The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Matter of Facts: When Good Shoots Go Bad
Episode Date: June 24, 2024http://www.mofpodcast.com/www.pbnfamily.comhttps://www.facebook.com/matteroffactspodcast/https://www.facebook.com/groups/mofpodcastgroup/https://rumble.com/user/Mofpodcastwww.youtube.com/user/philrabh...ttps://www.instagram.com/mofpodcasthttps://twitter.com/themofpodcastSupport the showMerch at: https://southerngalscrafts.myshopify.com/Shop at Amazon: http://amzn.to/2ora9riPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/mofpodcastPurchase American Insurgent by Phil Rabalais: https://amzn.to/2FvSLMLShop at MantisX: http://www.mantisx.com/ref?id=173*The views and opinions of guests do not reflect the opinions of Phil Rabalais, Andrew Bobo, or the Matter of Facts Podcast*Much has been said, by the MoF boys, by guests, and by the gun community at large about the critical importance of knowing the law and always insuring that you are on the right side of it when drawn into a defensive shooting. But what happens when, despite our best efforts, the 'justice' system has decreed our guilt in spite of any facts? What happens when judicial activism falls upon us? What happens when a good shoot goes bad? Today we listened to the gut-wrenching story of Kirk Culik from the day he was violently assaulted in his front yard, to his eventual exhoneration in spite of a judicial system more interested in a conviction than in the truth.http://givesendgo.com/OPERATIONSKYWALKERMatter of Facts is now live-streaming our podcast on our YouTube channel, Facebook page, and Rumble. See the links above, join in the live chat, and see the faces behind the voices. Intro and Outro Music by Phil Rabalais All rights reserved, no commercial or non-commercial use without permission of creator prepper, prep, preparedness, prepared, emergency, survival, survive, self defense, 2nd amendment, 2a, gun rights, constitution, individual rights, train like you fight, firearms training, medical training, matter of facts podcast, mof podcast, reloading, handloading, ammo, ammunition, bullets, magazines, ar-15, ak-47, cz 75, cz, cz scorpion, bugout, bugout bag, get home bag, military, tacticalÂ
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Welcome back to the Matter Facts Podcast on the Prepper Broadcasting Network.
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I'm your host, Phil Rablis, and my co-host Andrew Bobo is on the other side of the mic, and here's your show.
So, welcome back to the Matter Facts Podcast.
Everybody knows who I am. Everybody seems ugly-faced before. Bobo's on the other side of the mic and here's your show. So welcome back to Matterfacts Podcast.
Everybody knows who I am.
Everybody's seen my ugly face before.
Andrew's coming shortly after.
The gentleman with the nods and the tactical cat, Trek, everybody should be fairly familiar with.
And we're being joined by Kirk, is it Kulik?
Kulik.
Kulik.
I was like this close.
I was this close.
That's usually how it is.
I mean, my last name is Rabelais. I'm used to that getting butchered, so I sympathize. I just hate doing it to somebody else.
Yeah.
But today we're going to try to have a conversation about the situation that Kirk found himself in recently.
Because we've had shows like this in the past where we brought someone on who had to be engaged in defensive shooting and like in those cases i'm always very
interested in like what led up to it the actual incident itself the fallout afterwards the legal
fallout after all that and like i i my preference is always try to let the guests tell the story.
You know, I'm saying, Kirk, because like the last the last time I was getting shot at, I was wearing a flag on my shoulder and I was in a foreign country.
And fortunately, it hasn't happened since I came home.
But like I'm somewhat familiar with that experience of like, you know, when your adrenaline goes to 11, your butthole tightens up and everything in your body is spring loaded to fight or flight.
But even for the people that have that experience, there's not many people that have the experience
of having to go through the judicial system afterwards.
So like, however you want to approach this, I'm okay with, like, I guess, do you want
to go into like a little bit of your background or do you want to skip that? Where's the beginning of this story?
Hit me with a question, and I'll be glad to answer it.
So I know from us talking before, you
mentioned that you're not brand new to firearms. You do
spend some time shooting. You're familiar with firearms. What would you say that
your level of training was with firearms prior to this incident and why?
Well, I'm like a lot of guys, you know, I grew up, got my 22 when I was a kid. In Michigan,
you go deer hunting. Shotguns, 30-06 and a 22. Didn't have handguns until I was 18.
Got my first handgun, a.22 pistol.
I was hired, and I worked for a man who trained canines to guard businesses.
I would say I have some experience with that, but mostly it was cleaning up dog poop,
to be honest with you.
From there, I started working in psych, and the psych units that I
worked on were locked psych units. So, you know, real quick, I learned the security was pretty
important, and people would try to look you up later. So I began carrying a gun quite early,
and that went into working in forensics, working with felons who
were judged criminally insane or felons who were faking it, trying to get out of that. I worked in
a facility here in Valley Center. I worked at the Washington County Sheriff's in a cell block running a program.
I work for DDS.
I don't know if you know what that is.
That's just a whole other story.
In between there for a couple years.
Where else did I work?
Then I worked for the Department of Corrections for the state of Michigan.
And I retired from there.
All that time, when I say compete, I'm not't i i go and i shoot a lot of rounds but i go to my uh range and i was on the board of the range and we shoot shoot sporting clays
we have different kind uspsa idpa but again that sounds like i do a lot more than i do i i go and
um uh shoot three or four times
a week, but sometimes I'm playing cards.
You know what I mean? Sometimes I play the joker.
It's a social part of my...
It's just a part of my life.
So,
at least from what I'm picking up,
would you say
that your primary motivation for getting into
firearms was...
Or, I guess, your more recent firearms history,
was it more from an aspect of being able to defend yourself, or was it more for leisure, or about even Steven?
Well, I look at, I don't want to sound too out there or something, but I'm into being very prepared.
I think bad things can happen.
That's one reason I have it, but I've always been involved in a competitive judo.
I boxed.
I had a lot of fights boxing.
Very involved in hockey.
So a lot of violent sports, you know what I mean?
And so I'm just a more assertive person.
But there's the other side of it.
It's like as long as I'm going to train with a firearm to protect myself it's also became social
you know it's cultural it's how I grew up I like to hunt when I was younger I'm really not much
of a hunter anymore I used to um so it's like probably the whole gamut and these days um
I train a little more seriously of course in self-defense, but I, you know, culturally, I'm really worried about
culturally too, where things are going. No, I mean, that makes perfect sense. And I mean,
I wouldn't want to put words in anybody's mouth, but I feel like everybody in this room would
probably fall to some degree into all those pots. Like I didn't grow up hunting the family I grew
up in firearms have one purpose and one purpose only, and that was defending the family.
So like, you know, when I was young, like we enjoyed shooting, but it wasn't as if guns were purchased for collecting.
And it wasn't as if, you know, you were shooting for fun, but you were still trying to work on your accuracy and your fundamentals and gun safety and all those things.
But like, I grew up with that idea that like guns are in the house to defend the family
period that we, we are not, we, we don't have non-millimeter handguns in case the deer
try to mug us in the middle of the night.
That's not the reason these things are here.
But I'm sorry.
Well, but, but, you know, again, everybody kind of has that thing.
Like I could say that I grew up in the gun culture only because that's that was the reason why we were in a firearms was to be able to protect the family.
If there were no guns and there was bows and arrows, I'd have those instead.
Like it just comes down to it's the same reason why my family believed in having tools in the garage so you could fix stuff guns are just tools absolutely we viewed it that way like when i say culturally
um actually my uh fam my dad was a world war ii vet taught us how to shoot with a bb gun when we
were real little it was just who we were you take um i'm 68 it's probably less popular than it used
to be but you take everybody would
be practically off school and you'd go up to northern michigan and go deer hunting you know
it's just something you did we'd shoot the 22 in the backyard i just it was just part of life um
one thing i will say is my parents really um did not like handguns not like against anything like legal or something but they they would kind
of well that's for shooting people uh you know if you really need it you get the shotgun out
you know if somebody's breaking it or something but it was never uh like i don't think my like
my dad was shot in world war ii and had a brace and all that to some degree i think he you know
he had kind of seen the he'd seen battle know, he was shot by the Japanese and stuff.
And there was a deep part of him that would do what he had to do.
But he, I don't think he really wanted anymore.
You know what I mean?
If that makes sense.
No, it makes perfect sense.
Yes.
This is, first of all, Kirk, thanks.
Thanks for coming on.
First of all, Kirk, thanks for coming on.
This is very important for people to know when all of this was going on, well before finally a jury of Kirk's peers saw the evidence and unanimously said that why is this guy in custody?
I remember talking to Kirk and Kirk saying, all I want to do is make sure this never happens to another person.
And I remember him saying that.
And so to be on this podcast when you could just be kicking back as you absolutely deserve and not have to put yourself out there and relive this story, that's absolutely huge.
So thank you for doing that.
One of the things is, you know, the line of questioning that is coming and has started with about what happened
with kirk one of the things that i find very interesting about this and is the entire flow
of the class that i have called when a gun's not an option and i remember kirk being yeah being a
student in the class and and i remember kirk asking a lot of questions because of his law
enforcement corrections background we were talking you know yeah, when we take off that corrections hat and we wear the civilian hats and the
similarities and the differences. But one of the things that I just want to hit on with the line
of questioning, Phil, that you had, which I think is very important, when we start talking about
even getting ready, preparing for a possible self-defense encounter, the thing that I find
very interesting is I talk about, you know, today's dangers of social media and the guys, the example they use on the federal law enforcement training wasn't this. And they found a quote on his Facebook page from many years ago that said,
I'm the judge, jury and executioner. And this was this was taught down at the Federal Law
Enforcement Training Center to cops or future cops saying, be very, very careful. And I've
added it in my class. And we talk about knowing yourselves internally and externally. And the thing that got
me about this whole case as we get going, and I know you've got questions about the day of and
the days after, is that Kirk's very humble. Veteran corrections officer, retired, married to a retired
corrections officer. Corrections officers are the people that keep us safe from those that
are habitual or have
broken the law to the point that we say you cannot be with society. Correct me if I'm wrong, Kirk,
you are a hockey coach. You have taught Olympic boxing to young people. When we talk about knowing
ourselves internally and externally, you've kind of already detailed some of the things internally,
like, hey, I learned that there are bad guys out there when I started working in the psych ward,
and I've worked in corrections, and I've seen the face of evil. But when you talk about externally,
which a lot of people miss, is that's how are you perceived by society? And the thing that got me
about this entire case was that if you want a textbook case of pillar of the community,
of someone that has no background that would suggest they do
things wrong, that in fact has tried to help community out, it's kind of setting this story up.
And Kirk's very humble with his intro, but from what I have gathered through being involved in
this, albeit on the back burner, is every person that knows Kirk through this entire thing said,
that ain't right because we know Kirk.
There's no way that Kirk was the problem person behind all this.
But the opponent, as we talk about in Wagon Owl, the opponent that we have to deal with in a use of force encounter was the person that externally exuded nothing but being a problem for society.
And so I just, as you guys are talking today, I've got this notepad in front of me because we're at a point, and this is, I had to say at the last class I taught, the Wagon Law class, about a month or so ago.
And we're getting to a point where I have to actually preface these classes by saying, and Kirk just kind of pointed it out, I'm worried about where we're going because when we have this Supreme Court doctrine of reasonableness, the reasonable person standard, which is what would a reasonable, it then forces other good people to question
the natural law, the rights that they have to protect themselves because they become more
concerned about the fallout from actually surviving. And that is a well-known problem
in law enforcement where Leos are more afraid of the consequences of reprimand. And so they suffer injury and death in the field.
And then so this is a this is going to be a very interesting conversation, because just right now,
the checkbox has been filled of, okay, this is the American, this is the American, this is us,
this is the person that trains, this is the person that cares about this country.
This is the person that goes out grocery shopping with no ill will towards another person, yet they were involved in a situation that we trained for and none of us
ever want to be in. And then that kind of sets the stage for where we're going. So yeah, I'm just
going to be kind of sitting here in a back burner and scribbling furiously, but I think, you know,
Kirk is a humble guy. And I think it's very, very important to point out as we set the stage for the story that we all should be looking in a mirror going, OK, thank God.
I look like Kirk in the mirror as far as the way that normal society perceives me.
Yeah. And Kirk, before I turn it back over to you for Trek and Andrew, because we've done this before and especially like I always, whenever we've talked to Trek and we talk,
we kind of Monday morning quarterback use force cases.
And, you know, it's never done from a place of malice.
It's always done from a place of like,
this is what the person did.
This is where the law would or would or would not have been on their side,
you know, try to learn from other people's experience.
But the thing I've always told people is I'm like,
I being a lay person, not having Trek's knowledge of the law and of self-defense law, I've always broken down whether or not you shoot based on one simple criteria.
Am I prepared to spend six to 12 months in jail and 50 to $100,000 to get my, to get myself back out of jail?
and $50,000 to $100,000 to get myself back out of jail?
Am I prepared to do that?
And those are just random, arbitrary, big enough to make you think twice numbers.
Because I tell everybody, I'm like, if the answer is no,
then you should try to find another way to deal with the problem other than shooting it.
And if the answer is, if I don't pull the trigger, it's not going to matter because I'm going to be dead,
then you do what you got to do.
And that's not the legal answer.
That's the Phil Rabelais put this into layman's terms emotional answer.
If we can find a way to de-escalate a problem, if we can find a way to run away from the fight instead of have to stand there and fight it out, then that's probably the best way to deal with the problem.
And if none of that is an option, then can tell you what i'm gonna do i'm gonna i'm gonna do what i feel like i have to to protect myself and my family and i'm
gonna find out where that leads me after the fact that's just that that's the way i try to get this
across to lay people but i feel like we we've chunked between you and track like we've taken
a good chunk of your background to kind of understand where
you were coming from.
So like,
walk us through,
walk us through like what led up to this encounter?
Like,
did you,
did you and the other party,
like,
was there some kind of history or background?
Was there any,
what happened to lead up to this situation?
I'll be glad to do that.
There's no history.
I didn't know them.
No background, nothing.
We live in a small town, 250 people.
It's divided by a highway.
You kind of don't know the people on the other side of the highway, to be honest with you.
So anyways, we go 10, 12 miles to the nearest town.
And this is what happened that day.
We got groceries and we picked up some potting
soil and we're all we're happy as you know we're retired we don't have much but you know we're
very happy to come back we're going to plant some flowers my wife and i shuttle the groceries in
typically i bring the last ones in she's in putting them in the house so i have to go out
my little front gate around to my car.
So I don't know if she's going to come back for one more load or not. And the three teenagers come by and they say, hey, guys, how are you doing?
Simple as that.
As soon as I said that, the one was walking by me, spun and like ran into me with his chest,
had his arms behind his back and swung and punched me in the eye.
But as he punched me, his brother came up behind me with a wine bottle in a little cloth
backpack and used it kind of like a, so it had a kind of a whipping action to it, and
hit me right back on the lower part across my shoulder and neck.
right back on the lower part across my shoulder and neck.
And the third one, who was pretty big, was bigger than me,
came in from the side, punching me and kicking me.
So I went down on my left side, on my elbow and on my hip.
And I had a pair of shorts with a T-shirt on, and I had a little Glock 43.
And, you know, it was like I'm wearing shorts. I got this little and, you know, it's like I'm wearing shorts, so I got this little gun, you know.
And as I was on the ground, I also have, well, when they did that, they gave me a concussion.
They cracked one of the vertebrae in my upper back and my upper neck.
And I also have had cancer, how many times, three times and so they
fused my back
and they had steel
pieces in there
with screws and a basket around one of my
vertebrae that is
disintegrating
so I go down
and I look stronger than I am
to be honest with you, I work out a lot
but I was in a very vulnerable position,
and they're kicking me.
One of them kicked me right in that spinal column
where that basket has taken a place in my vertebrae.
The other one kicked me in a rib that is no longer attached to that vertebrae.
And, of course, they're punching me and kicking me as I go down.
And my shirt rolled up, and the young man who
initially punched me came over me,
punching, and then
it's...
This is kind of uncomfortable. It's creepy.
He had like a sneering
smile. I'll never forget this part.
This happened in seconds,
and some of your memories are so
clear, like you guys
maybe in combat or something.
But it's so clear, and yet it happens so quickly.
He reached for my gun as I'm being pummeled and hit by these other guys.
And I'm on my side.
And I've been concussed before because I box.
I kind of, even though I'm concussed, like I know I'm concussed.
I've been there before.
It's not totally strange to me.
And I'm takingcussed, like I know I'm concussed. I've been there before. It's not totally strange to me. And I'm thinking, one more kick, and I'm done.
They're going to get my pistol.
They're going to kill me.
My wife's coming out.
Maybe they're going to rape her.
Maybe they're going to kill her.
I'll be honest with you.
I was more worried about her.
You're good.
Yeah.
I was more worried about her than me okay so uh what i i his hand you know
was about two a foot and a half away whatever i reached my gun was on my appendix i pulled it up
and i literally came up and fired as it came up and i just had to get them off me i had to stop them
they were going to kill me i was going to be in a wheelchair um you know uh another thing all this
believe it or not all this went through my mind within i don't know how many seconds that was
you know i mean you wouldn't think it'd be possible, but it really is.
I have an 80-some-year-old Vietnam vet neighbor who's not in the best health and a guy who's 92, and they were out in their yards working.
And I don't know.
I'm not trying to be a Bible banger, but I've had a lot of violence in my life.
I've had to deal with thousands, maybe a thousand, hundreds, literally
for sure, hundreds of fights in the prison. I've been stabbed, I've been slashed, been bashed over
the head with chairs, things like that. So I don't get too shook up. And if that hadn't befallen me,
I kind of believe spiritually that I may have been put there.
Because I think what would have happened is they would have,
you know, this is projecting, but they wanted my truck, I believe.
I have no proof of this.
The door was open on my truck.
It was a nice truck.
He went for my gun.
If they would have got that gun in the back of my truck, you know,
hidden away with an AR, they would have had my truck, my pistol, my rifle.
Two very vulnerable older people were just down the street.
And, you know, I don't, how can I explain it?
I don't take pride.
I'm not happy that I had to shoot the young man and kill him.
That was never my goal.
My goal was to get my groceries, you know.
the young man and kill him. That was never my goal. My goal was to get my groceries,
you know, but I wouldn't change it because I think much worse would have happened to other people and I would have died or paralyzed in my life attack. So, you know, you know,
that's what happened. And then when I shot the young man, they all ran down the street.
They took off.
He ran about 75 yards away down the street and fell over.
And then the real, I mean, that was a nightmare.
But then the second nightmare really began after that.
And that was the incompetence of our small town cop and the dishonesty of the prosecutor.
Kurt, can I stop you?
I mean, that's, and I appreciate you sharing that.
And this is, even you and I have talked since this and all that detail we have not gone into because I knew that we wanted to talk with the guys here.
I find it amazing.
And the guys have had me on to talk.
We talked about the Rittenhouse case.
We talked about the Aubrey case, which were polar opposites of responsibly armed citizenry.
And I find absolutely amazing that we're going to get into the, sadly, not even the trial.
The trial was a blip on the radar.
It was all the incompetence and the in the criminal behavior by the government but it's i find it amazing that when you talk about a clear-cut
case of the use of deadly force being authorized by a threat of serious bodily harm and or death
the the mere fact that the normal you know greeting to a compliant person like we do at every day,
hey, guys, what's going on, immediately turns into a violent assault,
which easily is, I mean, the rule of disparity of force is immediately there
when you're hit with a kinetic energy weapon over the back of the head,
when you're getting blows delivered to you on the ground.
You have a superior force, as you mentioned.
Teenagers, doesn't matter if they're the size of a uh one a brick
house two if there's three of them um and I just find that amazing when and not to get Phil
on a tangent which I know this can happen but if we look at the way your case was initially spun
in the media oh boy oh boy wouldn't it have been really interesting to know responsible citizen coming home from buying groceries, it didn't say hit with a wine bottle and stomped into the ground suffering concussion and all sorts of injuries.
It was shot a teenager.
That's all.
Shot a teenager.
Well, teenagers can kill.
Women can kill.
Men can kill.
Animals can kill.
It is the manner in which the
engagement happens. I just, I was sitting here hearing your story and it's like, this, this is
once again, the textbook reason that people carry handguns is for a situation like that. It's not
the delusions of grandeur. Guy comes in, gunfight, he's shooting, I'm shooting, we're running around.
It's going to be the, I have this millisecond decision to make that I'm shooting we're running around it's gonna be the I have this millisecond
decision to make that I'm either gonna hug my wife again or I'm not and one more kick is gonna
be the end of it and oh by the way a gun grab situation and it's either gonna be me or him
I'm the good guy he's the bad guy and someone's gonna walk away and it's just it really is amazing
to me as we get into what happened. And I really
look forward to hearing the detail of, okay, now you survived the fight in the street, but now
you've got to survive getting even to the hospital. It's just amazing to me how we need to be prepared
as responsibly armed citizens that you can do everything right, but the people out there that don't want you to be able to defend
yourself will spin everything 180 degrees. And you really truly did have to fight to bring the
truth to light. And that's it really, that's absolutely incredible to hear it because it's,
you know, even in the Rittenhouse trial, there's things that were like, we need to analyze a couple of things. Your case with what you just said, which has been proven in a court of law is as clear cut
as it gets serious bodily harm and or death. And that's, I mean, I can't even start to cite a wine
bottle. It's a kinetic energy weapon. Multiple opponents is a disparity of force. Like these are,
these are things that have been established that only your attorneys could quote
the actual people versus.
But I'm just amazed that there was even a doubt to it.
Before we all sat down,
Andrew, I think, used the phrase
never has he heard a more clear-cut case of self-defense.
And as I'm sitting here hearing this,
I feel numb. Like, I don't
I can't even muster up
you know, like, I can't even muster up an emotion
because I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, there is
no way on earth this should have taken
a trial and a jury
to get to the point where we say
that
a 68-year-old man out number 3
to 1
getting curb stomped had to use a firearm to defend
himself. And we think that is anything less than a clear-cut case of self-defense. And, like, not to
harp on your age, but Kirk, the incident you've described, I'm 41 by the way, the incident you've described, I'm 41, by the way, the incident you've described would probably hospitalize me being, you know, like almost almost 30 years your junior.
Quite frankly, I know a lot of guys my age that would not have been able to fight through that situation to get to their gun.
to their gun.
So, I mean, and from what we talk about your backstory, you know, like the boxing, the combat sports, all the time you spent shooting and training, like, I'm kind of wondering,
I'm thinking in my head, like, if it were not for your background and the time you spent
preparing yourself for what you hope would never come you'd probably be dead i mean look i love i love my parents and my in-laws to death but i'm going
to tell you that if i crack all four of them in the back of the head with a wine bottle all four
of them are down for the count none of them are going to stand back up after that and they're not
that much older than you are but they then again they didn't spend most of their youth
throwing throwing punches for fun either you know know, boxing and judo and everything.
And you know, it's an interesting point in that, too, is, like I said, we live in a small town, Hillsdale County, out in the country, 250 people.
But we lived in a much more populous area and worked in corrections.
I would run into people every so often who were prisoners.
You know, it usually went okay. But I also worked at a maximum security prison and many, most people there, like they
got you, they will kill you. There's, it's guys who like, you know, cut off their buddy's head
or, you know, I mean, literally, um, things like that. So you go, well, let's move to a small town.
We got this kind of mellow existence. You know, I'm not going to Vegas and putting it all on red, you know, or anything like that. I
like to read a book. I like to go to the range. My wife and I go for a walk. Sounds like a romance
novel or something, you know, but that's our life. And so you go to a small town and you think,
well, I'm really away from, you know, real killers who, you know, I could run into and stuff like that.
And then you find out that, you know, this happened to me here.
I got to say, I was in condition like white.
I wasn't in condition.
I wasn't in orange or anything like, you know, conditioned like a Cooper.
I wasn't.
You know, I was just getting my groceries.
And, you know, so it can happen. You know, I was just getting my groceries and, you know, so it can happen.
But the two important things there are that I would argue that even amongst the prepared citizen, and I know plenty of people that argue with me about this, I would argue that they're in condition white 95 percent of the time, too.
Coming from the person that did a combat deployment and had to go to counseling afterwards, by the way, because hypervigilance is a thing, but you can't stay at orange.
You can't stay keyed up 100% of the time.
The human brain will revolt against that.
Yes. So most people that end up in a self-defense shooting, they start in white.
end up in a self-defense shooting they start in white they might be able to get from white to orange to red really fast but they all start in white because that's our natural state is
semi-relaxed yeah and then for you to have to go from from zero to red line that fast i feel like
that is indicative of most self-defense situations and it's also indicative of most of them because like i i i've always had
this conversation with somebody who doesn't conceal carry they don't understand why we
crazy people carry guns everywhere and i'm like here's me in a nutshell if if i'm going to a
place where i think i need a gun i'm just not going to go there i'm a risk averse person i
don't i don't like getting into gunfights with people that sucks and my wife and daughter be with me while I get into a gunfight sucks even worse. I don't want any part of that. So if I think I need a gun to be safe, I'm just not going to go there. I carry the gun because I don't think I need it. Because I don't get to pick the time and the place of my life or death situation. Somebody else picks that for me. I just have to be ready to react. And that is everything you just laid out.
So, Andrew, did you want to jump in here?
No, I mean, basically the only thing I wanted to say was, you know,
kind of what you said, Phil, is we carry firearms not because we're looking for a fight.
And honestly, when I carry a firearm, I mean, I am looking.
I'm looking at hands.
I'm scanning and looking at body language i'm looking for i'm looking for that possible threat but i'm still i'm still not in like
condition orange or i'm still i'm still looking i'm so okay i'm still having a good time i'm still
trying to enjoy myself and so it's one of those things where i am carrying a firearm for that
just in case situation but i'm carrying a firearm and i don't think it's going to happen to me
and that's what and because we don't we don't i don't think it's going to happen to me. And that's what,
and cause we don't,
we don't,
I don't think anybody walks around with a,
with you when you're carrying a firearm and you're like,
today's the day today's it's going to happen to me today.
It's you walk around.
You're like,
well, I hope it doesn't happen.
I mean,
I'm prepared for that situation in a way,
but,
but that's the thing though,
is are we ever really prepared for it?
Cause you,
it's,
you're not prepared and you're,
you don't know what's going to happen
until it actually happens to you,
until you get a wine bottle up your backside.
But I really want to keep us going.
And, like, so going back, Kirk,
going back to you were attacked, self-defense.
I mean, and that's the thing is just like, I mean,
Trek and I and Phil, we talked about the Rittenhouse. I mean, clear-cut self-defense i mean and that's the thing is just like i mean uh trek and i and phil we talked about the written house i mean clear-cut self-defense uh reading on your story when uh when i found out
that you were found not guilty and reading on reading up on it more and everything it was like
wow like hearing some more details i'm like i can't believe this dude like what happened to this
you know going down the road so you were, you acted in self-defense, the guy
ran 70 yards away, collapsed. Can you take us through? Sure. Well, from there, it's just
maybe 10 yards or less from my driveway through my little front gate in my house.
I was concussed. I've later found out that I stumbled into my yard and collapsed in the yard.
My wife came out, called 911.
She wasn't really clear what happened.
The police came.
Many memories there are kind of dull.
I'm in and out, you know, because of concussion.
But our local cop, there's three of them.
He's totally incompetent. And also, I would say, I hate to criticize cops, but I work, you know. But he was
criminal in what he did. He drove through the crime scene. He drove back to the crime scene.
So that's twice. Never put up a tape to see it off. So he's the OIC. He's the officer in charge of the investigation.
Nineteen different cops came through the crime scene. Right. They're coming in cars.
Three ambulances drove through it. The criminals who attacked me came through and moved evidence.
Their family members came through. A guy with a dog. Fifteen other people. people, 19 cops. He refused and he helped the state police in Michigan have a
real good team that, you know, would come in to do detectives to investigate. He waved them off
and he would not allow them to do anything. So, and then when you see it on video, he's literally
like rubbing his head. To me, he looks like he's having a post-traumatic stress event,
just in a panic and pacing around.
And a woman who wasn't there, who was drunk, came from down the street.
Didn't hear it.
Didn't see it.
She came down and was yelling and stuff and pointed up the street.
And so then he followed her at a run.
He said, can I swear?
Or you're not swearing.
Let her rip.
Okay.
He said, where is that motherfucker?
It's on tape.
And then they ran up the street.
And then I'm laying on the ground.
Our flowers are out.
My wife's in her skirt.
She looks beautiful.
I'm laying on the ground.
She's wondering what's happened.
She's got the phone to 911.
He comes in the yard and he starts yelling at me. I'm laying on the ground. She's wondering what's happened. She's got the phone to 911.
He comes in the yard and starts yelling at me.
What the fuck did you do?
What did you do?
And he's got his gun out and he's stone cold.
I know when people are in shock.
I've been around a lot of violence.
He's in shock.
And he's pointing the gun at my wife. He's waving the gun around.
You know, it's not in here.
He's not in control of his weapon, anything.
He points at my wife, who's like five foot two.
I mean, it's just, there's no.
And he points at me.
At that point, I'm sitting up against a pole.
And without any Miranda rights or anything, he starts yelling at me and asking me questions.
Tons of police are all over.
So at any rate, they transport the young man who died in an ambulance to the hospital.
They allow one of my attackers to ride with them.
They never isolated them like in scout cars. You keep them apart to question them.
They let them go back and pick up their bag that had like the wine bottle and their different stuff and pick up the evidence and go home.
They transported me to the hospital.
And in less than one hour, with no investigation whatsoever, he called the prosecutor who is trying to get elected because our other prosecutor is retiring.
And she wanted a big murder trial.
This would be very good for her career, you know.
So no investigation.
Within one hour, they charged me with murder.
I'm injured.
First degree or second degree?
Just out of morbid curiosity.
Open murder.
Okay. Open murder means first
they have a litany of charges they can go with
they can go with anything
first degree second degree
excuse me or manslaughter
okay
so it's
that's what they call it
excuse me
I believe that's unconstitutional.
They do that.
So anyways, I go to the jail, the local jail.
There's two guys running the whole jail, two deputies.
They treated me fine.
They were not abusive or anything.
They were people.
They were great.
But they put me in a cell that's actually illegal now.
I could stretch out my arms on each side and touch the cell.
I'm not a huge guy.
So it's about seven feet across.
And I paced it off thousands and thousands of times.
It's 11 feet long.
Kirk, did you request medical care?
Were you given medical care?
That was my first question.
At first, I didn't know what was going on still.
I was in and out even hours later.
And I was also stunned.
And like, say of unbelief, injury, and having come down from a concussion, I vaguely knew what was going on.
It happened very fast.
So I mean, go ahead.
I'm sorry.
Well, no.
happen very fast so i mean this but go ahead i'm sorry but well no kirk because you have a law enforcement background and trek because you have a law enforcement background correct me if i'm
wrong but like it doesn't take a rocket scientist to recognize the signs of a concussion like i can
teach my 12 year old how to how to diagnose that in 45 seconds don't the police have kind of like
a duty to like if you recognize even a suspect
even if you just watch somebody chainsaw a nun in front of you you still have a duty to like
say this person's concussed you have to go to the hospital like we'll put you in a cell i did go to
the hospital so and i've been diagnosed with that boom and right away they put cuffs on me and they
drive me to the jail,
put me in this little tiny cell, which I mean, you know, you're in jail, but it's a seven by 11,
all cement. I have all these back problems. I have a, now I have a cracked vertebrae and a concussion. So the mattress was really not even what we have at the state, you know,
it was maybe a couple inches. And they gave me a blanket that was about three feet by three feet was full of holes no pillow and they left me in there lights are on 24 7 and
it's just one big echoey uh isolation cell and they blast and i mean blast uh rap music which
might be the worst thing ever in the cell the whole time 24 7 to keep you awake yeah and so i'm without sleep
i'm injured i was not offered any medical care um and i'm there for 102 days yeah kirk i've got
to ask the question that that stuff that you do in torture yeah yeah what's what what is the
blasting of the rap music was there any i mean did anyone get to the bottom of what that was about during the trial?
No.
Interesting.
No, that was not, just that I was held illegally without bond.
In Michigan, according to the Constitution, Michigan State Constitution, at 90 days you have to either go to trial or be offered bond.
They did not do either one.
You can't do that.
offered bond. They did not do either one. You can't do that. When we, when my lawyers confronted them about that, they said, well, that's how we always do it. That was their statement.
That's how we always do it. And they said, well, no, that's, that's not how you do it.
So at each step of the way, it was, it was that kind of action. And then they said, well,
we couldn't do it because my clerk was off work. Well, that doesn't negate my rights, you know.
So it was one thing after another.
So next what happened is my sister, God bless her, man, she mortgaged her house, got, and they give me bond finally after 102 days.
And, but they make a cash bond, which I do believe is illegal.
And it wasn't 10%. It a cash bond, which I do believe is illegal. And it wasn't 10%.
It was cash bond.
They had never done that much bond or cash bond in Hillsdale County before.
So they did that.
And with that, I got a tether.
With the tether, that judge, Lisnay, wrote an order, said I could go anywhere in Michigan.
You know, I just had to stay in Michigan.
That was the condition.
You know, I just had to stay in Michigan.
That was the condition.
Coincidentally, the judge below her, who I had first seen for the first probable cause,
she is married to the captain who runs the jail.
So the captain at the jail changed the name on the bond that was paid by my sister,
which you can't do that, changed her name and put it in my name.
And then she intercepted the conditions of the bond and wrote a bunch of other ones on there without telling us.
So now if I would go up to the store and get milk at 9 o'clock at night,
one of his sheriffs could be laying for me, stop me,
and then they could get the $400,000
because it would be in my name. So that, I mean, that's, that's a felony. That's, that's,
I mean, that's yet to be taken care of. So we've already got that. We haven't even gotten to a
trial of that. Then the police officer went around to all different neighbors and tried to like, you know, it's all leading questions.
Oh, does he ever get mad?
Well, actually, I'm not going to toot my own horn, but, you know, I get older people.
I might help cut their grass.
I might help a lady who's a widow bringing her firewood and stack it up a little pile for the winter.
Like I'm known around town in our little, I do that kind of stuff, you know.
That's just what I do.
So he couldn't get anybody to say anything bad about it.
So the two witnesses in the trial were the drunk woman who was not there, didn't hear anything,
who came over and was screaming.
And, you know, you always have a screaming woman at every shoot.
She was her. And then there's a guy who's schizophrenic, who. And, you know, you always have a screaming woman at every shoot. She was her.
And then there's a guy who's schizophrenic, who lives up at the corner,
wasn't there and didn't hear it.
I had helped him start his business.
And his father had called me.
Could I pick up his medication for him?
And I went and did that.
I helped him many, many times.
My wife made him dinner at Easter.
And at Christmas, we'd take him a plate so he he was said that a lot of really crazy stuff a year later because the cop
kept going back to him and he finally made up this big story on tape a year later and and they use
that as evidence and uh so it's just a really crazy, really dirty thing.
Yeah, and I've heard, we have talked throughout this process
and I'm still just trying not to bang my head into the table
for the fear that I have.
I can't.
Yeah, I know.
I see Phil.
Phil is actually speechless.
I'm watching his facial expressions as you're talking
because we're all...
But, Trek, what do you say to this?
I mean, like,
Hollywood couldn't dream up a script this
frickin' twisted.
No, they couldn't.
By the way, this is high-octane coffee, so I'm gonna
do my best not to start cursing and screaming,
but, like, I'm outraged
and I just met you, Kirk. This is disgusting.
Let me tell you this,
there's always all bad things in life.
Many good things come to pass.
And you have an opportunity to see that.
So I'm in this terrible situation.
I've got a local lawyer.
He wants me to just plead and take a 10-year thing.
Well, I'm going to be sent in.
That's a death sentence.
So my wife goes, no, this isn't working.
Thank God for her.
I'm not like anybody else's wife, but there ain't anybody better.
So she gets a hold of a friend of mine, Rock,
and we've both trained with Trek.
Trek gives us the name of Terry Johnson and Dean Greenblatt,
and things began to change.
It took a while, but they're from a wealthier
suburb around Detroit, very high-powered attorneys. And they took the case for really,
I mean, it was a lot of, for me, it was a lot of money, but they could have cut it loose and they
didn't. And without Trek having that kind of knowledge and that kind of looking out for the people and who've taken classes from them and, you know, supporting the Second Amendment, being a true American, I would be languishing in prison right now.
So, you know, you you learn who your real friends are, who real patriots are, who people really believe in the Constitution and the legal.
I believe in the legal system.
It's just it had corrupt people.
And we have to.
You're a better man than I am at this point.
Well, I remember I remember one of the best.
And it was I talked and it's funny.
My recommendations for Kirk and Kirk, I would do that for you.
I would do that for the guys. I
would do that for any of the people that train with me. Their, their reputation came from word
of mouth. I actually have only talked to one Terry and it was via, I believe text message.
And basically Terry's response was, well, he's trained with you. So we can't use you basically.
And I get that. Like, I can't, I've trained just so i have to be they have to remain objective and bring people in that that are objective and things like that but um
i remember specifically you telling me i said hey how are things going with the attorneys and you
said it's like wayne gretzky walking into a to a walk-on hockey game with peewee players and you
were basically saying like they're slapping around this prosecutor
prosecutor and and judge pretty well by by actually holding the you know knowing the law
knowing the constitution and what you know and how it needs to be done properly and and uh i think
that i mean that's absolutely great to hear and in the benefit of this story there really are two
things one you're a free man and we can have this conversation with you so no matter how mad the story might make you're right the justice system because the justice
system ends with 12 jurors of our peers and they were like yeah this is ridiculous why is this guy
in custody and it also allows us to then highlight these issues and and we can go into it or not, but there are avenues that you have to
make sure that this slight of not just the law, but just slight of being a decent human being on
the part of the judge and prosecutor doesn't go unchallenged, doesn't go off the record.
Yeah. You know, and things they did that really offended me. Okay. I worked, I could have made more money doing other things for society to protect people.
I'm like a protector, right?
I'm sheeped up.
Well, my father fought.
I don't look emotional.
Okay.
He was shot by a Japanese in World War II.
Going around in a brace all his life.
I got to tell you, never bitch about anything.
So I get in there.
And this bugs me more than anything.
So I got tattoos.
I like them.
Okay?
But I don't have swastikas and stuff on me.
But if I wanted to, hey, you know, that's my body.
Excuse me, Frank.
Get emotional.
But one of the things they do is they go, you go in,
and they look at your tattoos, photograph, and they say, oh, you're a Nazi.
So right away, what they try to do is break down everything you are.
I believe in the Constitution of the United States.
I've served my country.
I've worked hard to be a good person and help other people.
I'm a Christian.
They don't just
try to
go by evidence. They try to defame you.
They try to paint a
very negative picture of you
and try you on that emotion
rather than the facts.
And I had to laugh because Terry is African-American
and Dean is Jewish-American.
You know what I mean?
So this Nazi hired a Jew and a black guy to defend him.
It's like so absurd, but that's where the left is.
And the people who got elected were very conservative county.
But they say they're Republicans, but it's like a closet Democrat that you cannot get
elected unless you say you're a Republican.
And they are not.
They're Marxists and they're leftists.
And they really want to destroy like like the woman who's the prosecutor, Dana Nessel, is our homosexual, what do you call it, attorney general under Whitmer, who are the very leftists.
And this woman is on her advisory board about anti-gun stuff and has a long association with them.
So they portray themselves as
conservatives who are
for the Constitution.
But that's not
what they really want.
It's very deceptive. So we have to be very
careful who we vote for.
That kind of thing.
Another thing, every time
they would do something illegal in court,
my attorneys would bang you know we do
an appeal but that appeals like fifteen thousand dollars and i'm like so now i got my little two
bedroom house paid for and my two cars paid for and a little bit of money saved and so then i had
to go and mortgage my house so i sold my car sold my gun sold everything i own and and this is no resentment at the attorneys. They're fantastic.
And I believe in capitalism. They deserve to be rewarded. But, you know, I took everything.
So now I got a mortgage on my house. You know, so it's kind of rough, but we had to do it
because we could not allow them to not follow the law. You know, we couldn't allow it. And
then the last thing, we were ready to go to trial.
That's why it took two years. We're ready to go to trial a week before the trials to begin.
My attorneys are very smart. They called state police and said, you have body cans. What's the
deal? We haven't gotten them. And they say, oh, we gave them to the prosecutor. Well, in discovery,
they have to give you those. She hid those and didn't give them to us.
That's a week before.
So we couldn't even prepare a defense.
So, I mean, it's so patently illegal.
And so, boom, the whole thing gets delayed.
And then we had another appeal.
And so it ended up being two years.
Boy, I sound whiny, don't I?
I don't mean to sound that bad no but but it's
wait it's kind of real you do that for two years i like to think you know as a man i compartmentalize
my life i'm going to take care of business but i gotta tell you i didn't even realize until it was
over we went up to northern michigan for a couple weeks and i could just i feel the tension leaving
my body.
Do you know what I'm saying?
I was under much more.
You know, I used to have a full head of hair.
No, not really.
But I was under a tremendous amount of stress.
And my wife, you know, she is so loving and takes care of me.
I mean, I hate to.
Yeah. What he did to her,
that's what kills me. Yeah.
Yeah, that's just crazy.
I mean, the fact that, I mean, the corrupt,
just the blatant
corrupt
actions of
the judicial system in that area. mean granted i'm pretty sure that's
there people are like and that's what's scary is people like that that's just one county in
michigan like one little town in michigan which you should be shocked at andrew and i mean you
you and i are michigan residents and phil is not but when you hear the word hillsdale, not a single Michigander goes, oh, a bastion of left-leaning ideology. No,
you think of Hillsdale College, which is the bastion of the last or one of the last colleges
of three free-thinking Americans. And that is why I am so shocked that you hear Hillsdale County
associated with this case. And to Kirk's point, people in Hillsdale better
start realizing who it is that they're voting into office.
Yeah. Yep. That is absolutely for sure. And that's my goal now. If we were wise, we'd move.
My attorneys told me, you should get out of there. It could be dangerous.
But the money I got, I'm not moving anywhere. Mortgages are 7%. There's no way if I sell this, I'll probably end up homeless.
I'm not going to do that to my wife.
I mean, we're all going to die.
I've still got cancer in remission.
I'm healthy.
I feel great.
But I'm 68.
If I had cancer three times, it's in remission.
I'm not going to be around that long.
And my wife's younger than me.
My goal was to have this house paid for.
And then she would have, you know, she's got her retirement she'll have her social care not going to be rich but i will know that she's taken care of at least you know with housing and you know
that kind of thing just very basic and uh this is also you know that's taking that away so i'm
working to to uh rebuild that and you know truck's gone out of his way with
setting up the um uh operation skywalker yeah yeah to um help me and like so many people many people
so let's let's talk about that real quick uh track operation skywalker i know uh in the we're
gonna have it in the show notes uh we threw it in the chat uh as far as the link goes um we're
gonna share it out with our so we're part of the prepper broadcasting network uh as well so i know
i've talked to uh my one of our basically the guy who he runs at james uh i've talked to him and
he's on vacation right now, but when he gets back,
he's going to try to blast it out as well.
But track kind of talk about operation Skywalker a little bit.
Yeah.
So a couple of years ago we had an MDFI alumni member has got a son that
has got a very rare condition that requires a lot of special equipment just
so quality of life can be maintained.
And one of the best guys that I've ever met, like many of the alumni like Kirk and just
people that I've met in my 15 years now with MDFI.
And just kind of through talking, there was a big purchase.
They needed a special minivan that had some wheelchair lifts and things like
that and unfortunately the only way to get it is to buy it new which we're getting into the hundreds
of thousands of dollars or to try to find one on the secondary market and even the secondary market
was very expensive and so we kind of just through talking his son's a big fan of Luke Skywalker and
Star Wars and so what we did was, with the help of my
beautiful better half, we kind of put some graphics together and called it Operation Skywalker. And
that was a fundraiser where the alumni, we tipped over a hat and the alumni put some money in and
we were able to give them a big boost in getting that special piece of equipment. And we didn't stop there. So we don't have it active that often. And that's thank, I mean, thank God that we don't have to
have it active that often. But when Kirk's situation came up, I mean, there is no greater
reason to have Operation Skywalker or just to be charitable, even without the need for this fundraising drive. And so the moment that the smoke was able to settle
and Kirk was able to breathe some stress out,
as he mentioned when he went to Northern Michigan,
we were able to get a give, send, go page going.
And so as of tonight, we're at about $16,800 and some odd dollars,
and that's with 209 people that have given.
And the best part is that's not anywhere close to where we're going to go.
We've got a goal of $100,000.
Ammo Land just got involved.
They're going to be putting an article out.
I actually just talked with Ammo Land today that because of the Supreme Court rulings on bump stocks and things like that,
they had a couple of things that kind of caused their reporters to have to jump on the reporting.
But they're going to be releasing a story about Kirk's case here shortly.
We've got you guys doing this podcast.
It's not over.
We're going to keep spreading the word.
And I think what a lot of people need to hear is kirk's story solely for the
reason one great american got done dirty and that needs to be remedied and of course that's what the
the money is going it started by mdfi and it's not going to me it's going to go directly to kirk and
jill the biggest thing though is the media is not doing the story of the job they're supposed to do
which okay you can tell the story about a Hillsdale County man
that shot a teenager.
He's claiming self-defense.
Okay, you didn't do that.
You just said shot a teenager.
But if you look and actually do the follow-up to the case,
there's maybe a little blurb saying he was found not guilty.
It doesn't say anything about the actual facts of the case.
And so, once again, because the media is not doing their job,
it starts to fall to the wayside. So what we all have to do with Operation Skywalker is, of course, with things being tough right now, and I get it, our numbers are down this year. I
mean, we're having a good year, but it is not going to be a record year. Why? Because milk
is ridiculously expensive. Gas is ridiculously expensive. Five, five, six rounds are 50 cents a round. If you
want a good mil spec round out there, what we need to do is we need to say, hey, okay, I'm going to
help this guy, member of the MDFI alumni. Maybe I'm not MDFI alumni, but I am a responsibly armed
citizen. And oh, by the way, that gun that I carry every single day, the CPL insurance that I was
thinking about getting, that could be me it could be me
and if it is truly if it happens to me and everybody else just scrolls by the story and
says oh sucks to be kirk well that's how they divide and conquer but if we as a group of
responsibly armed citizens can say oh no if a million of us kick in a buck and oh by the way
you probably like me have spent a dollar on
far more stupid things i mean i know that i have right if we all say nope we're going to kick in
a buck and we're going to make this man and his wife as whole as we possibly can granted that's
monetarily you can never get back those days but you can say hey that mortgage don't worry about
it those cars don't worry about it we're going to try to get you so you can start to enjoy that
life liberty and pursuit of happiness anymore. That's what
the goal of Operation Skywalker is. And so I take Kirk's story very personally because
I can picture myself in his shoes. And I say that as a guy that it was law enforcement,
was military. And I was the guy that for the longest time, I'm an SME. I teach this stuff
to other people. And one of my really good friends said,
hey, Trek, what if they railroad you like this?
Well, I was like, holy crap.
I could do everything right.
And I still might need to have a family of,
it doesn't have to be actual blood family,
but a family of responsibly armed people out there
saying, oh, hell no.
And that's what we need to do.
It's that divided, united we stand, divided we fall. We have to take a local look to a global
thought. And if we can just get everybody in this country that sees this and hears the story to say,
I don't have a lot of money right now because it's gas in the tank and clothes on the kids'
back and food on the table, but I can give a buck. And if you can give a buck, everybody that
hears this gives a buck, we're going to make a world of difference. And maybe when they're made
whole, maybe there's some money left over to teach this government that made this a lesson.
And that's a completely different story for maybe another day. Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing is,
yeah, if anybody can give, that's the biggest thing a dollar five bucks whatever um not asking
you to you know sell a gun and give the whole proceeds or whatever it's just one of those
things whatever you can do and but that's the thing though like look listening to kirk and his
story and then i keep going back to the written house because that was another just another one
that was blatant obvious self-defense that was someone they tried to railroad this kid.
And but the difference between the two that I take away from this is the Rittenhouse.
The whole thing with Rittenhouse was he was in this area.
There's riots, all the stuff.
He went down there to try to help and he got in that crappy situation that he could have actually,
if he would have just stayed home in Wisconsin or wherever, that would never would have happened.
You were at home on your property taking care of just groceries from the store,
and this was on your doorstep.
You don't have to travel somewhere scary for something like this to happen.
This can be right on your doorstep.
And that's where I think some people don't understand is this literally can happen to anybody uh it can
happen to you at any time and so listening to your story i mean and that's the thing is we didn't even
get we're not being all the way through your story i mean especially with the trial and uh
the and then just the after effects of what you've been going through, too, is something to talk about, too.
But, yeah, it's something like this can happen to anybody.
And the Operation Skywalker is something that I think it, yeah, it just shows, it goes to show you that there are still good people out there that care.
That's for sure.
That we're, it's when one of our own
because we're like i look at the gun community unfortunately i look at the community itself and
it's broken i see it as fractured i i don't see it as a one cohesive unit i mean we're constantly
fighting on name brands and all kinds of stupid crap but you would think that a story like yours
uh would actually bring everybody together because it's complete ridiculous the
idea that these this prosecution and the judges and the the police like the cops and everything
like they should all be out of a freaking job oh yeah absolutely i can't believe like they got
rail they railroaded you to the ninth degree so it's it's just insane to me like i honestly i
have no idea what to say because it's,
it's the story after when I talked to Trek about it and he was telling me
kind of keeping me informed a little bit about it as much as he could.
And then once you were found not guilty,
he kind of,
him and I talked a lot about it.
And I,
when I started researching it more,
it's this,
you,
your,
your,
your story has like, doesn't even what the media has typed up
is nothing compared to what your what your story actually is like it's insane and and what things
that hide in and stuff like that it's yeah i think it's very important and people know like you you
mentioned like once the trial was over, we really kicked this into gear.
Kirk and I have been talking since this happened.
In fact, since Jill kind of reached out and we were to get Terry Johnson, Dean Greenblatt involved.
I can't question those attorneys' strategy because it was working.
And every time I talk to Kirk, he's like, they are winning the battles every single day so that we can win the war.
And it's, it's now is the time,
like there was the time for that battle and now there's the time for this
battle. And, and,
and we're absolutely steadfast and dedicated to helping Kirk out.
And I would say to people out there,
and I'm sure Kirk's going to talk about it, you know,
CPL insurance is a thing and it doesn't
i'm not a shill for any any company there is a uh and i have it and there's there is a even when i
own a firearms training company and i consider myself to be very level-headed and i consider
myself to be very educated i've got it my wife's got it because she's got her cpl um you also need
to say okay i can't we all live in a, an adult world. We've
got adult bills to pay and adult things to do. And that's why this, we're, we're focusing the
energy with Operation Skywalk. You don't have to do much. You don't have to go and mow Kirk's lawn,
but if you can give a buck, if you can give five, you give 20. Kirk, you don't know this,
but a guy that doesn't know you in Texas gave $1,000. $1,000, gentlemen, courtesy of Phoenix Ammunition.
They shared my initial operation, Skywalker, which went viral.
And so thank you to Phoenix Ammunition for making that happen.
But what you need to do, as all of us need to do, is say, okay,
when something like this pops up, get involved.
When you're sitting down with your loved ones going, okay, I something like this pops up, get involved. When you're sitting down with your
loved ones going, okay, I'm going to do everything right, but how do we plug the holes for when
things go wrong? Something like CPL insurance and having a plan. Also, instead of spending,
you know, maybe a week's worth of lattes, you know, half-calf mocha lattes from Starbucks or
whatever, give a little bit of money to like Firearms Policy Coalition, Gun Owners of America,
because they are holding these types of politicians to task.
And in fact, they recently just had one with the New Michigan Ridiculous
Will Not Do Anything to Stop Crime gun registration where they were like,
oh, I think it was Wayne County or something said,
we're only opening the clerk's office for one hour, one day a week.
And FPC literally just posted on Twitter saying, hey, our lawsuit printer is spooling up and we're coming after you.
And the next thing that county posted was, OK, it's going to be open two days, two days or two hours every day all week long.
And it's like these organizations will fight in the trenches when we just can't
because we do have things to do. But look to this man, Kirk, who's now, you might be listening to
this, listen to him or look on this YouTube channel and put yourself in his place. Think of your family
being affected and say, what if when you asked for help and you did everything right, there was crickets?
And that's what we'd know off.
You know, and other things that have happened, you know, there's red flag laws in Michigan now.
So all they have to do is manufacture, make up something.
The cop, in my case, lied continuously and was caught on the stand with film that showed that he lied for six hours straight. Well, why wouldn't he, if he's willing to do that to kill me, literally he's put me to
death. So he could go from being sergeant to the being called chief and make a buck $50, $1.50 more
an hour in our little police department. Do you think he would manufacture something about a red flag law
and have them bust down my door or your door? These kind of laws, we have to really, really
fight against those. They sound, you know, they sound so, yeah, red flag. They're not a good idea
at all. Very, very dangerous. And I also want to say, my fight is not over. My fight is not over. I sound like
an insurance salesman. I don't work for anybody, but get some insurance. I have it now. I didn't
have it then. But the other thing I want to say is my battle to make sure these people aren't
reelected, all politics is local, okay? That's just how it works. To get this police officer
out of his job, He should not be a
cop. He shouldn't just go to another department. He said that battle is not over. I'm not cowed.
I'm not, nobody shut me up. Nobody's going to stop me. Everything legal, absolutely legal,
no kind of threats whatsoever, but legally I'm going to push those things and push them hard and i have
lawyers who have volunteered time to um try to do that to um uh what would you call the
uh to get the prosecutors uh there's a board to uh spartan not to spark but they look at it you know
and but all those all those things it's not going to be comfortable for them and i'm not willing to
just roll over as an american and lose my god-given my natural rights that easily you know
so i i think myself as a very measured really kind hearted person, but very firm in my beliefs and truly a conservative person who believes in the Constitution.
And I'm going to do my best to not let that stand. put the old skull and crossbones flag up and just scorch earth and see if you can get these people
out of jobs, out of their positions that they're in and they shouldn't be in, then yeah, I'm off.
Kirk, I've got a quick question for you. With a Brady violation, if he was caught perjuring
himself, did your attorneys bring up anything about him being barred from ever testifying again because he was found lying?
My attorneys are super good at what they do.
And a sign of a good attorney is that they specialize.
You know, they don't they're not going to do my taxes or not.
And so what they've done is they've told me people they're associated with who are very good at what they do and they're
going to be looking at all they are looking at all of that interesting and there was of course
no scorn from the judge when when a police officer was found lying in her court or his or her court
uh no statements were made interesting very interesting yeah yeah that's someone you do
not want to be in law enforcement anymore.
You know, you wonder, I mean, certainly not, you know, sounds silly, but I have many friends who are in law enforcement.
Young man who was my last Golden Gloves fighter champion that I trained.
He's now, he went in the Marines.
Now he's a police officer.
He's my idea of extremely ethical, extremely strong, extremely responsible kind of person we want as a police officer.
And he was absolutely appalled at all this.
He was at all my trial.
He couldn't believe it.
And, you know, that besmirches those people who worked really hard to keep us safe.
Well, the problem is it calls into when something like this happens, and I'm sure Trek is going
to echo this, but like it calls into question the entire profession of law enforcement.
It calls into question the entire profession of the judiciary.
Like I have – so I'm in a unique situation.
I'm probably not unique, but it's – I find myself walking a tightrope because I have friends and family who are in law enforcement who I know from knowing them
personally and individually for anywhere from like 10 to 25 years. These are good people that
are trying to do the right thing. They're trying to uphold the law. They're trying,
but I simultaneously tell people all the time,
like, if you in the law enforcement profession do not take it upon yourself
to be able to check a bad cop,
you all look bad.
And it works like that across,
that's not even just law enforcement,
that is any organization above like five people
is that if you don't clean up your house,
you all look dirty.
And that's just the way it works.
And something like this gives so much credence to the person who wants to put the black flag in the air and say the judiciary is crooked.
The police are crooked.
You know, like it gives all that so much credence because here it is.
It happened.
And then you wind up with those good
cops saying but not all cops and i'm like that's really that's really hard to say though when we
watch that when we went from went on the back end from 30 000 feet we look down at this situation
and we say how did all of this go so bad all at the same time yeah Like this wasn't, your story is not, and I want to get back to like the trial,
but your story is not one of
the police screwed up,
but then the judge pitched the case out
or like, you know,
at every step of what you described so far,
everything was done wrong.
Everything.
I don't think anything,
any part of this,
except for your part has been right.
And I'm just a lay person without direct knowledge of law enforcement, but the things you're describing, I'm hearing, and I'm like, this doesn't even sound rational.
Yeah.
It doesn't sound rational.
It's emotion-based.
Yeah, three guys beating the tar out of a person in his front yard.
He pulls out a handgun to defend himself.
How do we get to the point where we're at in this story from where we started?
It makes no sense.
Well, you know, when you talk about the judiciary, Judge Luznate kind of came around, but she only came around because we kept doing appeals.
They don't like that.
So we're in trial.
They put Officer Gessner,
Chief Gessner, on the stand. He was on there for six hours. He would be asked a direct question
because he had even taught at community college class on crime scene investigation. So, you know,
he had all kind of bona fides when he got up there.
But then when he got up there, he didn't do any of them. And they asked him questions directly out
of his syllabus for his class. Did you do this? Did you do that? And each time he would look over
to the jury and he would do the word salad and just assemble for a couple, for a minute. They
would look back at him and I would say, that's all very well, but that's a simple yes or no. And you say, no, sir, I did not do that. That literally went
on for six hours. And I'm sure it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say, no, sir, I did not do that
more than a hundred times. The next day when we were, he was still going to be questioned,
my counsel decided, you know, the jury might start having sympathy for this
guy because it was so pathetic.
They just said no more questions and they quit.
You know, it was just established.
So at one point he during that time, he said, yes, I made the wrong decision.
I think I panicked.
He just went on and on, admitted everything that he panicked,
and he made the wrong decision.
Well, at that point, literally, the judge can hit the gavel and say,
you know, this is dismissed.
And I was getting kind of happy.
I'm looking at the judge.
I'm thinking, hey, he just said he made up the whole thing.
But no, they didn't do it.
And so we continued with the trial.
And then with a brilliant, we had Dr. Drakovich.
I don't know if you know who he is.
He's an internationally known forensic pathologist.
And we didn't pay him.
We had to pay his time to the county that he comes
from from oakland county and he came and he just explained it he used this little rod that he had
and he had a guy lay on the floor and uh the prosecutor just she's like a little girl like
wanting to stamp her feet but first she didn't want him to be. He's like elite in the whole world. Thank God. I don't know.
I was so blessed to have him.
And she said, well, he's just not an expert.
And the judge looked at her like, do you have like an argument about this?
She goes, no, I just don't believe he should be.
And he's just renowned, you know.
So anyways, they show this, you know, laying on the ground and they showed pictures and it's all very clear.
And she goes, well, I just don't think that's how it happened.
Well, that's not evidence.
And so she said, you're just making it up.
And he said, well, if you have another way, show me because I would be glad to know, you know.
And of course, they didn't have another way.
There's not another way the bullet could go on that path.
The stippling, you know, on the young man and all that kind of thing.
It was very clear.
And then my other witness was Jeff Matt,
who investigated more than 200 murders, 240, 220, whatever it was.
It was a lot.
And he's retired.
He's an expert witness. They tried to say he wasn't, but, of course, he is an expert witness.
He was a detective for many years in the big city, and he had seen it all.
And he got up there and explained where he went wrong.
Even the things he did, he never did do an investigation, but did wrong.
So it was all very clear.
So when we went out, I got to tell you, though, I'm in pretty good shape.
I mean, I ride my exercise bike every day.
But I thought I was back from years ago.
I have a little post-traumatic stress and anxiety to like some anxiety.
We had to go across to the restaurant and wait for the jury to decide my life and death.
Because, I mean, like I'm 68.
I go to jail for manslaughter even.
That's it.
You know, I'm not going to get any treatment for cancer there, that kind of thing.
And so, but it took three hours, you know, from the time I walked out, walked back.
And it was unanimous that, you know, 12-0, that I was innocent.
So thank God for the jury system, you know.
But talk about a railroading.
They really, that was really
truly trying to railroad well and and kirk i would ask i know and this is i think this is very
important when a trial when the trial may be wrong the fact that you even bought the trial
but the when a trial is initiated and and it's the same as what we would call in the state of
michigan and other states rape shield where you you have a situation where past behavior cannot be brought into play because of a specific situation.
clearly a very large delineation between you,
a pillar of the community,
someone that does help people with the lawn and, and,
and is well known with the,
just the,
just the,
the,
the citizens that you've interacted with.
And like the,
like you said,
they couldn't find a single person that's like,
no,
he's a great dude,
right?
Everybody said that you were good to go.
What was,
if I'm not mistaken,
these three individuals were in progress
or just leaving the scene of other criminal behavior, if I'm not mistaken?
Yeah, yeah.
What they would do is walk through our community.
Their father, it's a whole thing, but their father was a five-time felon.
He was a B&E guy.
He may have been, I'm not going to swear to this,
but he may have been locked where I worked, but I don't remember, but I'm not going to, I don't know
that for sure, but he's a five-time felon. So I probably ran into him. So many houses in our
little town, which they don't report it, but like my next door neighbors, two other people just
across from me, all houses were broken into late at night. It's mostly older people retired.
And they would walk around.
I know a lot about crime.
They would scope houses, and they would go back,
and then they'd come back at night and steal stuff.
So I think they were going to steal my truck.
But that day, they had started out.
They wrecked a building in the park,
and they had their little gang signs painted on it.
They vandalized it.
And it's
what kind of
it's like a preserved park area
with all these bridges.
National Historic Site.
And that day they went around and
vandalized the painting
signs on it and that kind of thing.
Then they crossed the street.
They went in a store. They got a bottle of wine for a person who worked there as a friend of their family. They had marijuana
that they got from their mother. Then they went down to the lake that's just a half mile, quarter
mile down from us. And they stole a boat and they went out and were getting high and drunk. And what
they had left in that bottle, they put in their bag. And then they came up and that's when they assaulted me.
So their stuff was accelerating. They were high. They were drunk. In the course of the two years,
this came up three different school superintendents. They were kicked out of five
different schools. Three different superintendents called and said, hey, these guys are bad news.
They were kicked out because they would surround somebody
and the one would come up behind them and assault them.
So they already knew how to triangulate people and assault.
The bus driver, real nice retired guy, I don't know what his job used to be,
but he took that as a part-time job.
He stops.
He goes, hey, how are things going?
Those guys are bad news.
And then previous to this, a few days a week before
that they had stolen a car and the county and the local cop they didn't they didn't want to do
anything about it talk to their parents that kind of thing but they didn't do anything about that
so you had this accelerating um wave of crime that they were committing and i just just happened to be, you know, lucky me.
I happened to be the guy bringing in my groceries the day they assaulted me,
which three of those four crimes happened that day.
So, you know, so I'm thank God, though,
it was me because if they would have got my truck and my gun and my air,
you know, God knows what they would have done, you know?
And this is the moment in the story
where little anarcho-libertarian phil almost starts to flirt with the idea of just putting
a proverbial match to the entire judicial and law enforcement system yeah because we're talking
about they they overlook numerous felonies of the three people that wound up assaulting you,
but when it's you that shoots one of them, all of a sudden they're really interested.
Well, it is, and it's, Phil, you bring up a good point there.
The two that fled, or the three that fled, two of them that actually fled farther than 80 yards.
If you're a victim, Kirk's wife, Jill, would not have been the one calling 911.
It would have been the two victims that our buddy was just burned down by some crazed lunatic with a gun.
And, of course, that was not the case, right?
And there is a time if an investigation is done and then they have to bring this stuff to trial,
they have to have these things saying that this background is not relevant because they need to you know just because somebody did something on monday
and tuesday they were then became a victim of a crime it's very important that they they get their
their proper shake the problem is the lack of investigation what they didn't do in kurt's case
they could have said hey don't leave the county yeah i'm glad that you're okay back from the
hospital don't leave the county they could have started their investigation and they would have
quickly found out through just simple investigation okay you got to wait for the forensics guy bob to
do his forensic stuff but you could go and talk and when every neighbor is like those three are
a menace to society so take what they say with a grain of salt. That guy over there, Kurt, the guy that's hurt, yeah, he's the guy that we all respect and we know.
So you should probably listen to him.
The basic investigation 101 would have said, let's just hold off on pressing charges before we look like assholes, which now they clearly do.
And not just that, they look corrupt.
They probably are.
And they certainly looked inept.
Well, let me say this.
I shot and killed somebody.
Okay?
I expect.
I honestly do.
I expect the police to come, put me in cuffs, and take me and question me.
A young teenager was killed.
That's serious. They should cuff me they should
take me in they should i think legally they can keep me 48 up they should find out what happened
but they should separate them they should cuff them they should put them in squad cars
get all the stories and and make a a reasoned decision not a political decision and so like
when that happens you know i want them to investigate that.
That's the problem.
They didn't investigate it at all.
And then you've got the problem of psychoanalysis.
I mean, because somebody's a juvenile, we know that they have less thought process.
And there's a lot of violence by juveniles these days.
And they are overly protected.
They did all these crimes, but nobody could bring that up in the trial.
Nobody did anything about it.
And so you're courting disaster when you do that.
I don't know how much I buy into a legal principle that a person's past crimes have no influence or bearing on a current trial.
a person's past crimes have no influence or bearing on a current trial comma however i am not prepared to accept the the crimes they committed on the same stinking day before they
got to you are not relevant neither is the fact that you know on top of the fact that they were
loaded it's just that's a thing i'm just gonna say to rub my temples i don't even know what to
say like there's nothing about this.
There's nothing about this.
Well, the good thing is, Phil, so the good – and I wasn't there for the trial.
And the good thing is timelines still have to be established.
And I'm sure that the attorneys did a great job of establishing how these two parties intersected.
And when one is getting loaded on a stolen boat and vandalizing property,
it may not be talking about their past criminal history, but it's certainly part of the timeline
of what they were doing. And so I'm sure that was brought to light. But I think it's very
important when you have, it's the classic, the prostitute that is raped. And that is where those
laws come from, is that there's a big difference. And so the past criminal
history at a certain point has to be filtered from a jury. But the true reality is where I was going
is, and as Kurt so graciously stated, even as someone that was a victim of this wrongdoing,
he expected at least 48 hours to be part of an initial investigation where they say,
we don't know what your place is in this story. So you're just going to be in of an initial investigation where they say, we don't know what your place is in this story,
so you're just going to be in custody until we can say,
don't leave the county until we get the full picture.
But that's a completely different story.
And so it really is.
It's a failure of that government, grossly.
I mean, in an ineptitude that will cause Phil to rip out his beard,
even after this, this podcast is over. I don't even know if I'm willing to use the word inept.
Like there is, as someone who works in the public sector, I operate with a very simple premise that
there is a certain level of malfeasance that I don't care if ineptitude is the original cause for it you're guilty of it
like you know like because i so i i am one of those people that kirk that i am spring-loaded
to this very naive childish idea that like the world is supposed to be fair even though it's not
and i know that but like if there's a standard that we, the citizenry are held to, then damn it, I am going to
blow a fuse and scream every time the people in power are not held to the same standard.
I understand they're not always, I understand the world isn't fair. Just give it to me. Like
it angers me. It outrages me, even though I know it happens all the time. So how many times have
we, the citizens been
told over and over and over ignorance of the law is no defense ignorance is no defense so i'm going
to flip it around and and say it to every law enforcement officer that touched this the judge
the prosecutor every one of them ineptitude's not an excuse. When you screw this much of your job up, as far as I'm concerned, every one of them belongs in prison.
With probably the same people they put there.
At this point, anyone could be forgiven for wondering who else is in jail that they railroaded.
Who just didn't have as good of a lawyer as you did who
didn't have family that mortgaged their house to run to their rescue like how many people were put
in the same position you were put in and the dice just didn't roll their way and they're still in
prison well i can tell you one right now there's a young young man that I got to know while I was there.
There was a little crack.
I never got to know anybody so deeply through a little crack in the wall.
And his name is John Ressler.
And right now he is in prison.
He's a very, very nice.
I've seen a lot of things in life.
I try not to be that person, but I have.
I've seen a lot of violence. He's a very naive guy. Very naive. I've seen a lot of things in life. I try not to be that person, but I have. I've seen a lot of violence.
He's a very naive guy.
Worked in a little factory for $20 an hour.
Two children. He had just bought his first
house. He had 22. We live in the country.
So he had 22s. He'd go out by the woodpile,
practice shooting his 22s.
He was assaulted in his house four times
in one night by the same person breaking in.
Finally, the person
pulled out their cell phone.
It's dark.
And he thought they pulled out a gun and he shot.
And, you know, that tacky psyche syndrome,
he shot the bullet directly through the cell phone.
It was a woman, so that had a lot to do with it.
She died.
But they kept him.
They did the same thing to him in the cell.
They, you know, did the music, trapped him there.
He felt he's a very, deeply devout christian person like like the real thing you know he makes
me look like a piece of garbage and you know he um he'd break down crying because he said oh he
the woman wasn't saved and he killed her and you know he sent her to hell that's i mean he believed
that and i said to him i said i mean i acted like a real kind of jerk to him i yelled at him i said you don't i don't want
to swear a lot but i and i was in the jail right so i go you fucking pussy quit act crying while
you're in prison you'll get something bad news will happen to you you got to act tougher than
that who do you think you are you're not god you know what i mean i was hard on him you know what
i mean but anyways they kept him in there until and he said, well, you know, the prosecutor's nice to me. And, you know, he says that maybe we can make a deal. And I'm going like, that's not what they're doing. And so he ended up getting five years, which he's doing right now. Or it might be nine, but he'll do five to seven. I'm sorry. Five to seven. And you know, it's funny. I'm a hardened prison guard. I mean,
I've been in hundreds of fights and slashed and stabbed and beaten and everything else.
And I'm going to go visit the guy. You know, as far as I'm concerned, he was like a good,
he is a good person, a family man. And all he did was defend his home when this person broke in a bunch of times.
But he couldn't afford an attorney. And so the attorneys who are local here,
just like they want you to just, well, can you get some statements from people you know who say
you're a good guy? Well, that just means they're going to, they want to get you a better sentence.
And, you know, I wasn't willing to do that do that and he did that and they kept him locked up longer than me and he finally you know
signed the paper and boom he's in prison right now so those people i know one of them i know
that's the thing though is they're they're it's blatant torture uh what they're doing uh they're
doing psychological,
basically psychological torture
on inmates,
or, you know,
I mean,
on jail prisoners
or whatever,
until they get what they want.
Until they get them
to sign what they want,
they...
Not Noriega.
You know what I mean?
Like how they did Noriega
down in Central America.
How they got them
to come out of his house.
They blasted babies crying and music rolled up. That what they do you know and they um that's it's just
they're very um kind of a uh out of control county it really is it's hard to believe yeah
i mean i'm here because it's very conservative and of course
excuse me they hook it up you know like we're saying with Hillsdale College.
Hillsdale College has got nothing to do with it.
You know, they're men at the end of themselves.
No way would I want that to reflect on them.
They're great.
But the sheriffs, they need to go.
That sheriff needs to go.
That judge needs to go.
And that prosecutor needs to go. That sheriff needs to go. That judge needs to go. And that prosecutor needs to
go. So Kirk, what's, uh, it's April was the, was the verdict and it's now June. What's, uh,
what's new or what, what is, what is in your near future now that, uh, this is by the least
this part is behind you um well you know it's
funny my wife has a little part-time job she she i bought her a car so she could retire
with a little bit of money i had we're very happy she could retire with me and of course now she got
a little part-time job because we need to do that um i um leased a vehicle so can, because we couldn't afford to buy one. And so
we've been driving that. So we got something to drive, which, you know, was tough for a couple
of years. And I still coach. I don't make any money doing it. I got some local kids that I work
with coaching and some people I kind of mentor. You know, I did that in hockey for USA Hockey
for our national team development program that sent players to the Olympics.
So I mentor guys and talk to guys that know a lot about that sport
and the situation young men face.
Sometimes they might have a, I don't want to say anybody specific,
but young guys, they're 22, 23 years old. They might have a um i don't want to say anybody specific but you know young guys they're
22 23 years old they might have a slight drug problem starting they might have a divorce and
i i try to help guys like that out a lot with some of my experience it's unique to the professional
league what you have to know and um so i'm doing that you know i'm still doing some good work and
i'm and i'm uh i gotta tell you i love doing that stuff i love doing that good work, and I've got to tell you, I love doing that stuff. I love doing that stuff.
And, of course, I'm enjoying all my friends and trying to get more politically active to try to change.
Like I said, politics is local, to change what's happening around here.
And I'm going to keep doing that.
Well, good. change what's happening around here and i'm gonna keep doing that well absolutely um well i mean if
you ever if you want to come on and discuss anything coming up i mean if you need help
getting your voice out i know you're michigan and our show is all over the all over the u.s
it's not just michigan so but i mean by all means you can come on and talk and uh and everything but
uh thanks for coming on kirk i don't know i honestly i don't
know what else to ask or say or whatever i just if anybody can uh those of you who are listening
uh we'll have the obviously we said at the top of the show and stuff but we'll have the
the link in the description uh when this goes out we'll we'll blast it out a little bit uh
on social and stuff but uh give send go dot com slash Operation Skywalker is the link.
But I just this is worse than what I read.
Like that, it's just insane.
It's crazy on how bad it is.
Kind of hard to believe.
Yeah, no, it is.
I don't even know what to say at this point.
I've only been speechless on the show a couple of times.
I mean, it kind of comes with the territory of being a podcaster.
It's like you have to be able to find your words.
But, Kirk, I don't even know what to feel.
This is probably one of the most egregious miscarriages of justice I've ever heard.
And I've heard of a lot.
Well, I think you should feel proud of what you're doing.
You're getting the word out on good things where people are following the
constitution.
You're pushing that forward for people to defend themselves and take care of
themselves. And you're representing what America should really be.
So when you're all done with this, don't be confused.
You know exactly who you are.
And I can't tell you how much I appreciate that.
And Trex helped.
And there's a lot of good people.
So don't despair.
There's a lot of us out there who want it to be right.
And I appreciate you guys for that.
I hope that by bringing you on this show, like some good comes of it,
for the listeners, I hope if you bringing you on this show, like some good comes of it for the listeners.
Like, I hope if you have a dollar or five or whatever you can afford to give, you know, consider her giving.
I would just say that for everybody like I've I've said I've again, I'm going to reiterate it for the last time on this show.
on this show. I've said before that my personal signpost for whether or not I use a gun to fix a problem is, am I prepared to have my life torn literally apart as a consequence of using that
gun? And here is, unfortunately, a horrible example of what I've always warned people of,
is that this could be waiting for you on the other side of that defensive shooting,
warn people of is that this could be waiting for you on the other side of that defensive shooting even if you're 100% on the right so i always go to the idea that like if you can de-escalate
if you can walk away if you can get out of it that is always going to be my preference because
ammo is expensive and my time is even more expensive but for god's sakes if you find
yourself in that situation where you're on your back three on one, I hope you've spent enough time training your mind and your body to be able to come out on top so that you have the opportunity to have your life torn apart afterwards.
I'm just glad you're still here.
Thank you.
You could have checked out right there in your grass in your front lawn.
Well, not today.
Not today.
I'm sitting here with a smirk on my face.
You guys can't see it.
I'm just smirking because Kirk, through this entire process,
has had an ironclad will that people should be very jealous of,
and then his humility, which is just an Epsom credible.
I would say,
you know,
start taking some important lessons in the firearm training community.
We have the tool or drill,
which is the 20 foot 21 feet and under.
We have the Farnham rule.
Don't go stupid places with stupid people and do stupid things.
And then we have the,
the,
the Kirk Kulik rule,
which is you can do everything right. Things can go terribly wrong,
but if there's a community that's behind you, things are going to be just fine. And so, um,
what I take from all of this is that Kirk is sitting right there in that seat. He is sitting
right there with his beautiful wife next to him. And so horrible things happened. He's okay. And so now what people get involved with is going to be,
what is the change that comes from this awful act? And it can either be, you can be the next victim,
or we can actually make a difference. We can actually make a difference. So we're all going
to, it's kind of like take Phil's rant spot from him tonight. And I just made a post on our Twitter account,
which is just a bad idea for me to get access to a Twitter account.
But it was, look at everything that's going on.
My wife set me off this morning about schools that are putting litter boxes
in kids' bathrooms because adults aren't slapping the shit out of kids
that are thinking that they're cats when they're 12 years old.
You've got a commander-in-chief that's walking around like a zombie
in The Last of Us.
Chinese military is buying up land near our military bases.
But everyone in America is like, this is fine.
This is fine.
No, it's not fine.
Start at a certain point in time.
We have to say, just like Benjamin Martin, I use the movie references, send another letter.
Well, we've already sent five letters.
Well, send another one because the alternative is not good. And so people sitting back going, well, I'm going to let
somebody else do the heavy lifting. It's your time now. You've got to get involved. You've got to
vote. You've got to be educated on your vote. You've got to vote with your wallet. And you've
got to, when you see somebody that is part of your quote unquote family, you need to stop bickering about the little things, nine versus 40 versus 45, and just say, that's a good American. That's not a good
American. And we're going to support good Americans. So Kirk, I know this was absolutely
huge for you to come on here and to tell this story. And I truly believe you when you say that
you are going to make it a point to make sure this doesn't happen to another person. I'm looking forward to backing you in every way, shape, and form that you do it. And guys, thank you so much. I'm going to
shut up, but thank you for having Kirk on and me on. I'm just warming up, getting Kirk's story out
there. And I look forward to sharing this with everybody that I can possibly share some words
with. So thank you. Yes, thank you. I mean, thank you, Trek, for making the introduction and everything.
And I mean, as soon as you, I mean, as soon as this happened,
and I remember Trek kind of telling me he didn't put out, you know,
obviously he didn't put out really any details when it first happened
because he couldn't and he didn't want to throw, possibly hurt something.
But anyway, I mean, he told me about this and I was like,
I need to get, we need to talk to this guy, uh, you know, impossible if possible. And then when
he said you're not guilty and everything, and, um, that's another, the first question I had was,
Hey, can we talk to him? Uh, and so Kirk, I'm thankful and, uh, I'm thankful to you and
everything and, you know, and your wife, and I'm thankful for track to track to, for, for you
coming on, uh, it, for your story. I mean,
it's one thing to read about it in the news, uh, to follow, follow it in the news, like what we did
with the Rittenhouse trial and stuff like that and seeing it, but with how, obviously we know how
media is, uh, and seeing the media reports of it and seeing how they portrayed the kid that did
this, uh, and, and you know but then hearing
your whole your whole side of the story and hearing how actually bad uh everything from
from the time the trigger from the time the gunshot to uh leading up to it and all the way
up past it going to the trial and stuff that. Like how bad that the local police prosecutor, judge, everything, how bad they treated you
and how bad they just did everything.
It's like, I can't, I'm, I'm flabbergasted.
I cannot, it's crazy to think that that could happen in the United States.
You don't think it could, or it should.
And it shouldn't really happen anywhere, but it does let alone here.
But no, thank you for coming on.
Thanks a lot for having me.
Appreciate that very much.
Appreciate being here.
Well, I think we're going to go ahead and wrap this one up one more time.
Give, send, go.
Operation Skywalker.
If you feel like tossing Kirk, you know, the cost of a Starbucks latte,
God, oh, my my stuff, drinking those damn
things, it would be greatly appreciated. And all I'm going to say guys is like, this is the thing
we have warned people of in the past, which is even if you do everything a hundred percent right,
this could be waiting for you on the other side. So if up till this moment, you have always
assumed I do everything right. I good i'm solid don't make
that assumption anymore because we we have we have entered a point in our nation's history where
there are people masquerading as law enforcement officers and judges who deemed you guilty before
they ever knew your name and they're going to do their absolute best to make the facts fit the conviction they
want.
Not all, but obviously enough that it's frustrating.
So, Kirk, thanks for being on.
Please keep in touch.
I will.
I don't know what else we could do to lend you a hand, but I am quietly hoping you run
for local office, just because
it would make those people very uncomfortable.
That would be something.
Oh, boy.
Matter of fact, podcast's heading
out the door. Please, please,
please be careful out there, guys. The world
is getting crazier by the moment,
and Kirk just
raised my bar for what crazy really
sounds like.
Good night, everybody. Take care of each other. We'll talk to you
another week. Bye. Thank you. Outro Music