NYPD Anti-Crime Unit

This is Things Police See, firsthand accounts with your host Steve Gold. Welcome to the podcast. It interviews act and retired police officers about their most intense, bizarre, and sometimes humorous moments on the job. It is I, Old Gingerface here with you as always, guys. Great to see you. Thank you for being here. Um, yeah, man. It’s been uh it’s been a summer so far. It’s been good. We uh I have to highly recommend a product to you guys before we start the podcast. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen them, but those little pools you can buy for like$100 or $200 and like they go they’re like above ground and they’re like 10 feet wide and like 30 in deep. Uh they’re legit. We got one of those for my boys and uh they freaking love the thing. Comes with a little filter. You can put a chlorine floater in there. It’s uh it’s wild. It is uh it’s it’s very cool. We put um fortunately we put it in the shade in our yard so it is like 60 degrees. So they went out I got home from a road job and I went back in the backyard and their lips were purple. But uh uh yeah man I highly recommend Intex Pools I think it’s called. Uh more importantly don’t forget to support our sponsor. Check out Proforce Law Enforcement. Got the hat on right right here. They have great They have really good merch and and also uh guns guns and gear that you want for uh for being a copper. Great prices. The link in the show notes will bring you to a special landing page where you will get um really discounted items. I mean that. Check it out. Don’t take my word for it. Go and check that out. Uh excited for today’s guest. Uh I’ve been have I’ve been eyeballing him for a while online. and he’s in a we’re in a mutual group chat of a bunch of uh uh coppers in there that do uh that have podcasts and do social media and I’ve just been trying to um just you know slowly pick them off one by one uh drag them into uh things police as I can and he was um very kind to respond. He he’s got quite the uh moniker uh attached to him. Most complained about NYPD uh police officer in history if you ask the civilian review board which uh which I like. He was uh before he was a copper was a US Marine. Then he did 18 years NYPD retired a lieutenant and hosts the podcast New York’s finest retired and unfiltered who I’m talking about is the great Eric Dim. Eric, hey, how you doing, brother? Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. And by the way, you’re not the only ginger one here. So, all right. You got another one in the room. I liked it. I we got to stick together, man. I uh every time I see ginger kids, I’m always like, “Where’s your sunblock?” And the parents always chuckle. It’s like my my little dad joke. That’s funny that you talk about sunblock is I I got this app now. I don’t know if you heard about it. It’s called Yuka. Y U KK A it destroyed my life because you scan all the items and it tells you like what’s bad for you. And then now I go to the grocery store, I can’t buy anything anymore. You scan it. Even sunscreen, dude. Everything’s like, “Dude, sun sunscreen’s been blowing my mind for so many years.” And I always ask my dermatologist, I’m like, “Does it is it good or bad? Is the sun good or bad? Is it is the sunblock giving me cancer?” Cuz I’ve had a bunch of skin cancer. And my mom like lthered me up. I never like even really peeled or or blistered from the sun, but still, I’ve had melanoma twice. And she’s like, she’s pretty honest. She’s like, “Listen, it it’s got some stuff in it that’s not great.” She said, “But it really does help to keep the mutations down in someone like you and whatever.” She said, “So, it’s not it’s not the best, but it’s she’s like, you better use it than you don’t, but and but at the same time, I’m like, h she is like a dermatologist like that. This is like their thing, you know.” No, I hear that. Listen, I know that’s family, but you know, I don’t have too much trust in doctors, but you know, when it comes to sunscreen, I always hated being the guy that looked like, you know, looked like Casper put all the white stuff, so I just wanted to brave through it. I knew I knew my limit, like 30 minute intervals. All right. 30 minutes of putting t-shirt on. Me, too. Absolutely. Uh, Eric, I understand you are we’re we’re doing this uh I mean, amazing technology here. We’re doing this interview and you are in Alaska. Oh, yeah. I listen, I’m a New York City guy. I grew up in New York City. I was a New York City kid. But when I retired, September 2022, uh my wife and I, we sold all our stuff. We donated half our stuff, including our house, and we jumped in an RV. And uh so for the past three years, some could say we live everywhere, and some could say we live nowhere. So, right now, I’m in the 49th state of Alaska. It’s awesome, dude. That’s unbelievable. What is um And you guys drove there. Yeah. Oh, yeah. What is What is that road like, dude? I’ve seen it on a map and that’s about it. That’s a great question. So, you know, most New Yorkers make the drive to Florida back and forth. That’s kind of like if you’re in New York, you have you have to do the drive to Florida. Oh, yeah. That’s a smooth ride. This ride, I’ll never forget, I’m driving, you know, up through Canada, through British Columbia, and you get through the Yukon. And then as I started to go through some stores and I see shirt says, I survived the Alaskan Highway. And I’m like, what is this? Uh oh. Guess what? I I shirt’s important because it gets crazy. It’s a It’s wild. It’s bumpy. It’s gravel. It’s mud. I mean, by the time I got to Alaska, my RV looked like it went to war, dude. Yeah, that’s sketchy, too, cuz you can easily break an RV axle. Like, they’re not all that heavy duty. You You would be screwed up there. I I was stopping every like maybe every hour just to like because I was panicking. I was like getting anxiety like, “Oh my god, it’s to make it.” So, I kept pulling over and I was checking everything and you know, my wife was like totally oblivious to it. She’s like, “It’s fine.” And I’m like, I don’t know. It didn’t sound too good. Yeah. Yeah, man. We made it, dude. So, is how like how long a stretch would you go on that road um without seeing like a house? Oh, once you hit British Columbia, it’s it’s it was a there was a couple of days where I didn’t see anything. I saw one bear. I saw a bear on the side of the road. We got out. We were taking pictures and the bear paid no mind to us. But, uh yeah, there was a couple days I wasn’t getting any service. Uh, you know, thank God for my stalling. Um, but even with that, I was having some trouble. It was just nature. Just nothing. Nothing. Damn. Yeah. I wonder if the um the coppers up there even go out there. They They might pass through there like once a week or something. I didn’t see any cops for a long period of time. I didn’t see any police. Even Alaska, I don’t see much police other than Anchorage. Not really much. Yeah. And that’s like the biggest city, right? They have like a million people, don’t they? 500,000 or something. Not even 700,000. Even that that that is an accomplishment to me to get that many people living in a city in the great white north. I was telling you, I don’t know if you had a chance, take a look, you know, let your viewers know. Also, there was an incident happened on July 20th outside a club. It was pretty wild. Two mass men started melee and they shot two security guards and one security guard went to his truck, came out with a rifle and saved the day. So, definitely check that out. Yeah. Yeah, man. You got to be you got to be reliant up there. I mean like the security like there’s no like city security who just calls the cops on every little thing. The security up there handles business. Sounds like they sure do. You know, I’m surprised too. I learned that Anchorage is actually one of the most diverse cities in the entire country. Surprising, but it’s actually I was a little disappointed. I thought it would be nicer. It’s there’s some cool spots, but overall they you can see they’ve been hit by crime and they’ve been hit by some politics. Really? Really? I would never imagine that, man. I didn’t think so either. I was surprised. A lot of homeless. Man, that sucks. Hey, my cousin lived up there. She lived in Homer and she man she was a GM, I think it was, for um an inn that was like way out on a peninsula, the outermost um resort or something. But she said if you move up there, they they they’ll give you for each family member you have, they’ll give you like six to eight grand. Is that is that are they still doing that? Not as much anymore. There is a and by the way that’s called the Homer spit. That’s an awesome spot by the way. That’s like a little college town. A lot of nice places, bars around if that’s a great spot. So every year there’s a yearly stipen because of oil that Alaskan residents get. But uh it started to get less and less that they give the residents. I think they get about maybe 2 three,000 a year as a stipen. Oh free that’s something. But I think they I mean this is probably 10 years ago but I think she said they were getting like six grand each. I’m like, damn, that’s kind of I have a family of five. That’d be kind of sweet. I’m like gonna get an Alaska driver’s license for that. Yeah, hell yeah, man. Are you guys going to stay up there for a while or you just kind of just kind of lingering? Probably till September. We’re going to see how it goes cuz September get kind of like the foliage, the trees start to change. It’s really nice. And then see how it goes because, you know, once it got it starts getting cold in the RV, it’s tough. I don’t want to take a chance on bursting some of the pipe. So, I’m playing it by That’s the good thing about an RV. If it gets cold, drive away. Yeah. See you later. Dude, that’s so cool, man. Good for And your Is your wife retired as well? Yeah. She used to manage a dental office for many years. I was like, “Listen, let’s go. You know, let’s retire while we’re young. Let’s have an adventure. We’ll figure it out. You know, if we need extra money, we’ll figure out.” I saw a great documentary that kind of inspired me alo also. I think it was called Surfs Up or something like that. And there was a guy, he was a doctor. Did he all his career for all that. Yes. He had nine kids in in a in a van. I’m like, if he can do it in a van, I can do it in an RV. So, yeah. Yeah. It’s been it’s been it’s been a hell of education. Yeah. Hell yeah, man. I did a similar thing. I I did after I had 10 years on the police force, I um we rented our house in Massachusetts, quit my job, and we drove cross country in a camper to California with no no job lined up, nothing. Just um just checking the country out. We had two kids at the time, came back home with three. And we did that for like four years just just to do it because we felt like that. We’re like, you know, we’re, you know, we we grew up here. We know this area, but we never seen the rest of the country. And, you know, we’re we’re able-bodied. You know, we can we we’ll be okay. We’re smart people. Smart enough, I guess. You know what I mean? Smart enough, right? Smart enough. The my favorite part from that that surf documentary you’re talking about is um one of the kid when they, you know, because they interview the kids and uh a lot of it gets weird when he’s like, “Oh, yeah. They my parents would just make love.” in like with us all present like in the van or whatever because there was no space. Um but he said um he remembers once they pulled into like um I don’t know if it was Mexico or Southern California and his dad slapped his hand on the little table they had and opened it and there was like you know like 50 cents and he’s like that’s all the money we got. And then he started laughing hysterically like like he was so pumped about it. I remember that the father I think he I think he slept on a dime. He said this was his last 10 cents and he he was excited about it. It’s like a challenge like how do how do we keep going and I think the father was a little bit of a freak. That was that was the thing. Oh yeah, totally. Totally. But yeah, I I thought it had some great takeaways and you know I’d be I’d be pretty daring too if I had an MD after my name. You know, rack up some funds pretty quick doing some clinical work. Eric, you still there? Eric, come back to me. There he is. [Music] Gotcha. I I don’t know what happened. It kicked me out. I’m sorry. No, no problem, man. Not at all. Um, anyways. Yeah. Um, let’s get into the questions, bro. Let’s get into your career a little bit. Can you can you go way back to when you were a young uh patrolman, patrol officer to the first, uh, hot call you went to? The first call that really uh, you know, gave you a little bit of adrenaline dump. Oh, that’s uh, that’s interesting actually. It was it was an adrenaline dump, but it was funny at the same time. So, I’ll never forget it. Literally was my first day out of the police academy walking a beat, walking a foothold. At the time, I was walking the area called Park Hill. So, it’s a private development, but it’s run like City Housing. It was a rough area. It’s where Wuang Clan is from. So, it’s in the one it’s in the confines of the 12 priest in Staten Island for the NYPD. It was my first day and uh I never forget it was with a couple of other rookies were walking a foot post and here comes a big truck and it was a couple of plane closed warrant guys. They came out, whipped out their shields and you know you’re a brand new rookie. You’re in uniform and you’re kind of excited like these guys are coming to me. So they whipped out this picture like look there’s a guy we’re looking for right now. He’s wanted for a homicide. He’s like listen if you see him pick him up. like, “All right, you know, you want to sell, you know, meanwhile, you know, can I say this, but your [ _ ] puckering up, you’re brand new.” They’re like, “But all right, you know.” Yeah. I mean, I served the com, but still, this was this was a new this is a new beast, right? Yeah. He drives away and we’re like, “Not going to happen. We’ll never see this guy.” Yeah. Right. Not sure not shortly shortly thereafter. Sure enough, we see the guy and we took off. We had a foot chase and I’m a brand new rookie. You know, as a rookie, you got all the stuff on you. I’m running through through the buildings, chasing him. Everything’s falling off. I’m picking everything up and then we get him outside and he starts reaching for something. We drew down on him. We got him in cuffs and it was just like the timing. These guys are like Superman. They swoop swooped in. They picked him up. They’re like, “Ah, thanks, kid.” He’s like, “I’m going to put you in for the assist.” They drove away and I remember like, “Wow, they’re going to put us in for the assist.” So, for about a month, I’m looking for where’s this assist? So, I finally see him. I’m like, “Did you put us in?” He’s like, “Yeah, I got you, kid.” So, I never got I think it was one of the union delegates. He was laughing at me. He said, “There’s no such things. There’s no assist. Guy took it.” Oh, man. We We had a good time. You know, it it it’s fun when you’re a rookie, right? You get clowned on. You got to enjoy it. You just got to kind of let it roll off your shoulders. But yeah, we got him. It was a It was a hell of a first day, dude. That’s awesome. I always hear that from the guys that work at big cities, like, “Well, it was day one.” And then immediately in the action, oh yeah, you just you just get thrown right in, you know. And even like that, I served in combat and I thought, wow, I’m prepared. But it was just a complete different animal. It’s you can’t compare. It’s it helps being in the military, but it’s a different animal. Yeah. Yeah. There’s a lot of pressure. I mean, because you’re you, like you said, you got people the the propensity to clown on you when you knew you when you’re new, you know, is high. And then also like there’s there’s like all kinds of like legal ramifications like did I do it the right way? Did I check all the boxes? You know what I mean? It’s like it’s um you know it’s it’s a lot when you’re new. But that’s awesome man. That that must have felt freaking a you must went home like on cloud9. Uh man it was super cool. I remember you know me and the other rookies were like high-fiving each other. It was all exciting like getting this assist. I thought I thought this is something that’s going to my folder but it was hilarious. It still worked. It makes for a great story. I’ll put you down for the assist, kid. That’s great. Yeah. Like, where is this? Like, you know, and at the time, you’re brand new. These guys, honestly, they might have they might have to me, they looked like they wore capes, you know, it was so cool. They were in a a Ford truck. It was a big truck. It’s unmarked. They’re in plain clothes, you know, big burly guys. Shields around. This is cool. Yeah, it is. It is intimidating when you’re brand new. And like it seems like the old the veteran guys that just know everything. you’re like, “Wow, I’m never going to know like what to do in all these situations. These guys just seem to know it.” But it’s like they’ve just seen it so many times over and over and you know, five, six, seven years in, you’re like, “Oh, I get it.” Yeah. And then when you realize, too, when you finally get to that point, you’re like, “Those guys weren’t as cool. They thought they were, you know, then you realize.” That’s awesome, man. All right. That’s great. Can you tell us about like a really strange or bizarre thing you dealt with on the job in New York City? Every day. Every day was bizarre. I mean, there was wild. Of course, I would say what was bizarre. One time we had a call and you know that was kind of new at the time also doing patrol and we got a call. A woman was in distress and I’ll never forget you know at the time we’re knocking on the door and nobody’s answering the door like what’s going on here you know. Well, we hear screaming and we hear Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, get get me. I’m like, what’s going on over there? Nobody’s answering. I said one of the guys, go check the back. We couldn’t get in. So, I remember we we busted the door. We got in and there was a lady. She was butt naked and she was like, you know how if you were a kid and you do like the angel thing in the snow? Yeah. She kept doing that and there was blood everywhere and I’m like, oh my god, what the hell happened here? you know, and she’s screaming, you know, Jesus did it to me. Jesus did it to me. Like, you know, you realize you have somebody who’s emotionally disturbed. It’s like, what’s going on here? I’m looking on her body. I’m looking for cuts. I can’t find anything. So, we start, one of the guys said, I got her. I start to walk around and then I went to the bathroom and I just saw a couple of tampons and there was blood everywhere. I’m like, okay, I see what we got here. Women be crazy on their periods, right? And you know what? That was just like a typical day in New York City. Yeah. Yeah, man. That that just reminded me of um when you’re talking about the the Jesus thing. Um a friend of mine uh asked me the other day. He’s like, “Hey, have you rewatched The Exorcist like in your adult life like recently?” I’m like, “Um, no.” I said, “I do remember seeing it when I was like, I don’t know, 20 years ago, seeing it again and being like, man, it is like I saw that when I was like 11.” like the it is so disturbing with the like with the uh dude it’s so it’s by today’s standards it’s so bad and I’m a Christian guy so it’s like it’s also hugely offensive to me when I watch it which what she does with the crucifix and then like the priest is like talking to her and she’s like your mother’s in here your mother you know s’s uh sees in hell I’m like oh my gosh I’m sorry brother I don’t know why I got off in that but no you know it’s funny but you watch a movie like that now and you’re like there’s no way they would make that movie now. Like times have changed, right? And people like, “Oh, dude, it’s so bad.” I mean, I I Googled it and and the um the Catholic Church went wild about it when it came out. They were cra I understand why, but they were like, “This should be removed from the from from the mo the movie thesaters. This is ridiculous.” You know, dude, it is that movie is so cute. Like I mean I guess maybe I’m more of a helicopter parent than um my parents were, but it’s like we don’t like I there’s no like uh real opportunity for my kid to sit down like sneak away and watch The Exorcist or like you know something insane like that. But when I was a kid, it was we go to a sleepover. We’re 10 years old and there’s just like stacks of just inappropriate movies. We just drink them all in when sleeping. What is that? Like how funny how times have changed. Like I think about it too. I’m I’m kind of like you. You know, with my kids, I wouldn’t let them watch the things my parents let me watch. Back then, I used to watch Michael Myers to the point I was like terrified. I couldn’t sleep. I like, “Wow, my parents let me watch all this stuff.” And now I’m like, “You can’t watch this. You can’t watch that.” But it was just a different time, man. We we grew up different. Yeah. Boomer parents are a little bit more uh a little bit of free freerange chickens, you know? They’re like, “Yeah, you know, go ahead go out, take it easy, honey.” I remember uh Yeah. I remember watching like Nightmare on Elm Street and like in and Halloween and like uh I watched that movie it uh and I dude I couldn’t I would like had a serious like six months of disrupted sleep. I I got like three hours of sleep for like six months. I wake up all frazzled in the morning like Well, Halloween scared me the most cuz Michael Myers came out during the day. That was the part that scared me like I’m on my way to school. Is he coming? Lops your head off on your bike. Bam. Exactly. Oh man. Yeah, it was the 80s 80s and 90s though, man. It was It was a fun time though. Right or wrong, brother. I’m glad I grew up in that period, you know. Uh I’m with you. I You know what? I got it. I agree with you. Like, you know, I’m sure it’s probably the same deal with you. My parents had no idea where I was. I think they would say like today like you would you would be terrified like, “Oh my god, where are my kids?” My parents had no idea. They called me, “Oh, time for dinner.” you know, and then the the narrative of the house is like five houses from there. They heard and then they call that your mother’s call for you. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, dude. It’s I mean, my mom would I remember one time she was like um uh cuz we lived in a really busy uh tourist area on Cape Cod, so there’d be like, you know, year round there’s like 6,000 people, but in the summer there’s 50,000 more people in town. And she’s like um I came home at like when it was getting dark for supper on my bike. I’m like 10. And she’s like, “Oh my goodness, I was so She’s like,”I saw a little a red bike up town and some somebody had hit a kid and I and I was, you know, I thought it was you and but all this time passed before the time I came home.” But she she’s like, “I think I was just worrying too much. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t your bike.” But she didn’t want to be, you know, she’d be embarrassed to call the police and be like, “Oh, my son.” So she just waited till I came home. So we thought that was funny. Oh, thank goodness you’re alive. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I saw you bite, but I I didn’t care to stop to check. I didn’t think it was I was 85% sure you were good. Um yeah, it’s great. Um Eric, can you tell us about your most um intense or terrifying call that you went on? That’s a great question. Uh so I would say I was a brand new rookie again. You know, I think about my time as a rookie. Those were the times where things were scary because you it’s new at the time and and and you know with policing un unfortunately but fortunately at the same time a lot of the reason why things go bad or terrifying is because not only are you afraid of of the actual call but it’s the embarrassment internally, right? What what are the other guys going to say? Y I think that’s what a lot of it was. So I’m never I was a brand new rookie. I was doing patrol. I’m in uniform and I was working with another guy who was in uniform and and back then unfortunately you know I had six months more than that guy and I’m I’m his mentor and we went to a call it was a domestic and never forget we get into this house and it was a husband and wife and the wife went upstairs and she said oh my husband’s over there but she said he’s legally blind. So sure enough, we see this guy. He’s a big guy. And uh he’s legally blind, but he knows his way around the house really good. And I’ll never forget. So we’re trying to figure out what’s going on. But he he ran into this kitchen and it was kind of like those real narrow kitchens and there was no way out on one side. So it’s almost like you get through a culde-sac, right? You get into this kitchen. It’s just very narrow. And I chase him into the kitchen and he’s at the end. He opens up a drawer. He takes out a knife. And I’m brand new now. And now I’m with locked eyes. I’m in this small confined space with him. And he raises the knife up, you know, and I’m like, you know, drop that effing knife. Drop that effing knife. And I’ll never forget to this day, the amazing how your training kicks in because I took out my gun almost like it was Dirty Harry. It just came out so smooth. My gun came out. And I’ll never forget just thinking about and just think about now how much worse it is in my head. What’s going through my head? Oh my god, this guy is legally blind. He’s black. I’m a white brand new cop. And if I have to shoot him, this is bad. And at the same time, at the same time, I’m giving him directions to drop that knife and I hear the other rookie that’s with me. I won’t give his name, but he’s screaming on the radio asking for help. And I, you know, I’m like, “Don’t worry, I got it. I got it.” So, you know, of course, and this is why I talk about embarrassment. I don’t want the other guys to know what’s going on. You know, so I get on the radio. I’m like, “Don’t worry, everything’s under control.” Meanwhile, when I keyed off the mic, I’m [ _ ] my pants. Oh my god. Finally, I got him to get distracted and I pepper- sprrayed him and then I tackled him. So, that was a real close call to the point and where I actually had my finger on the trigger. I’ll never forget because I always preach keep your finger off the trigger. I had my finger off the trigger. Thank God I didn’t have to do it because I knew the optics would have been pretty bad. Yeah, man. Yeah. You and you went you went way beyond what you had to do, too. I mean, I I noticed that when I went to California, people were getting shot by the police all the time. But I think they they really lived and died. They’re a little bit different than like the East Coast, Northeast. Like, if they could, they would. Like, if you had a gun and you were like 20 feet away, they’re like, “What’s up down?” But it’s funny when I hear Northeast guys and and East Coast guys talk about stuff like this. It’s it and this is all um you know antidotal, but it seems like on the East Coast a lot of times we go a little bit further to try to like muckle them or or do something different rather than just light them up right away. Proforce Law Enforcement, the best damn cop shop in the nation. Whether you’re purchasing for an entire agency or you’re an individual officer looking to buy firearms or duty gear, these guys are the best in the biz. Pro Force has law enforcement exclusive pricing and is the place to be buying your guns and duty gear. They carry all the top industry brands and the guys and gals that work there understand exactly what law enforcement officers need. Special discount link tps.proforceonline.com. Um it’s u deeply discounted items just for listeners of this show or you can go to proforceline.com and shop the whole place. Place is unbelievable. You can also visit Prescott, Arizona in person or Brea, California in person to get hands-on with the gear. All the context up is in the show notes. Thank you, Proforce. I can’t agree with you more. I think, and again, I have to agree with you. Mine’s anecdotal experience also. And I think that when it comes to that, I think in the Northeast, because of optics, because of the media, I think that we have a far more restraint. And I do think that we’re uh less likely to resort to the to to pulling the trigger than other places. Now, I’m not don’t get me wrong, if I this is why there’s a difference between what’s which I always say is law in, you know, inspired by man and law that’s inspired by morality. Because could I have pulled that trigger and shot him? I yes, I would have been justified. But morally, I knew that there were I could have taken steps to not have to fire that weapon. Yeah. And uh and that’s what it is, right? There’s a difference in justification. I do think there’s a difference between man’s law and morality. Yeah. Yeah. I would Yeah. I would say the same thing. I would call morality like God’s law, you know, the morality we get from God. Absolutely. Um Yeah, you’re right, man. And that’s um it’s it’s a it’s a real shitty situation to be put in that as a cop, too, where you’re like, you know, some guys will just they’ll just be like, you know what, I’m going home and I’m not going to put myself out there at all and I’m just I’m just going to drop the hammer, you know, and and end this thing. But, um you can definitely sleep better at night knowing that you you went you did as much as you could not to do that. I think that’s what people want out of their cops, you know. Well, I think that’s what it takes, right? Is being a good cop, right? And I would always say that’s the difference, right? I think it’s honorable to be a police officer, but the ultimate goal is to be a cop. I think that is what justifies and legitimizes being honored and referring to yourself or other people considering you a cop by humanizing other people and actually doing what’s right by morality rather than what you can by law. I mean, in almost 20 years experience, I ran plane close units, anti-rime as a sergeant, and a lieutenant, in an active priest and as a uniform cop, and I never fired my weapon. And I could I could think of countless times I could have been justified to pull that trigger, and I didn’t. Now, I’m not saying there are cops that have been involved in two and three shootings where they had to fire, and I’m not saying they’re wrong, right? But for me, that was one of my goals to not have to fire unless I have to by by exhausting every means possible as a last resort. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. It doesn’t mean they’re wrong. Every situation is so is so different. Um but yeah, man. And that that’s on the flip side. But it takes a real special person to like I don’t know safely navigate that. Like there cuz now now we’re seeing like on the news we’ll see like people like you know cops running backwards away from somebody with a that has a knife that’s chasing them or you know like so there’s a there’s like a fine line of like all right well at that point you got to shoot them. You know what I mean? It gets it’s it’s a tough tough decision to make. Well I’m glad that you mentioned that. Right. So I talk about this quite often and we see it predominantly in blue cities across entire America and there’s been this actually globalization right it’s the entire world but predominately America we look at it nationwide there’s been this target to hire meek timid and docile and this ideology is that they’re left to engage right it’s also falls under the blanket of DEI and to me it’s also fur further movement in abolishing law enforcement altogether. And if you’re an alpha male or an alpha female, you’re probably not getting the job right now. Yeah. I and I saw that I mentioned before in the show, but I I saw that when I was at um doing backgrounds for LAPD officers where like some old school coppers were background guys and they were really concerned and so was I in some cases with um like the like the guys that never played contact sports, never been in a fist fight or a dust up and they used to fail them on that. They used to like the back the the the BI the background guy would would go to management and say h like nothing like um like real disqualifying in his past but X Y and Z the kid’s just not he just he’s not he’s not tough enough or whatever. He hasn’t lived a life maybe. And they would take that and say okay next. But that at that time they had you know 5,000 people in the queue that wanted to be cops. And then when I was there, it was like, well, you know, we should really start moving away from allowing more marijuana use and up the amount of times they could have they could have used coke and um you know, it doesn’t really matter that they they live in their mom’s basement and they they’ve never been hit in the face. Like they say academy will give them all that, but then in academy they’re like, well, no more contact, no more boxing in academy because people are getting hurt. And then you get like a bunch of lady boys, you know? I got to laugh when you mentioned lady boys because in my RV travels in the past three years I didn’t first initially about eight months and I stopped the RV and my wife and I and my family we went to Thailand for a couple months, Malaysia and Bali. So the land of lady boys I got a lamp when you said lady boys like oh there you go Asia. Yeah, those lady boys will screw with your head man. You see, um I’ve I’ve seen like um shows on them and stuff and it’s like, “Man, that’s a pretty lady.” Wrong. That is a man. You’re like, “Oh boy, I I can’t go to D.” My wife and I, we My wife and I used to walk around like try to like guess which one’s a man and which one’s not. And you know, you can see how guys, these older guys that are out there retired and they lick it up. You can see them getting pulled. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. That’s a dangerous game, brother. Yeah. Yeah. It it uh it truly is, my man. Um especially like you see that movie um what was The Hangover Too. I think that introduced Lady Boys to the world. That’s a great movie, dude. So good. Um Eric, you have uh do you have any notable cases or or calls that you went on that are kind of like your favorite from NYPD? Oh, that’s that’s that’s a great question. And I mean I so many cases that are my favorite cases. I mean there’s just one after another but uh I would say predominantly when I was uh lieutenant eventually I got promoted a special assignment as a special operation lieutenant in the South Bronx and an emphasis on anti-rime but anti-rime was we studied crime analysis crime trends and we analyze gangs and and I would say one that’s really notable because I thought it was amazing police work and it’s just outside the box. So we had well it was happening quite often. We had a a a major gang problem going on. We had a couple of gang rivals and I remember we were doing our observation based on the crime trends and patterns that we had and we were visually orchestrated some of the teams to watch the gangs in one area and we had some in another area. We’re watching back and forth and uh we already had a shooting that happened about two days prior to that where we had a homicide that resulted and we also had one of the gang members was stabbed in Manhattan as a result of it. So we’re really trying to do our due diligence to shut down this extremely violent and uh we did see like what like there was an associate that was in a wheelchair. I remember wa we were watching like something just didn’t look right. And sure enough, I’m like, you know what? We’re tossing that guy in the wheelchair. It just didn’t look right. And I’m like, he’s got a gun. I’m just saying like they’re like, “Boss, this is not going to look good.” Because I’m telling you, I I was just so confident. I’m telling you, he’s got a gun. I just knew it. So, sure enough, we stopped the guy and we’re checking him and the guy’s like, “We can’t find him.” I’m like, “Take him out of the chair.” So sure enough, he had some type of contra contraption and he had it hit it and uh we found the illegal firearm. And this one was used in a shooting. And what was interesting about that also is now we’re trying to figure out how are we going to get this guy back to the precinct? How are we going to transport him? So a city bus was coming down the street and I fled down the city bus and we put the the wheelchair on the bus and we took him in handcuffs on the city bus on the city bus back to the prison. That’s creative policing right there, my man. Dude, you you put put yourself out there with that because you were probably the whole time like, “Oh, there’s there better be a gun in here. There’s no gun. This is going to look terrible.” Oh my god. I Everybody was the whole neighborhood was the whole neighborhood was up in arms. They were screaming, yelling. It was almost going to cause a riot. I mean, we got this guy. We took him out of the wheel. I freeze again. Yeah, I got you back. You said you took the guy out of the wheelchair. Oh, yeah. So I and this is my message to cops out there is that based on your observations. I mean we get so good at it. You have to just be confident in your assessment and you have to follow through. And unfortunately you find optics but you know what you have that confidence is something that you do day in and day out. You have to follow through. And you know what? You never know. We get so good at it of making these observations and we’re not always right but for the most part we’re pretty damn good at it. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds like it, man. Damn. I love I love using the city bus, too. Yeah. What did the bus driver think about it? Were you on her route or did you have to reroute her or him? Oh, we were laughing. Well, actually, it was it was a male bus driver and he was coming down the street and I was like, “Listen, you know, I had to come that bus. We put him on the He was laughing. He was laughing. I was like, “Oh, I appreciate so much.” I’m like, you know, can you give me your information? You know, I’ll write you up for a medal. Put you in for It was super cool. It was super cool. I got another great story if it’s okay if you got time. Oh, hell yeah. Sure. Yeah. So, uh, one of one of the, um, low-level crimes that actually facilitated numerous shootings in the South Bronx was street gambling. Probably something you probably seen also, guys rolling dice. So, it’s a low-level crime, but it would it would lead to illegal firearms that were involved in shootings. So, we had behind the precinct in in the South Bronx, which I I worked in police service area 7. We had a group of guys gambling. I’ll never forget we grabbed the guys and one of my cops was trying to put cuffs on a guy and we didn’t have enough cops. We were outnumbered. So, I was holding two guys, another guy’s holding two guys, and this guy managed to take off running. And I remember I’m holding a couple people in custody and I’m watching the three of the guys take off at this guy and uh a couple of blocks he’s still in my sight. So I’m standing there. I look at the cops. I’m like, “You got him?” They said, “Yeah, we’re a good boss.” So I took off running. So at some point I get I get to the corner where there’s a a cab driver sitting and uh I just I open the door. Open the door. I jumped in and the guy’s got about three blocks up the perpetrator. So I jumped in. I said, “Go, go, go, go.” And the guy’s looking, you know, he’s running looking over his shoulder at the cops, but I was managing to get out of the car. He didn’t see me. And I jumped in the air like Superman and I tackled him. And uh I never forget we got him in custody. And the cam driver was like, “Yeah, yeah.” So it it was a cool it was a cool experience. That’s awesome, man. And what what rank were you when you were doing that? Sergeant. No, that was as a lieutenant also. Wow. Really? Was that like a big deal? feel like, oh, the big dog is chasing somebody down here. No, you know, I always r, you know, I I my motto, and a lot of people didn’t agree. I believe that, and something I learned in Marine Corps, that you lead from the front. Yeah. When you do pl when you’re doing play training, I’m sorry, play close policing, which is intrusive police work. U it’s important also that you’re a team member and then you have to think and help them out also. And sometimes you got to get your hands dirty and you have to help the guys out. Sometimes, yes, it’s more beneficial that you kind of sit back and watch the whole scene, but sometimes you have to jump into it. No, man. I I love that. That’s that’s fantastic. Um, Eric, can you tell us do you have any heartwarming stories you remember from the job? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I there’s a couple of stories, but one in particular, uh, there was a woman I never forget. It was it was an extremely hot day on the and we were doing plane clothes work and trus police work. We’re looking for firearms. But I remember it was just it was it was just extremely humid and it was an older woman walking and you could just could tell she looked extremely disoriented. So I remember it was myself and and a fellow cop that was driving me and uh we stopped and we just you know tried to help her out and I’ll never forget we spent a couple hours she was suffering from dementia and we spent a couple hours you know walking with her. We put her in in the car. Uh we gave her some water. And I’ll never forget we went just walking around with her and just trying to have a conversation that would give us cues. And it took us a couple hours because we couldn’t get a phone number. She didn’t have a phone on her and we managed to get her home and it was uh it was wild. I would say it took about three hours. It it really felt good. And we finally when we got her home and we spoke the family and I mean they were panicking. They were looking for her. U so it it was it was a great experience. I don’t know why they never called 911. Um, but it was a it was a it was a heartwarming experience to get a home. Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s got to be tricky in a in a city, too. It’s like that’s that’s a big place. It’s not like she’d be like, “Oh, down by the old oak tree.” It’s like, uh, there’s 7 million people around you. Yeah. And I remember I think we had to walk her up to a couple of flights in a in a housing building. Uh, and we got a home. And it was so nice like just sitting down and just talking with the family and and you know I I it just made me realize even more like our elderly they’re gems. We have to treat them you know and she was showing me eventually some pictures when she was young and we met family members and it it was it was it it was really cool. That’s awesome man. Yeah. Yeah. So, this was um you were on that um uh street crimes unit are they called? Are is that the one where they you kind of just go around like an unmarked minivan and just kind of pop out and grab people? Yeah, we it was uh anti-rime. We were in plane clothes. You see the cops wearing jerseys and stuff like that. And you know, you you stop you jump out and stop people looking for illegal firearms. That’s cool, man. I went to um firearms instructor school I don’t know uh 15 or 17 years ago. And when I was there, there was a guy from a pretty rural town in Mass. And he went down to um to New York City for a training and he said, “The New York City guys were freaking awesome.” He’s like, he goes, “It really doesn’t matter if you’re from like Hay Seed PD.” He goes, “I went there. Uh I I met a couple of the guys at the training.” He said, “Um they uh I got to do a ride along on one of their, you know, anti-rime units.” Like they let them get right in the van with them. He’s like, “Dude, it was freaking incredible. They were just jumping out and grabbing people. He said uh they went to um at one point he said they went to a club or a restaurant or something and they got right in. They didn’t have to wait in the line. They’re like, “Come on in, boys.” You know, he said it was freaking fantastic because a lot of small town guys feel like if they go to New York City, like a big city cop like that is going to poo poo them. But he said it was the exact opposite. He said the guys were like so gracious, so happy to have him there. It was really cool. And you know what’s a shame about all this? And it’s a knee-jerk reaction to George Floyd. And this is the failed leadership in blue cities, especially New York City, former police commissioner. His name is Dere Shay. He disbanded anti-rime June 15th, 2020. It was a great unit of fantastic cops. And so sure enough, now they have quasi anti-rime teams where they’re in a quasi uniform. And it’s just a knee-jerk reaction. And it’s pandering to this anti police movement. That’s too bad, man. Because I heard those groups are like so effective cleaning up neighborhoods. Yeah, it’s fantastic. You know what? Just on the surface, the average person thinks it’s it’s a couple of burly guys just jumping out of a car or jumping out of van just grabbing people. And that’s just the appearance on the surface. But what goes underneath is you have cops that have a great eye for police work, great observation skills, the ability to study crime trends, crime clusters, to know the names of every gang member, to know when they were arrested, to know their family members, to know where they associate, to where the opposition is. These are cops that do their due diligence and fantastic work. And it’s overlooked and unfortunately demonized by this anti- police movement. Yeah, it’s a shame, man. It really is a shame because I mean talk of a place that needs it is New York City, you know, more than ever. They need these guys. I mean, if I lived there, that’s what I would want if I was just a normal resident going going to work, coming back to my apartment or my house. I I want you guys out there doing this stuff, you know, keep my family safe. Well, it’s unfortunate. That’s common sense, right? And it’s unfortunate in a city of New in New York especially, 8 and a half million people, it suffers from voter apathy. less than a million people actually vote in the general elections for mayor and they it’s just so low when it comes in v when it comes to voter apathy. That’s where New York City suffers. Other blue cities suffer from that as well. And we’re electing these politicians that have a complete disdain and bias for police work and create all this legislation that just completely hinders the police from doing their job and they’ve they’ve emasculated the profession. Yeah, man. It’s ridiculous. Like we have uh in Boston we have Mayor Woo who like a couple winters ago she literally wanted to do DEI like plowing where the the um oh my god the uh the whatever neighborhoods the um you know the DEI neighborhoods whatever you want to call them the the they wanted to plow them first and not like the business district and everything. It was like, we need to make like the city needs like money and and like people need to go to work. So that’s keep plowing the way you’re plowing. Don’t don’t go to, you know, Roxberry and plow out uh you know the gang members. Like what are you talking about? Like it the stuff is is insane. And it it like it it seems to like she’s still in office, but it I don’t know how or why. Like even if you’re if you’re like a centrist or even a little left, like you you still have common sense, right? Like you can you can look at that and go that’s dumb. Like that’s that’s something a a dummy would do. Well, the problem is I find it’s all virtue signaling. And these politicians, they virtue signal to each other like, “Hey, I did something, too. You know, I showed that I’m part of this movement.” So, they’re all trying to show that they’re stripping away somehow at common sense and law enforcement. Oh, look what I did. And unfortunately, and I’m sure that city is the same, you know, Boston and uh blue cities in Massachusetts, especially Massachusetts, which is extremely liberal, probably even more than New York. It’s a procriminal society and we stripped away from law enforcement. We stripped away from common sense and we don’t get people out to vote. And it’s just complete insulting. Also, they don’t they they target lowinformation voters to get these people in office and once they’re in, they go along to get along. Yeah, man. It’s unbel I mean I mean not to get too much on a tangent, but I know people who are like who are are pretty smart people like smart people that still believe there was some amount of Russian collusion that Trump was a Russian. They still even after all the the recent releases, all the stuff that’s come out, it shows that Holder and all those other guys were were just lot like they were going against the advice of seasoned um you know um agents that were saying, “Hey, we don’t have this isn’t even close to being like verifiable.” Still, they believe that because they have TDS. They they just can’t. It it really scares me actually because it’s like guys, we need we need people with functioning brains to be running running like the cities and towns and and country. Like if you if you can’t look at something um critically without bias, then you should be out like you should not have a say in anything. Oh, you’re muted, brother. H sorry about that. But what I do think that this legislation and these politicians that are anti- police just have a complete disdain have created all these layers that will it will take us decades to peel back. But it’s all intentional. It’s intentional to strip away at the law enforcement profession to ultimately abolish it. And I think one is to move to AI, move to robotics, pander to this DI DEI movement and just completely emasculate the profession to where the profession will no longer exist. And that’s where we’re getting at. We’re getting in some real dangerous territory. We’ve crossed lines that if we don’t get our hands on it now, we can never get it back. Because what has changed ultimately that is so significant if you look at just rhetorically speaking, let’s say John Smith in 1950 compared to 2000, you could see policing evolve over time. Eventually John Smith is now wearing a vest. John Smith has a radio. Policing evolves. And what changed over time is procedure and protocol. But what is so significant now where I think we totally pivoted is that we’ve changed law and that’s where things get real sticky and we change the entire profession. Look at New York City. We have what’s called the diaphragm law. It doesn’t even make any sense. If you’re trying to make an arrest, you can’t put any pressure on the front or back intentionally or unintentionally. And if you do, the police officer subject to arrest. Dude. Wow. Dude, it’s like did you see that the was the mayor of San Francisco? He tried to uh implement he was and he was like a member of the weather underground that communist group that like that like executed cops and he was like like uh black and brown people cannot be guilty of a crime basically and the city just went like obviously everything just went further downhill and he had to leave but it was like guys this is like like basic reasoning logic like I I don’t understand at all but like like you’re saying it’s it’s a it’s an ideology. It’s a It’s um And as a Christian guy, I always say like it’s not if you don’t worship God, you’re going to worship something. And they worship their ideology. They worship uh that the things they come up with are are it’s their identity. You can tell because you can I can argue with another conservative about like, you know, say something, I don’t like a conservative politician or whatever, and I don’t I don’t love them all and be critical and they can like listen and be like, yeah, but what about this and blah blah blah. But if if um you try to argue with somebody who’s on the left, the emotion like right away right away you’re a bad guy. This is you’re you’re the reason the country is like it is. You need to go. I need to get you fired from your job. Like it it the the the contrast is so stark with the emotion and the ideology they’re married to. It’s it’s it actually frightens me to think about. All right. You’re you’re absolutely right. is spot on because what we see a difference and we see a complete dichotomy between the left and right and it comes to the right I think in most cases not all we have to say the majority are willing to have those conversations we say opposition meets opportunity but what we see on the left is we see immaturity and we see completely driven by emotions and that vested interest into personalized feelings of what happens when you’re in opposition what do we see from the left we see smear attacks we see a complete cases of defamation. So that’s the when when we have opposition on the left right away we see personalized attacks and that’s where I see the difference. Yeah. those ad hom homonym attacks where it’s like you’re you’re arguing policy or issues and all of a sudden um uh everything you said is invalid because I’ve deemed that you’re you’re a racist or you’re a classist or you’re a sexist like whatever um comes to mind they can use that’s what you will be and now your argument is totally uh invalid and they have somehow won the day and that’s that’s really how they see it from from the smartest to the dumbest of them that’s that’s how they see that’s how they see the world and it’s it’s very communist. It’s, you know what I mean? It’s it’s a very it’s a very um like if I’m sure you’ve like you know about the Red Square and in um Ma’s China and all that. It’s it’s like right there. It’s that’s what it is. It’s the it’s the slow programming of these people through our universities and it’s really really coming to a head and it’s it sucks. I It’s funny. So I read all about that ma dung and all that. I was actually a history major in college. So, I had a, you know, a great great understanding for that. And it’s, it’s crazy. I never thought we would get to this point in this country. But you look at New York City particularly, we have a potential candidate for mayor. His name is Zoran Mdani. And he’s running completely on socialist ideology. And what’s unfortunate about that also is who’s also in the race, former Governor Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams who’s running a complete corrupt enterprise in New York City, also have uh socialist ideologies. You know, they call it something else, but we have a complete socialist side of Democrats in New York City. And it’s getting to the point where it’s so desperate that New York City is is just completely falling out falling apart. And no one’s actually looked at the Republicans and the Republicans are not making the proper push. So we we see this complete just fail, an epic fail of politics and this ideology of communism. I mean look, there’s an old saying, right? You give you give a mouse free cheese and they get caught in the mouse trap and you have to ask yourself why why they caught in that m because it’s not free, right? Yeah. 100%, man. Absolutely. Yeah. Too many feelings, brother. Too many feelings. trusting your feelings. Um, like I said before, like you were saying, like like morality, it’s um, you know, that, and not to beat people over the head with the Bible, but you know, the Bible does say like, you know, the heart is wicked. Don’t The Bible says one thing about your heart, don’t trust it. It says trust the truth and and facts and, you know, reason um, with morality, not um, not your heart or your feelings. Because we have all kinds of feelings. Like I have feelings like you ever have a feeling like you’re just having a bad day and you you want to you want to pop somebody like not a good that’s not a good feeling. That’s not a good emotion to follow. You could have all kinds of like um you know with that with that way of thinking like um child moers have feelings. They’re feeling their heart’s telling them to touch a kid. They they really feel that deep down. They’re they’re they want to touch following his heart following his feelings. Is that good? No. We should we should fight feelings that we have like that. You know what I mean? Like that’s trusting your heart is like that. It’s just a it’s just like a child. It’s like something uh it’s like childlike simplicity. It’s just stupid. Well, that’s another that’s another uh contributing factor to the upside world. Like you know, we’ve come to this point that we have to we have to be diplomatic about a child molester and and refer to them as people attracted to minor children. I mean that’s absolutely ridiculous. We need to put emphasis on these people are a danger to our children. This is absolutely but this is the ideology that we get. This is the ideology that we get in this country with these democratic socialist ideas that are complete opposition what it means to be an American. It’s just everything is in opposition to Constitution. Also, it’s it’s really sad we got to this point. But you know what? It really makes me think you talked about telling the truth. And I want to ask you if you feel the same thing. I’ve gotten to this point now. Now, I’ve been podcasting for almost three years and in retirement. Never thought I’d become a podcaster, but I never thought I would get so much opposition by telling the truth. Telling the truth, let me tell you, is a scary thing. Yeah. It’s a scary thing because when you start telling the truth, you’ll lose a lot of friends. And and it happened to me. And you know what? You know what I say to those people? Goodbye. Obviously, you were never a friend before. Yep. Yeah. No, it’s true, man. Absolutely. And especially now like I’m I’m like an active cop, you know, so it’s like you know how it was when you were a cop, but you kind of have to keep your mouth shut. Like I can talk about big state big national politics, no one really cares. Um, but you know, when it comes to like doing the job on a daily basis, the stuff you the the um moral relativism you run into where people are doing stuff and you’re like, you know, at that point, I’m just like, you know what? When I’m in uniform, I’m the arm of the law. I’m not gonna I’m not gonna talk about my politics a lot, but my heart tells me like, you know, this the person needs to hear the truth from somebody because they’re not getting it and their life is falling apart because no one has had the balls in their family or in their in their sphere to tell them the truth about this particular situation. Fill in the blank. Um, and it’s really hard, dude. It’s a really hard to do like in today’s day and age where you can’t kind of confront people with that stuff because you know you you won’t you won’t be a cop for long if you do that. No, you’re 100% right. And it’s come to a point where people actually want you to lie to them, right? The truth is offensive. They want you to lie to them. And you know what they say? They say that only 2% of people speak out of a group. And it’s unfortunate we’ve that that’s what we’ve learned and I’ve learned that myself that most people don’t speak out. So with that being said, I think if we look at CO and we look at the pandemic in particular, a lot of bad stuff came out of it, but there’s a lot of good stuff also, right? Because co exposed that this entire country, well most of it was just completely sheep and we would just get along. And if this was experimental and sometimes I ask myself maybe it was now it backfired because after that that scandmic no one is going to comply. If they try to come out with another pandemic people are not going to comply this time. There will not be lockdowns. People don’t want to listen to mainstream radio anymore. They don’t want to listen to mainstream news because they’ve been lied to. It’s podcast like this and podcast that that myself and my partners, my team from the finest unfiltered are doing by [Music] Hey, Oh, there I lost you there when you’re you’re talking about the people from the podcast. I’m sorry. No, no, no. I was saying that co co was a pivotal moment because now now in post post pandemic life. Yeah. There will never be a successful pandemic for politicians to have to make people wear masks, to close down restaurants because people have learned and people don’t want to watch mainstream radio anymore. They don’t want mainstream news. They want podcasts just like this with real people telling the real stories and telling the truth. Absolutely. You’re absolutely right, man. Yeah. I remember during the pandemic watching like in California watching like a California cop go and like uh apprehend like a dad with his son at a park. They’re like totally alone out in an outdoor space by themselves, but the park is closed. I thought like, man, I don’t think I could do that. Like that that I don’t know how you do that. How you go grab a father and his son during the pandemic because they’re probably losing their minds at their house and drag them away. It’s nuts. I mean, just a tall scam. Total scam, right? People should be able to live their lives the way they want. If they’re willing to put themselves in a risk environment to contract the virus, that’s their choice. Let them live their life and let them make their choices. But this ideology that the government was going to make choices for us, anytime the government gets involved in your life, you’re already on a bad path. You want the least amount of government intervention in your life as possible. This idea that the government is going to come save you, if that’s the way you’ll live your life, it’s lazy ideology and you’ll never grow. Absolutely. Yeah, man. I remember the beginning of the pandemic and right at the beginning they were like one of the ideas I heard coming out of TV and like um the president was like you know if this is a big thing then what about like like if you are like in a group that could be compromised you could stay home but everybody else like most of America should just go to work because like you’re really not going to die from this thing and I was like Okay, that that I understand that like if you’re afraid and like you you really do have some coorbidities or whatever. That was only talked about for like two days until we went completely batshit. And I was like, well, what happened to the first thing? And they were like, no, no, that’s over. We’re complete and total lockdown. I was like, wow. Um, and you know, it’s funny because a lot of people agreed with that idea where they’re like, “Okay, that might make sense to make concessions.” And that that would cost that would have cost us so much less money just to have the people that like had co-orbidities that were in the workforce that just maybe had to figure out how to work from home than just shutting the whole country down. You know what I mean? Like that it just made more sense if you’re if you’re trying to be careful to do it that first idea I heard than than what we did. It just I I don’t get it. I mean co was a co was a point in history where government took you know government was an opportunist and took advantage of people’s vulnerabilities and of the unknown because people were living on fear right it was so at that point it’s a point of survival like okay if the government is telling you this there’s no knowledge of what co really is and you know they made it seem like it was mass death at this point they’re praying on people’s fear but at some point people like wait a minute starting to see through the [ _ ] you know, and it’s unfortunate. That’s why if they ever try another pandemic, I don’t think it will have the same success as it did before. Thank God for places like Florida, Texas that stood strong and hopefully, God forbid, they try to pull that [ _ ] again, the entire country will band together and say, “We’re not doing this. We did you fooled us before, but not again.” Yeah, I think you’re right. I think I think that that is it’s The bell’s been rung. Can’t unring it. It’s not going to happen again. People are going to be like, “Yeah, thanks for the suggestions. I’m I’m going out.” Um, Eric, popular question on the show. A lot of people listen to the show are like um in backgrounds or think about applying to be police. They hear you guys and the men and women law enforcement tell their stories and you truly do inspire them to to to go ahead and do it. So, what advice would you give to people looking to become cops or just getting into the onto the force now? Oh, wow. Well, I I I would definitely say honestly if you’re in a blue city, I’ll never tell you no. I’ll never tell someone no, but I would be extremely apprehensive if you’re going to get hired or engage in law enforcement in a blue city because once you put on that badge in a blue city, especially with the politics and the legislation that we’re sitting right now, you are now closer to jail yourself. However, if it’s just a passion, it’s something that you’ve always wanted to do, then jump into it. But understand that right now the lines are blurred and what the mission statement is for a police officer is far different than when I started the job. I started in January of 2004 and we could see I to me the extreme pinnacle moment is 2018 when everything just went batshit crazy and politics completely took over policing. There was always an aspect of it but politics has infected and interjected policing. But I will say if that’s your passion, jump in, humanize the badge and you have to support each other. At the same toen, you have to have extreme situational awareness, not just physically, emotionally, but financially also. And understand that you’re putting yourself in extremely vulnerable position. And that intrusive police work, while it is the foundation and bedrock bedrock to public safety, engaging in intrusive police work is what could get you in trouble. And that’s the dichconomy between a police officer and a security guard. I always say as a security guard you wear a shield. Your job is to observe, report, repeat. But as a police officer, you wear that shield. And under the case of people versus the boore, Supreme Court case, you actually engage people and you’re intrusive. And it’s those intrusive self-initiated counter encounters that could you could find yourself with a body camera or some type of surveillance where the optics are overriding policy. So I would say if you want to be in this law enforcement uh profession, understand the mission has changed and you have to take a a seat back and engage policing in a different manner and it may not be as intrusive or be you know as as we watch as kids or cops and robbers. It may be something more sitting back and get involved in more surveillance type work. Um, watching body cameras, but to be intrusive, it it’s it’s a dangerous thing. But again, I would tell these men and women, humanize the badge, humanize yourself, humanize the public, and I would definitely read and selfinitiate yourself to read leadership books, to read I think that’s the key is you have because you’re leading people. You have to have the ability to especially you have to understand and this I think is the biggest aspect and factor of what makes policing so difficult. The external factors will always be there. Pressure from politics, pressure from legislation. But the factor I think that is the most demonizing is the internal pressure. The internal pressure that you will receive your police from your own agency sometimes is far more ex is far more dangerous than what you’ll get from the external factors. Words of wisdom, brother. Thank you. I think what I hear you saying about becoming a cop, part of it at least is why don’t you research a city that deserves your service. Reward those cities. Let them have I I agree with you. I would think at this point I’m I’m sorry if I interrupt you, but not at all. If you’re if you want to get involved this profession, you have to be mobile and flexible. And I would do your research exactly said and seek out law enforcement agencies. Look at their history. Look at the data. See how they support their police officers. Most notably, we just had an incident in Jacksonville, Florida, where the sheriff, if you saw, the name of Sheriff Waters, spoke about an incident where we see the politics, legislation, and the media trying to turn this car stop encounter into race baiting. I always say they’re seeking out for the next George Floyd, but if you have an opportunity, look at his press conference. He was so professional and he was so stoic and didn’t allow this political agenda to intercept this encounter. So, I would look at law enforcement agencies just like that where they support their police officers while maintaining balance and addressing the community’s concerns. That was impressive. That’s the type of agency I would look for. Hell yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Because when if someone at the top is talking like that, it can take the wind out of everybody’s sales. So, that’s a great leader. Eric, tell us about New York’s finest retired and unfiltered. Uh, please. It started out as a podcast, New York’s finest retired unfiltered podcast. I co-host with John McCarry, retired lieutenant, but now we’ve turned it into entire entire media channel, The Finest Unfiltered. We have other shows on that channel. So, please tune into it. YouTube, Spotify, iTunes, Apple, numerous uh platforms. Uh I would we go live Monday, Wednesday and Friday with that show at 8:05 Eastern Eastern time and go on the channel. You can see the other shows that we have uh all former cops with great stories uh very educational uh and humorous at the same time and we’re exposing corruption New York City particularly with the NYPD under Eric Adams’s failed administration. So please check it out, hear our stories and uh we have what’s unique also is engagement uh which we encourage engagement by our friends, listeners and haters into the conversation because opposition meets opportunity. Absolutely. I love it, man. And the links will be in the show notes. You guys can get right to Eric and his show. Eric, honored to have you on, brother. Thank you so much. Ah, dude, it’s been fun. I appreciate it. You know, 49th State of Alaska. If you have an opportunity, come check me out, brother. Probably September, I’ll be coming back to the lower 48. Traveling is awesome. If anyone’s interested in RVs, hit me up. I’ll tell you about it. It’s It’s completely liberating. It’s a great way to go. Awesome. I love it, man. I’m going to put you in the uh green room for a second. Can you hang on for just like two minutes? You got it. All right. The great Eric Dim. Great stories from NYPD. And what a life he’s led, man. Full career. Got his 20 at NYPD, retired lieutenant, and now is in Alaska. uh RVing, man. Sounds sounds pretty sweet to me. Uh this is a time in the show when I thank the Patreon sponsors, guys. Thank you so much for the continued support. I I truly truly appreciate it. Um you guys really do keep the lights on here. If you if you love the show and you listen listen to a lot of episodes and you want to show me that love monetarily, which I like, you can do that through the link in the show notes. Um, there’s a bunch of different levels you can pick, but if you go sergeant or above, you will get a shout out on an episode. And who I’m talking about, these are the lieutenants, ladies and gentlemen. The great Andy Biggs, great and powerful Andy Biggs. Kyle Roberts, everybody. Kyle, thank you, sir. Michael Roach, Roach Machines, thank you. Michael the great Thomas Connell. Now to the sergeants. Adam McMahon, Adam Mihal, Brad Thompson, Brett Lee, Dan Carlson from Birdley Board is amazing woodworker. Check him out on Instagram. Sherry Finch, thank you. Madam Clark Luff, everybody, Dave Elman, you are the man. Dennis Cariso, Doug and Kelly Newman, love you guys. Hope you’re having a good time out west. Elliot Sykes, Gabriel Decknop, thank you. The great Gary Steiner, George Kerotus, everybody. Craig Gadboy, Jackson Dalton, the blackbox safety. Thank you, sir. The great and handsome Jason Lee, Jason Laauo, John Jordan, John Shoemaker, John and Aaron Gate. Love you guys here at church. Lauren Stimson, everybody, the handsome Lane Campbell, Lisa Gau, Marcus Johansson, everybody. Motorcop Chronicles, Iceman for Motocop Chronicles. Check out his podcast. Nancy Hammond, Paul Maloney, Raymond Arsenal. Thank you, sir. Richard Tols, keep on trucking, brother. Stay safe out there. Sasha McNab, everybody. Thank you. Sasha Sam Conway, ladies and gentlemen. Scott Young, Scott, thank you, sir. Sean Clifford, everybody. Seth Wright, Sheriff Ronald Long, Tammy Walsh, holding it down, dispatch. Tony Fehee, everybody. Zachary Pleet, and George Tessier. Love you, buddy. See you at church. Guys, the list is getting long and I don’t mind that one bit. Thank you for your support. I do truly appreciate it and I love you guys and I’ll see you next week.