In this episode I talk with San Francisco Police Officer Sean Thompson. Sean recalls some CRAZY incidents from his past 3 years on the road. Sean hosts his own podcasts, see links below.
Contact the podcast at steve@thingspolicesee.com
Sean’s Podcasts
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/goodbad-2-no-holds-barred/id1478553571
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/goodbad-2-the-sequel/id1470219449
hey guys it’s Steve welcome to thingspolice see first-hand accounts this isepisode number 27 thank you for joiningus thank you for all the continuedsupport if you want to contact me aboutbeing on the show or if you want toreach out to the show and ask me anyquestionsthe the way to do that is things policesee at gmail.com in this episode I haveShawn Thompson from the San FranciscoPolice DepartmentShawn has some crazy stories like one ofthem was mmm just nuts very graphic butvery interesting just warned you of thatyeah he goes into just a crazy suicideattempt at a national park and and hetalks about responding to an activeshooter event so really interestingstuff very intense super happy thatShawn came on and was willing to sharehis stories he he is also involvedactually in his own two podcasts goodbad too the sequel and good bad – noholds barred the the first onegood bad – the sequel is they kind ofreview cringy movies and it’s actually agreat idea for a podcast you should gocheck that out and also good bad -no-holds-barred is similar theme exceptthey go into old old kind of cheesywrestling so – great podcast right there- go check out their available on iTunesso without any further ado here is myinterview with Shawn Thompson this isthings police see first ant accountswith your oast Steve Gould[Applause]John Thompson San Francisco PoliceDepartment thank you for coming on thepodcast my man of course how you doingtoday I’m doing good brotherso I’m in sunny California as well justa little further south than you you guysyou guys I think stay a little a littlemore chilly than us right yeah I thinkit’s in the I think it was high 30s thismorning when I got up oh that’s yeahthat’s that’s like northeast cold hey umdude I got a Thai growing up Dirty Harrywas like one of my favorite moviesthat’s like my only exposure to SanFrancisco PD and man he’s a great repfor you guys yeah do you do you guyshave the stars like could you throw itinto a cabinet past your captain’s headif you wanted to quit we still use it westill use this the was it theseven-point stars it’s awesome I lovethat so traditional yeah it’s a coolcool classic classic kind of look thatum those movies are if you go back andrevisit them they’re they’re so good butthey’re so ridiculous especially if youdon’t even attempt to apply them totoday’s climate but you know like Ican’tthis isn’t like word-for-word othersparaphrase but at one point have youseen the movies it’s been a long timeyeah at one point he’s talking to hiscaptain or lieutenant or something andhe’s like Harry you’re gonna cost us amillion dollars again and he’s like wellwhen I see you when I see a pervertrunning around Chinatown with his pantsdown I shoot this son of a bitch yeahyeah yeah definitely can’t do that inSan Francisco now yeah no all rightbrotherlet’s get into it can you tell us aboutthe first hot call that you responded tojust the first call that you know reallygot your got your adrenaline going sothe first kind of a two-part the firstthe first hot call that I had wasactually believe it or not first phaseFTO first day right out right out oflineup we broke from lineup excellentI was on day shift for a first phase FTOin a district called Northern Districtswe have ten different districts in thecity so we’re in lineup call comes outfor a hot prowl four or five nine so hotprowl burglary in progress so ft an FTOand I go out and make entry suspectsgone but first first call first day gunout like five you know forty five sixo’clock in the morning still dark doinga building search looking for suspectmeet with the victim Jesus definitelysurreal for your first day yeah it’s uhI prepared I feel like I preparedprepared pretty well for for the job Iwent through two academies I put myselfthrough an Academy before I got pickedup with San Francisco OhCal so you’re uh I don’t know howCalifornia academies work really butobviously they’re not all equivalentyou can’t like just know so my one yeahmy first one there’s twenty weeks whichis I believe the minimum and then SanFrancisco was 36:36 week Academy yeahoh my god I’m sorry to take a branch offthe story here but yeah it’s there’s alot so I it was a process for me gettingin the job so I was pretty felt prettyprepared and but it’s like you said it’syour first call and it’s you know it’snot moving a homeless guy or a trafficstop or you know some you know argumentover a parking stall but it’s a meetwith the victim she’s upset you knowthere’s some broken door um she said shewas in her room she heard noise in theroommates room roommates out of town andthen her door opened and complex yeah asecond apartment callLex so they’re kind of funky in the citythere’s some that are like your typicalyou know apartment building kind of likelike Seinfeld where you go insidehallways doors on either side and thenthey have ones that are like they’relike stacked units and so it’s not it’slike one unit on a floor and then you goup the stairs and a lot of a lot of thebuildings in San Francisco have liketradesmen’s doors so they have like alittle side alley that’s covered thatthe you shrug putting out the garbageand you can get access to the garage andbackyards but it’s like a gate at the atthe curb okay um so it’s kind of like aback door so she’s in her roomdoor opens and she sees a silhouette inthe doorway and she freaks out whoeverwasn’t up bolting when we’re doing asearch and you know going through roomsseeing if anything’s missing I look atthe at the bed her roommates bed andthere’s a rusty sawzall blade laying onthe bed and I and I look at it and Ilook at her and I go this isn’t yourscorrect and she freaked out she didn’teven see that before weird yeah so it’sit it’s kind of crazy your first callgoing a super personal personal call forfor someone like that she was terrifiedand you know that’s very understandableso I know and only we ended up then endup getting the getting the guy I thinkthere was a couple things missing butthat was I was pretty intense for herfirst call but I would say my first myfirst real I would say adrenaline rushwas my second phase FTO and again it wasthe first day and for second phase I washousing so in our projects we havehousing units and teams that that justwork in the men’s projectand they typically aren’t FTOs but I gotlucky enough to get a housing for mysecond phase and a first housingsomething you would want then yeah forme so there’s a lot of stuff I want tolearn the job there’s a ton of stuff asyou know to learn and patrols a hugeaspect but there’s especially in the bigcity there’s a lot of a lot of avenuesyou can branch off and I’m sure andgetting to work in the projects learnsome of the major players especially inthat district you kind of get a littlebit of everything there’s you know themarina which is super nice and you get alittle bit of downtown and then you havethe projects so it’s a good mix we’redriving through the projects and FTO andhas partners see see somebody that theyare familiar with with somebody thatthey’re not and the other the other guywas hooded up so they’re trying tofigure out who he is I know the guywho’s with him is known to carry guns sothey kind of warned me they go hey assoon as we get out of the car you knowhe’s going to take off so they one ofthem makes a noise to kind of see ifthey’ll look over and get a look at lookat the guy with the hood up and as soonas he looks and our doors open he boltsso we take off FTO and I chase him chasehim through the park turns a corner ontothe street and the streets lined withthe projects on that side all the doorsare like along the street and he runsabout halfway down the block and heturns to go into one of the units and ashe turns he reaches I can remember itlike it was yesterday he reaches for thedoor handle with his right handand he reaches for his waistband withhis left and as soon as I saw that I wasright along the curb line so I duckedducked over behind the carand drew drew my firearm and he ended upducking into the house but they havesome cool technology there and andsurveillance cameras and we were able toidentify him we lock down the projectsand did some searches and know when herun he runs in there and you’reobviously you had great instinctsespecially as a young young officer inthe job you take cover you draw yourweapon he runs in you don’t run in rightafter right no so he ran in and turnedout it was it was like his sister’shouse and he ran in and door shut afterthe door had shut we ran up and slay itkind of caught us both we had to just myFTO and I obviously had discussion aboutit afterwards and we both thought thesame thing that if the door was lockedthat whatever he was reaching for thatwas that was his next option so we getto the door and the door ends up beinglike barricaded so we’re pounding on thedoor and it takes a good 30 45 secondsfor somebody to open the door and thenfrom there you know we continued set upa perimeter and did what we had to do Ithink we ended up looking he ran out theback door went to another family membersunit in that complex there’s a bunch ofthem that live in that that complex andwe ended up finding him I think in hisgrandma’s grandma’s house grant poorgrandma they’re always going toGrandma’s yep dude that’s that isintense manespecially so new on the job is it whenwhen he went through the door was thereany was there any windows or any otherentry points or was it just the doorthere’s a there’s a window I believe inthe front and then there was I thinkthere were stairs going upstairs andthen the back doorso yeah we I think he I think he handedoff whatever he had or stashed it ittook a while for us to be able to searchthat unit we did we didn’t end upfinding anything in there but I think heyeah I think he ran in sister claims shedidn’t know know who the guy was andknow what was going on but like you knowthat’s usually how that how that processgoes yeah you must you’ve got to bepretty jacked up when you’re doing thatsearch you know after knowing there’s agood probability he could be in therehiding somewhere with the gun I meantons of cops get shot like that peoplehiding you know oh yeah we I mean Iprobably saw on the news it was a fewyears before that they had the fourofficers in Oaklandthey got they got killed a couple ofthem shot suspect was hiding in a closetwith a ak-47 and shot through the shotthrough the wall and killed a couple ofthem so yeah it’s it’s one of thosethings that in the job that you prepareas much as you can but especially whenyou’re doing a building search we do alot of training with like our tacticalteam and it’s one of those things youjust can’t can’t really prepare for Iguess like when you got a search whenyou’re the first man in it’s kind oflike you can use the best tactics andyou’re smart about it and you don’t youdon’t rush in but if someone’s hidingand they want to get you they have theupper hand and it’s kind of whateverhappens happens yeah you can’t I meanthere’s nothing you can really do ifsomeone’s want to swap their lives fortheir life for you you know that’s yeahyikes brother you mentioned technologyto help track this guy what do you meanby that so the housing housing unitshave or all the housing properties mostof them in the city have likesurveillance cameras so the housingofficers you know have access to to thecameras um some of them have real-timeaccess so they can access it fromphones and they can rewind rewindfootage and you know cici where theperson went oh that’s pretty great andthey were pretty open to that prettycooperative no well they actually theofficers have it on on their like workphones so we have like department phonesso they have oh I’m sorry I was I wasjust imagining I was cuz I do fraudinvestigation now for Jake’s company sowe’re always asking can we have accessto that here’s you know here’s a releaseyou know can we have access to that youguys had that the cops have access tothat yes some of them like you have tobe in special units to probably have togo through special training but it’sthrough it it might have changed sincesince then but there’s like a securitycompany that runs all the cameras andthe projects and I believe they hadgiven given the access to to themthrough like an app or some kind ofsystem so they and they have ways ofchecking it like real-time that dothat’s pretty BA that’s yeah that’samazing well I wouldn’t expect any lessfrom San Francisco you guys are the techgiant’s right you’d think that’s reallygood and then you know they the computersystems and our cars and like our reportwriting we still print out reports andsubmit paper reports and so yeah yeahsome stuff is up some stuff is a littlea little bit for Mac but yeah it’s hardwith huge agencies like that they justum it just takes forever sometimes to uhits unless someone’s really pushing it Iremember like New York City had they hadrevolvers for like a long long time ittook forever to trance get everybody toautomatics cuz there’s just you knowthirty thousand cops yes you guys caselike steering a battleship yeah exactlyalright brother you gotta have a goodone for this a strange or bizarre callyeah so we had awe had a call this is more recent thedistrict I’m in now so so for us sobackstory for us we do when you dotraining you do your field training atone station you go to a third stationfor your probationary period and thenyou go to a third station sorry a secondstation for probation and a thirdstation for your permanent station sothey move you around the city get usedto different parts so I’m I’m at mypermanent station out in the RichmondDistrict which is you know the OceanBeach in its it’s like a Robin Williamshad a house out there so Golden GatePark it’s a quieter part of the city wegot a call what’s that high rent evenFrancisco yeah so we got a call toassist another agency and we have a lotof like u.s. Park Police territory inthat area so we work hand-in-hand withthose guys pretty often and we get acall to assist them with the personattempting to commit suicide so theywere looking for they don’t have likehostage negotiators and it takes a whilefor us to get our our hostagenegotiation team set up so a lot ofofficers are to call CIT trained so forlike critical incidents so the person Iwas working with officers working thatday we go out and we’re first to respondand it’s on a in a park along the alongthe cliff along the coastline subjectson Park Police said it was like a threeor four hundred foot cliff like a sheercliff overlooking the Golden Gate so wewe get there and there’s a couple of uspark police officers andbig subject not suspect it’s not a crimebut he’s he’s covered in blood and he’sholdingyeah he’s holding what’s like like aRambo knife and trying to talk him backfrom the ledge you know come talk to usand he’s calm he’s not not violent he’she’s pretty content with the decision hemade and to see like shirtless coveredin blood no he he’s clothed with coveredin blood so what happened was he hefound this spot kinda off a trail andhis idea was to slit his wrists and justbleed out looking out at the out at theGolden Gate Bridge okay so he had takenthis knife and he was a medic priorprior he was a medic in another part ofthe country and we were en dedup beingthere for about four or five hourstalking to him but he described to usand told us how how tough it was for himto cut his wrists so he cut them youknow lengthwise vertically and that’sthe way I really do it right because youcan’t that really damages your veinsthey can’t close yeah it’s they can’t itcan’t stitch him up to get that longvertical cut and he he said it took himthree three cuts really yeah it was itwas tough said it took him three sowhile we’re talking to him he’ssqueezing his forearms he’s kind ofrubbing his arms you know just asktalking oh man hey is he trying to bleedout when he’s talking to you or is hejust nervously squeezing himself yeah sohe’s he’s not he’s not nervous at allhe’s he’s cool he’s calm he’s you knowhaving just regular conversation with usbut he told us he he was trying to bleedout so he she didn’t cut quite deepenough in the wounds the the blood hadstarted to like coagulate and close upthe wound sohe’s trying to like squeeze squeeze theblood out oh my gosh yes so we’re sonasty we’re talking to Mike a man justcome you know we don’t want you to falland we don’t want you to jump in he goesoh I’m not gonna jumphe’s like I’m I’m too scared to jump hegoes but maybe if I bleed out I’ll justfall so then I would have been likemaybe you could just jump with thosebloody arms so he’s doing this and youknow he’s squeezing his arms and againthere for a few hours and talking to himand every once in a while he’ll likepick at his wrist and he’ll like flickso we ask him what he’s doing he said hewas picking out blood clots oh man andon this one a couple instance he he likewitnesses and he he goes oh man that onehurt and he lifts up his armand he actually sticks his fingersinside of his arm and starts pulling athis veins oh my goshoh yeah brutal yeah he like almost pullsthem out whoa and he’s like narratingthe pain as he’s tugging on his on hisarteries yeah so we we sit there withhim and and talk to him we get ourhostage negotiation team out therewe don’t carry Tasers I had my we calleder I’d uh buttes our extended rangeimpact weapon our less lethal shotguns Ihad that with me just in case and weended up doing is some friends made likea recording for him saying that theymissed him and want to talk to women ohreally well it’s interesting so he was areported missing person from anotherdistrict in the city earlier that dayand we all kind of put this togetherduring the incident that uh he was a hewas a missing person that his his familywas looking for him I said yeah sosome friends came out and he we havethis recording for him but it was hardto hear so we got him to take about tensteps in to listen to the recording andat that time we had u.s. Park Police Ithink two two officers tased him at thesame time and he dropped and they wereable to get him into into custodyI would like yeah the parks police youguys be the main the main hands-on guysthis is your jurisdiction so so yeahthey were and now that was one of thethe back and force that our some of ourstaff that there had with them was likehey this is in our jurisdiction and likeit’s it’s not a it’s not a crime so youknow if you guys got to do something youguys go hands-on well here we’re here tosupport you and you know we were thereto talk to him because of the you knowthe extra training you know we haveright so it worked out but it was a Iactually I actually took the the nextday off after that yeah I don’t blameGod yeah not because it’s not one ofthose that like sticks with you and youknow gives you nightmares or anythingbut it was like towards the end of theweek and being there for as long as wewere and seeing that I was like man I’mjust gonna start my weekend early take aday off I don’t blame you man that thatis that is that is Harrywooof gross pulling on his veins likethat what and was he on drugs was hedrunk or was he just depressed he wasjust depressed it was an interestinginteresting situation so like I said hehe was a medic prior medic another partof the country and one of the partpolice had a friend who also worked forthat same agency so he had stepped awayfrom the situation and called hisbuddy and turns out his buddy knew thisguy so the park police officer came backand was like hey man I just talked toso-and-so he said you’re really good guyhe said you’re a good cook super nice soand that kind of helped as soon as hesaid that the guy kind of teared up alittle bitmmm and his demeanor changed a littlebit so it’s an interesting yeah did youhave any follow up with this guy Dean ishe okay or do you know what happen atallI don’t because the u.s. Park Policetake take over at that point um oh yeahI’m sure you were more than happy to getthe hell out of there yeah yeah that’show you know like you get into the jobfor I mean there’s the obvious you getto chase people and you know do coolstuff but it’s stuff like this that Ilike to I like to tell people that theyknow people know things happen but theydon’t really know like they see it on TVthey see it in the movies but but that’snot real um yeah it’s really weird likecuz you do have this image of likealright I’m gonna deal with bad guys I’mgonna chase him I’m gonna you know maybepull overgetting some chases and stuff like thatbut then when you go to a call like youjust went to or like for me theequivalent my only thing I would havewould be like a really bad wreck whereyou’re the first one there it’s just thetwo of you and someone like reallyreally mangled it’s like whoa like thisthe whole that whole medical side of italways hit me sideways you know I alwaysfelt like I wasn’t prepared for it yesit’s one of those I feel like you can’treally prepare for even even with youknow social media and the news and theirstuff you know movies everything’s morerealistic but it’s still I almost thinkthat it hurts the the reality of itbecause people get so used to seeingthese things on TV TV shows and moviesbut then you see that like the real lifeconsequences of it andhow it affects people and it’s notreally something you can fully preparefor you just kind of have to learn waysto to cope with it absolutely let me askyou about the parks police because wewhere I worked we had a big part of ourjurisdiction was national parks yeah andthey were like Park Rangers you knowthey had those yeah the Smokies and isthat different than Park is Park Policeis that like a state thing or was that afederal Park so we have we have a coupleso like in Golden Gate Park we have ourwe have like Rangers Park Rangers likenational I think they’re local okaybecause I want the first Academy went toup here up north they have they alsotrain Park Rangers so for all the youknow and they might be national parksI’ll be honest I’m not too too familiarwith with what those Rangers do the oneswe normal excuse me that we normallywork with our u.s. Park Police and sothey like the area is called like thePresidio and it’s old like militaryhousing and bases so I guess it would befederal huh it’s just so many differentsects of that stuff it’s like reallyyeah interesting bizarre and and it’shard it’s hard for us sometimes knowinglike Ocean Beach the beach itself isPark Police territory but like we havethe parking lot so jurisdictionallysometimes there’s a back and forth onyou know whose jurisdiction a call isthat’s interesting yeah so we do we likewe do a lot of there’s a like youprobably know there’s a lot of autoburglaries in San Francisco right andthat district in that area we get a lotof them and that’s the a lot of the thespots where they hitnormally kind of borders on ourterritory and park police so you knowwill be when I’m doing like aplainclothes operation will will bewatching a parking lot that might beu.s. Park Police and when somethinghappens it’s kind of uh we might grabsomebody but then it’s okay do we writeit do this Park police take it so it’skind of a jurisdictional battlesometimes yeah that’s weird it’s it’sdifferent everywhere too like where Iworked it was we used to swear in thepark or the federal Park Rangers they’relaw enforcement you know they’re armedand badges and all that they get swornin to have special police powers whenthey left the park property because thepark kind of went in and out of publicroads yeah I mean it really weirdbecause like one night I went on route 6was a main highway that went throughtown and there was a park ranger outthere had someone pulled over and he’sjust searched in the car and hadeverybody on the car and I talked to himlater and I said I’ll because on federalproperty when you’re exercising you’reyour forcement powers as a federal parkranger you can take people the car forno reason you can just pull him over andgo get out and search the car they coulddo that on federal yeah federal land butnow he’s on Massachusetts property andtrying to tell them I’m like hell youknow you kind of switching your hatshere because you pulled them over outhere and you’re acting as a specialpolice officer for the state ofMassachusetts we’re not allowed to dothat so I go I I don’t know but I don’tthink you can just pull people over on astate highway and search them I thinkyou should save that for the park andnot do that out here and he was likeyeah I don’t really trouble but seems Imean I wish I could do that but we’renot allowed to to do some of this stuffoh yeah all right brother can you tellme tell us I should say tell theaudience about the most intenseterrifying call if you willyeah sothis was a big national thing weresponded to the in June of 17 was theactive shooter the UPS facility in SanFrancisco right so we were I was onprobation at the time and was backing upme and the guy working with her backingup an officer on a injury accident and Ialways had different radio channels onsonar in our city we have because it’sso big we have we have a couple dozenradio channels and different stationsdistricts share channels it’s kind ofhard to get information out to the wholecity so like if I have something bigI’ll have our dispatch put it out wecall it putting it out on an all sothey’ll dispatch it over every channelokay so car and suspect car informationor you know weapon information stufflike that so I have my radio on adifferent channel and I hear this callof an active shooter and I look at mythe guy my partner for the day and I gohey man let’s goand he’s like what’s going on I go dothere’s an active shooter in the missionlet’s go and he’s kind of hesitantbecause it’s you know halfway across thecity and it’s kind of they they’re notsuper cool about you leaving your areaunless it’s necessary we have certaincodes it’s like you know if they call acertain code like an officer downeverybody in the entire city goes so butthey hadn’t called it yet and as soon asI heard someone on that channel say heywe need more peopleI came up asked the sergeant was likehey do we got permission to go so wewent out there and got on scene and itwas still active when we got there and Istill remember the heart the thing thatmade it the most intense was knowingthat it was an active shooter situationit was a little bit of a drive there forus but everything starts going goingthrough your head of possible scenariosa lot of time to think on the way thereyeah which is is good and bad thenegative and it’s I talked to friendsand you know I who are in the in thebusiness had talked to them about it andwas like eat I reached this moment alittle bit later on but I got I had thisI came to this point mentally where youjust kind of accept that if this is thelast thing I do then this is the lastthing I do like if this is my last callI ever go to then you know this is thisis what it was this is what I wassupposed to do that’s like getting inthat mental space is it’s insane becauseit’s like most people work nine to fiveforty hours a week and they never getjacked up there never adrenalin neverRises and you’re working right it’s anormal job you know it’s not normal toslap on my bulletproof vest number oneand then you’re going to a call andyou’re like well this might be it for meyeah and it’s a friend of mine describedit like you you go in and you know likeour mentality is we always win like I’malways going home at the end of the dayI’m going on my partner’s going home wewin but it’s one of those situationsit’s a huge you have no control overwhere it’s at you know who’s there howmany weapons if it’s an ambush situationlike we have zero control over thatsituation so I remember driving or I waspassenger we’re driving there and Ithink my mother-in-law was at our houseand I had just I just text her I saidI’m not I can’t go into it but do me afavor andyou know call Kona fiance at the timebut call my wife and let her know thatI’ll call her when everything’s done andI’m okay and she’s like is what’s goingon I’m like just you know I’ll call youguys when I’m when I can so we get thereand we run up and I remember there was abody in the intersection one of the guyswho had been killed in the intersectionwe had a spot set up where they werelike a checkpoint where they werechecking officers in as we got there sowe ran in is just like an enclosed UPSfacility like yes so the UPS facilityhere is like an entire city block ohwell and it’s I won and it goesunderground and it’s like four or fivestoreys tall so it’s a it’s a massivefacility so we meet up and one of thetactical lieutenant sank he was off-dutybut he was there and he just runs up andhe goes hey we need people inside so youknow you just go so I remember justrunning inside and they needed to gettheir tactical team in our tactical teamyeah for you guys you’re you’re all inthe same frequency radio was going inhow many how many cops are already inthere they were just in there and tunedin in teams of two and three or is therefull TAC teams in there so at that pointthere in retrospect at that point thethe shooter had already killed himselfbut it wasn’t known to everybody and itwasn’t it was still an active consideredactive scene because no one knew ifthere was more shooters no one had thestory yet so there was a couple teams ofofficers inside the first officers whogot there who contacted the suspectand our tactical team was still luckilyit was a couple blocks from where ourtactical team is but they were stillassembling everything to to make entryand they had to get a couple of teamstogether because it’s such a largebuilding yeah so this so these theseactive shooters have really become theresponsibility of the guys on Patrolthat’s just the way it isyeah went from like you know the I meanyou know the Columbine was that the bigright I think the big turning point ofinstead of sitting and waiting it’s youyou get there and first man there isfirst man in it’s just something thatyou gotta gotta prepare for with the jobso we ran in and was Mina mean anotherguy and we we set up on on a on an areathat they wanted us to keep our eyes onwhile TAC the tactical team wasassembling to do their building searchso we’re basically holding a positionand I was holding it was on the mainfloor but it was like a package shootthat went to like a basement and it waslike a basically a slide but you couldsee see down below so it was one ofthose we’re you’re kind of open andexposed not knowing if there’s anybodyunder there anyone downstairs and thatwas that that was the point where you itjust kind of hits home and you’re likethis is this is what we do like this iswhat we get in into this job for and youknow you’re standing there I’m holdingholding that door for I don’t know threehours you know you’re your gun out gungun ready for shelters human attireoh yeah that’s awful I mean you comeinto you come into you bring it intoyour chest to rest but you’re still onpointand it’s just it’s just an intensesituation that’s a long time man just tobe to be readylike like coiled and ready to strike forthree hours yeah that’s exhausting yeahso we he ended up you know after acouple hours we’ve you know we got theclear that there’s no long no longeractive but three people were killed twowere injured the guy just came in was aemployee and just started singling outsingling out co-workers and you GST theywent through some stuff man they they’vehad some active shooters just like thePostal Service now yeah it’s I feel forme it’s uh III do have some friends thatwork for UPS and that’s just one ofthose situations that like we we prepareas much as you can you know I’ve knownofficers that have been shot and thathave come none you know personallythankfully that have been killed but wehad one officer that I know but he’swith it got shot in the head actuallyfull recovery and he’s back at work Wowbut and we you know we prepare for itand we see things that most don’t so youknow you’re kind of you get kind of usedto that that stuff a little bit but likeI said before the general public’s notit’s not something that they’re you knowconditioned to to deal with so you knowreally feel for for the the victims andtheir families yeah absolutely tell meyou called or texted your wifeimmediately after this escalated oh yeahsoon as soon as they cleared us fromfrom inside we went out to hold outsideperimeter well you know coroner came inand they did they did all their theirstuff and as soon as I was able to getto my phone safely was texted her textto her her mom and another friend ofmine like a mentor of mine and text themI was like hey I’m sure you’re seeingthis on the news you know we’re goodI’m okay scenes seen as an activeanymore and you know told him I’d givehim a an update one as soon as we gotcleared I mean she must have been I meanso worried that’s a lot of times peopledon’t think about that but the spouse isat home watching it on the news hearingon the radio knowing you’re there that’sthat’s stressful for them too yeah I gotI got really luckymy wife is is amazing her hergrandfather actually retired from SanFrancisco her mom was a correctionalofficer her grandmother was in was inthe military my wife was in the ROTC soshe gets it but it’s still one of thoseshe’s in works for animal control for alocal sheriff’s department so she knowsthe job and she understands the scheduleand the wrist they they go along with itbut yeah I couldn’t I couldn’t imaginebeing and I couldn’t imagine being inher position having to just sit andwonder and wait wait to hear thateverything’s okay yeah that’s that’s anintense one brother yeah so life in thebig city yeah man I mean it comes at youfast there how long you been on the jobnow so I’ll be on the streets for wethree years coming up in a couple weeksso not not that long so what do youthink do you think stay in patrol take asergeant’s test when you can or what areyour interest investigations or that’sthe cool thing about the big city islike I knew getting into the job I knewI wanted to do narcotics unfortunatelyas you know California pretty mucheverything’s decriminalizednarcotics much of that they caneliminate the narcotics divisions yeahI still like doing it when I can if wecan do you know do spotting and spot youknow hand-to-hands and take guys on forsales it’s still it’s still fun for meI been fortunate enough to work intosome I feel like my my work ethic hasgotten me into some opportunities andI’ve fallen simultaneously fallen into acouple places with some goodopportunities and worked my way onto aplainclothes team so for prior to thisinjury for about a year I was workingplain clothes not good for you um yeahit’s greatdoing the primary focus for us is autoburglaries and which is plenty of themin the city but it’s it’s kind of a harddetail but but it’s fun just learninglearning how to how to spot suspect carshow to follow learning how and when andwhere to to try to block cars in andtake I take guys down who just committeda burglary how to build cases you knowwrite search warrants execute searchwarrants tracker warrants stuff likethat so it’s that’s not something I butyeah it’s it’s fun that sounds like funmy neighbor is a narco guy for thecounty here he’s got the big beard andyou know he’s just wears whatever thehell he wants to work and I was chattingwith him recently music wow you knowI’ve been on the job a while now he’splaying on 2025 years he’s like I’mlooking at you know maybe now I’mpromoting and going to patrol for theend I’m like oh you’re gonna go topatrol after what you’ve been doingthat’s terrible you got to shave yourbig awesome beard and we’re a uniformand I don’t know playing closest teamyeah too comfortable with me we’restretchy pants old I’d be like in awheelchair from my weightyeah it’s it’s a lot it’s a lot of fun Imean it’s hard it’s getting harder forus to do it you know staffing is gettingtight and I think everywhere around thecountry not as many people are wantingto get into the job so yeah it’s beenhaving a slowdown it was like my dadbecame a cop in the 70s it was just likethatlike they just couldn’t he needed healthcare you know he needed to take care ofhis family and he was been in the Navyand the chief of police of the town hewas living it was basically like hey youknow I knew your dad would you want tobe a cop and he’s like I guess you knowlike no one wanted to do the job in the70s and it’s kind of yeah going backthat way yes it’s tough I also do like Ihelp out training some of the recruitclasses I do right we call them in thebusiness the the Redmayne testing I’msure you guys did that Oh master correctyepyeah so I’m sure you guys did that therealso and so I’ve been able to do thatand do you wear the fur yeah that’shardcore man the guy that was in ourAcademy that the first time ever saw itwas a trooper and he wore that suitthrough like a bunch of classes and hewas like seriously about to pass out theguy was jacked but he was just exhaustedit’s wrestling with cop after cuff aftercop it was intense yeah it’s it’sawesome I love doing it it’s it’s nojokelike you said workout wise we usuallyget you know three or four of us to doit so breaks it up a little bit but it’sa good workout but watching the theclasses kind of dwindle down to whereyou’re like we’re getting half classesnow instead of fool so it’s it’s gettingtough um that was like that for uh Iwork fairly pd backgrounds for two yearsandhe’s to call up to you guys and then toSeattle and all the big coastal citiesall the way up and all the backgroundvestigators did the same thing like yeahwe just can’t the ones we’re getting wedon’t want and we can’t get the ones wewant not applying they’re getting higherpaying jobs elsewhere they’re with lessrisk and more appreciation yepit’s it’s turning more into more likeyou just you got a you have to want thejob there’s no we’re not firefightersexactly my believe me my dad had that hetold me that so many times he’s like whyaren’t you being a firefighter yeah I’vehad a couple firefighters in the citytried to try to convince me to to jumpover and make the transition but I don’tknow just something about doing we doit’s it’s it’s it’s addicting yeahthat’s it sounds like you uhwere for you were for big city tonsopportunities tons of tons of good callsto go on do you do you have any do youhave any advice for these new guyscoming on the job yeah so I mean I I’lltry to keep it keep it a little bit onthe slimmer side on the advice becausethere’s a lot I had just helped a buddyof mine get through through Academy andhelp them out with you know whatwhatever I could I would say in thebeginning phases if you want to get intothe job to really research the jobitself and understand what the jobentails but do a lot of research on theagency you want to work for learn learnthe crime areas what kind of crimes areprevalent in the area do ride-alongs Ithink ride-alongs are invaluable Ireally I really wish the I really wishthey did ride alongs during the Academyto be able to use and Orsi see how someof the skills you were to useyou were learning in the academy somehow some of those things were put to useyeah good idea but I would say startworking out exercise most academies areintense paramilitary academies nothingworse than they always say like just flyunder the radar you don’t necessarilywant to be the top person but you don’tyou for sure don’t want to be the lastperson you don’t want to be the onefalling behind on runs you don’t want tobe the person that causes other peopleto get dropped one of the big ones thatI would say is have talks with familysignificant others what works for medoesn’t might not work for everybody butI’m I know a lot of people they kind ofkeep these things what they see whatthey do they keep it to themselves theykeep it at work for me and my wife Ishare a lot of it and if their stuff shedoesn’t want to know then I don’t tellher if their stuff that I think sheshouldn’t know then you know I’mhesitant won’t tell her but for the mostpart I’m very open about what’s going onthat way if if I have a bad day sheunderstands that it’s not just hazebeing an a-hole today you know becausethat’s what that’s one of the big oneslike like they say that you know divorceis big in in this business and substanceabuse stuff like that for me I thinkopen communication is the biggest way tocombat that and then have having a lifeoutside of work right have that go-to torelieve stress to to shut your brain offto be able to turn it off into to not bea copyeah like I say that they say you knowjust if you have some childhood friendsthat aren’t cops make sure you keep themyou know yeah that’s when it’s kind oftough I would say that to people too isbe prepared the unfortunate part is youyou will probably lose some people inyour life I know I have from people whodon’t want to talk to me anymore becauseI’m a copreally and oh yeah that especially likeyou I mean you know the politicalclimate is it’s kind of intense rightnow and and a lot of things that we doare extremely scrutinized and in myopinion that’s it’s something that a lotof people don’t understand and it’s it’shard to explain to people why we do thethings we do and why we’re trained theway we are and some people just don’tdon’t want to hear it and it’sunfortunate but I guess if if that’s thereason that they don’t want to talk toyou thenyou know they’re probably not a friendanyway yeah hell with them yeah so Ithink those would be my biggest biggestpieces of advicegreat advice man it’s uh it’s a hell thecity you work for there man I feel likeyou’re the kind of guy I can have onagain like I feel like we could docheck-in and you’re gonna have morecrazy vein pulling stuff happening ohman I would love to I have I definitelyhave other other interesting interestingstories anytime you want want to have meback on I love it no absolutely man Ireally appreciate I really appreciateyou coming on Seanyeah no worries I brother take care youtoohey guys I hope you enjoyed theinterview I know I did as squeamish as Imay have become at one point it waswas a hell of an interview and I’mthankful that he was able to come on Ijust want to say if you haven’t raidedor reviewed the podcast I would ask youto go to iTunes and do that for me itjust it just does help it helps withstandings and it helps kind oflegitimize the podcast when people comeupon it they they see that it has goodratings and reviews and might enticethem to listen also I have a new emailaddress it’s Steve at things policec-calm so that’s Steve at things policec-calm if you have any questions for meany questions for the show any anysuggestions for guests to come on I’mgetting a lot of those lately I’mthankful for those anything at all ifyou want us to reach out and shoot me amessage you can use that email so thankyou so much for checking out the podcastand I will see you next timeEnglish (auto-generated)
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