NOLA Cop Shares Wild Stories: Katrina, Voodoo & More!

This is Things Police See, firsthand 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 Ginger Face, here with you as always, guys. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for being here for the show. Uh and thank you for being interested in hearing these um truly insane stories. I’m so glad you joined us. I’m very very happy with the with the um messages I’ve been getting lately and the people subscribing. So I I really really do uh I love to see it. I love to get the messages from you guys. Um I will confess I did put myself over the last few years on all the platforms and there are sometime I’ve created things I’ve created groups and other things um and I don’t some of them I don’t even like I don’t know how to get to it at least unless I get a notification that someone’s asked me a message. So I found I’ I’ve gone into those recently and found that there’s like been messages that I missed a notification. I just I I don’t know. Facebook doesn’t make it easy man. You have a group in Facebook. It’s like you think it would be simple. You go to the Facebook page and be like, “Oh, go to the group.” It there’s like 10 steps to do it. So, I apologize. You can always get to me directly. Steve steveth things.com. Um I will see that come in almost guaranteed. I check the junk folder all the time and I check the email. So, if you really need to get a message to me, please just just reach me at stevethslyc.com. I appreciate that. And also um you know if you want to be a guest, do you know somebody who who was a copper uh active or retired or you yourself want to come on? I would love to have you. Even if you’re if you’re active um active copper now, we can use a pseudonym. We don’t have to divulge. We can just do an area where you work. We don’t have to divulge where you work or the name of your agency, anything like that. So I would love to have you. These conversations I have every week are um they’re fantastic. The highlight of my week. It’s so much fun to sit down uh with these uh with these coppers and hear just hear the wildest stuff they go to and it’s so cool because it’s it’s so different regionally and throughout the country and depending on the agency. It’s really it’s really fascinating to me and um yeah, I love it guys and I’m I’m glad you’re here. So today’s guest, excited to have him. He did 24 years with Nola New Orleans Police Department. He was a sergeant there. He’s on the crash squad. At later in life, he joined the moed patrol, 47 years old, and learned how to ride. Became the commander of that squad, which is fascinating. Now works for a smaller agency in the great state of Kansas. Without further ado, let me bring on the great David Leang. David, how you doing, sir? I’m good, brother. Thank you for joining me, man. Hey, I see we have similar struggles. I’m sorry. Go ahead. No, thank you for having me. Glad to be here. Oh, my pleasure, man. Yeah, we have similar struggles. We work for smaller agencies and we were supposed to record earlier in the day and you’re like, “Ah, someone’s out sick. I got to go in.” It happens. Yes, sir. That’s a bummer about being a cop, you know, these hours. Well, that and you miss all all the major holidays and weekend holidays and weekends just haven’t meant anything to me since the late 90s because that’s when they need you. That’s when crimes happen the most. That’s when people need security. And uh so that’s when we go to work. Just like when the hurricane comes, we don’t evacuate. We put on the uniform and go in. So that’s that’s all of us. Yeah. My dad told me that when I signed up to do this. He’s like, “Well, I for the first 10 years at least, don’t be counting on being home for the holidays. You know, you’re going to be you’ll be working.” It just comes with the job, comes with the gig. Um, let me ask you. So, Louisiana to Kansas, how do you like Kansas? How do you find it? Any culture shock? Yes. Um, I really like the people in Kansas. I find them as an individually, they’re a lot friendlier and they’re a lot more laidback. uh coming from New Orleans as as you know, yes, Louisiana, but particularly New Orleans, uh we’re very loud and we we tend to be uh really in your face. And I didn’t realize I was like that until I came up here and people see how I talk and people see how I act and they’re like, “Damn, Dave, why don’t you calm down a little bit?” And I’m like, “I’m I’m just being me. I’m not mad or anything. It’s just just how how we roll.” But in uh New Orleans, when you walk into the squad room or you walk into the common area, you have to say hello to everybody. It’s just how we are. If you don’t say hello to everybody, it means you got to beef with someone really. And here, yes, it and here it’s not quite that way. So, I had one of my co-workers came into a room where I was to grab something. He came back again and uh I I kind of had to say, you know, uh can I ask you a question? And he says, “Sure.” And I said, “What the f is your problem?” And then we had a conversation from there. And I just figured out that not everybody is as I don’t know quite how you say it. It’s not friendly, but people here are just not all in your face in your business. It it’s just they’d prefer to just be quiet and laidback. So it’s it’s a cultural difference. Yeah, that’s interesting. My I I never forget my dad retired and you know I’m from New England have been my whole life. So is my family and in New England totally normal not to say hi to everybody and to just be ignore someone. I mean it’s just a the the culture in general in New England is it’s not that they’re laidback, they’re just they’re colder to people. Um so when my dad probably a way to put it. Yeah. He’s just they’re they just won’t warm up to people. But they say, you know, if you if you warm up to if a New Englander warms up to you, it could be a friend for life for you if they really start to like you, you know. But um he started traveling the country with my mom. They bought a trailer and they were going like to California in the southwest. And my dad had this story from California where he’s like, “I’m standing in line at the grocery store. Everybody’s talking to me. The lady behind me is asking me questions. The lady in front of me is saying stuff to me. He’s like, these people don’t just stand in line. They want to talk to you.” And I’m like, it sounds nice. Like it sounds friendly, but he just wasn’t used to it, you know? So, it kind of sounds like the the New Orleans folks are a little bit more like I always I always thought the South was like the people just seem sweeter in general. Even if they even if they don’t mean it, they just seem more cordial. I I’ve heard that and I think that is true in some cases. you get so jaded on this job being a cop that especially my last 10 years in New Orleans, the police weren’t all that popular. Nationwide, we weren’t. That’s a whole another story right there. But uh uh generally speaking though, I see I see what what they’re saying. Like I said, in New Orleans, you got to say hello to everybody. Everybody’s uh your cousin. Everybody’s your friend. And up here in the Midwest, no, not not so much. It’s not that they’re not your friend. It’s just that they got stuff to do and they’re just more about that. So, I guess it’s a matter of taste. I I guess now I can I can do either. I’m kind of used to both of them. So, well, I tell you one thing, cuz in New England, we look at Midwesterners as like super friendly. So, if you would gone from New Orleans to New England, you would have been like, “F this place. These people are jerks.” Probably. So, probably. So, yeah. as you make make your way up to the northeast, people just become uh less and less friendly. I I I don’t know why that is, but it it seems to be true. But then again, if you go even further north and east and go into Canada, they’re nice again. Like the people in New Brunswick and um and up in Nova Scotia, super friendly, super nice. So, it’s not the weather. It’s got to be something to do about the the puritanical influences. I don’t know. Well, I hadn’t been to can uh Canada since I was a kid, but um I I do go to New York occasionally, and New Yorkers don’t talk to you for nothing. New Yorkers are all about they’re looking straight forward or down and walking really fast. But I I I I wasn’t expecting a warm reception in New York. So, I just kind of fit in there cuz I was just about where I had to go, where I had to be, who I needed to talk to, and then and back to my cousin’s place. So, you know, like you said, different parts of the country are just very different. It kind of it’s kind of interesting and it’s fun to explore. Yeah. So, absolutely. Yeah. I don’t think people realize that in um I know they don’t because I see them make videos about it, but like people in Europe don’t don’t understand how like they bag on us a lot for not traveling. Americans aren’t well traveled enough. I was like, “Guys, our country is massive.” Yeah. And within it has its own cultures. It’s it’s it’s very different. So, we don’t need we have every um majestical beauty you can imagine in this country and you could spend your life living here and traveling just America and be totally satisfied. We have everything. We have the tropics, we have the mountains, we have we have desert, we have we have everything there. Um I don’t think they get that that we’re kind of like um we are very we are it to me it’s amazing that we can even function. were functioning under one like president really like because it’s such a diverse place you could if you looked at America and you didn’t have any fornowledge of how we operated you would be like all right this area has a leader this area has a leader this area has a leader and then like they maybe they all cooperate in some way I would never think that there would be like 350 million people all being led by one person because of the diversity of the way the regions are. But that’s a that’s a ball yarn for another story, for another interview. But um David, I want to get into your first hot call. So, a young a young officer Leang on the road. What was the first call you had that like gave you the adrenaline do drop or like really made your heart pound? Well, and and I like to joke about that. I was never that young. I was never as young as the officers that I work with now. I I came on the job at 31. And I was 32 when I hit the street. But the first hot call was really hot. It was my first call off of the FTO program. So I’m in the car by myself thinking, I’m going to conquer the world now, you know, and uh uh it was a house fire. So, okay, the houseire. And the call came out over the radio that there was a 12-year-old girl trapped in the house. So, I’m about to become a fireman with no training, no equipment, and I’m probably gonna die. And I’m thinking that I come up to the house and yeah, it was fully engulfed. And I get out the car. I’m screaming over the radio, you know, get me uh uh it’s it was the NOFD, New Orleans Fire Department. So, get me NFD here. And somebody uh came and told me, “Well, the 12-year-old girl is out. It the only thing that was left in the house was a fish.” So the fish uh passed and um I became a uh a ped not a pedestrian but I became an observer at that point and I up until that point I had never been so relieved in my life because when I drove up I could just see my h myself being forced to go in that house and I would have but again you know with with no training and stuff. So that was my actual first call for service as a uh police officer in a car. So that’s crazy. Yeah. You’re you’re pulling up and you’re thinking like, am I gonna am I going to run into this house? I mean, fully engulfed house fires are probably by the time you got within 15t of the front door, your skin is burning. Well, I I’d have got hurt and hopefully I would have survived, but like I said, when they say someone’s trapped inside, what what are you going to do? So that was a very high pucker factor on that one. And then there were others, but uh as far as the first one, that was it. So, well, thank goodness. Sad for the fish. You’re probably boiled alive. Yeah, I’m sure it was. I’ve been to a few of them where you pull up um and you’re still on the street and if your windows down, right away the side of your face is starting to burn. Like, I mean, the heat is incredible with a house fire. So nuts. Then you got to worry like, are there propane tanks out back? Do they have natural gas? All these things you don’t know like you Oh, and we don’t have we don’t have oxygen. The logical thing to do would be to go in as low as you can and try to assess the situation. But again, we don’t have bunker suits or the oxygen or the training to use any of that stuff. So, as much as we competed sometimes with the firemen, as much as we made fun of firemen, um, I really liked fire and I really like DMS because I didn’t want to deal with fires and I didn’t want to deal with medical. So, I mean, somehow or another as police officers, we always find ourselves dealing with all of the above. But, um, as far as the the training and the knowledge, uh, my my generation still was not did not really receive medical training, I didn’t get a I didn’t start carrying a tourniquet until probably 7 years ago, right before I retired from New Orleans. So, we were I mean, we could stand to the side and say, “Oh, man, that sucks. Oh, that’s bad.” But that’s about it. And and and call the medical professionals and tell them to get here on a code three. Um they have like here where I work now, they have like code red, code orange, and things like that. Code blue, but uh we just used code one, two, or three. And we were always saying three. Three is just get there as quick as you can. So yeah. Yeah, we use priority one, two, and three. I don’t know why it’s not code, but it’s priority. Everybody’s got to come up with their own thing, you know? different everywhere. Everywhere. Yeah. Um Yeah, man. I’m with you. I’m a big fan of fire and EMS because um when I go to a gnarly injury or something where like we’re like the stop gap. like we just do what we can and then knowing they’re coming with elevated training to take over is all makes all the world of difference when you’re doing it because it I mean yes there’s nothing worse than especially for a cop being in over your head with something and not really knowing what to do because we’re supposed to show up and know what to do. we’re supposed to take charge. And when you show up to like a kind of complex medical thing or or a really gnarly injury, maybe something you can’t get a tourniquet on because it’s too high up or whatever. Um yeah, it’s that those are probably the most stressful things to me. Uh I I hate them. And I work in a rural place, too. And our our fire department is actually really good at um getting there pretty quickly. We have a we have a bunch of dedicated volunteer firefighters that are EMTs and and beyond. Um, we even have like a nurse practitioner on the call for us, which is great. Um, but yeah, I I absolutely love it when I know those guys are coming because it’s like some things too. It’s like I just like if if it’s not if they’re not bleeding out and they they don’t need a a tourniquet or whatever. I just like put like a towel over it or let me just cover this with a bunch of uh with a bunch of things so I don’t have to see it. And then the good guys, I call them the good guys. the good guys will come and they’ll uh they’ll hook you up, you know what I mean? But yeah, I can’t imagine back in the day when they were giving you guys like no, not even like first responder training, just kind of like y hold it down. And the and the other thing too is like the crashes have some of the nastiest injuries and it’s really hard when you work at a place with not a lot of people and you also have to um worry about scene safety. So, it’s like, yeah, you have cars bearing down, but you’re dealing with someone who like really needs your attention. That to me is also like incredibly stressful. That that is like, you know, such such a nightmare to me dealing with you can’t do the scene safety because you have an a patient that needs you, you know. Well, we had a a large uh stretch of the uh Interstate 10 uh that ran through New Orleans, elevated interstate, and we’d have accidents and you try to get somebody to divert the traffic down on ground level, but uh there were several times that especially at night, you’d have an accident and then you’d have another accident that just piled into the one you were working. We’re all screaming. We’re all calling for the help from the state police. and then somebody else would crash into it and it would just um it would just keep going and I I remember staying uh quite late several hours after my shift ended on those types of accidents. Then you have to start calling people in from other parts of the city to help you. So Oh, yeah. Definitely. And then there’s always somebody injured in something like that. Oh, absolutely. Hey, David. I’m I’m I’ve been dying to ask a New Orleans guy this question, and it’s about it’s about Steven Seagal, a Louis Louisiana guy. Um, so he had that show where somehow someway he was a reserve copper, but he was also like a deputy chief, which right I don’t I mean, I get he’s a celebrity, but I don’t understand how that works. Oh, I can bring you I can give you the rundown from that. What happened was in the late 90s, about the same time I became a police officer, Steven Seagal did a movie in Louisiana down in the New Orleans area. It may have been in New Orleans, but New Orleans is its own entity. Uh it does it’s not a city within a county or we call them parishes in that area, but it’s the same thing. It uh Orleans Parish is the same footprint as New Orleans. So Steven Seagal uh had his show The Next Parish over which is Jefferson Parish. The uh me the guy who was sheriff of Jefferson Parish was a Chinese guy by heritage. He was of course he was an American and his name was Harry Lee. Harry Lee loved to have famous friends. He was friends with Ronald Reagan, but he was friends with the Clintons. He just he was a big shot in a big uh in a big city basically. And it the area that covered was bigger than New Orleans. So, uh, Harry Lee met Steven Seagal in his maybe Seagal’s Glory days in the late 90s like um Under Siege Days and Marked for Death and that time period. Yeah. Oh, hell yeah. I love those movies. Yeah, I did too at the time. So, Stephen befriended Harry Lee. Harry Lee made him a reserve uh deputy. Uh I don’t know if he started out as a rank like maybe a reserve sergeant, but he was definitely reserved. So technically, and only technically, he was a police officer. So every once in a while, he would come down and train uh Harry Lee’s deputies in martial arts, which would have been Aikido or something like that, and shooting, which uh Steven Seagal was reportedly very good at shooting, just as Ke Reeves is now. Uh I don’t know. I’d never trained with the guy. I’m just saying as the years went past, he kept getting a bump in rank to the point when he had his show Law Man, he was now a deputy uh reserve deputy chief. And um the show was absolutely ridiculous. But what was great about the show was or what I find ironic is Stephen Seagull pretended to do on TV what I did for real, right? We would hit the street in the task force unit, which is what New Orleans called it. We would look for dope deals. We would look for dodge intrepidants, which at the time were almost all of them seemed to be stolen. So, we would chase and we would run and we would fall downstairs and do all the fun cop stuff. and uh Steven Seagal on the other hand, cuz I knew a couple of the guys on on on the teams in Jefferson Parish, they would go and a real street crimes unit for Jefferson Parish would find a crime in progress or a dope dealer or get some guns off the street. And once it was all code for and that’s they don’t use that term where I am now, but that just meant everything was calm now. The suspects were all in custody, no danger anymore. Then Steven Seagal and two other chiefs that were in a car with him would roll up on the scene. Yeah. And what they do is they take the guys out of cuffs. They say, “Look, don’t try nothing. We’re with the Steven Seagal show.” And oh man, Steven Seagal for real. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh you’re going to have to sign a waiver and just, you know, play along. And they would do that. So Steven would come up like he’s the one that caught the bad guy. And he’d talk bad to him and he’d say, “Hey, what’s this?” or he’d pull a gun out of their pants that had been previously cleared and unloaded. I’m not joking. And the the guys on the street, the little we we we called them the little daddies or the little knuckleheads or whatever, but the the guys on the street were so thrilled that they were getting to meet and actually be in an episode with Steven Seagull. Most of the time they would sign the waiver. Yeah. And they did not get paid for that, but they got they got a little bit of bragging rights. Sure. And and as a person to meet him, he was such an [ _ ] I mean, you you got to wonder sometimes, you know, was this guy ever cool? I mean, was he ever good to people? But no, he he was he was Oh, yeah. He looked upon I met him when this same sheriff I spoke about Harry Lee. When Harry Lee passed away, a lot of law enforcement from all over Louisiana came to pay their respects. Uh, rightfully so. I think I lived in in Jefferson Parish for a very long time and I thought he was a good sheriff and um I actually met Steven Seagal at his funeral and Steven Seagal had no time for anybody that wasn’t either Steven Seagal or a female with um a well-endowed female shall we say really. And that’s all Steven had. And that’s how he got in trouble. He his show ended because he now allegedly I wasn’t there. allegedly he had uh I don’t know a cleaning gal or some female trapped in a room and wasn’t allowing her to leave. He was never I don’t think he was charged with kidnapping or anything else but that pretty much ended his show. Then he went to Arizona and then now he’s doing I don’t know 10 movies a month for streaming movies or something like that. Uh that doesn’t doesn’t shock that was the story though. He he he never worked like, “Hey, Stephen, you need to come do your reserve duty, so you need to give us 25 hours this month.” Like most reserves would work. He he just came and went like he want as he pleased. He had super celebrity status and that’s that’s how it went down. So So in New Orleans, the sheriff is the ultimate authority or or in Jefferson County, the sheriff’s ultimate authority. He can just kind of go boom, you’re deputy sheriff, you can carry a gun. And here’s your badge. Absolutely. Absolutely. And any any parish sheriff has a lot of authority. A a sheriff and this is nationwide is elected. So they have a lot more authority than a city chief who is so post doesn’t matter and none of that. No. No. Or they can make post not matter. In other words, um now I’m I’m not saying anybody forged anything. I think that um there there were always special commissions. So I believe that Steven Seagal was just basically, hey, he’s in the reserves and that’s all there is to it. You got a problem with it, you can argue with the sheriff. And nobody’s going to argue with the sheriff of a county or a parish. So that’s how that went down. That’s funny, man. Thank you for telling me. That’s so funny. He is an odd guy. I mean, you can’t deny it. He just he he just is um you can tell he’s pretty full of himself in interviews and stuff and he’s always he’s always trying to be overly zen and like you know it’s it’s just apparent. But I remember watching the show as a fan of Steven Seagal because the movies were so cool when I was younger. Mhm. And I remember seeing them seeing them do like an OUI like this guy’s hammered. And um basically the guy his only punishment was this like a stern talking to by Steven Seagal. And then I don’t know what actually happened but in the TV show they just let him go drunk like drive his drive his car. I’m sure they probably arrested the guy and like didn’t let him leave, but in the TV show it was Stephen Seagal saying, “Hey, you know, you better you better, you know, we don’t have time for this because there’s real crime, but um you better get right home or whatever it is.” And they just let a d a drunk leave. And I’m thinking, there’s no way in hell that this sheriff’s department is going to let a drunk driver leave the scene on camera. And it it just it just was unbelievable to me. And I could tell and the other thing about him too was like they’d have him like in roll call at the front desk like like he was and being a cop, you know, like you can decipher what’s going on. You’re like he’s holding roll call like the guy like he worked the shift before or knows anything. Like he doesn’t know anything probably what’s going on, but he’s at the roll call. He’s at the front of the room at the podium or next to the podium when another chief gives a roll call. And I just thought in my head like there’s no way other than the celebrity status, there’s no way these guys are taking marching orders from Steven Seagal. There’s just no way. No, their rank is on board. And I’m sure their rank and again I wasn’t there for any of it. But I’m sure their rank said, “Hey, just smile for the camera, nod your head up and down when you know Stephen says anything.” And um and then it was just on with the show. So I I uh New Orleans hosted Bait Car for a while and I got to do some takedowns with the Bait Car team, but they were always they were always cool. We had no problem with them and they would use New Orleans officers undercover to do their bait car. That was real in as much as they would set up a car that had a kill or remote kill switch. Somebody would take it, they’d shut it down, and then we would jump out and take people into custody. So, um I mean, you know, if if Harry Lee was gave, uh Steven Seagal the old, you know, bless you my son, P, you know, do what you want, then he got to do what he wanted. But, um, you know, like I say, he he was a celebrity and I think he made some really good movies, but the man was absolutely never a police officer. That’s almost stolen valor, but they don’t call it that when when it comes down to police. So, it is what it is. Yeah. Yeah. You imagine that if the US government was like making honorary Marines and then like letting them go overseas and sit at the the training desk. It’s like, come on, guys. All right. Well, thank you, David. I that was so freaking interesting to me. Um, can you remember back in your career to uh the strangest or most bizarre call you went to? Well, bizarre. New Orleans was a very bizarre place. Uh, we had we had a lot of suicides and one time it was in the French Quarter. The call came out that someone had committed suicide. So, I go up the stairs and uh in the French Quarter, the ground level is all businesses. It could be a t-shirt shop, a gift shop, a strip club, a bar, lots of bars, and that’s on the ground level. Second and third level are always apartments. And they have been subdivided over the years multiple times. So you will have a one-bedroom apartment, and they share a bathroom down the hall. So I mean, at one point, maybe 40, 50 years ago, this was a house for an affluent person, but they’ve done anyway. So, we go up the stairs and we walk into a room and this room is from a horror movie. There is a pentagram on the floor. There are uh there are blacklighted uh posters. If you remember back when we were kids, you’d have a poster and it would reflect in a black light. Real scary stuff. Hell yeah. And there was the guy standing there looking at us. And um if I I didn’t have any room to jump back 20 ft. If I’d had the room, I would have made the jump. And I’ve always been a fairly large person, if you know what I mean. So, that would have been weird to see in and of itself. What he had done is, and he still had his top hat. He had a black cloak and he was dress dressed total goth or like somebody you would see that was a warlock or something like that, which was not that uncommon in New Orleans. But what he had done is he had hung himself but only enough so that his feet barely touched the ground. He was suspended behind his neck and I think it was looped or tied around the top of a door and down the back of the door to the doororknob. So he had just barely it wasn’t swinging like you might see in a in a cowboy movie, somebody being hung by a tree or anything like that. And uh sure as heck he was he was ice cold. He had been hanging there for some time, but just barely hanging. And when we walked in the room, it almost looked like the corpse had come alive and was was there to greet us. And I will never forget that. Um it that was not that uncommon in New Orleans as far as the suicide part of it. But just that scene and if if we’d have had if we’d have had smartphones back then, I’d have pictures of it even though that was strictly not allowed. But I mean, come on. You’re going to take a picture of something like that. But, um, oh, back around 2002 or so, uh, if sometimes we had disposable cameras, and we certainly weren’t supposed to have those either. So, there was no way to to preserve that. But uh yeah, as far as the scariest one, the another terrifying moment, but this was terrifying for another reason was uh 3 days into Katrina, myself and my task force team at the time, we called ourselves the dirty dozen because there was a dozen of us and we were pretty dirty by that point. And we had gone down to guard or to secure the New Orleans Convention Center. There were about 3,000 dirty, hungry, thirsty, and very angry people that were there. And everybody was outside because the heat, you know, it’s it’s early September 20 uh 2005. We could hear the gunshots going off inside the building, but we couldn’t go in to put a stop to it or to investigate it. There’s only 12 of us. We never we would never make it out of there alive. So, we would call it into radios that did not work. And as the as the as the night fell, I didn’t I didn’t know if we were going to make it through that one. I I I’m I’m thinking when the crowd surges forward and decides to take us, we got to we have to get out of there. We’re not going to certainly not going to shoot into the crowd. We can’t arrest 3,000 people that are giving us a problem. And being the oldest uh the sergeant was my age, but being the oldest patrol officer, I was 39 then. I’m telling everybody, look, when when that crowd starts towards us, don’t ever anybody be a hero. We’re getting in these vehicles and we’re getting out of out of there. We have to go. But I didn’t know if we were going to make it, but interestingly enough, these enormous helicopters, and they were Marine Corps helicopters, landed in a field close by. And the Marines didn’t just get out of the of the helicopter like we would have like, “Hey, what’s going on? What do we need to do?” They came out and they formed up fast. They formed up in crisp military precision, which I wouldn’t know anything about. I’ve never been in the military, but they looked damn good. And the crowd picked up on that. And you were all Yes. But the crowd, the tension level just started to drop and they formed up and uh whoever was in charge of them, the officer or the sergeant was shouting commands and then they just turned and they marched towards us. And the closer they got to us, the more the crowd calmed down. And there was just this sense of, okay, authority is now here. Some authority is restored. And I’d never been so I I could have hugged one of them. I’m glad I didn’t, but I was never so happy to see a group of people in my life. And then after a few hours of kind of sort of assisting with people getting on trucks or the worst the people in the worst shape, the diabetics that were dying, literally small children, the very old, they got on the helicopters and everybody else, they started loading into trucks and the and it was over with. That little bit little event of Katrina was over with. Then those folks got to where they needed to go to get help and uh after working about 27 hours without a break, we got to go get some sleep. So, but I thought really for the first time cuz I was pretty confident when you’re young and you’re wearing that body armor and you got a door to kick, you think you’re invincible. That is not the case. But, uh that was the first time that I really thought we weren’t going to make it. I just had this feeling, you know, the hair on the back of your neck kind of is prickling you a little bit. And I just thought, I don’t know. Yeah. And I said to to the other guys, I said, “Hey, I don’t know if we’re going to make it, but we’ll be able to stick together.” But we did. Thank Thankfully, we made it through. Damn. And what was it? What was um I know Katrina was happening, but what was the the focal point of this this um civic unrest? Why were they Why were they there? Well, when parts of the city flooded, they moved the people that lived in these flooded areas. They went and got them with those uh I don’t remember what they’re called now, swamp boats. You know, they got the aircraft engine, aircraft propeller in the back. Yeah. And they moved them one of there were two places they moved these people to with no plan whatsoever what to do with them once they got there. That was the Louisiana Superdome and the New Orleans Convention Center. Now, I never made it to the Superdome, but the Superdome was horrible. Uh, people got uh raped in the Superdome. A couple of people got killed at uh the convention center. And uh later the powers that be came forth and said, “None of that happened. That was a rumor. You know, it was safe there.” No, I was there. It was not. That was a lie. Yes. And uh they were telling us the the people in the convention center said by Hall H. Several people came to tell us that um that uh there was a guy who had um essayed do I need to use YouTube language here that had done something inappropriate with a 14-year-old. The crowd took care of that. Made sure he would not do it again. Wow. And he was laying by Hall H. and I kept calling it in, but I was calling it in to no one. The radio didn’t work. I wanted the crowd to think that we were doing something. Yeah. And um to this day, I don’t know where that went, but again, we could not go into that convention center. There’s only 12 of us. And we would have to go in as a group. And as I said, we heard gunshots intermittently uh because some of the local gangs had been moved into the convention center along with everybody else. So I don’t I And it was dark. there was no electricity. So, uh we we did not make entry. Later the SWAT team did and they took uh uh photos, media photos of the SWAT team clearing the place. Sure. But um yeah, don’t don’t get me started on SWAT teams in general. If you were a part or are a part of one, no offense, it’s just SWAT for me always stood for sit, wait, and talk. And we would um we would always compete with the SWAT team as far as tactical stuff, training, the equipment we used. So yeah, I uh I never played well with the SWAT team. That that aside, you know, good guys on the teams across across this country. Excellent people on those teams. So I don’t mean to disparrage anybody. I just didn’t have very good uh interactions with the ones in New Orleans. So Gotcha. So I have a question for you. Um, so New Orleans is it seems to be very Christian, but also has this I’m Christian myself. It it definitely in any movie you see. All right. Awesome. I love that. Any movie you see, there is this voodoo, this dark underbelly of um is it Cajun or Creole? Like where does where does the um you know the killing the chicken and the pentagram where the the witches where does this all come from? Voodoo voodoo originally came from Africa with the slaves and it it it uh modified or it was modified with Catholic practices because New Orleans is a Catholic town. Yes. Uh going way back to the slave days when most people were Catholic. beautiful old churches there, old parishes and stuff. And so that uh voodoo is just a reality, but it’s more of a cultural thing than it is an actual practiced religion if you can if you understand what I mean. Uh certainly you have Marie Lavo, a very famous New Orleans practitioner of voodoo. Yeah. She’s buried in St. Louis Cathedral number four. No, number two, I’m sorry. and um as a backdrop, as a source for scary stories for kids, as something that uh can generally frighten people in general. It’s there and it’s part of our culture. Uh when you have Halloween, it’s part of Halloween in New Orleans. It’s when you go down to the French Quarter, there are two very large voodoo shops. But what I’m trying to say is it would be very hard for you to find a voodoo church, if you will. It would be very hard. You would have to be invited. Uh I do not I don’t ever remember something like that being the source of murders. Uh so I don’t think that’s going on. I think it it over time it evolved as more of a a uh cultural point of interest. And it’s not it’s not really a major religion even in New Orleans now. Um uh the New Orleans is still primarily for Christians is still primarily Catholic and and I I am a Catholic as well. Nice. Um, there was there was one time we were doing a warrant on a house and it was not in a historic area and you wouldn’t think anything of it and I opened up a closet door inside the home and there was a voodoo display in there and I don’t know much about the religion itself. So, uh, I don’t remember seeing a headless chicken or or you know body parts, nothing like that. But I remember there was a picture. It almost looked like a plant, but I think it wasn’t so much a plant as maybe uh some sort of animal horns or something. And there were stuff draped on it. But the minute I saw that, I closed the door. I said, “Nope, nope. Not going to fool with anything in that closet.” And we didn’t. So all all of us New Orleans natives, we have a weird fascination. where a denial and a fear all at the same time about voodoo stuff. So where I see something that I think might be voodoo and I just I just shut the door and we did not open that closet again. I don’t know. I hope they didn’t have a whole bunch of guns and dope stashed behind this thing that I saw. But uh as far as my experiences that that’s what it was. Like I say, it you you can’t look up if you if you were to look up on the internet a voodoo church, it’s going to be uh tourist. It’s it’s not going to be it’s part of the culture. It’s part of the mystique. Yes. Yeah. That’s the word I was trying to find. The mystique of the area. Yeah. Yeah. It’s funny because it’s, you know, I’m I was born in I was born Catholic, raised Catholic. I’m a confirmment in the Catholic church. Now we attend a Lutheran church that is LCMS Lutheran. It’s very it’s very it’s a very Catholic church. We do communion and baptism, the whole thing. Um it’s very similar. Um, but like so like when when I show my kids a movie like Coco, that movie from Disney where Yeah. they kind of the culture, the Latino culture kind of melds into Catholicism. And how how do you explain that to your kid where it’s like it seems Christian? It seems Catholic, but also there’s all these these added beliefs to it, these added kind of kind of spooky things to the church where you’re like that that’s not what we believe. It’s fun to watch, but it’s like you don’t want your kid to like start believing like, “Oh, that that’s true. there’s a rainbow bridge to the and the dead come back and you know what I mean it it gets confusing the the Hispanic uh cultures I think that’s something called Santaia which again was a combination of some other elements and Catholicism. Yeah. And um uh it’s it it it to a lay person it has similarities to voodoo. If you spoke to a practitioner of either they’re they’re going to have a problem with lumping uh those uh different religions together. But I I know exactly I know exactly what you’re talking about. They I mean when they were uh formalizing their practices, there’s always there was always Catholicism and the the statues of the saints and crucifixes and things. So all that got incorporated into these al alternate religions, if you will. And as a uh as a Catholic from New Orleans, there there’s a along with the mystique, as you said, there’s a little bit of fear there. There’s a little bit of ooh, oh man, something wrong with this. Do not touch. You know, big nope factor. And there still is. Even though I’m not going to you’re not going to find any of that where I am now. So that’s Oh, no. Not in Kansas, brother. Not at all. Yeah. Oh, man. That Yeah, that that is that stuff is so interesting to me. Um, David, do you have a a most intense or most terrifying call? Yeah, let’s see. Well, there was one that I was always a big uh We’re talking about Steven Seagal and I was also a big uh Arnold Schwarzenegger fan back in the uh 80s. I’m the mother. We’re we’re basically the same person, David. Yeah. Well, I’m I’m older than you. I was class of 1984, just to let you know. But um the uh one night and it was foggy which just added to it and I had uh I had kind of graduated from the task force unit that I’d been in because I’d been promoted to sergeant. Once you’re promoted you’re they move you. So if you’re in task force but you get promoted now you’re going to be back on patrol for a while. And uh but even but I didn’t like my lieutenants, so I still hung with my old team to some extent. So I’m I’m hanging out with them and we’re just talking I you’ll probably edit this out, but we’re just talking [ _ ] like all cops do all the time. Yeah. And we hear the gunshots. So, okay, gunshots. We all know what that is. We start spreading out. Now we’re looking for the source of it. And what I find is I look and I swear I saw a guy hanging upside down from a very tall fence. And if you remember in the Predator movie when the Predator would skin people and he would hang them upside down and that was a thing for the sequels to the Predator movie as well, right? And that is what I saw and my brain did a WTF like what in the god’s name is this? So, we ran up to the guy and he was still alive and he was yelling. What had happened was uh there was a dope deal in a backyard that had gone bad. That’s hence the gunshots and he had run but he is shot several times center mass. So he had run he had managed to just climb to the top of this fence and there were they weren’t sharp but there were spikes on top of the fence and he fell cuz he’s starting to lose the ability to run and climb and as he fell the the fence caught his uh his uh shorts that he was wearing. So he’s hanging upside down on a fence covered in blood when we when we walk up. And I mean you can’t you can’t make this stuff up. and it looked like uh one of the victims of the predator, but he wasn’t skinned. So, we cut him down and we got him on the ground. And what is kind of sad is I kept asking him cuz cops do this. I said, “Look, who did this? We’re going to try to get this guy. Who did it, man?” Man, and and you could He’s starting to go into that breathing now. It has a name, but we called it fish breathing. I think you know what I’m talking about. Yeah. And he’s And I’m like, “Dude, I said, “Come on, just tell me. We’re going to find who did this to you. I didn’t tell him he was going to die. I was trying to tell him you’re going to be all right. Ambulance was coming. EMS got Well, I you know, I’m trying to do the right thing. The ambulance got to us, but the am one of the EMTs looked at me and just shook his head. And I’m like, really? That Yeah, he didn’t. He coded. And um they did transport him to the hospital. They didn’t leave they didn’t leave him there with us. But uh yeah, he didn’t make it. And uh I I was I wish he would have told me more information just so that we could have better work the case about who shot him. I think ultimately we we figured it out. But uh whenever somebody dies in New Orleans, it becomes the the responsibility of the nar uh not narcotics, the homicide unit to take care of. So they they take over that investigation, but seeing a a bloody person hanging upside down screaming on a fence. Uh I mean that would never happen again in a million years, but it happened that night. So that’s nuts, brother. Yeah. I mean, I’m not surprised. New New Orleans is a hopping city. There’s a lot going on there all the time. It just I mean I I can’t imagine the money they spend for like Marty Gro like you must call in every agency surrounding for overtime detail pay. Oh we do. Marty GR is a two week well it’s 12 days but it’s almost a two week non-stop party. Now there are two sides to Mardigra. I don’t know if it was if I broke it down in that video I sent you, but um what happens is there is a two week long party. It nothing’s free. You can’t call it a free party. You can see a lot of stuff for free, but that’s in the French Quarter. And in the rest of the city, you can see a lot for free. Mhm. Exactly. But nightly in the rest of the city, they have a lot of parades. And that’s more for the locals. Although certainly tourists can go to them. you you kind of need to know what parade to go to and what parade to avoid. Certainly what area you should avoid cuz pickpockets and fights and things happen to people. But um Sure. Uh yeah, it’s um the city makes millions and millions are spent on uh law enforcement. Everybody works overtime. We call in Jefferson Parish. Some Marty Gro does have Steven comes and takes care of everything, man. Maybe he did. I don’t know that that’s a scary thought but I don’t remember I don’t have any Steven Seagaloring Marty GR stories but um different parishes other other parishes in Louisiana would come a lot of state police a lot of correctional officers so and everybody gets dumped into the French Quarter because the French Quarter becomes a literal mad house as a matter of fact I tell everybody don’t visit New Orleans during Marty Gro you can you get the the great food. You can see the sites. Uh study the history if that’s your thing. All the fun stuff that you think or or a person not from New Orleans thinks Martyra is. You can get that year round. But if you come during Mardigra, you’re not going to get a hotel room. It’s going to be super expensive and you probably will get beat up if you hang out on the French in the French Quarter too long. It happens. So I bet. What what is what is a really great food dish that people wouldn’t necessar necessarily know about that is happening in New Orleans or during body? Like what is what is a great dish? I’m just curious. Jambalaya is one of my favorite New Orleans. Jambalayia and Gumbo. I think everybody’s heard of them. Yeah. Well, what’s interesting to think of is um jambalayia and gumbo, an affluent person in the history of New Orleans wouldn’t touch it. That is strictly poor people food. Uh and not necessarily slave food. Uh and I I can’t I’m not a historian. I don’t really want to speak about too much to that. But at one time uh jambalaya is a rice dish with seafood and shrimp and possibly uh crawfish and things like that. Gumbo is a seafood stew and my wife uh makes an e makes excellent gumbo and and jumbolaya. Very easy to make and very good. So good. But um people may not realize that in the in the old days if we’re talking around 1800 and before uh again affluent people that lived in some of the nicer neighborhoods of New Orleans and they’re still there. I mean not the people obviously but the homes are would not have touched anything like that. You ate gumbo and jumbolaya and rumalot and things like that because um the the the the plantation owner got to eat steak. Okay, that’s where the money went. Uh the uh the the stuff that was left over, stuff that you could catch in the bayou or you could fish uh and and like I said, rice and things like that and and crabs that you could catch, blueads and things, crawads that that was strictly a poor person’s staple. And now you will pay a lot of money eating thing eating those things when you go to one of like um oh Antoine’s or something like that. You’re going to pay a lot of money for for that poor people food. So isn’t that funny? I’m I’m from a a place called Cape Cod. It’s a peninsula sticks out of Massachusetts. And my grandmother told me she said, you know, cuz lobstering there is a huge thing and lobster, as we all know, is a lot of money. It’s expensive per pound. One of the most expensive seafoods. And she told me, “Back in the day, you would send your kids down to the shore because lobsters were so plentiful, you could literally wait into the water and grab lobsters. They would send the kids down and say, “Don’t let anybody see you, but grab a bunch of lobsters for supper because that was the food of poor people because these are bottom feeders in the ocean.” And Boston had a prison where they fed the prisoners lobster all the time. And as soon as that flip made was made where it became a delicacy, they stopped feeding the prisoners lobster and the prisoners rioted. So once a week they started feeding the prisoners lobster. Wow. To keep them from rioting. So, same same idea like crawad, lobster, like they’re basically the same creature if you look at them. They were they’re bottom feeders of the ocean. Nobody want them. That’s what poor people ate. And now you you go to get lobster at the restaurant, it’s $50 for a freaking Yes. for we and growing up in the Cape, we used to call them bugs. You know, how many bugs did you get? Like sea bugs, you know? It’s just so funny how stuff like that works. As soon it makes that it makes that flip. It makes that flip from commoner food to now very uh expensive and expertly prepared in a fancy restaurant. So yeah, they pre- crack it for you and there’s melted butter and all that, you know. It’s it’s so funny. That’s so interesting. Um David, can you tell us about a positive or heartwarming situation you’ve dealt with in your career? I’ve had quite a few. Um one one time, and this was something I was personally proud of. I didn’t Awards for valor were given in New Orleans to people who the rank smiled upon. And I think that’s everywhere. I mean, you know, it it it is what it is. Politics. Yeah. So, um I I got very few awards for whatever I did in New Orleans. And that’s fine because it I got it in here. I know how it went down and that’s all that mattered. But I was late for work and my sergeant was mad at me. He he he was cool later when I told him the story. So I passed by these two people in parkas. Not many parkers in in New Orleans area, but anyway, we were on an elevated expressway over the over the I 10 and I noticed two people and they were kind of on the edge. You know, maybe at that point they weren’t sitting on the railing yet, but they were there. And I thought to myself, what are they like workers or something? And then you know, you get that cop feeling there’s something wrong here. So I said no. So I stopped and I start walking towards them. These people because I’m in uniform. I got my lights on. The back lights on the police car are on. And one guy stops to look at what’s going on and another guy piled into him. And I looked and then I I just kept going. I said, “Good. Now they’re not going to hit my police car. There’s something blocking blocking it for and nobody was hurt on that one. That was just a fender to bender. And I get there and there was this guy standing, young man. I mean, these two were in their 20s, young man, young woman. And I said, “What what’s going on?” And he said, he said it just like this, and I’m going to do a bad impression of him. He says, “Uh, my girlfriend’s trying to kill herself.” And I said, “What?” and I reached over because now she’s sitting on the railing and down from her about I don’t know 30 40 50 feet is the interstate. So I grabbed her and thank God I outweighed her by 100 lbs. So I I wasn’t going to go over had she gone. I grabbed her and I yanked her bodily up and down on the ground. Then she started to fight just struggle. I mean not not sure Steven Seagal fight. And uh she said I just want to die. I just want to die. And I said, “Look,” I said, “You’re not dying on my watch. You can die tomorrow, but today you’re going to live.” So, I’m struggling. And of course, boyfriend is being no help to anybody. He didn’t stop her from going up there and he didn’t help me with her when So, I managed to make grab my radio and call it in. And that’s when the cavalry shows up and we got her uh secured. And of course, a situation like that, she’s got to go to the hospital now. We’re not going to we’re not going to charge her with a crime. although I’m sure you’re not supposed to play on the railing of the above the interstate, but uh you know, so she’s going to go to the hospital and I told the guys that that responded, I said, “Look, I got to get to work. Y’all got this.” And they said, “Yeah, yeah, we we’ll we’ll call you if we need any information.” But they it’s pretty obvious what what happened. So that was one of the best feelings that I had. Nobody nobody came and told me or patted me on the head and said, “Gee, Dave, you did a good job.” But when you’re you’re satisfied with yourself and something that you did, and I don’t know, these two might have chickenened out. Who knows? If I’d have just said to myself, man, I’m late. Whatever that is is none of my concern. I mean, you don’t know. But, uh, I know you you we we talked about Christianity a little bit. Every once in a while, I feel like I am in the right place at the right time. Not every time. Not every person who I’ve pulled over and gave a ticket for going 10 miles over the limit was a bad person. Not every gun I got off the street necessarily was a life saved, but we do it anyway. It’s not about numbers. It’s about why we do it. But every once in a while, I felt that I was in a place that I needed to be. and then I did the job I needed to do. And that that was one of them. Yeah, that’s beautiful, man. I love that. Yeah. I mean, hey, I think we can both agree that God gives us our vocation and Yeah. You have it for a reason and it’s part of um it’s part of it’s it’s just part of I I tell you, I like how you said that God gives you the vocation. I wasn’t worth a damn before I became a police officer. I I tried to be an engineer like my father my my Chinese father had been. But I had that GermanIrish brain I got from my mom and that so the engineering part wasn’t going to happen. And then I did like everybody that goes to college but doesn’t quite make it. You go into sales and or you I sold cars and I did stuff that really ticked me off. I wasn’t really enjoying and nothing stuck or I didn’t advance until uh I started this crazy job. So, I mean, it was definitely worth it for me. And I tell I tell younger officers that it’s sort of like a variation of the old cliche, you get out what you put into it. But as long as you’re careful, as long as you you got to go home at the end of the day, but you also want to stay home. Don’t do something that’s going to cause the feds to come drag you out of bed later. You know, you gotta you gotta be so careful in this world today. But if if someone asked me, you know, is it worth it? Or even um I I don’t have any children, but if if I had had a son or a daughter that wanted to go into the job, I would have told him, “Yeah, I’ll help you. I’ll help you get there, but you you get out what you put into it. This can be the best job on earth or this can be hell on earth. It just depends on uh how you how you play it. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I believe it’s a vocations are given by God and it’s part of our good works. Part of your good works is embracing your vocation. If you’re uh you know a custodian somewhere, be the best custodian possible. Be happy. You know, praise God. If you’re a police officer, firefighter, the same thing. That’s part of our good works is taking our vocation and and embracing it and and doing it. the very briefly here and this isn’t this isn’t part of my story but my dad was a World War II veteran but he fought in the Chinese army against the Japanese so there was no veteran benefits or honors for him here was an immigrant who loved America I didn’t know what the Chinese flag looked like until I went to high school but I knew what the American flag looked like cuz it was flying outside my house that’s how my dad was at the age of about 40 which is about the age I found well I was younger than 40 but at the age of about 40 he made it to New Orleans and he got on a bus to go work in a Chinese restaurant as a dishwasher. I mean this this dude my dad had commanded thousands of troops and he was going to go be a dishwasher but he was going to do what was necessary. Now he started talking to a college professor that he met on the bus and this guy convinced him to go to Delgato which is a community college in New Orleans and my dad retired many years later. He’s passed away now, but he retired as a uh aviation a professor of aviation mechanics and basically doing what you know. My dad asked this guy on the bus, well, if you want me to go to college, what do you do? And he says, well, I run the uh aviation program at this uh community college. So, that’s what my dad did and that’s what he was all the time I was growing up. So, yeah, God sends you your vocation. Absolutely. That’s very cool, brother. I love that. Um, popular question for the show. Um, people who are in backgrounds are thinking about being coppers. Is there, believe it or not, I get emails from people that hear the men and women of law enforcement tell their tell their tales from the job and they decide to actually do the job. So, uh, we’re making baby cops here, which I think is amazing. Um, what is some what is some advice you would give to police candidates getting into it now? So much is in the public eye now and you have to be so careful. So be very careful what you do both before you’re a police officer when you’re in the application process and as as on the street everything is social media now. Everything you do is going to be on a camera somewhere. So act accordingly, you know. And um I’m not saying don’t don’t steal and and don’t beat people up for no reason because that’s a given or it should be. But um everything you say, everything you post, uh it it lasts forever and you have to be aware of that. So many officers get in trouble. They you might have an opinion. Um, we had, and I’m not going to mention any names about this one, but um, we had one of our officers, they did a a traffic stop and the kid was backing up 8 years, so he didn’t want to go to jail, so he comes out the car shooting. Two of our officers got shot up pretty bad. No one died. Well, he died because they they fired back and shot him. this friend of mine um his taser wouldn’t come out of the holder later because it had taken a bullet that he didn’t know about. And our mayor and chief of police at the time made a big point about embracing the shooter, the shooter’s family and all of this kind of stuff. Uh we’re going back to probably around 20 2009 I believe. So anyway, the the senior rank and the politicians were embracing this kid’s family and they were chanting, it wasn’t quite the BLM movement yet, but they were chanting justice for Justin cuz this kid’s name was Justin. And my friend had a lot of survivor guilt. Not only the officers died, but his two friends got all shot up and he he came out without a scratch. So, one night there were people on social media that were attacking his wife and he made a statement similar to on social media similar to if you live like a thug, you’re going to die like a thug and he got fired for that. Wow. And I understand why he made that statement. I probably would have done the same thing. He didn’t say, “I wish I could kill more people,” or anything like that, but it was politically charged at the time. Yeah. And um that was something that our um our city administration was not going to tolerate and uh they fired him over it. Now I think he years later he was able to maybe join a a small town department or something like that. But uh you know so my advice to younger officers would be more so than my generation. You have to be so careful what you say and what you do on and off duty. Off duty does not mean you’re out of the public eye. So I would almost say like when we were young and coming up through the academy and they we were warned that there were friends that you need to not be friends with. You need to sever some ties. I remember that talk. Yeah. If they’re in the Yeah. If they’re in the that’s family also if they’re in the So now I would say there are practices and things you do that you’re going to have to disassociate with. Even to the point one pet peeve of mine was telling my younger officers. I was a I was a sergeant for 15 years in New Orleans and I would tell him, “You’ve got to stop going to bars. It sucks. It’s bad.” It’s like, “Well, why don’t I have a freedom to go to a bar?” Because if anything happens in this bar, if you get into a fight that’s not your fault, you are going to get in trouble. And dog on it, it kept happening. Yeah. If you if you leave the bar drunk and you get pulled over, they are going to come at you harder for a DUI because you’re held to a higher standard. There was a time when another cop had just let you go, but those that’s long in the past now and you cannot depend on professional courtesy. Uh, and so like I say, it it it I know it’s tough, but if you want to preserve your career, if you want to make it to my level where I have a a halfway decent pension from the state of Louisiana, you know, and I don’t have to work as hard or worry as much, um, you you have to make some sacrifices. And the sacrifices might be you can’t post your opinions on Tik Tok or Facebook like you may have been able to do before. You can’t go to bars. And yes, there are some friends you might want to avoid. I would definitely recommend don’t date strippers, but that seems to be a pitfall that a lot of cops fall into. But I would I would recommend against it, but absolutely. Uh Dave now, I agree, we are in murky waters now. Um and and I find I do this podcast and I give my views on some things. Now, it seems as though I could be in hot water for espousing my Christian beliefs, which is which is something I never thought would really be a thing because Christianity was our country. I mean, country was founded on it. The laws are founded on Christianity. The founding fathers, I think like 55 and 56 of everybody put the document together were like legit Christians. Not only that, they went to church every every Sunday. So that puts me in a weird spot where I’m like because I will never shy away from from the gospel and sharing that in my my Christian beliefs, but it really does kind of put a target on cops where it’s like you depending where you work and I work in a politically charged area. I work in the Northeast. Um I I interview cops from all around the country. In some places it’s not a big deal, but where I’m at, like I I think about that a lot. I think about like I mean my Christian beliefs are not really any different than Charlie Kirk’s and people in the Northeast are a lot of them are happy he’s dead and celebrated that. So I would say uh if you are Christian that is one area I think we can’t back away from and if you know if I were to lose my job over it what can I say? Well we’re we’re not we’re we’re neutral in that we’re not judging people based upon their religion. But I definitely agree with you. I’ve never found a reason to hide my own beliefs. When I was much younger, I used to protest abortion clinics. And I guess if id got arrested doing that, I might not have been a cop later. I I really don’t know. Right. But I’ve never and I and I’ve gotten into I I’ve lost friends over my views on abortion. I’m extremely anti-abortion, which I think definitely all Catholics should be, but I think all Christians should be. But um definitely got me in trouble where I work right now. But now when I say trouble, I just mean, you know, maybe some some weird comments and things like that. I I did not um I didn’t get in trouble with the uh with the administration over that, but um I’m I’m not afraid to mention it. I’m not afraid to talk about it, but uh dayto-day mo most people here basically are Christians. Um, we might have a few that identify as something else that they weren’t born as, shall we say, and they would probably have a problem with that. But, um, oddly enough, the death of Charlie Kirk affected a lot of people here. Uh, and, um, it it was it was horrible. It was sad. It has inspired uh, a lot of people here to both um, speak their mind politically and go back to church. So, and I I’ve seen that happen. Yeah. Now, I I don’t know about New Orleans. New Orleans itself was extremely progressive and um I would run into that all the time. I was uh I would just, you know, just deal with it. There was a lot you couldn’t talk about in New Orleans. And um and I agree with that. in uniform. I try to unless I see some unless I’m on a call where I see an opening and someone I know I can get the feeling that they’re Christian, I’ll start talking about it. But I’m full I fully believe that like when we’re in uniform as police officers, there’s nothing more unattractive than a cop in uniform talking politics. So, I just don’t do it because we are there to serve everybody equally. And and I think the saddest thing about this whole Christian push back is in the police world is you really people don’t realize it but you really want Christian cops. We are loving we we are we serve people. We are not taking that we’re not taking we’re not um persecuting people when we work. We’re looking at it in more of a a loving nature when we take care of the community. We are not we we are not bigoted or biased in our service as police officers. We are we are doing our vocation. We are taking care of it. Doesn’t matter what what your beliefs are or or anything else politically. we are there to serve the community and we’re going to do that and we’re going to hold ourselves as Christians to the highest standard of care for you. And they really think we can’t parse they really think that we’re not forgiving and that we’re not loving and that we’re not that we don’t love our neighbor and but that is like a tenant of what we do. Yes, I I agree with you. But most people pe I saw police officers go from being more or less trusted and more or less respected in the late 90s to absolutely mistrusted u in say around 2015 or so. And it was a it was a collective society buying into an absolute lie that police officers were brutal. That pre and what really started that was the Trayvon Martin case which did not involve police officers. That guy isn’t that crazy? It’s okay. They blame us for that. The guy that kicked that off was a security guard of some type. I don’t know. I’m not really sure what he did and didn’t do. I wasn’t there. I know what was reported, but that kind of was the spark. And from there, um, everybody seemed to lose, uh, uh, faith, lose trust in officers. There was a time when if a police officer was coming to the stand, it was a benefit to the prosecution. I saw that go to in New Orleans if a police officer was coming to the stand and if it was a jury uh trial then the police officer was a liability. The um you were better off as a DA not calling a police officer to the stand because people would and they coup they coupled that with Michael Brown. I think that’s what happened the Trayvon Martin. Yeah. Well, um, people in the media who were not necessarily our enemy would always say these little things like, “Oh, and you know, we all know that, uh, there has to be drastic changes in policing in this country.” I saw drastic changes before it was demanded. I saw drastic changes from 1997 to 2007. I saw backing backing away, trying to be more of a uh dees doing deescalation and we all lived through that. And right about the time that New Orleans had it had had really no officer involved incidents, very few officer involved shootings was the time when the national protests hit and now all of a sudden we’re bad guys again. And that’s like what did we do? A few police officers were made it into the public eye. In some cases, the cases were not what people said. It was a lie. For the cases where they did catch bad cops, I’m sorry. There are bad Walmart managers, too. It it is what it is. The the vast majority of us are doing this job for the right reasons. and to be drugg across the the collectively drug across the coals like that and and all labeled as somehow crooked cops. That was something very difficult for me to come to terms with. I you didn’t have a choice. I mean, you could get out of it. I don’t know. You could go be a Walmart manager. But, um, you know, nobody considers that. What they consider is, well, the cops are bad, so they need more training, or they need to be prosecuted themselves, or we have to do this this big drastic thing to make cops good again. And um all of that was a lie. All of that was you took maybe five really bad incidents um and you labeled us all. If I label a person now as a thug or a crackhead or a meth addict based upon what they look or who their family is, then that’s not that’s not accepted. Then I’m a bad person if I do that and I don’t do that. But that was done to us. Yeah. Nationwide. And we are experiencing the fallout from that now. We have a shortage of police officers where I am right now. And the ones that take it up don’t stick. A lot of times they leave and they go they leave here and they they they leave law enforcement and they go work in the aircraft industry. And that’s a big thing in Witch in the Witchita area. And uh it’s hard to keep these good people and uh from corrections, law enforcement, I think first responders period, but definitely law enforcement. It is hard to find people to do this job now. And I think a lot of that is because of what happened when when potential officers were in high school. That’s when all that protest stuff was going on right before COVID hit. And um it it tarnished our reputation. It damaged the the image of the job and I think for no reason meaning I think it was a completely uh undeserved. Yeah. So I totally agree being a cop. That’s what I think. Yeah. I totally agree and we I mean like you said I mean the deescalation thing I’m gonna barf if I hear one more one more city manager talk about deescalation. It’s like yeah we we as cops we’ve been training on that word for 30 years. Like we we know all about it. Like and and and also don’t forget deescalation can involve some use of force. I mean, it’s not just talking the bad guy down. Like, why didn’t you just talk to that homicidal maniac? Use of force is considered a bad thing in every case. And some a police administration, some police admins are like that. It’s like, yeah, but whenever you need force done, you call us. You don’t call firemen. You don’t call EMS. when you need somebody removed from a situation because there’s a threat because they are violent because people are going to get hurt if we don’t step in. We that’s what we have to do. But that the idea of force is now it I think people really believe that all we need to do is negotiate. All we need to do is sit down and view view both sides and take and you know uh a lot of times we don’t have the time for that. Come on. If everybody’s rational, you can definitely talk reason into every single person. It seems that way when the rational people are the ones voicing their opinions, but they got a lot of people out there that aren’t rational. And there’s still a need. There’s as much if not more of a need for law enforcement as there ever have been as there ever has been. But there are just u less of us. And my generation is absolutely on its way out. Most guys my age are retired now or thinking about it. I’ll be gone within 5 years. No doubt. Um and uh it’s okay. That’s that’s time progresses, you know, but uh uh I just hope that uh the generation coming up behind me can uh can handle it. I I hope at least better than I’m seeing now. Well, we’ll see. Well, that’s the that’s the I mean, I’ll let you go here soon because we’re going an hour and 20. But that’s the great irony. Yeah, I got to go soon myself, but the great the great irony of police reform is that um it’s caused people not to want to do it. And so now we’re lowering standards. And so now you’re actually going you’re actually going to get the officers that you don’t want that are going to violate your rights that shouldn’t be cops because you’ve created this [ __ ] storm and we can’t get the people the the the dudes that we wanted. So now we’re going to get these people we lower the standards for and then it’s self self-perpetuating snake eating its own tail thing. I don’t want to get anybody particularly angry, but we’re getting too many correctional officers that move over to uh to trying to be cops and they they uh some people need to stay in in corrections. They they uh it’s just a a pet peeve of mine. I I know some guys came from corrections or that’s how you got your start. In some communities, if you join the sheriff’s department, they’re going to put you in corrections whether you want to be there or not. Kind of prove yourself and then come out. And that’s fine, but um like I say, exactly what you said, some we’re getting some people in almost out of necessity that don’t really need to be here. So, as you say, it’s just that snake eating its own t that’s that perpetuation. And um I don’t know. I I I wish I had uh some answers. Just do the best we can. Keep fighting forward. You can’t retreat, you know. Yeah. Well, hey Dave, thank God for guys like you that will do a career like you did at uh New Orleans and then continue on serving the community where you’re at. Um it’s it’s truly awesome. I I love the interview we just had. It was so great and I’m truly honored you came on the show, Dave. Thank you so much. Well, thank you very much. It was nice. It was good uh talking about this stuff. Um uh hit me up again sometime. I’ve I got nothing but stories and I have a big mouth. So Well, that’s the exact kind of guests I need, brother. So I I definitely will. Can you hang on like two minutes when I do the outro or do you need to go? Uh I kind of got to go. I’ve got a dinner uh to attend for that that the the guy I told you I had uh uh unfortunately I buried him on Saturday and I’m looking at the time now and I got to get ready for that. But um all right, brother. We’ll get out of here. No problem. Thank you, sir. Uh like I said, honor to have you and um yeah, let’s link up and uh let’s do another one. Sounds good to me. Thank you so much. All right, brother. Take care. The great David Leang, everybody. Uh what a fun interview. So cool to have somebody on from New Orleans PD. Um just such a such a crazy crazy city. And he took his u he took his skills and he’s uh he’s helping out a smaller community where he lives now in Kansas, which is which is just so cool. Uh this is a time in the show when I thank the Patreon sponsors. you guys. 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