Robbery Shootout, JTTF We Will Not Be Kidnapped, Overseas Informant

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 tense bizarre and sometimes humorous moments on the job it is I Old Gingerface here with you as always thank you for being here everybody i truly truly appreciate that thank you for all the rating and reviewing that’s going on and welcome to the new Patreon supporters uh I truly truly appreciate that because as you know the show is um the show will remain free the four interview episodes a month but you do get some extra from Patreon and it does help me pay for the all the fees associated with the show and a little couple extra shekels there on the side for me for old Stevie boy so I do truly appreciate that thank you before we get started I need to tell you about I need to tell my fellow officers specifically and admin guys i want to tell you about a incredible disabled veteranowned business called Blackbox Safety they’ve just been awarded a nationwide contract through Sourcewell to provide pointblank body armor to law enforcement agencies across the country all agencies receive a 38% discount on PointBlank vest shields and helmets get your team geared up with the most advanced ballistic protection customized for your department to learn more head over to blackboxsafety.com drop them an email at sourcewellblackboxsafety.com or connect with them on Instagram at blackbox safety great company great owner uh they’re fans of the show which I like and uh yeah guys I mean we all have to get um body armor for our agencies they have the largest soft body armor contract in the country and it’s disabled veteranowned so it’s kind of a no-brainer if you’re admin look into it if you’re not admin tell admin so all their links to them will be in the show notes so you can switch over to using them great company thank you Blackbox Safety today’s guest very excited about him from the Big Apple he’s a retired second grade detective from the NYPD where he served in numerous units such as Bronx Narcotics Bronx Gang Unit 52 precinct robbery squad and the FBI NYPD joint terrorism task force while signed to the JTTF for 17 years Tom traveled to 18 countries around the world coordinating in co coordinating international terrorism cases and without further ado let me bring on the great Tom Smith tom hello sir how are you good to see you man thank you for coming on brother i appreciate it oh it’s my pleasure thank you for having me yeah and you got you got your own POS podcast going on over there that’s doing quite well gold Shields yeah we’re having a blast with it uh you know you start off thinking “All right where are we going to go with this how’s it going to go where are we going to get to?” And then all of a sudden you turn around and it’s three years later and hundreds of shows later and uh it’s going really well we’re really proud of it and just having a fun time with it awesome that’s great man it is incredible the technology like it it can be annoying and it’s tough for if you have kids keeping them off their screens too much and all that but um the fact that you can just um anybody can just start like a radio show a little TV show and with with really not that much overhead to do this 30 years ago you’d have to drop 50 grand for the equipment and now it’s it’s totally attainable for pretty much anybody oh yeah i mean back then you would need a studio you would need a sound room you would need all that you know now it’s you know just get a room together and get some good equipment that you can get and and you just you know what I learned though Steve doing is you just progress you know you just something comes up get something better i mean you know when I started when we started the show I had a like $20 mic an old an old laptop you know that we started doing it on and then you just go with it and you you see that you’re going to be doing it for a little longer than than planned so you just get the better equipment and and kind of roll with it but it’s been a blast absolutely yeah it’s funny how it gets you too like I then um before I knew it I was like geeking out on podcast equipment i was like “Oo that’s really cool.” And I’m all excited about a new microphone or mixer board i’m like “Man I’m such a dork now.” Absolutely and stuff that you know three years ago I knew knew nothing about zero about but you know if you want to you know take care of your audience and and draw people to you you know you have to take it serious and you have to get the right stuff so so everything is good you know people don’t want a trashy product and you have to take them into account so that’s kind of why I you know like you just say geek out and try to get new things for everybody yeah absolutely and I just got a uh I just got a pretty okay tax return so I was like I’ll get a new mixer board maybe a few other things you know then we were talking beforehand how then I had to as soon as I set it up it’s like damn now I got to learn how to use it and that Oh yeah ate up all my time it’s weird man i was you know I was a computer major in college so if you need uh if you need help with Windows 95 I’m your man but uh it’s like I didn’t go into computers i went into law enforcement so it’s like now it’s it’s just a piece of paper it’s completely worthless oh you know we we didn’t have computers when I started you had typewriters that didn’t even work uh you know so the whole this age is is all new and you know what it’s just it’s learning all the time because there’s something new all the time that comes out that you just have to you know if the next guy is keeping up with it you kind of have to as well so it’s just keeping up with the times and the technology to to stay you know in pace with everybody yeah yeah absolutely you got to do it so Tom you were at like one of the largest police agencies uh in the country and um I was I was wondering when I was reading your reading about you guys and your show and where you did your careers um what do what do young guys where do where do New York City cops live like how do they what’s the big neighborhood for them where can they afford to live i mean I know you can make a couple hundred grand without breaking a sweat probably at NYPD but still in New York City you probably can’t live in the city proper right no and you know what the the majority of officers don’t live in the city there are a percentage that do but you’re allowed to live in seven other counties other than you know the five burrows the five counties in in the city then two upstate counties oh wow you know Westchester Long Island you know you’re allowed to live so the majority of of guys and girls in the NYPD don’t live in the city uh for a number of reasons one you just want to go home you know you’re going to be there working but you know the majority you know the majority do live outside the city but there is a large number that still you know live in a city with family and stuff like that so they can they can you can afford still to even I’m sure Westchester is probably like everywhere else super expensive yeah that’s rough that’s a rough one but you know the the the northern counties Orange County and Rockland County which are north of the city where I grew up you know are still uh you know comparable to what you know the guys and girls in the NYPD are making and if you’re like in work if you’re working dayshift and you live up there like what’s your commute like to get to Oh you’re leaving super early you can you know uh it depends what precinct you’re into you know if you’re upstate and you’re working in the Bronx there’s certain ways to go that you don’t hit any traffic but a lot depends on the tours and you know you’re doing a 7 to three you’re going to leave pretty early to get into work because you got to get in before you know 600 6:30 anyway you know so you’re missing that traffic and you might hit a little going home but uh you know it depends where your precinct is and where you got to go as to the time you got to leave gotcha yeah so that probably marries you to your precinct once you buy a house and have a family you’re like I’m not working at another part of the city yeah until they tell you you’re moving then you don’t have a choice in it and then you know but but that goes with with transfers and putting in for for things you know I worked in when I lived in in Rockland County which is just north of the city and I worked in Manhattan North you know it was a 40minut commute 45 minute commute it was simple and then you go to the Bronx and it’s a little more and then uh going downtown to 26 Federal Plaza was a completely different world yeah because now you’re dealing with every person on planet Earth that’s going into Manhattan uh you know driving so those commutes were were longer and more uh so you got more done on the phone while you were you sitting in traffic than sitting at your desk yeah you ride they let cops ride the train free if you’re in uniform okay so that helps i remember the LA SD when I was in LA the they let anybody in uniform could if you’re a copper and you’re in uniform and have your gun you can ride for free but they would they would do this thing where they just wear like a big coat Oh yeah over their uniform and they would sit in the back and hear somebody acting up and they’d be like I just want to go home especially the kids in the academy because kids in the academy have to wear their uniforms you know back and forth to the academy where the guys on the street are getting dressed you know at the precinct but uh that was always a big deal when I was in the academy just don’t don’t let anyone know who you are because you can’t do anything anyway you don’t have anything on you all you have is a somewhat close looking uniform you know at that time you’re just a target yeah so keep that jacket on and keep your head down yeah absolutely tom can we go way back to when you first started your career to your most um your first hot call the first call that really gave you like a little adrenaline dump well the first call happened the first night on patrol uh you know we were assigned to a field training unit which is just all the rookies and you have two training sergeants and the first night that we were on patrol doing a 4 to2 I was in a car with the training sergeant and another and another cop and we get a man with a gun call on 145 in Amsterdam and we happen to be right near there see the guy he runs i jump out of the car chase him down 145 Street he’s got the gun in his hand we’re running you know down jump over a fence down an alleyway uh you know get him down there the gun flies out of his hand get him locked up uh recover the gun so that was that was my first night on a 4 to12 that’s great that’s classic that’s exactly what you expect to do jump a fence every night yeah yeah that’s awesome so after you had that happen were you like did you go home and you’re like oh hell yeah oh yeah that was even not even went home that was you know the rest of the night you’re on cloud9 uh you know because of what happened and you know it’s things that you hope you know when you dream about being a cop like I did you know my whole life and you get a first night like that you’re like “Yes this is what I waited for this is what I want it to be not that you want to chase people with guns every night you know but the just intensity of it the excitement of it you know kind of takes over and and you go “Okay I’m here.” You know this isn’t a dream anymore it’s not a thought i’m actually doing this yeah it’s funny those situations too where it’s like they can be scary and and there’s a lot of uncertainty and then somehow your brain like washes that away in the memory and then you’re like “That was awesome.” You’re like “Oh yeah it was a little bit uh freaky though.” Oh yeah you know when there’s too much going on when you know when you’re in a situation like that to think you know you’re really not you’re not thinking about this is scary this is wild you know what am I doing that comes later you know when you calm down a little you go “All right maybe maybe not to do that the next time.” No you’re wondering what it is but uh you know those are the situations that you just you know your training takes over your instincts take over and you do it and then you know once you get out of it you go “Okay that was good.” And each one you learn from obviously as you go along in your career and then you’re like “Oh I can actually do it i can do you know because you always wonder like you never had your you know metal tested or whatever you know like can can I handle this can I do it?” Oh yeah and I hated I I was the worst uh you know role playinging thing in the academy you know pretend you’re doing this or pretend you I could not do that for anything in the world i hated it because it’s not you know you can you can kind of walk through it but it is nothing like real life and they used to drive me crazy with all right you walked into the apartment and this is here you’re like no that’s that’s not how you know this is going to go but you know so once you start doing it for real then it’s you know uh the mindset of like you just said you’re here yeah i get um I obviously I’m still working so I’ll go to trainings and stuff and uh I wish it was on the flyers or the information they sent out like just right at the top role playing or no role playing because when you go to a training and they’re like guys I know it’s tough for some people but it really helps with this training and we’re going to have some group work and role playing i’m immediately like damn it can I get my money back get out of here i just don’t it’s so corny and I can’t do it i’m just not it’s not it’s not real you know it’s not authentic i can’t even do it like when they say “Yeah have a conversation with this person that is sitting in a chair and you have to pretend they’re on a bridge like ready to jump.” Like no no it’s not going to work you’re not going to talk the same way you’re not going to react the same way you’re not going to have the same dialogue you know as you are going to on the street so like I said walkthroughs are good but to put that much energy into it no yeah yeah especially at a training where everybody’s dressed as a cop and you’re like “Well this isn’t this is tough i’m gonna talk this sergeant off the bridge.” Right right exactly very good point that’s funny um Tom can you describe the most strange or most bizarre thing you dealt with well the most strangest uh was probably the most dangerous uh in 2009 I was over in Afghanistan uh part of JTTF and uh investigating a New York Times reporter who was kidnapped so that was my case and and one of the FBI agents that I was working with uh so I was over there for three months uh working with you know a SEAL team and the agency and and all that trying to find them and while I was there uh we ran into a really difficult crazy situation that you don’t run into in the Bronx uh we’re you know driving and we make a turn around a corner we were actually coming from a meeting and we make a turn and end up getting surrounded by about 10 guys with AK-47s and stop the car and my partner was a great calm former military you know guy so he knew what was going on and I’m sitting in the passenger seat and we are armed we have our M4s we have our vet you know we’re we’re loaded you know with what we have while we’re over there and you know I take a snapshot of of who’s there and I don’t see anyone behind me on the passenger side of the car so I turn my body a little put my back against the you know passenger door so I can see everything even more because the guy that Jimmy’s dealing with is like yelling and screaming and Jim’s staying calm and just showing him his ID like “Hey we’re at the embassy we’re you know we’re just drive we’re going back blah blah blah.” And just to back up a little bit give you a little bit more context in this Jimmy and I had a uh agreement that under no circumstances during the course of us being there were we going to be kidnapped that wasn’t going to be an option and not sounding like a tough guy and I don’t mean it that way at all but we were not going to get kidnapped and if we have to have a firefight to prevent that then so be it uh but we were not going to be kidnapped and the next day like the day or two after that agreement is when this happened so the guy he’s dealing with leans into the car and grabs the steering wheel and with that I grab my M4 i kind of raise it a little i hit the safety off and I tell Jimmy “Move your head.” And Jimmy leaned back in his in his seat he didn’t even blink he didn’t he didn’t look at me different because we knew what was going on and he just leaned back in his seat and I stared at the guy for a second he let go of the steering wheel and we took off we ran one guy over jimmy blasted one guy uh I dive in the back seat and kind of lay down in the back of the truck just in case they started firing at us but they didn’t thankfully and we just got out of there wow man that’s crazy you had the eye contact with the guy and he was like “All right well it seems like these aren’t guys aren’t going to lie down.” Oh no and that’s that was the point of it i just you know kind of as soon as I hit the safety off he you know when you’re in that situation that safety getting clicked sounded like it echoed like for miles it sounded like right uh you know and he just looked at me and I stared at him for a second and you know he like you just said probably thought “All right wrong two guys.” And uh because they don’t want to die either you know you you would hope right and they were probably you know he was probably screaming about something other than what we thought you know either money or or whatever it might have been and just said “All right this is not going to be worth this.” And uh you know and then Jimmy just hit the gas and we did what we had to do to get out of there thank goodness you didn’t have to le release that fireball in Jimmy’s face because that that would have been Oh that would Yeah painful yeah that would have yep but you know what he would have forgiven me if what the alternative was gonna be yeah nobody’s pouring crude oil down your throat so we’re good exactly damn man that is intense when So with the Joint Terrorism Task Force like but you’re at New York City PD so this is something I don’t know anything about never worked at a giant agency that would even be involved in something like this but I understand that you guys got more involved after 911 for obvious reasons um who I’m talking about is ProForce Law Enforcement the best damn cop shop in the nation whether you’re purchasing for an entire agency or just an individual officer they have the firearms and duty gear all the stuff you need and they are the best in the biz to deal with and believe me I’ve played procurement officer before i’ve I’ve boughten matching things for bunch of different officers it can be a nightmare but nightmare it could be a night bear also um but not with Proforce Law Enforcement they make it easy they have all the top industry brands and these guys really are the best in the biz so they’ve set up a landing page just for podcast uh or things please see podcast fans tps.pro my goodness tps.proforceonline.com proforceline.com the link will be in the show notes anyways guys um the the products on there are just check it out the the discount is great and also proforceline.com to shop the whole site um these guys support our show uh their shop is amazing so um you know support ProForce Law Enforcement because they support TPS thank you Proforce how do you how do you is there um how do you get on to that or is there a test or what things did you have to do did it get offered to you or did someone pick you out how did it happen yeah after there was always a a joint terrorism task force an FBI task force uh it started 1980 I believe 80 or 81 and there were a very small amount of NYPD detectives assigned to it actually on September 10th there were only I think 11 detectives assigned to JTF then 911 happened and the New York office became the largest JTF in the country uh we had when I left five years ago we had over I think 65 different agencies assigned to the task force hund and something detectives uh you know from the NYPD so it became a massive uh animal pretty much in the country and the most powerful and the busiest for sure and I actually got on you know right after 9/11 getting on to JTTF was strictly getting asked to go by people who knew you who knew the work you did cases you’ve done in the past and able to handle those type of cases that you were going to be running on around the world uh you know so I actually got a call from a sergeant I used to work with when I was in anti-rime in uh in Manhattan and just said “Hey where are you?” And at the time I was in the 52 robbery squad and he goes “Okay just get down here tomorrow i’m going to give you a bunch of papers fill it out get it back to me.” Uh you know and that’s basically what it was and you went down you had a really quick interview because they all had to just check the box in in that they interviewed people uh the guy they want they just have to do formalities yep yep and you know answer a bunch of you know just basic questions pretty much about your career and then uh you know you just had to wait till your security clearance was was completed and then you went down there and you know they’re looking for they want I’m sorry go ahead no it’s okay you’re a deputized federal marshall you know once you get down there so you have every federal power just like an FBI agent has uh but you’re still you know working for the NYPD that’s just happen to be where you’re assigned to very cool man um so they they obviously want they want you for your investigative prowess for your ability to stump things out and and solve investigations how do they handle the part that’s like now they’re also going to take you to the Middle East and dress you like an operator like do they is is there like a do they qualify you on the weapon through the feds or is your NYPD qualification good enough yeah it was just from the NYPD and then you know we did we did a quick thing down in uh down in New Jersey for a day in in practicing how to get out of being kidnapped you know you spent the day getting tied up and handcuffed and put in a dark room and see if you can get out of it and you know all that stuff for a day uh and then you know we had to go and sit down with uh you know some special op groups because that’s who we were going to be dealing with out there uh any agency and stuff like that and coming up with game plans of how we were going to be working over there but you know it was Steve the one thing I always say about going over there it was more a mental challenge than a physical challenge you know I knew my my tactics and and how I was physically was going to be okay but like you just said you know I’m not in the military i’m an NYPD detective getting dropped into the middle of a war zone now yeah that you know everything has to change you know you have to be more on point you have to really really understand who you’re in the car with you know next to you because when you’re driving over there the driver’s driving and the and the passenger is looking at every other thing around you people walking on the street a double parked car a car driving sideway you know whatever it might be you have to be completely aware and on point when you’re driving around over there so you know all of that played a a part in just being mentally prepared for being over there then you had to get you know get ready and do the case you know on top of that yeah uh and figure out how we could get this guy home which we you know ended up doing thankfully uh we did get him out and got him home which was the best part of it all man that’s incredible the hyper vigilance must be insane when you first start doing it you first drive around I would be like looking at everybody as a threat you know yep and you don’t you know one of the things is you don’t stop your car no matter if there’s a car in front of you you push it out of the way you don’t stop your car because you’re completely vulnerable to a sniper or to an IED or or a suicide bomber anything so you know there were times that we would be in you know in Kbble they actually have traffic circles and you’d be pushing cars out of the way and jumping on a sidewalk and driving out of there because you just couldn’t stop uh and that played a part later you know I had such a I have a very high regard for the military anyway i I always did uh almost going in it on two different occasions you know when I was younger and then working closely with them in JTF and the understanding of you know these guys and girls go over there for a year plus on multiple uh deployments and the uh PTSD that they deal with is so real that I was over there for 3 months and and didn’t do anything and not an eighth of what goes on on a daily basis on the military side But even with that when I got home I got really uncomfortable sitting at a red light it was like overwhelming of I don’t want to sit here you know and almost sometimes driving through a red light because you was so used to not doing that uh and then I remember one day that it hit me that I was making a left turn and the light was red and a car pulled up next to me and I actually just instinctively reached down between my legs to grab my M4 while I was sitting at a light and I’m like “Wow.” You know and you think about I just went through three months of not crazy stuff you know a couple of situations but you think about how much our military vets go through and my level of you know honor for them uh rose dramatically absolutely yeah i mean three months but you’re you’re making pathways in your brain that have to do with like your primal reactions so they’re they’re they’re getting cred in you know what I mean yeah i I totally get that i mean and then was it weird to come back here and it sounds like it was but like even just like um I don’t know walking into a supermarket and being like everybody’s so peaceful and there you know what I mean like it’s like this seems odd that Yeah you must been so in a way grateful for the society we have in a lot of ways that’s exactly what I was just going to say you have you know you take for granted what we do every day you know going to a store or you know just driving freely wherever you want we take for granted and until you’re in a situation where you’re among people that can’t do that or have no ability to do that and then you come home and you really appreciate what we have here uh and everyone should the freedoms we have what we’re allowed to do what we’re allowed to say is drastically different than you know a a bunch of of countries in the world that uh that are out there absolutely yeah i I’ve said it before in the podcast but I you know I was I did um background investigations for LAPD for a couple years and um some of the best candidates would be guys from overseas Marines and Army Rangers and whatever and the big their biggest problem was they were a lot of them did long tours multiple deployments but they have access to social media over there so they would put wild stuff up there because you can only imagine their state of mind and like you know being a little bit sexist or racist or whatever is like the furthest thing from their concern obviously but then you do the social media search and you’re like oh brother what is this so they would always we’d always give them they wouldn’t get like a hard DQ they would get like a get rid of that come back in six months or a year type of thing and you know you got to cool off a little bit like the Yeah and it takes a while it’s not you know when I got home I actually took I took a week off uh a just to get your your timing back with with the time change because that was an eight and a half hour difference over there from being here so the jet lag and just the time change took a week or so even you know to get back on track with that yeah I bet just throw that into the mix of you know being on 10 for uh 24 hours a day that’s crazy were you married at the time oh yeah married and three kids and how did that go over man thankfully have the best wife in the world uh we’re together this year 35 years oh God bless you guys that’s amazing married for 33 you know three great kids and and she took a brunt of the stress away from me you know being over there not having to worry about what was going on at home and her taking care of of three kids and having her full-time job and going to softball and baseball and dance and homework and studying and doing all that and uh and thank God every day for her because she is uh the reason I’m still okay yeah yeah that’s beautiful man geez she’s got to be a very understanding woman i’ve had a few of you guys on who have been on these task force before and that’s it seems like always the case you just have a really strong wife at home that obviously you know if she I’m sure if she like absolutely couldn’t deal with it you wouldn’t have been able to do you wouldn’t be able to have that experience you know you wouldn’t be able to go absolutely not nope and you know it was a it was you know the task force was good because ex unless there was a major emergency you had a little leeway of when you were going away you know so we were able to kind of schedule out you know practices and games and okay I’ll be home this day you know so that was that was a good part of it there there was a time that you could just lay out a schedule which always helps you know but there were times that hey you know I got to leave tomorrow uh because of whatever was going on but you know every day I thank it i thank her uh because it like I said not having that on your mind when you’re when you’re somewhere else is a big plus yeah absolutely um I have a question for you about and I’m totally um naive with this stuff so forgive the simplicity of this question but you’re in like you say Cabal yes so and you say you have to you push a car out of the way or whatever do they have any level of law enforcement or anything that would see that happen and go “We need to stop those guys and question them or you just is it like the wild west you were just making your way through there and no one is really questioning is it just strange paramilitary groups that have control of different factions?” That’s exactly what it was you know there were there were times that you did have a military car you know attempt to talk to you or pull you over and then once you IDed themselves they all understood you know we weren’t running people over you know we were just trying to like hey I’m not stopping yeah they were like “Hold on we got to do a crash report here right?” Yeah there’s none of that there’s no accident reports uh you know but there were a couple of guys who did you know have people stop them like “Hey what are you doing?” And “Hey we’re going here we have this we have that uh whatever it might be but uh they were pretty understanding of of who we were and what we were doing okay that’s cool i always wondered about that i never asked that question before but I’m just I’m I have this picture in my head of going through a city just you know playing bumper car and I’m like just nobody did anything or Yeah well you’re not you know you’re doing that in Cabal you’re not doing Cobble and you’re not you know you’re not doing it in London right you know so two different places of course London is turning into cobble from what I see on the news so you might you might be deployed over there next brother yeah someone else’s turn yeah yeah I hear you um Tom can you tell us about the most intense or terrifying thing or one of the things you’ve dealt with in your career uh other than that uh in 92 93 I was involved in a pretty big shooting uh with three individuals who just robbed a supermarket uh across the street from me and my partner while we were sitting in a car uh you know we were I was married a month when this happened wow uh and during the course of it you know we got told there was something going on in the supermarket across the street so we made our way over there and the reason we were in our car across on the other side of the street we were waiting for one of our officers to cash his check in the bank and we were all friends we were all you know very good friends and tight we go out after work and uh the two guys actually I was with that day were at my wedding you know so we were a very tight group and we get to the other side of the street and the people from the supermarket say “Hey there’s three guys with guns they just robbed us they tied up the the security guard they’re coming up 144 Street towards Broadway in a livery cab that they carjacked so we start heading down there we kind of run right into them they lean out the car they start shooting at us uh you know we put it over the air and they go start going north on Broadway and Ralph comes out of the bank because he heard me on the radio and he heard the shots they lean out one of the guys leans out the car and shoots Ralph uh he got shot in the leg so he goes down and we have this just back and forth uh shootout with three guys in the backseat of a car and us on the street because we blew the back window of the car out so we’re just exchanging gunfire we actually hit two out of the three of them uh apprehended all three uh the one guy who actually shot Ralph who made a full recovery uh he actually had to get off the job because it blew his hamstring out uh when he got shot so he uh he got off the job but we were able to put them away for a long time i think the shooter uh actually got 125 years uh in in jail so he was in career crime they were bad bad guys they were wanted for I think I think it was 14 supermarket robberies around the around the city at that time uh they wanted in every count in every burrow by everyone and we just happened to run into them that day so they figured out that you know maybe a supermarket’s a softer target than a bank and they still have money on hand how much do you know how much they would get from a score like from Oh I don’t even I don’t know uh because we didn’t we weren’t involved in the in the investigation or or putting together any of the uh the patterns that they were wanted on uh we did have to go to a couple of lineups I think just to kind of you know shore up the the patterns in in identifying them in other robberies that they wanted for uh but not in the overall investigation gotcha we were still on patrol we were just We were young cops at the time wow that’s nuts man what were they um did they have rifles or handguns or They had handguns it’s a uh 357 a 44 and a nine 44 and a 357 and we only had 38s we didn’t even have nine jet so we just had 38s that we had i I’ve heard that before about you know people think of a place like NYPD and they’re like “Oh they’re going to have um state-of-the-art everything.” thing but really it’s there’s so many officers that like transitioning to nine probably cost millions of dollars not just for the guns but for the qualifications and the ammo and the whole thing so you we didn’t get nines until 94.95 wow they wouldn’t not the kind of agency that would they let you buy your own and carry it if you wanted no you had to carry a 38 that was it until you were caught until the nines came and then you were only allowed to carry certain 9 millimeters off duty wow that’s crazy man yeah you’d think even Man they make wheel guns in 357 that would have been a little better you know get some kick shots goes real quick real real fast and the whole you know analogy moviewise like count your rounds no that doesn’t happen sorry brother that that that’s not even close to happening because your your mind and tunnel vision and echoes and you know I heard I you know I say it all the time i think there were 40 something rounds fired in the shooting I was in i think I heard one I think the first round that that was fired at us or first couple rounds and then the one that hit Ralph and then that was it then it sound everything sound like you were in a pillow that’s crazy isn’t it your body reacts protects your hearing um yeah I remember the first time I did uh simunitions training you know I’d never been hit with one so we’re all kind of like what’s this going to feel like and so we did scenarios and and and they load you up give you magazines and stuff and I remember being like the guy to the guy at the table that loads hey you only gave me like I only had like three rounds he’s like you had like 10 rounds i’m like but I shot him so fast you know and I immediately went to a knee just innately because I wanted to be smaller a smaller target when the round started coming and then I just emptied my gun and I was like I’m out yep it’s quick that’s like make that’s make believe you know what I mean that’s not that’s not real right oh man that is intense brother um Tom can you tell us about a positive or heartwarming call that you’ve dealt with on the job sure uh we had one call and and I still tell this story when someone like you you know ask it uh because it was so important to us we we get a call one night of a uh unresponsive baby and of course in New York City when you have an emergency and you run into a building elevators don’t work so never and the call is always on the top floor of course so we run as fast as we can up six flights of stairs I think it was get in the hallway and the mother is holding this lifeless baby in her arms and just hands it to my partner and that’s it just hands it to her so we take it we do a U-turn run down the stairs and I’m yelling on the radio you know what we got uh I’m asking my precinct the precinct north of us of the hospital we’re going to go start shutting down Riverside Drive you know just shut it down that’s the route we’re going give me a minute we’re running to the car now and Central could hear me you know running down the stairs and I’m trying to actually get ahead of my partner so I could get in the car and get it at least started before he gets in and we get in and we take off and everyone’s starting to shut the streets down and you know we rip the clothes off the baby and he’s doing mouthtomouth of the baby i’m pumping the baby’s chest while on his lap while I’m trying to drive you know 80 90 miles an hour north on Riverside Drive wow uh and grab my radio and try to just tell them where I’m at you know just so everyone knows you know I’m getting to their intersection and we’re doing it we’re just continuously doing it and doing it and we get to the hospital and I kind of just slide sideways into the emergency room you know uh opening and as soon as we did that the baby started crying oh thank God so God uh that was you know just picked her up ran inside uh doctors and took it from there but uh it ended up that we found out later or the next day or two days later that the baby actually had a seizure which stopped his heart uh and you know thankfully we were in the right place at the right time and able to help yeah man that’s amazing i love that story thank goodness that must have been the best sound in the world oh unbelievable and loud that was the best part you know it wasn’t like a gurgle it was a scream which was uh great and I mean literally Steve as we are sliding into the dock you know of the emergency room and they’re you know all the emergency room personnel are all there waiting you know they’re all standing there because they got the heads up and as soon as I did that she he let out a big scream that’s awesome man and then you got to get word back to the mom too she’s like he just took off with her baby it’s like oh well someone else Yeah i think the the uh guys who showed up after us you know just backing us up on the call I think grabbed her so she wasn’t I don’t think she was too far behind us oh that’s great oh yeah i was I was imagining that like you had to go quick it was no time for you know no contact info or whatever else um Damn man that’s awesome what a great save those are the hardest calls ever with with kids that Oh yeah either die you never want that you know when you hear anything on a radio of a kid or a child or something you you just you’re praying that it’s nothing that bad or or something you can easily fix or or whatever it might be you know no one likes going to those yeah yeah and a lot of times it is you show up and whatever was happening is cleared up or they just had a coughing fit and turned purple and now they’re back because I have three kids it happens like you can have your kid can get into a weird little cycle where they just they stop it like likely to stop breathing no one you know no one tells you that when you have a kid right that’s a that’s not in the handbook that’s a that’s a bonus you get to enjoy um Tom real popular question on the show is um advice to new recruits a lot of people listening to the show um are in backgrounds or they’re about to go to academy or they’re in academy i even get uh emails pretty consistently from people who hear you guys tell your stories and decide to actually become a cop which I think is so cool what advice would you give to cops going in now you know what See it’s a great question and I love answering this and mine is a little different than probably you hear uh I have the opportunity to speak down at the criminal investigation course you know when when detectives get uh promoted you know the three-week course they have to go through and and I’ve been asked to go to that and speaking in colleges and so forth and I get that a lot you know from people and the number one thing I tell new recruits new detectives or people looking to go into the police department is get your communication skills in order you could be physically fit you could be a great shot that’s great if you don’t know how to talk to people and deal with people you’re not going to be successful because and it doesn’t matter where you go the Bronx Brooklyn Manhattan Afghanistan London England communication is everything and if you can’t express yourself of either what you need or the help you need or talking about a case or whatever it might be or having a dialogue with someone who’s in trouble you know and uh needing to hear a certain word from you or a certain phrase or whatever if you don’t know how to talk to people you’re not going to be good at this job yeah that’s so true so many cops have such good success with their with their mouth you can solve like 80% of issues and we all have worked with the cops that can’t do it or they’re the one that shows up and makes it it falls apart you’re like dancing a line with this guy and that cop shows up or heaven forbid that sergeant shows up and then it’s like the wheels are off everything is Oh yeah yeah what the what the f’s wrong with this guy and it’s like dude I’m trying to get a rapport oh it’s Well man we’ve been in that we real quick we we had we were we were dealing with a uh offduty cop who got stabbed once uh right before I went into JTF in the precinct I was in and we got the guy that we know he knows who did it he didn’t do we know he didn’t do it but we know he knows who did it and we got him in the room and Pete my partner at the time had 30ome years on the job great detective knew his stuff old time you know old time view of things and and a great guy and we’re sitting there talking to him and out of nowhere this not even our sergeant this sergeant walks into the interview room and sits down and we’re like “What are you doing?” Yeah hey what’s he talking about why doesn’t he I’m like “Oh boy.” So Pete goes “Hey can I talk to you outside for a minute?” Yeah so he go takes him outside and lost his mind on him you know because it threw everything off because now the bad guy is all he’s doing is staring at the sergeant you know who is he why is he in here i’m just about to tell you who did this and uh you know so timing is everything and and communication is is even more than that man how It’s so crazy too it’s like how would how would someone in his position not know better you know yeah well that’s probably another we could do a whole another show on that yeah yeah and you guys employ a lot of people so there’s a lot of lot of different personalities everybody’s good at something nobody’s good at everything you know absolutely right but uh but talking to people you know whether it’s whether it’s the elderly person you know sitting at a window watching the street all day or the kid on the corner you know me and my partner always my main partner you know Carlos who who we worked in a couple of different places together you know especially when we were in narcotics if we were driving around doing something there were a bunch of kids playing football on the street we got out played football for an hour yeah that’s great we could do it all the time we’d play basketball with them carlos sat down one time and played dominoes for an hour with a group of guys because that’s just how you you know there was going to be one day where we needed them where something was going to happen somewhere and hey remember hey guys yeah you were cool you played ball me hey where’d that car go oh it’s around the corner you know whatever it might be but uh that is that is the number one thing in my mind to be a good cop a successful cop uh in your community and and having the ability to speak to people yeah absolutely so true yeah i remember I’ve had some gang cops on before and they they even because they did stuff like that and got relationships going um they had gangsters that gave them information if especially if they were going to be getting hurt but they like that detective you know they just Oh absolutely they knew they were sworn enemies but they had that personal connection and it really gets into people’s heads you know oh yeah especially when you put the spin on it with listen you know I don’t want to know what you do i don’t care what you do i don’t care what your group does tell me about your competition oh that was the best line they love that oh really you don’t want to know about me nope i don’t care about you yeah for now tell me about you tell me about who’s who’s going after your spot oh yeah that’s you know and then that’s smart oh yeah we It was you know talking to people I I always enjoyed because it could go in so many different directions and you know just to back up a little Steve something you’d probably you know really like to hear uh especially when it comes to this part when I was in Afghanistan I had to get a source uh and I I recruited I had a lot of sources when I was in the NYPD in narcotics and the gang unit i worked a lot a lot of sources so I was comfortable dealing with anybody uh out there because you know I could speak to people and I’ve done it for a long time sure and I told the agency listen uh I need a source i don’t want a terrorist i don’t I don’t trust terrorists their ideology is all weird and wacky who’s your worst criminal in this country that’s who I want to talk to who’s the number one guy in this country who’s on your radar who’s the worst guy you got and they go “Well we do have one guy that kind of fits that.” Like good let’s hook it up we fly down to Kabell uh Kandahar which is the southern part of of Afghanistan would fly down there to meet him and he ends up being the number one heroin dealer in the entire country whoa becomes my source no kidding yep and marked them and uh we got along great uh because my view what I just said to you with with the competition the agreement I had with him was listen dude I’m not here for you i don’t care what you do i don’t care how much drugs you sell i don’t care if you kill you know go and whack 10 people today i don’t care i need this guy home and you can help me and we got along great and that was my whole role into him uh I went to Dubai with him to visit his mother in the hospital you know because I needed you know I needed him to work with us and you know if I don’t have that set of skills you know to to speak to someone or just the personality of doing it you know that would have never worked cuz he would have seen my right through someone who was just you know pulling his chain you know trying to get uh you know info and it wouldn’t have worked and and that’s what I mean by just hone in your skills and being good at speaking to people because it is worth its weight and gold when you can talk to someone and that’s why they bring you guys over there exactly why yeah cuz it’s universal that kind of stuff it doesn’t matter the culture that’s amazing man that’s so cool um did they think you were nuts when you first asked that yeah they looked Well the funny part is they they looked at me like “Yeah we know the guy but he’s not going to talk to you because he doesn’t talk to us.” So I go “Well let me deal with that let me let me just let me see how this goes and let me deal with it.” And we immediately just got along because I that was my agreement with him i don’t care about you i’m not here for you uh which he understood and and you know when you when you’re dealing with bad guys there’s there’s rules and then there’s street rules right you know and he believed me when I told him that and the one other thing I used to always do Steve and and the guys I worked with in the FBI understood this was one of my lines be because it always worked i would tell people listen I’m not with them i’m just a cop i’m not one of them i’m not a fed i’m not one of them i don’t have three letters that’s not me i’m a cop i just need to get this guy home oh that’s great you know so you have a soul mission that’s all you care about yeah and that was it and I didn’t care how you know we did it or or who did it but I would go back and intentionally tell the agency “Yeah you know he called me today.” And he’s like “He called you.” Like “Hey he calls me we talk all the time.” “Oh he doesn’t call us.” I go “He doesn’t like you.” He doesn’t trust you and he doesn’t like you that’s why so that was always kind of a running joke with with uh with being in touch with him as much as I was and uh you keep in touch with him now have you heard from him at all no he got killed oh well that happens yeah you know he got uh and it was you know while we were talking and while we were meeting down in Kandahar and a couple of times up in Kbble he would tell me “Hey Tom listen let’s meet real quick because I don’t want you to get hurt uh because they’re going to get me so let’s just do what we got to do real quick and he would say that every time we met you know whether we met on the side of the road or in a hut or you know whatever it might have been he would tell me all the time listen you know let’s do this quick because I I just I don’t want you to get in the middle of this and uh his competitors actually at a point in time after we were done I was home uh got to him and he got killed oh man so yeah it sounds like this guy definitely had some like humanity about him you know do you What was his backstory oh he was uh I know a lot about that I can’t get into but he was uh you know pretty well middle class or No he was well taken care of uh politically uh you know very well taken care of okay so he had the means to start his Yeah career he visited the United States a lot went to school here you know so he he knew he was very educated knew the deal uh but that’s you know that’s what the business was over there at the time wow that’s incredible brother my goodness um Tom tell us about Gold Shields gold Shields uh it’s you know what it’s just great dan Murphy and I my partner uh started it three years ago now and and what we do on the show is we get these high-profile cases and we get the men and women who actually did them either on law enforcement level military level or victims of high-profile crimes and we get them on the show and they tell their own stories you know uh we say it all the time Dan and I’s name is on it it’s on you know it’s our show but we have very little to do with the show it is so about our guests and their stories and there’s times that Steve you know we get speechless with some of the stories that we hear and you know what people have gone through in order to achieve a goal or close a case or finish a mission you know or the injuries that they’ve sustained in war uh and then coming on our show and telling about that it’s you know we get we get shows that really hit us sometimes uh you know children getting killed you know all that and investigations of that you know that uh you know we really we love hearing these stories because it’s stories that you may know the overall case or the characters or or who’s involved but not the intrical details that we get into uh with our guests with detectives and agents or members of SEAL teams you know and all that it’s just a a great ride that we’re on and uh we love the people that we get to meet and get to talk to every week and it’s been a great ride that’s awesome you can get it everywhere apple podcast Spotify you’re on YouTube yep uh all the it’s on I mean we’re on audio channels i don’t even know well I’ll get an email that hey you you know you’re on this like Okay cool uh but we’re on every audio channel and uh YouTube YouTube.comgoldshields is our videos uh and like I said it’s just a great ride and our uh website is the gold shieldshow.com and uh you know like I said it’s just it’s something you had a thought of a few years ago and when we started this Steve Dave we had seven shows lined up and that was it and we had no idea what number eight was going to be uh until we got number five and we’re like “Oh god damn we need we need a number eight real quick you know and then it just catches on and and the stories resonate with a lot of people and you know you start getting people that hey I got this person for you or you should check this case out and and then it just goes from there and you turn around you blink and it’s season three already.” Uh you know so we’re really blessed and we just love uh doing it and the people we get to meet every week that’s awesome man yeah it sounds like to listeners to this show that’d be right up their alley very a lot of similarities between the two shows happy to join us please yeah yeah absolutely check them out guys um well yeah because they they I I have people write me and they want more you know people would like more episodes but I’m not capable so go binge Gold Shields why not there’s another yep and uh you know we love suggestions and and comments of uh you know hey I know this can you get this and I’ll reach out to anyone you know i’m um 30 years in the NYPD gave me something of of digging and finding people uh I’ve had a a couple of guests once I get to talk to them they’d be like “Hey Tom can I ask you a question like how’d you find me?” Well I learned something in 30 years you know so uh you know which is which is great but the stories even you know the upcoming shows we got uh scheduled already are going to are going to blow people’s minds i can’t wait to do them awesome man i love it i I will absolutely put a link in the show notes to your website and to your podcast and uh guys go check them out tom honored to have you on man fantastic stories thank you so much oh thank you for having me i had a blast really appreciate it thank you Steve my pleasure i’m going to do the outro to the show can you hang on for just like two or three minutes absolutely awesome the great Tom Smith guys uh fascinating career wow and his uh the podcast sounds fantastic as well go check them out this is a time in the show where I thank the Patreon sponsors who I’m talking about these are the lieutenants everybody the great and powerful Andy Biggs the handsome Kyle Roberts Michael Roach Roach Machines thank you sir the great Thomas Connell now to the sergeants Adam Alexander Adam McMahon Adam Mihal Ben Peters Brad Thompson Dan Carlson from Berley Boards amazing woodworker check him out on Instagram sher Finch thank you madam clark Luff everybody dave Elman Dennis Gerisio Doug and Kelly Newman love you guys hope you’re having a good time in Wyoming dylan Mosher everybody elliot Sykes Gabriel Decknob thank you Gary Steiner George Carrie Otis Greg Gadboy James Rose Jason Ler everybody jason Laauo Jessica King thank you john Jordan John Shoemaker John and Aaron 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