Sasquatch Chronicles - SC EP:592 Confessions Of A Retired Police Officer

Episode Date: October 20, 2019

Kurt writes "I had an incident in 1995 in Northern Michigan that I would like to run by you. I was jogging and this thing got up and took off running. It looked like shaquille o neal in a ghillie suit. I have never disclosed this to anyone but my wife…… but now that I am retired (training units only), I'm not so nervous about speaking about it." Spoke to Kurt in depth about his encounter including other strange calls he has been on. One account Kurt relates was a call where the home owner said there was a prowler on the property. When the officer's arrived they said there was large canine tracks around these peoples home. These tracks were larger than normal and there was scratch marks on the side of the house about 8-9 feet up. Kurt relates "I got a call one time about a lady who said someone was walking on her roof. When we arrived we walked around her property and could not find anything. There was a lot of snow but as I shined my light up on the roof I saw what appeared to be footprints on this ladies roof. It was odd….I remember getting in my patrol car not sure what to make of this." Kurt will be sharing this and many more incidents that he encounter as a police officer. Join me as we pull the curtain back and take a look at law enforcement from behind the scenes.

Black thing go from left to right, and I thought, I'm going to die out here and no one's ever going to know. I couldn't believe what my eyeballs were showing me. I'll never forget how evil the eyes were. It was horrible. I mean, I've never seen nothing that evil. It ran towards me at a rate that I can't even explain, turned and stared at me. And this look of, I just want to kill you. I want to say it was human, but it wasn't.

He was yelling at me to grab a gun, grab a gun. I was like, for what? He said, just grab a gun. And there's footprints all the way to the door of my house. It had went inside my garage all the way to the door. 911, what are you reporting? Get somebody out here. What's going on now, sir? That son of a bitch is about six foot, nine, I don't know.

Do you see him now, sir? Yes, I'm looking right at him. You're listening to Sasquatch Chronicles. Check us out online at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. If you've had an encounter, email me. My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. Welcome to the show, everyone. Thanks for being here tonight.

Got a great show, plan for you tonight. We're talking to Kurt, and Kurt comes to us from Michigan. He's actually a retired police officer, and he had his own encounter many, many years ago. He was out for a run and saw one of these creatures get up, and run right in front of them. He never told anyone about it, except for his wife. So I'm so glad he'd come on the show tonight.

And it's kind of nice to pull the curtain back on law enforcement to kind of see what these guys go through. I'm going to ask Kurt tonight, you know, what are some of the weirder calls you've been out to? What are some of the strange calls that you go out to? And his answer might surprise you. If you've had an encounter and you'd like to be on the show, shoot me an email. My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.

And if you get a chance to check out Sasquatch Chronicles.com, you can become a member and get additional shows. Let's jump into it tonight. I want to welcome Kurt to the show. Kurt, thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me, Wes. Yeah, I appreciate you being here. And I know you've been in law enforcement most of your life.

And you actually had a very strange, confusing encounter. I know at the time. And I can't wait to hear it. If you would, would you just kind of start from the beginning. tell us what you were doing and walk us into what happened if you would? Certainly. And again, thanks for listening to me, listening to my story. I wouldn't necessarily call it a Sasquatch encounter.

It's just an unknown encounter. And I guess the people that hear my story can make up their own mind as to what I saw. But this took place back in the early 90s. I was a young police officer. and I was out, I was off duty, and I, at the time I lived with a friend in and around the Manistee National Forest. And in the evening, I decided that I would go for my run. And being a young officer and a SWAT officer, I was trying to stay in really good shape.

And I would just put my Walkman on and take off on a run down some of the gravel roads and some of the two tracks in and around the edge of the National Forest. And I had about a three, I would say a three or four mile loop that I ran every other day. And so I left the house and headed south down the gravel road. And it was near a power line. Not many, not many houses at all. Maybe every quarter to half a mile, you might find a small house or a trailer, some hunting property or something. But as I approached an intersection, I caught movement in front of me, forward of me at about my 10 o'clock. And when I looked up, there was something that stood up. It had been down in the ditch on the shoulder of the road. It stood up and it bolted across an

open space, a little open field right into the edge of the woods, into the thicket. It was huge. It was very big and it was black and gray. And it moved extremely quick. I would have to say it covered that 50 yards and well under three and a half seconds. And, you know, having been a college football player, I played ball with some guys that were 350, 375 pounds that they could run. They were athletes and they could actually move, you know, a five second 40-yard dash. and this thing was not only bigger than them,

but it was a lot quicker. So, you know, after I saw it, in my mind, I was just thinking myself, you know, what did I just see? I didn't know what I just saw. Never seen anything like that before. And at the time, I just, I was focused on my run, of course. I was still breathing heavy and tired,

and I just continued my run down the two track. and I had a 357 magnum snub nose in a fanny pack that I carried at the time. And I got back to my house or got back to my friend's house where I was staying. And that evening, he wasn't a police officer, but I mentioned it to him. He was quite a hunter, his entire life. He had been in the woods a lot. And I mentioned it to him. And he just kind of shook his head and gave me a funny look like he had no idea what I had seen.

And I had never said anything for well over 25 years. I never said anything to anybody because I didn't want to be ostracized. And I didn't want the department to label me as, you know, seeing things. So I just shut my mouth. I didn't say anything as, you know, a lot of police officers do. So until recently, I haven't told anybody this story. And so when you saw this thing go across, across this road that you're running down.

And I realize this is like 1-1-1,000, probably 3-1,000, and the Saints gone. Can you describe what you saw, Kurt? Well, I can try. It didn't run in front of me. It came up out of the ditch at my 10 o'clock. If I was running south, and it came up at about a 45-degree angle off my 10 o'clock,

it looked to me a person or a thing the size of Shaquille O'Neal wearing a black and gray gilly suit. And I, you know, I'm very familiar with gilly suits being a SWAT officer and a SWAT former SWAT commander. My sniper teams wear gilly suits and they're very distinctive looking. So that's the only thing that this even came close to looking like. But it was very dark. It was out of color. You know, Michigan is very green up here, especially in the middle of summer. And there would be no reason for a hunter in the middle of the summer in Michigan,

who stands seven foot tall and weighs 500 pounds to be wearing a black and gray gilly suit. It just doesn't make any sense. So that's what it looked like. And when it took off, it accelerated out of the ditch. I mean, it must have had a lot of fast-twitch muscle because it had ungodly. oddly acceleration. Now, I've seen, you know, guys that can run, but this thing, whatever, whoever it was, was able to accelerate in three seconds and clear 50 yards, and it was just explosive. And the legs, the legs to me, the lower body, you know,

I'm trying to do a recall here, but the legs almost seemed shorter and they were really fast. They were really, they were, I remember them jackhammering, quick and the knees looked like they were coming up a lot like a, you know, like a running back almost or like a full back. And then it was gone. Just as quick as I seen it, it was gone. And I just, you know, sweats dripping in my eyes and I'm sucking in dust from the road and I'm trying to process what I saw. And I just couldn't, I couldn't put it into a category. It just, you know, being a cop, everything we do in our careers is based on factual evidence. Well, the best evidence is, of course, factual evidence.

But I couldn't put it into a category. I couldn't classify it. And so for 25 years, it was an unknown. I would imagine, you know, and a lot of times I think, I know you weren't really into Bigfoot. He probably never gave it a second thought at that time prior to this happening anyway. but a lot of people, it always amazes me when they have encounters, they would say, well, I didn't think Bigfoot was here. I thought it was more of, if it does exist,

it's more of a Pacific Northwest California problem, which isn't true. But I think that's a mentality that kind of takes over a lot of times when people see these things. I wanted to ask you, when it ran, came out of the ditch, how far away from you was this saying? I was about 40 yards. I would say 30 to 40 yards.

So relatively close. I mean, this thing's basically right there. It was very close. But as fast as it moved, I mean, I, again,

you know, I just, I came to a stop and just stared. And before it, I mean, it was gone so quick that, you know, and if it had moved towards me,

I mean, it would have been on me before I could even wipe the sweat off my face. I mean, it was that quick. Yeah, it makes me wonder if the creature just heard you coming and figured you probably saw it and got up and took off. Because if you would have kept running, now it's kind of down in a ditch. I don't know the area really well.

Do you think if it stayed down there, you would have never seen it running past it? You know, it's a good possibility because, you know, when you run, you're listening to music, you're kind of breathing and you're focusing on what's in front of you. And so I guess my situational awareness while I'm running as well as a lot of people, you're kind of blind. to certain things that are going on, especially if you're listening to music or whatever. But, I mean, I may have avoided it. Maybe I wouldn't have seen it,

but it certainly stood out, especially when it stood up, because of the color, because it was so dark, it was so black in it. And, of course, being so big, it looked like a black cow in the middle of a green field. It just stood out. I wanted to ask you, being a couple, cop and for all the years that you're a cop, did you ever get called out to a call to where, let's say

it was a prowler or, and you get out there and it just doesn't make any sense? I guess what I'm asking is, have you ever been called out to a property? And I don't know if you worked in the rural areas, but called out to a place and nothing makes sense as far as what's going on out here. Yeah, we've worked and that I worked up here. You're looking at an area of about 900 square miles, and a large portion of that area is National Forest. So you have people who live in the middle of nowhere,

in the outskirts and in the middle of these National Forest roadways and stuff, that, you know, over the years you get calls all the time about prowlers. and but some of the folks up here, they're not so concerned about them. I mean, they're, they're, they're,

they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, and, uh, , Yeah, we've had calls like that.

I know there was one where you were telling me about a detective that went out and he was seeing claw marks on a home. Can you relate that whole situation? Yeah, it was, no, this wasn't my department. This was another department just to the north of our jurisdiction. But I was friends with the, at the time he was a detective sergeant who, who, uh, investigated this, this attempted break-in, I guess, is attempted burglary, this residence, this break-in. And it was an old cabin.

And literally, if you were to Google search, the Michigan Dogman, you'll find the remnants of this story on the internet. But he had responded along with a conservation officer to this cabin. and they found claw marks, big claw marks, seven, eight feet up on the side walls of the cabin on the outside and on the outside edges of the windows. And then they found large, almost like massive canine foot impressions on the ground around the cabin. And what did they think? I mean, I realize you probably aren't going to tell the person who made the call the opinion, but did he ever come to you and say, I don't know what the hell is going on out here? Well, I mean, no, he didn't come to me and say anything like that, but I think that's the general impression was that, you know, something very odd is happening here, can't identify it, don't know exactly what it is.

And again, you know, most police officers are not going to give an opinion on something like that. They're probably concerned like I was being called crazy or, you know, having your reputation. damage because of your opinion on a situation like that. So he never actually told me what he thought it was. But, I mean, again, you know, we're based on everything we do is police officers, is factual, is based on facts and evidence. And the facts and evidence showed that even if it was some kind of an animal or a wolf or it would have had to have been reaching at least eight foot up, seven or eight feet up onto the side of the cabin.

And it would have had to have been huge. You know, and I know that I haven't done a lot of research on it, but I have seen information on this Michigan dog man because it's kind of a legend up here in this area where, you know, there were sightings and legends from the Indian tribes up here that date back well back into the early. 1800s. So, you know, it's always in the back of your mind, but of course, being a police officer, you're never, you're never going to make a public statement as to what, what you think you saw. And why is that? Because you're held to that as like, it's fact, it's biblical when you guys give an opinion. Why is it that they won't? And maybe it's a dumb question. I'm just thinking, why not give an opinion as far as what you think is actually going on? Well, I mean, everyone has their opinion on things, but being a public servant, your opinion is not nearly as important as your presentation of factual information. And again, I think that it's much like police officers and troops, soldiers, marine sailors, talking about PTSD with their, and maybe it's a little bit different now. I've been out of it for a few years, and it's more acceptable.

But you just don't talk about things like that with your people because you're worried that, you know, you'll be ostracized. And if they see a weakness, at least back in the old school days, that's kind of the way it was. Have they seen a weakness in your armor, then they would raise concerns about it. And your reputation and your wellness, especially your mental wellness, is a priority. being a law enforcement officer. So just to be guarded, most officers won't say much. They won't give their opinion on things. And to be honest with you, it's really,

I think it's really a good idea to be somewhat guarded with your opinion. And again, everybody's got opinions. But if it's based on factual information, I think it's the best. It's the best opinion you can get. it's based on facts. I gotcha. It's kind of like asking a cop on duty in uniform, his political views. You'll never get an answer from them.

You know, which is kind of nice. I get what you're saying. And I want to get to kind of some of the strange calls that you've been out to. I think it's great for the audience. You and I were talking about this the other day. And I said, you know, when you talk to a lot of times military guys, and I've been blessed enough to have law enforcement come on the show and active military and retired military come on the show. It humbles me when they do that because I know full well, a lot of times you don't talk about what happened to you unless, like cops talk to cops.

Guys in the military veterans will talk to veterans. But very few times will they actually, you can pull the curtain back and see that lifestyle because they won't share it. It's something that they don't, unless you've lived it, they don't want to share it with you. And I understand that to some degree. So I wanted to ask you about some of the calls you've been out to. Before we get into that, I know you got a brief view of Sasquatch, and I ask everyone this question. What do you think that Sasquatch is? What's your opinion, Kurt?

Well, I don't know. My opinion is I don't know what it is. I don't know what I saw and I don't know what Cessquatch is, but it just, it most certainly sounds out of place and it looks out of place here. Whether or not it's an animal or it's a spiritual entity or a combination of both or an alien, I really don't know. But it most certainly seems to me to be out of place. And if in fact it is an animal, I don't think, like I told you. you yesterday, I don't think that it's more intelligent than we are, but I do think instinctually it has better survival characteristics than we do for living in the wild as most animals do.

But I really don't know, Wes. I don't know what it is. I just know that it's huge, and it can run about a three-second 50-yard dash. Yeah, and I know you know a lot of big guys. I know you're a big guy and you played football. A lot of your buddies played football. And it is crazy to see something that physically big move that fast. I mean, I've seen some fast defensive linemen, but they don't compare like this thing getting up out of the ditch and running and just taking off in like a blink of an eye. It almost seems unreal, doesn't it, when you see how fast they move? it does because i mean

even if i remember as a kid watching you know on tv watching andre the giant and remembering how you know how massive and how big that man was but to see something that big to accelerate that quick i mean it had animal speed it looked like a you know a five or six hundred pound lion how they

accelerate when they when they take off from from a standing stop and uh it It just, it didn't seem real. It was really weird. And, you know, the more I thought more about it, the more puzzled I was, I had a lot of questions, but I just, I just never said anything. I just had to keep it inside for 25 years. Yeah, and I'm honored that you would share it here. And, you know, you talked about them having kind of shorter legs or the legs seem shorter.

And you and I were talking yesterday, and I was telling you how their knees are almost kind of where the shins. are at. And if you ever get a chance to look at one longer than three, three or four seconds, and it kind of gives that impression of short, stubby legs, even though in reality they're really not. Yeah, fascinating account. Thank you, thank you again for sharing the Sasquatch encounter. I want to ask you, being a cop for all the years you were a cop, what's the strangest thing you've ever seen? What's the strangest call you've ever been out to? Boy, like I said before, I could make a list. I mean, like most of us probably could write a book.

But, you know, I've been on a call with an individual who we felt was potentially disturbed demonically. I don't know a good way of saying that. But that was quite an incident. and I'm actually looking for the 911 call and the radio transmissions of the other officers that I helped that were calling for help. And if I can find that, I'll send that to you. Yeah, please do. Tell us the story. Tell us about it. Well, it was, I want to say this was probably in the late 90s or early 2000s, but myself and a state trooper got dispatch to a health facility. There was a report from a doctor that worked at this health facility that one of the nurses,

one of the newer nurses that were working at the facility was potentially suicidal. So, you know, most suicide calls or suicidal calls that we take as police officers involve drugs or a weapon, a knife, or a gun, conventional means of suicide, potential hanging, that kind of stuff. But when we were briefed by the doctor, we were kind of stunned. When we arrived, the doctor told us that this nurse had been sitting in the break room. And when the doctor walked in, he, he being the nurse, was facing the window, and his head was turned all the way around facing the doorway. So 180 degrees, his head was facing backwards. And his eyes were rolled into the back of his head, and he was making strange sounds. And so he didn't quite know what to do. So, you know, what most people do, they call the

police. I mean, we, we get called for everything, right? And so we made contact with him. And by then, his head had apparently turned back around forward, but he was very passive and quiet, and he was somewhat deceptive. And he didn't want to talk to us. He didn't want to engage with us. and both me and the senior trooper that was we're on scene, me working for the sheriff's office and then the trooper being an old 20-year veteran himself. We discussed afterwards how odd and how strange the behavior this individual was. So we'll fast forward to the next day. We left the scene.

We did reports. We felt it was odd, but medically, you know, there was nothing we could do. It wasn't a crime. We didn't feel he was suicidal at that point. And so the next morning, while I was getting ready for work, I was putting my gear on, and I turned my radio on early, my small portable radio, I turned it on early before I checked in on duty just to see what was going on and hear the radio chatter, where the units were and what was taking place. And as soon as I turned the radio on, I heard a city officer screaming for help. And then I heard a second officer screaming for help. And they were at an address in a local town fairly close to me, several miles from where I was.

And so I threw my gun belt on, my body armor, my uniform. I was able to make it into my squad car, half dressed, and I took off with my lights on. When I arrived, there were four other officers there, and they were fighting with an individual. When I say fighting, they were literally, it looked like four men holding on to a Brahma bowl. And they were rolling back and forth and in the dirt, in the driveway. And there were uniform pieces and equipment laying on the ground. And this had been going on for probably eight to ten minutes. They had been fighting with this person trying to get him handcuffed.

And I looked as I approached and it was the same guy. it was the same nurse from the call the day prior. And I couldn't believe it. But of course, I'm there to help my buddies. And, you know, you put that in the back of your mind. And I grabbed a hold of him. And we've got a lot of weight on him. Now we're trying to keep his weight down on the ground because he was so strong.

But during this entire event, while we were struggling with him, he was he wasn't really speaking but he was more chanting um an odd uh chant it didn't make any sense it wasn't a language we could understand um and then i was on his uh lower back with my knees trying to keep his his hips pinned down to the ground to take away his power and a couple other officers were trying to get the arms to get his arm seized so we could handcuff him um And we have quite a bit of weight on him, trying to seize his arms and his hands. And he literally did a, he was face down. And you're familiar with what a Roman chair sit-up is.

He did a reverse sit-up and bent backwards on his lower spine, bent backwards and pick me up off the ground about a foot and a half. And I, at the time, weighed about 270 pounds. he picked me right up off the ground, sitting up backwards, and he turned his head around and looked at me. And his eyes were white. I couldn't see any pupils. And he was, again, you know, he was chanting and frothing. And I thought, boy, this guy's on drugs.

You know, this is bad. He's on something. This is, you know, usually someone's not that strong. Usually most people will, you know, you'll be able to apprehend them with at least two, three officers. You're not a problem. So eventually we got the handcuffs on him and he lowered me back down to the ground. And we took him to the hospital immediately because just because of the threat of the drugs on board, the power that this guy had was incredible. So we brought him to the hospital.

And of course, you know, the medical staff, we had, they restrained him into. the gurney and they started IVs and the doctors and they started pushing meds and doing blood draws on this guy to see what was in a system and there was nothing in a system. We just, when the report came back and the doctor came in, the toxic guy, they said there is absolutely no drugs on board, nothing, no alcohol, no drugs, no nothing. And we were puzzled, you know, we're just stunned and puzzled. after interviewing the girlfriend, this individual's girlfriend, she had told us that about a week prior to this entire ordeal with his behavior, he had began experimenting with a Ouija board. And she literally told us, you know, he became over a period of four or five days, he became a possessed or different person.

Well, we seen it firsthand. It was unbelievable. The only other person that I've ever had to put my hands on that was that strong was a 300-pound bodybuilder who was having a diabetic, having diabetic shock. And he was that strong. But he, you know, he was, he was 300-plus pounds. You know, there was a big difference. So that's one, one story, Wes. Yeah, and he wasn't. When you and I were talking about this, he wasn't that big of a guy, really. I mean, he seemed like he was a pretty small guy, wasn't he? He was.

He was probably, I mean, just guessing again, he was probably 5'10, 130, 135 pounds. Very small, very small guy. And didn't his girlfriend tell you about him? I mean, when you first told me this whole thing, I was shocked by it. Didn't you tell me that his girlfriend said he was punching through a wall trying to get to a parrot in the next apartment? Yeah, she said that he had been playing with this Ouija board on his own at night. And he stood up and he accelerated towards the wall. He lived in an apartment.

I think it was a duplex. He accelerated towards the wall and just began destroying the wall. He eventually made his way all the way through the wall. He busted the drywall and the boards apart and made it into the other apartment and was attacking the There was a parrot of some kind. There was a bird in a bird cage in the next apartment and he was attacking this bird And that's when not only did she call 911, but her the the neighbor who lived in that apartment the owner of the bird called 911 And when the first responding officer showed up and I personally know this guy's and it incredible police officer. He happens to be a jiu-jitsu instructor and defensive tactics

constructor and he's in great shape. And when he made contact with the individual, he said the first thing the guy did was he did a forward, forward somersault through the front window of the apartment onto the deck and did a back somersault off from the deck down under the front lawn. And as soon as he hit the ground, that's when that's when this officer put his hands on him to apprehending. And he had him at one point said he was behind him and had him in what we call at the time was called a vascular neck restraint. It's a non-airway choke. It's just a simple vassal constriction choke that is not designed to kill anybody. It's just designed to take them under control.

and he said he had a perfect vaso neck restraint on this individual. And in a blink of an eye, this 130-pound guy tore his choke or his arm off his shoulder and his head and literally just popped his arm off and away he went, took off across the lawn again. So, you know, that's when multiple officers started arriving. And then that's when I heard the radio chatter when they were still fighting with him on the ground. It was just incredible. But the biggest thing is, of course, with me, he sat up backwards with me on his shoulders or on his back and picked me right up off the ground, almost like I wasn't even there.

And then when his head turned around, I mean, I'm surprised it didn't break his neck. He turned his own head around and was looking at me backwards. So that was a little freaky. That is freaky. That's almost beyond drugs, I would think, if someone spun their head around and I'm looking at them. But, you know, in the moment, what do you make of that? You know, it's got to be drugs. This guy's on PCP. This guy's on something. But spinning his head around and then when the doctors told you that, that's creepy, man. You know, I always warn people not to play with Ouija boards and I get

laughed at a lot over that. And I even had the confessions of a pastor on. And he was talking about demonic possession and people doing extraordinary things when they're possessed. Stuff you, that seems impossible. Like spinning their head around. Like you said, that was my first thought. You think you break your neck doing that, but you hear that a lot when people are possessed. Did you ever find out what happened to that guy? Well, I guess he was facing a couple charges.

One was, you know, destruction of property. And then I think another charge of resisting arrest and home invasion. but after the after the court date, he left town and he was gone. So I mean, I'm not going to give you his name, but I'll never forget his name.

I've got his name embedded in my mind. And I can still see him. I can still see his face and still remember being picked up off the ground like that. So yeah, I'll never forget it. But he left town after that happened. Yeah, and I wouldn't ask you to give the name,

but I would imagine he's imprinted in your mind. Yeah, that's terrifying, man. Was there ever a point during your career to where you thought, and I realize it might take you a moment to think about this, but over all the years you were a cop, you know, SWAT, detected, you know, all the different roles that you played throughout your career, was there ever a moment where you thought, I don't want to do this anymore?

Like, I'm just not, this isn't for me. was there anything that stands out to you being in law enforcement of that moment of I should have been a truck driver I should have been you know right you know what I mean right I love truck drivers matter of fact they're the back bone of America but I you know the thing is being a being a police officer you go through phases just like anything in life so the beginning phases of the career are really fun and exciting and then you you get low areas and, you know, the death of children, seeing children killed and seeing abuse and seeing these things as a police officer, these are things that really affect you a lot,

you know, on a spiritual level, on a level of morality that it really makes you assess your life and who you are and what you're doing, what your mission is, trying to serve. and protect and help people. So, yeah, there's definitely times in the career of a law enforcement officer that will push you away. They will try and push you, try and push you right out of the career. There's alcoholism. There's suicide rate is extremely high. Matter of fact, last year, I think statistically we've lost more officers to suicide than we have to gunfire.

But, you know, there's near-death experiences that we've had, that most officers have had, where you've literally brushed against death's shoulder. And I can recall, you know, throughout my career many times where someone was waiting for me with a gun around the corner or an individual with a knife ready to stab me. And it just so happens that tactics and training and partners and circumstances just, kept me alive. And these are things that you, after the smoke clears and after the incident, you really think about it. And you've got to really focus on the good because it's a tough career. We have some bad actors, just like any profession. But the men and women that I've

served with, I can honestly say that 99.9% of them were, were and are and continue to be patriots and wonderful, wonderful people. Yeah, I mean, like anything else, you're going to have, you and I were talking about this the other day, there's a stigma with cops, especially in America. But, you know, I would say the majority of cops are good cops. The problem is when you have one or two bad cops, all of a sudden, everyone looks at that and goes,

that's how all cops are. When that's not really a fair statement, I don't think most people should make. You know, because it is a tough job. You know, I watch the thing. the other day, I was going to talk to you about this, about cops talking about their experiences. And one of the common things that came up was the first time they came across the dead body, what that felt like and what it smelled like.

And I remember one cop saying, you'll never forget the smell of death. It is something that sticks with you. Going back to what you were saying before regarding life and death, Is there a moment that you can share with us where you thought that was close? I almost died right there. Certainly. I mean, I've got probably three or four that just stay on the top of my mind all the time that are always there. But I had an individual that had kidnapped a young girl and was held up in a house.

Someone had seen them go in there, but they had no idea that we knew. And so I had responded, and my partner ended up getting there a little while after that, but I had responded to the house. And I quietly made my way into the, it was an abandoned home. I mean, it looked like something out of a ghost movie. It was an abandoned home. And we knew they were in there. We had gotten reports.

And this guy was, he was an escapee from, I think he was, I can't remember if it was a county or state institution at the time, but he was an escapee. and had kidnapped this young girl. And as I made my way into the lower floor into the kitchen area, it was an old wooden floor, so it creaked a lot. And like I said, it looked like something out of a ghost movie. But as I made my way across the floor, I could hear movement upstairs. So I knew that somebody was up there.

I don't know if it was him or her or both of them, but I was going to round the corner and make my way up the stairway. And it was dark, of course. It was in the evening and there was, there's no electricity in this house. So I didn't use my flashlight because I didn't want to give away my position. But as I began to make my way towards the stairway, towards the wall where the stairway was on the other side, I heard a voice whisper. Come around the corner, I got something for you. And it wasn't it wasn't whispered in that nice manner.

It was a dark, demonic, evil individual whisper. And we knew he had a gun. We had reports that he had a shotgun. And he was right on the other side of the wall. I mean, he was within, he was within a foot of me. Now, whether or not he had a shotgun up there, I don't know. But when I heard that, my instincts told me, you need to back up. You need to back out and you need to wait for help.

and that's exactly what I did. I made my way backwards out of the house, waited for my partner. My partner arrived. The individual started the house on fire. And with the girl, he started the entire house on fire. The girl had came out of the smoke.

I don't know if she got away from him or if he released her. She came out of the smoke. And then several minutes later, he came to the second floor front window facing the roadway and drove his hands through the double-pane glass windows and began to drive his fists and his forearms down onto the broken window seal, cutting his forearms and wrists. And he eventually fell off the second-story porch onto the ground,

and then we arrested him. But he did survive. He almost died of blood loss. But we did take him into custody, get him to our paramedics right away, and he did survive. Yeah, you could have bought the farm there, man, walking around that corner. He probably would have shot you. You know, one thing, and I don't know if you've ever experienced this or not, have you ever experienced someone who wants to do death by cop? Well, yeah, we've had calls like that.

Matter of fact, we had an individual who, he was, he had some, he had some problems. I'll just, I'll just leave it at that. But, you know, he, I think he wanted to do, he wanted to go. And he just didn't want to do it himself. Maybe he wanted to go out in a blaze of glory or, you know. So he had a, he had a BB gun. Believe it or not, it was a BB gun. And he sawed the barrel off it.

And he camouflaged it and made it. It looked like a menacing weapon. But in reality, it was just a BB gun. And he was in a car, a friend. was going to drop him off somewhere and we got word that he was suicidal. But his, I can't remember if it was his girlfriend or his wife, but his family told us he has a gun, but it's just a BB gun. We're letting you know it's just a BB gun.

So when we pulled the vehicle over, the driver got out and ran, we let him go because we knew, you know, we had to deal with the individual in the car. The guy came up and he pointed this BB gun at us. And that was a, I mean, that was a decision you had to make instantly. Was it, was it the BB gun or was it a different one he had? Or anyway, we, we didn't kill him. We didn't shoot him. We were able to identify the BB gun.

And eventually we took him into custody and got him some mental health help. But that was one of many, Wes, that most any cop in the country could give you stories like this. what a terrible way what a terrible position to put someone in you know whether you're a fan of law enforcement or not you're putting another human being in a position to kill you and i've watched some of those videos online and a lot of i will say and i know everyone thinks cops are ready to kill everyone um on most of those situations what i see is a cop that doesn't want to shoot the guy the cops will back up and back up and back up and they're saying put the weapon down put the weapon down put the weapon down.

It's not an immediate execution. I almost wonder if cops are kind of trained for that because a lot of those videos where you see someone who wants to go death by cop or suicide by cop, a lot of times the cops don't start shooting right away. They start backing up, almost like they don't want to shoot. And they're giving commands and backing up and backing up. And I'm talking about three or four officers. And it would be so quick for them to get rid of the threat to shoot the guys.

But a lot of times you don't see that. You know what I mean? Everyone sees social media, the cops, all the bad cops. But if you watch a lot of those videos, what surprises me, that stereotype of, well, cops are just going to shoot you anyway. That's not really true when you watch a lot of the body cams of the cops are backing up and backing up and almost like they don't want to shoot the guy. Well, you know, most police officers, they don't want to shoot anybody. they just want to live. They want to be able to go home and see their family at the end of their ship.

They want to do their job. I want to uphold their state and federal constitution. I mean, it's just, it's a career. It's a tough career, but it is a career. It's a job. And you don't want to lose your job. And the way that the police officers are publicly, you know, looked upon nowadays, especially with social media.

And it's a tough job. And no police officer wants to kill anybody. But, you know, Wes, if it's between you and me, I'm going home at the end of my shift. I'm going home. And sometimes those decisions in the videos, when people see these videos online and the body cameras and the phone videos, you can review that video, you know, 20 different times. But that officer typically has about two seconds to make a life and death decision and what they're going to do. So it's a really tough decision.

And armchair quarterbacking someone who is in fear for their life is, you know, that's a tough, that's a tough way of making judgment on someone. Yeah, I would agree. And even when situations are bad, where someone does take a pop shot at a cop, you never know really with someone. I mean, I like to think I can read people really well, but I've watched a lot of those videos where I thought, you know, like where a cop pulls over someone. And I think, oh, this guy's, you know, this guy's cool. He's not really, and then all of a sudden, bam, he's out of the car shooting at a cop. And I'm like, what in the world is this guy doing? You know what I mean? Like, and I agree with you. I think when you're in that moment, it's very different than being able to watch a body cam over and go, oh, I would have, I would have done things differently. Maybe not. Maybe not if you're in that situation. being a cop, at what point does SWAT get called in? You know, we see in the movies where there's something going on in the home, and then you have some, you have 20 SWAT officers show up. At what point do they go, well, we need SWAT in this situation as opposed to,

let's send Kurt and his partner out to go check this place out. Is there a difference or is there a requirement to where they actually call SWAT out, as opposed to just sending regular cops out to go check it out? Well, I mean, as a general rule, you know, a tactical element or a tactical team on a department is a group of officers that not only have some advanced training, but they have a lot of advanced equipment. They have ballistic shields. They have different cameras on poles and they have robots and things of that nature. So when they get called usually the patrol division, and this is not the same everywhere, but for the most part, You know, usually the patrol division has ran into a situation where they have an extremely high threat. And their matrix has told them that, you know, you have an individual who's heavily armed, who has a history of violence, who has already hurt or killed people.

And so the patrol division is not necessarily equipped to deal with an advanced threat like that for a long period of time. Now, can you run out in the open under fire and return fire and rescue a victim? Absolutely, you can do that. But wouldn't it be much easier to pull up with a vehicle, an armored vehicle that would stop the bullets with a negotiator in the front seat that can negotiate with a bad guy? And then you could rescue people that way, absolutely. So a SWAT team is designed and developed from point A to Z to save people's lives. And they have the training, the equipment, and they're able to do that. I mean, the majority of tactical team callouts, you can call it SWAT or ERT or ESU or whatever you want to call it.

The majority of tactical team callouts result in zero loss of life, zero. And if, in fact, SWAT is not called many times or if SWAT arrives too late, usually there is a loss of life. And it's either suspect or officer. So the sooner swat can get to a scene, usually statistically less loss of life occurs. Yeah, and I wanted to ask you about, and you don't have to answer this. If you don't want to answer any of these questions, you can definitely say I'll pass on that. And it's no offense at all.

Was there ever a moment being a cop that in all your career that you walked away and go, we made a bad decision on that? we didn't do that right. That wasn't good. Was there anything like regrets? Was there any regrets that you had being a cop in any situation that you can think of where you walked away and go, yeah, that wasn't good? Well, yeah, I can honestly say that, you know, usually when you have to make split-second decisions and people's lives are on the line, you have a very limited amount of choices. and it isn't like you have a lot of time to process all your options. So, yeah, there's been calls and scenes where the outcome wasn't ideal.

And then afterwards, you know, when you're sitting around, you're discussing it with your partners. Well, we could have did this or that. But at the time, you just kind of have to go with your instincts. And the biggest thing is your training. If you're training, and that's what I do now, I travel around the country. I train units. I have a couple particular skill sets that I teach. And if your training is decent and it's repetitive and it's in your mind,

then most of your decision making will be automatic. It will happen and occur without a lot of thought. But if your training is somewhat lacking or you haven't had good training, then sometimes you'll make the wrong decision or you'll hesitate. And if you hesitate, that bad things can happen too. So action and inaction are of equivalency. So what I mean by that is taking action is great, but no action sometimes is great, too. So they both work depending upon the situation.

I hear you. And the last question I want to ask you is, you know, the demonic encounter, the guy who was possessed that you showed up, Was there any other paranormal encounter that you showed up to a scene and you thought, what in the world's going on here? Similar to the, I know it's hard to top the guy who was possessed, but was there any other paranormal encounter that comes to mind when you served? Well, you know, again, like I said, I could, we could talk for hours and hopefully we'll talk again.

but so we had one lady that would constantly call on that someone was on a roof and it was kind of people in in in the area kind of knew of her felt that she was a little a little different and but every time that she would call someone was on a roof you know the officers respond that's what you do it doesn't matter how goofy or different the call is that's you're paid to serve in your community, and that's what you do. You take the call. And so I remember responding to this house. You know, officers had been there hundreds of times.

I remember responding to this house at night, and the lady had met us to the front door, and she told us, you know, this, whatever it was, she didn't know what it was, but it was somebody or something on her roof, and it was in the winter. And so, you know, we checked the entire perimeter of the house, walking around the house and the snow,

with our lights and check everything, check all their doors and check the windows and make sure there was no prowlers. But when I backed up and looked at the roof of the house, there were footprints up. It almost looked like there were footprints on the peak of the house. Now, I don't know if it was heat loss or what was going on up there, but it almost looked like there were footprints right on the peak of the house.

And they didn't go anywhere. I mean, they didn't. it wasn't like somebody walked up, went on a ladder and got on the roof and walked up to the peak and then walked off. There were just a few isolated footprints or what looked like footprints on the peak of the house. And that was it. And I never said anything to her, of course. I didn't want to scare her. But I told her she could call us back if she heard them again.

And that was one of those moments where, you know, you got back in your squad car and you just kind of scratch your head. Like, I don't know, did Santa Claus come early this year? Or why was someone up on that peak of the house? Yeah, no kidding. That's bizarre. That's really bizarre. Well, I appreciate you coming on, Kurt. I appreciate you taking the time to share what happened to you,

share some of the kind of pull the curtain back and see what it's like to be a cop. You know, the story that sticks with me the most is probably that demonically possessed man. And, you know, all these four big guys. on a guy that's 5-9, 5-10, 135 pounds, and he's manhandling them, and then his head spinning around, bizarre man. And I can imagine you, and along with all your fellow officers, probably could write a book on some of the bizarre things that you've seen. But thank you for your service, and thank you so much for coming on.

Well, thank you for having me, Wes. I certainly appreciate you. Let me bend your ear for a little while. And that's it for tonight. Everyone, remember, if you've had an encounter, shoot me an email. My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. I will be in Dallas next week. Looking forward to it.

Until next time, everyone. Finit life. Being talk to danger. An epiphany bring the short... Keeping across the country faster than the coronavirus and wagering week is your antidote. I'm Tom Barton and I'm a veteran sports analyst and respected sports handicapper who will help build ESPN's brand. I've been recognized and awarded by Pro Football Weekly and Gaming Today magazine as the honest handicapper. Let the other guys give you the same old boring sports talk with the same tired storylines.

We'll give it to you straight here every Friday on Wagering Week. Don't gamble with other podcasts. Let SportsGarten Network's Wagering Week help your bottom line.