Episode 3 – Lee McMillion: Inside LAPD D-Platoon (SWAT)

Jon Becker: My name is Jon Becker.

For the past four decades, I've dedicated my life to protecting tactical operators. During this time, I've worked with many of the world's top law enforcement and military units. As a result, I've had the privilege of working with the amazing leaders who take teams into the world's most dangerous situations.

The goal of this podcast is to share their stories in hopes of making us all better leaders, better thinkers, and better people.

Welcome to The Debrief!

My guest today is Lieutenant Lee McMillian. Lee is currently one of the two lieutenants leading the Los Angeles Police Department's metropolitan division, D-Platoon, which is better known as LAPD SWAT. In total, Lee has spent 33 years as a Los Angeles policeman, of which 23 years have been spent at Metro 21. With D-Platoon, Lee is one of only three men to have ever served at all possible ranks at D-Platoon, Officer plus one sergeant and lieutenant.

Lee, I appreciate you joining me today on The Debrief!

Lee McMillion: Thank you, Jon! It's my pleasure to be here!

Jon Becker: Let's start with your history. Let's go back to kind of where you started when your career started with LAPD.

Lee McMillion: So I started the police academy when I was 21 years old. That was May of 1988. After the police academy, my first patrol assignment was rampart division. Then I went to Southeast Division. I was there for almost four years. I did a very brief stint as a farms instructor. I won't get into how I had to navigate that into my career path to keep my P-3 stripes and remain eligible to go to metro Division.

Jon Becker: Fair enough.

Lee McMillion: And then I went to metro Division in April of 1994. Two years later, I went through SWAT selection. And then after assignment to SWAT, I was in the platoon for eleven years. And the back five of those. Correction, the back four of those, I was an element leader.

Jon Becker: Okay. And then at that point, what happened? Did you promote and rotate out or.

Lee McMillion: I did. So it was summer of 2007. I made sergeant. I went to 77th Division, where I spent about 19 months. And then, just as good fortune has it, I was able to come back to SWAT as a sergeant or a squad leader.

Jon Becker: Got it. And then how long were you there? The second time?

Lee McMillion: So I was a sergeant in SWAT for a little under four years when I just took the lieutenant's test and my number came up. So I made lieutenant in October of 2012. And then I was gone about two and a half years before. Once again, the stars aligned.

And I'll have to say that each time I left SWAT and promote it out. I never expected to be able to come back. You just have to be good in your, you know, in your mind. It's. It's that pyramid structure where, like, there are less positions, the higher you go in the rank structure.

Jon Becker: Sure.

Lee McMillion: So when. When you promote out, you have to be good with never, ever coming back and just find another career path. And there's plenty of great job opportunities on the LAPD, and I was gonna find my way into other career opportunities. But just as good fortune and cosmic energy have it, I was able to come back not only as a sergeant, but also as a lieutenant.

Jon Becker: So why don't we talk a little bit about the history of D-Platoon for. I mean, I think everybody's familiar with LA SWAT, but, like, from a history standpoint, when did D-Platoon start?

Lee McMillion: So, LAPD SWAT started in the first roll call was actually December of 1966. So it had been on the back of the 1965 riots in Los Angeles. It had been after the Charles Whitman incident, which was, I believe, summer of 1966.

And so there were these increasingly provocative police incidents where the law enforcement community realized that there would need to be enhancement of tactical proficiency and resources to handle these. So again, it was December of 1966 was the first roll call, although we say 1967 is our anniversary year because it was late in December, and we just don't want to eat up that whole year.

So it was a part time platoon for nearly five years until November of 1971. During the part time period, there were 176 personnel men who rotated through the platoon. And it was a part time assignment, as I said. So you could be a Hollywood detective, or you could be a patrol cop in just any division. And those personnel would get together for a couple days every month and train in what they were still figuring out were the responsibilities of SWAT.

And if you figure the personnel, we had Korean war vets. It was during the Vietnam era. So some Vietnam vets. There might even have been a world war two vet in there that would have been quite tenured on the department at the time. And then after some successes, specifically, there was a black Panther incident in 1969. And then in November of 71, SWAT came to metro division as a proper platoon and with the designator of d platoon, so. And that's where we've been ever since.

Jon Becker: So in 71 was the point that it becomes a full time assignment and is stood up as a full time team.

Lee McMillion: Correct.

Jon Becker: Okay, how big was it prior to that? Like, how many personnel?

Lee McMillion: So as a part time team, it was, correction, four squads of ten each. Okay, so about 40 yeah, 40. So four squads, ten each. And then when it came to Metro as D-Platoon about the first couple deployment periods, it remained four squads, ten each, and then soon thereafter, bumped to six squads of ten each. So 60 officers, and that's our structure today, is 60 officers. We actually have seven sergeants. Six of those sergeants are squad leaders, as I mentioned, 610 officer squads.

And then we have an additional administrative sergeant position that can rotate through if a sergeant is injured on duty or goes on vacation, somebody can backfill the squad and also handle admin. And then there are two lieutenants, and the two lieutenants are myself, and then my partner is Ruben Lopez. And after an incident in 2005 is when they expanded that structure, so it would just be greater lieutenant coverage. And bottom line is, just one guy can't stay awake that much.

Jon Becker: Yeah, that's fair. So, 1971, the unit becomes a full time unit. By then the Black Panther shootout was in 1969?

Lee McMillion: Correct.

Jon Becker: So 69 is Black Panther shootout. 71, the team becomes full time. 74, the SLA shootout occurs?

Lee McMillion: Yes.

Jon Becker: Okay. So it's kind of pre full time, and then post full time SLA happens. And that's really the genesis of the team, as most people see it.

Lee McMillion: Correct. So when it was a part time team, there were various successes at different deployments, and one of the bigger, more prominent was obviously the Black Panther incident in 1969. So, actually, if you look at our emblem, we've got it's the eagle and holding the lightning bolt and the banner. And then the banner has a 41 and a 54 on it.

So the 41 stands for 41st and Central, which is the intersection of the Black Panther incident in 1969. And then if we're going to talk about the SLA incident in 1974, then that was at 54th and Compton. So just two significant landmark incidents with success and brought notoriety to the team and also fostered that confidence with the chain of command that this is a team that can handle these sorts of incidents. And it just furthered the evolution.

Jon Becker: Yeah, because 74. Well, even 71, when the team becomes full time, this is still a pretty radical idea. This is not. LAPD literally coined the term SWAT, and this is kind of a radical idea to have a special weapons and tactics team, especially full time special weapons and tactics team. Talk a little bit about the origin. And so it was Jeff Rogers and Daryl Gates, if I remember correctly, that coined the phrase.

Lee McMillion: So I know Daryl Gates was an inspector in 19, December of 66 when this whole thing started. So, obviously, he was a very prominent chief of ours for, I believe, 13 years. But before he had promoted to that rank. He had this concept of a police unit with enhanced capability, just watching the trends in law enforcement and the increased danger, provocative nature of them.

And so what are we going to do to prepare for it when it hits Los Angeles? So, yes, SWAT was the brainchild of Daryl Gates, then inspector, and he was actually a driver for Chief Parker at the time. And then obviously, as he promoted to the rank of chief, then the platoon had wide support throughout the chain of command because he is now the chief. And it was his concept.

I know that there's some, I don't say conflict, disagreement, but the overall premise is that SWAT started with LAPD and there may be other law enforcement entities out there. I'm not going to arrogantly state that it started with us, and that's the way it is. There are 17,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States.

If one of them had a variation on the theme and just didn't call it SWAT at the time, I certainly give them credit for what they've done, but for bringing the term special weapons and tactics and attaching that to a police unit that's a full time team, I believe that credit does go to the LAPD.

Jon Becker: I think from a historical context. So you look at Black Panther and put Black Panther in greater context. At that point, you're having weather underground and events where police cars are being blown up. There's a lot of civil unrest, Watts riots internationally, you have the Munich massacre, you're having hostage takings. It kind of sets up this environment where you look at Munich and law enforcement quickly realizes there can be problems here that we're not prepared for.

Lee McMillion: Correct.

Jon Becker: And so it makes sense why they would look at it and say, yeah, we need to do something else. Looking back at the history, also talk about the effect of the 84 olympics, because that seems to be the point in the US where SWAT really explodes onto the scene and you see teams popping up kind of all over the place.

Lee McMillion: Right. So, as you said, it was after the Munich incident at the Olympics and then when the city of Los Angeles received the Olympic award for the 1984 games is in the couple of years prior to that, that Daryl Gates and other government officials determined that if something like this could possibly occur in the city of Los Angeles, what are we going to do to prepare for it? And that's when LAPD SWat did all the outreach.

So a lot of our personnel, you talk about Jeff Rogers and Mike Hillman, Al Preciato, Ron McCarthy, a lot of travel to international agencies that had experience with counterterrorism operations. And then that's when our platoon went from a tactical team that was making entries but not necessarily hostage rescue capable to full blown hostage rescue capable resources.

Jon Becker: Yeah, because, I mean, again, in context, that is kind of the terrorist act du jour for the late 1970s is sees a bunch of people somewhere demand the release of a group of prisoners somewhere and then try to negotiate your way or sneak your way out of it.

As you know, that's the point also that it shifts for the hostage takers because you have 22 sas at Prince's gate in London. You have the Entebbe raid, you have GIGN and Berndes. Like, there's this series of catastrophic failures of hostage takers where the teams start to figure it out.

Lee McMillion: Yes.

Jon Becker: And they begin to know how to deal with hostage takers. And all of a sudden it goes from they're negotiating to they are, you know, dying in the airplane because the team has built, you know, the strategy. So as you guys started to reach out, you were reaching out to which teams, like which european teams kind of laid that foundation.

Lee McMillion: So, yes, european teams. Moreover, our own US army and our US Navy and then so very close relationships with them. And then from there, I would say GSG 9, initially, GIGN, the SAS. And we've kept a lot of those relationships over the years.

Jon Becker: Yeah. It seems as somebody who's worked with D-Platoon for a long time and kind of been around the platoon, you are more connected internationally, I think, than a lot of other units. And there is more of an information exchange that takes place.

Lee McMillion: Yes, I actually keep a lot of correspondence with our resources in the UK, in France, actually, as far as Dubai and in Norway, Delta Norse. I'll have frequent communication with all of those teams.

Jon Becker: Yeah. Because I think especially when you look at LA as a potential stage for an attack, it seems like most of the tactics develop, both good guy and bad guy tactics develop in Europe and the Middle east and then kind of make their way to us soil on both sides of the equation. So it probably is helpful for you guys to maintain those relationships. And I understand how the tactics are evolving, I would imagine

Lee McMillion: Absolutely. And real time debriefs. An incident occurred in Paris. We have resources that are sending us information about what occurred and obviously there's a lot of confidentiality to it, but we've got very good communication, so we can learn from their successes and challenges and the like.

Jon Becker: So talk to me about the current configuration of the team. How big is it? You know, what's the overall structure look like today?

Lee McMillion: So our structure hasn't changed since, I'll say, mid 72, early 72 ish, if we became a full time team November 71. So shortly thereafter, we were six squads of ten each. Each ten officer squad is divided into two five officer elements. So if we talk about ranks, and I want to get, like, too weird on the rank structure chart, but we have 48 police officer 3s. We have 12P. Three plus ones, which are element leaders.

So if you kind of do the math, you got six squads divided into two five man elements. Right? You got twelve element leaders. And then each of those squads is run by a sergeant or a squad leader. So we have six sergeants that are actual squad leaders. Then we have that admin position that can backfill. And then two lieutenants.

Jon Becker: Two lieutenants rotating responsibility over time.

Lee McMillion: Yes. So Ruben and I are, for the most part, we are exactly 50-50. We'll handle off hour standby or on duty incidents every other night, every other weekend, so that at the end of the year, we're both up the exact amount of time.

Jon Becker: And I think that one of the things I think that's unique about D-Platoon and also about Lasherf SEB, is you have complete responsibility for the tactical problem in the city of Los Angeles. There is no. There's no, you know, there's no phone home after you guys. It is your problem, ultimately. Right?

Lee McMillion: Right. We are the last line of defense. City of Los Angeles is 468 sq mi. There are 21 geographic patrol divisions. So when something happens in a geographic division, it's actually the commanding officer of that division. That is the incident commander.

So we subordinate to the incident commander. We provide a service. And everything that we do, I will. If our personnel are, let's say, the element leader and sergeant are devising tactics downrange, they'll make me aware of what those are. And then I go to the incident commander, who's going to be that geo division commanding officer and seek that incident commander's approval to implement those tactics.

Jon Becker: Got it. And just from a breadth, one of the things that I know about the team, but I think is really fascinating is your breadth of capabilities. Talk about the cadre system and kind of how you have built these individual silos of excellence, for lack of a better term.

Lee McMillion: So when an officer first comes into SWAT, everyone is a general entry team member, SWAT element member, and then after about a year in the platoon, then they can branch out. And obviously, they'll have to prove their proficiency at the basics, and then they can specialize. And the specialties are crisis negotiations is something that our crisis negotiators astound me. I will screen an incident where it seems like it's going to be quite challenging, and we'll get there.

And next thing I know, our negotiators have this guy walking out handcuffed and apologizing. They're remarkable. So, crisis negotiators is one of our primary cadres, along with, as expected, snipers, lead climbers. The city of Los Angeles has 52 miles of waterfront between the port of Los Angeles, on up through the coastline up to Venice beach.

And so we have a tactical waterborne component that simply brings SWAT to the water. Everything that's expected with less lethal or diversionary devices or otherwise on land, just those members can do that in the water. We have explosive breachers. We have firearms training cadre. We have weaponless defense, which also handles all of our chemical agent instruction for our personnel. And now we have, technology is used more now than ever. The robotics, pole cameras. We have a SUAS cadre as well, properly licensed FAA 107. And so those are, I think I hit all the cadres, and then we work in four week deployment periods.

So throughout those four weeks, our first week, if we'll letter the weeks. Right, the first week would be week A and B, C and D. And so if you do the math, four week cycles, there's 13 of them a year. Like 52 weeks a year, math works out.

So that first week A is what we call our core week, and that's where all of our personnel work during those training days. And we do all of our firearms training for the various weapons systems. We'll do the movement where the slow, methodical Harris warrant hostage rescue, dynamic workplant, explosive breach. But those are our core skills that we do during our core week in week A.

Then all those cadres that I mentioned, they have their various training days, weeks B, C, and D. So snipers will shoot out of the helicopter every other Tuesday. They will be on the range or working some version of urban hide, rural, hideous, Calkin Place, UKD on every other Thursday. Our negotiators have a day in there. Climbers have a day in there. Explosive breachers, whether they're building charges or working with the platoon, using charges in conjunction with movement technology, the personnel making sure all of our robots work properly and enhancing their ability to maneuver those devices through every variety of terrain.

Likewise with the UA's personnel, our lead climbers, and then our medics. I forgot our medics. So we have about eight EMTs that are properly certified EMTs. But our medical package for the platoon actually comes from the LA City fire department. That's interesting. So after one of our element leaders was killed in a rescue effort in 2008, Randy Simmons.

In fact, that was 14 years ago yesterday, February 7 of 2008, and we realized that we didn't have the medical support. And I mean, to be honest, the medical support at that event would not have saved Randy's life. He took a 380 on the bridge in the nose. But we enhanced our ability to have medical support downrange with us.

So this relationship with the LA City fire department, and they're paramedics. So in order to be. It's tactical emergency medical support, or TEMS is the acronym, and they will be an LA city paramedic for at least five years, then they will actually sign a waiver because there's that, you know, the fire department isn't going to go where things haven't calmed down. Lack of a better way of putting it. And so they'll sign a waiver that I will go wherever SWAT goes. And so they are actually with our personnel on target, and they'll go through a two week basic SWAT package. They're not carrying guns, but they will learn how to use our firearms.

So if one of us goes down, they can render it safe. They understand the gear. They wear very similar gear so that they're around us and that while they're watching our movement and they're seeing all the different gear that we use, it's not completely foreign to them.

Jon Becker: Yeah. So they know effectively how to move with a stick and stay out of the way and, you know, know which way guys are going to go, etcetera.

Lee McMillion: Absolutely. Very well said. And then. But they'll also do a tactical medic course with La county sheriff's department, with their air five guys, mountain rescue personnel, ESD. And then after that, then they come to us. And so right now, we have eight in that cadre, and two of them are on everything we do.

So whether it's pre planned or spontaneous, they're on standby just like we are. They have take home city cars just like we do, and their phone will alert in the middle of the night for an incident, and they will roll straight into the job site, just like our personnel. And they'll have their medical gear. And typically, they'll be in what we call our Medcat, which is a Linco Bearcat. But it's for the most part, an armored ambulance, but it doesn't satisfy all the sanitary requirements because chewing tobacco and sunflower seeds.

SPEAKER It's armored and SWAT guys are in it.

Lee McMillion: Yes. Yeah, but it does. But it carries the majority of our medical gear, so they're in that on site and they're to provide medical care for not only our personnel, but also victims and even suspects.

Jon Becker: So, I mean, with 60 guys, that many cadres, I'm assuming guys will have multiple specialties, then, like you may be a long gun and a medic or you may. Is there that kind of crossover in specialty?

Lee McMillion: Yeah, so actually, when I was an element member and an element leader, I was a sniper climber diver.

Jon Becker: Okay.

Lee McMillion: So I did those three, and then when I came back as a sergeant, I was with those cadres as well because I had obviously a deep understanding of those disciplines.

Jon Becker: Right. So then within a mission, so if you get an operation, you have X number of divers there for any operation, or you have X number of snipers, X number of climbers, just by rotation of the platoon, you're going to have all of those specialties there, kind of whatever the operation is.

Lee McMillion: Correct. And we also try to disperse those specialties throughout the elements and squads so that depending on who's on standby, who's up for a barricade, that squad will have a cross section of those.

Jon Becker: Got it. Talk to me about the typical D-Platoon operator, because I think one of the things that is striking when you interact with the platoon is there is a lot of experience in D-Platoon. I mean, it is not uncommon to meet somebody who's been an operator for 10, 15, 20 years and has hundreds or thousands of operations. So what is kind of the average d platoon operator look like?

Lee McMillion: So average agent or platoon, I believe is right, about 40 go plus or minus a year or two on that. But about 40 years old. Before someone goes through selection, they're probably going to have anywhere from eight to twelve years on the LAPD.

And when personnel come into our platoon, especially with just enjoying the operational tempo and the type of work and the camaraderie, personnel stay a long time. In fact, I'll say 80% of our personnel stay about ten years.

Jon Becker: Which – from an experience standpoint, somebody at D-Platoon who has been there for ten years, that's hundreds of operations and it's hundreds of hours of training or thousands of hours of training. Like, you just start to raise the expertise of the organization, which if they didn't stay that long or you had a rotation, wouldn't happen.

Lee McMillion: Correct. But if you also talk about experience. So operational tempo we do about. As of recent, we do about 100 and 2125 spontaneous incidents. A year. And then we'll do probably 30 to 35 pre planned. And the pre planned are typically warrant services. So if you figure that an officer is going to get 150 incidents or the platoon will have 150 deployments per year, and an officer makes, let's say, even a third of those. Right? That's a good 50.

Jon Becker: That's 50 operations a year.

Lee McMillion: Per year. Right. So if you do ten years in the platoon and on the low end, saying that you'll make a third of those incidents, you've got 500.

Jon Becker: 500 operations is an amazing amount of tactical experience, especially in a modern environment where there are not that many full time teams. And even the ones that do don't have that many operations. So what is the process to activate SWAT?

Lee McMillion: So, perfect timing for this question, because the other thing I was going to say is that having correspondence with a lot of different teams, we'll see that different teams have different criteria for deployment. So when our officers. When I say we have 150 different deployments a year, 125 spontaneous and 25 or so preplanned, that there are certain criteria that needs to be met for us to even move that monstrous machine of LAPD SWAT.

So let's talk about a spontaneous incident. Spontaneous incident would be. We'll go with, like, just the groundwork of an armed, barricaded suspect. Right? And so the four criteria. Crime's got to be committed. Suspects believe to be armed. He's in a position of advantage. And that position of advantage, we use that broad term because that can be anywhere that can be in the middle of a field of grass, that can be in a home, that can be in a vehicle. He's in a position that gives him a tactical advantage. And you can define that however you want. And then the final thing is refusal to submit.

So the officers have to try to communicate in some way. Like, no answer at all can be a refusal to submit, but we at least have to try and get that person to submit to arrest.

Jon Becker: Got it.

Lee McMillion: So with those four criteria haven't been met. And I'll just give the example of, if I'm on standby and my city phone rings at 02:00 in the morning, I'll go down to my desk at the end of the hallway, and I've got my little screening sheet. And I use that because if I'm up at 02:00 in the morning and my brain's a little foggy, these are good prompts for me to make sure that I'm answering all the questions.

And so when did that incident originate, has it been going on for 5 minutes or has it been going on for 2 hours? And what's the criminal history of the suspect? What's the target location and specifics? Not just the address. Is it a unit in a 300 unit apartment building is a single family residence, detached garage. So I get some specifics about that, obviously. Weaponry, efforts to communicate, what's the nature of the dialogue? And then once I confirm that we have a crime committed belief to be armed. Position, vantage. If you submit, then I notify my commanding officer.

And so my commanding officer has to approve the deployment of our personnel. The only time I will send our personnel immediately upon getting the screening is if there is – If it's a hostage incident, life in the balance. And then when I notify the chain of command, it's more of a notification. I mean, clearly no one's going to say no. You shouldn't go to them. Right?

Jon Becker: Yeah. We have somebody holding a hostage. Let me make 7 phone calls and 45 minutes from now I'll get your question.

Lee McMillion: At the risk of stating the obviously. So if it's a hostage incident, I'll send personnel immediately and then notify the chain of command and we'll get that machine moving much more quickly.

Jon Becker:

Got it. And your personnel are city, car, everything, like they're leaving from their home to the location. They're not coming together and having to mobilize and all that, right?

Lee McMillion: That's correct. So if it's an on duty incident, we're likely there's a good cross section of us are training at a certain venue somewhere and they can just in trail and figure it out and we'll all go there together. If it's off hours, then we have a standby list where we have 16 for tactics, another two for negotiations, a primary secondary negotiator. And a unique thing about our negotiations, excuse me, about our negotiations profile is that those are actually SWAT officers.

We don't have a separate cadre of negotiators who are just negotiators and never, you know, working with SWAT. These are actually SWAT cops. And in fact, through our selection process, our selection is a twelve week course. And the first eight weeks are really where all the testing takes place. And the back four weeks of that, those twelve weeks are what I call enrichment. And one of those weeks in the back four is a 40 hours crisis negotiations course. Every single one of our personnel goes through a CNT course. Crisis negotiations.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Lee McMillion: And so they all have a baseline knowledge of crisis negotiations and, you know, just things to say, things not to say. And…

Jon Becker: Which may be more important.

Lee McMillion: Yes. Yeah. It's not always what you say. It's what you're not saying that matters. So they'll all go through this Christ. Negotiation course and then those that after you finish that one year in the platoon and, you know, prove your – That you're comfortable in all the different aspects of baseline SWAT stuff, you can specialize as negotiators. So 22 of our 60 are our negotiators.

Jon Becker: Oh, wow!

Lee McMillion: So when we roll….

Jon Becker: So third of the platoon?

Lee McMillion: Yes.

Jon Becker: Yeah. I mean, almost half of the operator level platoon.

Lee McMillion: Correct. And then they'll get enhanced training and they'll attend different symposiums and they have every deployment period, they have their training days where they can debrief incidents that occurred elsewhere or debrief an incident that we experienced. We have behavioral science doctors that are attached to us. So when we send out a crisis negotiation package. I know I'm getting really deep into C&T right now.

Jon Becker: Yeah. That's okay, though.

Lee McMillion: I'll come back to it that we have a BSS doc there with us. So they're not actually doing the negotiating. The negotiating is all with our primary and secondary negotiator. We have a supervisor that oversees it, but the BSS Doc can look at or listen to the nature of the dialogue and maybe weave in some things that the suspect is saying that may help our negotiators in connecting.

Jon Becker: Yeah, I think one of the things that. One of the misconceptions about SWAT teams, especially larger agencies like yours, is that SWAT is just a bunch of trained killers that are going to go out and deal with it tactically. And I think one of the most striking things about your platoon is the emphasis on crisis negotiation, and it's the emphasis on surrounding call out. And it's really, it's a total resolution approach. It's not simply we get there and everything goes tactical.

Lee McMillion: Absolutely. So I've kind of derailed. Your original question was, what do we do when we go to an incident? And you're right, we go straight to the job site. We don't all rally it at the command and gather gear and go. So everybody has their gear with them. We have support personnel in our vault that will grab our armor and our truck and everything goes to the field.

And then on to your statement about this resolving incidents in the least confrontational manner possible. So there is a – It frustrates me that there is a common perception that when SWAT responds to an incident that there's going to be significant property damage and that there's going to be – That we – Yes. Good time to laugh.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Lee McMillion: Gonna show up, gonna break everything, and probably gonna shoot everybody.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Lee McMillion: And then before the brass even cools on the deck, we're gonna get in our cars and drive away.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Lee McMillion: And nothing could be further from the truth. And I'll talk about the stats of our platoon. Cause I'm actually very proud of them that we started keeping a database in 2013.

Jon Becker: Okay.

Lee McMillion: And so we've captured absolutely all of our deployments. And since 2013, I think we're at about 1150 incidents.

Jon Becker: Okay.

Lee McMillion: And so if I talk about those 1150 incidents, we use force of any kind, all the way down to wrist lock, twist lock in less than 8% of the incidents.

Jon Becker: Wow!

Lee McMillion: We use deadly force in less than 1.4% of the incidents.

Jon Becker: See, I think that is, I think that if the average person knew that statistic, it would stagger them. Cause I do think there's this impression, like, oh, yeah, no, everybody's gonna get shot every, you know, and one and a half percent of the incidents in Deadly force.

Lee McMillion: Less than.

Jon Becker: Wow!

Lee McMillion: Less than one and a half percent. And obviously, we can thank Hollywood and all the fantastic Footage of movie scenes of all that destruction

Jon Becker: And 85 movies. That have been made about your platoon. Two tv shows, they've done a great job of a disinformation campaign.

Lee McMillion: Yeah, absolutely false. It doesn't happen that way. And all that credit for our low statistics of uses of force and uses deadly force, that goes to our personnel and their commitment to resolving these incidents least confrontational manner possible. Crisis negotiators. And especially since about 2016, what's really helped us is all the technology, whether using robots, pole cams, UAS, those help us search without exposing our personnel. It just makes it safer for everybody, makes it safer for us, makes it safer for the suspect.

So we keep on refining our systems and we keep reducing the need to use force. And the big catchphrase, and probably the last couple of years, is deescalation. And it's something we've been doing forever. But there's also different tools that we're adding to our toolbox that assist in that. And so it's a constant pursuit to handle the more provocative incidents in the least confrontational manner possible.

Jon Becker: Yeah, it's interesting because in talking with you and in talking with guys from the platoon, the emphasis seems to be on slowing the entire thing down. Right? The guy is emotional, he's made bad decisions, he's in a bad place.

And the sooner he gets into a confrontation, one of my friends said a long time ago, Sid Heal said a long time ago, when somebody is in a tactical situation, they have made so many bad choices in their lifetime that the sheriff's department, in his case, is at their house with a SWAT team knocking down the door.

If you give them 30 seconds to make a decision, they're probably not going to make the right one. And it's interesting because as you talk through it, it's crisis negotiation. It's getting technology in. It's slowing the whole thing down and delaying this moment when an officer is engaging with the suspect and trying to prevent that from ever happening.

Lee McMillion: Right.

Jon Becker: Which I think is another thing that Hollywood has created kind of this fictitious myth for that. It's like, oh, yeah, I know, here they go. They're going right away and it's just not the case.

Lee McMillion: Right. And so like for, I'll speak for the LAPD. We're the last line of defense. So if we don't fix the problem, no one's going to. Yeah, but I think what's lost in all of that is that we're a lifesaving organization.

And there's, you know, people look at what SWAT does and they look at armored vehicles and they look at snipers and they look at all these things that they like to translate into. Well, they're, they're going to hurt people significantly or kill them. Yeah. But as the last line of defense, we need those things. But we're also a life saving organization, and clearly our statistics prove it.

Jon Becker: Yeah. It's an interesting discussion of militarization of, of law enforcement and military issues of SWAT specifically. One of the things that people key on is armored vehicles. And it's always struck me as kind of a crazy thought because without an armored vehicle, that's a lethal force engagement. If you put an officer there, without an armored vehicle, the suspect is shooting at an officer, he may hit, and there's no chance for resolution at that point, you're going to a tactical resolution, whereas with armor, you are the, all of those things are putting a margin of safety between the suspect and the operator.

Lee McMillion: So that actually brings up a great topic of these, what I'll call landmark incidents that have promoted our evolution. So we talked about the 84 Olympics and taking that step from traditional entry teams and some enhanced capability to full blown hostage rescue capable. Then our tactics adjusted. I'm going to say, in the late nineties, one of our element leaders, Ken Thatcher, was on staff at Blackwater.

And what I like about Blackwater was that they would have, like, tactical law enforcement teach law enforcement, and military teach military, because the crossover for, we'll say, rules of engagement aren't necessarily the same, but the tactics of limited penetration rather than running walls. And that really changed the profile of our tactics.

So a landmark evolutionary time frame in our platoon. Then we'll go to 2002, and now we get to armor, and armor completely changed the way that we deploy. When I was a young swat cop, we literally had, like. We actually called the tomato van. It looked like a van you would see on the side of the road selling tomatoes out of the back and had a gas leak inside. So if you ride around it too long, you're getting a headache.

And now, all of a sudden, we have armor. And so today, we have a bear, which is like. It's on a freightliner frame. Just a big, big bear, enormous armored vehicle. We have four bearcats, and then we have two armored excursions. And so with a fleet of armor, we can park where we need to. And you're right, it is actually de-escalating because we are in a better tactical position, and we've had more than one incident where our personnel have been shot at in the vehicle and haven't returned fire.

Jon Becker: Yeah, yeah. But if they'd not been in the vehicle, they would have had a choice – [Crosstalk]

Lee McMillion: Force to return fire. Yes. You have to defend your life and the lives of the citizens and your teammates and all of that. So I'm not saying that we're gonna allow a suspect to shoot at our army.

Jon Becker: Sure.

Lee McMillion: Of course. Unendingly, of course. But if we can reposition and we can take them into custody without, then certainly we do.

Jon Becker: And that's, I think, also one of my favorite sayings is the whole point of special tactics is to put the suspect in a position where resistance is futile and surrender is likely.

Lee McMillion: Well said.

Jon Becker: Right. So the suspect is now in a position when you're in armor, you know, you don't have to be a math major to figure out you're probably not gonna win the gunfight. Right? Like, the more distance you place between you and the suspect, the more the suspect has to come to the realization that, like, I may not win here.

Lee McMillion: Yes.

Jon Becker: I'm probably not gonna win. And as soon as he gets to, I'm not gonna win, then he's making a decision. But as long as he thinks he may win, and if it is an immediate face to face confrontation, then he's not gonna win long term, but he has a chance of winning the initial engagement. So I think that the ability to, again, slow everything down, separate your personnel from the suspect.

But it's also, I think, like you talk about the platoon not returning fire in a situation where they could have. Certainly, I think that goes into selection too. Right? A lot of it is who you pick and their ability to make those decisions on the fly.

Lee McMillion: Yes. And so I talked about some of the tenure of our personnel. Right. I mean, that we're 40 plus or minus years old. That before you go to selection, you'll likely have eight to twelve years of street experience as a police officer. You're seasoned, you know how to handle these tenuous incidents in the field. You know how to talk to people, you know how to de-escalate. And so those are the people we're hiring. And then I've been asked on more than one occasion, you know, what, who are you looking for when you're looking for a SWAT cop?

Jon Becker: That's a really good question.

Lee McMillion: What's the profile? What's the personality? And so just to tell a quick story is back in October of 2010, HRT FBI Quantico was running selection. So we have a great relationship with them. And I went back and joined for their selection. And part of that was so they would wake up bright and early the first day and do all these physical tests. And then as the day evolved, I got with, there was a psychologist, psychiatrist. Psychologist, I believe, monitoring. His last name is Middleton.

So Doc Middleton is, he's kind of just standing back and he's just kind of watching the personalities of the different personnel and selectees and how they're interacting. And so I'm having a conversation with him and he says, so, yeah, I mean, obviously the first thing we do is put them through all of these strenuous physical tests and ensure that they're prepared physically for this, he says.

But about noon today, we're going to just sit them down in a room. They're going to take a raw IQ test. And based on their scores from a Raw IQ test, I will give you 80% certainty who is going to make it to day two.

Jon Becker: Wow!

Lee McMillion: And who's going to be done?

Jon Becker: Man, that's a bold prediction.

Lee McMillion: And yes, and so then he went on to explain that when somebody does very well on a RAIQ test, that's someone who one is, he's done the research and he or she has done the research and understands the job that they're applying for. So they've prepared for it.

Jon Becker: Sure.

Lee McMillion: It also enhances their ability to multitask problem solve, be resourceful, think innovatively, and.

Jon Becker: Pay attention to detail.

Lee McMillion: Yes. And adjust to the terrain as things change. And he says, then later on, we'll do a personality test and Myers Briggs and I guess some people speak of the pros and cons of that. So I won't get into whether you're a florist or a field marshal or otherwise.

Jon Becker: Yeah, whatever.

Lee McMillion: And those change from year to year anyway, with life experience and formal education and all that. But the raw IQ piece really stuck with me. And so you ask me who we're looking for in a SWAT cop. I want to be smart. And once they're smart, you can build everything else off of that, because you'll see that they understand their job taskings, and they're going to be committed to it, and they're going to understand the organization.

And then as they come in the platoon, then it's our responsibility to expose them to the culture of our platoon and our drive for professionalism. And then they assimilate into that as well. And then they also are going to. We need to create an environment where they feel safe.

And I could talk about a book by Daniel Coyle, Culture Code, where our personnel need to feel safe to work in this environment and where they can feel safe to come to work. They can challenge the norms. They can bring innovation, take risks. They feel safe to say, fail forward. Use the phrase.

So all of that goes into the personality of the personnel we're looking for. And then whether it's. And we want a broad cross section of life experience as well. Because I continue to talk about crisis negotiations and how much that assists us in resolving these provocative incidents and those broad life experiences are going to help them communicate and understand as they are working through an incident where I'll say, just because you can't. Just because you're justified in using deadly force or force of any kind doesn't mean you should.

Jon Becker: Sure.

Lee McMillion: Right? So if there are other more innovative ways for us to solve the problem, then that's what we're doing, and those are the people we want to hire.

Jon Becker: Yeah. Cause, I mean, realistically, lethal engagement is not good for anybody.

Lee McMillion: Amen to that.

Jon Becker: Especially now. Right. Like, it's not. It's. It's bad for the suspect, obviously. Cause he's gonna lose the gunfight, but it's also bad for the officer. It's bad for the department. It's bad for the platoon. It's like there's no. I think there's this kind of misconception that special tactics teams want to go out and they want to go kill people. And realistically, having spent 35 years around SWAT teams, there is no lethal engagement where everybody walks away happy.

Lee McMillion: You are absolutely correct.

Jon Becker: Everybody's a loser, right?

Lee McMillion: Yes, absolutely.

Jon Becker: Yeah. You've got a slightly older platoon than the typical SWAT team. You have probably a little smarter than the average bear operator. How do you maintain very high standards while managing all these a type personalities?

Lee McMillion: I wish I had the answer to that question. So, I mean, if you consider, obviously we want free thinkers. We want, like I said, smart, innovative. And then we assimilate them into the tradition and culture of our platoon, which is to constantly evolve and find a better way to do things with less and less confrontation. So when you assimilate them into our culture, and then I'll promote another book. Here is James Kerr, wrote legacy about the New Zealand All Blacks.

Jon Becker: Oh, interesting!

Lee McMillion: Okay, right. And this book talks about how when they bring someone into their team, how they make them, they are immediately educated about the traditions and the ethos of that team and the culture. And so when you bring people in and maybe they. SWAT is a cool job and I want to go through selection and they're going to get through selection, but then they realize that this is a life saving organization and I need to be a part of this very honorable team that strives to accomplish exactly that, saving lives.

So then we're also going to promote their free thought. And so as this younger generation with a different perspective on resources and innovation and a different way to maybe approach a challenge, then we're going to encourage them to present that. And some of them work and some of them don't have. But I never want to stymie the innovative drive of our personnel.

So I need right now we're running selection. We're in week four of the twelve weeks and we've got twelve personnel. And we did a lot of testing on the front end. And all of our hope is that all twelve are going to graduate and that they're going to assimilate in the platoon and they will be successful, successful and productive and contributive team members.

And I want them to understand immediately what they're getting into. And I also want them to understand that we're looking to them to be the next generation of innovation so that we can continue to not only keep our stats, but improve on those stats of force of any kind. Less than 8% of the incidents and deadly force and less than 1.4% of the incidents. We can improve on that. But how are we going to do it? And those are the personnel we're hiring.

Jon Becker: Yeah. So it is this. The Japanese have a notion called Kazen, which is like this idea that you are constantly improving, continuous improvement, continuously addressing the weakness of the organization, either through bringing in other people, through improving culture, through improving training. And it sounds like that's kind of in the heart of everything that you're doing, is like everything can always get a little bit better.

Lee McMillion: Yes. In fact, Kaizen is constant, methodical. So there's a constant methodical drive to improve.

Jon Becker: Yeah, yeah, talk to me. So the culture, obviously, of the team is essential. And I'm a big fan of culture as a concept. I think that that is ultimately what drives our behavior is this notion that I always tell the story, like, you and your friends have a culture when you play poker and you and your parents have a culture when you go to church. And those two cultures are completely different. And there aren't necessarily written rules, but it's very clear to you that some behaviors are not acceptable at one versus the other.

Lee McMillion: Well said.

Jon Becker: And when you are bringing people into your culture and educating them, you're setting expectations, you're setting norms, but you're also setting an understanding of the relationship between people. How do you maintain, for lack of a better term, a familial environment? Because tactical units are obviously, the guys are very closely bonded. There are close relationships. How do you maintain that closeness and still maintain standards and people's need to meet standards?

Lee McMillion: So the good thing is that when we select personnel and they're going to go through selection and, well, we select personnel to start our course and then they're going to go through selection. There's a personality in them that makes them want to be the part of a team. Right?

Jon Becker: Sure.

Lee McMillion: We're hiring smart individuals, but not to be individuals, they need to be a part of the team. They need to be confident and be able to stand out and do what's right all the time, but they also need to be, there's a drive in that personality to want to be a contributive member of the team, and the team needs the support of the team.

And in fact, when some of our personnel, we're involved in a lot of stuff and some of our guys are going to get significantly injured and there's a drive for them to want to come back because they want to be a part of the team, they want to continue to contribute. They want the team to know that they still want to be there and still contribute to the team.

So whether it's something that I can do or that supervision can do to ensure that people continue to contribute to this team. I think the bigger part of it is that the team takes care of that. That's the team culture that we have element leaders that lead their personnel and keep them engaged in the need to be a member of a team and contribute to the team. And a term I use is, and I don't mean in a sexist way at all, but I say, take care of the man next to you better than yourself.

Jon Becker: Yeah, right.

Lee McMillion: And I use that term man or woman, but. And, in fact, the guys probably get tired of hearing me say it, but I'll say, take care of the man next to you more than yourself, because if somebody's take. If you're taking care of somebody else, somebody's also taking care of you.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Lee McMillion: And if you're only concerned is taking care of yourself, then this is the wrong place for you. I don't need you in this platoon, so you can only take care of yourself. Go find another job where you can just go do your thing.

Jon Becker: It's interesting because, you know, when you think about that culture, that's gonna carry over very well. When you have an incident, somebody's injured, you have a shooting, whatever, how, you know, as a leader of a unit that is engaging and has shootings and recently had somebody shot, how do you manage that, the load on the individual that occurs when an event like that occurs.

Lee McMillion: That's another question that I wish I had the answer to a lot of. You know, we've got a lot of tenure on platoon, so we're gonna. We've got, you know, literally generations of, you know, some. Some older personnel that have been through some things, and they're gonna respond differently than maybe someone who is influenced from other things that maybe you or I don't understand.

So I could talk about one of our guys, and I won't name names here, but Dan Sanchez, he just retired this week, and Dan did almost 22 years with our platoon. And people asked me to describe Dan. Dan wants his life is drink coffee, chew tobacco, read the Bible, crossfit workouts, be around his family, and go to SWAT barricades. Six things simple. And then we have other personnel that are. They're constantly swiping the Internet, and they're looking for, you know, that dopamine hit of likes from strangers.

Jon Becker: Sure.

Lee McMillion: And things that I will never understand, and I'm not going to try and understand it, but they just have different influences that are going to impact the way they respond to different significant events. And so when you've got somebody that's swiping different blog sites and seeing what other people are saying, that they're completely disconnected from our platoon, but maybe they're making a comment that, yeah, the Monday.

Jon Becker: Morning quarterbacks, and I don't even know.

Lee McMillion: Those comments exist because I'm not the guy going on those blogs. So it's literally generational. You've got a younger group of guys that are coming up through our platoon now that are influenced by things and social media that our more tenured guys just aren't paying attention to.

Jon Becker: Yeah, it's interesting because historically your job has happened not in secret, but largely out of the public view. Right? Like a SWAT incident would happen, it would be reported in the news, and unless it went particularly well, particularly bad, it didn't get a lot of coverage and there was no after effects.

Now everything is videotaped between body worn cameras and people with cell phones. Everybody is a tactical genius that is going to critique the team's every action. That's got to put a load on the individual operators.

Lee McMillion: It does. And like I said, I think it's more the younger generation that's actually watching all of that stuff. But another frustration for me will be that some personnel feel a need to post things online that don't need to be online, that there's this need to share when I…..

Jon Becker: No, it's the dopamine hit.

Lee McMillion: I don't. Yeah, everybody look at me. I want, you know, I'm trying to be kind.

Jon Becker: Tell me you like me. Yeah.

Lee McMillion: So my frustration is that when things get posted that don't need to be posted. That, and you're right, that dopamine hit of likes. But you actually just said it a couple sentences ago about what happened to staying in the shadows and being the quiet professional with the heart of a servante.

And in fact, we were having a conversation about social media and posts that maybe should not be, not have been posted by a particular platoon member that's now retired and in the office with some of our guys. And I'm babbling a little bit just because I don't want to be. I'm trying to dance around this, but I love the statement of one of our element leaders.

And he said, I didn't know that there was an expiration date on humility. And he was talking about – We were talking about this younger generation that hasn't known life without social media. And so now you've got this generation that is so pulled to social media that they just they don't know the difference. They like – What do you mean? I can't post that.

And so when it's something that it's just organic to you, when you've grown up with social media, now you're an adult and more social media. But how do we. So it's like people were making excuses that, well, they just don't know the difference.

So, yeah, they're gonna post stuff. Cause it's what they do. But if the postings aren't humble and professional, then why are we doing it? So I didn't know there was an expiration date on humility. And so that promoting the. In fact, I would love to have it as an interview question for selectees that would you still wanna come to our platoon? If you could never tell anyone that you worked here

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Lee McMillion: If you had to, just. I'm a cop in the city of Los Angeles. And never tell anybody they worked LAPD, swat. You still want to be here? That's the person I want. I want someone that's willing to go the extra mile, stay in the shadows, have the heart of a servant, and just provide that service to the city of LA without any personal acknowledgement.

Jon Becker: That's fantastic! I think. Why don't we move on to the kind of final. I've got a series of rapid fire questions for you, ten words or less or short sentence answers, and just kind of see what your thoughts are. What is your most important habit?

Lee McMillion: I don't think I can. How about quirk?

Jon Becker: That's a fine line. Yeah. Yeah. A habit in a quirk.

Lee McMillion: It's kind of the opposite sides of the same quirk and habit. So something that I'll do every day is I do one crossfit type workout for every day of the year, and it's just a personal discipline. Right? So if I miss a day, I gotta make it up. If I miss three days, I've got to – I got a few days.

Jon Becker: It's gonna be an ugly Sunday. Few days that I suck.

Lee McMillion: And my daughter's actually taken to that as well. So it just shows that discipline, that daily discipline. And, yeah, I'm going to sacrifice maybe some quality for quantity, but it keeps you on track, keeps you from going too far, too long without working out.

Jon Becker: Yeah, that's actually a really interesting way to look at that. I like that. In your opinion, what's the difference between a leader and a manager?

Lee McMillion: So a leader is going to foster loyalty and commitment to the completion of goals for the betterment of the team, where a manager a manager is going to measure with various metrics that are quantifiable and impersonal.

Jon Becker: Got it. What's the best book you've read on leadership?

Lee McMillion: I keep going to Daniel Coyle and culture code. I think I've had some personnel issues in the platoon, and I wondered what has prompted that? And is there something that I can do? And that book talks about how you need to create an environment where your personnel feels safe.

Safe to challenge the norms, safe to come to work and bring innovation, safe to fail forward. I know there's a lot of great books on leadership, and I've read a bunch, but for some reason, that one's always in the front of my head.

Jon Becker: What do you think the most important characteristic of an effective leader is?

Lee McMillion: Selflessness. I think that if you're selfless, that your team knows that you are there for them, yourself. And if you're selfless, you're also committed to the technical knowledge, the tactical knowledge, all of. To preparing yourself to serve your team as effectively as possible.

Jon Becker: I love that answer. What's your current favorite online resource? Website or podcast?

Lee McMillion: So there's like, professional and personal. Right? So professionally, pretty simple. Gordon Graham, Lexapol. Right? Police one case law, you know, the Fourth Amendment. All of the things that we need to know so that we do it right?

Jon Becker: Sure.

Lee McMillion: Because the public deserves that. And then personally, YouTube, right? I mean, if I'm fixing something on my motorbike, I go to YouTube. If I got a change of garbage disposal, and I'm not quite certain what to do with that. YouTube.

Jon Becker: I love it!

Lee McMillion: I know, it's stupid.

Jon Becker: No, it's a fair point. You obviously have a lot of responsibilities. One of two lieutenants over LAPD Swat. You have a lot of responsibility at any given point. You have responsibility for the tactical instance in the city. What keeps you awake at night.

Lee McMillion: It's wondering what we're not prepared for. There's all these things that are happening around the world, and I think, as I mentioned, we've got great relationships with a variety of teams around the globe. So staying connected. And what are they doing that we need to look to? What is the incident that's going to come to Los Angeles? And when it lands, we're not prepared.

Jon Becker: Okay, Lee, final question. What's the most profound memory of your career?

Lee McMillion: So, that's tough to narrow it down to one. I mean, we talk about, you know, like, when Randy was killed, RJ was killed, or, you know, Louie died, and how it recalibrates, how you take care of your personnel. But if I'm going to say something that's had an impact on my career, that took it in a direction that I didn't see coming, I'm going to talk about a failed rescue effort on July 10th of 2005.

And after that rescue effort, a little bit revealing here I questioned if I was the right guy to remain as an element leader in SWAT. And so it was after that incident that I took the sergeant's test. Before that, I was going to be Lee Macmillan, SWAT element leader for a bunch of decades and then retire, and that would be the end of it.

But having that incident in the back of my head and wondering, you know, am I the right guy? I figured, I'll make sergeant. I'll go back to patrol. I'll be a patrol sergeant and do my career there and just live out the rest of my LAPD career, you know, just doing regular police work, and it's an honorable thing to do and patrolling these good sergeants. And I wanted to be a good sergeant, but just with good timing and cosmic energy, I was able to come back to SWAT.

In fact, my partner now, Ruben Lopez, was the lieutenant on SWAT at the time, and he's the one that hired me back as a sergeant. And then as I was back as a sergeant, just kind of the next natural step would have been to take lieutenant's tests. And I did. And then. So I went back out, and. And then our commanding officer was Ed Prokop, and he hired me back as a SWAT lieutenant.

And I think that that one incident, not only did I learn an awful lot about myself and priorities, but it took my career in a different path that I had no intention of going the morning of that event, but the evening of that event, you start thinking of maybe some other things that you should be doing.

Jon Becker: Do you mind sharing what happened?

Lee McMillion: So it was a father who was holding his daughter hostage, and he had actually assumed the nom de plume of Tony Montana from Scarface, so he would only respond to our negotiators. As for Tony or Mister Montana, he had an office in a used car lot that had the desk set up like Scarface in the movie and a monitor behind him with a split screen and all these surveillance cameras.

One of our Sierra teams was looking in through a window. And at one point, he took a poster and put a Scarface poster over the window. And ultimately, he came out to where I had the emergency rescue team on the back side. And he came out holding Susie in one arm and reached for his pistol.

And then one of our guys in the hatch of the armored vehicle tried to resolve through shooting him, but it was a missed shot. And then he ultimately ran back in the office with his daughter shooting back at us.

So as we went to effect that rescue, one of our guys, Dan Sanchez Washington, shot in the shoulder. He was reaching for a flashbang and actually took one in the shoulder. I mean, completely noble. He continued on and deployed the flashbang and went in the room with Bob Gallagher, junior, Bill Casey. As mentioned, Dan Sanchez and Eddie Perez.

Another element leader on that was Rick Gonzaldo. But ultimately, Suzy Pena, 19 months old, was killed. And absolutely horrific. And just, those are the things that help you recalibrate, right? One of your guys got shot, failed rescue effort. What could I have done differently? And is this the right place for me?

Jon Becker: I think that is a fantastic place for us to stop, and I appreciate you sharing it with us!

Lee, I so appreciate you coming on and being on The Debrief with us! Thank you so much!