ATF Joint Firearms Task Force NYC and Kansas City

this is things police see first and accounts with your host Steve Gold welcome to the podcast that interviews active and retired police officers about their most intense bizarre and sometimes humorous moments on the job it is I old gingerface with you once again guys thank you for being here thank you for finding the show this uh in the show if you’re if you’re new here you will hear the men and women of law enforcement tell you um their craziest stories as they live them totally unedited um I hope you I do see a lot of people are binge listening i hope you do that because uh the stories are wild man i get to do this once a week at least meet up with these people and um just hear unbelievable stories uh just and and long careers which are just unbelievable i mean I I can I say unbelievable one more time i work I’ve always been a small town copper so um I would never bag on that job and we do get you do get calls that are you know are oh calls but uh you know you do get some space recovery time in between um there’s a lot of downtime these guys who come on just seem like they’re always uh they’re always into something and uh it’s just it’s just amazing man i’m just so thankful they’re out there doing this that they’re willing to do it impacts their family and their whole lives so thank you for being here to hear it i love you guys if you really love the show and you’ve listened to a bunch of episodes um there you know there’s four free a month and uh you want to show me monetarily I appreciate that you can go to the Patreon link which is in the show notes there’s a few different levels on there you can pick and um and support that way i’m a little bit sore today we got a uh we got a 15 yard dumpster in the yard have you guys ever done that we are cleaning out our house finally my wife was wanting one for like 6 months we should get a dumpster we should get a dumpster the only problem is dumpsters are like we got one maybe 15 years ago and it was like 200 bucks and this one was $500 to have a dumpster for five days uh 10 days but uh man it does she was right it is very cathartic just not having to like bring it to the dump and put it in a separate bin just to have a giant like essentially black hole in your yard you can just throw garbage into is uh is fantastic highly recommend that all right that’s my tip for this week guys uh today’s episode is going to be a great one i’m really really excited to have him on he’s done a lot in his career both on the local city and federal side 14 years local law enforcement 21 years ATF commanded two of the largest ATF task force groups group four joint firearms task force in NYC and can Kansas City group five gun squad three and a half years on STF special response team member of the NYPD honor legion gold valor medal hostile action award current owner of send it woodworking which we will hear about without further ado let me bring on the great Eric Imisberger nailed it yes sir good morning Steve yeah man good morning good to have you brother man we’ve been through it me and Eric he um he got recommended to the show by uh Brent Cartwright who was a great guest people um people love that episode and and Eric is kind of newer to like you’re not hitting the you’re not like one of these guys hitting the podcast circuit quite yet so you were like “Yeah I’ll do it.” Yeah and and Brent’s like “You got to have this guy on he’s got the greatest wild stories you know he’s really interesting.” So Brent loans you the his studio but then has to leave to go on a trip and poor Eric is like this guy that’s just getting into this and we had all kinds of audio issues it was uh it was trying it It was uh I went never again i I hate borrowing people’s tools i hated borrowing somebody’s pen off their desk uh so I went all in uh I went with Steve’s recommendations he saidop get this that i did it um and my wife’s like “Oh great another direction for you now.” Uh but it works yeah absolutely man you sound great and I liked what you said too before the show started we were talking about that and you were like “Yeah it kind of reminded me of my first arrest at NYPD where they just go “Go ahead and take care of it you know you’re on your own.” Yeah that was awesome uh hey we’re making a bunch of arrests today here’s your here’s your your collar here’s your guy uh you got to go to central booking you got to sit down with the prosecutor you got to do this do that and I’m like uh okay uh there’s somebody going you know just give me a give me the three minute brief no you figure it out so I did that’s awesome man those those were the golden days the good old days yeah yeah we talk we reminisce about that on the podcast a lot with um guys that started kind of out of this modern era of policing where it was there was no you know 12week field training program with a trainer who’s got all these check boxes he’s checking and all that it was like and actually new in New York held on to that for a long time because when I when I was doing the obstacle course for like before the stand I I forget what it is but to get into police academy you have to do this obstacle course from Massachusetts and I was in line with an NYPD kid we were both like in our mid20s he’d been down there a couple years and moved up to Mass and he said it was like he he and a another kid got they graduated academy and they got put on the foot patrol in a in a neighborhood and they had uh you know they had their pen notebook and they had a gas mask they made them carry because um 911 had just happened and um he said I just walked around the neighborhood and took like handwritten reports and I go back to the precinct and I’m like oh what do I do with these and like well you got to you know type them up and it was just it was just funny that wasn’t that long ago you know law enforcement prepared me well for the career after doing the woodworking woodworking is proceduralbased procedures for safety you don’t want to get hurt how do you do this finish that finish it Once you’ve got the procedures down you know the procedures are stuff you’re going to do all the time uh you know then you don’t even have to think about it i I’ve talked to fighter pilots say flying a plane we don’t even think about flying the plane we’re doing every other uh activity in the cockpit don’t even think about flying it right yeah absolutely yeah i remember binging at when in my first police job we had an um new chief come in and he was really all about the SOPs getting them squared away and everybody’s kind of rolling their eyes about it but then one day I had a missing kid and I really didn’t know what to do but we had an SOP on it i looked it up and it laid it out the procedure for it and you know how it is in police work once you do something you’ve never done you pretty much never forget how to do it y cuz it’s just you know there’s there’s stress involved you want to make sure you do everything right especially with a kid and then I just knew it and I was like maybe having procedures that you can read isn’t so bad nope good officers good agents uh you become an expert at becoming an expert you have to figure that out right so Eric you started um was it local PD to NYPD to ATF is that the track so started out in uniform small police department just north of New York City uh I was going to college at night i was losing my mind i don’t think I slept for a few years uh because I remember ninth grade career day a cop came in i had never thought about law enforcement and at the end of that 45minute chat destiny had been written in stone i was going to do this and I went up to him after I said “Tell me what I need to do you you tell me how I need to prepare.” He goes “Well uh you got to go to college no matter the cost you got to go to college doesn’t matter what you study it doesn’t matter where you go but you got to have that four-year degree this is like back in the 70s guys tell me this he goes “Take every math class you possibly can teaches you how to think logically take every English class the written word on your reports the pen puts people in jail and cops you work with will know your reputation because they work with you people that don’t know you your only reputation is on your written work your reports your affidavit your written work product yeah so he goes that that’s got to be tight tight so I took every math class my high school offered I took math electives in college i you know I was like this guy had given me the holy grail do this so I remember being in the police academy in the day going to college at night john J college in New York where I graduated from a professor that taught a math class at 10:00 in the morning he taught the same class at 7:00 at night so you work nights you go to day back and forth uh so doing the ride to New York City John J college 4 days a week in the academy then in the bag uh it was I I made a decision that if I don’t finish this degree I’m not going to finish it i took a year off i took like two 23 credit semesters got the degree and I had interned in the New York City Department of Investigation in Manhattan and like the day I got the degree they said “You want a job it’s waiting for you.” So I wound up working there for four years basically the uh internal affairs if you will sort of like a mini FBI but under New York City government and that was the breeding ground for federal agencies to recruit from the police department was it a sworn position Eric it uh like did you have to go to academy for it yeah there was Well having been through the academy having already been a police officer that’s right it was it was an easy hire for them uh I was in a position that was not sworn by choice because there were more possibilities of what you could do and I knew I wasn’t going to I was there to get experience for the next position so I had started staking my claim i wanted to go become a detective in the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office i had worked with them super professional these were like the titans of industry they were doing unbelievable great cases and I did a bunch of undercover uh real quick hitter stuff in department of investigation posing as a corrupt city lawyer a corrupt inspector uh basically to uh find out you know what was going on with all of that district attorney’s office cuz I got a lot of facetime with them with these cases they’re like “Would you you know consider applying over here?” And I’m like “Yeah in a second.” So after four years in department investigation onto the DA’s office and it was a cast of thousands that was trying to get that job and it was literally in a large part do you you know who do you know every job who do you know right well I happen to know some of the detectives and the bosses from cases that I had brought over there and you know it just worked out you still had to perform you know stand up and perform in the panel interview and all of that and uh they gave me the job i never looked back the Brooklyn District Attorney and so it was about 120 detectives in that office it was about the largest prosecutor’s office i don’t know if Chicago was bigger but for the East Coast Brooklyn was where was at i think we had almost 500 assistant district attorneys uh 20 about 20 NYPD detectives assigned just to that office and we worked with them every day 24 hours 7 days a week arrangements uh central booking I everything was 20 it was like if you needed to get a steak in Manhattan you get a steak at 3 in the morning if if you really want one I’ve done it and if I really need a search warrant at 3 in the morning and not wait till 10 in the morning you can do you could do that in Brooklyn um The process is much more streamlined now as far as making an arrest from what I hear but when you made an arrest in Brooklyn late you know ‘ 89 to 98 when I worked there you made an arrest you You were going to be working for like the next 20 hours you had to bring him back process at your office then you brought them to central book and you lodge a prisoner after you’ve getting them getting them medically checked then you got to go like a like you’re buying a cake at the bakery take a number at the early case assessment bureau you’re going to sit down with a prosecutor they’re going to draw up the complaint what do you got this is what we’re going to this is what we’re going to charge um see an arraignment in like five or six hours so then then you go there uh wow you guys followed all the way through all the way through now to try to cut down on overtime um they they would want the processing to be handed off to somebody else that had just come on but typically the arrests we were making they were they were complex complicated multi-defendant conspiracy cases so you know you were in it to win it you were going to you were going to take the 20-hour drive with overtime and then I live Steve I lived in the office i I might as well had a cot next to my desk and I loved it every second of it couldn’t wait to get to work every day uh and learning at the feet of the of masters uh old school homicide detectives from NYPD Brooklyn North uh the 75 the 83 like liter I would go these guys were in the office all the time and I would say “Listen can I can I just watch can I just listen i I just want to listen to your you know when you got a guy in the box.” And they were like “Yeah yeah good go in the next room you can listen.” And I literally watched I learned at the feet of masters masters of the craft uh when I had got into the special investigations unit uh the two guys that were running that uh happened to have been two polygraph guys and between the two of them they probably took more homicide confessions than any detective in Brooklyn and being that we were not NYPD you’re not the big dog on a block um to get the respect of real masters in the NYPD where they were like “Hey good job you guys So you were working nailed it sorry to interrupt you but you were working for the decor directly for the DA’s office so you weren’t NYPD at this point correct?” Oh interesting and uh it it’s one of these if you didn’t know about the job you literally wouldn’t know about it and you know to have 120 detectives working just in the the group your peers i mean 120 that’s probably bigger than the majority of police departments in America i think the average Yeah you dial out you know the big five cities it’s 20 to 30 is your average police department in the United States so it it was it was a grand scale and the detectives in in that I was a part of again a breeding ground for federal agencies to hire as special agents and the m just about everybody that left that job the FBI DEA ATF Secret Service it was and whenever you would run across guys like “Hey where did you start?” Oh I I was uh a detective in a prosecutor’s office oh me too small enough where we we all knew each other and it was it was great but all of that local time really prepared for the ATF experience so ATF when I got on in ’98 so I had 14 years between all of that experience when you came into ATF I came in in ’98 and it was you know it was almost like a crime family they opened the books to hiring um it it was like a 100 mph treadmill from day one being that I had already been a cop which was 99% of the people that were hired and I believe uh with of course with exception the best federal agents were cops first it’s like you just can’t replicate that experience you you can’t and there’s no Once you become a federal agent in a you know go go go task force or group there’s not a lot of time to sit there’s no time to sit back and like hey I got to figure out how do I do basic stuff there’s no time for that you’re expected to know all of this basic how to talk to people how to get a rapport how to talk to any stratosphere of society you just have to know it uh so getting into ATF literally prepared me for the exper My first day in ATF i showed up I got introduced to my training agent who is now my son’s father-in-law crazy uh and great guy another stellar agent uh but on day one I met him he brought me to the federal courthouse i got sworn in we went right to the range qualified got my Sig 9 millimeter got a car a G- Ride and I remember having a a lunch with the group hey I’m the new guy and that night with my training agent we’re in a strip club uh working a CI and I was like I went from swearing in to being in a strip club putting a deal together and it was probably 3 months before I even got sent to the ATF Academy i was running around ATF having never been to their academy wow crazy it is not that way anymore now you get hired uh you may start a week before the academy but when you go to the academy uh you don’t get your credentials until you do the stage walk uh six months later yeah yeah well local local city police used to do that too they’d hire you put you on the road and then be like “You’re going to go to academy the next year don’t worry.” That type of thing yeah it it was so my academy class and the one I think I was in the second one in the big hiring wave and everybody had been a cop or a federal agent somewhere it was a salty group and our average age was probably late 20s i mean I was considered the old guy i was 35 in the ATF academy and you had to be hired by your 37th birthday uh so nobody was in the mood for uh new guy stuff getting yelled at screamed at more more more so I will say this about the ATF Academy it was stressful and all the stress was self-imposed because they met you you day one you get your class supervisor shows up and he says “Hey to gentleman’s academy there’s going to be no yelling there’s going to be no screaming we’ll call you Mr so ando uh there’s a maid that comes in and makes your bed every morning because you’re not going to have time.” And we were going I think the first class started at 7 and they were trying trying to pack so much material in we never got out of class until probably 12 hours later and there were a group of us that would PT every morning like Jim there was seven weeks of our PT time that was cut out of the curriculum because hey dude PT on your own time we don’t have time to do that we’re trying to expose you to everything um some of the academic tests you had to study for these tests you stuff that a cop you’re not you’re not dealing with the federal explosive laws uh you know stuff like that you you literally had to learn it and you didn’t sort the three main areas you didn’t want to ride the razor on academics the PT standards or the shooting standards and either one of those could easily get you thrown out um they wanted the standard I believe on tests were 80 if you got below an 80 on a written exam they allowed you to retake it get below an 80 again put your stuff in a shopping cart you’re gone uh the same thing with firearms calls and the PT standard uh so it it it was not the hardest experience at all but it was difficult it you had to want to be there you had to want to be there bad to go through everything it was I mean thankfully we did work some Saturdays but the weekends were awesome cuz you had to do your own laundry you had to you know everything that you Oh you need a tire on your car it’s like everything would get done on the weekends yeah and they ran out of room at the academy uh they put my class in a Holiday Inn uh like two exits north of the academy off of 95 um and that was like another whole land of adventure you know we were glad to not be on base um but and it was nice having a room to yourself and your own bathroom yeah yeah absolutely wow man what a journey that that’s crazy it was a blast and yeah the federal agencies and I of course can only speak for ATF but the professional development brodev whatever you want to call it constant constant constant um training uh the one thing I feel we really got short shifted on again this is like 98 versus now uh ground fighting now I had been on our SRT team for a few years which was ATF’s version of SWAT and we got a lot of that we were we would start a lot of training days just with guys in the fist suit and you know close quarters countermeasures two hours every morning so that was good if you were on the SRT but the average agent if you didn’t invest your time in really learning how to control somebody the and it never looks pretty you I mean every police it never looks pretty when you’re trying to arrest somebody that doesn’t want to be arrested right uh at the least it’s a it’s a little wrestling match at the worst you know it’s a it’s a real wrestling match um as I would encourage everybody Brazilian jiu-jitsu now I I’ve I’ve heard on the news that Bonino deputy director at a FBI big BJJ guy he wants to step up that within the FBI especially with their new hires i I couldn’t agree more with that yeah that’s cool man especially in um you get to go to police academy become a cop and they train you in jiu-jitsu i mean because you know how it is at academy when they train you with the defensive tactics the guys are always like you know stage your cuffs approach tell them to turn around you they’re the defensive tactic guys are always doing the hand thing and you know it it you get small stuff from that but then when you when you go to your first arrest or whatever and you and you realize like there there is just like for me it was either like a couple three people just strongarmming somebody you know there was no there was no like tactical approach there was no um loading the handcuffs and it was just like the 25 year year vet just doing what he had to do to get the guy all of that Yeah all of it comes down to you’re by yourself or you with one other guy or gal and you got a guy that says “Uh yeah I’m not going to go to jail today.” Now in New York City the tact the overriding tactic in New York City was the tactic of overwhelming numbers pig pile so if I got if I got onto the radio I didn’t even have to say there was a problem all I had to do was just yell a location third Avenue 22nd Street you know you say it once or twice you don’t have to say anymore uh there’s there’s 50 people going to kill each other to get to that X um there was a short little uh transit guy Ricky that I worked with he literally this dude he was a former Marine i mean this dude was capable he was very strong but he was like 5 foot three and he told me “Yeah I was in uniform and two guys tried to rob me.” They said “Give me the gun.” He’s like “What give me the gun.” He’s by himself in the hole as we call transit and he’s like “Uh yeah no uh by the way get on the ground.” Oh you’re not gonna get on the ground i guess I guess we’re gonna dance he screened his location into the radio and he said “Eric all I knew is I had to contain them just hold on to him hold on to one guy.” And when I heard the jangling keys of 50 guys running down the stairs to get to me then it was on and uh that was the worst decision of that life that they we’re going to try to rob a a uniform police officer this is back in the 80s the good old the bad old days 80s in New York City yeah the mahogany shampoo the Bronx party hat you know all of that but those days are over eric probably for good yeah hopefully um can you take us way back in your career to the first hot call you had the first call that really gave you an adrenaline dump so my uniform days it was a wellto-do area uh a lot of car accidents a lot of DWIs a lot of family disputes robbery in progress crime in progress shots fired um didn’t see a lot of that just where I was in you know working day tours uh however I would almost take you back so here’s a phrase a guy told me your last day hey big guy your your last day is just as damn dangerous as your first day so I thought about what I was going to tell you to that question so I’ll take you to two months before I retired from ATF uh so I was running the gun squad uh when I had it it was the largest enforcement group in ATF by purpose seventh most violent city in America st louis number one just by the numbers uh per capita numbers and uh I never wanted to bother my guys with you know nonsense low-level nonsense they were up to their eyeballs seven days a week in the worst of the worst of the worst people like if there’s a hundred bad guys we could go after who’s the three four five worst of that that’s who we’re going to go after the people that when you take them off the street the shooting numbers go down in that area uh you you’ve made a difference by taking them off the street rather than we’re going to shotgun approach and try to grab everybody for everything we’re going to we’re going to go after the worst of the worst so a lot of administrative stuff I would try to take care of for my guys i didn’t want them to be distracted so one of the crazy administrative jobs every ATF group in the country has them is anybody that goes into a gun store buy a firearm in the United States you have to fill out ATF 4473 and it asks you all the prohibitor questions are you under indictment are you a convicted felon uh you know all of those questions that would be no go the dealer is then going to take your ID and he’s going to run the national instant background check over the phone through the FBI they administer that program and you’re either proceed nothing came up or you’re a delayed denial uh we’re not saying you can’t buy the gun but you can’t buy the gun now because we got to dig into the weeds for whatever this issue is that you have so I would get probably 10 or 15 of those delayed denials a week a lot of them dealt with somebody that was under indictment if you’re under indictment you can still have a gun you just can’t acquire another gun or you were convicted of a crime related to domestic violence or those kind of in the weeds prohibitors right so I get the prohibitors and they would say “Okay we’ve done our investigation he is in fact prohibited.” Oh and if there’s no decision made within 72 hours of your background check the dealer can transfer the firearm to you so you get all these transferred firearms and now they say “Oh well the guy is prohibited go get the gun.” Oh the vast majority of these guys the vast majority that they’re they’re not what we would call real you know arch criminal bad guys they’re not they’re just not they just give the gun back i I would call them on the phone i would say “Hey stupid do you remember buying this gun oh you still have it good bring it back to the gun store cuz here’s why you can’t have it when you bring it back they’re going to call me verify that they brought it back i’m gonna close the matter out and uh they’re like you know he’s not going to give me all my money i’m like hey Chuckles if I come to get the gun you get nothing you get zero cuz I’m going to seize it or work out a deal with the FFL the gun store and uh and it leaves a good taste in everybody’s mouth it’s like yeah ATF you know they could have dropped the hammer on me but they gave me a chance to bring the gun back it’s pretty fair i would I would get that phone call within two hours hey so and so store the serial number the guy brought it back uh he’s good okay closed closed closed but every now and again you would get the one package you’d be like “This guy uh this guy needs to be interviewed and we need to get the gun back and we’re going to seize it we’re not you know not pass go you you know we meet her deal.” Yeah so ATF Intel they’re the ones that do the workups on these i get their their work product i’d rather have the IRS after me than these ATF Intel people they give me a telephone book like everything everything that this I mean I don’t need to know that he’s registered to vote in Arkansas i mean where does he live that’s all I need to know right so I’m looking at this one guy’s package and they printed out all his Facebook stuff and he’s got he he doesn’t purport to be in an Outlaw motorcycle gang but he’s got the starter kit he’s got the the whole dress up like it’s Halloween i remember he had a skull tattooed on his hand so he could go like this and then it’s a picture of his skull on his you know neck tattoos uh not that they’re bad but you know you’re probably not going to get a job at you know Solomon Brothers with neck tattoos right uh and he is legitimately prohibited from having the gun but it’s not like multiconvicted it’s like one of these like uh is he going to get federal prosecution no so I actually give that to one of my guys i’m like you know what just grab somebody let’s interview this guy oh and every Facebook picture he also had a gun in his hand different guns and I’m like “Yeah we’re going to interview this guy.” Yeah so I was a big proponent every day if possible we’re going to eat together we’re going to have a lunch together unless we got a deal going or somebody’s out on but basically the majority if we had an hour we’re going to have lunch together which was basically like a meeting hey here’s what we got going on tonight i just got a call on this i just got a call on that and I thought I thought it was awesome it was better than being in the office and you know the spree the core and you know everybody knows what’s going on we’re having it we’re having lunch that day at a Firehouse Sub in Independence Missouri which is like ground zero for methamphetamine like literally all the big cooks Independence Missouri like going back to the 70s that it was like every other house every other hotel room every other RV on the road was a meth cook meth cook meth cook so from all of that in the 70s 80s and 90s fast forward to you know just 7 years ago the wreckage of that Independence is a tough town great police department but it is a every it seems like every crazy violent thing almost has been an independence um so we’re having lunch at the firehouse and one of my guys Charlie goes “Hey uh I’m going to go knock out that interview i’m going to grab somebody and I just look at him i hesitate for a second i’m like we’re all going to go.” I don’t know why I said that because we would never really do that unless you know they had come to me and say “Hey you know I’d like to have you know uh maybe a boatload of people on this one for whatever.” I just looked at him and everybody and I said “We’re all going to interview this guy.” So I said “Look everybody kind of gets set up.” He lived in a culde-sac i had broken my iPhone charger and it was a Verizon store like in that parking lot so I said “I’m going to go buy a charging cord i’ll meet you guys i’ll be 5 10 minutes behind you.” Good to go sergeant my task force guys all my agents everybody is kind of loosely set up in the area call on the radio i’m like I’m on the way i’ll be there in a few minutes i get to the stop sign of this um culdeac blue skies beautiful day right before Thanksgiving so this is like 60 days before I retire and we had just gotten to Glock 9 millimeters we had gone from Glock 40 to Glock 9 and they’re like “Oh it’s a much better round.” Much better round and I’m like “Why can’t we make the 40 a much better round?” It’s like uh anyway so we had just gotten these Glock 9 and my G- Ride was a four-door 8- footbed Silverado 2500 and being that we had the new not new tactic but new for a few years it’s not a car accident it’s a vehicle pin like we could actually run into a stationary car pin them in they’re not they’re not leaving they’re not going anywhere and make the arrest so I had found a place in Kansas that made like a damn near army tank a front bumper like that you could hit somebody at 40 miles an hour you’re not going to not even going to damage your radiator i’m like I’ll take I’ll take that so I had that on my truck so I’m parked at this stop sign and they are I look in the rearview mirror i see the neck tattoos and uh I’m like “Hey our guy is right behind me at the stop sign i’m just going to tell him go in your driveway i just got to talk to you for a few minutes no big deal.” As soon as I get out of the truck you know with all the ATF stuff on he doesn’t try to hit me or run me over but he he drives around me at as fast as he can accelerate the motorcycle and he’s got a Harley and it’s got the two hard side bags it’s beautiful bike it was the most beautiful thing in his life and I’m like and he’s headed towards his residence except now all my guys come out of the woodwork and he’s like “Oh where where where did all this come from?” He drives onto a lawn up a hill one of my guys is right there he drives back to the sidewalk dumps his bike and I see like in slow motion it was like a cartoon like what looked to me a submachine gun with an extended magazine in slow motion flying through the air onto the street and I’m like “Okay okay.” And he’s got his full motorcycle set up on for whatever reason now he wants to run back to the fort to his house but he’s got to run across the lawn that I’m driving on with lights and my truck was like a UFO like you knew it was a law enforcement vehicle and everybody else’s lights were on as I’m about 15 feet behind him and he’s running he looks back at me and both his hands go right into his waistband and I’m like surely he’s not going to try to shoot me and then I took a half a second is this nine going to go through my windshield i said uh you you got to make it you know that whole OD to loop you got to make a split-second decision well my split-second decision was I’m going to give this guy the chance that he doesn’t deserve i slam the truck into park it’s you know still trying to get into the gear cuz I’m still driving i jump out he turns around with that bugeye look and he’s still got his hand and he’s he I can see his right hand trying to yank out of his waistband and I’m like “Okay.” Uh I would have been good to go to shoot him all day long i was within feet i I gave him a I put my arms around where his hands were and I held on like I was not letting go uh and all my guys are running over so now I whisper I whisper I’m yelling at this guy i’m like “Don’t move do you have a gun in your hand?” He goes “Yes.” I’m like “Don’t move.” I’m like “Hey he’s got a gun in his hand but I’m holding it so let’s get that taken care of first.” I said “Dude just open your hand open your open hand let go of the gun.” He does i can feel his hand open up and we get him cuffed and sure enough he’s got a fully loaded handgun get him cuffed up and uh I said “Hey what were you going to do?” He goes “Oh I was absolutely going to try to shoot you.” He’s like “I didn’t know who you were.” I’m like “Did the red lights and the vest and my 15 guys were you confused?” Yeah and he wouldn’t come off that he goes “Yeah.” He goes “I didn’t know who you were i was going to shoot you.” I was like “Wow.” That’s his defense i’m like two months before retiring i mean I’ I’ve been in shootings and it’s like I’m about to retire and and this Yeah it’s like Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon yeah yeah uh you start to understand i was always the youngest guy in every squad I was in in Brooklyn and and then all of a sudden now I’m the oldest guy i’m the senior supervisor in the field division i’m like what happened how did I become like the old guy um Proforce Law Enforcement the best damn cop shop in the nation whether you’re purchasing for an entire agency or you’re an individual officer looking to buy firearms or duty gear these guys are the best in the biz proforce has law enforcement exclusive pricing and is the place to be buying your guns and duty gear they carry all the top industry brands and the guys and gals that work there understand exactly what law enforcement officers need special discount link tps.proforceonline.com um it’s uh deeply discounted items just for the listeners of this show or you can go to proforceline.com and shop the whole place place is unbelievable you can also visit Prescott Arizona in person or Brea California in person to get hands-on with the gear all the context up is in the show notes thank you Pro Force but a ton of people especially youngsters when they find out what you do and I say you know this is what I’ve done and adventures and invariably the first question hey you ever shoot anybody and I’m like jeez answer yes however let me tell you about the hundred guys I could have shot that I didn’t shoot because just cuz you can doesn’t mean you have to right and I said I’m more proud of you know those guys are still breathing because we had superior training tactics we had the drop we were going to win that fight every time um so it’s very satisfying to say you know hey I could have but I didn’t and you know we were able to solve that problem yeah damn that was um that that was a moment and and I actually I remember calling up my boss uh I had been the acting assistant special agent in charge for about 3 months almost right before that incident and it was a new ASAC coming in from Miami it was like his first ASAC job so I was keeping the seat warm i gave him the lay of the land he didn’t really know Kansas City too well so he’s on like two weeks and I called him up and you know the dust settled and I say just so you know because this is probably going to be on the news because now there’s like a thousand people out here you know here’s what happened we’re all good he’s good and we’re going to sort it out i had to spend like five minutes calming my boss down he’s like but he’s like I’m so sorry you had to deal i’m like dude this is this is almost every day in the gun squad it’s like when headquarters would say you know they would see our significant information reports on a regular basis and you don’t write them unless something really significant happened and there’s a stream of them coming from me into headquarters and they would have their little you know 6 a.m briefings hey here’s what happened last night and I remember one guy from headquarters saying “Hey what are you guys doing why are you in so many incidents and I said well do you think we’re fishing in the right pond do you think we’re going after the right people uh and he’s like uh yeah I guess so so that was a good one yeah absolutely um do you have a strange most strange or bizarre thing you’ve dealt with in your career i have like a a bucket full of them but I got a good one for you and it’s almost if you literally weren’t there and I’m telling you the story you’d be like “That really happened?” Yeah that really happened and one of the guys that was a street agent just hired from NYPD and he was with us on the deal he later became our uh deputy assistant director Pete Fcelli big name uh he was an all-star homicide guy you may may have heard that guy he was the whistleblower and furious oh better yet faci Peter Facelli uh but he was out there on the steel and uh so here’s the deal i am a street agent in group one in Brooklyn violent crime group and it’s my last day as a street agent Friday that Monday I’m starting uh as the supervisor of the Joint Firearms Task Force Group Four in uh Brooklyn so in my little cubicle my little street agent cubicle in Red Hook Brooklyn uh I’ve got my ASAC the number two guy in the field division i’ve got my boss former NYPD guy Tom Kelly very very tough guy and they’re kind of hovering over me as I’m sitting in the chair and they’re trying to give me the uh hey you know you’re going to do great but you know I want to make sure you’re you know mindful of this mindful of that and you know it’s all going to be good as they’re talking to me the phone rings i’m like stand by one second ATF and I’ve got a crying grown man on the other line saying the other end of the phone saying “I’m supposed to be in an armed robbery i’m supposed to be in a home invasion and we’re going to torture a guy and we’re going to kill him and I don’t I want out.” He’s crying on the phone oh man they picked the wrong guy for that job he may crack under questioning it’s like I don’t want to do this anymore help i’m like “Where are you i’m on the Long Island Expressway pull over.” He pulls over i’m like “Don’t move just turn your car off and wait for me.” I turn around to the two bosses and I’m like “Well I guess the last day as a street agent is going to be eventful as we would say.” And they’re like they’re like “Dude only you only you.” Uh so I brief I get the information I grab this guy off the highway bring him in and I’m like “What?” and he goes “There’s a guy from Florida just drove up from uh Fort Lauderdale big biker guy he’s the strongest biggest dude I’ve ever seen in my life and this is his deal but he knows my my brother and all the guys are in my house that are going to do this uh home invasion this is like Friday afternoon it’s beautiful every what every federal agent in New York City it’s like Friday afternoon you want to turn your phone off at 2:00 cuz nothing good happens after 2:00 on Friday you might as well just say “I’m not getting home till Sunday.” So this is the story this guy says he goes “Hey um they’re in my house right now and we’re going to do this they’re waiting for me to get back um this guy’s got 300,000 in his house in a safe and we’re gonna tie him up and we’re gonna get the combination to the safe and if he doesn’t want to give us the combination we’re going to start cutting his fingers off and the guy’s got like garden pruners in his you know kit bag huh fantastic do you know his full name i’m not really sure of his last name uh I think his first name is Steve i’m like okay but his car is parked right in front of my house lincoln Continental Florida plates boom send guys out there now we know who Steve is and we start running him and he’s not only got a local record convicted felon he’s got a prior federal home invasion that the FBI did so everything has just ratcheted up so and again this is what ATF you know we do a few things really well and we try to stay in our lane we don’t want to be everything to everybody you’re otherwise you’re an inch thick you’re a mile wide and you’re nothing to everybody home invasions pattern arm robbery crews uh that is our wheelhouse that is like one of our breadandbut cases that we have put together and learned all the lessons and boom so off off to the races we go i said “Listen I’m going to put a transmitter on you.” He’s got shorts on and a wife beater so I tie a transmitter to his upper thigh i tie a recorder to his other thigh and I’m like “Go back in talk to Steve get it on tape what What What is going on on and what are you guys going to do and he’s like he’s going to know i’m like he’s not going to know get it you know come on you got all of us outside we’re going to listen to everything you say any problems we’re going to come right in and get you don’t worry about it so he goes in to the house now i’ve got my full team out there and uh this is what we hear over the wire what do you mean go over it again didn’t I go over it enough we’re going to tie him to the chair and if he if he doesn’t want to give we’re going to start cutting his fingers off i’m going to kill him and we’re going to it’s 300,000 in cash he’s like “What more do you need to know?” And he goes “Now go out to my car and get my guns get get the bag in the trunk.” Like “Get okay i I guess I guess we’ve checked every box now.” Yeah uh so so so this scientist is walking across the street to this Lincoln con uh Lincoln and he’s like uh what do I do what do I do and now he’s crying again he’s like I don’t know what to do he’s told me to get his guns i’m like oh my gosh and I’m thinking I’m mentally telepathia telling him he’s stupid you’re not going to go bring him a bag of guns i’m I’m like into the trunk out with a gym bag i don’t know what to do i’m like “Hey oh my god.” Uh everybody move in boom we move in it’s a uh the house was actually in Queens if I remember right and it was like a standalone house which you don’t get a ton of them in New York City everything is usually attached but this is a standalone house it’s got driveway it’s got a backyard it’s got a second floor apartment first floor apartment and a basement apartment and you have to walk up about five cement stairs to get to the front door to get into the house where our bad guy is where Chuckles has come out to get the bag of guns and we get to him as he’s at the front door he drops the bag in front of the door on the on the cement exterior thing i grab him i launch him into the bushes that are in front of us and I’m like “Just get on the ground and don’t move.” I have my M4 the guy next to me had an M4 we We had It was my LA by the way it was my last day on the officially my last day on the SRT once you become a supervisor you’re off the team so I’m about maybe sternum level to the cement that you would go into the door and everything’s outside so we got that guy so who appears at the front door but he won’t open the screen door the front door is already open steve and I’m looking at this dude and I’m like this dude could be like the toughest man alive competition like he had that that look with his wife beater tatted up huge huge and like muscle huge and I’m the one giving them commands i’m like and the bag of guns multiple guns which we found is is literally he opens the door the bag of guns are right there and I can’t reach him so at M4 point uh me and my buddy that were next next to me and I got the other cast that are surrounding the house i’m like “Hey Steve it’s over.” Open the door don’t touch the bag you can think about it but don’t touch it right and get on the ground you’re under arrest and he won’t move and I’m like “Open the door.” He opens the door and he steps out but he won’t get on the ground and he won’t say anything and he’s just staring at me if he takes two steps we could hug and I’m like “Get the f on the ground or I’m gonna shoot you.” And he he won’t move and he’s just staring at me with this death stare so first time with the M4 actually pointed at a bad guy where I took the safety off and I’m like I’m starting to do the mental countdown if this dude doesn’t respond to my next command game over so Pete Facelli sneaks up the stairs cuz now bad guy is concentrated at me and Pete has the ASP and he hits this dude like he was swinging for the fences multiple times the arms the leg the back and you know Pete a strong dude capable a legitimate tough guy here he is here he is right here for the viewers okay yeah this dude just turns around and looks at Pete no reaction to these Babe Ruth hits we didn’t I uh I don’t think we had the taser with us at that point so Pete takes like two steps back away from because he realizes I’m definitely shooting this guy and I’m like “Steve the on the ground or I’m shooting you.” And he just looks at me down to one knee down to the other knee prone out we need two sets of cuffs and uh so he was under arrest but so bizarre the bizarre and strange if that wasn’t bizarre and strange enough and I guarantee Pete’s told this story uh no less than 50 times because it’s that it was that the story now turns into crazy zone so I got this guy with two sets of cuffs on him and now I’m like close to him the dust is settled he’s crying now and he’s like “Be careful be careful i got a wig on.” I You got a wig on he goes “That’s a $5,000 wig.” And I’m like “Okay not going to touch your $5,000 wig.” I’m like “It looked pretty damn real to me.” And then I take a a close look at his face and he’s got a goatee but I’m like “Did you tattoo a goatee on your face?” He goes “Yeah it looks fuller doesn’t it?” Oh my gosh a lot of vanity with this guy so now I’ve got the rest of the crew is doing a clear on the house and we’re bringing out one guy after the other after the other every all the guys are cuffed up and there’s this one little skinny string bean guy not a kid a guy uh Frankie uh brother of our cooperator and Steve goes “Frankie can I just kiss you before I go to jail?” And I’m like “What?” And yeah they were like lovers it was like that it was like the house of gay everybody was gay wow not that that makes it good or bad but it just like that Seinfeld episode not that there’s anything wrong with that yes nothing wrong with that so uh Frankie gives Steve a nice you know they’re both If I could have had a picture of there’s two handcuffed guys that’s so odd kissing each other now it gets even a little bit more crazy i say “Okay everybody stay with this guy.” Because I’m hearing from the driveway “Hey there’s a dude in the back yard.” So I grab uh the Wanger L Wanganger uh and I’m like “Hey let’s We got the two M4s let’s How How could this get crazier?” Well we go down the driveway you know doing our little SRT tactical movement and I see a guy in a lawn chair he’s got the New York Times opened like not a worry in the world he’s wearing this is all he’s wearing pink hot shorts and he’s slathered in like Wesson oil and I’m like “Police don’t move put the paper down don’t move.” And he goes “Oh.” He turns the paper down he turns around he goes “Is everything okay?” And I’m like “Uh hey did you hear that little commotion going on about 35 ft away from you in the house?” He goes “Yeah I live on the second floor.” Yeah I heard it i I didn’t want to you know get involved i’m like “Get on the ground.” He goes “Hey do I really have to get on the ground i’m uh I’m a member of NYPD.” I’m like “Okay any ch anybody that says I’m with NYPD here’s one question they ask what’s a 28?” Everybody knows what a 28 is it’s like the overtime form like you know what a 28 is well you say “Yeah it’s an overtime.” And I’m like “Okay yeah you probably are a cop.” He goes “I’m a captain.” I’m like “Huh?” I go “Do you have ID?” He goes “It’s in my apartment.” I’m like “You know what i’m going to march you upstairs to get your ID.” He goes “Listen this this is before we go in the house.” He goes “Listen listen guys i live here i don’t know what they do down there i I I don’t associate with these people.” He goes “Listen I’m an openly gay member of the service.” I’m like “Nothing wrong with that that’s fine it’s you know uh you do you you do you no problem.” He goes “As a matter of fact I got problems on the job i’m not allowed to go into a mentor facility in the New York City Police Department i didn’t even want to ask this dude why what’s going on with that he goes “Listen I don’t need this.” And I’m like “Well as long as you’re not a part of this.” And when I say this I mean what’s going on in the front yard right now we go upstairs sure enough he’s NYPD captain i’m like “Hey dude i got your information uh can you do me a favor go back to reading your paper in the backyard and uh if you want to tell the department that’s how they’re going to find out i’m not telling them i’m like I couldn’t wait to tell 10 of my closest friends i mean we had a bunch of cop the task force guys out there and they’re like “What what is this what’s going on with this house?” So sure enough in the bag guns i think there was a suppressor handcuffs duct tape uh he had sledgehammer uh hallagan tool in his truck i mean he had everything and and I had him on tape and he fully confessed he’s like I just made a bad decision i want to help myself i want is there anything I could do is there anything I can do and I’m like well uh we don’t trade down uh if you want to stay out of federal prison you know you got to put your friends in federal prison that are worse than you uh and he goes “I got guys i got guys i can I can give you this i give you that.” I’m like “Give me something right now that I can like verify like that c can you can you do that you got something literally I can make a phone call.” He goes “I’ll give you something right now.” He goes “Call up Fort Lauderdale Police Department uh me and my crew just burglarized a safe out of a clothing store.” and he goes “Now it’s a it’s a clothing store that caters to the gay community.” And I’m like “Okay what’s the name of it how about that?” And he goes “Gaymart.” The name of the store was Game Mart he goes “If you call everybody’s going to know about this.” So sure enough I call up a detective squad and I’m like “This is going to be crazy.” But I got this guy in cuffs literally in front of me up in New York and he’s telling me that him and his crew just ripped a floor safe out of a clothing store called Game Mart he goes “Oh yeah oh yeah that happened.” He goes “Uh it was a who done it?” I’m like “Well not anymore it’s not cuz I got the guy to that masterminded that caper.” And uh so I I turn around to Steve and I’m like “You’re on a roll buddy that checked out you’re good.” um we’re going to sit down i’ll get you a happy meal so now I start talking to this dude and I’m like strange bizarre i’m like how much can you bench he goes “Well you know I usually I can work out three four times a week with 400.” And I believed him and then I’m like “What do you do for a living?” He goes “Well I’m a I’m a bouncer at a bar.” And I’m like “In Florida?” And he goes “Yeah Lauderdale.” Yeah and I’m like “Uh what’s the name of the bar cuz now I’m going to call and see does that place even exist is this?” And he goes “Well it’s a gay bar.” And he goes I’m like “You’re a bouncer.” He goes “Well you know I also give massages but I don’t do the stuff that gets the big money that’s it that’s all I do.” And I’m like “Dude this is going to be a long day.” I do have a line yeah and I’m like I haven’t even gotten to how do you even you’re from Florida how do you even know about a guy that runs a pizzeria that’s got 300,000 in cash in a safe in this particular house um yeah that was just uh that is wild dude yeah and uh you know somebody called the owner of the house who shows up in a BMW about the hottest girl I had seen in the street in a long time and she’s got an equally uh well well put together uh female partner gets out of the car yeah I’m the owner what’s going on and I’m so I tell her and she goes I knew they were up to no good and she goes “Listen you know I only went to gay people and obviously you know I’m gay.” And I’m like it was we we were thinking about calling it the House of Gay case but you know even back then you couldn’t put that as a case name uh they were they were extremely cooperative and nice and friendly as was just about everybody in handcuffs and uh I’m like man can’t you can’t so you know could you imagine faceli me you know we’ve told this story like hey and people get out of here I’m like what happened that was my last day as you know an official street agent a GS13 street agent and then I started running the task force like two days later that’s nuts man well that’s what the podcast is all about because people can’t believe the stuff that cops get into you know it’s it’s really unbelievable that is bizarre brother can you take us through your most intense or terrifying call you went on um bucket full of those two uh I So I’ll bring you back to when I was in the uh district attorney’s office well uh two particular shootings um stand out so the first one Martin Luther King Day 1996 I wound up uh shooting a bad guy that had attacked me was trying to kill me um but what had led up to that was so uh in the special investigations unit uh we had one of the detectives good dude and uh he latched on somehow to a kilo guy and uh I mean kilos in Brooklyn in the early ‘9s like you could almost find them in trash cans they were like for somebody to say I got a guy with a kilo that’s that’s a nice hit but you know there’s probably 10 arrests like that today right so he goes “Well I got a kilo guy.” I’m like “Okay yeah what do you need i hope you got anybody what do you need?” He goes “Uh well I am in the office and he’s telling this uh fantastical tale and I almost don’t want to believe it and I don’t believe him and it’s he’s got to be you know this cannot possibly be occurring what’s the story?” And he goes “Um so I grabbed him with a kilo and I said “Where’d you get it?” And he goes “Well I got it from two cops.” And I’m like “Any major narcotics case that we had done in those years if you were up on wires and doing a multi-defending conspiracy and it was a significant drug trafficking group in Brooklyn at that time.” Horrible to say but there was always somewhere a member of law enforcement that was somehow in the web horrible so this dude’s story is yeah I got this from two guys they want me to sell it and then I’m going to split the money and I’m like uh how’d they get it they grabbed it from somebody and I’m like uh okay a little bit more of the story uh as Paul Harvey would say and uh he says “All right I’m a drug dealer i associate with drug dealers i associate with their girlfriends and I’m in the know on stash apartments that are holding significant amount of money and multi- amount of kilos of cocaine i give them that information they conduct they relieve those people of money which we split and they give me uh the kilos I sell them and then we split that money and I’m like well not me but the you know collectively we’re like uh guess what you’re going to do again that and uh we still you know don’t now it’s in the stage where you don’t want to believe this because whoever these guys are they’re dead in the water i mean you cannot not uh drill that down so we tell him “All right you are going to make a phone call.” We had a pay phone like on the wall in our office so we could always make pay phone calls nobody’s going to call back a pay phone and uh tell them “You’re banging a girl uh her man is a a dope dealer uh they got a safe in the apartment you’re banging her you got a key to the apartment and you have knowledge of how to get into the safe and you know when they’re going to be there and when they’re not going to be there and you tell them “Yeah there’s definitely a lot of money and multiple kilos in that safe.” Now the building that we we basic the district attorney’s office had a threestory building that we owned to anybody it was yet another building with apartments in it but it was our apartments we controlled them all there was like uh God there must have been 50 video cameras at every possible angle you could think of so our new friend has the story he calls up uh the 75th precinct in Brooklyn the Killing Fields Death Store the most violent uh piece of real estate in New York City and uh he asks for these two guy he asks for one of them by Oh yeah he’s right here hold on and this is the conversation hey I got another one well we’re doing a day tour tomorrow so you know it has to be after 4:00 and yeah we’ll hook up with you we’ll get the information and Huh okay uh they’ve done this the guy’s not bullshitting us i mean this this phone call actually just happened yeah we almost had to listen to it again to Did that Did that just happen so we do the right thing we reach out to the NYPD to their internal affairs bureau and tell them the story and they’re like “Get the no way.” And we’re like “Well we’re setting up a deal if you want to come out on it you can be part of the team and you can watch this you know unfold.” It was the most covered block in Brooklyn on that particular afternoon and uh car pulls up two guys in full uniform they go into the building they go into the apartment they go right into the safe now we got a camera in the safe looking out got 50 grand and two fake kilos and they go into the safe they grab the money they grab the kilos walk right out like you know they picked up a loaf of bread they split some of the money with our cooperator they give him the two fake kilos they go “Hook up with us whenever you sell them we’ll whack up the money.” And uh you know let us know for the next one so the police department was like “Yeah yeah okay yeah that that actually did happen can’t deny reality.” No denying it now and these are two these are these are young guys these guys are not 25 year guys these guys had like less than five years on and they were legitimate bad guys like legitimate bad guys so the next deal that’s set up is uh our now friend is saying “All right um we give him a story again and he’s like “You know a car that’s moving 300,000 from A to B it’s just a courier uh not a not a solid big guy he’s moving money from one place moving it to the other place.” And in those early 90s it was not uncommon to do car stops and literally gym bags of money is that yours i don’t know i don’t know whose bag that is so they were going to do a car stop on this courier and relieve him of his 300,000 Mark car uniform thing so this was uh this was set up to occur on Martin Luther King Day 1996 uh the office where I turned out of uh was very close to the main drag that led right to the Brooklyn Bridge anybody could have volunteered to do this but I just said “Uh hey um I will go get the BMW the undercover BMW get it ready uh for the undercover that’s going to drive it and we’ll go out and do this deal.” So I was the offic’s one of the 9 millimeter instructors at the time and you know I was and always have been uh a tactics guy value the training value the qualifications and you know it’s a degradable ability you have to stay up on it and I and I always tell guys I’m like if you’re leaving the office you know going around the corner get a piece of to have your gun have extra magazines you might want to have a set of handcuffs and most importantly do not leave the building without a portable radio that’s your lifeline if you need help that’s it you’re not going to make a phone call you’re not going to find a pay phone you’re not going to scream help you You need the radio so I had all those things i come down from my fifth floor office now it’s Martin Luther King Day desolate the streets are desolate um usually there’s you know hundreds of people everywhere the only people that are around are on the main drag going through the Brooklyn Bridge cuz Al Sharpton is leading a protest march to shut the Brooklyn Bridge down uh Martin Luther King Day protest fantastic and there’s a lot of press covering that march which is going on as I come out of the building at like 10:30 in the morning so I got the portable in my hand i’m dressed like every other plain clothes guy i’ve got the leather jacket the portable and that portable there’s only one thing that port nobody uses these kind of portables like looking at the portable is like looking at a mark car you know oh that’s the police oh that portable that’s the police so I add that and I’m conf I see a guy standing on the sidewalk in front of me and he’s waving a what I recognize as a transit summons like a a C summons like he jumped a turn style or something and he’s saying “Hey where do I pay this?” And I take a step towards him and I’m like “Dude it’s a f it’s a federal h it’s a holiday it’s like everything’s closed i’m you know he’s a black guy i’m think you should notice tomorrow King Day but I said “But tomorrow morning and I point with the portable uh up the street and I’m like two blocks up you can pay go into this building and blah blah blah.” As soon as I say that and point the radio I never saw the second guy that came up from behind me and hit me about as hard as I’ve as hard as I’ve ever been hit in my life going all the way back to that day um shattered the nose like it was you know cockeyed under my you know coming up under my eye and geez and that was the opening salvo now I didn’t see it because now I’m dealing with this guy became my new priority one and a witness a bus driver across the street had said “When this whole thing kicked off the guy you were talking to like immediately pulled a gun out.” And I’m like I never even I I never saw that like that guy almost didn’t exist anymore because I’m screaming yeah it’s not uncommon you know assaults in the street it’s like you know a robbery whatever it happens constantly but if you’re a plain close guy as soon as you scream hey please you know get on the ground get on the ground they run away it’s like oh that’s that’s a that’s a cop and he’s probably got a gun except this guy was not getting on the ground didn’t say anything and it and the battle was on the There was blood everywhere and it was all mine and I was not winning and now I’m on the ground with this guy i’m trying to scream into the radio but I’ve got it on channel 9 which is our pointto-oint which is what we were going to use that day i don’t have it on the 84 pre you know 8476 precinct uh division frequency but it almost didn’t matter because the radio got kicked out of my hand and now I managed to get up push this guy away it goes out to the It’s like everywhere I went it’s like just blood trail everywhere so finally we’re out by the curb and I’ve taken my gun out now and I’m like “Dude get get on the ground.” I’m getting that numbummy tingly like I feel like I’m pretty much going to pass out and then and I’m thinking if I pass out it’s an absolute wrap it’s like this dude like never said a word um was not stopping the assault it was you know just fight fight fight so damn he you know again almost like the guy at the end of my career right into the waistband comes at me like a football tackle and I I’m just like boom boom two to the chest one to the head except my head shot goes through his hat but I’ve got two in the you know two upper chest uh we were carrying 9 millimeter full metal jacket at that time so in his chest out his lower back cuz he was coming at me like that football tackle position but he goes down and he’s not moving i’m like on the ground i’m trying to uh get my shield out uh let me crawl to a wall so I can look at him and I know nobody can sneak up behind me so unknown to me there were some cops uniform guys around the corner investigating a burglary they heard the shooting they came running a fire truck was around the corner they heard the shooting they came over um now one of the things in New York City is there’s so many calls for help there’s so many 911 calls shots fired shots fired is there really shots fired they would wait for somebody to get on the scene and somebody to say “Hey confirmed i’ve got a victim i’ve confirmed I’ve got a guy with gun.” So you’re always kind of listening uh is this confirmed because even the dispatchers would say “Hey unconfirmed call of.” Right and it’s a holiday could be kids fireworks whatever exactly so the other people that heard this was the press from Al Sharpton’s protest march they come running up the street because now Jeez now uh I’m going to be a movie star with all the news stations and it they only had to run like a block and they were they were right there so the front page of the New York Post the next day is me against the wall the the guy I shot laying on a sidewalk on a or on the floor as we say whatever your feet are on that’s the floor and the first cop running up with his with his portable he’s screaming into the portable he goes this is what he says on the radio i listen to the tape he goes confirmed officer shot in the face officer shot in the face and now there’s like three or four other cops that have run up and I’m like uh I heard him say I’m like I’m pretty sure I’m not He’s shot i’m I’m Oh I’m sure you’re so jacked up you’re like am I shot in the face i I started wondering am I shot in the face well so when a call goes out con you know confirmed job you’re going to get it you’re going to get the whole everything wagon train is going to show up confirmed officer shot the only people that didn’t come were Steve McQueen and 10 Roman gladiators i mean aviation highway so when there’s a cop shot there’s a cascade of SOPs that like instantly highway cops go to the blood bank cuz they’re going to run blood to whatever hospital you’re going to go to there’s highway cops that come to the scene they’re going to escort the ambulance uh wow emergency service New York City SWAT guys they’re going to come i mean everybody that was working came and I’m trying to say I’m pretty sure I’m not shot they’re like “Take it easy don’t move.” I’m like “All right I’m just I’m just going to sit here.” Yeah and sure enough you know the ambulance you know there’s like 10 ambulances show up well I get loaded into one and now they’re like “The Brooklyn Bridge is still open.” So in New York City there’s a lot of hospitals if you’re a cop and you’re hurt hurt you may drive past three hospitals to get to the level one trauma because that’s the only place they’re going to bring you um and typically we would never wait for an ambulance it’s just load and go you want to you know start putting some survival points with that golden hour on your side of table so off we go boom uh St vincent’s Hospital it’s not even there anymore but it’s in lower Manhattan that ambulance didn’t didn’t touch the brakes like for that entire trip so we’re backing up so I can see on the stretcher I can see out the back window and there’s an entire surgical team it looked like you know Grey’s Anatomy like they they were like gloved suited up you know just like us they adopted the uh sense of urgency so they they get me out of the back of the ambulance i’m gonna be got wheeled right into the to one of the trauma rooms at St vinny’s and there’s a female doctor that literally jumped on top of me on the stretcher the clothes are getting cut off and they’ve been already told I’m shot in the face now i’m covered in ragu oh yeah you’re covered in blood so they’re probably like you know maybe she’s So I shock her by talking and I said “Uh I don’t think I’m shot.” She goes “You don’t know.” And I’m like “Okay you know what i’m just going to gaslighting you into being shot experience.” And they quickly determined uh “Hey you’re not shot.” And I’m like “Okay good.” I said “But there’s going to be a guy here in about 15 minutes he is shot right?” Um and sure enough they brought him to the same hospital he’s in the trauma room next to me screaming they do they right away do emergency surgery on him and the surgeon later uh talked to me a few days later he goes “Uh hey there’s no reason that guy should be alive he we had to take a kidney out a piece of liver intest part of his intestines um the only thing that kept him alive is he had so much crack cocaine in his system that it’s like the heart was going to keep beating as long as it was able to you know what fine uh I would have been fine either way but I guess one degree of comfort that I can say you know I didn’t kill him right um so then I was out of line of duty for 16 months which in New York City I needed three operations to put myself back together i said I want to look like Travolta they laughed they’re like that’s a tall order can’t do that you do now that you said that you do kind of look like John Travolta i know i know they I’m like I’m like try your best um so if you’re out on line of duty in New York City the city has the option of medically retiring you no matter what like we’re not going to wait forever for you to be uh able to return to full duty we’re just going to medically retire you so they bring this up to me when it starts getting up to that one year and I’m like uh I’ve lived in this office i’ve I said all these bosses I mean they’re uh heroes in the eyes of the administration because of you know I’ve I’ve been feeding you a constant diet of awesomeness i said “Listen I want to go to ATF someday i can’t be medically retired and get picked up as a federal agent that they’re going to be like “No.” I said “Let me stay i’m begging you.” And they said “Uh okay you know we like you try to come back when you can.” So six after 16 months I was able to come up the the crazy thing is in those days um unless you killed a cop you really weren’t going to get time so they gave him a year geez for that assault a year which a year sentence really means like 11 months 10 and a half so he was and my incident was his 202 arrest so no stranger you know it wasn’t a one-off for this guy a history of violence um he’s out i’m not even back to work he then commits a vicious rape in the Bronx and that and I’m like you know if I had killed him that rape victim Yeah would not have had that happen uh you know but the the could a would have you know I was like hey I conducted myself the best I could and Well thank the Lord he didn’t knock you out you know he sounds like he broke your face i was I was so I needed one operate the first operation that night was to stabilize everything and I still got some bone fragments around the the lower eyes and there were jaw fractures uh four months later there was a second operation to really attempt to repair the damage and then there was another operation that I needed which I got and they said “You uh you need a fourth operation to the face because one side way back sometimes will shut down which is unnerving if I’m driving to the passenger cuz it sounds like I’m sleeping but I’m not.” And I said “Uh no I’m just going to I’m just going to learn to live with that.” Um I don’t know why somebody would elective surgery to the face to the nose that pain was about unbearable and they gave back in those days they the pain medicine they gave me like I don’t want to say it was a very large container of oxycodone or hydrocodone and they were like uh you know take this whatever three four times a day and I’m like I’m going to be a zombie if I stop taking i took it a few I took it a few times literally just to um get to sleep the after getting out of the hospital for the first go around and then I’m like you know what i’ll I’ll take the beating i am not taking this at all anymore i’m telling my father this story like a year later he’s like you didn’t take them he’s like what he goes what are you going to do with them i’m like just flush them down the toilet drug turn in whatever he goes “I’ll take care of it for you.” Like chronic back pain from the army i’m like “I’ll take care of those for you.” I’m like “Okay.” Yeah that’s funny yeah dude i I I I snapped my leg and got on oxycodone and um same with me it would make me fall asleep and then I would dream I would have crazy dreams and try to straighten my leg and the bone would like where it broke would like rub and I was like I was from high school football so I just gave them to my dad i was I can’t have these like I’m I’m rebreaking my leg i was falling asleep in class they’re strong jesus to this day so you know when anybody says “You ever have bad dreams?” I have a recurring dream like every other month of being in like an unwinable fight situation like your gun is three feet away and for whatever reason you can’t get to it you’re wearing cinder blocks for sneakers yeah it’s like it it’s always this unwininnable situation and you you got to wake yourself up and realize it’s not real so my kids know if you have to wake dad up shake my foot do not come within arms reach because if you’re within arms reach and you’re touching my arm or trying to wake me up I may like think I’m being attacked i’m like my wife’s like “What?” And I’m like “Yeah I am.” I’m like I don’t want to like lash out and you know smack our kid into the So uh yeah they still laugh about this to this day it’s like “Hey Dad.” Because I always tell them “Any problems you come down and get me right away.” Yeah I’ll shake your foot though i’m like “Yeah my dad’s dad’s horrible trauma is funny it’s crazy i uh just so one one more.” And it also involves a shooting uh and this is with ATF and uh you know just like cops the majority of ATF you pretty much roll your whole career without firing your gun and a lot of that is just a good training we control the scenario about every time it’s a time and place of our choosing and that’s why we we always say the uniform officer has it a lot harder than a federal agent because you have to respond to everything every time somebody calls that’s a response you’re going to everything and it’s not you it’s not a time and a place of your choosing it’s like and you’re not going to have eight of your guys rolling with you everywhere you go like when we decide we’re going to do a deal and and it’s going to result in arrest or a rescue or whatever we’re prepared for that we have the assets we have the people we have the equipment um it’s all good and and just as an aside um so when I you know I had the task force in New York with ATF and then I ran the Long Island task force i was a supervisor on a home invasion task force on the Mexican border in 2010 that was just like a 120day detail but then when I ultimately came out to Kansas City to take over the gun squad um I almost forgot where I was going with that for a second i’m sure that’s happened the Oh yeah absolutely i can’t stop seeing John Travolta in my screen right now since you said that I see it really yeah so here it is so you know we would have boss conferences trainings every now and again around the country and the Gun Squad I It was five years I did it Steve it was the best five years by far of any assignment that’s including the special response team doing undercover I mean whatever running that gun squad was the singular best experience these guys were hitters hand selected agents hand selected sergeant hand selected detectives and a lot of the detectives and the sergeants had all been SWAT guys before becoming detectives and then rolling into the gun squad so everybody had a super strong tactical background so and and we were Steve we were crushing it like I was never ever home never home almost like I would race home motoon and then the phone would ring again boom so uh guy you know other bosses around the country they were like “Dude like we’re hearing the stuff you guys it’s like how are you doing that like how do you make these how are you how are you constantly a a who done it a cop shot boom you got the guy under arrest within hours and it’s like a hundred guys are working this and nobody it’s a who done it and then you’re calling yeah we just grabbed them so I would tell them all the same thing if you don’t have what I have you’re not going to get what I get and I said “I’ve never seen anything like this ever anywhere.” Kansas City Missouri Police Department is squared away like super squared away these are I’m sure they got uh problem children just like we do but I’ve not met any of them uh that’s awesome their SWAT program so they had so when I was there two levels of SWAT there was SWAT SWAT that would get called out to a particular ongoing situation then there was um another element of their SWAT program called SNOWTAC street Narcotics Tactical Enforcement SWAT guys but usable user friendly is the best way to say it so when I got introduced to this concept and I’m like the first few deals I’m like hey I got to borrow some people from other groups to cover this deal they go “No no no no we got a full snut team of seven or eight guys that’ll come out.” And I’m like “They got time for that?” And they’re like “They come out with us everywhere we go.” Because there there were two main units the gun squad and the career criminal squad so career criminal was an FBI sponsored task force gun squad ATF sponsored the only thing that separated us in our uh unknown to anybody’s building was a wall and a door and when we had something that heated up they would all come out with us and and vice versa so it was like a complete force multiplier so between the two squads career criminal and the gun squad was busy seven days a week literally they would come on every surveillance every buy every arrest every search warrant so I would say to other bosses I’m like I got a SWAT team that rolls with us everywhere everywhere and it it there have definitely been shootings during stuff we’ve been involved with career criminal and our stuff and it’s like if you don’t have that asset that’s a problem now I would have some detractors in ATF my old gmbada is on the SRT we had five teams in the United States and uh some of them would say “Hey you need SWAT you call us why are you using a local team and I’m like well uh I can call them on the radio or I can call the sergeant on the phone and in 10 minutes they’re where we are yeah right ready to go right there and they know us they know our tactics they they know how we do our deals um they they might as well just be part of the task force also un and you’ve got a team that does 20 reps a day between the two squads and anybody else that needs them in the city so these guys are you know the difference between a SWAT team and a squat team it’s like oh Johnny Bravo the shirt fits uh it says SWAT I’m a SWAT guy you know uh these guys constant training they would uh the first two hours of their day training every single day every single day um they knew uh they it was almost unspoken after a while they knew uh when to when not to where to be what to do um I couldn’t I couldn’t say enough good about these guys just like you know but again I would tell these other bosses around the country I’m like “If you don’t have what I have not going to get what I get.” The other thing um I was able to establish along with the police TF task force officers in the group the homicide unit in Kansas City very insular group of people they are the sharp knife in the drawer absolute experts at investigating homicides and they care so trying to break into that force field because that’s who you want to be friends with that’s where the murderers are that’s where the shooters are between them and the assault squad they know here is the flavor of the day this is who we need to grab off the street so we would start what do you need this just happened and then they came to trust us and want to work with us to the point where the police department said “Okay now we’re going to put the gun squad like you don’t have enough things to do but we’re going to put you on homicide rotation.” So for two weeks you’re on it for two weeks career criminal for two weeks somebody else is going to be on it homicide happens you’re responding with the homicide unit for whatever your capabilities can bring to the table so one of the things that we were able to do and the homicide guys now that we got to be like super tight with them they would be like “Dude you guys literally sprinkle pixie dust on a who done it.” And we’ve got the shooter and the gun in like less than 24 hours and we did that a number a number of times nice if you don’t have what I have you’re not going to get what I get where I live maybe eight nine miles away Interstate 35 uh one uniform guy does a car stop at night and he’s with a small town police department they’ve got maybe 10 guys maybe 15 he It’s a nighttime car stop on the side of the interstate and he as he’s got one foot on the ground and his door open and b two shots right to his face car takes off damn not only does he live he’s conscious he’s able to say it was a green car and I think Tennessee plates that’s it and he’s got two 380s that are in the cheeks and again I’m sure he shot people at the hospital this cop gets wheeled in two in the face and he’s talking and um and he and he fully recovered from that he’s back on duty but uh that was like a that was like a who done it um green car Tennessee plates well my neighbor is at that time was a captain with the highway patrol and he was the uh zone the um troop commander troop A in Missouri my neighbor so I’ve gotten to know him and you know we have beers the kids hang out and you know it’s a it’s a selfhelp little street that I live on so I immediately call him when I hear about this and I’m like hey um we’re available what do you need he’s like dude he goes I’m running this thing and you know we we’ve basically got like nothing to go on other than the cops going to live which is the best so if you don’t have what I have about maybe 3 hours pass after the shooting which was like 11 11:30 at night one of my guys calls me and he goes “Hey I just got a call from my CI a female stripper of course uh she said “I don’t know if this is important but my boyfriend said he just killed a cop and he wants me to bring him to a house in Kansas City Kansas and he wants me to get rid of of his car.” Like fantastic so I immediately get guys get that girl in pocket and she goes “Here’s where I put the car.” Boom green Honda Tennessee plates fantastic we get the car what house did you and your friend drive him to in Kansas City Kansas i can show you the house right away so now I’ve got my buddy on the horn highway patrol and I’m like “Hey guess what here’s the shooter and uh this is the residence.” I said “I’m almost there now with a skeleton crew it’s just starting to get to be dawn.” And uh Kansas City Kansas they have a phenomenal SWAT team and one of their snipers is an ATF task force officer so boom we get him on the horn right away say “Hey start it’s Sunday morning start spinning up your guys boom this is what we got.” And uh he goes “Absolutely.” He goes “It’s not going to be in 5 minutes but we’ll get to a staging area we’ll get a team together.” And so all I’ve got is I’ve got my guys and we’ve got the four sides of the house under observation and I’m now trying to negotiate over the PA with this guy his name was Omar Maria i don’t mind saying that guy’s name he’s a posos and the reason that Mr maria decided that he wasn’t going to jail that day because one of my guys in the gun squad had arrested him several years earlier as a felon in possession of a firearm and he got a taste of federal prison i think he did maybe four or five years he gets out now all of a sudden he’s in possession of a loaded gun and he probably had about 20 ounces of crack uh 20 ounces of meth east coast you think crack out here it’s meth i don’t think I saw a crack once out here in Kansas City meth everywhere so um I’m negotiating it’s a one-way negotiation i’m like “Hey we know you’re inside if you can if finally this get if if you could hear me flick the porch light on and off.” Not I’m I’m negotiating with a light bulb but I know he’s in there and I knew his cell phone number but I didn’t want to give up that I knew that cell phone and I didn’t want to try to call him finally Kansas City Kansas SWAT is now assembled briefed kitted up ready to go they had no objection to putting a phone call into Mr maria and they go “Hey uh we’re coming in if you don’t come out and if we come in you’re not coming out.” So uh he surrendered with the the female that he had in there and uh just as chance would have it one of my guys headed there to meet us he says “Hey that car is driving a little wacky car stopped it there’s the 20 ounces of meth from uh Chucklehead that yet another female was told to get rid of.” So um all’s well that ends well and again you know the homicide guys the you know everybody that was working i like “How the hell did you guys think it’s out?” I’m like “I’d like to tell you it was awesome but it was having a good a good rat a good CI.” And that was the thing you could have a hundred CIS that don’t perform or you could have one superstar informant that could keep an enforcement group busy seven days a week just one and we had a collection of those types of people so kind of long-winded story but that established our relationship with the highway patrol and plus I had a an excellent friendship with the guy running the troop that’s great fast forward the other the other cool thing Kansas City did is every morning our specialized units we would all meet face to face 20 minute morning meeting and we would discuss the violence from the night before just so everybody’s got the 10,000 foot view of what happened and where we may want to look at today so one of the things and the person briefing us this is they’re briefing us from the telephone because it’s typically somebody from the homicide unit or the assault squad from a shooting so we’re getting it over the speaker phone to the 30 40 people sitting in this room and I always sat back everybody wanted to be at the table it’s like I’m fine to sit in a chair and be a backbencher i’ll raise my hand if necessary so I we start getting a brief hey a trooper a uniform trooper had a stolen trailer uh pickup truck at a house in the middle of nowhere in Independence Methville and he goes to investigate this by himself cuz all the troopers out I mean all the cop everybody works you’re pretty much you’re a uniform guy i mean it’s sorry to say but you’re probably going to be a oneperson car um thank god a lot of them are two but the majority is probably a single car so now this trooper first name is Nate nate is tough like you would expect any trooper but this he’s like a little bit beyond tough he’s like you look at him this is the last guy you would want to roll on the ground with this dude looks like he could like pick up a car and roll it over i mean he had that look super nice guy but he had the look so Nate gets confronted by a guy with a sort off shotgun he describes guy had a sword off shotgun and now I’m being held at gunpoint by this guy and he’s like “Oh he’s got a gun i got a gun too.” Except there’s a load of people behind him so my background is uh no go he then starts coming at Nate with this gun shotgun but then turns the gun towards himself as he gets into a stolen pickup truck and he’s gone so Nate is like “Well priority one just left now let me start cuffing up people in his house and figure out who this guy is.” Yeah so they do that and uh and this guy’s in the wind and there’s no find in him and he’s like a mirage and I’m listening to this briefing and I’m like whoa whoa whoa whoa I’m like uh DiCaprio in the Hollywood hey you know I’m like whoa whoa whoa stop stop everybody stop I’m like who’s looking for this guy right now who and you know everybody said well nobody it just happened yesterday afternoon i’m like like duly noted i I immed I pick out pick out the phone i call my buddy the troop commander and I’m like “Hey I just heard about this thing um I don’t want to jump into your pasture if you’ve got 50 guys on a manh hunt but if you need anything I will take my entire task force group offline we don’t go home we don’t do anything and we’re going to figure out who this dude is and we’re going to crush him and he goes “If you could do that I would be greatly appreciated i’ve got some uniform guys doing some basic checks but we got nothing can you do that and I’m like I wrote a check that I didn’t know if I could cash and I said so this is in the morning and I’m like Scott the troop commander I’m like he will be in handcuffs before the before the clock strikes midnight so now I get all my guys and they’re like “Uh hey we just heard that promise.” Uh and I’m like “And now you people are going to execute and make my word good to the highway patrol that we love.” Okay so I had a brand new guy i say new guy he wasn’t a new guy because he’d been a cop for a few years Tommy tommy Wagner I can say his name brand new agent to ATF and he had been around a little bit but the bosses liked them and then they go “Hey let’s get this kid spun up on experience i’m going to put him in the gun squad is that cool?” I’m like “Hell yeah.” Tommy looked like he fell out of Pelican Bay like the shot caller for the Aryan Nation shaved head super uh capable guy had walked on a D1 try out for a football team at his college with 25 guys they took one him um he was an intimidating force and super nice and knew what he was doing so he goes like and he’s been with me a week he’s like “How are we going to find this guy?” And I’m like we’re not going to find them we’re going to find the girl and she’s going to find them that’s how we’re going to find them okay so a long you know rolling snowball downhill Facebook i always made sure I had at least one agent under 30 years old they grew up with that google Smoogle Facebook uh social media and I tell them I’m like I was 32 years old before I had my first cell phone nokia pull up the antenna 100 minutes a month that’s it i’m like thankfully you’ll never know the struggle but yeah that’s that’s your lane social media work work that boom and they come up with it they’re like “That’s our guy right there.” And there’s a girl in the picture and there’s another guy and she makes the caption “Two of my tightest guys in the world.” Oh let’s find her can’t find her let’s find the other guy he’s got a ankle monitor on and he is a hot mess but we get in front of him like early in the evening this is all the same day that we got this briefing and uh when I got my group together I mean we’ve brief seven eight times a day on various stuff that we’re rolling on we all get together and it was probably when we brief brief like here’s the plan there was kind of like this like little por in the air like everybody is serious all the time but when we did that briefing everybody was serious like we weren’t even joking around it was like business okay so we find ankle monitor guy and he’s like “Yeah that that guy.” Yeah he’s he’s a he uh I think the words were “That dude is a maniac and he is absolutely going to shoot it out with you.” Okay good intel and uh where’s the girl that’s my girlfriend i have a daughter in the next room we share a kid but she’s such a drug addict that the courts gave me ankle monitor the kid like the worst the the less worse of uh too bad right and I’m like get her on the phone tell her you got an ounce of meth and you want to party she’s like well she’s not going to believe that because she knows I got the ankle monitor I’m like you’re going to convince her that you just want to be with her and you want to burn through this ounce of meth and you don’t care nice oh yeah she’ll believe that he’s like uh but I can’t do like sell i’m like “What?” He goes “Well I have to do like Facebook call Messenger or what?” Oh yeah that’s big with these guys you I’m like “How do you float through life how did you get this far?” Um but she answers she goes “Oh you got an ounce of meth and you you know your thing’s going to go off.” Yeah who cares yeah I’m in room 30 whatever 300 at uh the Crossland Motel in Independence of all places soon as as soon as we were at Independence we were like “Yeah this may this may end in guns smoke.” Uh so I’m like “Okay so she’s got a warrant.” Perfect so I’ve got this written tactical plan which ever since Waco we we kill a tree every time we do a deal everybody gets a tactical plan and it’s pretty much got everything anybody would need to know everything so I got this tactical plan and I always carried it in my back pocket and if something changed or personnel changed I would they’re off they’re in here’s where we’re going this I just a little quick note quick note quick note so I’m I’m writing these little quick notes thank god in the shooting investigation so um we get to the hotel and I had previously met with Independence Police Department in a gas station parking lot I’m like hey can you send a sergeant and like five uniform guys at least and as soon as they heard the gun squad they were like oh okay something’s going on they’re calling for help boom And it was the one night that Snutac was unavailable i mean never unavailable but there was so many deals going on that night okay so the independent sergeant uniform sergeant had previously been a task force officer with the career criminal so he we didn’t have to explain pretty much he knew the D okay I got it what do you need us to do so I said “This motel is huge but there’s only one way in and one way out.” I said “We’re going to make contact with this girl.” I said “Do you guys got spike strips and all of that?” They go “Yeah it’s independent it’s like every car stops a car chase everybody’s got it they even have a thing called Starchaser it’s a gun barrel on the front of every marked car where they behind a Yeah i actually used one it was crazy yeah it like shoots a goop pack with a GPS transponder and so I’m like “This is the Roach Motel nobody gets out of this parking lot if we hit you on the radio spike strip the entrance spike strip the access road nobody leaves on it.” I’m like “Love these guys.” And these uniform guys were spun up they’re like “This guy did what?” Yeah no they were like they’re calling their friends if you’re not doing anything come over here yeah it’s it’s gonna be great so we make kind There’s like 20 of us i Everybody on the squad was there that night every And we had a uh we had just had a new sergeant come in but he was a good dude and he was like “Holy shit.” It’s like “You guys roll like this every day?” I’m like “Yeah like every day.” Boom knock on the door stupid answers she’s got a guy in there with him her and uh I just say “Chason Simon where is he?” She goes “I don’t know i don’t know.” Okay door number one you’re going to jail cuz you got a warrant and I’m pretty sure if we rip this room apart you’re going to have a quantity of meth she goes “Yeah I don’t want to go to jail.” Good well you’re going to put your old boyfriend in jail she gets him on the horn and she goes “Hey I got an ounce of meth come and meet me at this room at the motel okay I’ll be there in 20 minutes hangs up she immediately says “This guy is an I’m scared of this guy this guy’s an absolute maniac he’s going to shoot it out with you and he always drives a stolen truck he’s And by the way the guy that I got in this room he already had a fight with this guy a week ago he He knows now this guy is in this room with me i’m like “Okay that’s an added detail you probably could have left out of that conversation but boom here we are.” Yeah uh now we rebrief i’m like “Here’s the plan let him park let him get out of this whatever he’s driving i’m going to roll right up to him he’s got one choice get on the ground and give up or I’m I’m gonna have the taser on him just at the get-go i’ll weld him all’s welded ends well he’s never gonna have a chance to get to the gun good so 20 minutes later here comes our bad guy driving a pickup truck 1 m an hour through the entire parking lot he’s looking at everything i’m leaning back in my pickup truck i’m like I’m a headrest i’m a headrest i’m a Don’t look don’t look at me don’t even listen he’s in his meth out mind he was satisfied that there weren’t uh the 20 police that were from the gun squad that were already there awesome and we put our now female in a car with one of my guys up the street you’re going to make the positive ID which she does that’s him he’s coming down he’s in a white F350 DY diesel i’m like “Oh god not going to pin this guy in.” Yeah he out of the 150 cars he could have parked next to parks next to my sergeant who’s got limoed out windows it’s like 11:30 at night and right before this all our radios were like “We’re in this little depression we’re not hitting the digital trunk system out of Kansas City and we’re like “Okay comms are now they’re not working.” Because I didn’t see him come out and I’m like “Where is this dude why isn’t my guys saying “All right it’s getting out of the truck.” So I’m like “F it.” I I creep around uh it’s a huge huge motel system it’s got airways and long wings so when I come around and my guys laughed at me about this but it’s the New Yorker in me when I got out with all my gear I close the door and I go beep i put the alarm on my truck they’re like “Why did you do that?” I’m like “Hey look where we are.” It’s like you know in New York you come out and everything’s missing out of your police car so I do that and the guy is not in the parking lot he’s already started walking up the exterior stairs to get to the top level and go to this room now I have a face to face with my sergeant who’s running towards me i can hear him he’s like “He’s got a gun he’s got a gun.” And I’m like “What?” And but now I’m like focused on this dude because now he’s literally direct I’m on the parking lot he’s on the top balcony looking down at me he’s got a huge backpack on one arm and he’s got what I am about 110% sure is that shotgun but it’s covered in a towel he’s like carrying a towel that looks like it’s got a a long rigid object under it he had parked next to the sergeant got out and the sergeant’s like “Should I just shoot him through the window i mean I can’t get on the radio.” And he’s like “Ah.” So I’m like I’m like “All right.” At that time we had the Glock model 2240 cal with the headlight i light him up and I’m like “Jason get on the ground it’s over give up give up.” He trots away and now he starts banging on the door where the girl was who I have a task force officer one of also collateral duty as a negotiator and I got Tommy my Aryan Nation looking D1 uh try out getting football star in the room and just to be on the safe side I had given them my ATF bunker i’m like you know what just keep this in the room you never know and the other dude that had been in a fight with this guy is laying in a bathtub whimpering and Tommy goes to Jimmy to negotiate goes “He’s going to get in isn’t he?” He’s screaming “let me the cops are out here the cops are out of here.” Um and Jimmy’s like “Yeah he just might get in just get behind me in the bunker.” He doesn’t get in he runs so now all my crew is I got guys going up to the top floor walkway i am with a now retired uh detective former SWAT guy awesome dude Owen we’re running through a tunnel and we have to pop out and we pop out and I’m literally waiting i’m just waiting for the shots like he’s standing over the balcony just waiting it’s like but um a bunch of pe Yeah not a bunch but some people in um ATF they had a little thing they would put on their uh vest jhab that’s Jhab jesus hates a sometimes you just got to go oh Jesus so Owen and I and the sergeant who had first seen the guy actually with a gun and he and he’s telling us as we’re running he’s got a gun i saw the gun i’m like um a uh a dip container goes out of the sergeant’s I don’t know why I noticed this but it went through the air and I’m like I’m like making a mental and I’m like don’t see that every day the sergeant goes right with everybody else and I got all my other guys on the third floor owen and I go left and we’re by oursel and we’re pushing into this long ass parking lot we can see the balcony of this like 40 room wing and here comes our bad guy from the far end running full speed shotgun in his hand won’t um won’t stop won’t get down won’t drop the gun owen and I fire at precisely the same time and he doesn’t stop owen’s got an M4 i add the uh Glock and I’m purposely thinking I’ve got to do a head shot because if I’m aiming for his body if I miss it’s going to go through a hotel window i’d rather do the head shot if I miss a shot it’s going to go into the ceiling so the first shot and and it’s probably a 35 between 35 and 40 yards so it’s not Oh that’s close that’s a long head shot that’s a long head shot no reaction from the first shot from either of us i’m like okay maybe he’s a vested opponent uh but I do know that if he gets to this breezeway and and he can only go one way all my guys are at the other end of that breezeway all of them and I’m like he can’t break that corner been a firearms instructor been on our SRT team i mean and none of it was excited it was like another training evolution and uh I’m like front side front side front sight i put it right on the base of his head a controlled trigger boom second shot boom goes right down and I turned around to Owen and I Owen whose M4 has made a few shots now like five inches away from my ear i’m like that guy in I can’t hear so good um so I’m like yeah let’s let’s go grab him man he went down like a like a sack of bricks he’s like all right so yeah we’re doing our thing up the stairwell we get to him there’s the gun no body no blood and I’m like what i break the corner i break the other corner where all my guys are and there’s like a scene going on where they’re putting a tourniquet on this guy he’s fighting i’ve never seen a human being bleed that much and live i think I I sent you the picture Steve and you’re more than welcome to flash that picture up if you want um let me find it it looked like a like a car size blood puddle he got Well that’s just a thing i I’m thinking how did he get from where I saw him drop to here without bleeding and then I realize cuz I didn’t hit him uh Jimmy my negotiator uh he’s charging at them when he breaks the corner he had been purported to have a second gun also he refused to get down he had his hand like in a bad position boom jimmy takes one shot right into the brachial artery upper arm and that he goes he goes “Yeah it was just like they told us like in training like it was like a fire hose it just went everywhere and he’s still like non-compliant they but they had assets they slam him to the ground they get the tourniquet on him get the cuffs and um after I put out a very controlled like help slash I need an ambulance.” Um there’s there’s a channel in Kansas City called traffic if you slam your knob all the way to the left or all the way to the right either end is the same frequency so if you’re in stress you don’t have to look at your radio you just slam it one way or the other you’re on the emergency frequency if you talk on traffic every radio portable base car instantly you are the priority radio transmission so 1981 was my radio i’m like 1981 on traffic and they’re like first of all everybody knows the 1980 series is the Gun Squad it’s like 1981 on traffic something has gone ary and I said hey uh been a shooting bad guys down good guys are good i need an ambulance forth with we’ve got tourn get on them and yep getting the whole thing well everybody that knew me that heard that like that had you know nothing having to do with any of the respon it’s like dude the city like emptied out it was like water going through a colander it’s like we didn’t know exactly what happened but if you guys were out there it was going to be bizarre um so all well that ends well but the funny thing is when Tommy’s cuffing this dude up and bringing him down to the ambulance he goes “You guys just killed me you guys just killed me i want a last meal.” I’m like “Whoa whoa whoa you want a What do you want?” He goes “I want a Mountain Dew i want a Mountain Dew.” Of course and I got one in my backpack get it i’m like “All right dude we’ll give you the Mountain Dew at the hospital.” Uh so of course the surgeon says “Yeah if you didn’t put the tourniquet on him that dude would have bled out in like 3 minutes.” Yeah so yet another guy that Hey you know what um we stopped so crime scene takes me back through the scene and they go “Where exactly was he when you took your last two shots?” I’m like “He was right here right at the corner.” And I saw him go down we found the gun right there he goes “All right he was standing up when shot.” I’m like “Yeah.” He goes “Look.” And there’s a shot like here and a shot directly behind what would be his head i’m like “That dude matrixed like 240 cows.” It’s like every beer’s a victory beer for that guy but it’s later it had so scared the crap out of him those bing bing bullets hit him like an inch from his head that’s what caused him to drop the gun and Owen and I um we were abused for months ah two SWAT guys awesome great job fantastic i said so when Owen and I you know my battle buddy now when we talked about it after the fact I go “Hey we got him to drop that gun if he had not dropped that gun that would have been a different outcome and you know maybe we wouldn’t be so lucky yeah yeah and those guys also know it was a really hard shot which makes it even better to tease you about cuz because you have to go try to explain that and then now you’re defending yourself and it’s even worse you know I I said I’m fine with it we got him to drop the gun and and everybody knew oh if you want to hear a little cop funniness if there was any funniness that came out of that so being that Jimmy my task force guy negotiator the best he’s a guy I’m going to recommend to you cuz he literally has done some things but uh he says “Hey Eric you know mandatorily I shot him so me and the other task force cop and the squad we have to mandatorily go to the police psychiatrist.” would you come with us we fired shots also i’m like absolutely of course so you know we go through the two three-hour meeting and you know she’s leading us through everything and she she did a great job um at the very end one of her SOPs she points at each one and she goes “Before we break is there any concern any anything anybody wants to say a concern we’ll address it one-on-one in the group whatever but I’m going to go one at a time and you’re going to tell me we’re good or I I want to talk about something else jimmy’s last and uh she goes “Jimmy,” and uh he does one of these you know long breath release and he goes “I can’t get an erection anymore unless I smell guns smoke.” He’s like “I’m just kidding.” She goes “I know you’re just kidding but you’re coming back.” Uh and we still we still laugh about that i mean that was like it was the perfect icebreaker on a on a bad night and um Damn man that that great stories brother i got one I want to get into your woodworking and I want but I have one last question that um is really popular with the listeners there’s a lot of people who are like they love the podcast but they’re they’re not cops or they’re or they’re in backgrounds or they’re thinking about doing it the question is um what advice would you get to new people getting to law enforcement now when I saw that question on that on your sheet I was like “Bravo Steve well done.” There’s not one person that’s been a cop for a while that wishes they could have that conversation with themselves way back like if you had the way back hot tub tub time machine and you could have that conversation like what what would what would you want to tell yourself when you started um so bravo for that question i think it’s a great question i would tell new police officers new agents anybody new in law enforcement it’s a marathon it’s not a race it’s not a not 100 yard dash it’s a long career long career so take a breath um I think guys now and and I’m sure you see it Steve superbly better prepared in some ways than we were way back when when we started i mean just the technology the things available all of it they’re they’re really um outstanding candidates out of the gate but what I would tell new people and it was the same thing I would tell new detectives when I was in Brooklyn new agents you know when I was running the task force I would be like “Listen just be quiet.” You know it’s not that we don’t want to hear you but just soak it in observe listen and especially when I was a cop it’s like I was told and it’s so true you know people say don’t don’t volunteer for anything i tell new guys volunteer for everything volunteer for and and most importantly volunteer for the crap assignments that nobody wants oh you need somebody to direct traffic at a car accident in the rain at DL i’m your guy i’m your guy more than glad to do it how can I help out i said you do that enough the crap assignments and you execute well the veteran guys and gals are going to they’re going to pull you into the important stuff why because this is the kid that always raises his hand he he gets a job he does it right the first time we don’t got to baby them uh absolutely and then you start getting invited into the important stuff and then before you know it you’re running a squad and you’re the guy telling a new guy something like that um sit back like what I did when I was in Brooklyn and I wasn’t new new but I I was new enough to know that listen to these old guys these guys that have been on for like 75 years they can just give a guy a look and the guy’s going to give it up in the box develop your little toolbox i said “If you learn nothing you have to know how to get somebody to tell you something that they don’t want to tell you.” That’s the craft that’s the art form some people are good at it some people will never get it and some people are just always get the confession always get the information always get the cooperation why is that is that some kind of luck no it’s not luck you got to learn how to develop themes you got to be able to talk to anybody about anything anywhere you just have to develop that skill set it’s a foundational skill set and you really can only learn it you got to listen to these old guys and gals listen to them um so take Brazilian jiu-jitsu just don’t even say “Should I do it should I not do it?” Do it your department’s not going to do it they’re going to give you four hours a year of hands-on you know bad guy training it’s always going to be a compliant guy unless somebody puts the fist suit on if you’re serious about your survival you learn BJJ value your firearms training uh all that stuff and I just want to add to that hotel shooting um running that gun squad never ever home like my kids would go “Dad are you going to be home you going to be home?” I’m like “Finally,” I would just say “You see the front door when I come through the front door that’s when I’m home it might be today it might be in 3 weeks i don’t know.” And there was several times that that happened yeah i’m in Florida i’m out of state something happened so my kid in fourth grade at the time to fourth about fourth grade third grade and he was going to have a class trip to the zoo and it was a big deal they had put out we want some parent chapron she’s like “Dad dad can you be chaperone can you be chaperone in the zoo?” And I’m like “You know what buddy i don’t care what I have going on i’m going to take that day you and me at the zoo it’s happening.” Well the zoo trip was the morning after the hotel shooting i I come in the door at like 6:30 and uh my kid comes bounding down the stairs and he’s like “Dad you’re dressed and ready to go.” I had just walked in the door from the shooting and he goes “We’re going to go to the zoo we’re going to go to the zoo right?” And I’m like “You’re goddamn right we’re going to the zoo today kid.” Yes i took a selfie with him at the zoo when we got there and I said “Someday I’m going to show you this picture and you’re going to hear what happened the eight hours 10 hours before you know we took this picture.” But yeah I’m like “You’re damn right we’re going to the zoo kid.” I love it that’s awesome brother um uh I want to hear about the And just one other thing for the new guys you got to be likable and you got to be coachable you nothing will destroy your uh progression if you don’t have those two things absolutely so yeah yeah words of wisdom brother thank you i’m sure they’re going to love it now let’s hear about the woodworking totally different totally not Not a book about war stories not a Netflix deal you’re you’re in the shop and you make beautiful stuff i got pictures on the screen right now steve I can’t tell you how much I appreciate um you blowing up the time on that thing both my grandfather’s professional uh woodworkers cabinet makers finishers my father’s father did all the finishes on the doors the elevator doors at the Empire State Building when it was built so I kind of had it in the jeans in the blood i knew I wanted to do it and I had dabbled in it um and a few times I became ATF’s best paid carpenter like when we were building out a storefront I did all the construction we were building out a SWAT van i did all the interior construction in that so I always had something going on but I said when I when I you know take the 300lb backpack off this is what I’m doing um and just like an ATF for being a cop I couldn’t wait to get to work every day i can’t wait to get to the shop i’ve got a twostory substantial building that’s probably looks bigger than the house but it’s a it’s a 20 second commute for me every day i can take care of kids stuff i can dogs to lawn the pool uh plus work any hours I want it’s awesome and I just love making stuff and I as you can see if anybody goes to my Instagram site um send it woodworking it’s up on the screen but I’ll I’ll put a link in the show notes so they can just see it from there yeah uh a little play on words send it uh if you dream it I can make I remember when I got my first tattoo and I’m trying to say what I want and the tattoo gal goes I’ll do it in red plaid i can do anything and I’m like I always stuck in my mind uh you know people have come with can can you do this and you know just like every $5 prostitute in Brooklyn I can’t bring myself to say no uh I’m like “Yeah sure i can do that.” And so anything oh you see the board I did for uh for Sy up there and if you see that double horseshoe the way I got that job is I um Brent’s wife school teacher I made one for her and then uh the school superintendent’s wife saw it and she says “Oh can you make one for my husband?” So got that nice job that way and um yeah I I apologize I didn’t get get a chance to talk about Brent uh I could do a whole show just on Brent that Brent’s got his own episode don’t worry about that he’s fantastic uh I love that guy and I see him uh a lot like some day some every day some week he’s does the track coach she’s my daughter’s track coach believe it or not at the high school in his medical retirement i love that guy um his wife she’s just you know awesome and their kids and uh you know whatever help he thinks I gave him and his family it’s like I always feel like I I didn’t do enough i could have I could have done more um just just a good human being tough tough kid tough guy yeah yeah man he he came on and he he you know we started like this interview we start with like some um your first hot call or whatever and like his just being on the street in KC was like damn it’s like a damn war zone first shift it’s like blood bath and murder in a park Kansas City is the wild west in Brooklyn unbridled violence but controlled violence bad guy bad guy violence and pretty much when the cops showed up unless you just decided you didn’t care if you lived or died you’re going to duke it out and shoot it out with the cops out here in Kansas City these these gangsters we were after no value of human life none zero less than zero uh and if you got cash you’re over 21 and not prohibited you can walk in any gun store and buy as many guns as you want um every bad guy out here top quality weaponry and they are not scared to shoot it out in the least damn man so yeah super dangerous out here and you know the uniform guys bravo my hats off to them every day you know they don’t they don’t have reverse in the car you know they got to respond to everything they got to deal with everything um you know we we pick and choose uh so they’ve got it a lot tougher than you know a uniform police officer anywhere in the country right and it doesn’t matter if it’s a 10-man department or 40,000 it’s still dangerous no matter where you are and what you’re doing absolutely but the woodworking has just been I love it i It’s like I love building stuff i did that i made that and if you told me can you do this da da d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d I’m like and execute on it and then you know they tell two friends and I’m about I’m right about in that sweet busy zone right now i look I I mean I would always you know take on more work it’s like if I have 10 free minutes in my life I feel like I should be knitting a sweater it’s like I can’t sit down and do nothing i always have to have something going on yeah um so the wood business has been that really good good for you man i love it so and the and the work is phenomenal i Everybody should look at the video just so they can see the pictures of it but do you have a YouTube channel up yet or you I don’t I don’t but but that is a goal uh so there is a huge woodworker out here that we met by happen chant happen stance uh Lizzy from house of timber out here and she’s like the woodworking royalty on Instagram and she is just making unbelievable projects and she saw my setup she’s like oh my god she goes I got to help you get a website going and this is how you do your social media presence and do this do that yeah so dude let me know brother i’ll blast it out there what you I’m sorry I cut you off oh no uh well Steve I will say I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your your time and letting me uh speak to you on your on your program it’s just been an honor and first podcast I’m ever doing boom you get to claim that yeah hell yeah and you got the good gear i love it man well it was an honor to have you on the stories were phenomenal man so thank you for taking the time i think this might be the longest podcast I’ve ever done two and a half hours so and I get I I do get people writing me message messages like “Could you make them longer?” I’m like you know because everybody gets the Rogan thing now like he does three or four hours i’m like well not not everybody wants to sit down for three or four hours you know uh yeah uh I was so appreciative to be here i’m like I will stay in this chair as long as you want brother i appreciate the story as long as you’ll put up with me dude the stories were fantastic i love it so thank you for coming on i got to do the outro to the show can you hang on for just two or three minutes yeah uh can I disappear for like 3 minutes and I’ll be right back absolutely or two minute yeah I’ll be right back with you brother all right sounds good the great Eric Imusberger um man great stories great storyteller really was a blast to have him on um thank you for that sir truly appreciate it this is the time of the show when I thank the Patreon sponsors if you really love the show you can do that through the 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