In this episode Steve is interviewed by Ken. Ken asks about Steve’s crazy calls, leaving police work, and the struggles that face all police officers.
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hey guys before we start the episode Ijust want to tell you to head over tothings police c-calm if you’d like to bea guest on the show scroll down click bea guest fill out the short form and Iwill get back to you expressly also onthings please start things police seecalm you can also use our Amazonaffiliate link it doesn’t cost youanything but if you do your shoppingthrough the website the show will get alittle kickback and if you really lovethe show you can click the donate buttonand you can donate one-time or monthlywithout further ado here’s the episodethis is things police see first anaccount with your oasthey guys welcome to the podcast atinterviews active in retired policeofficers but their most intense bizarreand humorous moments on the job with meas always is Ken Roybal Ken how iya howgood I’m good I’m just having anoutstanding day outstanding it’s gonnabe an amazing an amazing interview bythe way I’m excited we had we had a holein the schedule somebody couldn’t comethrough and be interviewed so Ken hadthe idea why don’t we interview you Isaid yeah okay our guest yeah it’sprobably the handsomest guest the mostorange guest we’ve ever had the mostredheaded guest we’ve ever had yeah Iwas sitting around and I thought tomyself no one’s ever interviewed SteveGould and a perfect we can do that cuz Ihave questions for you Steve I’vethought about doing it alone but itdidn’t work out right so I’m glad youmentioned it because I’d like to talkthis works this works I got somequestions for you I got some kind ofkind of questions that I thought aboutand then I think we’re just gonna goahead and just go with the flow and seewhat where it takes us but for thelisteners Steve and I have known eachother for quite a bit now and him and Ijust when we talk on the phone it’s veryconversational we do whatever comes upwe talk about and I think that this is athis is probably gonna be the formatthat we’re going to use we’re just gonnawe’re just gonna shoot it back and forthand see what comes up how about thatsounds good to me I’m handing the reinsover to you misterall right even though I know a littlebit about you but I I I wanted to findout it’s the story of how you came toCalifornia became a a backgroundinvestigator that is an amazing featthat I don’t think most people wouldtake on so so you came for you were acop in Massachusetts you you decided youand your wife decided that you’re gonnapack up the kids in a motor home gocross-country have no job prospectsnothing and you’re just gonna make yourway up to LA and tell me the holes howthat all came about how it how it turnedout I know you were camping one time andgot you know I’m out just tell the storyokayyeah it’s it’s a little bit crazy wewere a little bit crazy with what we didbut we did we we talked about for awhile Kerry and I both grew up on CapeCod spent our whole lives on Cape Cod Idid go to way to college but I came backand started my career on Cape Cod littlePeninsula sticks out in the ocean therein Massachusetts for those of you whoaren’t familiar but um we would talk forlike a few years we threw it back andforth like wouldn’t it be wouldn’t it beamazing to go live somewhere else likeyou know you go on vacation sometimesand you you fantasize what would it belike to live here you know well we kepttalking about that we visited Californiawe visit a friend in LA we liked it andwe just every night it seemed like wewere on the couch kids were asleep andwe would talk about it and then theconversation would end with that’sinsane we’re not going to do that I havea good job I’ve been on the job tenyears four years before that as anatural resource officer I had a goodretirement health care everything wasperfect but this itch wouldn’t leave usand thankfully it worked out we both hadthe same feeling so eventually we wekind of just decided we’re we’re gonnado this there’s there’s no way that twoable-bodied people like us of relativeintelligenceI’m on the lower end carries very smartbut uh two of us combined make anaverage and we thought why couldn’t weif we you know left see it had enoughwhen he saved up rented our house andjust drove cross-country with theultimate destination being Californiabut just kind of meander across thecountry experiencing things spending ourlife savings with our kids and thensetting up shop here in in LA County hadyou know I had a good resume collegedegree why couldn’t I get a job tosupport us that was kind of how we werethinking and it at some point duringthat I was able to get rid of theimmense amount of fear that comes withdoing something like this the peoplearound us were not it was difficultbecause they didn’t want us to goespecially family they thought we gotourselves into a headspace where it madesense but no one around us really wassharing that with us they thought likeyeah they felt like man you got thesetwo young kidsyou’re gonna leave take him away fromfamily and you know you got no jobprospects out there and you know what Ilooked into it my my my police trainingdidn’t directly transfer if I want to bea cop out here I would have to do somekind of makeup school in Sacramento andit would be a whole a whole pain and Iwasn’t sure it could happen so um yeahwe we bought a key a huge camper a38-foot camper we rented our house to ato two police officers actually who weredating so if you’re gonna rent yourproperty rent to police officers becausethey can’t screw your stuff up withoutgetting in trouble at work so we rentedto them and we went we lived in myparents backyard in our RV for like twomonthsprepping for this departure and then wedid it we spent about forty days comingacross the country really it was areally weird feeling I used to drivearound in my cruiser all the time andthink like you’re ten years in and isthis gonna be your next 20 years likecan you do this job here for 20 years isthat what you want to doand uh I really didn’t and I just cameto terms of the fact that I I didn’twant to do that not that it’s badbecause it’s a great job and it was agreat place to work and everybody whodoes a career there my hats off to himit’s amazing you can have a great lifethere but it just wasn’t for us so yeahwe pulled the trigger and you know Iactually can applied to backgroundsabout nine months before we left justonline there’s an online thing for theCity of LA Wow I applied yeah theapplication took forever it was likepages and pages of scenarios and how Iwould react and it really was nothopeful that it would work out at all Isent it away and I didn’t hear a singlepeep like barely even an email frompersonnel until like I just must havehit hit it right because we when wepulled in here we were living in acampground outside LA and I got a I gotan an email saying hey are you stillinterested in this jobit will probably be part-time but we’dlike you to come in for an interview inthe next couple of weeks so as you canimagine I was starting to stress alittle bit our funds are going downalthough we’re not paying I think wewere paying like maybe $1,000 a month tolive in a campground in San Dimasit was beautiful by the way but um thefunds are draining and they’re not beingreplaced so I was very thankful when Igot that email and I went out what Ibought you know I bought a new suit Ibought a new shirt a tie I was likehell-bent to get this job and yeah Iwent in I went into backgrounds and Ihad an interview you know they do like arole-playing like what they do isthey’ll they’ll like um cross it youknow it’s like a panel like an oralboard there’s a the chief personnelofficer and one of the managers and thenmaybe someone else who’s gonna roleplaywith you there’s not was there a citizenin there or somebody from anotherdepartment – no that’s just forpromotions that it’s it’s usually threepeople in the higher up in backgroundshere doing the interviews that’s what itwas it was three people andmake you roleplay you know they bring acandidate in like he just lied to youand how do you how are you gonna handleit and it was all very stressful Kengood idea I was stressed but I guess Iplayed it off okay because oddly enoughI got a call two weeks later for anotherinterview the exact same interview andyou had never done backgrounds before ordid you have any investigativeexperience or Iselle patrol no I reallydidn’t like where I worked was a smallagency so it wasn’t uncommon for this isone of my selling points I really try topush at the interview was um I have redhair yeah orange hairyou have no gingers here what’s going onyeah everybody’s so Brown so um yeah Ijust I really kind of stressed that Icome from a small agency and patrolmenwere allowed to hold cases so if itwasn’t like something you couldn’thandle or didn’t involve too muchinvestigative work we patrolmen wereencouraged to bring people in into theinterview room do recorded interviewscontinuing investigation and and likerequest help from the detectives ifneeded so believe it or not being from asmaller agency actually ended up being abenefit to me getting that job so whichI couldn’t believe because I’m you knowyou’re going up against people from notonly Los Angeles but all these otherchick I mean Southern California’sgigantic the little cities that surroundLA are big cities back east you know Imean it’s just the the humanity on topof humanity here is is insane so I had alot of competition I just feel like Igot really really lucky they called mein for a second interview believe it ornot Ken the second interview was theexact same interview when I say theexact same it was the same oral boardsame people the same guy came in toroleplay for the same scenario and theylive do you know now who are you yeah Iwas kind of I was so caught off guardI’m like he’s just like huha mind trick am I am I supposed todo this yeah this is am I supposed to doit differently this time like what isyour second chance yeah it was so weirdso I did the exact I answered all thequestions the exact same and I handledthe role-playing scenario the exact sameand I got a call again and from Raphaelwho just retired from there great guyright because he is tired CHP and hetold me he was really cool he’s likelisten you did a great jobwe’re only hiring part-time and I saidgeez you know it that’s great I’ll takewhat I can get but I really need afull-time gig with benefits and all thatand he said yeah I don’t know if it’sgonna be that but all but hang tighthang tight and I heard from like twoweeks later and he said I don’t knowwhat happened I don’t know what you saidin those interviews but umthe the chief is she wants to offer youfull time mm-hmm yeah and I was likethis is unbelievable because when I leftMassachusetts you know they have Cobraso when you leave your job you can hangon to your insurance for 60 days and payfor it but you got to pay the wholething so I would be on if I had donethat I would have been on the hook fortwo thousand or more dollars a monthyeah but I talked to the people andwhoever handles health care for the townand she’s like you know you’re coveredby Cobra if you pay or not she said ifyou have an incident that costs a lot ofmoney like a broken arm or something youcan still have Cobra you just have toback pay what you would have been payinganyways and I thought wow that’s I meanthat’s a gamble but that’s not a badidea what if I just come out here optout of the insurance for now and then ifsomething really bad happen I would haveto you know pony up the several thousanddollars but it would be covered so I hadthat was my plan and I was just about tobe I was like days from losing ourhealth insurance mm-hmm so there it wasin really the the move like I also forfive years I did stand up calmthe last time I did it was probably ayear ago I even did a show at the icehouse and people from backgrounds cameand it was really awesome and I loveddoing stand-up it’s really competitiveand really a whole different world outhere but it wasn’t the reason I came outhere but it was definitely like a reasonto come here it was like oh I can do alldo stand-up too but the main reasonbecause that would never work you’dnever nobody’s partner would ever agreelike yeah let’s do that for yourstand-up ambitions because that’sridiculouswell I remember when I first met youbecause I was introduced to you by yourby the background investigator whotrained you the legendary Pat Buchananyes at backgrounds and this the man hita kid you know that came in and and hesays yeah and he’s a comedian and I saidwait a minute he’s a cop and he’s astand-up comic what is that all aboutand so I googled you and then later onyou know you did a show I think that oneat the ice house and we got a short clipof it but it was you’re actually prettyfunny man so I mean if anybody’s outthere you wanted Google Steve Gouldstand-up you know there might besomething out there is there was onlyone actual video of you doing stand-upor mark yeah there what I may havescrubbed it pretty clean but yourclassic stand-up blunder when you justput stuff on the internet that you’renot polished with yet so I only had onemaybe one clip of me five years in and abunch of clips of me like one in twoyears in that were not great I don’tknow some part of my brain was brokenwhere I thought that was a good idea butum yeah can i still remember drivingwith Pat after you know cuz you feeltrained for I think was like six weeksand Pat had just feel trained someonethat he had to get rid of so the guyfailed deal training and it was adisaster so Pat after Pat warmed up tome he told me the story said yeah so I’myou know I’m not to him fieldwork and Iget a call from our boss and he goes heyI got another one for you to Train andhe’s like oh yeah what’s this guy’sstory goes well he’s he’s a cop fromMassachusetts that moved out here and hedoes stand-up comedy and Pat was likemanyou know these no yeah we just don’tyeah it’s not a normal thing you knowstand-up comedian is happyhappy-go-lucky redheaded guy comes ofthese other he wants to be a backgroundinvested and and retires retired guysand and so we’re we have a lot of funbut it was a kind of a I don’t know Iget even the the men and the women werejust macho you know it was just like oldschool coppers and then this guy comesin he’s funny I think I was to LA forLAPD backgrounds was funny so that wasthat was that was pretty good but thenafter a while you kind of kind of gotused to the job and then and there was athere was a crew in there and I’ll admitit we had our own little crew there wasabout what six seven of us and we wouldgo to out to the look to the truck inthe morning for breakfast and then we’dall gather at at lunchtime and I’ll goand to lunch together and it was thistight-knit grouping you were you werealready in the group pretty pretty quickthere I have to admit are you and Patyou guys took me you guys took me underyour wings it was like I could tell whenI first met you you were kind of likeyou were very curious to meet me yourbut really this is this is somethingdifferent in backgrounds but you werevery cooleverybody’s very um I tried to be youknow keep my mouth shut as much aspossible and I just really lucked outwith you guys you guys really helped meout and I mean just up and that’s wherethe whole idea for the podcast came fromjust sitting with you guys at lunch andthe stories that would come out werelike so mind-blowing the thing I mean Igrew up a cop’s kid and I was in policework and I I knew plenty of crazystories but sitting with you guys andall like so many years of policeexperience from LA just it was um I justfelt like people really would have abetter appreciation for these guys ifthey heard these crazy-ass stories Imean I’m especially I would love to getsome of the guys on that we’re onlike Ron like Ron’s time like when hestarted his stories are are completelyinsane that’s true and we have a wholewhole bunch of different people were inin narco crews and they were homicidedetectives and just the patrol guys andjust all the wild adventures that thatpeople had and you know if you didpolice work for any amount of time youhave a story to tell and it was nodifferent there but these were all thesewere all old-school cops that and andanybody that’s been on ten years isold-school you know you’ve got enoughtime under your belt that you have youhave some pretty good stories and thosethat those guys did have some storiesand there was some some shootouts andthere was just some homicideinvestigations and just general callswhich are just wild and I’m glad youcame up with the podcast because that’sit’s a you know it’s something that’sneeded people people need to to hearthese stories and the funny thing aboutthe podcast is that I have to I thinkabout it sometimes and you when you’rewith when you’re with cops and you’retalking about war stories and you youalready know the lingo and you know howpeople are gonna react but when you’redoing it for the general public it’s alittle different it’s like it’s likewhen you read a police report andthere’s an arrest and somebody says youknow the guy the guy wanted to throwdown and he wanted it to get in a fightwith us and then and then the next lineis the suspect was taken into custodywithout further incident meaning meaningthat you know he had to be he had to betaken down yeah but for the generalpublic they some people like to hearyeah we had it we had it we had a goodfight with the guy but they don’t youknow we got to be careful when you’retalking to the general fuller becausethey don’t always understand us Stevewhen we’re talking about that stuffabsolutely and that was one of mybiggest um I was like almost wincingwhen I first started asking you guys toshare your stories because I it was sucha great idea to me and then when itactually came down to finding people Iwas likeI don’t know these guys wanna let peopleinto that you know what I mean letpeople hear this stuff but thankfully afew you guys were okay with it and Ithink ultimately people have a good timethey like airing their stories I meanthere are some stories that we haven’theard that uh that are just so so like Iwon’t name names really but one guy wastelling the story about waking up in thein the cruiser and his partners alreadyfiring his gun out the window as theydrive down the highway it’s like whatholy I was like you know Cowboys back inthe day yeah well you know you had 10years on the job and what I want to knowfrom you is that there’s a you did avideo because you have that that videochannel called Gold’s gaining groundright and your last video fromMassachusetts was your last day and itwas a kind of a it was a kind of asomber it was a somber tone to the videowhat did it feel like because I don’tknow that there’s that there’s much of adifference when someone has 20 you know10 20 30 years on when you hand in thatbadger you you hand in your keys or yourID card or whatever it is and that’sthis is real I’m I’m actually leavingpolice work and the you know the funthat I used to have in going to callsand you know smoking and joking with thewith the other officers that camaraderieit’s it’s gonna be gone how did you dealwith that um it was it was a really itwas really surreal and it felt I gottatell you like like you’re saying notdoing the full ride not going puttingthe career in and retiring it felt weirdeven just getting handing the badgingyou you know what I mean you always kindof had you know it’s like you’re part ofthat that Club that Brotherhood you knowthat in you not to mention I mean copswork really hard for that badge likepretty much every state like Igars was a21 a.22 week program it wouldit sucked you know I was you knowinspections and paramilitary and likewhen you’re in that it’s like this iswhat I want to do for ever you know whatI mean so and I have to say graduatingfrom police academy was one of thehappiest days of my life even comparedto like college it’s just like foraccomplishments it just felt so good andI don’t toot my own horn here but I alsogot Top Gun so hmm that was in yourcareer yeah yeah I actually becamebecame a firearms like a range masterand you know I had I had a good careerwas it was good but I was so ready toleave that it didn’t it wasn’t as hardas I thought when I left that day andwhen I made that video it did come outyou know that video for it must havestruck a chord because it has over Ithink it has over 700,000 views now were600,000 as a lie I got a lot of viewsand you can only imagine the the lovingand not so loving comments that are onthat thing a lot of just like why don’tyou kill yourself now thank youI’ve experienced that stuff of my myfacebook page too but yeah that justseemed like it was a real somber momentfor you but you had a you guys are kindof adventurers and I want to go back toyou grew up in a police family yes andso you were kind of you’re kind of in amix of it with your dad and all that butstill back in in the 90s when I wasworking in the background unit as asworn officer they had a question on theon the application we used to have thethese the the Cal the application forthe city the PHS and then there would bewhat was called a piq which was anotherI don’t even know how many hundredsomething questions one of them was wasthis basically I’m gonna paraphrasebecause I’m sure this isn’t the legalesethat was on the form but the questiongenerally was asked would you have aproblem killing somebody yeah and Iwanted I wanted to know from you whendid you did you even consciously thinkof it that you might have to one daypull the trigger and end somebody’s lifeand what does that did you ever ask yourgo through that and decide at some pointI may have to kill someone and I’m okaywith thatnot till later not I never initiallythought about that and that was not aquestion for us that is very interestingthough and a good question I never Inever really thought about that untillater in my career you know like rightactually right before I transferred tobe a police officer for the for Easthamour Police Department believe it or notlike this whole area Cape Cod it’s it’sa nice area I didn’t growing up I didn’tknow a lot of police officers who shotpeople like a handful so it wasn’t areal thing I really thought I would haveto do and if I did have to do it I kindof just thought well if I did it I havecommon sense it would be righteous and Iwouldn’t feel bad because it would be meor him like you know I would just kindof justify that way and then put it awaybut right when right when I wasinterviewing for the job believe it ornot there was a kid in East Ham who washad real mental health problems he waslike 20 early 20s I went to high schoolwith him but he’s younger than me and hewas this kid that was like the addresswould go off and everybody go oh here wego like what’s what’s he gonna do nowlike several trips to the hospitalseveral several section 12s which meansum you know taken to the hospital for apsychiatric evaluationand he finally totally lost it donned abulletproof vest and and shot up thefront of our police department oh crapwhich you know for for Cape Cod that’s Imean for anywhere really in theNortheast I mean how often to hear abouta police department gettingyou know so this kid is in a bulletproofvest across across the highway from uskind of a wooded area in our littlewindmill area park he’s over there justtaking potshots at the front of the PDwith with a handgun I think it was a 40Cal or nine and remember oh yeah there’sa meeting in the we used to let peopleuse the whole front of our PoliceDepartment was bulletproof from dispatchback but there was a meeting room upfront where you know the admin stuffwould meet for storms and kind of likethe command center area that we wouldlet the Council on Aging we would letneighborhood watch anybody could usethis room so there actually I think itwas neighborhood watch was in there youmean well bullets coming through no oneeven knew no one even knew till laterthen they were like oh okay yeah so thiskid shoots up the front of our policedepartment and goes and hides in themarsh we call on other towns to help anda friend of mine actually ends up beingon a post at this little road by themarsh you know just very Cape Cod arealike have you ever seen Dawson’s Creeklike you know the marshes and the nicehouses he’s just standing there withanother cop who was a buddy mind andthey’re on post and they hear some noisebehind him and sure enough they theirflashlights on and they have theirpatrol rifles and up pops his kid he’sgot the proof vest raises his gun andthey take him out with an ar-15 and thiswas really uncharacteristic for Cape Codlike I said so this one you asked thatquestion because during the interviewthe town administrators like we want youto know that Tom this this shooting thathappened at the police department that’snot common here and you know the chiefis like yeah he grew up here he knowsit’s not coming but that actuallystarted the ball with me thinking youknow when you’re a cop and you go homeor on your way into work you kind ofplay scenarios and how you would reactlike you think okay this happens whatwill I do it kind of it’s kind of a goodway to prep yourself for action you knowyou’re you’ll go to your training andhow will I handle it this guy does thisor if this happens that kind of startedthe ball I think with allof us thinking like okay if I had toshoot someone what would this be likebecause my friend who had to shoot thiskid you know he he had some real issuesafterwards he um you didn’t didn’tdigest well you know as you can imaginethe kid was not well and he obviouslywas looking to hurt the police but stillit um it really impacted his life in anot great way so I actually did thinkabout that a lot after after thatincident yeah there’s a lot of peopleit’s it’s funny when people find outthat you you were a cop or you are a copcommon question from from people thatgee do you ever have to pull your gundid you ever have to shoot somebody likeit’s a like it’s a um a Hollywood typeof scenario where oh yeah yeah you knowwe didn’t it’s not like that because ifyou talk to anybody who’s been in ashooting it’s not cool no they would notdo it again if they had a chance to redono they would not do it because itmesses with your head and and then itcomes at like the original question wasyou know have you ever come to termswith it and I think that that anyone anypolice officer that’s had to pull theirgun out and point it at somebody theonly time you’re ever gonna point it atsomeone if you’re willing to pull thetrigger and kill somebody and it’s notuntil you get to that point where youeither come that close which I thinkmany many police officers all havegotten that close to where their handtheir finger was going on that triggerand then at the last second I mean themillisecond okay no shoot but that butyou can later on go back and and sayholy crap you know I almost almostkilled somebody and that’s I thinkthat’s maybe more of at the time whenpeople think about it absolutely yeah Ican remember a bunch of things happeningat our place where like you say thatthat opportunity let’s call it ariseswhere you technically could use deadlyforce like you would be okay and then wejust didn’t like I can remember a callwhen I wasn’t on it but um but do youmind in a sergeant ended up gangtackling a kid who was wielding a knifejust because he was 17 and they reallydidn’twant to shoot him well is thattactically the best moveprobably not you probably could haveshot him you know you plenty of commandsguns are drawn he’s not listening butthey didn’t like yep they’re like yousay there’s some when it comes down toit that’s something cops definitelydefinitely avoid yeah I had twosituations where I could have pulled thetrigger and for some reason I stoppedand I have no clue why no clue Roy itjust didn’t seem like like like thethreat was or it just the threat stoppedor something like that but you’ve gotseconds seconds to think about that andit’s not I don’t think a lot of peoplewhen they’re applying for the job orwhen they just are just citizenslistening to this podcast I don’t thinkthey they actually get a sense of thethe gravity of the situation of theirthere’s either if you’ve been a policeofficer long enough you’ve known someonethat has killed someone you you knowco-workers Mike I I have a lot ofco-workers from LAPD that have killedpeople yeah it’s just that’s just theway it is and you don’t really thinkabout it or you have almost killedsomeone or killed someone and it’s justthe nature of the game but I think a lotof people they they gloss over all allof that and the intensity the intensityof the job is very very difficult let meask you something about death okay deadpeople just you know before when I firstcame on the job I think I think God didI I can’t remember if I had ever been toa funeral or not but if I if I did seeyou know a dead person in a coffinthat’s probably the extent of it if Idid I don’t recall that and I was hiredat 22 so that was a good number of yearsand not seeing then I was sent to getinto LA people are just dying all overthe place played they’re either dying intheir bed they’re getting shot in thestreet you know tons of murders andstuff like that and it’s a it’s a realeye-opener when you gee and I have afollow-up question to this when afteryou answer it did you have us did youhave a like an culture shock when youwent into police work and then seeingdead bodies or theway people died did it did it bother youor affect you in any way oh yeah ittotally bothered me man that was like mythat was my thing that bothered me wasdead bodies and bodies and justunnatural positions I mean I kind of gotknown for it a little bit like Iremember working with a rookie and wewitnessed one on this horribleunattended death and it just washorrific the guy was face down his faceup like you know how avidity and allthat happens and one would yeah unreallooking in slime and goo and just insaneand he you know he kind of took thecamera for me he’s like I’ll take thepitcher Steve he kind of knew that hekind of knew like I was like oh this isreally gross sometimes like we this onewas like borderline usually we call thatmedical examiner and we’d call the statepolice and in Massachusetts a departmentthere’s only three departments that canhandle their own homicides inMassachusetts it’s SpringfieldI think Springfield Worcester in Bostonand then of course the State Policethe reason being I guess towns justdon’t want theirs murders and homicidesare so irregular in the small towns thatit it doesn’t make sense the trainingthat they a cop would need it doesn’tmake sense to do that just give it thegibbet to the state and then your agencycan do a mirror like can mirror them intheir investigation but they’re the leadagency so that was kind of like thatkind of call where it was like it wascleared by all the all the Emmy andstuff but my sergeant was kind of likegrab some pictures anyways this one’sreally bad and the guy had a history andso that was the case but yeah man itseeing the human body in unnaturalcontortions and especially young peopleand people I knew that’s sometimes whenI would I kind of envied officers I wentto I went to regional police academy sowe had guys that were you know they wentto Quincy they went to New BedfordBrockton some of them ended up in Bostonyou know like they were seeing anddealing with people they didn’t know ona dailybasis when you’re a town guy where yougrew up it’s always people you knowwhether they’re dead hung himself gassedhimself got killed by in a car wreck itjust made it so much worse to me to likethe first time I saw really that thatjust eyes open with the mouth and thatjust someone so dead you know likethey’re just gone like their soul isgone you’re just looking at a vessel andit’s just so spooky it’s like it’s likewhat happened yeah this went down that’slike their faith a lot times thepeople’s faces they look like this theythey were fighting to not go yeah yeahit’s just very eerie and you know Ibutton I bought a sandwich from this guyhe was a bar manager I new in town idinner from home that night I think andgot a call back there that he you knowhe dropped dead and one of the girls inthe kitchen was kind of initially tryingto trying to do CPR on him and didn’tknow what she was doing and I came inwith the paramedics and that one reallybothered me like I thought that nextmorning first thing I thought about washis face you know like whoa did you everhave I don’t know nightmares dreamsabout things that you had seen you knowI never did I had some real gory stuffbut it in my waking hours it wouldbother me but it never never entered mydreams maybe I’d have some anxietyridden dreams that were spurred by itbut not nothing with the actual event orthe person in it you know thankfully youknow I I would I could go down an alleyin the middle of the night guns draw andlooking for the for the bad guy but Ihad a real hard time because I know thatwith dead bodies if you get too close tothe dead body and their face they willwake up and spit death in your face andthat was that was scary because deadbodies are just and you you know nomatter how many times you’ve seen themyou’re either comfortable with it oryou’re not uncomfortable and I thinkthat you can go like I said you can goto a funeral where it’s a you know opencasket and and it’s always the samethey’re just laying there but with deadbody calls it’s either a homicideor they they died in there in theirsleep or they just looked really unhappywhen they died that’s different becausethey just it’s just like a spooky thingit’s like that kind of sometimes theycreep me out and then and then you haveto wait you’re you’re the guyyou and your partner the guy that aresitting there mm-hmm waiting for thecoroner and the detectives to get thereso who knows how long you’re sittingthere in the in the room with the deadbody you know knowing it was not apleasant experience and it’s just aweird feeling when you’re you know callslike that King kind of can kind of creepyou out a little bit depending on howthe person died absolutely I mean you’recausing me to catalogue back all thedead bodies I mean like you said peopledie in even like uh I’ll never forgetthis one guy died on the toilet thisolder guy in his a his um son knew thathe was having trouble pooping orsomething so he came down and lied onthe couch outside the bathroom but hefell asleep I guess his dad was like Idon’t feel good and whatever mmm he’sthe one that called in the morning youcalled and said you know we came down toin the morning and now it’s 7:00 and henever came out I checked on but the guycompletely unsupported by anything handson his own thighs sitted straight upeyes open melt open like he wassurprised dead frozen completely frozenand I’m like touching him a little bitand he’s kind of like you know he’s gotrigor he’s just kind of like he’s justfrozen no no he had he had a ton ofmedical issues and you know like firstthing we would do with a elderly personlike that is we usually they’d have afile of life on their fridge and itwould give you a list of theirmedications their doctors what was wrongwith them and I would read that to themedical examiner and depending on whatthe witnesses there had to say theywould they would yea or nay an autopsyor an investigation so this one I thinkthey just figured you know this guy wasa super old and he died butyeah it was just it boggles the mind youknow I had a I had a dead body call onetime where it was at a century 21 officeyou know the real estate mm-hmm and backin the 80s that I don’t know if theystill do it but the century 21 guys theywould wear those gold jackets nice andso this old guy I think he was maybe inhis late 60s close to 70 anyways he diesbehind his real estate desk so we get inthere and he’s got his nice shirt andhis gold century 21 jacket no pants atall guy had no underwear no pants onjust sitting at his desk and he diedwhat a horrible thing to happen peopleto find you and everybody’s gonna go heywhat was was Jim doing with no pants onyou know it was like weird that is soweirdyeah I mean but it happened so I guesshe didn’t plan on that happening thatday but it did and so that’s something Iremember now but another question thatfrom the question that we just had youknow people they there’s there’ssomething called gallows humor believeyou or stuff like that we’re stuff thatother people just don’t find funny butwe can find funny in the most terriblesituations did you did you learn that orhave you always been irreverent when itcomes to humor no I’ve always had I meanI always say I probably had a good senseof humor but I was like a fish in waterwith that kind of humor you know I tookright to it with that kind of like kindof black or dark humor they call it youknow just it’s like a real copingmechanism at a bad scene where everybodyjust once it calms down and everybody’sbeen helped that needs to be helped andthere’s no more help in anybody and youkind of just set at peace with where youare and what’s going on it just startsyou know it just yeahit just comes out and you know far as Ican tell it’s just uh I think it’s ahealthy reaction it’s just coping you’retrying to trying to make this horriblemoment a little more tolerable I caneven remember going to a like a horribledeath scene in thepeople heating up coffees in the guy’smicrowave you know like he wouldn’t mindwould he you know my coffees coldyeah there’s I I you know going to goingto scenes and being in the in the housewaiting like I said waiting for thecoroner I went to a shooting one timewhere the guy got shot in the back witha through a window with a one-ounceshotgun slug so he’s he’s kind of he’skind of laying there on the floor and wehad he was by the door and we kind ofhad to push the door open to get pastthe guy and then it’s freezing outsideso it must have been winter ish andthere were like maybe four of us thereand it was a very small apartment so itwas a very tiny living room the guyslying there dead at the front door andwe are watching the football game on hisTV because he was watching this nightwe’re watching the football game go yeahyou know and all this kind of stuff andI could look at that stuff and it’sfunny to me back then the things that weused to do but I don’t know if a lot ofpeople understand that that that thattype of humor but it is a it is a Mehcada mechanism survival mechanism wouldn’tyou say absolutely and you know it’sit’s in varying degrees you know likewe’ve all been to a scene like that withthe guy that is just over the top andmakes you cringe like he’s right thereyou know what I mean that that that likeI still remember a horrible accident Iwent to and there ended up being longstory short brains on the pavement youknow and the medical examiner showed upto collect the body parts and he’s usingthis person CDs that spilled out oftheir car to scrape brain up and heholds up the CD of the brain and goesroad mix and we’re like oh boy this guyhas been doing this for too long classicand I hope people understand that it’snot it’s not the cops just don’t care wehave to survive you know absolutely justsomething that we do Steve sir tell methe most the most crazy high-energyadrenaline pumping call you ever went onum okay I got to sort through thesebecause I have told some in the past inthe podcast I don’t want to be arepeaterbut I think one of them and it doesn’twell I’ll put it this way so there’s alocal a local family who’s kind of a hassome problem family the kids are realissues geez I have should I do this onecan I have a couple okay I’ll tell a fewI’ll make them quick hey you know yeahyou know what now that we get thislittle tiny break that there’s peoplethat haven’t listened to every podcastand so you can reduce stories and it’sit’s cool okay mark that so I’ll tellthis one first the this was a call wherewe got this call that the son is in thehouse he’s like he’s like 18 plays a lotof video games has some emotional issueswe know him he’s called the policedepartment on the recording line andtold dispatch that I’ve killed my motherand her friend and I’ve cut their headsoff oh so if you want to come here andyou know try to take me in go for itI’m ready so we’re calling this numberback no one’s picking up he’s notpicking uphe says I’m at the you know my housegives you a dress he says I’m in thesecond storey waiting for you guysso dispatch comes over with this andwe’re like whoa okay this is this isinsane so I organize the town on eitherside of us you know we’re in a peninsulahere so we don’t have towns north southeast west and east and it’s just northand south the other is this water soNorth and South town show up we mobilizeoutside right around the corner from thehouse patrol rifles drawn I happen to bethe officer in charge which was likegiving me major heartburn because uh youknow I’ve been on patrol probably 70years at this point so it’s I know whatto do but you know I never I nevertested or tried to be sergeant for areason I didn’t really want thatresponsibility but it was thrust uponso I’m in charge this call I have othercops in our town we’re trying toorganize I get the chief calling mewanting updates and we haven’t evenapproached the house yet or make contactso just like the caller said we uh wecan around the corner either side of thestreetwe’re approaching the home with theirguns and uh you know we were just ampedup we’re like oh my gosh this kidfinally did it this is this is not andwe totally thought he was capable sosure enough there’s the house secondstory one light on in the whole house onthe second storyI mean can’t make out what’s going on inthe window and we’re like all right thisis it so we just think there’s four ofus five of us we move and word like umthere’s there’s SWAT guys there whetherthe SWAT guy was there was a buddy ofmine so he’s like Steve do you want toleapfrog the approach I’m like what thehell he talking he’s like you know I’llgo then you go and then on that side andhe’s starting to throw these tactics I’mlike just stick to the wood line andlet’s get to mass I don’t know the youknow the battle signals I don’tunderstand itjust stay outside and don’t get shot bythis kid so we go in you get right tothe we’re getting right up to the frontdoor guns drawn and his mom comes upwhat the hell are you doing you know andwe’re like you know I’m I got the youknow fingers on the safety I’m ready nodoors opening so you know it’s it’s nota big shooting story but it was one ofthe calls that got me the mostamped cuz I thought it was real you knowI mean we were like my heartbeat was inmy throat I was like here we go and themom comes out and listen to this this iswhat happened this kid is such a dickonline that he makes other gamershate his guts so he pissed off this kidfrom overseas somewhere he thought maybeRussia and this kid from Russiaevidently could do a really goodAmerican accent so he he did what theycalled swatting yeahhe put in his address in his phonenumber and called our police departmentso it looked like it was legit oh man sowe were ready to storm the house and andyou know take care of business andmeanwhile they’re in there you knoweating chips watching TV the moms andher pajamas just about crapped herselfwhen she came out and I you know at thispoint I’m like so I’ll basically makesure everybody’s safe and get in thehouse and once it all got calmed downwe’re in the living room and I’m likelisten this is what happened this iswhat your son did and she’s like nointernet for a week I’m like a week howabout the rest of his life my gosh sothat was one call that came to mind thatI’ve never never told on this on thepodcast but you know they’re not alwaysthe calls that get you so jacked uparen’t always it’s just a perception ofwhat’s gonna happen you know that’s thebelief what you’re gonna what you’regonna encounter that was kind of likenow that’s kind of a rough one therewhen you think already in your mind thishorrific scene that you’re gonna see I’malready trying to cope with someone’shead oh my god it’s gonna be a severedhead just how’s this gonna work out youknow in the same scenario had happenedin Harwich couple towns over from usyears before this guy they let him outearly from the same asylum he walkedhome was stopped by a cop on the streetsaid where you goin Jimmy goes goingback to Mom’s house all right have agood one half an hour later at the housemom’s heads cut off oh so that storyalso is in my head so that happened thatone was pretty crazy then I haveactually do have you like this can Ihave like a gunshot when I responded tothat was just bizarre so the town nextto us there’s a town called Wellfleetthey’re the only town around that areathat has a trailer park so usually whenyou get a call in a trailer park it’susually pretty some pretty redneck stuffgoing on you know like someone squirtedMountain Dew in my eyes and I’m blindyou know something something insane sowe get a callrespond with Wellfleet to the trailerpark forgunshot wound to the chest so no furtherinfo know if it was an accident orsuicide or anything like that so we showup and I meet the sergeant up front forhis town good guy good friends with themand he goes let’s do it so we go in andwe go in there there’s these two girlsand they’re like in their early 20s andone of them’s crying and one of them waslike like breathing like trying to likeget herself together to tell us she goeswe were we were playing with her dad’s22 and it went off and it shot me in thechest Noso we’re looking at her and were like itdid so her friend has the gun it’s alike a pneumatic pump 22I got a pellet gun oh and I’m like allright well those are pretty I mean theygo eight nine hundred feet per second sothey can definitely cause some damagebut I’m like where in your chest likeare you okay so she’s so so nervous shegrabs the underwire from her bra andflips her whole shirt up over her headbreasts come out everything boom and shegoes right here and right between herbreasts is a perfect perfect 22 caliberhole oh man in her breast plate so I’mlike whoa I’m like so she’s okay wepumped you know my dad uses it forraccoons we pumped it like I don’t knoweight ten times I’m thinking I’m a gunnerd so it I think it was a Benjamin 22and I know a muzzle velocity at thosethings 8 to 10 pounds is 8 900 feet persecond which is equivalent to a 22 shortwhich is a which is a real real rifleround so I’m like okay you you’ve beenshot for real like this thing is in youso she starts like she’shyperventilating and asking the cop fromtheir town all these questions andrescues on the way and all of a suddenshe’s in blood just starts coming out ofher mouth when she’s talking oh my goshshe’s like is this bad is this mean am idying like it’s just bad and we’re justlooking at her with my eyes like teasaucers likeyes internal bleeding man that’s bad soanyways she passes out we’re checkingher vitals rescue comes and she gottaken the hospital and they removed a 22caliber wadcutter pellet from her lungWowso those wad-cutters are flat you knowso they punch a hole so when your targetshooting you can see where you know youcan see the nice nice circle well putthat nice circle right in her breastplate so that was pretty um I mean thatwasn’t I wouldn’t know if that was sointense but it was like definitely likewhat this is so weirdit’s very you know when people get shotthey normally aren’t sitting there likeI got shot you know they’re talking toyou and stuff like that so that was kindof weird and if the twenty-twos if i’mnot mistaken if they go ricochetingaround and you you can get some prettybad damage yeah it’s a small round likethat really penetrates so yeah she wasum she was in bad shape it was I mean itwas bizarre yeah wow that’s uh that’s Imean that’s kind of messed up and ithappens a lot you know these kids theygo playing with guns thinking whateverbut the and it usually turns out kind ofbad you don’t you read stories about thekids were playing the gun and you knowJimmy’s okay you know it’s always endsup bad but she lucked out there huh yeahshe ended up she ended up hospitalgetting getting the bullet extracted andfor far as I knew she was released andshe was fine but who’d have thought Imean two drunk girls with a pellet gunyou know yeah how old were they in their20s early 20s so they’re not 12 orsomething like that but hey question foryou yes can your copper just being beinga cop how did you how did you end upbeing in such a strong strong marriagebecause and this goes on I got twoquestions for you a lot of copsself-medicate having to deal with thejob and stuff like that they turn tosometimes they turn to drugs a lot oftimes alcohol and all that how did yousurvive the whole the whole trauma ofbeing a police officer inyou guys have an awesome strong marriagehow did you do ityes thank you we do well Kari and I areyour very er I would say we’re made foreach other we get along very well we’revery cognizant of each other’s goals andfeelings and wishes and we we both wedon’t we don’t hold anything back but wedon’t go to bed angrywe don’t not talk about something likewe just don’t stuff things we we justtell each other exactly how we feel evenin police academy Kari was the was thegirlfriend who was waking up at 4:00a.m. to iron the scenes in my pants andiron my patch so it had a crease andsend me off every day with my lunch youknow she just was very she was justgreat that way and but it not that itwas always great on the job because Idid Midnight’s for five years straightno yeah that really I mean when I gotoff Midnight’s she was like wow I’m kindof remembering what you used to be likeshe said like you just she would getlittle windows of me being normal but itwas like I was for me anyways doingMidnight’s I just never fully adapted itwould you know your first day off you goto sleep the next day you have off andthen before you know it you’re back atwork so it’s like you’re always gettingscrewed up on Midnight’s and it got tothe point where I had just enoughseniority to get off Midnight’s theymade me go to evenings or whatever and Iwas at the time I was also running alandscape business with my buddy so wewere mowing lawns during the day whichnow if I think about it it makes me wantto I think I’d have a heart attack butback then I’d work all day and then gomow for eight hours sleep for six and goto work and do it again oh so she knew Iliked this business I was doing with oneof my best friends we were making reallygood money and she’s like um there’s onea few times in my career where she saidI don’t like this I don’t likeMidnight’s and you need to get off themso I said inshe doesn’t talk to me like that youknow what I mean like it’s not like wedon’t have that kind of relationship sowhen she says something like that I’mlike time to look real deep into thesituation here you know not gonna blowthis off so she said it a few times andI said you’re right you know I’m not I’mkind of just in this rut of doing whatI’m doing with these with these two jobsbut yeah you’re probably rightand we’re you know we were just thinkingabout we were just actually had a youngdaughter at the time and I was neveraround and yeah we listened and I saidokay you’re right and I next bid I wentto evenings which made it evenings weregreat I could I could um I came homearound 1:00 woke up with them hadbreakfast could do stuff during the daycould help her during the day then I goto work um you know they’d go to bed soit kind of that kind of worked out butuh yeah I definitely think it was um Iwould say don’t get don’t get attachedto the shift you’re doing or theassignment you have or don’t don’tsacrifice your marriage for somethingthat’s going on at work because it’sreally not worth it because yourmarriage is the most important thingyour life to me anyway yeah it’s just ajob you know it’s a job you you youcan’t be married to the job I had oneguy it was a classmate of mine that weactually worked Patrol together and hetold me one night that his wife justtold him yeah it’s either me or the jobso and he he refused to leave the joband the last time I remember that theydidn’t get divorced but she put him tohim and and said you know this is notwhat she signed up for the job you knowbeing the job of a police wife or apolice spouse is difficult and it’s notyou know the officers that going outthere doing their thing and they’reeither having fun or in their job theylove their job or or whatever but andthe the spouses are generally at homeand it’s a tough thing and this is likewhen Carey said to you you you get offyou get off of you know graveyard andyou have to think aboutyou know this is my marriage and it’snot easy it’s not easy for some guys andgals to do no it really isn’tnot alone there I mean that’s a big joketo like when you get hired as a copthey’re like all the salty dogs are likeoh is this your first marriage you knowkind of like I remember remember hearingthat being like it’s my first and theonly cuz if this one doesn’t work out itain’t happen again I’m not doing threelike you you know what I mean no andit’s like it’s a regular thing for for alot of people I mean everybody who’sbeen on the job for any amount of timeknows several several people thereeither in there you know which marriagenumber is this or they’re single againbut there’s not very many there’s notvery many officers that they’re justyeah I’m single and this is just thebest thing ever and you know I neverwant to get married there it’s it’s notI don’t want to paint a picture that isit’s a bad thing but it is common thatthey people sometimes take police worktoo seriouslyand then they trade their family theirfamilies for the job and and piggybackonto another question that I have foryou how do you think drinking affectsofficers on the job well drinking for mewhen I first started of course I was youknow in my 20s so it went right along Iwas went right along with my lifestylealready I’ve always liked to have a fewlibations you know but yeah it’s it’s umit for me anyways it’s a big part of thepolice culture like I noticed drinkinbeers choir practice like right after ifyou’re on Midnight’s go to someone’shouse afterward or I’ll never forget Iwas a minutes for a while and you knowyou’re not you’re in your 20s so you’renot thinking about your health anywaysyou know what I mean but um I rememberbeing Midnight’s for a while and goingto the getting my physical and thedoctors like how many beers do you drinkand I remember thinking ah screw it I’lljust tell him you know my doctor I’m notgonna lie to the guy aboutalcohol consumption so I said you know Iusually get off shift I have two orthree usually with breakfast like with abowl of cereal and then um go to bed anddo that about five days a week and thenon the weekends I probably have I don’tknow five to ten a night and he was likewhat that’s so many beers I’m like is itreally he’s like yeah ste because that’sthat’s way too many beers he’s likethat’s that’s like a case of beer a weekand to me I hadn’t even thought about itI was like who cares you know that’swhat everybody my age especially inpolice work wasn’t really uncommon andlike I said I wasn’t really thinkingabout my health I felt fine but he washanded to my doctor he said listen thisis going to catch up with you you can’tdo you guys trust me I’m a doctorI worked emergency room I did the shiftlife goes you can’t have this muchalcohol and continued shift workyou’re gonna start things gonna starthappening like you know pre diabetesweight gain depression whatever youmight be fine right now but it’s gonnait’s gonna creep up it’s gonna catch upwith you and you know it did because umif I had a night where there wassomething I doI witnessed or was involved in somethingthat was grotesque or horrible orwhatever there would be a few more beersafterwards you know what I mean it justkind of becomes like like a normalcoping thing and then you know if youhave three or four beers and go to sleepyou feel like you sleep like the deadbut you don’t you your body doesn’t likeappropriately enter REM and you know Ilook I’ve read about all this stuff whenhe was warning me and yeah it was it’svery much part of the police culturedrinking drinking beers of the boys youknow and some like anything some peoplecan handle it and some people can’t likesome people it destroys him I hada friend of mine who worked at thepolice department with me was slowlygoing down the the lane of alcoholism sohe was a detective and he was smellinglike booze sometimes like a troll calland stuff would be like mm-hmm is thatold booze her new booze like one ofthose things where nobody wanted to sayanything cuz you don’t want to be theguy that goes hey I think he’s drinkingyou know what I mean it’s like cuz it’slike you’re all tight you’re all friendsbut people were getting concerned andeventually he got caught going into theevidence room and drinking some likeconfiscated vodka so it got bad and itgot to the point where he was confrontedby the administration and they told himyou know he needed to go I think he didgo to wait go away to rehab came back itall started again I’ll never forget Iwas in the Paki getting myself somebeers and I saw him and I was like yeahlike not that I’m anyone to talk and Ijust waved and said hello but died he’sbuying booze I knew he had just gottenout of rehab I said oh boy this isn’tgood and you know it wasn’t too longafter that that he got relieved of dutyleft are left the police department gotin his car drove to one of our Baybeaches that’s kind of beautifuloverlooks the bay Cape Cod Bay and puthis gun to his head and killed himselfyeah so that was that’s an extremeexample but that was definitely a guythat uh could not stop drinking and wedid I think they researched in in aneffort to get maybe his wife hisretirement or something they looked atthe amount of suicides and death callsthat he attended through his careerbecause he’d been on over 20 years andit was you know it was a big number so Ithink they were trying to use that asyou know a way to get some retirementfor the family because II’m not sure how it works with theRetirement Board or what they would getotherwise they might get a diminishednumber but they were trying to get thefamily like the full full retirementbecause of mental health issues so yeahI didn’t expect to talk about that butthat did happen it was it was horrificyeah there’s the the whole thing with itlike you were saying choir practicechoir boys where I don’t know if peopleactually know that choir practice iswhere you go drinking and then if I goto choir practice you’re a choir boy ohyeah I should have said that well thatcame from I think that came from the oldfrom the elderly PD books and then LAPDand then Joseph Wamba had a book I thinkcalled a choir boys and I even had onein them in 1981 through 87 or somethinglike that my license plate was choir boyreally yeah you don’t you don’t drinkmuch now at all did you hit it hardoh yeah I tried to be an alcoholic itruns in my family and I just couldn’tpull it off you know I tried very veryhard to do it just didn’t agree with meI stopped drinking I think when I had Ihad kids and it just wasn’t sudhi itwasn’t working for me but I had I’m Idrove I’ve drove buddy’s home from theAcademy we the Academy has I don’t knowif they still do I think they do theyhad a bar and they you know everyWednesday night payday we’d go and godrinking at the academy and people wouldget you know sauced really bad Wednesdaynights and they even did a story intheir late times about it you know howprevalent it was but yeah and I’ve had afriend a good friend of mine he drankhimself to death I was I just read abouthim and not recently but years ago inhis obituary all of a sudden in the LATimes he had died but he drank himselfto death and I had heard about it thathe was going down that road but he was afunctioning alcoholic I’d see him withevery time I saw him he had a diet cokein his hand turns out he was he wasmixing it oh and drinking on the jobthere’s a lot of functioning alcoholicson these on the policeapartments and a lot of times they mightbe prone to it but I think a lot oftimes they self-medicate you know to tryand cope because because it’s not coolto be weak and to be a police officerand then they end up drinking themselvesto death or getting in trouble orgetting theirs officers that have beenin DUI crashes where they killedthemselves and in 1981 I went throughthe Academy didn’t think anything aboutit when they had a class and I neverforget this we had an actual class onthe department’s I don’t want to call itan alcoholism class but it was alcoholalcoholism prevention class where asergeant named Jack dick kook crank Iremember his name specifically it was awell-known program he was an alcoholicand when you get popped for some kind ofalcohol-related incident on LAPD theyput you on a contract and if you do itagain you get fired but they don’t fireyou outright they make sure you go totreatment and everything and he had aclass on on how to avoid becoming analcoholic didn’t think twice about it atthe time but then afterwards it was justlike you say it was part it’s like theyissue you a gun they issue you cuffs andthey issue you a bottle of booze it’spart of the jobyeah absolutely that’s it that’s reallyhow it feels you know it’s justdefinitely uh and most people when theyget involved or when they get on the jobor they’re you’re too young to realizethat you’re you’re you wanna have a goodtime you know you’re it’s exciting jobyou wanna you want to unwind you wannahave a couple pops and talk about thewar stories and it’s just very easy toget go down the wrong road for sure yeahand you want to be part of that you wantto be part of the group and you want tobe cool you want to be accepted and soyou go and hey kid we’re gonna go we’regonna celebrate you getting offprobation it go go ahead and buy acouple of cases of beer and we’re gonnameet you on the rooftop over here atthis Sears building and celebrate yearthat’s you know that’s how you did ityou were that’s how you were accepted soyeah it’s a it’s I think people don’tget that it alcoholism is a big big dealon the police departments and they’reveryvery active a lot of place to – are veryactive in programs – to help officers -to not do that because it’s a bigproblem so a couple of couple of closingquestions for you Steve okaycop eaters what do you what would yousay to people who just hate the policeoh those cop haters cop hatersit’s it that’s a really good questionand it’s really nuanced I think becausepeople hate the police for a lot ofdifferent reasonsyou know they hate the police becausethey the way they seem portrayed theyhate the police because how they seem inthe media they hate the police for thesame reasons like every human hatessomeone telling them what to do you knowwhat I mean like no one really likes theheavy like the guy the person that’sgonna tell you what to do no one likesto be told what to do including copslike nobody I I’ve heard so many cuptell stories about like being pulledover and then you know a cop gives themwhat talking to or they get a tickparking ticket and they’re so pissed offyou know but you’re speakingspecifically about like people who justjust irrationally hate the police Iwould yeah doesn’t matter what you do itdoesn’t matter anything they just gonnahate the policeyeah I would say um you know they’rejust people you know like their that’skind of cliche to say but they reallyare I mean like we’re just talking aboutthe the alcohol thing it’s like they’repeople they hurt they have the samefeelings they I’m you can run into aplumber or a contractor or salesassociate somewhere and they’re acomplete dick and you hate them and thenyou can say all these plumbers all thesecontractors are the same you know butcops get it way way worse because copshave the ability to take your freedomaway and they also in the line of theirjob can legally take your life you knowthey can kill you like a jut like acompetent judge or two people that inthe course of their job they could takeyour life awayso I think they’re they’re just held toan impossibly high standard where Ithink cups should be held to a higherstandard because they should be doingthe right thing because they’reenforcing the rules but it’s people theyput them they think they should beperfect and no one can ever live up tothat no one can ever be no profession noperson people man is flawed you knowthere’s no there’s not gonna be any likeDudley do-right perfect cop out therethere’s not there’s certainly not goingto be you know tens of thousands of themlike we have country you know there’salways gonna be the guys that just keepin mind like the the the ones that causethe problems get the attention like Iread an article once it said under 1% ofcops that are investigated are actuallyever found to be at fault for thecharges so under 1% of how many how manycops are there hundreds of thousands Imean in the country I can’t I knowthere’s a number I can’t remember 800thousand or something like that that’sthat’s pretty that’s pretty good I meanthere’s some pretty heavy vetting goingon when people choose police officers soI would just say really try to um havesome empathy try to put yourself intheir shoes really try to imagine whatit’s like to be a cop because like youwere saying like people think hey youever shoot anybody getting a shootoutlike to someone and I used to feel likethat before you’re a cop you think likeoh yeah that’s that’d be cool you knowlike it’s not cool it’s horrible it canruin your life you know like people youreally have to do some mental mentalgymnastics to give cops a fair shake ifyou’re hating them you know what I meanthat’s what I would say try to try totry to be empathetic to to their jobwhat they do yeah and that’s that’s truethat’s very well well said cuz my cancerif you asked me what would you say thecop haters my answer would be yeah screwthem I got nothing that’s also a verygood answer that’s an outstanding answerI thought yeahso in closing I have one more questionfor you ok it’s this is an macnessfrom a podcast called things police seeand it’s an outstanding question whatwould you say to those young kids outthere that want to be a police officerI’d say actually you know what I thinksome good advice would be really lookingto the job it’s not like any other jobreally it’s a it’s a great job and youmight love itbut I would say get involved with yourlocal police department where you aresee if you can do a ride-along see ifyou can get yourself into a situationthat you’re gonna be in every day as acop you know what I mean like becauselike we’re saying people’s what peoplelook at police work from from theoutside outside the bubble you’relooking at it from what movies you’veseen in the cops episodes you’ve seen oror whatever try it try to get involvedtry to go to a policeman try to go on aride-along try to UM try to see whatit’s really like and if you think youcan handle it and that you’d be good atit go for it I mean I think it can be Iknow so many guys that are cops thatconsider it the best job in the worldbut we used to have we used to have aguy one of our Chiefs who retired hecame back as a reserve so once a whilehe’d be you’d be riding around with likea reserve who’s now you know below youin rank but was the chief he was areally nice guy yeah but he always usedto say you know cops are very specialpeople it takes a special person specialtype of person to be like a successfuland good cop and I think that’s so trueyou know I I can’t say that that was meI think I did an okay job I think theguys I work with would say that but Ididn’t do a whole career you know I didnot last the whole career I didn’t havethe fire for it enough to stay and keepdoing it I still have so much respectfor it and I love it and I think it’s Ithink it’s so great but um you really dohave to be a special person to do it todo the job and I would try to researchthat about yourself as much as possibleas much as that’s possibleactually you know throwing the badge ondoing the job first it’s kind of hardsome places they have reserved programslike smaller towns in the Northeast andother parts of the country you canactually go to an intermittent Academyyou can become a reserve officer in ashort amount of time and you canactually get some on-the-job stuff goingon so if you already have a careeryou’re doing something elseI’d say do that go to night school or goto school in the weekends become anactual reserve cop and do the job for alittle bit before before you put allyour eggs in that basket because I willtell you I’ve received more than oneemail from cops in their mid-20s sayingSteve I made a big mistake do you thinkit’s it’s a total a my being is a totalpuss out for me to quit or Wow whatwould you do for a job now if you wereme or and those answering those emailsare so is so difficult because I knowexactly how they feel and my hats off tothem because it for you you recognizethat this isn’t for you and if it’s notfor you stop doing it because it’sextremely important and and it’s neededthe right people need to be there sodefinitely definitely don’t keep doingit if you can but yeah I get I’ve gottena lot of those emails and they break myheart and I tried to respond with asmuch as upbeat as possible cuz you knowthat when you’re in your mid-20s and youand you you realize it’s not for youit does feel a bit from these emailsI’ve gotten like the world’s endingyou’ve put your college education youput all this time in the police academyall the background BS they put youthrough mm-hmm and now you’re like twoyears in you’re like jeez I’m havingpanic attacks I can’t do this the hellam I gonna do with my life try to avoidthat situation that is a very longconvoluted circuit I apologize but um Ijust have a lot of different thoughtsand emotions on it and that’s that’s thebest I could answer no that’s a goodanswer I mean both of us have beencontacted by people who listen to thepodcast and they they want to knowyou know they listen to this podcast alot of times I want to people want tohear about what the job is about andthere are people that are candidatesthey’re applicants that want to bepolice officers and they listen to thepodcast to see what’s what’s up and oneof the things about your podcast is thatI’ve heard many times is that peopleappreciate the honesty the rawness ofthe interviews and to sugarcoat it wouldbe a disservice to anybody that wants tobe a police officer and it’s like yousaid earlier in this interview you knowthat badge is coveted it doesn’t matterwhat department it’s from that badge isa coveted part of you it becomes a partof it you’re no longer you’re no law Ican remember my badge number that’s mybadge number that’s a part of me andit’s not something that they are justyou’re just not going to fill out anapplication and they’re gonna give youthis badge you have to earn it and so ifit takes that much blood and guts fromyou to get it and to know that that samebadge that you’re wearing men and womenhave died wearing those badges and soit’s a very sober thing that you knowfree for you all the stuff that you saidis right on if you want to be a policeofficer it’s the real deal man it’s notand you may die yeah yeah and there’s nothere’s no shame if you can’t if it’snot for you there’s no shame no no noanybody that’s been a cop will go coolcoolyou know what you tried it and it wasn’tfor you that’s fine absolutely at leastyou were brave enough righteous enoughto to try the profession you know what Imean yeah if you get a year in you gowhoo this just sucks it’s ruining mylifebail no big deal it’s just a job offerand and the people that actually gotthose people who are listening that havecalled you and said hey I don’t know ifI want to do this anymorethey they actually made it on the jobfor every for every 10,000 applicantsone of them graduates from the Academyyou made it manyou know you got the badge and there’sthousands of people who can’tbecause they didn’t make it and so goodgood on them for contacting you withwith that hey this time has flown by manyeah this is a good time yeah almost anhour and a half here talking to SteveGould and hey man I I want to thank youfor coming on the podcastJack I will absolutely had a blast andyeah so so that’s all I have as far asthis interview goes but wouldn’t what agreat interview that with the greatSteve Gould appreciate you giving me theopportunity to take over the reins andand trust me with with your baby herewith the podcast and I appreciate thatit was a good time Ken thank you so muchit uh I was a little nervous I’m notgonna lie to you I was like geez I’mgonna be in the hot seat but um I had areally good time you’re in your ofcourse an excellent interviewer so I wasin good handsyeah this was uh this was fun yeah doyou have an outro for us I do I could Icould outro us right now if you want toif you are thinking about become apolice officer and you would like to getsome consultation I know only one man Iwould call Ken Roybal of policebackground dotnet you can get there atpolice background on that or you can goto things police c-calm scroll down thebottom Ken’s email is there and also alink to his site and he can he’ll tellyou straight up if you should do it ornot he’ll just say nope hang right up onyou Steve thank you[Applause][Music]you[Music]English (auto-generated)
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