mattis on YouTube, we're there. And there is a documentary that he's working on. It's the Buffaloino project that's coming out.

It should be coming out. The trailer should come out next month. And there's like NDAs and stuff. But just keep a lookout for it. If you like kind of like mafia history stuff, it's going to be the real story, not the stuff you see on TV. But I appreciate you have me on, Ian. it was a good time, man. Thank you.

Yeah, you did great. And thanks for being a support of the show. I appreciate it.