DEA Special Agent – Meth House Poop Dildo, Drug Warrant Executions, High Speed Chase

this is things police see firstand accounts with your host Steve gold welcome to the podcast it interviews active and retired police officers about their most intense bizarre and sometimes humorous moments on the job it is I old gingi old Ginger face coming at you how you guys doing how’s your week going uh I had a hell of week hell of a week myself um very stressful very hard the I if you ever had a one of your beloved pets get very sick and then you’re faced with a gigantic pet Bill and whether you should pay that or not or can you handle the guilt of um killing your your buddy you know so that’s kind of what we had this week it was really intense I have a German Shepherd that is beautiful he’s 125 lbs he’s he’s four years old big old blocky head on him just a textbook beautiful male German Shepherd but even bigger and we thought my wife thought I was on a double like I usually am and my wife thought he flipped his stomach which is a thing bigger dogs and Shepherds too can happen and if they twist their guts um you only have a certain amount of time to take care of it and sometimes they can flip it back sometimes they need surgery so she calls me call the local vets they say just take the dog to toughs um tus is over in North Grafton it’s a big teaching college and Veterinary Hospital they’re very good they have all the technology but they handle like big emergencies like this so I’m I feel guilty about it but already I’m like oh my gosh how much is this going to be because things are tight I got to be honest with you three kids my wife stays home homeschools them um I’m the only income I work a lot groceries are ridiculous as you all know gas is ridiculous the whole thing so I’m nervous about they go there turns out he has a growth on his kidney they’re not sure if it’s cancer or not they’re not sure um um if we can afford to do the surgery so my wife tells me how much it is and uh it was $8,000 to save the dog so I just made a hard choice and said I we have to put them down there’s no way we can’t afford it that’s going to be putting that was too much a bridge too far that’s going to put us in jeopardy financially like I can’t get rid of that much cash so my wife tells them and then they come back and say the good thing is the dog is so big and beautiful that they the Vets love the dog they’re like and they got the news that we couldn’t afford it and they were like okay so they went back and they came back with another number and they said if he doesn’t stay overnight and if he um and if we use his own blood to recirculate back into them rather than a transfusion we can do it for 5500 and you can if you pay half we’ll let you make interest free payments to pay us back a free loan so with that I said okay let’s do it I know it’s an insane amount of money for a dog and if you I never thought I would do it but I really do love this dog he’s such a good boy he’s protected to the family but not but not out of control he’s stoic but once you earn his friendship friend for life that whole thing love the kids good with the kids protects the house when I’m not here so we go ahead and do it and then um of course they come back he is going to have to spend the night which is the big money big add-on and I’m like I knew this would happen they said they could do it and now they’re saying they can’t they he has to spend the night it’s going to be thousands and thousands more well they have a fund at toughs for family pets that are like younger in good shape but have an Affliction for families that it would be hard for them to pay the bill so they came back and said we will cover everything over the original estimate that you were going to have to pay so uh thank you toughs incredible I guess to get this done they actually get the doctors together a number of doctors work on staff at a time and they need I guess they need a certain number of doctors to approve taking fun uh money from these funds so they actually um voted they approved it for cash he’s home now he’s upstairs he had um uh he has a big scar they took what they took his kidney they said they didn’t see any other signs of any other problems they don’t know if it’s cancer or not they’re going to have it tested so he’s all stitched up he has we just took off his fenol patch which he had on his side for two days which was like I can see why they wanted to keep him there for three or four days because with the fentol patch too that she’s like she taped over it but she said because we have a four-year-old a 10-year-old and a 14-year-old and she said you know this no one can touch this cuz if the patch Falls if the cover thing falls off and someone touches that uh bad news news and I know all about fentanyl so I’m like I got it transdermal fentanyl bad so um we actually just removed that today and that’s been I got to actually bring it to the drug takeback box uh the DEA collects once a year which um will make sense when I introduce a guest um so that’s that’s been my week it’s been super stressful but I’m super thankful um thank thank the Lord the dog is okay we could take him home and uh he’s going to hopefully make a recovery and even if it is cancer she thinks that it won’t be an issue because they took the kidney so I have a dog with one kidney I spent way more money than I ever said I would um so that’s uh that’s kind of where I’m at so I’m I’m super super grateful and and happy about the situation I thought I would just give a shout out for toughs Veterinary Hospital you guys are fantastic thank you so much and I have to think me threatening to kill the dog had something to do with it I think they were like if we call the husband back and say it’s going to be more money he’s going to say just put it down so we better use this fund uh maybe that has something to do with it but whatever it was um it worked out for us and uh yeah yeah that was my week a lot of stress but I’m so happy to be here on the podcast recording an episode thank you for all the rating and reviewing lately if you love the show rate and review five star please um follow on Instagram uh YouTube Facebook page all that stuff I’m supposed to tell you guys all the time I don’t um please do that if you really love the show the patreon is where you go and uh no better time to join the patreon to support your old buddy Steve when he’s got this uh vet bill out of nowhere but um that wasn’t the point of telling the story I promise but if you do love the show and you’ve listen to a lot of episodes and you see value in it and you want to help me out patreon links in the show notes bit of a long intro guys but I just wanted to share that with you share a little bit about uh my personal life and and what’s been going on uh where my where my head’s been at I almost had to do a solo episode this week because I like I say all the time if you want to be a guest or you know somebody wants to be a guest please reach out out than.com scroll down be a guest and I’ll get in contact with them it is very hard to um schedule cops active or retired because cops don’t typically don’t stop they’re if they retired they retired younger and they are doing something else so um keep them rolling in I have a bunch of irons in the fire a bunch of great guys and gals lined up and uh it’s gonna happen but I had this huge gap and I couldn’t make it happen and uh one of the guests uh has actually the guest for today has his own great podcast and he was sympathetic to my situation he was actually referred to me by James Gallagher of um over at Boise State University uh a group called the blueh house agency it’s an in-house agency the Communications Department I guess runs um for students um to get their feet wet with uh working at a PR firm so I got in touch with him they said this is a guy’s background would you be interested and I was like hell yes I’d be interested please give me this guy’s info we talked on the phone the rest is history he is here waiting to come on um he’s got 25 years over 25 years in the DEA is a special agent he started when he was 21 years old Believe It or Not U which is awesome and he hosts and uh is the proprietor of the reasons we serve podcasts similar to my podcast but he’ll explain all that without further Ado let me bring on Niles Gooding Niles hey how are you what’s up man you heck of an introduction man I I I feel like I’m a professional radio show and uh I I completely sympathize with the dog man they’re part of your family thanks brother yeah I was actually halfway through that little monologue on my sick dog I was thinking like I probably thinks this is the crappiest intro ever no really interesting I mean no absolutely all right man hey brother I appreciate you coming on me Niles everybody he is on the his podcast which is unique from mine he is actually traveling in doing these interviews in person right yep yep travel in person I just feel like I get a little bit more um personal interaction you can sit across from somebody and they kind of see your reaction you can see them and uh but it’s it’s been a process man I’ve got like uh 60 I think I’ve done I think this today was number 50 I released an interview with the Texas Ranger um but you can see man it’s the audio the video Everything has gotten I hope progressively better yeah uh but yeah that’s where I’m at dude that’s awesome and how this group at Boise State they um they decided to take you on as their semester project and you pay a few duckets and they kind of examine your social media and and your presence and all that yeah super unique Pro uh program over there I I initially had contacted Boise State and figured hey you know I’m going to get a hold of somebody at the audio visual they’re going to help me dial in my video and my audio and everything else and I found this these uh these guy this blue house um and uh they basically take on a project or a couple projects once a quarter and um you know so like I’m a project I think I don’t know how unique of a project I am but they’ve got another project they’re working on it’s not makeup it’s some s of I think it’s called like under boobs or something like that it prevents sweat or you know basically it’s a yeah so it’s a sort of a cosmetic deant whatever I don’t want to get too much into it but the the the long and short of it is really interesting uh group of students over there they take projects I can pay a little bit of money obviously and um they can put it on their resume and I just think it’s great so they’re they’re dialing in my Instagram my Facebook all stuff that uh I don’t really care about but I know I got to get it going yeah you and me both brother um like we said before we started rolling um that’s phenomenal it’s phenomenal to see a traditional College embracing some like Hands-On um real world stuff like that because you and I both know you can you can graduate with all kinds of different degrees and never really not really know much about the field you’re going into you have the book learning you have the book learning done but you never did the quote Ride Along in that career you know what I mean um so the fact that these kids are getting their get their hands dirty and doing it man that’s phenomenal no it’s great I I think it’s just a fantastic program and uh I think it’ll help him out on the long run um yeah it’s just uh super unique and I’m really glad I found him yeah that’s cool man so you probably blew it for me I’m not going to be able to do it with them because they already did a police podcast oh I’m sure they’ll help you out uh you know you just got to get in there and uh I had to wait a little bit because there was a little bit of background to get into them but um I’m sure they’d help you out that’s cool man yeah it’s like when my buddy’s a a a tech teacher for auto body and I’m like oh dude can you guys can get this done for cheap he’s like yeah get on the waiting list like everybody want cuz the tech does your car for cost of paint you know what I mean yeah um he’s like just take everything out of your car no weapons no knives nothing I’m like all right these kids will be searching my car um so Niles 21 years old for some to me when I think for a cop 21 is like that’s the legal age in the state di in anyways but um wasn’t always they used to have 18-year-old summer specials which was like wild but when you think special agent you think a lot of these guys are coming um from other agencies or they’re transferring or they’re um they were in the military for years or something but 21 is that seems crazy andar let me tell you I let me tell you I so I was in a special program at the University of Washington and I was fortunate enough to get picked and I I basically was a co-op student I don’t even think they have the position anymore but I was a co-op student I literally did almost everything that I did as a special agent except for go out carry a gun make a rest and everything else I I and I’ll I’ll tell you a side story about this so I’m a co-op student I’m going out on warrants with these guys and so the F very first group I end up in is a weed and speed group so we’re dealing with indoor marijuana and indoor marijuana grows and methamphetamine so uh Clan Lab group Weed and speed I like it yeah so so I had been in enough marijuana grows that I knew what it smelled like I mean just I mean to this day I know what it smells like growing marijuana it’s very unique smell and so I am out running as a college student one day running around some neighborhood and um I go what what’s that smell and sure enough um the I told my two roommates at the time who were both special agents I said hey uh I think there’s a grow in this house and you know they did what they did and narrowed it down to the house and uh it turned out at I think at the time uh there did a warrant in the house I think there were 3,000 plants in the house and it was at the time I think the largest indoor marijuana grow ever found um wow but those guys I mean this will give you you know and I’ll get into it in a little bit but those guys uh you know obviously took me along on that uh on that search warrant and as we’re riding up to the van to go in the whole team’s ready they’re like hey do you do you want to take the ram I think you should do the and I’m like I’ve got no gun I’ve got no vest at this point I’m probably 20 years old and I’m like worst case scenario I get shot through the door no I’m not going to yeah but but they but you know they gave me the opportunity and God bless them but yeah no very very unique situation that you know as a 20-year-old I start off and literally when I turned 21 DEA offered me a special agent position and I was at quanico going through uh ba888 as a uh as a kid essentially um becoming a special agent perfect for the physical aspect anyways for running and all that but um did did you go through a standard background did they make you go through the big huge background or did they already have enough on you oh no I mean in order to even get that Co-op position they had to do a background on me so that’s why it was so quick I mean you know the day I graduated they’re like hey we’ve already done a full background I think I had a TS clearance at that point anyway even as a uh as a co-op student so that’s why I could I could get through the process so quickly but um you know I’ll tell you um to the point of being 21 years old I wasn’t even the youngest one I mean I I think I was the second youngest there was another kid that was even younger than I was but it was very very interesting starting off quanico dealing with other guys that had been former military former police former you know just all sorts of vast experience you know had I had one guy that was a per water a perier water salesman um but then it was just me you know it’s like what what kind of background do you have and it is a culture shock uh but you know you you survive the first week and you’re like okay this is what it’s going to be and then you just uh you just go through it and it was a great time yeah you just play the game you know this isn’t the things they’re saying to me they’re not they just want to test me they’re not they don’t think about this me personally like this that’s what I used to do exactly exactly yeah oh that’s incredible man very cool so that’s like U that’s almost like your first call you found one of the biggest weed indoor weed grows yeah it was uh it was pretty unique you know I I just uh like I said I just happened to be living with a couple of agents that uh later on became two of my first Partners so as you and I discussed uh before this you know getting to this group most of the guys were 24 25 years old so as a 20 year 21 year old I get out and essentially and we didn’t even have a FTA program at the time we later on uh so for state and local fto program but we had we didn’t even have a FTA program so ENT entually I get partnered up with my two roommates who are 24 years old so I’m a 21y old getting supervised by 24 year olds that’s crazy that’s great you guys must have been special I mean certain breed of human you were definitely were probably mature for your age had to be it was I I tell you it was the best the best time of my life I mean and and I’ll give you kind of a point kind of a a story here because I know that you kind of asked about you know hot C and stuff like that de doesn’t really have hot calls per se yeah it’s a little different yeah yeah yeah yeah but but but I’ll tell you this so um first literally first day on the job first day on the job my two partners made sure that I was going to go on a search warrant and we go on a search warrant we do our thing I remember handcuffing the guy it was my first arrest that I’ve ever made you know blew the door do the whole thing and it was interesting because because that group was so unique that we had all these young guys and we did warrant after warrant after warrant so at the time we’re probably doing and this is no exaggeration but my bi-weeks are probably 140 hours every two weeks but it’s so much fun you know I’m not saying that i’ do it for free but I would do it for free you know it was just such a great time but the the the point about this is the group was so active that we were probably doing at least three warrants every week and so this is kind of a a Learning lesson for law enforcement out there that’s not only still on the job but but new on the job is so I do that warrant and I go on for probably two months right and and so you figure during that time I’ve done about 24 to 36 warrants we go out to our first qualification after I get out of um quanico get to the range and uh you know you know on the line hey fire ready fire pull the trigger nothing oh and you know I was I was out of the academy uh short enough that immediate action no problem tap rang tap rack bang you know uh but looked at the round that I had been carried for the last uh three months two three months bad primer oh my gosh what what company was that uh I think most of the time we were carrying Federal uh really Federal’s pretty good usually I I know that and that’s the scary thing right I mean you have good it still happens yeah absolutely and so but it it’s just kind of a Learning lesson even for active as well as younger guys because I know in my time with DEA you know I was a Firearms instructor and as time went by we would we were really heavy into training and we really you know put in the time every quarter and did all the stuff but as time went by you know you you become laxidasical yeah yeah and DEA Changers are firearm standard so you know I I know a lot of PDs right now that you go out you fire 25 50 rounds and you say hey that’s a great and I’m done for the I’m done for the day which is just um you know it’s it’s rough so you know I I just I would tell everybody just make sure you stay up on those standards and the uh tap rack bang and and mediate action drills and everything else because you never know when those are going to uh uh come in yeah absolutely I mean I’m a firearm instructor now and it’s like the um you can see it in the eyes of some people when you’re like you’re doing the the tap the tap rack drills or whatever re assess fire it’s like old hat to them like yeah we’ve you know been doing this for 20 years like yeah but you want to keep it fresh CU that that’s one thing you’re really GNA want to you want that to be your instinct to do that so it’s but you know but you know they figure a lot of people been a job 20 years never had a shooting you know well it could be tomorrow and you could have your a failure you know what I mean you should yeah should definitely do it some people are just not into guns like probably two-thirds of the cops I know are like it’s like a it’s like a contractor treats their Hammer like I gotta carry it it’s part of the job but I don’t really you know people think all cops are into guns they’re really not most of them are not you know it’s interesting because I was a Firearms instructor for probably 20 years I liked being an instructor but I was not ever one of those guys oh my gosh look at this gun and look at this gun and I love these guns it’s only after after I retired that I’m like oo look at that gun that kind’s kind of cool and then you’re looking at Shot Show and you’re doing all this stuff but I was just I really enjoyed the teaching aspect of it I enjoyed shooting but I was just never kind of I guess what they call a barrel sucker but it is what it is Barrel sucker I’m gonna use that that’s great um Niles you were you were talking about arresting and doing the warrants and all that just a curiosity of mine how would you typically book would you bring them to a County Jail local PD or do you guys have your own booking facility jail yeah so typically what we do um at least in Seattle um because we didn’t really have that later on in my career in Boise but in Seattle what we do is we had a we had a booking facility right in Seattle uh and in the DA office you’d go we’ had holding holding cells we had fingerprint you know photographs and everything else and uh eventually we would just uh transport into one of the local jails whoever was uh was taking we had you know FDC at the time where you that came on a little bit later but whoever had the contract to hold them that’s where we’d take them okay so they would they um they wouldn’t ever be like we’re not taking them or or we’re full or any of that crap no you know I I’ll tell you you know you’re talking about so 9192 in Seattle um it was a totally different it was a totally different city it was I don’t want to say Law and Order um but it definitely what is not what it is now I mean they have just let the city just go to crap um and uh you know it’s just different I I I I mean here’s a prime example we’re at the we’re at the bus station um we’re waiting for some uh we get uh tip that some LSD guys are coming off the off the bus and they’re gonna they’ve got a whole bunch of you know LSD tabs a thousand LSD tabs or maybe a Bible I don’t know and uh we’re sitting down downtown uh Seattle and me and my partners are there and we watch the guy get off the bus we see him he sees us and he takes off and he is running down the middle of one of the major intersections in Seattle from downtown Seattle and I and I chase him and I finally chase him down he’s in a parking lot he gets down on his knees uh I put my foot to his back I handcuff him up and I look up and there’s this whole window uh business complex window I mean you know 30 40 stories up and I’ve got people literally looking out the window jumping up and down clapping just giving me you know hey awesome and I’m like you could never expect that in Seattle now never no no yeah it’s people are cops are leaving in drobes they can’t um they can’t hold on to them which is such a shame I heard them yeah the like they were leaving a lot of were going to the Seattle um the port I think the Port Authority up there or something they were hiring cops because they pay really they pay really well and Port Port plays very well yeah Port plays very well and then the mayor came on TV and was mocking the cops that left at kind of saying the port agency isn’t even a real aren’t even real police I was like wow yeah that’s that’s good make make sure you mock them because they they’ll then they’ll really come back to you yeah jeez they are just ass backwards I said it before Massachusetts is very liberal I’m very conservative but the the one thing the Liberals in Mass want are they do want Law and Order there there’s been no defunding really here the budgets have gone up like they might have liberal um looks on things politically but they really have not done a lot to curb the police here they’re they’re pretty for as liberal as they are like California Jr over here it’s not bad as bad as it could be well let me tell you I mean that’s that’s one one of the reasons why I wanted to do the channel I just want a different I want to I want to get the flavor of what what the country is all about right and so you know I I go to Seattle I interview some people and uh obviously you know and I in fact we you and I talked about this I talked to the same homicide detective that you did um and he’s like you know and I still have friends that were SE that are Seattle PD and they’re like this city is you know we’re losing officers we can’t keep up but then what’s funny is I go and one of my episodes is with a sheriff that’s outside of Olympia and it’s Law and Order down there man oh yeah I mean it it it’s yeah so it’s it’s just totally different so but but for like for example I’m so I’m currently in in San Diego so I’m doing some interviews down in Southern California it’s very interesting to see the different perspectives of different people down here because some of them some of California is red right and so they Orange County La yeah so they still like law enforcement but but I’ll tell you what so this this Sunday I dropped an episode with the Texas Ranger and Texas is just a totally different world I mean the guy’s like it’s great down here people love us law enforcement’s awesome I love my career and I’m like yeah that’s the way that it should be yeah those guys in Texas get like routinely get meals bought for him you meet up for like a a shift Meetup they go to pay and they taken care of one one of the one of the guys I talked to is Sheriff Who’s a uh you know pretty famous Ranger down there he said you know it actually gets better when the media portrays us in a bad light we have more people buying us coffee and buying us meals than any ever before God bless him yeah that is that that must be nice yeah yeah that’s awesome man hey um Niles can you tell us about a a strange or bizarre thing you dealt with on the job yeah so I’ll tell you um so one day so I’m in so I’m in the Weeden speed group and and so we’re we’re hand clandestine Labs as well so methampetamine lab so one day we get a call from a local PD who has just had a woman that’s come in and said hey uh essentially I’ve been kidnapped and held and sexually assaulted and all sorts of bad stuff is going on in this trailer oh and by the way they’re cooking meth okay great so we end up uh getting a warrant and we go in full SC EBA so you have your for for the people that don’t know it’s kind of like scuba tanks and a big mask and you’re going in making sure the house is uh clear a fumes and everything else so we we end up clearing the house and it’s all it’s all clear and we’re good to go um and so we start our search and uh you know I don’t know what it is and and maybe it’s just the meth guys right but in this house in particular there were handcuffs that were uh bolted to the to the wall all sorts of bom bondage stuff there was a a blender that had a how how how explicit can I get on your let it rip okay so there was a blender with a dildo on it there was a uh cordless drill with a dildo on it so you know you can see kind of the stuff that this woman had gone through as she you know hey I’ve escaped this place right but um you know my my I had a guy that later becomes one of my best partners and he’s down there and we’re clear in this place and this is just how meth guys are there all sorts of sexual toys and stuff everywhere else but I like to call the story of the poopy dildo story which is he of course finds you know a little thing that’s gone in a place that isn’t my whatever and and and keep in mind I’m still in full TYC you know all geared up the whole thing so you know whatever but he’s chasing me around in this house and I’m just it’s like being a little girl going get away from me this is so freaking disgusting but you know like I said that’s that’s the way these the the meth guys were for some reason they were into that I mean for example we did a we did another warrant at a place it’s 10 some degrees out we’re in full uh nox black NX it’s misery but the fire department shows up and you know as much as we like giving the fire department crap they they were great I mean just treated us great and so we’re in there and and searching the place and everything else and uh they thought it was so funny because there was a dog inside the house and of course same thing meth guys we find find a 12inch double-sided dildo and the dog grabs it and runs outside and we go outside and the fire department they are they are rolling around on the ground can’t believe what’s going on in this house but that was just the typical nonsense that you’d see in these uh you know these cooks and meth dealers and everything else back in the day what is it about me I meth gets them like over sexualized they get like super pervy dude I do know do not know but that that happened I mean 99% of the time when I was dealing with meth guys that was constantly things that we were finding how how I kind of knew it was going to go the meth rout when you ask a de agent about the most bizarre thing it’s going to be a methhead I know it yeah man we I had took a class on um clandestine meth labs it is crazy because they had all kinds of um you know the feds were there and um some State Police local agencies and also State Police agencies like New York State Police Mass state police um the the the cases they went over and the pictures they had of like the conditions of these people I mean they’ll they’ll live in a meth lab in like a Triple Decker in hoolio just making math with like kids in there and you know and then like um they’ll have a guy pull in to the driveway he’s got a one pot in his lap and it will blow up and you know remove his junk it’s like this is how is not how would you even ever try meth with all the surrounding information about meth you know but but conversely right so you and I have seen these just for lack of a better ter [ __ ] holes right you go in they’re cooking meth there that’s all the kids and everything else but I remember going into one house doing a uh during a warrant it’s on Lake Washington which are all multi-million dollar houses Bill Gates is living up there and uh we do a small meth lab up there and every once in a while you’d come across a very sophisticated cook now I can’t tell you what the chemical was but we got done cleaning that thing up and uh they ordered all of us to go to the hospital and immediately get checked out because there had been some radioactive material that uh they were using which made no sense whatsoever but um you know every once in a while there was a change like that or you know we run across some LSD cooks or dip Labs or whatever else that were way way more sophisticated than a normal uh meth cook damn man yeah we had at that conference I went to we had um a DEA lab guy one of the head lab guys um Talk and uh interesting guy odd kind of odd guy but like you know he’s been doing it forever and uh he told a story about they had uh someone was making um like sometimes kids will get into making like really really dangerous and volatile explosive liquids you know and um this kid had gotten into doing that and he one of the ones he he was having trouble with her he wanted he said I wanted to see the reaction or something so he did it outside the lab and it sent um like a 30ft flame up the side of the building and he was like yeah that was uh that was a day off for me or something like that he like got in all kinds of trouble because they’re like what are you doing but the he’s like so into the chemistry of it he couldn’t help himself he had to go outside and ignite this little sample he had and the tiny sample he lit was like Kaboom I was like dude you are insane so yeah they talked all about that people um you know they’re it’s got to be scar I’ve never searched like in that scenario um where like you’re you’re going in the first time maybe you you stumble across a meth lab and now you find out there’s all these chemicals in the open air you didn’t know about and some of them are deadly so they I mean they trained us to if we see the stuff for cooking or the or the the things that make math just to back out secure the house and call the clandestine lab team because what am I I’m going to patrol guy I’m going to start you know powder will I’ll be sniffing the containers it was never it was never my favorite thing I like the investigations but I didn’t like the cleanup I didn’t like going into these places I didn’t like testing the air before you even going in making sure that you know there’s no cyanide gas or crap that’s going to blow up I I just I never I never enjoyed that part of it yeah I love the TV the old cop shows when they’re like cyanide from what I understand if you if you taste that or smell it you could die oh yeah no that’s that’s silliness oh that’s awesome uh Niles could you tell us about uh most intense or terrifying call that you dealt with or investigation well I can tell you I can tell you about one um we’re out on surveillance uh we’re at a chemical Distribution Hub so back before the ingredients for meth became regulated uh there were places that would distribute like large large quantities for making meth and so we had an informant at one of these locations and so we would sit out there for days waiting for you know these things to happen and sure enough one one day um we’re out on surveillance and we see these two guys just just super shady and they show up and I can’t even tell you at this point if they’ve picked up anything but they have definitely gone into this business and you know we’re there so we decided we’re going to follow we don’t know whether we’re going to follow him to the uh to the lab or what’s going on and through whatever reason they uh they ended up uh figuring out we were following them and they took off and we are in a high-speed chase uh four or five cars highspeed Chase following them through um Seattle neighborhoods and again it gets back to part of it kind of being lucky you know that that nobody’s getting hurt uh back in the day as we’re doing this but the long the long and short of it is they end up you know we’re racing through uh neighborhoods and in every so often you’ll you’ll run across like a a neighborhood park okay in Seattle and so they end up making a turn and they go down to this park and they crash their vehicle and there’s basically at this point there’s only two of us there’s me and there’s another guy and this other guy is 24 25 years old uh College BAS baseball player used to do stuff like you know his big trick in the office was take a telephone book and rip it in half you know it just give you an idea of what his forarm look like yeah right super good driver because as the bad guys have crashed his brakes have overheated and those um what are those little what are they called uh you know those those bars those P those pylons that that uh prevent vehicles from from going through he has he has squeaked in like an inch on each side and and hasn’t crash his vehicle but I’ve got another I’ve got another car that’s overheated he can’t make us so essentially it’s just this guy’s Tom Tom and I uh bail out of both of our cars and we chase this Chase both of these guys and it’s into this park and there’s trees heavily wooded area and uh so we ended up chasing down the first guy and uh the guy gets down on his gets down on his knee knees and of course you know uh foot to the back slam him down and no handcuffs from from Tom so Tom takes out his collapsable ASP baton and he ends up taking one side and and putting it down on the ground stands on that side and then stands on the other on the wrist with the ASP so that guy’s not going anywhere in fact that guy doesn’t feel like doing anything at that point yeah um and so I end up I got to find the other guy and it’s just me I’m like oh my gosh what am I you know so sure enough I’m off through the woods and I’ve got my gun out and I’m you know keeping it close to me because you know as I’m doing uh slicing the pie on these these trees and everything I also don’t want these guys you know grabbing my gun and everything else but I’m like I might have to shoot somebody down here I can’t believe what’s going on and um eventually I end up slicing on the slicing the pie on one of these trees and I find them and of course I immediately get him up and tell him look I’m going to kill you if you if you do anything bad out here because it’s just basically you and I and I’m I’m not risking my life for years yeah and uh you know luckily for him he he did the right thing and we I took him back to Tom and uh handcuffed him up and you know then the calvary arrives you had SPD and everybody’s around us and we get these guys uh but you know it’s just one of those things get you so combine a highspeed Chase and these this this down city streets stuff like that and then just chasing these guys into a wooded area and you just don’t know what’s going to happen so uh Luckily everything turned out all right damn so as a special agent too I I often think about this a few things um you know when I go to pursue or pull somebody over I’m in a fully marked car the lights we have now are like I mean there’s no mistaking it they’re they’re they’re obnoxious you know at night time they actually have now installed on these units um low power mode so you can tone the lights down cuz people can’t freaking see like they don’t they’re trying to get over so they don’t hit you but they they legitimately cannot see because the lights are so freaking bright anyways no one’s going to mistake me in that car with a special agent depending on how your car is riged up is completely unmarked uh you guys are not in uniform you’re dressed probably in business casual or suits and um on top of that don’t say that what suits no well maybe now they they dress like you wear 511 pants well no no okay so let me let me okay so let me go back to first of all going back to that chase we end up they had masks they had duct tape they had all sorts they were doing armed robberies all around the city as well so I want to throw that in there so now in terms of what you’re saying right um it drove me baddy so so one of the things I a quanico you’re always making sure that you have police uh gear on so I always had vests that always said police so there was never in fact I might never even said DEA uh maybe on the back DEA federal agent but I always had stuff that said police so there was no mistaking that this was law enforcement right right um so to your point I’m gonna tell you a funny story about the suits thing right so again my group super young everything else we’re always in jeans and t-shirts jeans and t-shirts were always on the street and at one point one of the asacks get pissed because he doesn’t think we look professional enough so what does he do he just he says guys you can no longer wear blue jeans and okay so being 24 21 years old we like okay no blue jeans but he didn’t say anything about gray jeans and he didn’t say anything about black jeans and it’s like you know they finally would just give up on us telling us and stuff it’s like right we’re making so many arrests just leave us alone just let us do the job but getting back to so anyway sorry I going all over but getting back your car so getting back to your car thing I always I always made sure that wigwags Sirens radios blue lights now in the beginning it was silliness because in the very very beginning you’d have the stupid bubble lights that you put popc popcorn maker yeah it’s like what are we Adam 12 you know out here Undercover but then we got a little bit better and then toward the end of my career by the time I got to Boise and this this was always a frustration of me I made sure that all the vehicles that I drove were completely dialed in so they always had undercover red and blue lights the whole thing so there was no mistaking the vehicles that I was driving and I always got frustrated with supervisors that would give me crap about this well why why are we SP spending so much money to to outfit your car and I’m thinking well why wouldn’t you why would you run the risk of being sued down the road going well we didn’t know he was a cop right all right so so I always for me in Boise I always took all my stuff to Boise PD and they outfitted the car and I always had the latest and greatest but it was always a frustration of mine later on in my career that uh you know it wasn’t uh it wasn’t decked out the way they should be um but yeah to your point is exactly right I mean so uh the beginning yeah go go to the local PD that jurisdiction you’re going to be working they’ll put the similar light patterns in they put their cars in I mean that that’s smart to make it you know fit in with the surroundings you know not it’s not some um strange light array or something else they just came up with as totally different well well just just say just to give you a little bit of context so how old are you Steve 44 okay so you’re not that much younger than I am but you remember the show MASH yeah I remember it always came on and it made me sad because I had to go to bed there was a Char there was a character there named raid radar right he was always like okay I’ll trade you these two two boots for this and there so in most of my groups I was known as radar because I W I was always the guy okay okay we need this we need this and that that went for the blue lights and sirens and all that other stuff that’s great so you said he had an asp so agents out there are carrying some other uses of force rather than just a gun excuse me yeah I don’t I don’t know what the I’m assuming they’re still carrying ass today um and and we definitely trained on them for most of my career I don’t know what they’ve gone to now I’m assuming that they still have them I don’t think we in fact I know we don’t have tasers unless they’ve started the program recently um but Peppers oh yeah yeah we did we did have pepper spray because I remember going to quano uh getting sprayed because I was tactical instructor so we I’ve seen too many movies I’m just seeing a guy in an Armani suit with a gold badge on his belt you know and just a shoulder holster you know no I I’ll give you so my typical my typical Uniform in Seattle was blue jeans tennis shoes t-shirts and at the time before North Face went a little woke uh always had North Face because it was always freaking rainy cloudy gloomy great way to cover up your gun uh you know as you’re walking around um pulling you know even static surveillance yeah absolutely that’s cool that’s cool they didn’t make you dress up by a bunch of Suits no wouldn’t work out no not at all expensive tailor bill for for uh mucking someone and ripping the uh hell out of your suit exactly Niles um I don’t know you should be able to answer this one some some guys in law enforcement have trouble with it but um positive or heartwarming encounter in your career you know I I I thought about this question which is I can’t tell you how many times I arrested somebody that later on either would call me for prison or when they got out of prison and just said hey man I just want to thank you you saved my life I mean I I would have been dead had it not been you you know interrupting the what was going on that’s great and oh yeah you know one of the um I was really fortunate I worked with a really good assistant United States Attorney in Boise who really treated everybody fairly um and you know we we get contacted I I did multiple cases with like uh ecstasy LSD meth cases we have one guy that contacted us said hey thank you he’s he’s a pretty successful welder now um runs his own business and yeah and so that you know that was not uncommon um that that that that happened uh very very consistently now don’t get me wrong there’s people that absolutely need to be in jail um but some of these guys completely turn their turn their life around and uh thanked me for it that’s got to feel good because it it doesn’t always feel good locking somebody up you know but when you get that confirmation that yeah these you know that’s I think that’s something we’ve lost sight in this country like everybody feels bad about punishing somebody it’s like people have to be there need Law and Order and people need to pay for what they’ve done it makes so Society work you know what I mean but but even as cops so you do feel like you’ll you’ll feel empathetic for something I’m sure you ran into people that were like they got wrapped up in this they told you their story and you’re like I can see how this happened how he got into the position he’s in now now he should have had a moment along the way when he went uh this is Dum I’m not going to do this but he didn’t do it and you know what I mean you feel for him you’re like all right man well this is you know this is what happens now I can’t I cannot tell you how many times I would begin an an investigation and go this dude is the biggest scumbag in the world this guy knows to he has to go to jail and by the time we caught him I would say everybody cooperates just because the amount of time you’re looking at because in the federal system you’re going to get hammered no matter what and um when you actually get a chance to sit down and debrief these guys and talk with them totally different attitude I mean not not that that I had toward them like yeah oh my gosh you you aren’t a huge scumbag uh this is you know I I kind of see how you got wrapped up into this and you’re you know you’re a person and I I I get it um again there’s people that absolutely I would interview and go Oh no you’re still a scumbag and you absolutely need to be jail for probably the rest of your life but your brain doesn’t work the right way yeah yeah but but you know for the most part it it always changed you know it was always like you go into it thinking one way and you’re like oh you’re you’re not you’re not such a bad guy um so yeah yeah absolutely yeah even in the on on the street level like in arresting somebody and having them giving you such a hard time and being so nasty and then finally when you get them to the booking room they sit down they know the game is over they’ve lost and they are totally different you know they were worked up they were pissed off and then like you see like all right well obviously the person has some problems but they’re not you know very very rarely to run into somebody who’s all bad you know what I mean it’s very rarely that you meet the evil one I I met I’ve met a few I met I mean I met a a kid that was I think he was um maybe on the Spectrum or something but I’ve told the story before but we my sergeant the other patrolman arrested the guy and um I assisted with booking and uh he was like 18 he was um methodically um turning his niece into his sex toy she was like six he had writings on it what he was doing um he he planned to make her uh worship his junk was the was the ideal he had photos of her he had he was looking at me while I fingerprinted him and he looks right at me and goes um does this make you sick and I go I do this every day buddy what are you talking about he goes you know just being this close to someone like me like totally not not upset not angry and I said well I I I think um it’s pretty gross you know pretty pretty wrong and he’s like yeah H just kind of took it in like he just W he was a psychopath you know a a total psychopath but that was few and far between you you rarely meet someone who’s just like evil you know some there’s something broken deep inside the brain you know yeah and and I think this is this is why I think it’s important to have channels like yours channels like mine where most people don’t realize what law enforcement does on a day-to-day basis and and what we deal with and and particular particularly I I’ll say Patrol guys I mean Patrol guys deal with stuff that I never had to deal with and God God bless I didn’t because I just there’s C certain things that you guys see that that I just don’t know if I could deal with but I I just think it’s important for Society to kind of know whether they want to hear it or not yeah absolutely yeah and that’s the that’s I mean the goal probably both our podcast is to shed some light on it and you know meet the men and women normal people and and truly most people who get into this profession do it for their love of humanity like they want to do good that’s how they start that’s why they get in why would you even stay otherwise you know what I mean other than that’s that’s what you want to do um so yeah that’s great man um before we get on I want to talk about your podcast but before that this is a super um popular question there’s a lot of young um wouldbe coppers people in backgrounds um people looking at federal agencies even um that would like to hear some advice from a veteran of law enforcement like you what would you say to candidates getting into it I would say be curious you know be be curious especially uh even even as just a normal patrol officer out there I think there’s something to be said of of always kind of looking and and you know looking at different situations and going hey what’s going on and and plus there’s it’s super interesting right I mean police police work is is very interesting I’d say be be curious I I can’t tell you how many people I I just say stay in shape I mean it’s just got to be a consistent thing that you do throughout your career um you know always always always keep an open mind right it’s exactly what I was just saying which is you know you always I always went into these investigations thinking ah this dude’s a scumbag well maybe there’s a reason maybe there’s not a reason but these guys are people just like you and I and so you got you have to treat them accordingly um I just it’s interesting this younger generation um at least the guys that I’ve seen that are law enforcement in general I think they have the same they do it for the same reasons that an older generation like you and I would do it um but just kind of keep that open mind I would say more than anything yeah good advice man I like that um let’s talk about the podcast brother um sounds like kind of like a a a sister podcast to mine or brother podcast however you say it yeah you know what’s interesting is um I listened to a couple of your uh a couple of your uh episodes and you just kind of narrow it down and I think it’s great because for those of people that want to listen to like the action part of it I think it’s great and I’m not saying that you’re not going to get action out of mine but there was there was really there was really a reason I wanted to figure out why people went into law enforcement and I don’t care whether it was a special agent position I don’t care whether State local Federal whatever so I’m going around and I’m talking to all sorts of different agencies and all sorts of different people for from um you know different states and everything else and so the three questions I try to get answered are why did you go into law enforcement did law enforcement affect your family and did law enforcement affect the way that you see people in society interesting um yeah so those are the three questions but other than that I just want to hear your story I just want to hear uh what people have gone through what other agencies do you know obviously I’ve interviewed some DEA guys I’ve interviewed some Patrol guys I’ve interviewed uh you know some sheriffs some Chiefs of police uh for the next three weeks I’ve got Texas Rangers who I had never dealt with in my career that I’m that I’ve got episodes with them oh very cool yeah I’m interviewing a uh in fact today I’m interviewing a DSS agent and um he has a podcast and I’m listening to him and I’m like I had no idea what you guys do so it’s it’s very it’s very interesting kind of of um listening to what everybody’s got going on and um there are some crazy stories though man I mean like kind of like what what you’re hearing I mean I’ll tell you the one that kind of struck me more than more than anything because I I want I want law enforcement to listen to this I really want people in society to listen to to go oh this is what these guys have to deal with right even better to have non Leo listen absolutely because I’ve had comments on my channel I’ll go oh my gosh I freaking hate you guys but I listen to this interview and I get it I I understand and I’m like man that’s that’s the guy that I really want to want to reach out to and and I’ll tell you what you and I Ted about this before but you had an episode on February 7th with James Morris who was a like xboxer and yeah I I was so I was enthralled with the story but I was so troubled because I think this is what uh law enforcement is dealing with now where he’s talking about this guy essentially getting on top of him and choking him and he’s like I I might die but yet he’s still talking about I could still get my gun and probably shoot kill this guy but if I kill this guy then there’s I’m gonna have all sorts of repercussions and I might get charged it dude that is it’s the worst place to be in law enforcement now where if you hesitate and you can you you can actually get killed I I just like I said I I can’t even imagine being on patrol and I I just want to make sure that these kind of stories go out where you know active duty in particular goes yeah I think I’d rather uh I think I’d rather do what I have to do than uh you know get killed myself yeah and especially him I mean he this a high-p speed guy he he he’s been to war even a guy like that who’s got all the skills the physicality everything about but guys like that even have that in their head when they’re they’re thinking about their own life versus somebody else’s they’re thinking about the repercussion the unfair repercussions they might F I mean we’re we’re putting cops in handcuffs now for murder that this never been the way never been the way and it makes no sense there there’s no in do the investigation you know what I mean like this is It’s Madness and it is scary out there when you start talking about that stuff yeah no it’s it it is it’s it’s totally insane and and you know kind kind of as a side note I I mean like I said I think your I think your podcast is very it’s very connective to mine because I think you’re getting a lot of stories just packed in uh with what you’re doing so I can give a little bit of the background and you know if if I can for a second be like Jean Simmons because he’s always selling right so I if if people go to my channel uh you know I’m trying to direct PE it’s it’s on Apple podcast it’s on Spotify it’s all these other channels but if they my my big place that I’m trying to go to because you just get the reach is YouTube but if you go there and you you hate it you love it whatever just subscribe because people don’t realize that that drives the algorithm and I and I just want to try and touch as many people out there as possible and if you’re interested in some I’ve got some really interesting stories um and I and I’ll talk just about a couple of them Charlie tus from Chicago his story’s been so sold three times he worked in the Chicago public uh housing unit um he’ll tell a story and even you Steve you’ll listen to it and you’re like I I can’t believe what you had to freaking go through I mean it’s it’s insane absolutely insane uh I talked to another guy named Larry Roberts so he started off with border patrol and if you remember uh the book’s lines and Shadow by Joseph wau he was either before after that but he starts off with the border patrol and basically they’re doing undercover On the Border between you know San Diego and Mexico and they’re Justa chasing guys who are rape Robbin and killing people and um you know he told me he had all the stats so it’s like you know most officers don’t ever fire their gun and and relatively shoot you know never shoot anybody but he had the stat and I don’t know what it was but he goes if you if you actually do shoot somebody then the the statistics go up that you’re going to get into another shooting and he goes well how do you account for me I’ve gotten like 14 I mean wow they they were shooting people and going after these Bandidos down in in no man’s land on the border and then he later on becomes a DEA agent and all the stories he he’s are tell he’s telling me are just like uh uh sakario I mean he’s telling these stories I’m like holy crap I can’t believe it and then and then and then the last one is I just dropped an episode with uh and this is like a famous story uh there’s a YouTube channel that’s got like 20 m million views on this it’s a Rangers versus Crips and uh it just so happens that the ranger who was involved in this whole shooting with the Crypt gang members in 89 in Tacoma was a DEA Tech unit uh my tech agent and so he tells this story about this shooting happened when he was in the military and just really really fascinating story but if you want to laugh I did a second part with him and listen to the story about him going undercover and I promise you you will you’ll have tears in your eyes sounds amazing bro sounds like a great podcast absolutely you can get it anywhere all major platforms they can download it specifically go to YouTube check it out and you’re so right about that um when I started this podcast I did it for a year and I got I got guys from lepd and the surrounding agencies to tell these stories that to me were like no credit to me it was just they were inredible and I was getting no listens like none I’m like I was told if you put a quality product that you’ll do good you know what I mean because you hear these stories about these podcasts I did it for a month and I get $100,000 downloads a month you’re like oh cool that will be me obviously and then I’m talking the these stories are incredible and it took like two years to really get the audience to to to to to find it and you have to start to think when you’re especially when you’re in the Leo the blue ocean they say um you start to feel squashed with algorithms you know you have to think like is it figuring out that this is not just about police brutality but this is actually Pro police is this is like police officers talking you start to feel like is this am I am I not making it to the suggested list you know what I mean that type of thing 100% it just kind of feels like it yeah I I just I can’t tell you how many times I drop a video and go oh this is going to be one that watches a lot and then I go you know maybe YouTube doesn’t want this to be seen yeah yeah it’s crazy too because I’m sure you experience this you’ll get I’ll get emails from people that are like love the show I’ve listened to every episode so like when someone actually finds it they love listening and they listen to all the podcast and you’re like wow so this is like it’s good content like I’m got I’m getting confirmation here all the time but I’m just not getting like the broader the bigger um spill out but hey Steve Steve Steve what drives me crazy is you have channels out there that are rea action channels and and I watch them I like them right but you know you’re you’re watching somebody React to what Ben Shapiro says or you know some some some and they have like a 100,000 or 200,000 or 300,000 and I’m like wait a minute guys like Steve and I are putting out original content and I’ve got like you know a couple hundred subscribers how does that work right it makes no sense to me whatsoever yeah it takes a long time it just does but man um the project you’re doing is incredible I it’s so cool you’re going to see people face to face if you ever come up to Massachusetts I’d love to sit down with you sounds like a great time there I’ll be there eventually excellent man I love it um and are you let me ask are you married single how are you does your wife support this do she travel with you I’m I’m married she’s actually in the room right now she I I have my headphones in so um I can’t hear if she’s laugh laughing at me or mocking me which is consistent uh you know my wife told me when I was still with DEA that um I really wasn’t a real cop which you know maybe she’s right but that’ll give you the attitude of how it is at my house uh but yeah you know she travel she loves to travel so um that’s great yeah so I I sometimes I feel bad with her because you know she’ll go along on some of these interviews and it’s like yeah I don’t think this is her thing but you know she’s been a good sport about it I’m sure she’s heard heard enough uh uh cop cop shop talk over the so she doesn’t need to hear the interview just you know just take good care of her when you’re on when you’re traveling and all will be well yep yep for sure that’s awesome man well brother I really appreciate you coming on the show it was an honor to have you uh great stories and I’m really glad we made this connection are you um are you good to oh actually give your social media too so get that make sure we get that out there uh okay so I’m on Twitter at reasons we serve or Twitter X now uh I’m working on getting my Instagram page out so I do have a Twitter at reasons we serve I have a Facebook page again the kids that uh I say the kids the students at blueh house are getting all that dialed in for me so I should have a Facebook page up um YouTube Spotify iHeart Radio um you know just about all the major platforms if anybody if anybody wants to email me uh for um you know interviews as I go along uh go around the country uh reasons we serve at gmail.com that’s kind of the easiest way to get a hold of me okay perfect and I will put a link in the show notes to your podcast and I can put your email there too if you want yeah appreciate it awesome brother hey I’m going to do the outro for the show thank the patreon sponsors um I know you got another interview to prep for do you want to hang out for a couple minutes and I’ll get back with you or we can just talk later yeah no no I’ll hang out with you all right I’ll be right with you brother the great nil Gooding guys um great stories really fun conversation thank you to him for coming on this is a Time in the show when I thank the patreon sergeants there’s two levels you can get patrolman or sergeant if you do the sergeant route you will get a shout out on the podcast who I’m talking about is the Great and Powerful Andy bigs Greg Gad boy everybody Adam mihal ladies and gentlemen the great Chris Jude Gary Steiner the great Jake Pineo John Shoemaker everyone Lauren Stimson the handsome Lane Campbell Seth James Rose the great Tony fee the admirable Ben Peters Jason Lao everybody don’t mess with them Sasha McNab the Great Scott minkler Tammy Walsh holding it down at dispatch William James long that’s Deputy William jumps on to you Shan Clifford Dennis kis everbody can’t believe he’s here Iceman for motorcop Chronicles check him out check out his podcast George Tessier he at church brother the Great Scott Young Thomas Connell everybody Dan Carlson from Burly boards check him out amazing woodworker Doug and Kelly Newman I’ll see you at church you guys love you Elliot Sykes the Great Richard tols keep on trucking Brothers stay safe out there Christian ladies and gentlemen Brad Thompson Kyle Roberts the great Nancy Hammond everybody Zack Haney Clark Lov Adam McMahon oifer Andy love having you my man the great Sheriff Ronald long Bentley good to have you brother thank you Jason La ladies and gentlemen Zachary pleet ja family thank you and the great Jessica King guys the list is getting long and I like it so if you love the show you want to keep the boat afloat patreon is a place to do it the show notes uh the show link is in the notes and I will see you guys next