Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - INSIDE THE MIND OF EX COPS | FULL PODCAST

Episode Date: August 9, 2023

INSIDE THE MIND OF EX COPS | FULL PODCAST

Holy shit. What just happened? When you're going through that, you don't think of nothing. Like severity of the circumstances. You just, you pretty much go into react mode. You know, you're trying to make it to the next minute. But after it, when you, when everything starts to hit you, you start to decompress a little bit, we were just standing around going like,

what the fuck? Like, now what are we doing? Hey, this is Matt Cox, and I'm going to be doing a non-true crime podcast today, and we're going to be talking to Kevin Donaldson, and this is Mike. I'm going to say Fallis, but it's not wrong. It's the last, your last name is, Phalaise. Okay, it seems like it's spelled fallas. But that's fine, and of course he's got a bald head and everything.

So there's a whole thing there. All right, so we're going to be talking about their podcast. and their story and I appreciate it and I'm also gonna I'm gonna throw this in here too like if you like the video do me a favor

and hit the subscribe button hit the bell so you get notified leave a comment and share the video to all your friends and family so they can check it out too and I appreciate it and here we're gonna go

that's it and I don't care of shit if I fuck up well that's the one thing I want to ask cursing like you want me to keep it I could do either way no okay

I could care less I mean it does I don't think it's gonna change that much anyway but like I was soon saying when I started like I was like he'll leave all this in here listen I've had arguments with guys on on camera we've had well get up and go to the bathroom and come back and everything but the great thing is that the people that watch YouTube is like they would rather have that than perfection yeah I've been on other guys podcast where they

actually will say the same intro like 10 times in a row until they get it perfect it's like stop it bro you're not perfect like you fuck up like I fuck up all the time like I'd rather show you I fuck on it's like everyday guys that are watching these things So I think everyday guys fuck up. You know, you want perfectionist shit. But that's what makes you relatable. But when I first started, I wanted it to be perfect. And, you know, it's, I'm not perfect.

Like, that's a lie. It's just not true. So, all right. So let's go ahead and, and so, Kevin, you were a, you were a police officer with, is it? It was, no, it was Roseland, New Jersey, which is in Essex County. It's probably, for, give you a waypoint, it'll about 10 minutes. it's west of Nork. Okay.

So we're very affluent town, but everybody from the inner city came and that's where they stole stuff. Okay. Yeah. All right. And Mike, you were, you were an officer where? Lynnhurst, New Jersey. It's lower Bergen County.

Give you an idea where it's at. It's one exit over from giant stadium. We're about 10 miles west in New York City. Right. So, I mean, I was raised in Florida. So I, and I was educated in Florida, too. So honestly, like there's New York. And it was probably only about five.

10 years ago, I realized that there was a difference between New York City and New York State. Oh, you can't call somebody from New York State. So, from, like, they make it very clear. Like, oh, yeah, you're from New York. No, I'm from upstate New York. Yeah. See, I have no idea. Very clear.

I couldn't name, I don't know. I'm not sure I could name all 50 states. I certainly couldn't name that. Listen, down here, I'm having a problem with the East and the West Coast. I'm calling people. I'm saying, hey, I'm going to be in, uh, I'm going to be in Tampa. I live on the other coast. Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know. But it's all boring to me. By the way, I did hear your intro, and you're not the first person to call him a dick. I just want to, I just want to make it quite clear. All right. So, well, all right. So, yeah, no, I listened to a couple of podcasts. You guys were giving each other a hard time the whole time.

Well, so it's an important thing for us because we're both, that's how police deal with stress. We deal with stress with some really dark, dark humor. So when I go after him, I can tell people in my life that I love them. I can't tell him that I love him but I can break his balls incessantly and really hit him hard and he'll know he'll know because he's in that life

all right that's how he's showing that he cares about me I mean if someone from the outside actually heard the way we actually broke each other's balls it's worse I think we hate each other yeah it's worse yeah oh listen it's the same when I got out of prison I realized it took me it took me a week or two to start to realize

wow you you really have to alter your behavior like I can't talk to normal people like I can when you're talking to somebody and I can look at them and tell they're they're like having these little little um you know little shocks to them like like like I realized yeah exactly I started to realize I actually had talked to my ex wife and she was like as I was talking she's she has no problem correct to me she's like thank you I appreciate that please and I'm like what and she's like you don't say thank you you you don't say please you don't say this you cut me off you're aggressive you're that and so I had to start altering my behavior because in prison like you'll call somebody a scum like oh you're a fucking scumbag and you're this but this is my good buddy right like we're mean to each other all the time and you can't be like that out it spills over into our personal lives so when we talk to people in our personal lives it's very direct

it's this is the way that it is yeah because you're used to doing it yeah yeah we're a little far removed from being police officers now I think you you're what six years I'm eight years out so it's slowly starting to fade but it'll always be there in some form or fashion? Yeah, well, you think you're being assertive, but everybody else sees you as being aggressive.

Correct. And sees us as being mean and, yeah, it's not a good thing. Like, I just see myself as assertive. You can't have that law enforcement, dark humor with the general public. They just don't understand them. Right. You know, like, we go to different crazy scenes.

I mean, you're in a room with dead bodies. Yeah. You know, how are you supposed to just shut that off and go on to the next, you know, next call. It's like, oh, yeah, they're dead. Don't worry about it, you know. I explained police work like this when there was a dead body that I was sitting on. They always die on the toilet.

You weren't physically sitting on that way. No, no, I was sitting in a room. So this elderly woman, there's no dignity in death. Yeah. So this elderly woman dies. She has, when you're on the toilet and you're having a heart attack, it feels like you've got to take a shit. So she goes, tries to lay down in bed and she dies. We go there.

So I have to sit on there until the detectives show up. And our detectives at that time were about an hour away. So I'm sitting in there 2 o'clock in the morning, just me and a dead body. And what do I do? I pull my gun out. I put it on my thigh. And then I actually went to sleep in the room with a dead body. And the detective shows up and he sees the gun out.

He goes, what's the gun out for it? And I said, because if she moves, she's getting double-tapped right in the head. You know, because I know she's dead. But that's how you deal with that. stress because you know you can't take that stuff home we're human beings right and that stuff builds up over time and like you said you know that that call has to stay at that that call it's not like your shift is over right after that you're done with that call you know you have to go to the next call could be a domestic or the next call could be you know just a regular like medical call you know you have

to leave that call behind you you can't let it get to you or you're not going to be able to do the job the right right you see things like you see somebody who's been dead for a couple weeks, and they, this smells bad. So you have to be able to shut that off automatically because guess what, your lunch break might be coming up. And if you really let it affect you, you're not going to go eat. Right. So you just desensitize yourself to everything.

And over time that you, every time you see something that's horrible like that, you put on this different piece of armor because you don't want, you're human and you don't want to ever be hurt by that again. So over, it usually happens about the 10 or 15 year mark where you start getting so heavy and waded down by all this different armor. And eventually there's a breaking point. And it broke for him and it broke for me until you learn how to release the armor.

Right. All right. Well, so let's get into talk about your story. So I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, no, no. It's tough every time I tell it. Because it's not a very proud moment.

You know, you're a guy. Mike's sort of a guy. Once in a while. Once in a while. It depends on what dress he's wearing. Right after lunch that. When you go through certain feelings that are uncharacteristic of what a man should feel or what you think it should feel, you feel very weak.

You feel very, you just feel less manly. Vulnerable. Vulnerable. My incident, hey, listen, everybody says, hey, look, worked in Roseland. It's just nice, pretty white, you know, upper middle class town. Whatever happens in there. But the reality of it is, is no matter where police officers or first responders are working, they're going to see some crap. My particular incident happened on July 16, 2013, and it always starts out the slowest night possible.

And that's what it was. I pulled up next to my partner, we went car to car, and like, God, you know, just anything come in. All I want is an alarm, something. Just get me out of the car. I don't want to sit in a car all day. So we used to have to do these plaza checks, like little strip mall checks. I go over there and call comes over the radio, start heading to this address. There's an open 911 call.

So an open 911 call, somebody dials 911 and they'll throw the phone down. And we have to respond to every single 911 call that comes in. Make sure somebody's not being held hostage or something like that. We go flying up there, and I can tell you the route that I took. I can tell you the speed I took. My partner's right behind me. And we're trying to keep it quiet. It's about 10 to Wednesday night.

It's about 10 something. and so there's nobody on the road. We're heading there. We get there, and it's a little townhouse complex, and you can hear the yelling inside. We don't know what's going on, but we can hear the yelling inside.

Now the hair in the back of your neck starts to stand up. Right. You know, when you're going lights and sirens to a call, you're always like, is this going to be the one? Is this going to be it? Right. But you never really fully believe it, but... Because nine times out of ten,

you get there and it's a bullshit call anyway. Correct. so we make you're making these little plans and you've got to make these these little plans on on a on a dime I mean you don't have time to sit there and do a full drawn-out tactical plan so my partner goes around the back and I grab something from my car it's a it's called a haligan bar it's like a fireman's crow bar and so our plan was I'm going to breach because it's in the middle of a townhouse complex so it's you can't get out on the side you can only get out front or back I'm going to breach the door my partner's going to full

expecting the guy to run out the back, whatever's going on in there. So on a, on a signal, I start whacking the door. And this is a funny thing about police work is you see, you see all these cop shows and you see them kicking the door. Yeah, they get one time and it flies open. Bullshit. Yeah. Bullshit. They're all steel doors. You can't do it. I mean, but we don't. Yeah, we know how to do it. It's just, it takes longer than you think. So I put the the crow in there and I'm cracking it and I'm banging it because you can hear the other guy the side as I'm banging and say don't come in here don't come in here and then I hear bang bang bang we don't know what the hell is going on inside I heard somebody scream I heard

him I heard the shots what we found out is my my partner at exchange gunfire with him through the door because what he was doing was he he was in a domestic dispute with his ex-girlfriend guy actually lived somewhere around here on Florida believe it or not all that um Um, all of them to do. Yeah. This is where everybody goes. Yeah. Uh, he was going to kill this woman with a nine millimeter clock.

As he's raising the gun, my partner exchanged his gunfire with him. So we pull back. I was there with another officer who was standing behind me. We pull back and it's that holy shit moment. You're like, what the fuck just happened? You know, so you pull back a little bit. Other officers were showing up at the time. So I go around the back.

Now a townhouse deck, if I, I can give you a layout of it. It's about, like, say, nine by nine privacy decking all around. And we go up on the back deck, and there's a sliding glass door. I can see the victim. She's on the ground. She's terrified. Like, she's this close to being killed.

But we can't see the guy. So we set up on the deck. And I get over into the corner. Like if the entrance is on the left-hand side, I get over into the corner. thinking I'm in a really good tactical position because I can see everything. I can see the victim over here. I can see everything over here.

And our plan was, not the best plan in the world, but it was the only thing we had. We're going to throw a patio chair through the sliding glass door. We're going to make entry and we're going to get the victim out. Because once the victim's out, it's game over.

You know, he can stay in there for 50 days. I don't give a shit. We throw the, we throw the chair through the window. and bang I see this muzzle flash now I'm about say six feet away

I see a muzzle flash and anybody's ever shot a gun you get blowback so the little grains of gunpowder you feel them on your face he was close enough to me and I never saw him he just he was behind a wall

and he kind of did one of these I feel the gunpowder I feel the bullet the bullet actually missed my my left ear by say a quarter of an inch less than a quarter of an inch what they suspect because it hits something behind and everything it's so strange when you have a critical instance because everything just slows down there's there's so much clarity of thought but what you find out real quickly is there's two types of people in this world there's people who run towards danger and there's people who run away from danger so of the three of us on a there was one officer behind, I think that guy's still running. I'm not certain. He ran so, and he was a, he was a high-ranking officer. He ran so far away, left me for dead because now. He was going out to call for backup. That's what they usually say. Yeah, well, no, he was actually going to call the chief, which was the whole other thing that pissed me off so bad. The other guys retreated off the deck, the ones that were on, say, if I'm looking at the sliding glass theater, they were on

the left. Then he should have retreated because there was danger. I couldn't. So all of a sudden, my tactical position that I thought was so good was the worst thing ever. You're stuck in the corner. I'm stuck in the corner and I got a six foot crawl through the danger zone in order to get out. So after the shots rang out, I hit the ground and there's glass all over the ground so I fall directly on my forearms and I still have glass in my forearms to this day, but I see, I look down and again, very clear thought. I don't know whether I'm shot.

I see blood. I hear people yelling behind me going, Are you shot? And I said, I don't know. I really didn't know at that point. Your adrenaline's flowing so much. I mean, if you see, like, cop dramas or the real life ones, like cops or one of those shows,

they'll say, like, Guy will say, I think I'm hit. Yeah. Your adrenaline's flowing so much, you don't know if you're hit or not. I felt like a dull pain in my shoulder. But it was, it was, I think I hit a chair on the way down or something stupid like that. But you want to talk about slowing down. cops will take their keys, their car keys, and they'll put them on the antenna to their mic.

I hit the ground so hard, my keys popped off. I went and picked up my keys, put them back on my microphone, and I'm under fire, fully expecting this guy to come out. Now, at this time, you start thinking about certain things. It's literally a two or three second window, but you have such, everything's in slow motion that I start thinking about my kids. at the time I had a three-year-old I had a seven-month-old

or six-month-old and these kids are I'm figuring I'm going to die because it's going to be a hail of bullets he already shot at a cop twice so why wouldn't he shot at a shoot at him a third time they're going to grow up without a father my oldest will sort of

remember me my youngest will never remember me I think about my wife and my wife having to raise these two kids on her own And then I was like, all right, well, you know what? If I'm going to die, let's do it. Let's do it. So I get in a prone position, which is on your stomach with your gun drawn, ready to go.

Just waiting for the guy. Never saw the guy once. Never once saw him other than the muzzle flash. And I'm there for 20, 30 seconds. And all this just clear, clear thinking goes through your head. Fully prepared, knowing, this is my time. I'm cool with it. Yelling back and forth between the guy. Come out, come out. He's not moving. He's not talking.

So he's still a threat. The guys behind me, the guys that didn't run away. One of them was Sergeant Terry West. The other one was Officer Jason Heider. They stood by and they did their jobs and they were able to lift back of my belt and get me out and just sort of assist me because I was in such a bad position. I'm six foot three. You know, I'm 230 pounds. I don't move. all that quick. I'm not built for speed. I get out and then it's a July night. You sure it's 2.30? You sure you weigh 2.30? I think you're back in a lot more than that. Your head weighs 230. The, uh, I'm able to get off and then we hold perimeter for two, two hours. Fully expecting this guy to come out suicide by cop. We're going to light them up. Um, but in this

melee, in this confusion, we're able to get the victim out. The victim gets out. So now, hey, listen, danger's done. We did our jobs. And you're able to decompress a little bit while you're holding perimeter going, holy shit, did that really just happen? It was crazy. But that's not even the worst part of the story. Because you hear all these things that cops go through, they get mentally screwed up by different critical incidents. You never think, hey, listen, I'm stronger than that. I can deal with this stuff. About two, you know, I get out, I go to the hospital, And my wife, I didn't even have my cell phone at the time. So I had to borrow an EMT's phone.

I left my cell phone in my car. I had to borrow an EMT's phone because all the wives talk. And, you know, I didn't want her hearing from somebody else. Hey, there was an officer involved shooting. She knows I'm working that night. I call her and I say, look, Trisha, you know what? I was in a shooting. I'm okay.

Going to the hospital. I'm not shot. I just got to get some glass removed from my arm. No big deal. And they said, okay, I was working Thursday that night. You can have Thursday off and just come back Monday. I'm like, cool. I got a four-day week.

this is beautiful this is beautiful i go home from the hospital i'm so amped up so i go out i even go out for a run and then i finally get some sleep i get like three or four hours of sleep and then you wake up to the 50 different phone calls that you that you get from people everybody's curious you know what happened what happened we're like a sewing circle when it comes to police world everybody wants to know what's what happens on a on a hot call so my wife and i go to the movies and we're watching a comedy but in the comedy there was like a loud bang and i I just, like, shit my pants. I can't move.

I start hyperventilating. And I don't want to concern my wife. So I say, hey, look, I'm just going to go to her bathroom. I'll be back. I can't go back into the movie theater. I'm like, what the fuck is going on with me? That weekend, my parents lived in Atlantic City. So we go down to see them, bring kids down with them.

You know, we got some time off. On the way home, and this is sort of the progression, you start having nightmares the night before us. you're not thinking right because you just died my son my three-year-old spills chocolate milk on his car seat it's like it's three-year-old I flipped out like I started screaming at him like I couldn't control myself that ride home was the worst ride home ever so when I got home I knew there was something starting to go seriously seriously wrong I called a cop and they got me some help but it didn't stop there like I couldn't sleep the nightmares started

going on all this stuff is going through my and of course this is a long period of time until probably about a month after the shooting I had enough like I really just was broken I but it was progressive my son my son points a little toy gun at me once it's three years old he's playing with a Nerf gun I flipped out I grabbed the gun right in front of him calmly snapped it in two threw it in the garbage and then I saw a look on his face I walked out after I saw a look in his and I left the house and I didn't come back for three days. I slept in the woods because then you started to get paranoid because you're not sleeping and this stuff's going on in your head.

I lived in the woods for three days. Turn my cell phone off. But here was the weird thing. So when I was on, I never carried my off-duty weapon off when I wasn't working. They never carried. I started carrying my gun because I started getting real paranoid. And I finally come home and one night I just, two in the morning, I'm not sleeping. I go in my office and I said, you know what, this is it.

And I'm not doing this shit anymore. I'm putting my family through hell. I'm a different person. I can't handle this stuff. And you feel broke and you feel so weak. When I'm in my office, I had a little chief special 38 Smith & Wesson. Nickel played his beautiful gun. I take the gun.

In my mouth, it goes. I'd recently qualified with that gun. And, you know, so I could. still taste, I can still taste to this day the gunpowder on the end of that muzzle. I can feel the metal touching my teeth. And anything, anybody knows anything about guns, it's a double action gun. So once you cock that hammer back, it's go time. The light is, you sneeze, it's going to fire. I got it in my mouth and I'm closing my eyes and all, I'm crying. All I'm waiting to do is just somebody give me some reason. I don't want to do this. Somebody give me a reason not to

do this. And I must have been down there for, 20 minutes just going through everything like you know telling people I'm sorry in my head I'm sorry to my kids I'm sorry to my wife I'm my grandfather who was the most important person in my life he'd been gone and I'm sorry I'm not living up to your to your hopes for me and and then the whole incident replays in my head it's like a movie just replays in my head and I just I had a moment of clarity when I started thinking about my kids where I just took the gun out of my mouth. I put the gun on the ground

and I stared at it for what seemed like an hour. But at that moment, I knew I had to get my gun out of my house because this was not the end. And there were other attempts of suicide after that. I was ready to make a permanent solution to a temporary condition. That's what I didn't understand at the time. And throughout this time, alcohol,

You'll do anything to numb the pain. Alcohol. They medicate you. They give you colonopin. They give you lexapro to give you the antidepressants or anti-anxiety. And while you're taking to colonopin, you're drinking. I mean, which I don't know if you know anything about colonnipin. You do not drink on colonopin.

Right. It just intensifies. But the way I looked at it is, hey, you made my liquor bill go down. You know, I've taken a couple of colonopin, taking some drinks. It's intensified. Cheap date. Yeah. It ultimately ends up me going to rehab.

and here's the thing I I went to this place called the Princeton House and it's a great place they have a cops program in there here's what I learned about going to rehab I'm not an alcoholic these guys they're they're alcoholics like I just have a problem

I'll get through the problem and it went on like that it went on like that until finally I tell my story in group therapy and once I told my story that armor that I was talking about earlier, a piece pops off. Now, if you, you're in shapes, you're a workout guy.

What happens if you did a 20 year squat and all of a sudden you take that barbell off your back? You're like, wow, this feels pretty good. I'm kind of light now. And I started figuring it out that, you know, I've been numbing this pain for so long, and I don't think that was the right way to do it. but in walks this guy one day. Now, Mike, Fallis, your new name is Phallis, by the way.

Hey, thanks. I'd be called Wars. You can thank Matt for that one. In Walks this guy. Now, I had known him for about 25 years at this point because I used to work with his brother before I was a cop. And I would know him to say hi to him, but I see him. I was like, hey, Mike, what's going on?

He's like, yeah, you know, that Lynnhurst shooting. That was me. And that's, but I saw that look in his eye. I could identify it. You know, when you were away, when you were in prison and you see somebody that looked at the people that are just beaten and broken, you can identify it because you've been there at some level. I saw him walk in there and I saw that look in his eye. I'm like, brother, you're going on a, you're going on a ride now. And I'll be walking alongside with you, but I can't help you.

I can just tell you what I know. I'm about a year away from my shooting at this point when I see him. And then he comes in with his story. So you've got to realize something. They say that cops are close-knit people. You know, thin blue line, all that stuff. When you're involved in a critical incident like that, a cop will come up to you and say,

I know what you're going through. You've got no fucking clue what I'm going through. Unless you've been through that, you have no clue what we're going through. That's why when I ran into Kevin at group therapy, that's what helped me the most. And I'll get to my story in a minute, but that's what helped me to most

because this group therapy is all cops that have been in critical incidents, whether they'd be in shootings or... Yeah, I mean, we had a couple of them that... It's basically close to death. And so you get diagnosed, we get diagnosed with PTSD. And everybody will call PTSD, but we've since learned to drop the D

because it's not a disorder. It's a brain injury. And PTSD, my definition of PTSD is knowing you're about to die and then not dying and having to live with it afterwards. And that's what everybody in this group goes to. By the way, you have a bunch of cops in a room

who've been through critical incidents, some of the humor that goes back and forth. If anybody ever got a hold of those text messages, I'd be coming to you and say, hey, Matt, what do I do? I'm going to jail. Right. And what do I do?

What do I do? What do I pack? Yeah, what do I pack? Tell me, do I got to take my asshole shut or something? You know, that's with my main concern. But Mike, him and I just clicked when that happened because I knew what he was going through because I had been there from a place of understanding.

And my job now, and with Mike, my mission now is to identify those problems and go with it and help people go through it. Because if I don't, it's really a wasted opportunity. You know, there is help out there for people that are involved in shootings. You know, like Kevin said, cop-to-cop, it's a great organization that helps people that are having mental health issues. But nothing's better than getting together with another cop. That has done the same thing that you have. You know, you could sit there in front of a therapist and tell this therapist all day.

And they have no clue. He's got no clue what's going on. I had a therapist, one of who we talk about him quite often, he told me he goes, hey, you were a cop. Didn't he expect to get shot at? Well, no. The statistic is like less than 0.05% of cops in the country get shot at. 0.01 get actually shot and less than that even get killed.

But it's still tragic when it happens. But Mike's shooting in Linhurst, that was a little different than mine. It was a little different in mind. It was September 16, 2014. It was just after midnight, a little after 2 o'clock in the morning. Again, like Kevin said, a slow night. It's Monday night into Tuesday morning. Monday night football was over, so the crowds, you know,

the bars were pretty much emptied out. That is really not much to do. You know, Lynnhurst doesn't have any highways in it. I mean, we're surrounded by highways, but we don't have any highways that run through it. So it was a pretty quiet time. You know, it's when we catch up on our reports and, you know, just catch up with the guys and, you know, see how their weekend was and whatnot. So a little after 2 o'clock, one of our neighboring towns puts out what they call a Bolo, would be on the lookout. They said that two males were trying to break into a car in the town, one town south of us.

The owner in a house had cameras on the house and why she saw the counter. at 2 o'clock in the morning. I have no idea, but she sees these two guys trying to break into her car. She comes running outside. She scares him away. They jump at a black SUV that he take off. They give us a description of the black SUV.

One of our guys sees it, tries to pull it over. Guy takes off on him, leaves him on a chase through town. Our guy winds up losing it. You know, losing a vehicle. You broke off the chase. Now, while he's in this chase, you want to talk about adrenaline? Your adrenaline is going a million miles an hour. And you know

you go through enough of these different chases that this is not going to end good. Either he's going to get away or it's going to be really bad when it ends. All right. You know, and then a lot of details started coming out. You know, the vehicle was carjacked earlier in a night at gunpoint from Newark, which is...

As you're pursuing it, that's what... You're now learning that... You know, one of the guys got the plate. I'll never forget. It was Hotel Yankee 8-170. The guy got the plate, and once they got the plate, you know, they start running it and everything else. And, you know, then they figured out it was carjacked. Like I said, at gunpoint. They were trying to break into cars. After our guy breaks off the pursuit, the guy doesn't know his way around town because he could have hit one of the local highways.

And he would have been long gone. But the guy went up staying into town. One of our guys sees the car gun, goes to pull him over. So he's chasing through some side streets and he hits the one main road in our town. and they were traveling northbound. Right now it's $2.25 in the morning. Nobody on a road on a, you know, Monday night into early Tuesday morning. They're doing probably 90 miles an hour.

Generally, if it's like during the day, we would have called off that pursuit because, you know, too dangerous to the public. But there was nobody there, so we kept the pursuit going. They're coming southbound. Like I said, nobody else on the road. I see my guy's overhead lights, you know, chasing a guy. And I'm looking down at the road.

Now, I turn onto the street. I'm coming southbound. I'm coming towards the pursuit. I'm watching my guy's overhead lights so I could kind of gauge the distance to see how far they were. Because what happened is the black SUV, the guy turned out his headlights. I was waiting for him to dip down one of the side streets. I didn't see any headlights. I got fixated on my guy's overhead lights.

So I see they're getting closer and closer, and he's giving updates. and I'm just staring at his overhead lines. All of a sudden, look back down at the road. The SUV is in my lane of travel doing 90 miles an hour coming at me head on. If he hit me, I would have been gone. I mean, I would have been long gone. I had just turned on the street, so I'm not even doing 15, 20 miles an hour. I was just casually, you know, strolling up just to see, you know,

to get a look at everything. He comes at me at 90 miles. an hour. I turn out of the way. He turns out of way. He missed me by about five feet. He was going so fast, he lost control of the car. The car was swerving all, how he kept control of the car. I have no idea. He winds up hitting, there was a construction site there. He hits a construction sand, one of those big yellow sand barrels. He hits the sand barrel. The car turned sideways. Another car came in, pulled in right behind him. Driver puts the car in reverse, starts ram in a police car. Now the tires are spinning.

Roads start filling up with smoke. So we come up onto the passenger. When he hit the car turned, you know, sideways, we came up on a pursuit, come up right to the passenger side of the window. Drawed down on a guy, show me your hand, show me your hand, show me your hands. He had his left, now, again, the tires are spinning.

We're getting, the whole left side of my body was filled with burned rubber, what I call road shrapnel, like the road was breaking up. I was getting, you know, broken up concrete all up my body and everything. I actually had burn marks on my face from the burnt rubber. We pull up on a passenger side, start yelling to him, show me your hands. I'll never forget it to this day. He had his left hand on the steering wheel.

Reaching down between the driver's seat, staring me right in the face. Just stare me dead in the face. He pulls up like this. We went up shooting him. I saw a bullet go right in the guy's forehead from right across a car. and then his body just the body just slumped down his foot pressed onto the gas

his whole body weight went onto the gas pedal at that point the tire started really spinning I figured up one point I remember seeing a key in the ignition so I'm thinking we have to shut this car off at some point so at this point the tire was spinning so much the tire blew out

the passenger side rear tire blew out. So now it's the rim on the ground. Tire's spinning or the rim is spinning. Now I'm getting just nothing but metal sparks into my face. So I take out my baton. I'm shielding my eyes. I break the window out. We call it break and rake. You break the window and you rake it out to get all the glass out. I go to reach in to shut the car off. Passenger popped up right in my face. I had no clue there was even a passenger in a car. So my definition of PTS, what I said earlier, It's knowing you're going to die and not dying and having to live with it. At that moment, and I've spoken to Mike in depth about this,

what I believe is that is his onset to PTSD. Because if that passenger had anything, had a knife, had a gum wrapper, he's gone. He said he could have kissed me. He was that close to me. Yeah, he's gone. What happened was it came out later, but they made a pack to do anything they had to do to get away. The passenger knew the driver had a gun on him.

So when we came up on a passenger side, passenger just reclined the seat and he laid back. So we actually fired right over him. Never even knew he was there. So he pops up in my face. I draw it down on him. Show me your hands, motherfucker. You're going to get the same thing he got.

So he just very compliant, you know, compliant, put his hands up. I had a guy come. We carry ballistic shields in our car. Now at this point, cops were coming from everywhere. So there must have been like 10 cop cars around that. 2 o'clock in the morning, we're the only game in town. So all the other towns are starting to fill in the area with it because everybody wants to try to get involved in something at that point.

Which is crazy because they really don't understand what getting involved in this means. Not only mentally, but now you're going to have to go through the court systems because cops, we're open to indictment just like everybody else. Yes, we have to follow Attorney General guidelines on use of force policies. But if we do something wrong, guess what? We're going to jail. plus now you get a log of all the cops that came there you usually get the junior guy

and he gets out the pen and pad and he's got to log every cop what time they got there and everything else so you're actually documented to being at that scene whether he did something or not so like I said we carry ballistic shields in our car one of the cars came up I told him to grab

the ballistic shield hold down on the passenger I went up reaching in with my baton and I actually got my baton into the key loop the key ring of the keys and I went up shutting the car off. Now, at that point, like you said, a lot of it I remember clearly, but I don't remember the timeline of it. I take my baton out again to get the passenger out. The wheels are still spinning at this point. I'm shielded my eyes, so I hadn't shut the car off before we got

the passenger out. The wheel's spinning, sparks are coming up in my face. I take my baton, I go to open the door, the door handle flies off. I was like, you know, what else could go wrong at this point? Anything it can go wrong, will go wrong. So now draw back down on a guy, you know, show me your hands. The cops came up. They had to drag him out of the passenger side window. He got out without a scratch on him.

That's when I reached it and actually shut the car off. So now... The funny thing is about the passenger is the passenger gets out and gets out of custody or something. At this time, Mike is in group therapy, so I'm in contact with him. The passenger ends up getting shot in, where was it, Norfolk. He gets shot in Norke. And we all sort of, we're sitting around in group therapy.

And I think it came out like the morning that we had group therapy. Right, it was because we were all sitting looking at Mike's side. I was like, where the hell were you last night? Did you sort of take care of business? What happened was they were both gang members. Yeah. Um, when we got the passenger out, he went to, uh, the state police took custody of him and took him down to one of their barracks and, and interviewed him.

And he, he gave up the whole story, you know, we carjacked the car in Newark. We went, we were trying to break into a car. Some lady came out of the house, you know, we took off, the cop ledges on our pursuit. He goes, we made a pact that day to do anything we could do to get out of there. He goes, I knew he had a stolen gun in the car. He said, I knew. knew there was going to be a firefight, so I put down a seat, told the whole story, ratted out of his friend, everything else.

He goes into jail. As soon as he got to jail, he changed his story, of course. You know, he told him that he told everybody in jail that the driver got knocked out from the accident. We went over to the driver's side. We opened up the door. We started beating them up. Then we shut the door.

We ran around to the passenger side and shot him. So that's the story his family's getting. Right. so you know totally untrue but he went to jail told his whole story he wanted to bailing out of jail when he got back into newark they found out that he righted out his friend he was walking down a street one day a guy just walked right up to him put a bullet right in his forehead killed him right right another gang member yeah protecting each other but you got understand something Mike took somebody's life and and you see movies and stuff and everybody they shoot them and it's no big deal

or they go right back to work. They go right back to work. It's not like that. You took somebody's life. You know, unless you're a cold-hearted killer or a sociopath or a psychopath, that's going to affect you in some way. And people don't understand.

Just because we're cops, doesn't mean, like, they dehumanize everybody. They dehumanize prisoners, okay? You were in jail. So all of a sudden, you're a piece of shit when you get out. But that's not true. You have a mother.

You have a father. You have people in your life that love you. You have kids or whatever it may be. You're still a human being. You still have human feelings. I always say that. That's one of the things that pains me to today is I always wanted to meet his family. Listen, I know he's got a mother that loves him.

I know he's got a grandmother that loves him. I know he's got a sister that loves him because they were all over the media. You know, they were in a paper every day saying, how could they do this to my son, my grandson, my brother? You know, he didn't deserve this. He wasn't such a bad guy. Meanwhile, he was 23 years old, just did three years in state prison for the same thing. But he was a good guy, you know, 2.27 in the morning. He was just out with his friends, you know.

But being a father. A stolen vehicle. Yeah, but, you know, and that's what they said to a stolen vehicle doesn't relate to a death sentence. But they don't understand the whole story. Right. You know, they didn't see it the way I see it. They were only getting the media story of it. And of course the media is going to portray the cops to look like bad guys every time.

Right. You know, one of the articles that came out in the paper, I'll never forget. I have a picture of it on my phone. It says, what we do know is police chase the vehicle. and shot the suspect. What we don't know is why the cops shot at a guy who was in a car that was surrounded and there was no escape room.

There was an escape. The escape route was going to be right over me. It was either him or me that night. But again, the family never heard that side of the story or doesn't want to believe it. And that pains me to today. We all gravitate towards the stories that we want to hear. You know, it depends on every,

history is written by it from perspective of the victors. You know, I'm sure people in Nazi Germany had very good reasons for doing what they were doing in their mind. Right. You know, just like his parents. And another thing is, we're both parents. I'm not sure if you're parenting up, but I'd do anything for my kids. And I'm always going to believe my kids to some extent. You know, I'm always going to have their back.

So I don't think I ever heard a parent say, yeah, my son's a real scumback. No. They're always going to fight for it. And Mike and I have spoken about this to, to, to, to, to, to look at it from a parent's perspective, it's not that you say what they're doing is right, but you understand it. You understand the pain that they're going through.

They just lost a kid. And that's a hard thing to deal with. But like Kevin was saying, you know, when you see these TV dramas about police and everything, they're involved in shootings and, you know, movies and all that, they're shooting at this one, and then he jump in a car and they go, they shoot.

It's not like that. No. There is, when I tell you, I was so numb after the shooting. Like I said, I just put a bullet in a guy's head from four feet away. You know, Kevin said, unless you're some psycho, you know, bloodthirsty killer or something, it's going to affect you. You know, and now you start thinking about everything.

You start thinking about, am I going to be able to work again? You know, was I justified in doing this? What are my kids going to think? what's my chief? What's my wife going to think? I was married back then. What's my wife going to think? What's, you know, what's my chief going to think? What are, you know, all of that's going through your mind. Now you have the whole aftermath of it. I said, police cars came from everywhere. There had to be 30 police cars. A New Jersey state trooper went up getting into pursuit and he wanted to fire on that night. And where my, where my town is, it's situated right between New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway. Both of them run pretty much the length of the state, and there's a highway at the end of my town, which is in the town next to us, that could hit both of those highways.

In mind, you, Mike lived in the town he worked in. So it's a big deal. And my kids were going to school there. Right. So everybody knows. It's not like he's working four or five towns over. Everybody knows what's going on. They know there was a shooting last night.

So now, Jersey State Trooper was involved. The troopers, they're on the turnpike in a parkway. They hear one of their guys that were involved. They all come up. there had to be 50 trooper cars there. Cars from every surrounding town there. But that bit you in the ass, though. Yeah.

Because whenever to stay true. So when there's a police, back then, I mean, you're talking about 2015? 2014. 2014. So back then, any shooting went to the Attorney General's office of that county. Or the prosecutor's office of that county. When there's state troopers involved,

it goes to the attorney generals. And the bigger government you get, the slower the process. Right. Like my process was pretty quick when they're going through grand jury and all that stuff, because every shooting goes to grand jury. But when

troopers are involved and the AG's involved, how a sudden it just all slows down. And you're, Mike just said, he's falling under the disguise that, hey, I might go to prison for this. Even though you... I was going to say, does he become more political at that point? Yeah, because... Further up the chain? Because there's optics involved.

You just had a guy, a young black man who got shot by police. Think about the optics. Think about if that happened today. Mike would have been screwed. Well, you know what it was? It was right after, if you remember the Eric Garner chokehold situation, it was right after that where Black Lives Matter just started coming to the forefront, I guess you could say. Right. You know, now, and listen, I say all the time, I don't care if that guy was green. You know, what he was doing was wrong. It was either me or

him. I don't, don't care who he was. I didn't even realize, you know, you're not, thinking at that point oh you know he's black he must be doing something wrong or you know I had what he was doing was wrong I don't care what color you were right you know but it just so happened he was a black guy and and you know like I said the racial tensions at that point were just starting to really get bad so we're waiting for and that's the other thing you know we're waiting for repercussions from that because gang members are going to protect the other gang members. So it's not uncommon. We saw this in numerous towns throughout New Jersey that you kill a gang member. All of a sudden, the gang members put out a hit on the cop. Now, there was a shooting in

Jersey City, a guy named Melvin Santiago, who was killed by a gang member. He executed. He was at a CBS or Walgreens or something. Guy came up, shot him right in the car. They found the guy who did it, the cops, and they got into a gunfight with him. They ended up killing the guy. So now the guy was a blood, I believe. He was a blood gang member. So now the blood's put a hit out on the Jersey City cops, all of them. To the point where the Crips, because they're rival gangs, the Crips are actually, they actually spoke up and said, don't worry, police, we got your back. So now you're getting protected by the Crips because it's a political gang war.

Right. It's crazy. That's crazy stuff. But Mike had a murder indictment hanging over his head for, what, 15 months? Yeah, see, that's the other thing that people don't understand. You just, you think that, you know, once you're involved in a shooting, they give you off the rest of the night, you go back to work. Right.

That happened at 2 o'clock on September, 2 o'clock in the morning, September 16th. September 17th, we had to go meet with our attorneys. Every shooting, you have to get an attorney. You have to get an attorney, or are you going to go to jail? Because there's going to be lawsuits and everything else. September 18th, I went to the state. state police and gave my statement to the state police, you know, all about the shooting, what happened and everything else.

Again, that was September 18th, 2014. Everybody kept saying, did a great job. You know, you did what you're supposed to do. You know, you did what you're trained to do. You know, I was on a SWAT team. I'm a submachine gun operator on a SWAT team. Very qualified at what I did. And everybody kept saying, perfect.

picture perfect shoot you know you did nothing wrong but but we have to present it to grand jury when's grand jury going to be like next month they said well it could take up to a year so now when it goes to the attorney general's office they have to go through it there were there were four officers that went up shooting that night so they have to get all the evidence they have to get your your The ballistics, all the ballistics need to be checked. You're casing, you're casings off the ground, and then they take your gun, and then they fire to see who, you know, they compare the striations and the bullets and everything. So it takes a while.

It took 53 weeks to the day. September 16th, 2014, we got cleared by the grand jury, September 23rd, 2015. In that 53 weeks, one year and one week, I didn't hear it. from the Attorney General's office one time. They don't call it to tell you what's going on with the investigation. They don't call for any additional questions or anything like that. You hear nothing. Meanwhile, he's going through these legal problems.

And he's, think about this from a stress perspective. You're going through all these different legal problems, and he's starting to show some really unhealthy behavior coming at him. And so he had my stress plus one. So getting involved in a critical incident, feeling all the feelings that you're feeling. And then having to worry about going to jail, it was rough. It was really rough. I was sleeping usually about two or three hours at a clip.

You know, I'd lay in bed at 9 o'clock just so I could know I could get three hours of sleep, wake up at 12 o'clock. I was sleeping in my basement. Real bad nightmares. You don't want to affect your family. Waking up in a cold sweat, not knowing if I pissed myself. how sweaty I was. You know, bed was soaked.

So I just figured I'd lay down on the couch down in the basement. I got a TV in there, bathroom, refrigerator, you know, a finished basement. So I'd lay down at 9 o'clock, wake up at 12 o'clock. Now you're wide awake because your mind's spinning. Go to a refrigerator, have a beer, lay back down, fall back to sleep at 1 o'clock, sleep until maybe 2, 3 o'clock, go back to the refrigerator, have another beer. Then I'd be getting up at 5 o'clock in morning, and then I'm up for the day, you know. Are you able to work this whole time?

I was out on workers' comp. For 15 months? 52, a year and a week. But that was, but you actually were because it took you beyond that to get retired. I actually had to start using my own time after that. So workers' comp will only cover you for X amount of time. 52 weeks. Right, 52 weeks.

So after that, you have to start burning. So there's a likelihood and there are as many officers who do it to get involved in these incidents where they can't go back to work. It's not that they don't want to. They can't. Like, I'd give my pension back tomorrow. I was able to retire with a pension. I'd give my pension back tomorrow to go be a cop again because I love that job. It was a life of service.

And it wasn't the bad guys. It wasn't catching bad guys. It was helping little kids. I can tell you a dozen calls where I left that call saying, you know what, I made an impact. But when you can't go back to work and all of a sudden you're going through legal issues and the doctors are telling you you can't go back, now your time runs out. there's a likelihood that I know a lot of officers who go without pay you got a family you got a you got a mortgage you got all these different

responsibilities how are you going to pay how are you going to pay for everything so there's that added stress that goes on to it after the grand jury you know after what they call no build which means you know they're not charging you still took another six months to get the pension you know to go before the pension board so at that point I decided I was going to retire so you know I'm not like I couldn't picture what I went through in that year I couldn't picture ever going through that again

and I told my chief right after the shooting and my chief was great with me as a chief I'm not going back to work until grand jury I said if now first of all I was involved in a first fatal police shooting in Linhurst history never happened before

nobody really knew what to do and it's no fault to their own you know like I said my chief was my chief was the best he was there anything I needed he was right there but he's never been through it they've never been through it now the state trooper that fired right after

right after the incident there was cops all over the place me and another guy from my department are just standing there saying like holy shit what just happened when you're going through that you don't think of nothing

like severity of the circumstances you just you pretty much go into react mode you're almost like robot But after it, when you, when everything starts to hate you, you start to decompress a little bit, we were just standing around going like, what the fuck? Like, now what do we do? You know, state police were there. And believe me, they've had a ton of shootings in their career.

They came up with a team of guys. Their trooper there that was fired, that wanted firing at night. They got a circle around this guy. And you just see the whole circle walk out of the scene. gone, never saw the guy again. Never saw the guy again for a couple of weeks. Then we'd actually become good friends after that. But nobody from Lynnhurst knew what to do.

So I told my chief, I'm not going back to work until the grand jury's over. I can't go back to work with murder indictment hanging over my head. If this same situation presents itself, if I hesitate and I'm killed, fuck it. I'm not here to worry about it. If I hesitate and my partner gets killed, I'm not going to go ring a doorbell and say, you know, I fucked up daddy's dead So I'm not doing it You know because it just

Ways on you constantly It's just that burden that's always in your mind You know You just took a life And now You did what you're paid to do What you're supposed to do What you're trained to do

I felt like a suspect for 53 weeks It just it wore on me I mean took its toll on my marriage You know Going to a divorce took its toll on my kids. You know, like Kevin said, I think it was seven minutes after the shooting.

Linares is a small town. You got the grapevine there. They know that there was a shooting in town. So I picked up my cell phone and I called my wife. I said, listen, I'm involved in a shooting. I'm okay. I'm going into hospital. Because you're always told that as a cop.

When you're involved in a shooting, get out of the scene, go to the hospital. You take your blood pressure, your blood pressure, all that stuff. My wife decides she wants to come up to the scene. She grabs her sister who lives two doors down, her husband. I had like a family reunion at the crime scene. I'm not telling him, just get out of here. You know, I got to go to the hospital.

Go to the hospital. I come back that night, and we have a command post. And the chief said to me, he goes, He goes, what do you want to do now? Chief, you know what? I said, I really just want to go home. I said, I want to go see my kids. Because my kids were in the school district at that point.

They're going to know there's a shooting and they're going to know I was working. I said, I just want them to see me. So before I went to the hospital, I told my wife to go home. I said, listen, when the kids wake up, tell them. Tell them the whole story because they're going to get, you know, bed. They don't want to hear it from their friends. they're going to get shit stories in school and then you know then they're going to you know people

people are going to say oh your father shot so my life's like baby you know so i said go home and tell the kids i'll go i'll get home before they go to school and i'll never forget it and this is when i this is what gets me the most i walked in the house and my wife and kids are sitting at the table eating breakfast before school and my kids came running up to me it just gave me like the biggest hug and I felt them both just like melt in my arms and that was

that was one of the points I said you know what I just can't do this anymore I can't do this I mean what happens if I'm if I'm back to work and I'm working a midnight like Kevin said I live right in a town if I'm working a midnight and the kids hear sirens you know what are they going to be thinking you know

well if he would have went back to work and I've learned this over time there's a couple things that are going to happen because we know officers who are involved in multiple multiple incidents. You know, as an officer, we were talking about earlier where you see all these horrible incidents, you have a glass and it just starts getting filled with water and filled with water. And then you have a critical incident such as these, that glass just spills over. So if you go back to work, young guys have an easier time in general. They have an easier time because their glass isn't filled. They haven't seen as much at that point. But the older guys have just

seen all this stuff and it spills over. So if you go back, you're going to become more aggressive. You're going to end up tuning somebody up for minor stuff because you see a threat in a different way than you did yesterday pre-incident. So you're either going to get fired, you're going to go to jail, or you're going to be dead. I've heard this several times from different people. And I strongly believe that that was with me, and I'm pretty sure it's the same thing with Mike, where you're just hyper, hyper alert of anything and you're going to think the next person coming down the street without their headlights on because they forgot to put them on. Oh my God, it's a stolen vehicle. Here we go again. And you're ready. That's when you start getting in trouble. So you can't

go back to work at that time. And now, in officers, officers are, I love my brothers and sisters in blue, but we're boneheads because too many of them, their primary identity is a police officer. and one day, being a police officer has an expiration date, one day that ends. Now what? Now what do you do? You just took my primary identity away. And that's why you'll see officers dying very soon after they retire. There's a blue suicide is at an epidemic level where I think we're 1.7% per 100,000 and the national averages, it varies between 1% and 1.2% of everything, you know, every type of profession in the world. So we're always at a higher risk for this stuff because that's who we become. We become that officer. We only hang out with cops.

We only trust cops. If you're an outsider, we're not going to treat you the same way because you don't understand. So it's a dangerous situation and it bothers me. So that's why Mike and I now, we deal with other officers because we've gotten through it. We deal with other officers who are involved in critical incidents in first responders, in general. And that's kind of the genesis when we started this podcast. I started this podcast because I realized that my reaction to suffering was so wrong because I was constantly running away from

and trying to numb it. And I used the prairie fire analogy. So years ago, I read stupid shit. It was how to survive critical incidents or how to survive worst case scenarios. That's what the book was. And one of them in there was a prairie fire. So, you know, in Florida or in New Jersey, We don't have a whole lot of prairie fires, but the way to survive it is you run towards that fire because if you run away from it, the prairie fire gets bigger, bigger, bigger, it ends up consuming you.

Now, if you run towards it, you'll get through it, you'll be scarred, you'll be charred, but you're going to get through it and you're going to be alive. Yeah, you're going to be in what's already been burned at the very least, and you're safe. You're safe. But police officers, when we go through these critical incidents,

we just numb it, they medicate us. We don't know how to deal with it. Hey, we know you probably hit play to escape your business banking, not think about it. But what if we told you there was a way to skip over the pressures of banking? By matching with the TD Small Business Account Manager, you can get the proactive business banking advice and support your business needs. Ready to press play?

Get up to $2,700 when you open Select Small Business Banking products. Yep, that's $2,700 to turn up your business. Visit TD.com slash Small Business Match to learn more. Conditions apply. All you have to do is just go up to it and own it and embrace it. And we've had conversations, Matt, and that's one of the things that I really do admire about you

is what you did, what you've done in the past, you've owned it. You're like, yeah, I did this stuff. That's what I did. You don't make it, you don't try to hide it. You don't try to make excuses for what you did other than you like the lifestyle, which I can understand that. Right.

But you've owned it. You know, this is what it is. But if we can get people to own their damage, then they're going to see that on the other side of that damage, it's really a beautiful place. We've taken upon ourselves everybody that, well, not everybody, but a lot of officers from New Jersey that were involved in shootings,

we'll reach out to someone from their department. Say, listen. Clandestinely, I mean, it's not through any organization other than the suffering podcast or our nonprofit dent to development project. That's all we do. Because someone needs to tell you what's going to happen. You know, your department could tell you, okay, you know, they're going to take your gun.

That's the other thing. They take a gun from you, which is emasculating at that point. You know, because now they're taking, at the scene that night, they took my whole uniform, stripped me down in my underwear. I was standing in a command post of my underwear until they got me closed. Not an uncommon event for Mike. Well, I did get promoted three times. Yeah, that's, listen, in New Jersey.

here's how you get promoted. You dirty your knees. That's pretty much what it is. It's standing like a command post. But we do reach out to these different towns now, and we've helped quite a few people say, listen, here's what's going to happen. You know, when we take them step by step through,

what's going to happen. And I give them all my cell phone. And I said, listen, you're going to start getting these weird feelings. You know, you're not going to know why you're thinking. Like Kevin was saying, he had a gun in his mouth. You know, part of post-traumatic stress, is one of the things that come along, that is suicide. I always say I was too much of a pussy to kill myself.

Still am, thank God. But I went to bed every night thinking, you know what? If I don't wake up tomorrow morning, probably wouldn't be such a bad thing. It's an awful feeling. And it couldn't be more wrong. Because when you're gone through the deepest, darkest times of your life, it's so dark in there. You don't realize that there are other people walking alongside

of you who've been through the same thing that can help you, they can see because they got, you know, they got night vision or whatever they have, but you can't see that there's people walking alongside of them. And that's kind of what we do now. It's what we do with our show. We show them that this, there's other people there. You just can't see them because it's too damn dark until you get to the end and there's a little bit of light and it shines a shadow on them. Right. So we've been able to, and we don't just highlight first responders because everybody's got their own damage. Everybody's got their own suffering.

I think one of the best shows we did was Gene. So, yeah, Gene Halberger, Gene Halberger lost his son to suicide. He's actually changed my vocabulary. It's not commit suicide because you commit a crime. So that was always common lexicon that I always came out. Everybody does, yeah, he committed suicide. But you don't do that.

And it's very offensive to people who do. And most of them, they won't come up. and say, oh, you're an asshole for saying that. We've learned a lot of things that are offensive. We say in her comment vernacular. They'll say, no, it's, you lose them to suicide. So Gene lost his 17-year-old son to suicide after being bullied on Instagram. And in school.

And in school. And he found them. Took one of his shotguns and found him in the back. The kid called his father that night and said, or that morning and said, Dad, I just want to tell you, I love you. But when Gene came in the studio and we had to stop, recording many times. I don't understand.

You said he went and, who went and found? Gene went and found. Yeah, the kid called the father that morning. The father was at work. His son called. The son's name was Jimmy. The father is Gene. So Jimmy called Gene and said,

Dad, I just want to tell you. I love you. So he said, I'll be right home. By the time he goes home, he goes in the house and he sees the shotgun case open, goes running around back, and his son had just done it. so half his head's missing and he's doing there's a gurgle so when somebody when somebody shoots

themselves it's not quick and painless most of the time your heart's still beaten and the blood's still flown blood's coming out they they they they're it's this guttural groan coming out of them and he saw his son doing that and it destroyed them they're like a wood any parent right so jean comes in and he tells this just awful story that it's called the ultimate suffering when he left our studio because he had let it out and we had to stop recording numerous times He never talked about it before Yeah, so he never went through any media

He just sort of took a liking to us He came out of our studio and he had a four-hour ride home And he gives us a call and he says You know what that was the most peaceful ride home Because he finally just gave that pain and suffering In his life with just a hug And said, you know what I can release it And since then he's done it a couple other times

And he feels better so there's something to it yeah yeah I'm not totally full of shit yeah maybe a little bit sometimes maybe a little bit no I can understand talking about stuff that bothers you right it's you know I I mean like just from like going to prison and and talking about you know just different things as a child and different things that you know I had gone through and people that you know obviously people that I hurt and people that I lost you know while I was in prison like it's funny because like this there was a psychiatrist I went to a program called artist that. And so you have to meet with like a psychiatrist. And so I had to meet with her all the time.

Ardap. I'm familiar with that program. Ardap Dan, who's Dan Weil. Yeah, yeah, Dan Weiss. Dan Weiss. Yeah. So I had, so I would meet with them all the time. And she used to say all the time, like, you know, look, if you talk about it, you'll feel better. You'll get, you'll get better at telling the story. Or you'll get better at being able to talk about and express it without breaking down and crying and getting upset. And so far I found that to be. bullshit because I because I to this day like I every time there are certain things I talk about if they come up in the podcast or I talk about them immediately start crying just immediately like you you always right me

yeah to this I could talk right now and I'd start tears would start coming down my face and I know exactly what those things are like I'll steer clear of them and and I can it happens all the time I've never gotten better and we call those some people do though yeah we call those triggers

you know something will trigger you you know like Kevin said he went to a comedy movie heard a loud noise yeah you know right after my shooting my daughter was running track in high school the starter's pistol you know I had to look at the starter every time a race started one time

I had my back to the starter when I first went and that started pistol went off I almost ran out ran out of the stadium but the more you tell it there's a lot of validity into what this art at program, I was telling you. So the more you tell it, it's like a release. It's not a desensitizing.

No, I always feel better directly afterward, but, you know, the problems still exist and they're still there. So for me, it's not over. You know what I'm saying? Certain things aren't over. But a lot of this will never be over. It's part of who you are. It's part of one of your scars, or as we call it, one of your dents now. You know, we call ourselves all dented individuals. We have a lot of dents in us. That's a dent that's going to stay with you for the rest of your life it's it's all how you take that dent and work with it right you know it's how you you get over it and that's all part of what we did you know I was saying all the time you know they they were sending my department was sending me to all these therapists and to me it was just rehashing he's going to

tell the same story over and over and the one therapist we talked about before had no clue what was going on so he'd sit there and he'd tell him the whole story and he said well how you feel well you know I feel told them all of my different feelings that I had you and he said why are you feeling like that he said you're the fucking one it's supposed to tell me why I'm feeling like that so I was like done and over with him but when you speak to another person who's you would probably have a inborn camaraderie with somebody who came out of prison versus you know with us we we deal with things a little bit differently than the normal person like if you were to tell a story about something that made you tear up or made you start crying right

that it's going to be all right all right let's figure this out together he starts crying because it's happened many times pussy what are you doing it's happened many times but again it's going back to that dark humor where that's how listen I identify what what you're feeling I understand what you're feeling so let's let's work this out together it's the same thing it's just said two different ways right and that's how we we work through stuff but the funny thing about you know dented individuals is we can still operate we can still operate we can still move forward. We're just not as pretty as we once were, but we're still, we're still functional. Right. And that's where, so we started a nonprofit out of the suffering podcast

called Denton Development Project to help these people because we're doing all this stuff. So we're like, let's, let's name it. Let's do it together. And so far, we've had a lot of success. And on a small scale, but we've had a lot of success. Right. How did, how do we even come up with that name, though? Oh, Christ. So he's going to make me give him accurate. about him coming up with a name because his ego is huge, man. And this slogan. I always, listen, I combat that by saying, I started the podcast prior to Mike coming on. He came on an episode.

I don't remember what the episode was. Episode nine, thanks. Highest downloaded episode. Yeah, so I forget what the episode was. But I always say our success today is because I brought you in. Right. it's all me. It's all me. I saw the genesis of everything. He was getting like four downloads like before. Yeah. It was him, his wife, his kids. But when he came in, it was funny

because he came in and I'm like, oh, you know what, there's something there. There's some meat there. And then you have a good, yeah, you have a good chemistry with certain people. Right, right. And you know, you're sitting down in front of somebody who you, I mean, we had dinner last night, but I don't know you. Okay. And you have to sit down in front of somebody and make them feel comfortable in 10 minutes, 5 minutes, 15 minutes, however long you sit around in bullshit, it's tough with two people there. It's very easy.

Like what you do is different than ours because you're alone doing it. It's tough. People don't realize that. Well, I, I mean, I only disagree because I'm lucky because the people that I'm typically sitting across from, We're in prison. Mm-hmm.

And just like you said, there's, there is that, there is that common bond. Yeah, absolutely. You know, you get there and you've been through a shared experience. And so you, there's just, there's just this immediate connection and, you know, trust. And, you know, you sit down with them and you start talking and you have shared experience. That shared experience, it changes everything. Well, it's like, same thing with like law enforcement, you know. We just could just look at each other and kind of give us, like, yeah, I know what you're talking about.

same thing with you and you know and other inmates you know you have that that experience and you could play off of each other like that it's nice it's it's not you know there's there's so many things like you don't have to break down and explain what this means you just talk in your typical vernacular and they totally understand as opposed to like when you said the you know the bolo like I know what a bolo is but most people don't know and so you're like what that means is this and what that means we'll see when what that happens when this happens no no you can't go back to work you have to do this and this with another cop you're just like immediately. So what happened?

You just go through it and the story doesn't take two hours. It takes 10 minutes. Yeah. You know. Right. Well, it's even terminology. So you can talk to somebody from prison and say, hey, what did you think about whatever process you had to go through with police? It's like, oh, yeah, I got in a modified weaver stance. I was ready to

I was in the shooting position. I was using a SIGP220, 45 caliber stuff like that. Like, you can tell the story in a little bit different way. One of the things that I've learned from from podcasting and from being on different interviews is I have to I have to respect the fact that people don't know those that terminology yeah so I have to explain it a little bit more and it's I was just going to say it's funny you'll meet a somebody else who gets out like they just got out

you'll say like you know you know how do you feel around four o'clock and they're like oh bro I still get uncomfortable like I like I know I'm supposed to be in my cell waiting like for count you know if you say hey how much you know hey what about this what about you could do you could There are little things that you can say, and they go, oh, man, I still feel uncomfortable with this. Or, oh, no, I'm way, like, I don't even bother me anymore, bro. That didn't even, you know, so there's, there's that, that is, that's great. Part of that life that you lived. Yeah, yeah.

Well, and especially in prison. Like, prior to that, like, there's all kinds of stuff that I have no, like, if you're, like, a drug dealer or something, I have no real, I have no real understanding of exactly what's going on. But, you know, I do know that if I talk to some guy in prison and I say, you know, you still wake up a five and they'll go, yeah, that's when the COs turn their lights on. It doesn't matter that just like with even, you know, even my girlfriend is like, you know, you're like, you're waking up at 4 o'clock. I'm, she's like, do you ever sleep at? I go, I can't sleep past 5.

I absolutely cannot be in bed past 5. That's when the COs turn the lights on. Like, I just can't do it. The only thing that's changed for me with police work is I used to be able to stay up all night. I don't, I don't, I can't, I can't, I can't stand it. You know, you work a midnight shift and there's certain rules that you have to follow. personally as to work in midnight chips. It's the one thing I've lost, and thankfully I have lost it

because it's unhealthy to work midnights. It's unhealthy to stay up that whole time, drinking coffee, doing whatever you're doing. That's the one thing that's going away for me. Everything else pretty much stays the same, the different habits. So do you like doing the podcast? Like after you do the podcast, when the people leave, do you feel good about it or you feel...

It's therapy for us. Right. It is total therapy for us. We hear these different things, and we get a new perspective on different parts of suffering, and it feels good. It feels good. And we always say, yeah, downloads are important for this business and stuff,

but if we can just hit that one person, we just had the band Overkill. They were real big in the age. They've been around for 40 years. They've been around forever. We just had a guy, the rhythm guitarist, a guy named Derek Taylor, came in. He's been a professional musician for 30 years,

played with Dee Snyder, play with, you know, plate would overkill for the last 20 years. 20 years. But he has a autistic son with cerebral palsy, who's nonverbal. He's 32 years old. Right. And this guy has been able to be at the top of his game and still be this super dad. I have the utmost respect for this guy.

He's not a first responder, but he's got his own suffering. And when you listen to him, and he's the type of guy who say, well, I don't really know what you really want me to talk about. I'm like, what do you mean? you've got the toughest job in the world and you're still at the top of your career. What are you talking about? They toured a globe and yet his son, every time his son sees him, he's, it's his hero. Right.

So, I mean, that's what we're talking on. This is a guy. I mean, they're a thrash metal band, you know, like in a genre of like Metallica and the Slayer and all that. And they are huge over in Europe. You know, they play all these outdoor venues, these music festivals. They could be playing in front of. 70, 80,000 people.

And here's a guy that's in Europe for, say, three months. And he's got this son at home that is totally dependent, nonverbal. You know, how do you keep at the height of your game worrying about your son at home? And humble? Like, he's like, I don't understand. It's just what he does. That's what his life is. So he just, I just spoke with him the other night.

And he got a message from somebody on social media. media about, hey, look, because he's also adopted. He goes, look, I was an adopted person. I adopted eight kids, three of which are special needs, and you really gave me a lot of hope. Like, stuff like that, when you get stuff like that, you're like, okay, now that's why I'm doing this. And that's what we would continue to do.

We'll continue it for as long as people download our episodes. Right. because, again, without it, it's still fun. When it no longer becomes fun, then maybe we'll have a different discussion. I think one of the best things is the relationship that we have with a lot of the former guests now. They're all family. Yeah. We tell them that when they leave, you know, fortunately or unfortunately, you're part of our family now.

Like we were talking about Gene Hallberger. He has a golf outing every year. We go to that. We go to that and just won't even, like last year, I didn't even tell him I was showing up. Yeah. Just showed up. And when he looked at me, his whole face just dropped, came over and gave me a big hug.

Because it's just all part of giving back. You know, our suffering is unto ourselves. But other people are going through suffering that need, whether it be a kick in the ass or, you know, shoulder to cry on, you know, an ear to listen to you. And that's what we're there for. And that's what we do this podcast for to help other people out. Listen, what I went through and what I'm still going through

after that shooting I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy because it never goes away just so everybody understands that it subsides a little bit but it never goes away you still have flashbacks you know for a year

I mean I still like I said one of the last things when I put my head on a pillow every night one of the last things I see is that guy's head forehead just opening up you know I thought it was the guy pulling his pants down in front of you

oh that's usually right after that but think about this though Matt so this podcast we we talk about everybody being family. We have a group of friends now that are second to none, and they are so diverse. You know, we're friends with the dirtiest cop in New York City and a mobster.

Last night, that was a group. Yeah, that was a group last night. God, no cameras were out last night. But they all, just like they all own their damage. And we have pro sports guys. We have Derek, who's a professional musician. And then we have all of our first responders friends. friends. It's an amazing thing. And Mike and I say this all the time. When we sit back and

you actually sit back and you reflect upon all this stuff, just think about all the people that have been in here. Just reflect upon it for a second. Like, wow. I live this, like, what's going on? I'm just, I'm nobody. I'm a piece of white trash from South Jersey. That's all I am. I'm still white trash, right? Yeah. I was just going to say. You beat me to it. Yeah, I know. I just disarmed you on that one. yeah this has been a horrible podcast bro this is depressing this is killing me like I'm almost fucking in tears like it's just listening just listening to you guys I mean you guys seem to be having a good time and this is like well you know typically I'm so typically like these guys

at least the criminals have fun stories I'm sitting here like he's tearing up your your your eyes are tearing up and I'm thinking gee you know I'm like Jesus this is horrible what did you say to me before last night your girlfriend looked at me and said what's wrong with him Yeah, what's going on with this guy? What's his story? See, now you get to go upstairs and tell her what happened. Yeah. It's just you have to pivot.

Yeah, they're horrible stories. And as cops, we had a lot of fun. Like I could sit here and tell you fun cop stories all the time. Things where I laughed uncontrollably stupid things. Yeah. But when I do these things, when I tell this story and it reaches that one person, that's what makes it, that's the light right there. That's what makes me feel better. That's what makes them feel better.

And that's what this is all about. Like, if you want to hear fun cop stories, I got a million of them. Yeah, I was going to say, like, you know, it's funny just interviewing people. It's like sometimes I interview somebody and, you know, like as horrible, maybe horrible things that they've done, you know, but they have a great outlook, you know, on it. Or other things, people have done stuff that's not a big deal. And you can tell they're, they're, like, depressed about it and they're upset about it. And I feel bad. And they want to apologize and they want to do, you know what I'm saying?

It's the same thing when I do podcast and I'll go and look in the, comments like people are like you know he's bragging he's a piece of shit he's a fucking this he's that it's a you know you have a lot of people to say you know all my you know he was brilliant he was this he was that but it's like it's like you know people don't like nobody wants to see me sit here and you know cry and be sad about my story there it's most of the time when i tell a story it's entertaining but what you guys are doing is you're out there trying to you know trying to help people and and it's also therapeutic for you and you know so it's just a vastly different podcast. It's a different feel to it. That's all. That's why we lighten

it up with humor. Just so you know, that's why Mike and I all bust each other's balls constantly because it is serious. You're absolutely right. It is, it is dark, but it doesn't have to be. We're trying to show people that your darkest of times don't need to be so dark. Right. You can have fun inside, you can still be a normal human being. You know, it's like When you're For us, when your critical incident defined you That's when it bothers me

You know what I'm saying? I've done so many things in my career Not blowing smoke up my ass But you know CPR saves Running into burning buildings But I'm always known as the cop that shot someone Right Because it was the first one in Lynnhurst to ever do it

You know And that incident defines me now that bothers a hell out of me. You know, nobody talks about all the other stuff I did in my life in my career, you know, I was telling Kevin, you know, I used to drive down the street, see kids throwing a football in the street. I'd pull the police car over, get out in uniform, throw to football with them. And just to get to, hey, thanks, officer, I really appreciate, you know.

That, to me was what law enforcement was about. That's what I got in it for to help people and to, you know, be that local neighborhood cop, you know. But now I'm defined by this incident. Well, same thing with you, Matt. You're always going to be defined. what you did in the past. You make these beautiful paintings,

you write these books, you do all this other, you do this podcast, you do all this other stuff, but you're always going to be defined by that. Yeah, no doubt. One of the guys we were with last night, John Elite, he will always be defined,

no matter what he's doing now. And John is doing some really great stuff. Like he'll go out and talk about the mythology of the mafia life. But he's always going to be defined as John Gotti's hit man. Do you remember the kids that, I forget the college was it in Texas?

or where they'd been blamed for raping a girl and a fraternity. And then it came out later that she made the whole thing up and it was all bullshit. And it just never happened. And one of those kids, when they dropped the charges and said, wow, you know, you're right, that's not what happened. And he said, he said it wasn't, you know, getting arrested and doing all the other stuff. He said, wasn't what bothered me. He goes, what bothers me is the rest of my life, no matter what I do. He goes, I can raise a family.

I could start businesses. I could do amazing things. Because when I die, my obituary were I say, this is a kid that was accused of rape. He said, that will always be my obituary, no matter what. But isn't that the way it always is? We label at the lowest common denominator. That's a great way of saying it.

We always do that. No matter what it is, millennials, I know tons of millennials who are great people, hard workers, really sharp people, but what's your view of millennials? Lazy, entitled. Yeah. And you can take every group of people in the United States

and lump them into that. Look at Woodstock. You know, old Woodstock are a bunch of pot smokers, they're CEOs, there's a bunch of people. As a matter of fact, the doctor that treated both of us

was at Woodstock, and he is so far on the other side of what you would think somebody from Woodstock is. Right. Yeah. I mean, he's like,

But he'll always be like the Woodstock doctor. He's always Woodstock, doctor. When we talk about, like Kevin said, John Elite, you know, it wasn't, oh, we have John Elite coming into the show. It's like, hey, we got a mobster coming. You're right. He's going to be defined as a mobster his whole life now. Great story about him.

So the first time I ever talked to him, he's going off the rails on another mobster, how he's a phony, how he's no good, he's a liar. And he goes, the guy's only shot one guy. And I go, John. I go, John, think about what's. you just said there. He's only shot one guy. So, you know, I don't want to say, I don't exactly want to say what I said after that. But that's, that's how you get tied into all that stuff. Yeah. That, that, we just got to walk away from the labels because you're, you're,

you're Matt Cox, the author, you're Matt Cox, the, the painter. And that's the important stuff because that's what you're doing right now. But then you got Mike Dowd, who's always just going to be the dirtiest cop of New York City. Mike is just, yeah. I love hanging around him because he makes me feel normal. Yeah. yeah it's funny um i was going to say it's it's funny what's normal to me and and me and you know the other guys that are here like we're having a normal conversation that to me we'll talk for 45 minutes about this oh and then what oh yeah no no no listen oh that's not listen one time you know one upping each other just kind of just goofing around and then you

read the comments and you see the views and you realize and and people are going nuts and you're and and you're like you have to kind of like for us we have to step back and go I guess a lot of guys haven't gone into a bank giving them fake documents showed him a fake ID and walked out with a check for $250,000.

Yeah, that is a little odd. Like I'm always curious or shocked when people find me fascinating or start saying, bro, what, this was amazing and this and this and this. And I'm like, okay, okay. But I'm looking at him thinking that was just

for me a natural progression. But I guess if you're a guy that works at Tire Kingdom, you know, and you've never really been in trouble, then for them, they're, that's, that's, you know, you're, you're shocking or amazing or they're, they're fascinated by you. You, you were telling some, you were talking last night and I was fascinated by the stuff you're saying. Because you're, you're actually looking at your life from, from the elevated position. You're, you're looking at your life for a story, but while you were doing it, it was just, okay, this, okay, let's do this, let's do this. But, and it's, it's real fascinating because

you just figured it out. Like, you just figured. it out, even now. That's how I see you. I don't see you as somebody who did that stuff. I see you as somebody who has figured everything out in their life. I'm sure you're not, I'm positive, you're not perfect, and I'm positive you still have your damage. But you take a thought and you almost wish it into existence. Like, this is what I'm going to do. And I'm going to do it. And you do it effectively. You do it successfully. And that's the admirable trait. And that's what I think is your, you defines your life now. That's how I see you anyway.

Where me, I don't want to be defined as my shooting. I want to be defined as the cop who helps others get through it. Right. Mike and I sit down every week. We sit down with a variety of different guests just to talk about people's suffering and how to get through them and how to come out on the other side, a little bit cleaner. Just visit the Sufferingpodcast.com. There'll be links to all of our Instagram accounts, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, Twitter, all those things.

And then our second portion is Dented Development Project. Just go to Dentaddevelopmentproject.com. We are a nonprofit organization, 501C3, trying to do our best in order to pay the help that we received forward. Right. So if you could go to that link and get involved, we'd greatly appreciate it. What we do with Denta Development Project is we,

any money we raise, we donate to families or officers and their families of first responders that are in need. You know, God forbid someone, you know, has lost to suicide or something, we could throw them some money. And, you know, so that's what we do with all the money that we're raised for that. We don't, we don't make, we don't take a penny out of that ourselves. I was going to say, if you send all the links to, so all the links will be in the description

section of YouTube, which is one of the reasons I was saying you should definitely, you know, think about doing the YouTube thing. Did you see what this guy looks like, Matt? You want me to put him on camera? So you can put all in the description. We'll put all the links and everything. And, you know, and I've listened to the podcast and they're, you know, hard-ranging. But hard to listen to.

But, yeah, but they're, you know, they're, yeah, they're great. They're actually very professional. Your voice on, like, is not you, but, you know. He turns my mic down. You got a great voice. He does. He's got a radio voice. Yeah, he does.

He's got a voice for radio on a face. for radio, that's why we're not going video. You know, the funny, now when you listen to yourself, really just a quick question I got for you, when you listen to yourself on your show, do you like your voice?

No, I never watch my shows, almost never. Like I, I, very, very seldomly do I, I watch, you know. And it's, and it's funny when you mentioned the other thing about, like we were talking about the, you know, just basically like being,

like doing the things that I've done in general. I was talking to Tommy one time, and he had made a comment about, we were talking, I don't think we were on video, where he had said, I had said something like, yeah, you know, I said, you know, this is just, this is what happened. This is how my life progressed and I made a bunch of bad decisions. I said, I mean, would have rather have been, you know, teaching my kids, you know, soccer team, you know, and just been a normal guy. And I said, because, you know, and been happy. And he said, oh, well, well, you know, those guys think they're happy and you know but the truth is that's what that's how i wish my life had progressed like i you know he was like kind of mocking the average guy the average um middle class guy but the truth is like i envy that guy like when i say tire kingdom or or um or i talk about uh you know working at walmart or something And I say it, people always think I'm mocking them.

But the truth is, I envy those people. I wish my life had taken that path. It was a great scene that Robert De Niro does in the Bronx tale. Right. When he's talking to Colodrell, and he says, you know, you think these guys are heroes. You think these guys are courageous. Try getting out and going to work every day. Right.

And those are the real heroes. Right. I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. I wish I could. But you're doing it now? I mean, I'm doing it now, but, you know... So what?

Now that, you know, I've trashed everything. But you haven't, though. And again, this is the whole point of it. You haven't. You can start from step... There is a starting point from step two. You just got to figure out a way to do it. And you do that.

So just because you did what you did doesn't mean you can't do great things in the future. Right. You know... I mean, I'm working on it. Yeah, I mean, even just look at the paintings I have. I mean, yeah, I know, I want to let you in to be part of the police world. You're crying, you're sissy dude, I'm sorry.

Yeah, you know, I know. I forget, was it? I just want to make you feel like a little bit of a family. I said something one time when I, I teared up or something. And I said, yeah, I cry easy. And he goes, well, why is that? I go, because I'm kind of a pussy. And he was like, no, you know, and say, he was like, yeah.

And listen, that's a real person. That's an emotion, you know, crying's an emotion, laughing, you know, crying. You show no emotion. That's when you're, that's when I believe you got no hope of turning your life around. When you show no emotion, you got no hope anymore. You're just going to, you're going to stick right in that rut you've been in. Up until I went to prison, like I probably cried three times my whole life. You know, then I went to prison.

And then really, since I got out of prison, really, I think not just that. Really, after I got the 26 years, I've been crying like a bitch ever since. That might be like releasing your past. But again, so, okay, there's a perfect point. You cried three times. Is it really the right way to do things? Or is what you're doing now the proper way to deal with your emotions? No, no.

This is the better way instead of getting pissed off and walking away and bearing it and feeling like shit and not sleeping for three days. And yeah, no. You know, they say, you know, never let them see you cry. Well, why not? Yeah, I don't know. Why not? You know, enough of this male macho bullshit.

You know, we all have feelings. We all have emotions, and they're going to get out sometimes. And if you don't like me crying, I'll pop you right in a face. I mean, that's all it is. But thank you very much for having us here. I do truly, truly appreciate you having us on your show. Absolutely. And letting us come in your house.

Yeah, this is nice. I just wish we should order some better weather for us, you know. Yeah, we come all the way down to Florida. It's 50 and rainy. I'm out. And I got shorts on today because I said, I'm in Florida. I'm wearing shorts. Yeah.

And there was ice on my windows. Like, I don't know what to do. Like, I immediately turned on, you know, it was, it was 30 degrees and I hit the windshield wiper thing. Like, we were going to the gym. And it, well, and nothing came out. And I go, and, you know, Jess looked at me like, what are you an idiot? It's 30 degrees. There's ice and the, they're frozen.

What do you think is going to happen? Like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's right. The ice thing. I forgot about that. Very impressed by Jess, by the way. Very impressed. So I have a feeling why you're so successful now because you got a good woman behind you. Yeah, well, this one.

This one. you need the whole story oh boy I'm trying to help you I'm trying to help you and you're just burying yourself well you got you got beat down a little bit last night

because you know everybody was blowing you up and she was like oh no not again here we go yeah I'll say you see that guy

he thought I was awesome she's like he doesn't know you so hey I appreciate you guys watching and if you like the video do me a favor and hit the subscribe button hit the bell

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