Episode 32 – Most Profound Moments of 2023

Jon Becker: It's been an amazing year on the debrief. In the 18 months since we launched the show, we've accomplished more than we ever thought we could. To date, there have been more than 100,000 downloads of the show. We've recorded 31 episodes of the debrief and five episodes of battle, proven leadership, and covered a wide variety of topics.

To end our second season, we thought it might be fun to do an episode that gave you a behind the scenes view of this year's critical incident reviews, as well as the most memorable moments of each. Selecting incidents to cover on the podcast is a job we take very seriously.

Our goal is to provide you with not only an insiders view of the incident and the response, but to look for events that have specific lessons to teach, which we believe will make you and your team safer. We're also looking for guests that we believe will be able to clearly tell the story, convey the challenges they face, and also share their own experiences.

This year we did ten episodes that were critical incident reviews or had at least a portion dedicated to an incident review. Our episodes ranged from very recent to historically significant events, and from successful hostage rescues to tragic terrorist attacks and everything in between. So without further ado, let's get into our year end recap show.

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!

The first incident we covered was the hostage rescue at the Bataclan theater in Paris. As you may recall, on November 13th, 2015, Paris experienced a series of coordinated islamist terrorist attacks. These attacks took place over three separate areas of the city and were carried out by multiple teams of attackers. In total, 130 people lost their lives and more than 400 others were injured.

Almost 4 hours after the events began. They ended with a dramatic and successful hostage rescue conducted by France's elite brigade for research and intervention, or BRI. Because of the nature of his current assignment and the nature of their work, my guest for this episode was an anonymous current member of the team who participated in the rescue. The bravery these men displayed cannot be overstated. The terrorists were there to die. They were wearing suicide vests and carrying AK-47s. The hostages were trapped in a narrow hallway and had been told by the hostage takers that if the police entered, they would be executed. Imagine trying to conduct an HRT in a narrow hallway through a single door with two guys in suicide vests and AK-47s.

And then just before you initiate being told that you will have to head shoot the terrorists or their vests will detonate. Truly, one of the most amazing operations I've seen in almost four decades of working with tactical units. Their successful rescue of everyone without losing an operator is almost a miracle, were it not driven by their skills and planning. This was a really heavy episode.

We recorded it late in the evening, sitting together at my home. Because I've known the guests for several years, it felt like a deep conversation between two friends until I listened to it back and realized how profound the conversation was. His recollections of the event were haunting. And one moment that I simply could not get out of my head afterwards was this one.

Speaker: As I told you before, when I make my way back to home, it was very tough on the scene after the first wave of recreation, when all the only the dead people stay in the the theater. It's what I remember. It's the cell phone rings in all the pockets of the victim.

Because at that time, people all over France know by TV that something happened. And the relatives who know that some of their family is in the concert start calling, get some news about relative. So it's. And you can hear. Hear the cell phone, see the light of the cell phone on the dead bodies and hear the ring. Ringtones. That was tough.

Jon Becker: Our second critical incident review this year was with Earl Plumlee. This is a special joint episode between the CATO podcast and the Debrief. And joining me for co-host on this episode was Cato president Brent Stratton.

Our guest was Medal of Honor recipient staff Sergeant Earl D. Plumlee. Master Sergeant Plumlee received the Medal of Honor for his actions on August 28, 2013 at Fob Gosney in Afghanistan. This is a story that sounds much more like an action adventure movie than a real event. When you hear the story, you find yourself just shaking your head involuntarily. It is difficult to imagine how Earl survived this event.

But honestly, in talking with Earl, it became very clear why he survived. He is a true American hero whose actions that day are deserving of the highest honor our nation can give. If you don't believe me, go ahead and read the citation for the Medal of Honor. Truly amazing. For me, the most surprising thing about this interview was how lighthearted Earl was. About the entire event and how funny he was. Earl is the quintessential Green beret, is gifted with a very dry wit, is calm under pressure, operationally very effective, and has a humble demeanor that serves to downplay his skills and work ethic.

We recorded this episode at the CATO conference in Reno, where Earl was the keynote speaker. Perhaps my favorite moment from the conference was walking out after Earl's presentation and having a seasoned member of one of the nation's top full time tactical units tell me he was planning to burn his man card after hearing Earl's story.

There's a lot of good stuff in this episode about training and preparation, but the moment I chose for you is a surprisingly lighthearted discussion about being repeatedly attacked and blown up by terrorist hand grenades.

Earl: And, you know, we're. You know, Drew and I are having this little chubbing fight where I want to get all the way behind the panel so I can shoot behind it. And he hates that because every time I dig my hips in, I'm kicking him out the other side of it. And then, you know, likewise, he. He'll jump back in and kind of push me over to the edge of it, and I dislike that intensely.

So we're kind of, you know, sharing this thing like two brothers would, you know, share something not well. And, you know, at that. At that time, I – That's when I get, like, hit in the base of my throat with a large, heavy device, and I'm kind of, you know, choked up over this junction panel. And I have a call it an admin pouch. It's just a big, bulky pouch, and you can keep, like, a notebook and a gel shot and a candy bar, you know, things you need in combat.

And anyway, there's a – I look down at mine, and it's got, you know, a grenade wedged against it, and it's not my grenade, and it doesn't have a pin, so it amps the stress level up for me and Drew. Well, for me, Drew, I don't think, noticed it, but for me, it was a traumatic event. I whacked that thing away from me, and then while I'm messing with that, something hit me in the back of the leg, and it's another grenade. We figure it hit the wall behind me and then just ricocheted off and hit me.

And Drew and I are both trying to kick that thing out of there because it's in the same configuration. It's not ours, and it doesn't have a pin, so we don't want it, and we get it out of there. And Drew grabs me. He's like, hey, we got to get out of here. They're going to kill us. And he's pretty smart guy, so I tend to go with what he says. And we take off running out of there. I think we get three or four steps away from that panel. We both just get kind of knocked down by an explosion.

And I remember he's trying to get up, and I'm kind of laying on his leg. I'm messing with my gun because I can't get my. Can't get my stock into my shoulder, and I can't get on my feet because he won't stop yanking on me. And that's when I had looked down and can't figure out what's wrong with my rifle. My b*** stock's folded over, and there's an arm just below the elbow down, has smacked into my rifle and broke the buttstock off, or not off, but, you know, broke it and folded it.

Jon Becker: And you say an arm. You mean, like, literally, physically, somebody's arm?

Earl: Yep, just somebody's arm. So I think he might have reached across his vest and detonated his vest and then sent an arm missile at me. Or maybe it was just laying out there. Cause after the battle, there was body parts everywhere. Like you find when a bunch of guys get together and detonate suicide vests. That's all that's left is the extremities, mostly pieces.

Jon Becker: Yeah. So the blast that knocks you down is him setting off his suicide vest.

Earl: Well, you know, probably it could have been a grenade also. Maybe there was an arm on the ground and the grenade just, you know, who knows? But there was stuff exploding. A lot of it.

Jon Becker: In our third incident of the season, we dove into what's perhaps the most controversial case in the past ten years, the Breonna Taylor case. When I first looked into this case, I was surprised by how consistent and bad the media coverage was. Everyone from LeBron James to Kamala Harris had gone on the record that the cops who shot Breonna Taylor should be in jail, if not worse.

Press coverage said that Brianna was shot in her bed. The police were at the wrong house, the search warrant wasn't for her, and a variety of other ugly facts that seemed undisputed in media coverage. When I was interviewed by Sergeant Betsy Brantner Smith, she encouraged me to dig into the case and offered to introduce me to Sergeant John Mattingly, who led the raid and had also been shot in the leg, severing his femoral artery. That discussion surprised me because I had not heard anything about an officer being shot.

So I agreed to talk to John and to dig into the case more deeply. I read everything I could possibly find about the case before my first call with John. What I found really surprised me. The prevailing narrative was not only wrong, it was clearly contradicted by the physical evidence which had been released to the press. What struck me when I first spoke to John was how exceptionally normal he was.

Simply put, John was every narc sergeant I had ever known, he'd worked narcotics for most of his career, had made 2000 plus high risk entries, had never shot anyone, never had a force complaint. And he started off our conversation by telling me he really didn't think Breonna Taylor should be dead and feels bad that it turned out the way that it did.

While there's certainly room to debate tactics, dynamic war in service, and the conduct of other officers in the aftermath of John being shot, there is no doubt that Kenneth Walker shooting John Mattingly triggered the entire event. The episode features a lot of lessons learned and showcases the absolute devastation the event had on all of those involved. For me, though, the most pivotal moment is this one that describes what actually happened in 12 seconds at Breonna Taylor's door.

John: So Mike hits the door the first time, and he hit right on the deadbolt and which, you know, is a no no. And it didn't do anything. It dented the door a little bit, but that was it. And I remember somebody, somebody in the background yelling, hey, my daughter hits harder than that. Everybody kind of laughed, as, you know, as you do.

Second time, he hit it, hit it flush and almost knocked it open. I could see through to the living room. I could see the dead boat was bent. And I said, here we go. And he hit it a third time, and it flew open. But that time, I can see from right to left, I can see the couch. I can see the curtains on the window. I can see the wall. There was a picture on the wall. And I –From right to left, I'm slicing the pie. And I get where the door frame on the left side of the door and the wall for the hall meet, I can no longer see anymore. Can't see down the hall, can't see in the kitchen to the left. All I can see is the living room. Everybody at this point is yelling, please search warrant. Police. Search warrant. Please. Search warrant.

Now this is pretty quick, you know, the cutting and the slicing. The pie is maybe 2 seconds. So it's fairly quick. Just boom, boom, boom, boom. At that point, as soon as I step from left to right into the door frame and my gun light goes from right to left, I come up on the. I can see the end of this gun. I could see it was silver, and. But the first thing my mind did, as I'm turning right to left, I'm seeing two people, but they're overlapping. It's like one big blob at the end of this long hall. Long, dark hall. And you got the ambient light from the tv coming out of the room. Now you've got the law. The light from the hallway kind of coming in, giving a weird look. Then you've got our, you know, mounted our gun lights.

So as I'm going right to left, I'm going, something's not right here. My brain, even though this is super quick, my brain's thinking all these weird things, like, this is weird. Normally, people run, they hide, try to escape, they give up, or they fight. But I've never had two people waiting at the end of a hallway just standing there, so. And I knew in my mind, I assumed one was a guy and one was a girl because one was taller, one was shorter. But I couldn't make their face out. I couldn't have picked them out of a lineup. Cause my focus went right on that gun that was extended out.

So if you're looking down the hall, Kenneth Walker's to the right, Brianna's to the left. As soon as I see the gun, I think, oh, crap. I mean, it was so quick. As soon as I saw the gun, the flash, the bang, the smack in the leg, I felt it. I returned four shots. It felt like it was simultaneous. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

But evidently, there was enough of a gap in there for him to dive out of the way in this doorway. And when that happened, I went behind the doorframe, and I came back out and shot where I thought he dove into. And what we didn't know at the time, and we know now, looking at the pictures, was Breonna Taylor tried to follow him into that door, her feet where she was on the left side of the hall. If you're looking down the hall, her feet ended up on the right, actually past the threshold of where he ran into. Into that little indention. And then she fell back against the wall.

So after I got shot, I felt my leg. After I got out of the way, I said, man, I've been hit. And I knew it was bad because, you know, on the street, I've seen hundreds of people shot. And if it's just a throwing through leg wound. There's a little blood, but it's not catastrophic. You know, it's not a lot. And as soon as I put my hand out of my leg, my palm was just soaked. I thought, oh, man, this hit my femoral artery.

So I yelled that out, man. I've been hitting my femoral. And at that time, I go down, and miles kind of steps over me and a little bit on me, and he's returning fire down the hallway. All this, again, is so quick, man. We can explain it, but unless you're there, the speed at which these things go is just tremendous. From the time that door opened and he shot till it was complete silence was 12 seconds.

Jon Becker: Our next incident was an extremely personal one for me and rife with emotion. On August 18th, 2021, the San Bernardino, California, SWAT team was assigned to locate and arrest a suspect who had ambushed and attempted to murder a San Bernardino county sheriff's deputy the day before.

When the team located and attempted a vehicle takedown, the suspect immediately opened fire with a ten millimeter handgun, striking Officer Jordan Robison seven times and Officer Chris Shipley once. Officer Robinson was hit in both forearms, his shoulder, his femur, his stomach, below the armor, and took a grazing wound to his ribs. He was also hit in the abdomen, which was stopped by his armor.

Officer Shipley, despite being shot in the leg, was able to return fire with a teammate, fatally wounding the suspect. Officer Shipley then rendered life saving medical aid to officer Robison. SWAT medic Spencer Brumbaugh then provided life saving aid to officer Robinson immediately after the incident and through the subsequent transport to the emergency room. This case was just so terrible. Jordan received so many injuries and was clinging to his life for quite some time.

For me, this was also an intensely personal case because Jordan was wearing project seven armor. Jordan was the first save for project seven, and to say we were emotionally invested is an understatement. Getting to know Jordan, Chris, and Spencer, it was hard not to love them. These are all great guys, committed to their profession and more importantly, committed to one another.

It quickly became clear that we needed to do two episodes, one on the event and one on Jordan's recovery, and that we needed to talk to all three guys to hear the story. It's important to keep in mind that the suspect fired nine rounds in 3.5 seconds, hitting officers with eight out of his nine rounds, and that the whole event took just over 20 seconds. In this clip, we heard Jordan describe the shooting in detail.

Jordan: As we approach, we hit the, hit the car for the. I think they call it bumping. The purpose of it is to throw the occupants inside whatever vehicle that you're bumping off, because it's supposed to be a surprise technique to where, yeah, they're sitting there, and then all of a sudden, their car gets hit. And then once they're figuring that out, we're getting in position.

So it kind of gives you an advantage. But like Chris pointed out, the problem was we had no advantage because we had no element of surprise. He was watching us the whole time in the rearview mirror with his hand on the gun. So by the time we execute the bumping technique, his hand. His left hand is already on the door, and he already has a gun in his other hand. So he exits the car as we're doing the bump technique.

And another problem with this van that we're using is the door doesn't work right. It's had malfunctions for years and years and years. We've known about it. So the problem is, I have to hold the door partially open. I can't close it, because if you close it, that door is notorious for not wanting to open again. And you can't have that during that situation. You can't have it all the way open, because he'll see us coming, and he'll see guys all the way down the road will expose ourselves way too early, earlier than we wanted to.

But I'm holding the door partially open as we approach this. Looking back, I don't know how I'm supposed to hold a hundred pound van door. When you slam it closed or when you slam against an object, all that hundred pounds goes flying forward. And I was a strong guy, and I couldn't hold it closed.

So as we execute the bumping technique, that van door slams shut. I fall directly onto my face. I think Ernie fell next to me. I think you maintained your balance, Chris. So I fall instantly. Instinctively, I didn't even tell myself to do this. Just instinctively, I spring up, open up the door, and at that point, I'm looking down the barrel of his gun. I jump out of the van.

I remember looking down at the ground to make sure I didn't eat s***. As I jump out, making sure, like, my feet were on the ground, I remember looking up and sighting my rifle. And I – At that time, I just remember being hit multiple times as I'm doing this, I remember feeling the heat, feeling the impacts, feeling. I think I felt my arm break. I didn't feel the second one until I landed on the ground.

But I felt one of my arms break, and I take an instinctive step to my right to get out of the way. I didn't even consciously remember trying to sight him on my gun. I just remember taking a step to my right and then getting hit in my femur. And then I – that's when I fell and I kind of landed on my front side and then kind of rolled to my back. And I remember at one point trying to push myself off the ground.

And that's when I realized both my arms were broken. I already knew my leg was broken. That's when I realized it hit my stomach. I could feel my shoulder burning. I knew. I knew I'd been hitting my shoulder. That's when I kind of realized the extent at which I'd been wounded. And I knew at that point, and I was kind of relying on everybody else around me.

Jon Becker: Our next incident happened in British Columbia, Canada, and featured another Jordan, Jordan McWilliams from the RCMP's Lower Mainland division emergency response team. On November 7th, 2012, Jordan fired a single shot which killed a hostage taker who had pointed a handgun at the team after a five hour standoff at the Starlight Casino in New Westminster, British Columbia.

Although it was a completely justified shooting, this incident began an almost three year nightmare for Jordan and his family, which included Jordan being charged with murder by the newly created Independent Investigations Office, a civilian oversight board created just before Jordan's shooting.

This was the first time a police officer had been charged for using lethal force in British Columbia since 1975. Although the charges would later be dismissed, the damage to Jordan and his family had already been done. Jordan's story is both a cautionary tale and a story of struggle, persistence, and eventual victory over a politically motivated witch hunt. I first met Jordan through his team leader and was immediately struck by how kind, humble, and professional he was.

Jordan was everything good about Canadian policing, yet had been absolutely tortured by a political oversight office. When I heard his story, I knew that we needed to have him on the show. Jordan's perspective on his ordeal demonstrates what an amazing person he is. The idea that he somehow managed to get through all of this and not be bitter forever is truly a testament to his character and to the mantra his mother taught him. Do you want to be better or do you want to be bitter?

The soundbite I chose for you has two contrasting stories about how he was treated after the shooting. What struck me about this is how we all have the power to either damage or heal others after a traumatic event, something as simple as a few words.

Jordan: The next morning, something pretty cool happened that's had an impact on me for a long time since. And I remember I woke up the next morning, it was pretty early, and my doorbell's ringing. And I walked downstairs, opened the door, and it's the chief of New Westminster police. So the team I was a part of was regional team. I worked for Delta. New West was our neighboring agency. And then there was a couple other agencies part of the team. And this incident had occurred in New west.

So their chief, who I did not work for, showed up at my house, and he knocks on the door. I open it up. I'm like, chief, how are you? He's good. Jordan, may I come in for a minute? Yeah, absolutely. Invite him on in. Remember, he says to me, he shakes my hand. He says to me, Jordan, I just want to thank you for what you did for my community yesterday, and I really appreciate it. And I want you to know that I appreciate it. And I was so impactful in that moment to feel like, okay, because we talked about this already, you know, good person having to kill somebody first, exposure to real interpersonal violence. Like, I've been in fights before, but nobody ever shot at me. I never shot at somebody. And now I'm getting that affirmation from a person in leadership, in authority, thanking me. He didn't, I didn't need him to get on the news and say, Jordan's a hero, and he did a great job. But I didn't even realize how impactful it was for him to say to me to my face, thank you for what you did and shake my hand.

Jon Becker: Yeah. And at that point, did you talk to your own chief?

Jordan: No, no, I hadn't heard from him.

Jon Becker: So the chief, when you're back at the department, the chief never comes and sees you. There's no, like, you don't have a moment of, like, hey, man, are you okay?

Jordan: No, no, we didn't have any of that. And, yeah, I'd been around the department my whole life. My dad worked for that agency for a long time, and I got on there pretty young, but I'd been to Christmas parties, and I'd known these, these guys and their kids. And, yeah, he didn't have anything to say to me.

Jon Becker: Next episode was the leaders and legends with a true legend, the special operations world Delta Force member Tom Satterly. I was really excited to speak with Tom, not just because of his resume, but because of his book, All Secure.

In All Secure, Tom lays bare the struggles he had after leaving the unit, his battles with PTSD, substance abuse, suicidal thoughts, and his journey out of the darkness. What I loved about Tom's book is that historically, people have been able to dismiss discussions of PTSD by impeaching the author's resume, attacking their experience or simply attacking their manliness. None of that is possible with Tom.

Here is a guy with a world class special operations resume and an unimpeachable man card openly discussing the darkness he experienced, as well as how he and his wife, Jin, navigated a path out of the darkness to happiness. We had a great discussion about the unit, the Black Hawk down incident, small unit leadership, and Tom's work after leaving the unit with vets and their families. Although there were a lot of clips I considered for this episode, the clip I chose is Tom describing the iconic battle of Mogadishu that was the subject of the film. Black Hawk down.

Tom: Infiltrated and realized immediately we were already under fire. You know, it was in the heart of the beast. It was in the Bakara market. So that's where all their weapons were and just bad guy territory, of course. We thought, in and out, right? In and out before they even know we're there. And, you know, you shoot one helicopter down, and then they shot another helicopter down.

And I remember watching it fly overhead off to the northeast and then crashing. And I knew that's when I knew during that mission that it had changed. It was going to be a lot longer. Up to that point, I was still joking about, we're going to make a home for dinner. I wonder what they're going to have for dinner tonight, you know, and we're still kind of cracking jokes like we did then. People started getting shot, and five ton trucks started blowing up, and helicopters were shot down, and we had to fight our way up the street to the crash site.

And then basically, we're pinned down to that crash site for 18 hours. It's like the longest sustained firefight since Vietnam at the time, and it may still be, I don't know. But it was the night that I watched friends die. I thought I was going to die. I kind of gave in. We ran out of ammo, and my team leader came in, and I asked him a question, because you could hear the convoy trying to make it to us, but it had been going on for hours. Raging gunfight going off in the city as they tried to fight their way to us.

There's a gunfight at our house as they pick our house apart with rocket propelled grenades and, you know, AK-47 fire. But thank God we had the little birds to keep them at bay. And we were kind of in the Alamo situation, the best we could be at that crash site, but they just kept picking us apart. And when my team leader came in, I asked him, do you think they're going to make it? And he looked at me, and I was, like, waiting for that motivational speech, you know, like, hey, you know, f*** up young camper. And he just looked at me, goes, I don't know. And he turned to left, and I thought, well, s***, you know, s***, this sucks.

And I kind of at that moment, like a calm, you know, washed over me versus the harried, like, what's going on? What's going on? And looking everywhere. And it was kind of like, here we are. Right? Here we are. I'm gonna break as much s*** as I can tonight, kill as many people as I can, and help as many of my guys as I can, because I didn't figure I was gonna make it. And it just kind of gave me that courage and strength to keep going.

Jon Becker: In 2017, Las Vegas experienced a mass killing sniper attack at the Route 91 Harvest music festival. The shooter, who was located on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel, opened fire onto a crowd at a concert, killing 60 and injuring more than 400 others. In the immediate aftermath, hundreds of patients were evacuated by uninjured bystanders, first responders, and people simply driving by the venue.

My guest for this episode was Doctor Kevin Miness. Kevin was an emergency room doctor at the nearby trauma center who led a team of physicians, nurses, and support personnel who are trying to manage the onslaught of injured people. I was referred to Kevin by a debrief listener who was a tactical operator in the Las Vegas area. He described Kevin as the unsung hero of the night, having triaged and treated hundreds of patients. When I spoke to Kevin, I was blown away by the story.

I found out that he'd been a team physician for a local tactical unit and had spent years thinking about the best way to handle a mass killing event. In his words, I spent years thinking about this, and here I was in the middle of it. This was a heavy interview with a lot of lessons learned, but the clip I chose for you is Kevin describing the first few minutes of patients arriving at the hospital.

Kevin: So I'm sitting there, I'm hearing this whale of sirens coming, and as they pull up, the first vehicle pulls up, and it's a police vehicle. He tries to get out. I slam his door shut, and I tell him, just stay in. When we get all these patients out. I'm going to tap your car. And you go. I look through his driver's side. I look through his window, and there's two in the front seat. I opened up the backseat, and there's two on the floorboards, two on the back seat. And I looked at all of them, and I knew they were dead.

And there was more police vehicles right behind them. And I just knew at that point in time, this is, you know, this is the real thing. And how in the world am I supposed to do this? And, yeah, I've been doing this triage system for a long time. I've been kind of developing this idea of what to do, but is it really going to work?

And, you know, there's no real time to second guess what you're going to do. You just, you know, again, I think pre preparing for difficult situations makes it so that the hurdle for actually making the decision when it comes is just. It's split second. I don't even think the idea crossed my mind, to be honest. When that occurred, I already knew we were going to do it. This is no other option, because the systems that are out there, which are salt and start, there's no way they would have differentiated those patients.

So doors opened up. I'm like, station one, station two, station four, you know, rapid track. That's what I would tell the staff that corresponded to red, orange, yellow, green in my book. But they didn't have to know that. They knew where those areas were in the erde.

So I'm opening up the door, I look at the wounds, you know, station two, that one goes to station one that wasn't goes to station four. And they just. They keep coming. They keep coming. The pickup trucks come. And I pop up onto the back of the bed. I look inside, and there's like 15 people in there. And I'm thinking, how am I supposed to triage all these people?

And again, I can't say this enough, but the people there were the true heroes that because even being shot themselves, they would be, doc, this is the one you need to take care of first. They did my job for me. They pulled out that red tag. Who needed to go to station one? We'd grab that one, move, move them out, and then I would triage the rest of them. So, you know, the pickup trucks, the first one was the scariest, but, you know, once I got through that one, I was like, okay. And then the other ones came, and I was like, okay, I can do this.

Jon Becker: On July 2nd, 2020, patrol officers attempted to contact a suspect about moving an illegally parked automobile at the Three Rivers mobile home park in Hastings, Minnesota. As officers spoke to the suspect's wife and two of his four children, the suspect locked and barricaded the door to his trailer with his two children inside.

Over the course of the next 15 hours in sweltering heat, the south Metro SWAT team, in conjunction with Washington county and Ramsey County SWAT, attempted to negotiate a peaceful resolution to the crisis as the suspect's mental state deteriorated. Although they were able to obtain one of the two children through a ruse, it became very clear that a tactical intervention would be necessary. A tactical intervention in a trailer to save a child is about as bad as it gets. And despite the difficult conditions and the need for multiple teams to cooperate, a successful intervention was conducted, rescuing the other child.

My guests for this episode were Adam Schieda, Dan Salme, Jeff Hansen from the South Metro SWAT team. We recorded this interview at the 2023 NTOA conference. What was great about this interview was that we had three different people and three different perspectives on the same event, which made for a really interesting conversation.

The clip I chose for you is Adam Schieda describing how they were able to grab one of the two children through a ruse whereby they agreed to save the suspect's cat. Although it was extremely disturbing that the suspect was more concerned about his cat than his kids, it was actually kind of a funny story because he was dumb enough to think that he could send one of his hostages out with a cat, and the team would secure the cat and return her to him afterwards. Imagine his surprise when two operators broke from cover and ran out to grab the girl and get her to safety.

Adam: Yeah, this is. Speaking of just crazy demands. This was a good one. So the suspect is. He kind of, as. As this thing shakes out, he is. Becomes very, very concerned for the welfare of this cat in the trailer, far more concerned about this cat than his two children. And so he works out a deal to lower his daughter, the twelve year old girl, out of one of the windows of the trailer where she would be holding this cat, and I, his daughter, would then walk over to the garden shed and secure the cat in the garden shed and then be allowed to return to the trailer.

He would raise her back up, bring her back into the trailer, and then we would move on, move on with our lives here. We would continue what we were doing because he was worried when officers came into the trailer that we would somehow hurt or kill his cat. And so that arrangement was made. Jeff's negotiator said yep, that sounds good. Let's do that.

Well, in the meantime, we're relaying that information to Washington County SWAT that's up in position to see this whole thing shake out. And that's what happens. So he opens up the window, he lowers this girl down. She's holding the cat. And two Washington county operators were in position by that garden shed, kind of by those trees, and they see her start moving that direction. Those two operators broke from cover ran right between the garden shed and the trailer house, and scooped her up and get her out of there. And when we talk about this and we presented this different times, I call special attention to those two guys.

And this kind of the way I explain it, you know, we, in our world, in our society, we throw around the word hero, like, all the time. You just see in the example I use, you know, you have some lady pull over the side of the road and, like, move the turtle, a snapping turtle, from the middle of the road to the ditch. And the local newspaper does a write up on this hero that moved this. Yeah, right. Never mind that she, you know, almost caused a 15 car pile up because she pulled over in a dumb spot or something like that, but she's called a hero.

These two guys, the two gentlemen from Washington county, like, they did some hero stuff there. This guy threatened to kill police officers. He pointed out a handgun. They heard a racking of a slide on the phone, and they ran right past him. They broke cover from where they were scooped up this little girl, and ran right past the suspect and got her out of there to safety.

Jon Becker: Not all hostage rescues go well, as they say. The suspect gets a vote in every engagement, and sometimes that vote is decisive and devastating. That was the way deputy Chief Jonathan Bigelow from Orlando PD described the next event we covered this season. The incident began when Orlando police officers responded to a domestic violence call. As officers attempted to contact the suspect, he fired a shot through the door, striking officer Kevin Valencia with wounds that would eventually prove fatal.

The suspect then barricaded his apartment with his four children as hostages and began a 24 hours event that required the resources of both Orlando PD SwAt and their partners from the Orange County Sheriff's SWAT team, sadly reaching a tragic resolution with four children and the suspect all dead.

My guests for this episode were Deputy Chief Jonathan Bigelow from Orlando PD and Sergeant Chris Eckland with Orange County Sheriff's Department. This incident was ugly, and I can't stress enough how much I appreciate these two teams being willing to revisit this terrible incident and share their lessons learned. It's easy to debrief incidents where everything goes well, but incidents like this are often more important to discuss precisely because they don't end well.

The clip I've chosen for you is sergeant Chris Eklund discussing why teams need to train for adversity as well as training for success.

Chris: You know you can't. We always try to train our teams for the best victory and the best win and we want to be able to say that our teams are the best. So we create this performance that makes us kind of believe that. But when they come under adversity, and I mean, I know that when my team has come under adversity, it's always better on the other side.

So I don't know if there's an answer to where you're creating losses and then they come out better. Of course you don't want them to be so beat down that they can't. They don't ever believe in themselves. But there's a fine line between what's reality and what's not.

Jon Becker: On July 22nd, 2011, Norway experienced two consecutive terrorist attacks, a bombing at a government building in Oslo and a mass shooter event at a youth camp on nearby Utoya island. These were perpetrated by a lone right wing extremist and were unprecedented for the peaceful country of Norway. This event resulted in the deaths of 77 people, most of whom were children, and the injury of more than 300 others, and stretched the capabilities of Norway's first responders to their limits.

My guest for this episode is an active member of Norway's most elite tactical and counterterrorism police unit, Beric Schapstroppen, also known by its call sign Delta, and internationally as Delta Norris. Because of the nature of his assignment, I interviewed this guest anonymously. We conducted this interview over video from his home in Norway. Delta Norse is the national tactical unit for Norway and operates in some of the most challenging conditions anywhere, to say the least. The viking warrior heritage of Norway is alive and well in Delta Norsh, but so is the professionalism only seen in the world's best tactical units.

The clip I've chosen for you is my guest describing the moment his team encountered the perpetrator of all this violence. It's important to keep in context. By the time they've encountered him, they've already found dozens of dead teenagers as well as hundreds of others wounded. It would have been very easy to kill this suspect and certainly no one would have faulted them. Yet despite that, these men held true to their oaths and risked life and limb to take him into custody.

Guest: Eventually, the person, he disappeared really quick behind the knoll. And then he reappeared again to us. And immediately we could see that it was one of the perpetrators. No weapons in his hands. He was just walking with his hands like a walking cross palm. So his hands facing towards us. What was. What we could see, and like I said, it was dense forest. It was a bit dark, clouded.

So we didn't have the best. We show outline of him, but what we could see that he was wearing some sort of vest, and we saw some square objects in that vest, and he was just saying something mumbling all the time, walking towards us. We were giving him orders. Freeze. Or else he will be shot. Because we were. Immediately, when we identified his west, we were thinking, maybe that's a suicide west. And he's kind of like walking towards us, getting closer and closer and then eventually detonating in the west.

Jon Becker: This has been a fantastic season. I'm profoundly grateful for the opportunity to share these stories and for the support we've received from you as a listener going forward into season three. We have a lot planned for you, and I cannot wait to share it. The first episode will be arriving in mid January. Always remember that this show is for you. The show has one mission, operator safety. It is our belief that giving you exposure to a wide range of guests and incidents will make you better able to make the right decision when confronted with danger.

The show is not monetized. Don't take any sponsors or any paid endorsements. The only thing we ask is that you help on our mission by sharing the show with your teammates and friends. What you do truly matters, and I, for one, appreciate that there are still brave men and women who are willing to place themselves in harm's way for a total stranger.

Thank you for all you do, and please be safe!

Episode 2 – Sid Heal Part 2: Understanding Tactical Science

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 Sid Heal. Sid is a legend in this special tactics community and a key figure in the history and evolution of special tactics in the United States. Sid is a retired CW-05 in the United States Marine Corps, serving numerous combat deployments, including the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, and Operation United Shield in Somalia, just to name a few.

Sid is a retired commander of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and has led the Special Enforcement Bureau, the Emergency Operations Bureau, and a wide variety of other assignments. Sid is the author of several books and literally hundreds of articles. Sid is taught at the US Army War College, is a former board member for the NTOA, and is the former president of the California association of Tactical Officers.

So, Sid, the last time we sat down, we ended with the genesis of your book, Sound Doctrine. Talk to me about what the origin story was for Sound Doctrine.

Sid Heal: When I became an officer in the Marine Corps, I had been enlisted for ten years, and so the Marine Corps began putting me on a career path. It was understood that there were certain courses that I was going to be required to complete successfully, and I estimated between 1978 and 1986, when it was the first time I really led as an officer. Troops and harm's way the Marine Corps had conservatively spent over $100,000 on my education. I felt comfortable being in charge. It was not like it was my baptism of fire as an officer.

When I became a captain in the sheriff's department, I got a handshake at a new badge. And so I decided to apply the strategy behind what the Marine Corps expected of me in law enforcement. I signed up for every major school that I could attend, that they would let me go. Command college for California Center of Leadership Excellence, the FBI National Academy.

These were months long or years long courses, and yeah, they did change my thinking. I wish everybody, especially at the command rank, could attend either or both of these schools. And I know we have some other ones, but they're not driven as much by the organization, such as the Marine Corps, as they are by the personal initiative of the students. I think you get a better class of student for that, I will say that. But the trade off is that we've got people that are going to get promoted that have not demonstrated the initiative and do not have the skills, knowledge, and abilities of the people that have gone through these courses. That was really when my research took a serious turn.

As a matter of fact, Sound Doctrine was originally a paper that I wrote for a master's degree called a scientific approach to tactical decisions. And I ended up arguing with a professor. And to his credit, in my opinion, I won the argument by explaining some scenarios where his particular strategy would not apply. And it was the first time that I think that he'd thought about it. What I later coined was looking at it from the inside of the windshield. The vast majority of people that see police actions are looking at it from the outside.

There are a lot of things that are influential that people don't understand, that when you're in law enforcement, I'll just give you one as one example. We're not allowed to flee. When it turns sour on us, we're not allowed to get up and say, I'm not going to play this anymore. I'm going to quit. It's too dangerous. It's too messy. I don't know what to do. We're expected to bring that situation to a position where the public feels safe.

People who enjoy law and order and sausage shouldn't watch either one being made, because, as I've mentioned before, it's messy. I don't have a phaser. I don't have the ability of making it look pretty. We're trying to save lives and injuries. I really don't know how to put it any better than that. And that's probably why somebody that would be more eloquent would be able to explain it, so that even the activists could understand that we are not as indifferent or unfeeling as I think they think we are.

Jon Becker: Yeah, it's interesting. I remember, God, 25 years ago, having a conversation with Daryl Gates over dinner, and we were talking about Rodney King, and it was after he had retired, and it was, you know, post, post everything. All the litigation was over. And he said, you know, his reaction when it happened was to fire them all, and he couldn't because of the way the rules worked and everything else.

But I said, you know, what was your thought? And he said, you know, people need to understand that you only use. You only win a fight by using more force. The guy that wins the fight is the guy that throws the last punch. And sometimes you misjudge sometimes it's a couple of extra ones. And what she gets at the time was, I know you're going to maybe occasionally throw 1 or 2 too many punches. I don't want you to throw 20 extra punches.

Sid Heal: People think street fights are boxing matches or wrestling matches, but I got to tell you, even the ones that you watch on TV with ultimate force and mixed martial arts don't compare. The closest thing that people might have to judge these, that they might have actually experienced is a dog fight. Growling and biting and scratching and hitting with feet and knees and elbows and biting ears off. And I'm not exaggerating.

Jon Becker: No, I think we are. The thing is, we are almost. We've almost risen to a point where we're too physically secure. We are distanced from violence. Yeah, we see it on tv. We see it in movies. It's not a personal thing. Most people have never been in a fight. Most people have never been punched.

And so frequently you have people looking at the actions of an officer that's in a fight who have never been in a fight. Well, he hit him three too many times.

Sid Heal: I wish, and it'll never be seen on reality TV. And I won't mention any names, but to watch a deputy sobbing because we couldn't save the hostage. Sobbing or giving up his marriage. Transferring because he held himself to a standard that was so unrealistic that no one could have done better under the circumstances. He could not face the team members, even though we tried to come back.

And I can't tell you the number of times when they just ended it all. They'd go in the locker room, pull out their gun, and it would be over. It's bad enough going to a funeral because an officer was killed, but we can't tolerate our failures in something that we have dedicated our lives to. And I realize that I'm getting a little upset.

Jon Becker: But it's close to home.

Sid Heal: It's close to home. And the thing is, I'm not using these as hypotheticals. I could see these people, and in one case, this guy had two bronze stars from Vietnam, and he had been wounded twice and could not tell us why he thought he could have done better without sobbing to the point we couldn't understand him.

Jon Becker: I think it's difficult for people to understand. One, how complicated the situations are. Two, how personal they are. But more importantly, I think that everybody looks at these things and they think that there's always a winning solution, and there's not. There's not. You know, it's. You look at how many of these scenarios are just, you know, there's no way to win. You know, I recently interviewed Lee McMillian and we talked about the Pena case.

Sid Heal: There's another giant.

Jon Becker: Right. Yeah, for sure. But it's you. You have a guy with his own kid who's gonna kill the kid and he's shooting at you, and there's no winning situation there. This is not gonna be like everybody high fives and goes home. And I think that it's very easy from the outside to look at these things and say, oh, yeah, this is easy. They should have just done this. It's really easy to win the football game Monday morning. Yeah, it's a completely different experience when you're in there and your life is dependent upon it.

So when did it first occur to you that these two doctrine streams of law enforcement, military needed to come together and you needed to start working on that?

Sid Heal: As a new sergeant, I was assigned to SCB special enforcement bureau as a team leader. And we were encountering shootings. And without belaboring the point too much, it was literally like being in Vietnam again, at least to me.

I realized that there was a lot of things different, like it's not a hostile environment and everything else, but I knew that I was not going to be able to live with the fact that somebody got hurt because I wasn't up to speed. And I was not up to speed, not just in the rural, the urban environment, in actually the thinking.

So I spent a lot of my own money, went to the government library in Los Angeles, which was the cheapest place to get specialized books. And a lot of them were monographs, which I really liked because the author wrote it for the love of the subject, for lack of a better term, rather than how good it was going to sell.

And so as a result of that, they tended to be shorter and more tightly focused. So I bought a lot of monographs and continued to do that through all my reserve training to the point where I got to actually meet some of the authors in the Marine Corps, Dr. Joe Strange and I, Dr .Russell Glenn.

I'm trying to think of him, and I kept notes. It wasn't that I was smarter, it's the fact that I was succeeding because I had already thought through the problem. It was one of the things that General Mattis eventually said was the fact that the most important, five inches or six inches on the battlefield or between your ears, I don't think anybody could put it better than that.

But I didn't put it that way until he had said it, but I understood it intuitively. And so that was really where it started. But I didn't put a pen to paper other than for my own personal use until 1989, when I wrote the first article, and that was at the request of John Coleman.

Jon Becker: And then how far after that? Like, when did you really start writing Sound Doctrine?

Sid Heal: 1999, probably. Well, I know I take it back. It was earlier than that. It was probably where I had made the decision to do it before I died, like on a bucket list. Was on the beach in Somalia, which is a kind of a funny story by itself. I started it when I first got back, and I can't tell you how many attempts I threw away. I'd never written a book, didn't know what a book should look like.

I asked two people, Larry Richards and my colonel in the Marine Corps, Tim Anderson, who was also LAPD, if they would look over my shoulder and give me some ideas. Sound Doctrine is actually a lot more extensive. I have thrown at least that much stuff away. I didn't throw it away because I spent so much time writing it, but it was Tim's idea to keep it short and to write it as a primer, not as a textbook.

And so Sound Doctrine was written for people that had never been in the military, had never been in law enforcement. But these tactics could be explained so they would be understandable. And so we used competitive games like soccer and football and basketball and baseball and chess, because it has a lot of the same attributes and characteristics of any other conflict. Somebody wins, somebody loses.

Jon Becker: That's interesting! I remember you using the analogy of checkers to explain checkers versus chess, to explain the initiative.

Sid Heal: Yeah.

Jon Becker: And it's so I didn't realize that you and Tim, that it was. I knew he was your colonel in the Marine Corps. I didn't realize that that was the genesis. When did Dick Odenthal get involved?

Sid Heal: He got involved when Larry Richards died. Larry Richards had a stroke, and so I asked Odie to look over my shoulder for field command. Field command is actually a text. It's written for instructors or college professors that are going to go into this at a deeper level and to explain stuff. It really duplicates a lot of what Sound Doctrine does. Sound Doctrine explains the concepts and why they're important. But field command actually goes into more depth because it's a textbook.

Jon Becker: So if somebody was to say, well, I want to be a student of the game, I want to understand this. Would you recommend they start with Sound Doctrine and then move to field command?

Sid Heal: I usually. I get that question a lot, and I usually ask them, where are you in your career? What schools have you attended? Sound Doctrine is a primer. It's written as a primer and it's not going to hurt to read it. You could spin through it if you've already gone through that. And some of the critiques that I've had is that it's very basic. Well, that tells me that this guy's at an advanced level. That was how it's intended.

Jon Becker: Yeah. If Chinese 101 is too easy for you, it's because you're in Chinese 201.

Sid Heal: That's right.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Sid Heal: Well, and that was the whole point with field command. And so then I would tell them that you can read field or Sound Doctrine, but you're probably going to get frustrated when it's teaching you things that you already know. So I would just recommend start with field command.

Jon Becker: So why don't we walk through some of the key topics in both Sound Doctrine and field command and talk through kind of your perspectives. I mean, obviously, you and I could sit here for days and work our way through field command. And at some point in the future we may do this again to try and go deeper.

But one of the questions that I get most often for you because I went out to a lot of people and said, hey, I'm interviewing Sid. What do you want to know? And there were several topics that came up that people said, hey, please ask this. So why don't we start with in state? Because that seems like a logical place – [Crosstalk]

Sid Heal: That actually is a good place to start. Because if I could pick one concept that is responsible for more debacles is the lack of a clear end state. They haven't thought it through enough to know what it is that they're actually trying to achieve.

I have videos that I show that I divide up the class. You're going to look at this from the administrator trying to explain it to the city council and the public. You're going to look at it from a forced review that's trying to use it to learn from for teaching. You're going to look at it from an activist standpoint, looking for everything bad, whether it has rational logic behind it or not.

The fact that you can identify something that didn't go right and then show them a couple of these videos, probably the single most common missed concept. What was it you were trying to achieve? It's really the metric that is necessary to judge whether your course of action is contributing to achieving your end state. The end state is really what is necessary for this to be a successful operation.

One of the key things that activists miss is the fact that that determination is usually done under risk and harsh time constraints and uncertainty. And as a result of that, they don't understand that we don't have time to look for an optimal end state, the perfect thing, the best situation. We're only looking for a satisfactory one. And we understand that if we had the time and the resources to go back and do it again, we wouldn't do it the same way. Humans do not repeat unproductive behaviors.

So the first thing I would say is, define your end state. What is it that we're here for? What is it we're trying to achieve? If we're sent, and I use one of these as an example that I can see, and this was my own department, to prevent a suicide, what is it that we can do? And in this particular case, the best thing probably would have been get in your car and leave. There's no value added in you being here.

So one thing I agree with a lot of the activists is that we need some training in this. And more than training, we need the education. Training helps us do things better. Education tells us whether we're doing the right thing to begin with.

Jon Becker: Well, training teaches us the technique. Education teaches us the why.

Sid Heal: Yep. And that was probably my most asked questions to the point where everybody has actually, in unison repeated it, because I would go, you know, my next question, and they all repeat in unison, why? I don't want you just to tell me what you're going to do. I want you to tell me how it's contributing, why it's necessary. So I enjoy that. But that'd be the number one place I would start.

Jon Becker: Yeah, it's interesting. One of the ways that I describe instate when I'm talking to somebody is the next time you go on vacation, where are you going to go? And they're like, oh, I'm going to go here. What are you going to do? I'm going to do this, this, and this. Imagine if you started that vacation by getting in your car and making a decision to go right or left, because without an end state, that's what you're doing. And even when you get there, you won't know you're there.

Sid Heal: When I teach the class, I show a picture of a golf course, and I ask the class, what club do you use? And a lot of them play golf. I don't. I wouldn't know if it was a good club or a bad club, except for one thing. There's no flag, there's no hole. It makes a difference how far away it is, which direction the wind is blowing, is it on a slope?

And then on the next slide there's a hole with the slide. And now they all have some idea of how to achieve that objective. That is how important the end state is. I use golf because it's a benign example, but it's absolutely imperative before you can develop a plan to know what it is you're trying to achieve well.

Jon Becker: And so I think that's actually a good segue to the next one, which is maneuvering in time and place. So talk to me about that.

Sid Heal: Most everybody understands that tactics unfold in places. We talk about key terrain and observation and high ground and choke points and things like that, but they don't understand, a lot of them, that time is also a dimension, and as a result of that, doing the right thing at the wrong time is just as bad as doing the wrong thing at any time. For those that have been involved with police work, how many times have we searched an empty building and the suspect has gone? It's not that our tactics were faulty.

As a matter of fact, we're using the same tactics that we would use any other time. And matter of fact, in many cases they're effective when the suspect is there, but the timing was off. You can actually maneuver in time just like you can maneuver in space.

And so we start with illustrating the purpose of initiative. The freedom of action, the ability to choose the time and circumstances under how the next episode is going to unfold. That provides a huge advantage. In some cases, the advantage is so huge, it's decisive in nature simply because we have the ability to exploit the circumstances.

Another one is density. One of the reasons that tactical operations are so much more complex when there's a lot of people involved is because there's a lot of activities that compete with each other and in some cases even conflict. Which means if you do this one thing where we've been deprived of the ability of doing something else, probably a good example with riots is the objective to kettle them and arrest the perpetrators or to disperse them.

Well, needless to say, it's going to take a completely different set of courses of action to achieve depending on what you've decided. And that's something that needs to be cited ahead of time. It's not something you can go halfway through and say, oh, we're going to change direction. Needless to say, we need to be able to change direction. But that's not really leadership with the military, especially the Marine Corps called driven by events. We're simply following the path of least resistance. That is not leadership by anybody's definition.

Jon Becker: No. And the path of least resistance is down the river off a waterfall.

Sid Heal: Yeah. Or overusing a device, like a tactical device, like a taser or a bean bag. It works well, so we'll use it again. It worked twice, so we'll use it 50 times.

Jon Becker: Well, we see this right now with dynamic entry and no knock warrants. This is a raging topic in the media. And actually, recently, the National Tactical Officers association came out with a position paper on no knock warrants that was not all that popular in some circles. What are your thoughts on that?

Sid Heal: I responded to that article. At first I see it. I saw it on Facebook, and I responded right then, I'm all for it. It had become the default. When I became a captain, I was a unit commander at the Special enforcement Bureau.

And one of the things that I told my lieutenants, if you bring me a course of action, and the only thing, when I ask you why we chose this and the only thing that you defend it with, and we've always done it that way, I'll cancel it. I will not allow that to proceed.

Then you can either come up with a different course of action or defend that one. The idea was that we can't accept things at default. We've become lazy. We accept risk that we should have no business accepting. We normalize it. Well, swot's a risky business.

And therefore, it's just because of the nature of the assignment that used to light my fire. And the lieutenants will tell you that I became passionate about that. So when I talk about maneuvering in time and space, the space is the easy one. They can see it. They can touch it. They can feel it. The maneuver elements are physical people and things and weapons and vehicles and planes and all kinds of things. But time is a notional dimension, meaning that it exists really only as a mental image.

And so as a result of that, you're dealing with abstract concepts that are actually manifesting themselves in different ways that we can exploit. The objective, for instance, in maneuvering in space, is to gain and maintain control of key terrain. Terrain that provides a market advantage. But the objective in maneuvering in time is to create and or exploit opportunities. Opportunity, in the simplest form, is really a window. And time where circumstances provide a temporary advantage.

And so as a result of that, in some cases, we can create them with distractions and things like that. But in other cases, we need to recognize them, exploit it. And I'll just tell you that it's been frustrating for a lot of my students that have completed a full length course. And I got to tell you, I'll be the first one to admit it's grueling, but they end up in a tactical situation where they know more than the people that are leading them.

And I have to tell them, don't give up your career over this. Make your case without an argument. But unless it's a safety issue, you are honor bound, duty bound, to remain subordinate to your superiors. Your day will come. And that's one of the things I try to soothe them with. It's kind of interesting.

I've been retired for some years now. I can't tell you the feeling of euphoria, ecstasy, exhilaration that I get when one of my now commanders incident commanders calls me or sends me an email and says, thanks so much, I remember. And he will cite something that I might have just used a metaphor to illustrate it or an anecdote or an illustration.

Rarely do they cite the concept verbatim, but the fact was that they remember it from the story or the exercise that we. That we did. I don't even know how to explain it. It makes every hour that I've spent studying this or writing about it or teaching it worthwhile instantly.

Jon Becker: Yeah. You have a unique ability to capture complicated concepts, and I think this is part of the reason that you've been able to fuse these things and put them into a way that people understand them. You have a unique ability to capture a complicated scenario and paint it in a very simple, frequently funny story that stays with you. And I'll give you one. I'll give you a couple, actually.

First one is that guy couldn't find a giraffe and a flock of sheep. I cannot tell you how many times after the first time you told me that I've used it, but if I had to pay you a licensing fee, you'd be a rich man. The second one. And going back to kind of dynamic entry, I remember when you went back to SCB and we were having that was, you know, what year was that when you went back as a captain? When I went back as a captain.

Sid Heal: 2000, early 2000, I think I was promoted in 1999.

Jon Becker: So that's 20 years ago. And we were having conversations about dynamic entry and no knock warrants and how, you know, you didn't really believe in them. And you said something that was profound. It was just kind of a classic sit off the top of your head.

You said, here's the problem with dynamic entry. The guy inside the house has made so many bad life decisions that the sheriff is knocking down his door with a SWAT team. Giving that guy 30 seconds to make the right decision is not going to yield the right result. Let's give him an hour to think about it. Right? He still may make a bad choice, but I mean, that's a perfect example of maneuvering in time.

Sid Heal: At least he made an informed decision.

Jon Becker: Yes, exactly. But that's a perfect example of maneuvering in time. You're slowing the event down to get to a point where you are more likely to have a positive resolution.

Sid Heal: One, I've had so many mentors over my lifetime, and many of them are accomplished and recognized on an international level, one of which was eventually major General Alec Ron from Israel. And he was at Entebbe and I asked him about dynamic entries. This is clear, back in 1987 or 1988, and we were debriefing in Tebby in detail, far more than any of the books I've read.

But one of the things he said in his heavy Israeli accent, and I will probably insult him by trying it, but he says, I'll tell you something, Sid, you cannot control everything. If you continue to do this, you will lose people. Boy, he could not have said anything that grabbed my attention with the Marine Corps, who would grab me by their stack and swivel than that. These people were following me because they trusted me. I needed to be worthy of that trust. And that was a major impetus. I was already doing it.

And he just put it in words better than I could have. But here's a guy that was in situations that they wrote books about that was validating the same conclusions that I had reached. Stumbling and bumbling along.

Jon Becker: Yeah, I think what's lacking in a lot of cases today, and this was a conversation that I had with Mike Hillman as well. When you guys inherited the problem, you inherited the problem.

Sid Heal: That's right.

Jon Becker: And there was no solution. There was no how to book. So you had to build a how to book. And the process of building a how to book means building a y book. The problem is that the y book has not been handed down. The how to book has, and to some degree, Sound Doctrine and field command are the why book that people need to read. They need to understand. It's things like in state maneuvering, in time initiative. That's the part that I think people really, it's lacking today. We're teaching the how, we're not teaching the why.

Sid Heal: One of my real heroes was a guy named John Schmidt. He was a major in the Marine Corps. He was certainly more higher ranked later. Eventually retired. He was the primary author between one of the first books that we were required to read as officers called war fighting. It was war fighting. FM, FM1, Fleet Marine Force manual one. Then it became MCDP1. Marine Corps doctor publication one. He had a gift, and I thought it was a gift of being able to make it so I could understand it.

After having personally experienced it and talking with him, it wasn't so much of a gift as it was willing to drill down so that you understood it well enough to explain it, not just reiterate what somebody else had said. When it came time to write feel command, I used one of my kids textbooks, for instance, I bowl printed the first time a concept was introduced. I italicized the explanations so that they would jump out. I realized that that's third grade stuff, but that's where we're at with some of the people.

When I was talking to General Zinni and General Conway and General Mattis, these people were so far ahead of me that had I not read, I would not have understood anything that they had described to me. They were at a level far beyond what I was going to be able to translate.

And so, as a result of that, I tried to take these concepts and make them as easy to understand, even at risk of overgeneralization. In many cases, I've made it obvious that in the simplest terms, or the simplest, so that people understand that the concept itself is more complicated than I'm explaining it. But for our purposes, you can understand the essence.

When I was asked to explain, in fact, I got asked several times to condense this down. I couldn't condense it. It's not a condensation. It is a distillation. I had to leave things out to be able to get the essence of this. If I could leave people with just this one idea, it would be this. Concepts are universal. It's only the applications that are contextual.

I can explain the concepts, and most experts, even if they disagree about a lot of things, will agree on the concepts. And this includes activists. It's the applications, though, that are really the true art of war. The concepts are the science. I can explain it. I can prove it in many cases. I've got exercises and games that I play with students so that it becomes intuitive. But there may be a thousand different ways that it actually applies in real life.

Jon Becker: So if you were looking back at 30 year old Sid, 40, 35 year old Sid, where would you start teaching yourself tactical science?

Sid Heal: I'd start by convincing people that there was a tactical science. The sad part about it is that we've got most law enforcement officers without any understanding that they can support their decisions with solid, reliable science. Tactical science is probably closest related to military science, but as soon as you say military, you can drop.

Jon Becker: Yeah, everybody freaks out.

Sid Heal: That's right. I have several games to illustrate how this works. But tactical science is a soft science and that's problematic. Hard sciences like mathematics and astronomy and…

Jon Becker: Yeah, math is easy because there's answers.

Sid Heal: That's right. You can build a spreadsheet. It doesn't matter who puts the data in, it's going to give you one answer. But soft scientists like economics and sociology and psychology and other things don't use algorithms or formulas to give you one answer. They use probabilities and interpretations to give you a range of probabilities.

The fact that you didn't pick the best one is not your fault, it's the nature of the science. But the sad part about it is because there's more than one rand answer is problematic with many administrators because they believe that if there's more than one right answer, there can be no wrong answer, simply some answers that are better than others.

Well, I can tell you if you understand the science, there's wrong answers and we have the debacles that we have to live with in law enforcement that cannot be justified. I make a very lucrative sideline out of testifying in court.

As an expert on tactics, I can be honest with you. I could triple my income if I wanted to do it more often than I do. I don't enjoy it. I usually limit myself to two cases per year because it keeps me sharp, it keeps me on the edge. Anybody that has ever gone through a deposition by a well trained, experienced attorney is going to get a level of detail that you will never get from a report or from a PowerPoint or anything else. So I do that.

But I got to tell you, I don't enjoy exploiting it. I would rather avoid it altogether. But every once in a while, and I don't take retainers and everything and I give them the first 30 minutes for free. And the only reason I limit it to 30 minutes, if you can't explain it to 30 minutes, I'm not going to understand it and you're not going to understand it, but I'll just tell them, and I've said we're not going to win this case.

I'm going to tell you that I'll help you with damage control, which, by the way, is almost always the kiss of death. I've had several attorneys hire me even after I told them, we're not going to win this. I'm not going to say that we did everything right. I've actually read cases where I've called up and said, you don't want me on the stand. If this guy makes you an offer, take it.

Well, that is not how most experts that I've dealt with, especially the opposing experts, think I get paid the same whether we win or lose. But my contribution largely has been simply explaining the rationale behind the decision making, because I could articulate it. And the person that actually had to make the decision made the right decision without the ability of explaining why. If I can get that jury to look at me and say, you know what? I don't agree with that decision, but I understand why he made it, we're done. We can do that because there's more than one right answer.

Jon Becker: If you were going to develop a young officer now, you know, through lieutenant, what would your reading list look like?

Sid Heal: I hate to say it, but it would be voluminous. It's hard for me to read a good book and dismiss it. Now, I have had some books where I've said, read at least the last three chapters.

Jon Becker: Where do I start?

Sid Heal: I'd ask if you're looking for leadership. I got to tell you, there are a lot of really good books from the business community that have applications in law enforcement and tactics. One of the game changers for me was in search of excellence by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman management by wandering around, catching people, and doing something good. I mean, this is a book I read 35 or 40 years ago, but still had such an influence on me that I can quote from it to this day.

Most people, it's out of print, wouldn't even know another one was information anxiety by Richard Saul Wormande. Really, the context that comes out of this book is the fact that you don't need to know everything. You need to know how to find it.

One of the things, though, that really hit me with this book is the truth is not enough. It's only important if you believe it. It can be completely inaccurate, but if you believe it, you're going to act on it and pay the consequences. So it's to your benefit to make sure that the sources you're using are something that you can rely on, because they've actually changed your ability to think in certain ways.

Men in mission, Tony Kern's book, I'm trying to think of this one going pro. It's basically what's going to be necessary for you to be a true professional. I could go on and on and on, and I'm a hate to do it under this forum because I'm going to forget something. And I got to tell you that we put reading lists together on crisis decision making. Crisis decision making. Gary Klein, sources of power, intuition at work. Power of intuition. Malcolm Gladwell.

Jon Becker: Which one? Blink?

Sid Heal: Oh, Blink's one of the ones that come to mind. What the dog saw, freakonomics. I could go on that.

Jon Becker: Do you have reading lists? Do you have a recommended reading list?

Sid Heal: I also keep my library, the list of my library eventually became too large for my memory, so I put it into an excel spreadsheet so I can remember where I put the book. Nowadays, a lot of my reading is electronic, and the advantage of electronic is the fact that I can do an electronic search.

So if I remember one concept that I want to amplify or get into, all I have to do is remember the book. And then I typically have several books that I have in three formats. Hard copy, electronic copy, and the….

Jon Becker: Audiobook.

Sid Heal: Yeah, the actual book, the software.

Jon Becker: The software. So I would love, if you wouldn't mind sharing kind of Sid's recommended reading list. I would love to get it.

Sid Heal: I'll dig it out if you want.

Jon Becker: Yeah, I would love to have one of the show notes because we're going to, we'll do detailed show notes that as we go through concepts and talk about things, we'll reference out. So I would love to include at least a link to, hey, here is, you know, Sid's recommended reading list.

Sid Heal: I cut it way down. The people that I usually deal with don't like to read. They definitely don't like to study. They don't see it as contributing, especially to their careers. They'll go out and spend two and a half hours picking up weights, but they won't spend a half hour reading. And so I've cut it down to, if you read this, a book a month, which to be honest with you, is not difficult, you will be light years ahead of where you were this time last year. So, yeah, I've got it. I've got a leaders, team leaders. I've got one for crisis decision making, I got one for risk management.

Jon Becker: I love that! If you'll share them, I'll actually put them up.

Sid Heal: I'll send it to you tonight.

Jon Becker: Yeah, I'll put it up on the recommended reading list. So I think what I would love to do to kind of conclude our time together is go through some rapid fire questions. Short answer, give me Sid’s off the cuff. Quick thought, what's your most important habit?

Sid Heal: Reading and writing. I say reading and writing. You can't write if you don't read, but writing it also forces you to put it in your own words, which means that you have to understand it.

Jon Becker: Leader versus manager. What's the difference?

Sid Heal: The leader is far more developed and is able to handle things that won't fit into a management profile, particularly in commanding. One of the things that's emphasized to us in the Marine Corps is that I don't care if you know anything about bask and weaving or not. If you're in charge of this project, you better find somebody who does, but you're still responsible for accomplishing this end state.

Jon Becker: What do you think the most important thing is for building an effective team?

Sid Heal: Trust. I don't really have to think about that too far, but if they don't trust you, nothing else is going to matter, and if they do, nothing is going to stop it.

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

Sid Heal: Character. We can teach the skills, but if they don't come with a sense of obligation as responsibility, as part of the package, they're just keeping the seat warm for their next promotion.

Jon Becker: If you could have any, you could have dinner with anybody, live or dead. Historical figure, who is it?

Sid Heal: Boy, that is a tough one. Dealing with tactics or. Yeah, life in general.

Jon Becker: Let's go with dealing. Dealing with the – With this topic.

Sid Heal: I have been privileged to have dinner with a lot of the people that are dead now. One, and probably not for the reasons everybody think of, would be Gunnery Sergeant Harris, who was really the one that got me started. He broke me into Vietnam. He was a Korean war veteran, and he punished me. I was the champion sandbag filler of northern I Corps, but he never busted me. And I got to tell you, I deserved it.

Now, I had office hours. I was private twice, PFC twice, Lance corporal once, and corporal twice. The sergeant major would literally shake my hands one day and call me a shipbird the next day. I'm using the exact terminology. This is the thing. I had office hours. I had company office hours and battalion office hours. I was on a suspended bus when I got out of Vietnam, and the deal was if I would stay in the bush where I excelled, I could go home as a corporal.

But if I came back and screwed up, I was going home as a PFC because I was on a suspended bus. I would like to meet that man once where I could thank him for putting up with me and setting the tone. The information that he gave me not only saved my life so many times, I can't begin to describe it. It was always understood that it was not a gift. It was entrusted, and I was expected to pass it on.

If at some point in time somebody writes a eulogy, I think the highest compliment they could give me was that I was a teacher, I was a mentor. I took the information entrusted to me and made it available to people that also needed it and benefited from it.

Jon Becker: Anyone that has ever known you would write that eulogy?

Sid Heal: What's that?

Jon Becker: I said, anyone that has ever known you would write that eulogy.

Sid Heal: I hope so, and I think that's a problem. It's interesting. I have lots of medals. I don't have a single award hanging on my wall. I don't have a certificate. I have a number of college degrees. I've never hung them on my wall. But I have a picture of my team in the first Gulf war where one of the troops wrote on the picture, thanks for getting us all home.

It's almost impossible for me to describe that without the feeling of pride that this guy, who was 19 years old, has now got kids and grandkids and is home. I don't even know how to describe. I have no words for the feeling that it means to me that I wasn't always successful. But I can say that I held nothing back. I did the best I could with what I had, and I was better as the years went by. I don't expect perfection from any of my troops, but I expect dedication, feeling of responsibility.

Jon Becker: I don't know that I can end this on a better note than that.

Sid, thank you so much for sitting down and having this conversation!

Episode 20 – Recovering From Being Shot– Jordan Robison Follow-up

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!

Okay, so, Jordan, after last week's episode, I got a lot of phone calls and emails and text messages saying, how's Jordan? What happened to Jordan? So why don't we just start there? How's Jordan?

Jordan Robison: Today? Yeah, Jordan's doing good. I'm a full time student right now, which is definitely a complete change of pace for me. Tumbling again, going back and not being who I used to be, but trying to figure out who I'm going to be in the future and making those plans. But no, I'm doing well right now. Full time student. Really invested in that. Really invested in my studies right now. Planning for the future.

Body doing pretty good. Lower back sucks. I'm pretty sure that applies to, like, 60% of cops anybody wears a vest. But, yeah, since my hips are a little uneven now, which I'm sure we'll get into. Lower backs pretty rough. The leg on cold days, you know, you can feel it. Arms. If I move something super, super heavy, I can feel it. But overall, I know a lot of guys get it worse, so there's no, no complaints from me, surprisingly. Just sometimes your back sucks and just focused on school, but overall doing well.

Jon Becker: And now you're medically retired.

Jordan Robison: Yes. Yeah.

Jon Becker: So off the job, full time student, trying to figure out what Jordan 2.0 is going to be.

Jordan Robison: Correct. Yeah. So I've had a couple different plans floated. Originally it was like nursing school with the thought of going flight medic. But ultimately, I think long term, what I'd like to do is PA. So I'm working on getting my bachelor's degree in the medical field. Right now, I'm leaning towards the bachelor's degree in respiratory therapy. And then PA. School is definitely the route I see myself going as a physician's assistant, PA.

So I have to get my bachelor's degree and I'm going to do that in respiratory therapy, just so I get that good medical background, get good at innovations, art lines, things like that. And then I want to go to be a physician's assistant. Two years of school, but pretty intensive. School. But it's something that I can see myself doing, not getting bored with, and a lot of satisfaction helping people in a different way.

Jon Becker: Yeah. I mean, I think it's interesting because you're really young and it's kind of, you know, it's Jordan 2.0 at a very young age, but from where I sit, I think that you've given us enough.

Jordan Robison: Yeah. And that was the hardest thing. Like, really, that was super, super difficult to deal with, is I am young and I'm hungry. And I loved the dynamic parts of being a cop. Like, I loved the foot pursuits, the vehicle pursuits, getting the gangsters, getting the guns, the SWAT callouts, the barricades, the warrants, the range. Like, that was probably some of the most fun I've ever had in my life.

And so it really took me stepping back and stepping away to plan for that long term future. It's like, yes, this is fun now while I'm 32 years old. But you got metal on your leg. You got metal in both your arms and your stomach. You got a scar, like a twelve inch scar in your stomach. Where are you going to be in ten years? How's your back going to be in ten years? What is your plan? Like, are you just going to do this till your body falls apart?

So I really had to kind of humble myself and say, hey, you are not going to feel be this young forever. Where do you see yourself in the future? And I wanted a career that I can literally do for the next 30 years without continuing to make that daily sacrifice that cops make on their body. Cause I don't know too many cops after the age of 50 who can stand up straight without their lower back hurting.

Jon Becker: Oh, yeah. I'm 55, and all of my friends that were my contemporaries when I started my business, I don't know anybody that doesn't have at least one knee replacement. They've all had Achilles tendon surgery. They've all had meniscus surgery.

Jordan Robison: Yeah. The toll it takes is just potent.

Jon Becker: Yeah, it's ridiculous. I mean, I am the healthy one now, which is kind of terrifying. When I look at my friends and thought, oh, man, that guy's in such good shape. He's like 75% bionic now, though. So let's. Let's go back. Like, we covered last week's episode. We went through, you know, the event and kind of the. The medical response and kind of lessons learned.

But I think what people want to understand and what I would love to share with our audience is what Jordan went through. Right? Like, what was, you know, the shooting happens. You get to the hospital. Let's just kind of walk through the timeline.

Jordan Robison: Yeah. So, I get to the hospital. I'm awake the whole time. I mean, obviously, Spencer talked about it. That's a good thing that I'm awake the whole time. It sucked when you're going through it. Cause I can feel every second of it. But I'm awake the whole time. They finally, I think I went to surgery. It was either hour and a half, 2 hours after I got to the hospital, which is another good sign, you know, not getting rushed straight off.

But I remember going up to the or, and the anesthesiologist tells me, hey, you're going to sleep. And I look at him right in the eyes, and I say, thank God. Straight in the eyes, like, I'm. Like, I'd like to take a nap, please. Yeah, exactly.

Jon Becker: I'm willing to miss this part.

Jordan Robison: Yeah. So I wake up from the first surgery. From what I was told, it's about a ten hour surgery. So I wake up from that. Feels the best way I could describe coming out of it is just like, you feel like you're waking up out of, like, a crazy ice bath. Like, I felt like I was defrosting, you know, and you're jolted right back in your body. My leg feels worse than it ever did. Arms. I can feel every second of it in my stomach. The pain kind of doubled in my stomach.

But I wake, you know, I wake up in my hospital bed. Some family comes to see me, see my mom, see my girl, tell them, hey, I'm doing all right. Like, stop freaking out. I'm fine. They walk out of the room. I'm like, I'm freaking out. This hurts. No, but…

Jon Becker: On brave face, they walk out, goes back to.

Jordan Robison: Exactly.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Jordan Robison: Yeah. So talk to them. Everything's good. The nice thing was the department had a officer sit with me the whole time. You know, obviously, it was a gang member who was involved in it. We don't know about family security reasons, so. But it was nice having somebody to talk to.

And then they started prepping me for my second surgery. So at that point, they had what's called a steinman pin in my left tib fib. So it's a metal pin that they drill through your shin, and they attach weights to that pin to the edge of your bed to pull traction on your femur. So that was not.

Jon Becker: That sounds like a barrel.

Jordan Robison: No, it was. It was not pleasant. So that's how I woke up from the first surgery with my Steinman pin in, which was great. And then, what they did in the first surgery. Sorry, I'm kind of rambling. What they did in the first surgery was they repaired my stomach because that was the emergent part.

Jon Becker: Yeah. Let's walk real quick. Let's go back through injury. So left and right a*** bones are broken.

Jordan Robison: Yep. Femur shatter.

Jon Becker: Shattered. Left femur round through the stomach, like, traverses the stomach.

Jordan Robison: Yep. Part of the. I think it's the descending colon and the small intestine get caught as the.

Jon Becker: Round goes through and then around, through and through in the shoulder.

Jordan Robison: Yeah, that one didn't need any medical intervention. They just patched it.

Jon Becker: And then a graze wound on the ribs.

Jordan Robison: Yeah, graze wound on the ribs.

Jon Becker: And two in the plate.

Jordan Robison: Yeah, two to the plate curve.

Jon Becker: Okay, so. Okay, so you were saying start with the stomach.

Jordan Robison: Yeah. So first surgery was the stomach repair, and then they placed the Steinman pin. And then they told me once I woke up from that, because my arms and legs still broken, that I'm obviously going to need a second surgery to repair my limbs. But the ors are full and obviously they have a couple safe for, like, emergent situations. And I was stable.

So I think I waited like, two days in the hospital and the pain was there, obviously, but they had me so high on stuff that I was managing it pretty well. And then I go to my second surgery and I wake up and just. It felt like the pain had just turned up on a scale that I just hadn't felt before, especially in the legend.

Once they put the rod in. Once they put plates in my right arm, my left arm. Waking up from that second surgery, I think it was. The first surgery is on Wednesday. Second surgery was on Friday. Waking up for that second surgery, it was rough that night after. It was a rough night, but.

Jon Becker: So the first surgery is basically the abdominal repair.

Jordan Robison: Yeah.

Jon Becker: Second surgery is all the orthopedics.

Jordan Robison: Yep. All the orthopedic repairs, which are plates.

Jon Becker: In left and right arms. And then pin in the leg.

Jordan Robison: Yeah. A rod that runs from my left knee up into my left hip.

Jon Becker: Oh, so like, I was a stiver rod, I think.

Jordan Robison: I'm not sure the name of it.

Jon Becker: Yeah. But basically it's in the middle of the femur to rebuild the femur.

Jordan Robison: Correct.

Jon Becker: And then. And then a pin down in the shin, which was removed.

Jordan Robison: Yeah. So that was removed. So I wake up from my second surgery, there's no longer weights pulling on my leg, which I thought would be nice, but, um. You still feel the leg break. But, um. Yeah, I don't know. You just deal with it. The hospital, that was it. It sucks, too. And especially with stomach surgeries. If anybody's had a stomach surgery, you know, you have to have what's called a ng tube, nasal nasogastrianol tube to Provide suction because they can't risk you vomiting. You vomit, you're gonna tear all your stitches open.

So I have this tube that's running through my nose, down my throat, into my stomach, and can't drink and you can't eat the whole time. So the whole time I'm in the hospital, I can't have any water, and I can't eat anything while I'm dealing with this.

Sounds crazy, but looking back, that was definitely, like, one of the harder things to deal with, especially once you think I was there for like, five, six days, and the tube didn't get taken out till day five. And so that sucked. I remember. I think we're five days on from surgery now that they finally took the tube out. They said, all right, your stomach sealing, take the tube out. And they give me an orange jello. And I remember that was the first thing I had eaten. And I was so, like, the flavor from a hospital orange jello. You would not believe how much flavor that jello had.

Jon Becker: Like, I've done six day fasts in the past.

Jordan Robison: Yeah, I'm sure you would.

Jon Becker: It is amazing on that 6th day, like, you eat.

Jordan Robison: It's like the explosion of flavor from just the most basic thing. It just blew my mind. And. I don't know, I still remember that jello.

Jon Becker: Fascinating! So up until now, I imagine in that five or six days, you're kind of rising and falling emotionally. What were the low points for you?

Jordan Robison: So it was probably the first night after my second surgery, I was really high because I was on all kinds of pain meds. When you come off of prolonged anesthesia, like I was on, you hallucinate. So I'm hallucinating. I'm in just a ton of pain, you know, because that's how it is whenever you wake up from something like that. And then, what had happened was I was an EMT before I was a cop. So I'm blessed with just. Just enough medical knowledge to know when something's wrong, but not enough to know that it's not that serious.

Jon Becker: Got it.

Jordan Robison: So, that night, I start noticing that there's fresh blood coming into my ng tube. And to me, I know that means there's an upper gi bleed that's. That's happening. So that's what I knew from my EMC knowledge. What I didn't know from, you know, lack of further knowledge is probably just an ulcer. So at the time, I'm like, my stomach ripped open. I'm dying. This isn't good. You know? Like, I had convinced myself that I was gonna die in the hospital bed, and that's what freaked me out more than anything. Like, if I died out there in the field, like, who cares? You know?

And I know that sounds callous, but that's a quick, easy death. I did not want to die in a hospital bed laying there helpless. Like, that was one of my biggest fears at the time, was just dying like that. And so when you're hallucinating and you're super high, you're not really rational. I convinced myself that I was dying, and eventually, it took a text from one of the doctors who's on the team. Doc Ebee sent a text to, I think it was my mom who's with me at the time. Like, tell Jordan to calm down. Like, it's probably an ulcer. He's fine. Like, and the message he said was, remember, two steps forward, one step back.

And that kind of stuck with me throughout the process of this healing process is, you are going to take steps forward, but there are going to be setbacks, and so you have to manage that. Take your setback, take your medicine, and then just take two more steps forward tomorrow. So got through that night, eventually fell asleep, and got through it. But that was definitely the low point.

Jon Becker: Was that the only time that you thought you were gonna die?

Jordan Robison: That night, I thought I was gonna die. And then the initial shooting when I went down, obviously, you're trying to self assess, and I knew it was bad. I knew it was hit a lot, and I hadn't lost consciousness yet, but there was definitely the thought there of just, hey, like, this could turn. You might not make it so. But other than that, those two moments, I knew I was going to pull through.

Jon Becker: Yeah. It's interesting because, you know, one of the things that we've talked about offline and talked about with Spencer is that the. The physical condition that you were in going into this is probably a large part of the reason you're still alive.

Jordan Robison: Yeah, that's what all the surgeons said. They said it definitely helps. During the initial surgery, the orthopedic surgeon kind of cursed me a little bit because she was like, yeah, it's good for your recovery. She's like, it's very difficult to get through all that muscle to put your place on the rod. But she was like, I mean, that's my problem, not your problem. Like, you did the right thing.

So she kind of joked with me a little bit. She was like, yeah, it was kind of hard to get through all that muscle to place, place a rod. But that really, really took its toll. Being in good shape took its toll during the physical therapy process. That was huge, absolutely huge.

Jon Becker: See, I don't think, you know, it's, it's, I think lessons learned, right? Always the goal of the podcast is lessons learned.

Jordan Robison: Yeah.

Jon Becker: And I think that one of the lessons learned here is the fact that you were in the physical condition that you were not only means you survived better, but it means you recover better?

Jordan Robison: Correct. Yeah. No, especially when you have good workout habits established so that PT lifestyle. A lot of people dread physical therapy. Getting up out of bed, you know, you're sore, you're tired. But to me, that was already part of what I was doing, daily, daily conditioning. So I mentally just treated it like, hey, I'm gonna go work out.

Instead of thinking of like, oh man, I gotta go do physical therapy of like, no, I'm gonna go work out. And that's how I convinced myself to go and give 100 miles an hour every time I went to a physical therapy session to the point to where they're like, you, you need to calm down.

And I was like, no, you need to turn it up. Like, you need to crank it up little. Cause this is easy. So that, that mentality of just pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing, really, I feel like helped me get back on my feet as quickly as I did.

Jon Becker: What, when did you know you were going to be okay? When was the first time that you're like, I think I'm going to be okay?

Jordan Robison: From the initial shooting or?

Jon Becker: Yeah. from the hospital, like, where was that point that you were like, I, I think I'm gonna be alright?

Jordan Robison: Sounds weird, but once my back actually hit the hospital bed and I felt like once, once they got to the hospital, they pulled me out of the car, they moved me off the gurney, and they put me on that soft hospital bed. That's when I was like, all right, I'm still here, I'm still talking. Yeah, this s*** hurts, but I think I'm gonna be okay.

And at that point, luckily I had reached that conclusion because shortly after that my parents walked in too. Then my fiance walked in, and I spoke to them, and I was able to be as calm as I could and just tell them, like, hey, I'm okay. I'm gonna be fine. Relax. We're good. My mom's a mess. Fiance is a mess. My dad looks right at me. I look at him, I was like, dad, I'm okay. And he was like, yeah, you know, if you're still talking, you're gonna be fine. I was like, yeah, no, I'm good.

Jon Becker: So it's interesting. Cause our mutual friend Ed Henchy, you know, who we both adore. When I interviewed Eddie, one of the things he said is that mindset. Yeah, mindset really matters to both survival and recovery. And every time we've talked about this, that's what I see, is that your mindset was in the right place kind of all the time. I mean, certainly, you know, it's a roller coaster, but you were committed to surviving and thriving again from the get.

Jordan Robison: Yeah, like you said, it's a roller coaster. You just. You have to remember to ride those waves. And it is that little mantra that doc eb gave me of just two steps forward, one step back. And when you take a step back, you cannot let it, like, defeat you. You can't let it destroy your spirit. You just have to know, like, hey, today your leg hurts. Yeah, that's gonna happen.

All right, let's work on your arms. Hey, let's work on some core. Let's do something else while that lake heals, and then you can go back to it. But I think where a lot of guys run into trouble is this, hey, I'm not who I used to be. It's like, well, no, you're not going to be who you used to be. Like, you never be who you used to be, but you can be someone just as good. You can. And it might be in different ways.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Jordan Robison: But you just have to have that mindset going forward of just a hundred. A hundred miles an hour in your pt, 100 miles an hour in your recovery, or 100%. I don't want to say 100 miles an hour either way, 100%. That's what you have to give.

Jon Becker: So, okay, so five days, second surgery, that's done. They've turned you into a bionic man and put all kinds of ballistic parts into you. What's the next significant milestone?

Jordan Robison: So, to get out of the hospital, I had to start being able to pee on my own again. Which sounds weird, but teaching your body how to pee on its own is a pain. It sucks because when you can't, they have to do what's called a straight catheter, where they go in and take the pee out, otherwise your bladder is gonna burst.

Jon Becker: That sounds like a barrel of laughs.

Jordan Robison: No, it sucks. It really, really sucks. But your body responds quicker than you think. So once you could pee on your own, then they were able to get me out of the hospital, and I got transferred to their live in rehab facility. And I was there for, I think, like, seven or eight days, where every single day, three times a day, I was doing physical therapy with the goal of, you know, going home.

So they teach you how to get up, get out of your wheelchair, get into bed, get up three steps, because I had three steps to my house. So we worked on steps. We worked on, you know, going to the bathroom, all these livable things, as well as just strength conditioning. Working on my right side. Cause that was the good leg. Working on how to manipulate that to, you know, protect my femur. It was good because you work out every day, multiple times a day. So being there was really good for my mind.

Jon Becker: So then after that eight days, we get the great video snippet, my personal favorite video snippet of Jordan walking out of the hospital.

Jordan Robison: I was adamant about that. I was absolutely adamant, because, you know, they're like, all right, here's your wheelchair. We're, you know, we'll wheel you out. And I looked at my mom was like, get my walker. I'm nothing. I want everybody to know that I'm okay. I don't want people to see me because it was bad. Like, everybody knew it was bad. You heard about it. It was bad.

So if I could mitigate people's fears a little bit, not just to be selfless, if it helps people, like, calm down a little bit, not blow me up every day, that's a plus. So, no, I was adamant. I walked out of there on my modified walker. Cause I couldn't put weight on my forearms, but I.

Jon Becker: Cause both your arms were broken.

Jordan Robison: Yeah. Cause both my arms.

Jon Becker: Yeah. Let's just keep perspective here. Yeah. Your modified walker implies that, like, you know, both your arms are broken.

Jordan Robison: I could put the tension on my elbows. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And push with my good leg, keeping my broken leg off the ground.

Jon Becker: You'd lean on the parts of the arms that weren't broken and walk out on the one leg that wasn't broken.

Jordan Robison: I was sore when I went home. I'll say that it was worth it.

Jon Becker: I mean, I can honestly say, like, watching the video, that was the first real indication that we got. And watching the video, there was something different about you walking out as opposed to going out in a wheelchair. You're like, he's going to be okay.

Jordan Robison: Yeah. And that's really the message I wanted to convey of just like, hey, I'm going to be fine. I walked in my walker and I did, like, the lap and said hi to everybody there and spoke to as many people as I could, and then eventually looked at my dad, gave him the whole, like, hey, I'm done.

Jon Becker: We're done, buddy.

Jordan Robison: Leg hurts. Need to go sit down. And then got my truck and got out of there, which was nice. So that was definitely a high that day.

Jon Becker: So what's it like when you get home?

Jordan Robison: So it's different for everybody. I know a lot of people experience, like, a great sense of relief. Like, hey, I'm finally home. I'm finally out of it. And for me, I couldn't tell you why I felt this way, but I. I was hit with one of the real, real low points. Like, just this wave of depression that I had not felt yet.

When I got out of the hospital and finally made it home, and I've talked about it and I think I understand why now, but at the time, it was, like, shocking. I didn't expect to feel this way, but just a wave of depression hit me like I never felt before.

So I guess the mindset behind it was when I was at the live in rehab facility, I had a tight schedule. I would wake up every day. I would PT four times a day. You know, I had occupational therapy. Lunch was at a certain time, everything was on a strict schedule with the goal of going home. So your day is filled. Your day is productive. Your day is moving towards a concrete goal.

Jon Becker: Near term.

Jordan Robison: A near term concrete goal. And then when I got home, it was just this, well, now what?

Jon Becker: What's my good luck with the rest of your life?

Jordan Robison: Exactly. Like, my stomach's still open. I still have staples in my stomach that have not healed. Like, I still. That requires wound care every day. My legs still broken, my arms are still broken. Like, I have wounds that need, like, tending. My fiance had to help me with that and, like, actually clean my wounds every day.

So that was a big question that hit me of just like, well, now what? Now what's your goal? Like, what's your concrete goal? Because there is none. It was, take as much time as you need. Come, like, we'll be here. And it was that's not a concrete goal.

Jon Becker: That is amorphous and nebulous and kind of, you know, it's reachable.

Jordan Robison: It's limbo.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Jordan Robison: That's the best way to describe it. It's. It's literally just limbo. And that was really, really hard to deal with. So what helped that for anybody who gets in that spot, was coming up with a schedule. I made a daily schedule of, hey, I have physical therapy Monday, Wednesday, Friday. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I take my little walker and I go for a walk around my neighborhood. I remember one of my neighbors saw me and started yelling at me. She's like, Jordan, you are a mile away from your house. Like, what are you doing? And I was like, I can't be home anymore. I don't know what to tell you.

Jon Becker: Like an Alzheimer's patient, we just found Jordan a mile from home. You guys come pick him up.

Jordan Robison: I know she – I thought she was just going to take my walker so I couldn't go anywhere.

Jon Becker: But again, that's mindset, right? That's a mindset of, like, I'm going to go do something hard.

Jordan Robison: Yeah. And so that's what all the physical therapists noticed when I actually started going to physical therapy was just like, all right, we're going to start coming up with some new exercises for this guy, because I would just show up and be like, hey, yeah, I appreciate it. I want to start doing this. Like, hey, that was great. That wasn't hard enough. Or, hey, you know, I can feel pain here. Let's modify it this way.

And so, I don't know. We started to develop a really close relationship to where I would go to physical therapy, and I would be drenched from sweat, head to toe, and walk out of there, like. And that sense of accomplishments, really important, especially when you feel like you're in a limbo.

Jon Becker: I think also, like, you are an active participant in your own recovery.

Jordan Robison: Yeah, 100%. You get into it, what you put out of it. And I think one of my friends the other day, I met up with him. He had broke his leg recently, and he asked me, he was like, hey, any advice? And I was like, the best advice I can give you is when you go to physical therapy, go a hundred miles an hour and give 110%. It's like….

Jon Becker: Make it hurt.

Jordan Robison: Yeah, yeah. Go give 100% when you go to physical therapy. I saw him recently, and he told me, he was like, bro, that was the best advice you ever gave me. He was like, my leg feels way better than it did. And I'm like, I didn't do anything. You did it. Yeah.

Jon Becker: But I think a lot of it, and this is part of the reason that I wanted to talk to you. I think a lot of it is somebody who's talked to a lot of guys that have survived shootings, not knowing what to do, not knowing where you're going. I know that you and I have had conversations with some of the other Safariland survivors.

Jordan Robison: Oh, yeah.

Jon Becker: It's having a roadmap. Even if your road's going to be slightly different, having some sense of where you're going kind of adds purpose to that. And it makes it feel like I'm not crazy.

Jordan Robison: Yeah, yeah. It just gets you out of that. That kind of funk of just like, well, like, I don't have a direction, so maybe I'll try this. It's like, no. Form a concrete plan and go attack that plan. That's the best thing you can do. Um, and I noticed a lot of the guys, the safari land survivors I talked to, once they get over, you know, some of the mental issues that they go through that I went through, that every survivor or something like this goes through, and they get back to work, I see an improvement as, as long as, you know, some of those issues are dealt with. You see that improvement when somebody has a set plan in front of them.

Jon Becker: So what's the next major physical milestone?

Jordan Robison: So it was to graduate from the walker. So I went back to the doctor and they said, hey, congratulations. Your arms are healed. You can now use a traditional walker. I was like, give me a cane. I was like, I want to use a cane. I don't use a walker. Like, I'm sick of this walker. It was funny, too, because I had, like, this old man walker, and I had, like, you know, like, gunfighter stickers on it. Like six, six hour stickers on it. Got an AARDVARK sticker on that. Like, all kinds of, like, you just.

Jon Becker: See you rolling into PT with, you know, glock and sig stickers.

Jordan Robison: Like, walkers all decked out.

Jon Becker: But I finally got 50 years younger than the guy next to you.

Jordan Robison: Got rid of that, started walking on the walker. Obviously no high impact, but they're like, you can start putting weight on that left leg now. So that became a real focus in the physical therapy, was just trying to get that left leg strong again, which takes effort. You don't realize how much muscle mass you lose in that leg, in a leg. When you go through something like that.

Jon Becker: And I've seen the x-rays of your leg, and it especially initially, didn't really look like a leg anymore.

Jordan Robison: Even healed. Now, my orthopedic surgeon who fixed it says bone heeled. It looks like a modern art sculpture down there.

Jon Becker: Yeah. It's a little abstract.

Jordan Robison: Yeah. Just a little. Little artsy.

Jon Becker: It's unique, though. It's a one of a kind.

Jordan Robison: Yeah, all right, whatever. I just want to be able to tie my shoes, and then turns out the way the bone heeled, she's like, yeah, buy some slip on. Buy slip on. So today, I had my fiance tie my shoes. But the next big one, obviously, was getting rid of the cane and being able to walk on my own. And that got better, obviously, because, you know, same thing. Just push it too far.

Jon Becker: Yeah, well, I mean, now, like, honestly, like, if I didn't know that you had injuries, you can't tell. Yeah, like, obviously there's. There's scars.

Jordan Robison: Yeah.

Jon Becker: But just, like, if you just met, you can't tell that, like, you have no clue what happened.

Jordan Robison: It is funny. I was at school the other day, and obviously none of my classmates know. I don't. It's not something I go broadcast, but one of the guys who sits next to me, who I get along with really well, looked at my arm and sees, like, the pretty distinct, like, bullet hole in the scar. And he was like, bro, what is that?

Jon Becker: That's nothing. Let me show you the other.

Jordan Robison: I was like, oh, that one. Don't worry about that little guy. But, yeah, it's – And he said the same thing. He's like, because I told him I had no problem talking about it. And he was like, that's. He's like, I never would have known. And I was like, well, good. Like that was the goal.

Obviously. I chose to medically retire just like we talked about with the longevity and going forward, but my goal was like, I don't want to be the guy who limps around every day because, you know, he didn't take physical therapy serious. Like, I still want to be able to work out because people asked me before, what's your hobby? One of my hobbies was going to the gym, working out.

Jon Becker: That's showed.

Jordan Robison: Yeah. I enjoyed something I enjoy now. So that was huge for me to continue that.

Jon Becker: Yeah, I think that if you. If you didn't know, you know, what's happened since the shooting and just picked up Jordan before and Jordan after, emotionally, there's probably a lot of difference. Physically, there's some marks, but I don't know that you would necessarily be able to go, oh, you know, he's like a different guy.

Jordan Robison: Well, I got a few more cheeseburgers on me now. A little bit there. I'm losing.

Jon Becker: Which is totally okay. I think you're. I think at this point, you were entitled to at least a couple of extra cheeseburgers and five pounds of extra blood. I think it's full pass on that one. So talk to me. Let's. Like, that's the physical side of it.

Jordan Robison: Yeah.

Jon Becker: Talk to me about the emotional side of it. Like you talked about it was dark when you first got home.

Jordan Robison: Sure.

Jon Becker: And then. What does that roller coaster look like from there?

Jordan Robison: So, you know, I already spoke about, you know, that dark place, and then getting that schedule helped. Well, I truly thought that I was okay, like, especially when I was busy and I was going through all this physical therapy, and I was happy, you know, I was tired, and I was working out, and all the guys were talking to me. I was talking to guys on the team. I thought I was okay. Like, I thought, yeah, this is sad.

There were days where, you know, I'd wake up and I'd, you know, you feel that grief and, you know, you cry and things like that, and I get over it, and I'd be fine. Like. And I was like, no, I'm handling this really well. I'm doing. I'm doing good.

Fast forward. I think it's like five and a half months. I go back light duty, and I'm working in personnel and training. I have a conversation with one of the guys on the team, and he shares a detail with me about the shooting that I didn't remember until he said it. And what the detail was. I remember we were talking, and I was like, yeah. When I was down, I was just trying to call out where I was hit, you know, like, you know, it sounded like a badass in my head.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Jordan Robison: Left arm, right arm. He's like, no. I was like, what do you mean, no? He's like, no, you just said Mike. I was like, like, Mike. He's like, yeah. You just said Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike. And I remember it like. Like this. Like a cheesy TV, like. Like a cheesy movie. This flashback flooded into my brain where, when I was down, the guy at my head, his name's Mike Yin.

Mike was at my head, and he was the one who was talking to me, because that's one thing we always assign to. You know, if you're not actively doing medical aid. You're talking to the person keeping them there. And that's what Mike was doing. Mike was talking to me, like, hey, we're all here. You're good. You're good. And I just. I remember looking at Mike, and all I could say was just like, Mike. Like, Mike, Mike, Mike.

Well, I didn't know. I didn't remember that until he said it. And I can't even describe the emotions that hit me while I'm at work. Light duty. So we've somehow. We're at lunch when we're talking about this. Somehow I'm able to keep it together. I go sit at my desk, and my buddy sits next to me at his desk. Our desk are, like, right next to each other, and I'm, like, staring at a blank computer screen. There's nothing on it.

Like, I'm not doing anything. I'm literally sitting at my desk, staring at a blank computer screen. Just completely. Almost like, shell shock. Like, just completely overwhelmed. And my buddy sits next to me. He was actually a vet, served a couple tours in Iraq. He recognized immediately that something was wrong. He's like, hey, dude, like, why don't you go home? And I was like, all right. He's like, I'll talk to lieutenant. I'll talk to everybody. He's like, don't say bye to anybody. Just grab your stuff, go home. Call me if you need me. I was like, cool, you know, and good on him for being heads up. Yeah, like, it was really heads up.

So I go start driving home, and my heart rate is through the roof. I'm sweating, like, truly, like, diaphoretic. I'm completely sweat through my shirt, sobbing uncontrollably, and my breathing accelerates to the points where I can't even drive. I literally have to pull over halfway home because I can't drive. My hands won't stop shaking.

So I sit in my car on the side of the road in the ghetto of San Bernardino. Because I was taking the streets home, I didn't trust myself to drive the freeway. Just sitting on the side of the road for about 30 minutes before that, what we would describe as a panic attack subsided, and I was actually able to start my car and drive home. And that's when I went back to work and said, like, I need to talk to somebody. I'm not okay. Like, I can't do this.

Jon Becker: Like, yeah.

Jordan Robison: Because that was the first time where that actual physical side of PTSD hit me. And this is months later. At this point, I was like, no, I'm I think I'm fine. Yeah, I think I'm past this.

Jon Becker: Yeah, I totally weathered this thing. It's no big deal.

Jordan Robison: Exactly. Yeah. And so once that hit me, talked to a therapist or they put me in touch with the counselor, told the counselor what happened, and she was like, I'm putting you off work. I was like, well, I wasn't gonna go back anyway, so I'm glad. At least I'll get paid. I'm glad I wasn't gonna go. And so I started working with her, and I think I worked with her for about, I think it was four months that I saw her. And we started doing this therapy called EMDR. So rapid. Sorry. Eye movement desensitization. Desensitization. I forgot what the r stands for. Something like that is.

So essentially it's you need to take that short term memory that's causing your brain to think you're in a fight or flight situation and activating your sympathetic nervous system. You need to take that short term memory and get your brain to process it and put it into long term memory. She was like, that's what's happening. It's like the emotional side is the emotional side. You're going to grieve. You're going to be angry. You're going to go through all that.

She's like, that's just going to happen. But the physical side, the panic attack, the accelerated heart rate, the sweatiness, because this had happened a couple times after that, that trigger, she's like, that's something we can help with. You don't have to live like that. So we started this process, and it was a long process and it wasn't easy, but I'm trying to transfer that memory in the long term.

Jon Becker: I've heard it described by other shooting survivors and doctors that I've talked to is the best application I heard was if it fired together, it's wired together.

Jordan Robison: Yeah.

Jon Becker: And that you have to unwire the physiological response from the emotional. Like you said, you know, the fear, the trauma, the sadness, all of that is an emotion.

Jordan Robison: Yeah.

Jon Becker: And you can process the emotion, but it's the physical aspect of it. It's the high heart rate and literally your body going back into fight or flight uncontrollably. Right? Because there is no direct threat right now.

Jordan Robison: Straight adrenaline.

Jon Becker: No way to solve it.

Jordan Robison: Yeah, straight adrenaline dump.

Jon Becker: How so? You worked with her for about four months. When does that portion of this thing not necessarily go away, but become manageable and kind of tempered?

Jordan Robison: I'd probably say, I think towards the end of that time, the severe panic attacks subsided for me. And I know it's different for everybody. But, like, the adrenaline dumps randomly got smaller and smaller till eventually they kind of stopped for me on the emotional side to where I felt, like, emotionally, I could talk about it.

I could watch the video. I could, you know, share this experience without getting too emotional. Probably took me. It still comes back every once in a while, but I'd say probably over the year mark, like, maybe year two, three months, something like that.

Jon Becker: Yeah. Well, and what. What now still triggers that for you? Like, is there anything direct where you're like, oh, I need to avoid, you know, I need to watch. What? Avoid watching Rambo or, you know, I can't watch cats on TV or, you know.

Jordan Robison: Well, it's, I think we talked about it, obviously, before this. If I'm watching body worn camera video from somebody else's incident, I can watch that just fine. Even if they're taking contact, even if they're taking fire, it's the officer down where I can hear the officers screaming, where I could hear or see the blood, things like that. I can still watch it. Like, you know, if I had to get through it, I could do it and I'd be fine. But it's. Do I avoid it? Yeah. Like, personally, I don't want to see it because I'm like, I've been there. It sucks.

Jon Becker: I mean, you know, you and I watched the video of you together, and. And, I mean, I. My heart rate was elevated. Like, it's. It's. It's certainly traumatic, and. But it's. It's a testament to your willingness to go to therapy, your willingness to engage. You know, it's so easy as, as a type males to think, I'm good.

Jordan Robison: Yeah, I'm good.

Jon Becker: I can deal with this. And, you know, it's. It's at hinch again, and I have had this conversation, like, you know, you didn't hesitate to get your leg fixed when it got shot.

Jordan Robison: Yeah.

Jon Becker: Right. Your arms broke, and you're getting that traded. But we're very inclined to just go, oh, no, no, my brain. There's nothing wrong with my brain. Yeah, no, your brain had the same experience that the rest of your body did

Jordan Robison: It's the same thing. Like, my leg was broken or my leg was not broken until it was broken. You know what I mean? Like, like, when that happens, like, your mind needs to be fixed. So for me, I was fine up until, boom. Like, I was hit with it hard. And I know it's different for everybody. Some people can be progressive, especially, I know, a lot of guys, long years on the job, where they see horrendous things PTSD can be. Can grow and shape over time. But this, for me, was one major incident that was causing a, like, a visceral reaction that I needed to go deal with. Yeah.

Jon Becker: So we've, you know, subsequent to your shooting, you've had conversations with guys who have recently been in shootings.

Jordan Robison: Yeah.

Jon Becker: And, you know, one of the things that I, as your friend, am most proud of is the fact that you were willing to go and engage that and pass on, you know, kind of what was shared with you by other people. What would your counsel be to somebody who has just had an event like this?

Jordan Robison: Well, there's two portions of it, obviously, as we talked about, for the physical stuff, the simple advice, just 100% in all your. Everything you can do to try and recover physically, go 100%, even if it. All you can do is move your hand in the hospital. Well, then move your hand, flex your hand, do whatever you can.

So that's the physical side. For the mental side, you can't do it on your own, no matter how much you want to. You cannot fix what. What is going on in your brain on your own. Now, whether that means you talk to a therapist or you talk to somebody who's been through it before, I recommend a trained professional personally.

When you talk to that trained professional, you need to have a connection with them. Like, if you talk to somebody and you're like, wow, this guy's kind of a p****, you're not gonna. You're not gonna heal from that guy. Go to somebody else. Like, don't. Don't sit there and try and deal with somebody you don't like with your therapist. You need to be able to trust them. You need to have a connection with them, because that – They say 50% effectiveness is determined by your relationship with your therapist.

So you're talking. A huge amount of healing or lack of can be done by your relationship with your therapist. So that's huge. And then there's a community out there of people who've been through bullshit like this who are here to help, you know, I've done. I'm going to keep doing my part to reach out to guys who are going through this just to be there, you know? And it's just crazy, too, when you talk to these guys, how much you have in common. Like, every shooting is different, every set of physical problems different, every set of mental problems is different.

But there's just so many things that, you know, we all have in common that, like, do you go through this? He's like, yeah, man, I really want to. One of the big things was sleep. I didn't sleep for s*** for probably the first year. Didn't sleep like I could not fall asleep to save my life.

Once I was asleep, which probably happened like once every two, three days. I sleep for like 12 hours because my body was exhausted. But falling asleep was brutal. And I know I've talked to other guys who really struggle with sleep because they either dream or, you know, they wake up every hour. But sleep is a common thing. And that got better for me one when time had passed and I got therapy.

Jon Becker: So what about for people who, you know, like, when this whole thing happens, obviously everybody around you has a reaction to this.

Jordan Robison: Yeah.

Jon Becker: Right? And some of those reactions are positive and some are not. What would you counsel people who are close to somebody who has been through this?

Jordan Robison: Yeah, that's a really good question. I would just say that you should probably look at your own mental health as well because you, especially the guys who put tourniquets on me, like, they. They went through something traumatic. They saw one of their buddies essentially get butchered and they had to try and fix it. Didn't know if he was going to live or die. They all had to go do interviews with blood, my blood all over their hands, their uniforms.

I mean, Spencer talked about it super close with his family. He has to go home, face his family, who's all like, house Jordan. House Jordan. He doesn't know, you know, you are going to have your own trauma. When, especially for the guys who were there who don't go through the actual, who don't actually get shot, you have trauma that you have to deal with.

My advice is don't try and get your therapy session or lump yourself into that same category. And this isn't to disparage anybody, but there I – What I notice, and this happened with multiple people, is a lot of guys who were going through some mental trauma of their own would come to me and try and find some absolution in it and try and be like, we went through something crazy. And I'm like, yes, we did. But like, we went through two different things, you know?

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Jordan Robison: Like, and I'll be honest, probably emotionally, I didn't have to go back to the department. I didn't have to deal with that. Like my, I don't know what you went through, man. And I'm sure that sucked going back to work after seeing that, seeing one of your buddies go down, I couldn't even. I can't contemplate what that's like, and that's. You need to find somebody who's been through that. But at the same time, too, it's like, I can't be your therapist because I'm going through something as well.

Jon Becker: Yeah. Don't try to relive the event.

Jordan Robison: Yeah. Not. Not right other. Not right away in it. It's all coming from a good place. I get that because they need to go through it. But my advice is, go talk to your therapist. Go get a therapist. Go talk to them. Go talk to each other. Go talk to – And when I'm in a good place, like I am now, I'll talk to you about it all day long. I could care less. We talked to, I don't even know how many hours I've talked to all my brothers on the team about this for.

But when that person who's physically healing and emotionally healing, you got. You gotta let them heal. Don't dump your. Your burden onto them as well.

Jon Becker: What did people do that was helpful?

Jordan Robison: I thought it was really helpful how people kind of coordinated behind, behind the scenes together. Like, I don't know how somebody coordinated with my parents. And, like, every day, somebody would drop off a meal. You know, every day somebody would say, here's dinner. Here's dinner. Here's dinner.

So my fiance didn't have to worry about anything. I didn't have to worry about anything. We didn't have to order food. Just constant stream of food. I think people got together, the poa fix, like, my fence, because one of my fence was falling, and it had been my plan to fix it. Obviously, I got hurt, so I couldn't do it. And they just came out of nowhere, fixed my fence.

So just little things that the community got together and did for me really meant a lot. Like, to this day, it really meant a lot. One of the things that I wasn't there for, but I also, like, really found inspirational, too, is the whole SWAT team got together with each other to deal with what they were dealing with for, I think, like, a week, two weeks after every day, they would just go meet up and talk to each other.

And knowing that my guys were taking care of themselves, especially after the initial shooting, kind of gave me some peace. Knowing that guys were reaching out and taking care of my fiance kind of gave me peace. That way I could focus on me, because instead of having to worry about my fiance or just, like, you know, is she being taken care of? Everybody is hitting me up like, she's good. We've got her. Whatever she needs, she gets. Don't even stress about that. So taking those little burdens off the person who's healing really meant a lot.

Jon Becker: Because it creates space for you to go heal.

Jordan Robison: Exactly. Just. It literally just lets you focus on yourself.

Jon Becker: If you were to go back prior to this incident with Jordan 1.0, nowhere near the man Jordan 2.0 is, but Jordan 1.0, what would you tell you that you think would help you get through this? Other than what we've already talked about, is there anything else that you'd be like, oh, man, I wish I had known.

Jordan Robison: Oh…. I don't know. Just really don't take your personal relationships, especially at home, with your parents, with your fiance, with your friends, with your family. Don't take it lightly. Like, take that serious, because you never know when that's going to end. And luckily, you know, I got to make amends and, you know, closer now with everybody, you know, but before, I was pretty distant with everybody. It's distant with my parents. I was distant with my fiance, distant with my family. It's just 100% focused on work.

So if I could go back in time and just say one thing, it's just like, hey, man, really don't take those relationships for granted. Like, really take that serious. But as far as prepping him for it, I don't think there's any prep for it. I think you just got to go through it. I would just show up physically strong and just work your a** off. I mean, obviously I would tactic because. Tactics, we got to sit down and discuss some tactics.

Jon Becker: Sure.

Jordan Robison: Hindsight being what it is, but…

Jon Becker: Hindsight is always 2020.

Jordan Robison: Yeah. Physically, I felt like I was prepared for it. Emotionally, it's a roller coaster, but I still feel like I got through it. Just the big thing I would say is your personal relationships, because that could have gone differently, and I would have ended being in a less than ideal place with all the people that I love and care about.

Jon Becker: So do you think that this has kind of re-perspectived life for you?

Jordan Robison: 100%. That's the biggest reason. Not the biggest reason, but it's definitely consideration for my medical retirement. Like me and my fiance. You know, we want to start a family. We, you know, I want to be there for my parents, X, Y, and Z, and there's more to life than going out and chasing murderers and gangsters. And it's fun, don't get me wrong. And it needs to be done and it's important.

But for me, with my hardware, everything that I went through had to sit down and make that, you know, personal decision to, to step back with long term goals in mind, long term life assessment in mind. Where do I want to be in 10, 20, 30, 40 years? So, yeah, no, definitely gave me perspective on everything.

Jon Becker: Jordan 2.0, a better man than Jordan 1.0 was.

Jordan Robison: I definitely feel like it matures you a lot again, even against your will. Like you, you grow up when you go through something like this.

Jon Becker: So, my brother, I appreciate you being here with me! This was fantastic! And hopefully everybody that heard the story will know that Jordan's okay.

Jordan Robison: Yeah. And just this stuff happens. Unfortunately, it happens. We're seeing it on like a weekly, even daily basis sometimes. So hopefully this podcast can get in the right hands and hit the right set of yours.

But, yeah, no, thanks for having me, brother!

Jon Becker: Thanks so much!

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!

Episode 9 – Chief John Perez: Securing the Rose Parade/Bowl & Authentic Leadership

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 Chief John Perez. John recently retired as the chief of police for the Pasadena Police Department in California. In his nearly 37 years of service to Pasadena, John served at literally all ranks in the department. During his career, John worked patrol, narcotics, counterterrorism, as a SWAT sergeant, lieutenant, and commander.

John helped form the first generation of Pasadena's tactical team, which had the challenge of deploying as a full time gang enforcement team and as a SWAT team for many years. John was twice awarded the chief's medal of excellence and received several commendations for his service over the years.

John, thank you for joining me on The Debrief!

Chief John Perez: I appreciate being here, Jon. Hopefully I have something to contribute on leadership.

Jon Becker: I'm sure you do. Tell me, let's start with kind of your history and background. Where'd you grow up? What was the decision that led to you becoming a police officer?

Chief John Perez: Absolutely. I've been a LA kid my whole life. I was born in East La, and Belvedere Heights now refers to as East LA, a large family. First generation Americans had brothers that were born in Mexico and parents born as well. And so they migrated here. And from East LA, we generally made the migration east of over to LA Puente. And then from LA Puente after about 1213 years old, 14, we went over to hues Covina, which was a dynamic change in lifestyles. And where we were moving with a father who really worked hard all week long and a mother who raised us and worked part time. And we were also raised by a woman from Mississippi who was my mom's best friend.

So I have the best of both cultures and culturally as a Latino. And then moving into a mostly white area of town, going to South Hills High School in West Covina really produced a view of the world and life, and with one incident that occurred, really pushed me into policing and prepared me better than I thought.

Jon Becker: Will you talk about that for me?

Chief John Perez: At 14 years old, I had a. I was probably 12, 13. My cousin was 14. He was stabbed in an incident outside of a liquor store where he was just buying candy and he wasn't, in fact, a gang member and a good kid, a good natured kid in a great family. And he was stabbed and later died in the hospital. And that was just. And we grew up in this gang area where, you know, we really couldn't use the parks if the police or the gang members were in the parks.

So you learn to have a way of life where it really gets in the way, you know, as a kid, to really go out there and grow and be in a safer place. When I became of age to move around about 14 years old, and finding a group of friends in West Covina, it changed dramatically. I was able to move around, enjoy life, but I never forgot, you know, the experiences we had as a family going through the death and the reminder that there are bad people out there. And since that point, at about 12, 13 years old, all I wanted to do was be a police officer and serve. Nothing else. Not the military, not the firefighting. Just serving as a police officer was my goal.

Jon Becker: And was passed in the first agency you went to work for?

Chief John Perez: It was the very first agency I applied for, and the last and the last it was. I applied for the sheriff's department and passing at the same time as a police cadet. I was able to take the entry police officer test in those days in the 1984, just in the beginning of 85, took the test. So when I became a police officer, I didn't have to take a test again.

It was more of just updating my background and sending me to the academy at 20 and a half, being not only the youngest person in the academy, but the youngest person, the youngest police officer in the department for a while until somebody else was hired at 21. The average age back then was 24, 25. Now it's closer to 30. So you can imagine at 20 and a half, you really got to make sure you're mature and trying to move into an area of making good decisions.

Jon Becker: I have a 20 and a half year old son. I don't think I'd arm him.

Chief John Perez: My parents probably said the same thing.

Jon Becker: Yeah, it's a fair point. So talk to me then, through the early parts of your career, I know you worked a variety of assignments. Kind of walk me through the big periods of your early career.

Chief John Perez: Well, you know, it was dynamic. In the eighties, it was about the violence, right? We saw the crack cocaine and gang epidemic kind of crash into each other. And being a young officer out in the field, I think it was only about four weeks into it, there was a shooting where we responded to a street there in Pasadena, with a lot of gang activity. As I make the turn with my training officer onto the street, you could see the smoke coming from casings. I'm 21 years old, thinking, you know, they're paying me $12 an hour for this.

So I get into the street, I get out of a car, and the person shot as we're talking to him was somebody I had stopped prior and knew him a little bit. And we're kind of connected about the same age, you know. And then to see him taking his last words as he dies, as he's talking to me, and, you know, you're going through these emotions, but you also have your field training officer, you know, yelling at you to get a statement from him who did it, you know?

So it's a really odd place to be from an emotional standpoint as a young man and having care for people that you're right in the midst of this event where somebody's dying on you that you remembered a week earlier that you had a pretty good conversation with, and you knew he was a gang member, or I knew he was a gang member. But nevertheless, life went. It was gone right there in front of me.

Jon Becker: And that was how far into the job?

Chief John Perez: That was about three, four weeks. Two to three weeks. Less than a month, for sure. And my training officer walked me through all that much. Shortly after that, we had somebody jump off our Colorado bridge. And as soon as the body almost hit, my training officer was yelling at me to look the other way, because that thumping of a body hitting the ground, these are things you experience, along with a high level of calls for service and the murder rate that we were experiencing in California, especially in Pasadena, one neighborhood was way too much.

Give you an example. Back then, we had 13,000 part one crimes, major crimes, and most of it was in one neighborhood. Today, Pasadena probably has about 3600, and it was the lowest period we've ever had during the nineties.

Jon Becker: So it's 80% reduction.

Chief John Perez: Without a doubt, in violent crime even more. And so, during the nineties was by far the best decade of policing. After the LA riots. Haven't experienced that. It was a very unusual period of the smelling sensation of buildings and the amount of people we arrested out of Pasadena. Rodney King was from Pasadena in Altadena area.

So you knew him from pet stops, and you're familiar with him. But it was a terrible period of time to go through that purpose, that time, and then move into the nineties with the best research we've ever seen in policing. Federal grants, problem oriented policing, community oriented policing. We really were becoming skilled at what we were doing during the nineties.

But then came the advent of other things. Bike patrols, SWAT teams for many other agencies. Many of these departments started to hire more officers. The crime bill was written in 94. In 96, 97, we had 100,000 more officers added across the country.

So all these things were occurring, and we're all moving to a place where we didn't know. We were finding so many opportunities for equipment, tactical training, police vehicles. It really was setting us up for failure into the future without knowing that, because at some point it was not managed as well as it could have been.

Jon Becker: Yeah, you had this period of time where it kind of started with the 84 Olympics, and the development of SWAT starts in 71. At LA, full time SWAT 84, everybody's prepping for the Olympics. We have this massive expansion in tactical teams all over the country. And then Rodney King, 911, Columbine. There's this series of events, the North Hollywood shootout, where the patrol side almost followed at that point, the tactical side, and began to professionalize and increase equipment and all that. When did your team start?

Chief John Perez: Our team started in 1997, and I arrived to the team late in 97, as a team was just taking off. And one of the concerns chief Malikian had the time as his team was developing, was to create it into a neighborhood policing team equally as much as a tactical team. Now, if you look today at our specialized units, SWAT teams and neighborhood policing teams, and even gang units all function differently. A mindset is different.
SWAT teams are trying to slow it down, control it, the tempo of the event. Neighborhood oriented policing has to do with creating relationships in neighborhoods, having people call us as often as possible to try to find long term solutions to neighborhood problems.

Then you have gang enforcement teams. Their effort is open up that car door often, make the arrest, look for something that might be a crime to stop the next violent incident from happening. And now you're taking all these three and putting them into a blender and just sit and go. It could be a train wreck.

Jon Becker: It's going to go sideways. One of the three areas. It's going to go a little sideways.

Chief John Perez: At some point it will. And we were creating. That group of officers were all hand picked, and we were careful as to who we brought into the unit under Lieutenant Darryl Qualls and our commander, which was Wayne Hills, who ended up becoming the deputy chief. The minds that they had were excellent for what we were trying to create.

We were looking for the right police officers to come into that unit, reviewing police reports, see who everybody wanted did they have the mindset to follow good directives, to be part of the community, to want to engage the community? At times, we didn't get it right, and we had personnel issues and problems. And during that time, we also had Rampart.

And so I read the entire Rampart report. I was talking to some of the personnel from Rampart that transferred out to learn the lessons, the top ten lessons, of how to run these type of units. So we ensured the most basic of approaches on leadership were there. But much of it was management. It was about making sure we read the reports, the arrest information. We went out to see what kind of arrests were being made. We looked at the quality of the arrest. We had conversations, debriefs, and discussions on everything.

So, really, it was an unusual period of time to create such a big team, but realizing there was a dynamic out there that reminded you on cautionary tales, what could go wrong.

Jon Becker: So at that point, it was neighborhood crime task force.

Chief John Perez: It was a neighborhood crime task force from 19. They were developed in August 28th, 1985. I remember that memorandum that was written, and we just went to this fantastic technology, which was called collating copies, where you could make more than one copy on a machine. And so I remember making one extra copy of that memo for myself, and I still have it today. It is something that I glean on.

And there was a lot of good information from that report, and it basically stated that the amount of violent crime and what was referred to as Northwest Pasadena was just outrageous, and something had to be done. And they broke it down by area codes and some of the violent crime and the races and the cultures, and then decided that we needed a 24 person team to go out there every day and make arrests. And they did top end. They made thousands of arrests.

And we look now, 30 years later, and the criticisms that we get, as well as the damage of that, well, okay, we probably put a lot of people who deserve to go to jail, but we also took a lot of people and put them into jail that maybe could have had diversion or just needed something more than a ten year or five year prison sentence for your fourth arrest for rock cocaine. Right?

So there was a better way to have done it back then, and we just went all hard and all heavy with the. With the war on drugs, and we're not talking about those that needed to go to prison and should never come out. The wide majority should have the opportunity to relive their lives.

And I think we destroyed a lot of lives. Not Pasadena, but the general reform across the country and very careful about that. For somebody to have a federal charge of, you know, one rock cocaine and to go to jail for ten years from that, and you see 18 year old kid tearing up like, I got no life no more.

Jon Becker: Yeah. It's interesting because retrospectively, I think history has not been overwhelmingly kind to the war on drugs, and especially the federal sentencing guidelines. I remember the article that I wrote to get on to law review in law school was about federal sentencing guidelines. And it was contrasting a guy who had an ounce of cocaine that was laminated into a suitcase and an ounce of cocaine in the suitcase. One guy goes to prison for 30 years, one guy goes to prison for 10. Cause the container counts. So I think that retrospectively, there was that moment where it was like, okay, that might not have worked.

Chief John Perez: Yeah, we have enough science now and data to make better decisions. And that's what I'm hoping here in post retirement, to be able to run around and help that education. Not from a place of thinking we know it all, but provide the cautionary tales and the study of what we need from a police officer today and the prototypes we're looking for.

Jon Becker: When did NCTF move into being a SWAT team? Like, when did that – When did you stop the neighborhood crime?

Chief John Perez: Tasmania, 1985, about 92, 93, became a special enforcement team. And then by 95, the idea started to come out about a team that was really more tactically inclined and SWAT trained. And so by 96, we went to the special enforcement team, SES.

Jon Becker: And at that point you were a sergeant?

Chief John Perez: I was a sergeant moving into the unit at that point. And brand new officers, all brand new, really. The age difference between me as a sergeant and the average officer was maybe two years or three years. Same with my lieutenant, that he was the youngest lieutenant wooden, Darrell Qualls, and he was probably, you know, 34, 33, 34. So we had this perfect team being set up. Culturally, what a leader that was, african american and Latinos, two latino sergeants, and then a team that was made up of everybody, Asians, blacks, whites. It was really a team you could be proud of. And it was by far a period of time.

We learned how to be better leaders with each other, with the community, and really manage all that work that was coming through at times. We were deployed 7, 14, 21 straight days. And not only were we the gang unit for the shootings, to try to stop more shootings, we were also the SWAT team. Then we became a fugitive team. And at the time we had a janitors for justice.

So we became the dignitary protection and the protest team. So we were doing it all. And it was rough on families, it was rough on people's personal lives, where their personal lives were, in fact, a professional life. You couldn't escape it. And so that's just the way it was. You worked out together. You spent the night in the locker room, sleeping on the floor together in the offices, standing by, waiting for hours for events to happen, if the president visited or some high dignitary came to town. So it really was an extraordinary period of time. When I look back and all the work these officers did.

Jon Becker: So, and at that point, the primary focus is criminal. With 911, that changes. Right? When did you promote, you promoted a lieutenant? Around that time, right?

Chief John Perez: Right before 911. A month or two before 911, I was a patrol watch commander. Very unusual period of time when 911 struck that morning and my wife was a dispatcher at the police department called me and woke me up. And it was just a very. I mean, the feelings we all had that day, you know, it was, this depression was sitting in. The world seemed smaller, like you couldn't breathe, and you're wondering what's going to happen next and all the potentials for another attack. And started to think out the Rose Parade and the Rose Bowl games and things that we host.

And the next thing I know, they created a counterterrorism unit of two people, and I was the lieutenant of that section. So literally, they walked me to a closet, called me in and says, this room with all these boxes needs to be done. And you have, you know, it was September, obviously, so we're getting into late September by the time I get up there. We need you to move all this and get ready for new plans and security plans for New Year's. So hurry up.

Jon Becker: So clean out this closet in the next two months, secure the Rose parade and the rose ball from a terrorist act to tier one events.

Chief John Perez: Absolutely.

Jon Becker: In two months.

Chief John Perez: Absolutely.

Jon Becker: Seems reasonable.

Chief John Perez: And at that time, we didn't really have a lot of federal support. We had some support, but it wasn't a system that we created as a result of it. And I was sent off to New York to work with their counterterrorism team and work on the Macy's day parade through the neighborhoods and the bureaus that they have.

So I learned a lot from that experience going up there. Greg afshuriandhennae, who was the corporal in the room, incredible. Always owe him so much for what he did during that period. We worked seven days a week, sometimes 20 hours a day. For all those months, there was no rest, rewriting policy protocols engaging people.

And we were responsible for the potential investigations that came up. And it wasn't about proving that you had yourself a possible terrorist event. You were disproving was the approach we took, because that was a much better and healthier way to try to prove something. You could rationalize as to why not proving something puts you right automatically on the opposite side here. You become your own critic on these things. And we had some very interesting calls of, you know, Middle Easterners, for example, you know, using plastic bags to block older windows out at night.

And they only come in after one in the morning to have a cigarette outside in an apartment complex. And they'd go back in, and we're a month off or less than that from New Year's. How do you handle that? You know, getting our bicycle team. We were all set up on surveillances, each one that came out for a cigarette to smoke. What did we do? We gleaped them. Good old police tactics. Each one that came out one by one.

Finally, the last one came out, like, where's everybody at? We gleaped him as well. We get in there, we hold the place, we call the FBI. They come out, and they do an investigation. They say, we got nothing. These are just Saudi Arabian kids, students with money from their parents who are going to school at PCC, and they just need some direction. And so I remember the FBI agent leaving as we all left after 4 hours of an investigation. They said, just don't embarrass us. And it's like, wow, we have a lot of learning to do in terms of culture.

And so we went out, and really we were taught by the mosques about the culture and building our relationships around those communities in Altadena and Pasadena was hugely important. So that incident kind of drove that, like, hey, we need some training here. You know, we can't just use our instincts in policing every time we think we're right, which is the hardest part about police work, right?

Figuring out whether a crime is actually occurring, not chasing the guy with the money bag, with the mask and the money sign on the bag. That's simple. It's thinking there might be a crime. That's the most difficult part of policing forever.

Jon Becker: That's an interesting way to put that. It's interesting how, like, you think about 911 and the effect it had on the country, but the effect it had on Pasadena was pretty profound, because I'm sure that prior. Well, talk to me about prior to 911, what was securing the Rose parade and the Rose bowl like, and maybe give us some. Some give us some perspective on the Rose parade and the Rose bowl.

Chief John Perez: Well, you're talking about the parade itself. That is a month's planning just for the actual operation, but it starts months in advance, if not at the beginning of the year, as each event goes on and UCLA season begins. Our planners, which are amazing people, they're assigned a lieutenant, a sergeant, a corporal, a couple of officers, and that's it.

Nothing more than that. And they would go out and plan every event, taking every type of precaution and trying to reduce the cost. We could make everything as safe as you would want at a high cost. The freedoms are going to be restricted and it'd be unaffordable. We'll end up being like today's soccer games in Europe, right? Fully fenced off and so many, it becomes a man's game. Families don't go and it's getting better these days, but.

So we were in the same predicament as after 911 to see how we're going to approach this. But before that, a lot of planning, a lot of effort. You depend on mutual aid, you depend on relationships. Cost was always a factor that was more of a dynamic as law enforcement began to increase the cost with salaries and retirements.

And these things made it more difficult. So before that, it was tough. But we had fantastic people from Roger Kelly, who planned the World cup, to people we had that were known across the country by their name and what they did with people like Alex Uribe and Bruce George and people that just knew how to do this work. And Randy Taylor was a well known name. But these are people that traveled the country to other stadiums.

Jon Becker: What was the primary fear for the Rose parade and Rose bowl? Pre 911?

Chief John Perez: It was managing the crowds. It was an event happening of violence on the parade. The parade's a million people. They thought it was probably closer today as h***. Tech did their numbers, maybe between seven and 800,000 people.

Jon Becker: Actually, on the physical parade route,.

Chief John Perez: It’s the biggest parade that we know of anywhere globally, but definitely in the country. At five and a quarter miles from the last float to where we park them is seven and a half miles. This is a lot of space and it's easy to maneuver as you pass. TV Corner, which is like a stadium. TV corner runs about four or five blocks around Colorado and fair oaks. It fits about 40, 50,000 people and is the most secure place in the country at that time. And in fact, we have so much security there, we start 48 hours in advance.

As the stands are going up, we are making sure that we have complete security with bomb dogs and searches and turnstiles and who's coming in. We've always had that to make sure we didn't have somebody taking over afloat or some kind of attack of any type that we made sure that happened. And so that was always a concern before 911, but it was also managing the crowds into old Pasadena with 80 drinking establishments in a small area of less than a mile square. That's a lot of restaurants and bars that have even been there.

Jon Becker: 700,000 people and a bunch of alcohol.

Chief John Perez: And now you move into the next morning, you're dropping into the Rolls bowl. At the time, they almost had 100,000 people fit prior to the bowl being redeveloped, from 100,000 down to about 85,000, not to mention people working the outside events. So you're always looking at about 100,000 people there.

Jon Becker: So when 911 happens, the switch flips, and it goes from we're concerned about demonstrators, we're concerned about street crime, to we're concerned about the Rose parade of the Rose bowl being used as a stage. How does that change at that point? You're running counterterrorism, right? So how did that change your preparation and your relationship with your partner agencies?

Chief John Perez: And so you have to look at the reason why. Right? Simon Sienk, what's the why behind it? The why is that we care about the fact that this is the number one tv event in the morning on New Year's across the globe, you know, with a lot of people, hundreds and hundreds of millions of people watching this event.

So it matters that the bang for the buck right there and then would make a difference about America if you wanted to attack it. And so the why was clear as day. And so the way we went about it, Wayne Hilts, again, he was the deputy chief and loved his leadership, and he says, get that phone and start calling agencies and start getting federal resources.

So you basically have a phone and you start making phone calls and work your way up the ladder to people. And, you know, these days, all those relationships paid off over the years. But I was finding frontline people like myself that would say, hey, we'll be there, we're coming. I said, well, we don't have any overtime. We don't have money to pay you.

And they would, in fact, say, don't worry about it. We're coming from all portions of this country and this globe. We'll be there. And so we had to make sure we had hotels, hotel rooms set up. We had all the resources.

Again, Greg F. Sherman was running most of the investigations at the same time. We're trying to coordinate flights and hotel stays and this and that. So there was a lot of work, not to mention looking at every part of the parade. We walked it, we were underneath the street with public works, looking at the waterways. We were looking at newspaper stands, trash cans moving. Everything you could think of was being redone.

And I remember. I recall Wayne hilts walking in saying, hey, I need a name. We're doing a press release. This new federal team that you're going to, that's going to work with us, what's going to be that name? And we're doing it in the next couple hours. You need to hurry up.

So I'm sitting in the room and Greg's busy. I'm sitting in there. I thought, well, threat assessment response team, we finally got to. I said, how's that sound? Sounds really good. I wasn't smart enough to think it out when I gave him that name, that from. From 2001, 2002, all the way forward, it's known by our street name, Tart.

Jon Becker: Tart.

Chief John Perez: So I wish I'd been more creative. The name itself made sense to me. The threat assessment response team brought every level of tactical response from bombs, dogs and tactical teams and chemical sniffers, planes and military set up all over the region. But the name Tart really didn't reflect the effort.

Jon Becker: It might not have been your best.

Chief John Perez: Branding moment, not at all. The long name was good, so over the years it stuck. The planning was redeveloped and changed, and as we went forward, it was adjusted when needed, and so it still continues on, and these federal partners really make it work for us.

Jon Becker: So you're a lieutenant now. We go post 911. What happens – you then become a commander, if I remember correctly?

Chief John Perez: Nope. I recall there was an opening in the special enforcement section now for a lieutenant, and I thought, they're going to send me over there. I know they are. And so I started packing my boxes. I remember Wayne hilts telling me, hey, you know what? Don't worry about it. We're going to keep you here. You're not going to move. But we've set up all our plans. Everything was already moving.

Once you get to that point, you'd love to work it, but it now has its own life and we as leaders have to realize that it's set up well. It no longer needs me. New leadership can take it to another direction. And sure enough, the chief made a decision to move me to the special enforcement section.

So I spent another three years going back to that unit with a new generation of officers and different dynamics. And we had seen our violent crime rate drop with all the work that was being done with the prior team. In fact, they dropped it to maybe, ooh, one or two gang homicides from the double digits. Incredible work. But then we saw that the leadership changed a bit by 2006, 2007. I became a commander in 2006, and as the leadership started to change, the officers were as great as they ever were. But some of the direction, some of the emphasis changed.

And again, you got those three dynamics. If you mess with one and it's not balanced the right way, you're going to get something different out of it. And sure enough, we saw gang violence skyrocket back up to double digits, and we had a couple double homicides in the street and thinking, oh, my gosh, we need to really do something about this.

So the team was again reformatted, rebranded. We created a fugitive apprehension team to really go after many of the gang members that had warrants that needed to be arrested. And that was a facet we used in the late nineties to go after people with just simple warrants to incarcerate you.

And so those broken window type of approaches does make a difference, and it does incarcerate the more violent, and you throw off the planning because their leaders are now incarcerated. People don't know who's running what from a gang level. So it was helpful to bring it back down again.

Jon Becker: And when you came back to the team as a lieutenant, now having been, you know, post 911, going to New York, going to Boston, seeing the experience, having the experiences you had, did the emphasis of the team change?

Chief John Perez: It did. In the perspective that my lenses, I had multiple lens to look through. And the things that I worried about grew, and I was worried about how much work the team was able to really focus on. The team had shrunk in terms of number of officers, it was hard to get to all the training.

The SWAT component, as important as it was, was a huge restraint on the neighborhood policing and the gang enforcement, because we got to a point with the blue ribbon report and some others that it was about having at least two days of training. And now with court time and special operations, we may lose the visible, preventable part of policing to be out there. Our cars were known. They had no lights on top, no police lights. They were slick top. And whenever anyone saw the slick tops, the street just got quiet.

So we used all kinds of shock and awe over the years on somebody was, you know, their wedding or their birthday or an event or we just needed to rest. We would have patrol guys drive those cars for the shock and awe of it. We'd have people call the station and want to know if John Perez was working or John Baker so we could make sure that the SES is not out there. And so they had everything they tried to do from a criminal standpoint to know if they could run freely or not. And so these were challenges that we had.

The SWAT component was the largest of trying to control how quick it was now growing with weaponry, bearcats, and the need for more training. More training, more training. We were getting away from neighborhood policing and the gang enforcement.

Jon Becker: So at some point you promoted to captain, or was it commander?

Chief John Perez: It's commander straight from the special enforcement section, which is at the time was unheard of for usually they want you to go through administration, have some other type of staff level jobs. And the chief, Chief Malikian, again, had confidence in me to take me straight from that type of unit, from a strip mall all the way north of the city in some little building, and bring you all the way downtown to the upper levels of the department and command staff.

It was a daunting feeling of this overwhelming thing, like, oh, my gosh, the first day I opened up that key to that office, it was like, man, I am not ready for this. I don't think you're ever ready for an assignment. But it was like, holy smokes.

Jon Becker: So how did you cope with that feeling?

Chief John Perez: I was fortunate. I learned it was a learning growth and I ensured for people that I was learning. I had a reputation of running hard. The world to me was SES. So in that unit, tactically planning things, you always made room for discussion before a big decision. And the team kind of understood one another and where we were going, we all knew the why to it, and we all bought in.

As a commander, the world changed. Suddenly I had 100 and something people of civilians, professional staff working. And so I had this reputation from coming from there. I had to adjust myself that I get used to who I was. And many of the administrators that we had that were level equal to a lieutenant were far more skilled than most of our lieutenants when it came to technical work within the department. The systems that we had, from computers to excels to whatever we were doing, they were far advanced compared to the average lieutenant.

And so I learned a lot during my two years as a commander of the civilian division of dispatch records, much of our technology that was going on, our jail systems. And it really was important to learn that avenue of work for me and was a great foundation, much as was a police cadet in my first two years, where all the administrative work of working the computer systems was the foundation for me all the way through my career.

So it really was an amazing period of time for people who are in law enforcement. Pay attention to those type of assignments that you think are not what I call the meat eating assignments. That's the vegetables on the plate, and it's good for your health. Right? And we have to learn to go after the vegetables on the plate. I would never replace those years as a police cadet and knowing how the systems worked.

By the time I was a trainee with an FTO, I was teaching people how to pull information out of the computer they never thought was possible. And working with the administrators, they taught me so much, was another growth to understand that dynamic and to understand the mindset of a professional staff, civilian workforce compared to the, again, meat eating workforce of police officers. So it was the best growth I ever had as an executive was that period of time.

Jon Becker: So you were admin commander for two years?

Chief John Perez: For almost two years I was in that assignment before moving on to the field operations division, which was in fact, our patrol division. And that was a frontline position where you are really, really trying to manage lieutenants and senior lieutenants at that – With a way of doing business.

So the directives that come in from a police chief, whether they're that police chief's directives or they come from the city manager or they're given by a counsel in terms of guidance, many times it's the commander that's got to go down and sell those directives. And you can't say, the chief told me, you really got to help people understand this is, we're trying to go with this directive and trying to expand people's vision.

So I don't think my skill sets then were developed enough as an executive to walk in and help people understand some of the changes we were trying to make to gain the trust of the public for the type of police work we had to do. And it's quite the challenge.

So I spent three years in the patrol division, really trying to manage many of the obstacles. Every ten years or so, we were losing a large part of our workforce due to the amount of overtime that we have forced overtime. It was a problem that we were dealing with all the way up until I made interim chief, and it was a way, we found a way out of that, but it was a constant problem with officers leaving us and having to rebuild the system again.

Jon Becker: So it's interesting you know, you see guys that are promoting the chiefs of police. A lot of times they'll come in one of two ways. They come in through an admin route where they have a lot of admin experience, or they come in through, you know, what you described as the meat eating route, which I think, knowing you as long as I've known you, I think is a very accurate description of, you know, Sergeant John Perez.

How did you synthesize, though? Because it's knowing you as long as I've known you, you always had a reputation of being like a hard charging, go getter, meat eating cop, and all of a sudden you're thrust into a very political environment. Right? I guess it's probably when you become the patrol commander that you were introduced to the politics of the city, right?

Chief John Perez: Oh, absolutely. You're at the whim of who the police chief and the senior people of the organization are, and people jockeying for positions, people looking to show they got control over something. You have to live in that environment. And for the goodness of it all, keep focus on neighborhood policing and doing this job for the people that need it. Not everybody on the block gets to vacation in Hawaii or the cabo. For them, the best it gets. Their kids get to play out front, man. That's the best it gets. And our police officers sometimes forget that everywhere across this country, we forget that basic tenant. We're here to make your life better. If maybe the deputies in my town would have done that more, I could have used the park without them being in there as gang members.

So everything I did later on was a lot to do with how I grew up in the first half of my life, to say, that's how we should police. I was policing from a 13 year old eyes of John Perez thinking, this is all I want from you. You know, it's like a young John Perez talking to the older John Perez. Don't forget about that. Nobody's going to like it. People are going to push back at you. People are going to think you're weird about that and maybe not going to like you over that.

But I had to stay true to my approach to policing, that it was about prevention, making, developing relationships and really trying to make it safer for people by prevention first being visible and then by intervention, and then if we have to enforce, well, who knows where that's going to go, right? It usually goes very well, but when it doesn't, we see the video of that. So that's why prevention and intervention are hugely important today more than ever before.

Jon Becker: It's interesting, because it's, as you come into higher and higher leadership positions, the politics of the world begin to get you. And as a chief of police, there's a lot of political pressure for you to act a certain way or to try and appease certain groups.

And, you know, I have a lot of friends now that I'm an old man, and we're all old men, a lot of friends that have come into those jobs, and you see it change them. I didn't see that with you. I never saw you kind of undergo that transformation. You were still a meat eater, but somehow you learned to speak fluent vegan.

Chief John Perez: Well, you know, I'll tell you, that's great. To put it, furthering my education as a lieutenant, getting my master's degree, I went for my bachelor's as a sergeant. As a lieutenant, my master's. I started working on my PhD as a lieutenant, I mean, as a commander. And I think that learning how to do peer review reading was a game changer. And picking up great books over the years from the early nineties all the way through to where we're at today with the leaders and what they're using from previous history really changed the format on using science into policing, really using science. Like, okay, how can I take that and use it?

There were some ideas I held for ten years. I'd write a memo to myself and hold it on a flash drive or the computer drive, wherever it was at, and bring it back up or print it out and put it into a book. And I have a ton of memos from the 1990s I wrote myself. It's like almost I was talking to myself into the future. And so I used much of that from. We reorged the entire department. I used much of that documentation and reading the peer reviewed stuff that was out there on the science. And it really was the nerd part of us coming out and willing to try new things and being progressive. A really difficult place to take a piece of equipment.

I mean, we visited your place on occasion. Always remember the janitors for justice and saying, hey, man, we need stuff. We don't have money to buy any of the munitions we may need. You said, take what you need, but you use anything. You have to pay me for what you use.

Jon Becker: You recommend stuff, you gotta buy it.

Chief John Perez: You basically said that we're talking the 1990s, and that's before the period where I knew you selling your leather from the trunk of your car for handcuffs. So we all made this progression over the three, four decades now where we're at today.

So I think that was. And spending time with smart people around me and people I respected. You're a big part of my own growth because you are well accepted by law enforcement and you're not in law enforcement. I think most people, the younger generation would probably think you were at one time. That's a frequent question.

You are well respected and accepted because of your mindset, what you provide and, you know, you put away the ego. You put all that stuff away and you deal with us. But you're a big reader. You use science and you use everyday rational thinking. And I believe that's what connects you to many of the leaders in law enforcement today. That's why you're so well accepted.

Jon Becker: It's one of the things that I think, and I think we share this. The more people I command, the bigger the business is, the more responsibilities I find, the more terrified I am of being wrong.

Chief John Perez: Right.

Jon Becker: And I see that same thing with you where it's kind of driven. You know, it's like they say that, you know, talk about Kobe Bryant. You know, he liked to win, but he really hated to lose. And successful people, it strikes me, are people that they want to win. Like, I like to win. When I win, I'm over winning so fast because I'm worried about the next fight and how I might lose that.

Chief John Perez: There's not a lot of learning lessons from winning.

Jon Becker: Yeah, that's true.

Chief John Perez: When you lose, unfortunately, that sets up your winning for later. And I had a lot of learning to do. And losing, you lose credibility. It's how you lose credibility in an organization. As a leader, you are going to lose it. You have to gain it back. You deliver directives. You're taking a chance. Many of the leaders of today, you have to be actuarial. You're reading tea leaves and you have to have the confidence in yourself to say, I think, first of all, we're heading this way. And this is why you may be wrong.

At the end of the day and for a while, you lose credibility from that. You could be an NFL coach and third and one, and you decide to do a set of plays for a while that aren't working. The growth in, that's amazing. But in the meantime, you are well hated. I'm a big Ted Lasso fan for the leadership lessons that are in there. Right?

And so these things are huge. When we look at where we lose in life and the credibility we lose on any given day, the next day you get to wake up and get it back. It takes a little bit longer, but there are times I tried to do things or my ideas were way off, and I had to deal with it. And you have to fall forward, right?

You have to, as I say by Maxwell, you got to fail forward. You have to be able to get yourself back up, stand back up, and keep going forward. You can't just give up and say, man, I'm no good at this. And that's part of the learning lessons for the greater growth of it all.

Jon Becker: The thing is, I think that ultimately, what is at the root of a lot of that and a lot of what I hear you say is kind of two things. The first is authenticity, right? It's being who you are and manifesting your principles.

Chief John Perez: When do you find out who you are? You know, I mean, you always are who you are. And you're confident. First argument in the morning is yourself in the mirror, right? And you move on with your day. But who you are and you believe in yourself. When you start to find out who you might be as a leader, it really does start to change. True north, authentic leadership. It was a book written 30 years ago that is still one of the lead top books about true north, about being yourself.

And in the beginning, when you're developing yourself, it is a bumpy road. It is a bumpy road to trip and fall as you find out who you are to get to a place. And you adjust along the way, because you might fall into a circle that maybe they like to, you know, criticize every directive from command staff. And you're in that circle for a while, and you're like, man, you know what? This is not my circle. That's not me.

So you learn to circle yourself in with over a lifetime of people that are good for you. And in an organization, you may lose touch with them once in a while because you're in different parts of the department. So much of the people I made command staff are with me when they were young officers. And you might call them yes men or yes people, but they're yes people to the point they support you, but they're the first people to get in your face and tell you when you're wrong, you know, really important.

Jon Becker: I've said for a long time, like, you know, somebody on your staff who agrees with you serves almost no value, right? I won an argument, and I go hunt an argument.

Chief John Perez: But you know what? You don't want people just say, don't like something either. I've seen those people on command staff. That's a bad idea. We shouldn't do that. You're ready to fall forward.

Jon Becker: Right.

Chief John Perez: Like, you give me something. I'd rather go with the yes person because they're on board to work that directive.

Jon Becker: Yeah, that's a good point.

Chief John Perez: And we're like, well, we don't know where this is going to go, but I'm with you. I'm, oh, hey, I'm not sure there's a good idea. I'm with you. Let's go. And we're good. We're good with that perspective. As opposed to saying, I don't like where you're going, I gotta go. You know that doesn't work.

Jon Becker: No, no, it's, it's, it's, I want you to argue with me. I want it to be creative. In the end, we're on the same team so we can debate the play. And I want to hear your thoughts on the play. And I want us to argue what the best play is at the point that we go to the huddle, the play's call.

Chief John Perez: Right.

Jon Becker: We're all on the same team.

Chief John Perez: My staff, we got to move. My staff knew that our discussions are more important than a decision. Discussions are more important than the decision. Now there's times you can't have that discussion, but you got to make time for it.

Big part of our early planning with the city hall occupation was a preplanning. And having these discussions. I always recall a quick story as a chief with Lieutenant Bill Grossoffe, our chief of staff. I wrote an email. I was going to fire it off the council and the city manager. And Bill happened to walk in. I said, alt, take a look at this thing. Ten what you think of it? I'm relaxing, stretching from writing it. I'm smiling. I feel good, right? I just wrote something good.

Jon Becker: Feeling pretty good about it.

Chief John Perez: He's at my desk reading the computer, and he says, h*** no. F, no. He says, you can't send this. He goes, I'm erasing it. And he deleted it. He, right there. He deleted everything I had worked on. Now, granted, you get it back from the deleted, but he went through the effort of deleting it. And those are the people you want around your.

Jon Becker: So what you're saying is Chief John Perez. Was Chief John Perez because of a deleted email?

Chief John Perez: Yeah, absolutely. Or you look to a great commander like Art Shute, who's NFL coach of command staffs, and art has this ability to, to argue with you. But in the beginning when he was a new commander, he didn't have that. I actually kicked him out of the command staff office twice, but yet by far, he was the strongest leader that we have today in policing along the San Gabriel Valley, on his event planning experience, his leadership, his willingness to tell you did wrong, we give you a hug. But in the beginning, he had to figure that out as I did.

So I tried to give him the leadership. I wish I would have had more when I was coming up to the organization.

Jon Becker: So you mentioned the Occupy Pasadena movement. I think it's an interesting topic in authenticity and in placing yourself in peril. Will you kind of walk us through that?

Chief John Perez: Well, the pandemic really put us off. Right? It changed everything we were doing. And that's part of this evolution, that we had staff meetings every single day. Our lunch was in the office in our, what we call our department operations center up on the top floor of the police department. And it was important for us to review every division we had, every protocol.

We must have adjusted at the end of the day, over 100 protocols in the organization based on the pandemic, from how we were doing investigations, how we were going to deploy people. If there was, you know, people being infected and were positive with COVID how do we respond to that? How do we put you off from work? How do we notify everybody in the department without notifying them?

Well, I did some things our human resources division or our legal department didn't like for the city. If somebody was positive for the COVID we put your name out and said, John Becker has his home waiting, testing. Now HR and the legal department is like, what are you doing? That's a HIPAA violation. We are in a world global pandemic. And you're worried about that? Thats what we were worried about how tactical, some organizational policy in a matter of war when you're being shot at, right? No, no, no. It doesn't work that way. But what we were able to do is we had very few work related contacts. Much of it was coming from outside of work.

So we were able to control it. And people understood what was happening and say, well, I think I need to get tested as well. And so more people would get tested and we'd have more negatives coming back, or you were put off early. So that type of approach up and staff worked. Then you go through what was happening with social justice, the cabin fever, right?

People were coming out of their homes, vehicle pursuits, driving fast, shooting their weapons. People were stuck with the pandemic in what I call that moment in the shining where his head comes through the door, here's Johnny the Nicholson incident. And so people lost it, and people were doing dumb things. And this was creating this environment and then you had the incidents that happened in Atlanta. You had these shootings that were going on that were driving the George Floyd incident.

From May into June, more shootings were happening, and everyone now was under the spotlight. And so we're thinking, man, we got to get ready for something like this and having the discussions. And then came August, August 15th. We had our own officer involved shooting with a young man from our community who had a gun. The rumor after the shooting was he had none. And it was very difficult. We had the gun recovered with DNA on it, and people said, well, how do you know that that was implanted by you guys?

We think you guys went to the hospital and did all that stuff. And as well, the rumors were flying. Even the council members said, you know, how do we know that gun wasn't there beforehand with his DNA on it? Isn't that possible?

Jon Becker: Could have just been laying there, parked on that street, happened to run by it.

Chief John Perez: I get the emotions. I get where everybody was at. I know the difficulty of all this. It was tough, but it led to a place after that shooting where people were upset. And I actually received emails threatening to kill me, kill my family, kidnap my kids. And the officers were going. The officer involved was going through a lot. We had a right to protect him. And so it was a very difficult period of time. I did meet with the family. I discussed it with the family, the incident. They hired an attorney, a civil rights attorney, and another one that represented George Floyd.

And so these were very difficult times. And so within a week of that incident, and this is where it matters, to work intel early and put yourself in a position to grab that information. I learned that from the science of reading. Whether the old books of the seven habits and a courageous follower and good to great, all these great books were the start of our leadership reading.

Then you forward it today to YouTube and where we're at and the great writings going on with Simon Sinek. And you got Jocko Willek, the retired Navy SEAL that was a lieutenant commander. And what I like about his video and his books and his writing is that he's a study of leadership. He'll read for hours and hours to come out with 30 seconds of stuff, and we could respect that.

Jon Becker: Oh, yeah, totally.

Chief John Perez: And he applies his experience to it, and I really appreciate his approach to that. And it's the fact that he wasn't the most decorated warrior out there. He led the most decorated unit in the military. Now, that's leadership. That's where you have something to say. I am listening and I am going to go back and study what you are saying.

So we are in a place where we really use that for our future thinking. We had a place in a time in the morning where we had a BLM activist who had a restraining order to stay out of the city of LA, and she had occupied their city hall. And as Michael Moore told me, it was hundreds of $1,000 in damage in overtime and blah, blah, blah. It's problematic for all of us in our community. She shows up at our city hall now. She's from Pasadena, she lives in our town.

And we dealt with her in every shooting. She was out there on Facebook Live saying, hey, you know what? We're going to occupy city hall. And I'm in my workout gear and, which is probably word and stuff from 8th grade or something. I don't know how I look, but I'm getting ready to go down the weight room and my staff is in their office. About 07:30 in the morning. Hey, chief, she's going to occupy. She's not going to occupy. We're not going to become Portland.

We're not going to become all those places. City hall has way too many important services in a much lower level. It's much like occupying the capital of a state or a country. You stop all services. It's the wrong form and the wrong view for us to make the real change we need. No way. I can't allow that to happen.

Jon Becker: Yeah. The symbolic nature of occupying the city hall is.

Chief John Perez: I went across the street. I left the station, went across the street and talked to her right there on Facebook. And she gave us everything we needed to be able to understand what was going to happen. And from that point, as I left, there were people that were driving by that saw the live Facebook, that drove to city hall and engaged me out there in a positive conversation.

So it was pretty good that we were able to talk to one another for people in our community. Based on that interaction that led our day, though, and planning our intelligence, we acted early. We had tabletops. We set everybody up, making sure we were ready in advance by 10:00 in the morning, who was going to be held over at night, who was going to be ordered overtime.

Tactical teams, all this department operations center up above all the team leaders and the debriefing and deconfliction that went on really saved us that early planning of having unique things in place and being able to gap up and allowing frontline supervisors to question our approach, say, wait a second, we're not sure that's a good idea.

Okay. Why? Back to the why. And they have that discussion. It wasn't just that you had people that were in disagreement with the idea. They also provided their experience. And that's the difference right there, is that you're not just saying, I don't like something, but you're saying, I don't like something, but let me offer you a different route, or why I don't or. We adjusted this and we were able to work all those kinks out during the day, nonstop, that we secured some of our areas early so they couldn't occupy those areas and we used mutual aid.

The equipment we needed, we brought in tow trucks was very, very unique and something we trained to after that day, to other local police chiefs and police departments, to be well prepared, well situated and placed, but unseen by the public. Hugely important to allow the public to demonstrate in protest. That's their constitutional right. We should support that. Offer them the traffic units they need for traffic control and the safety. But you don't need to see 500 tactically dressed officers 20ft from you when you're protesting. It really jacks up everybody's emotions.

So if you would have opened any closet door, 20 officers would have fallen out, you know. But we were well prepared with equipment, a lot of debriefs and brief backs. The brief backs were hugely important. The rehearsals of what we were doing, it was. This was all led after the ideas were formatted with the command staff. Commander Art Shute and Lieutenant Johnny Mercado were enormously important to this whole growth.

Now they go back years, decades before, to ses. The learning curve we had back then about neighborhood policing and gang enforcement and SWAT team and balancing all that. So their mindsets understood those different directives and wasn't just tactically planned. We opened up our eyes and ears to the leadership.

Look, people don't often say they are overlaid and under-mannered. Right? It's the other way around. That's what people say, that we're over managed or we're undermanaged. Over-management and we're under led is usually the issue that we're in. We tried to make sure it was the other way around. Everything we do, we manage. We absolutely manage most of our lives, everything about it. But there are opportunities for us to identify a point, to be a leader. You can't be a leader 24 hours a day. It's impossible.

But you look for the opportunities to make change, to lead in the right direction or change culture. That's really the learning lesson that came out of that, was to look and ensure that you are taking the opportunity to lead. When it presents itself, when it presents itself right there, you have to have the ability to say, that's the moment I need to do something right here. And that's the importance of it all.

Jon Becker: So in that occupied Pasadena, you had, obviously, the tension of a city council that's divided and has different views. A community that's divided has different views. Pasadena, although a small city, does have a relatively activist mindset in some of the critics and within the council, what made you make the decision to deny, nope, you're not taking city hall?

Chief John Perez: It was a decision I had made early on, looking at Portland and looking at what happened in Minneapolis, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, at third city hall. And I realized if we allowed occupation, many people wouldn't get services.

Jon Becker: I'm guessing that was not necessarily a popular decision with some of the members of the community and some of the members of the city staff.

Chief John Perez: Absolutely. Our city manager, we had a long discussion, very supportive, and he had mentioned that there wasn't support for this entirely. In fact, we had one council member said, just let them occupy. Let them have it. You shouldn't stop them. He said that the following week. And so that's problematic for me to have that type of loss of government, and what could happen and trying to clean that up later could be difficult. And so we had that discussion we talked about the following morning. Maybe I would be released as a police chief, basically terminated.

So I called my wife, let her know that that might happen. She just wanted to make sure that we were doing the right thing, and I was doing the right thing, and she was fully in support. So I knew I was in a good place at home.

And so a few hours later, when Antifa started to show up and we started to see the name changing on the street signs to freedom way, pig way, this, that, this. You know, they had duct tape, and they had the spears and they had shields. They were putting on very scary stuff when you're that close. City manager, after we talked, he says, okay, well, we'll talk later. He shows up at about four or 05:00, and, you know, in police work, we have what's called a go bag.

And so he raises his bag. He's got my go bag with me. I'm here with you guys. And oftentimes thereafter, during the protest, we invited everybody to our department, operations center, council members, city people, city managers. He was almost always there with us throughout the night just to listen and to provide his guidance and what we needed to do and full support. And it was really good for him to be out there.

But our situational awareness, this is the key. The situational awareness for people, for counsel and the city manager and the legal department, for the city attorney's office, it would have been delayed because of the usual processes of policing. In this case, we worked and gave him immediate information because he was on the scene with us. He was seeing it himself firsthand.

And I'd walk up and it's like having the general right next to the battle scene and give them what we were doing. He was then able to relay that to the council quickly and give his assumptions, his assessment of what was happening.

So the situational awareness was a big factor in all of this. But having that support from the council and keeping the city attorneys up to date and everything we were doing with phone calls every less than an hour was tremendous in making sure everybody supported our direction.

Jon Becker: But it was almost a suicide pact between you and the city manager then, because him showing up knowing that there's at least one council member that thinks it's time to turn over city hall.

Chief John Perez: Absolutely.

Jon Becker: And he has a chief of police that has already expressed that that's not going to happen.

Chief John Perez: Absolutely.

Jon Becker: You know, I mean, I realized that you obviously had done the calculus, that you were willing to lose your job.

Chief John Perez: The risk. The risk assessment. And that's why I think he's one of the best city managers in the country. He'll put me in check in a moment if he had to. Not a problem. He'll shut me down. He's the boss. You know, it's what the structure of. I'm not an elected official as a sheriff. Right?

Jon Becker: Yes.

Chief John Perez: So there's a lot more decision making processes going on between a group of people that's got to be collective and best for our community. So it worked.

Jon Becker: But it's interesting because I think one of the things, when I teach leadership, one of the things that I talk about is the difference between leaders and managers, and one of those differences in my brain is the willingness to place yourself in peril for principle, the willingness to go, you're not taking city council well. They may fire me. Okay. Like, you had already made a decision that you were willing to lose your job and not give up city council.

Chief John Perez: We kept that quiet. We didn't want the officers to have to deal with that emotion. Whether they supported me or not was, you know, we have a new chief in the morning. During this whole episode of a officer involved shooting had just occurred, and by the end of the night, it worked out extremely well, in that nobody went to jail and only one car was impounded that wouldn't start.

And it was a careful approach that we had from having hundreds and hundreds with the potential for thousands to having less than 100, and then dealing with a group of 20 or 30 walking around marching and doing things, and our tactical officers having the discipline to handle it correctly. And at the end of the day, we learned a lesson.

One of the lessons was, as command staff members, if you're not part of the planning process, you're not allowed to make last minute adjustments. You can imagine a coach coming out of the locker room with 20 seconds left in the game, and the head coach picks a play, and all of a sudden the coach comes running out of the locker room criticizing the head coach about, that's a bad idea right now. Oh, wait a second. We've had three and a half quarters to figure out their weaknesses. We think this is the best decision. So we learned some lessons coming out of there.

But at the end of the night, the officers were really satisfied. They did something right for the community. And, you know, coming out and talking to the majority of officers that were going home at 03:00, 04:00 in the morning, had some great discussions and a lot of thank yous to us and the command staff for making the right decision.

That was, you know, good for us. As command staff, you make the decisions, you go on to the next battles on whatever that's going to be. But to have a couple hundred people coming out and going home and shaking your hand, saying thank you, I think that mattered.

Jon Becker: As somebody who knows a lot of people in your department and grew up in the city of Pasadena, that decision had more impact on your brand than you could have possibly recognized.

Chief John Perez: Well, even in the community, we had people the following week, officers go get their food, and people were paying for their food and, you know, clapping for them, and they walked in to pick up their food because there were still the pandemic rules, but they had a lot of community support from people for doing what we did. It got very little attention because it went the opposite way. The news stations were looking for occupation, not the other way around.

So it got very little traction, and that was fine by us, but it got very little traction from the public. And we had another 75 protests thereafter. And all of them were handled in the same regards, except for having to put out the line of officers, because it wasn't an occupation, it was a protest or demonstration, which they had the constitutional right to do. And we supported that. And so all those other 75 protests and demonstrations, we allowed that to occur without our presence.

Again, we planned in the same way, the same accord. Again, you opened the door and everybody would fall out. But we were not seen other than the traffic officers on the motorcycles providing the traffic stops and the brakes that they needed, or those moments we had to run out and make an arrest for a gun or a fight or something that was happening. Those were the only times you saw the majority of our officers.

Jon Becker: So you see, you have 75 additional protests. It's an interesting choice in a modern law enforcement environment to decide between having a large presence or allowing a protest constitutionally. You're there to protect their constitutional rights and give them an opportunity to protest the government, which is the whole point of it. And so you need to let them go. But the amount of presence and the type of presence seems to almost give these things the ability to create their own weather.

Chief John Perez: Yes, it is possible. You never know. Once again, going back to leadership principles, we're going to the true north. It is the foundation of what I believe that in doing my experiences over the years with janitors for justice, the occupation period during the great Recession, and then reading literature, Madison, Wisconsin, maybe the lead in the country in the 1970s, writing literature about campus protests and not being seen and how much the chances were heightened that it would conclude safely for everybody.

And so I took all that into an equation and came out with the fact that we should go on that route as often as we can. There are moments in which we can't. Occupation was one of the city hall. Correct. But I had to be able to try to identify those or have a team that could identify them. And that's only going to happen through discussions and having our staff meetings and giving people the confidence to say, this is not the one, or, we need to do something better on this other one. So that was really important. But it really goes to the true north principle.

Believing what you believe, knowing you've studied the confidence, everything that you're done, and you got to wait for the fastball to come at you. I had a great talk with Matty Moda back in 2018. He came to our station, and we donated equipment, and I asked him, what is it like to be there?

And Walter Austin or Tommy Lasorda asks you in the 9th inning to come up and get ready. He says, well, you know, you've done all your study. You prayed to God, you've done everything you're supposed to. You lived your life well. He said, this is for a pinch hit, right? The guy who led the most in the season for decades. It was the record, he says, but then you studied everything you needed to. You knew you had it. When you get to the plate, you make your decisions. The ball comes at you and you say, bring it on to the pitcher.

And basically that's, I love that because that's the same approach we basically took, was to say, look, we've studied everything. We're taking everything into consideration, but now we're at a point to make a decision.

Jon Becker: But I think implicit in what you're saying, apart from what we've already talked about, authenticity and having true north, is being a student of the game, right? Like you're not walking into the bottom of the 9th inning wondering what could happen and having no plan in place. So what are your thoughts about that? It strikes me that you've always been a student of the game.

Chief John Perez: And one of the terms I use often is a student of the profession for us, and being a student of the profession means you're always studying, you're always learning, you're always bouncing things off your mentors, listening to other people, debriefing situations and taking all that into consideration. And this was part of all that understanding. You're going way back in time and pulling things out and knowing where you want to be.

And so this was the right thing to do. It was the right thing to do, not to be present in the dozens we had out in front of the police station where people wanted me to take a knee or the hundreds of people, you didn't see a police car, police cars driving by. And it was very peaceful events where people got to experience the emotions of other people and the tragedies that have happened in their lives and to share them without us being in the middle or me coming out in uniform and for a moment, taking the knee and taking all that away from everybody, that wasn't the point.

At the same time, we had to know when we had to be present and when it was about protecting the proper property of the city or people. And I believe that that was the right time to do what we did. So it took a lot of thought and support from people around me, and not everybody around me was in support of what we did. At the end of the day, it was the right thing. We did take a chance. We had an opportunity to be leaders in the organization and in the community, and we took that route and we stayed with it.

Jon Becker: I think that another interesting thing about your career was your willingness to almost follow a Lincoln principle. And I think of all the chiefs I've known over the years, hundreds, possibly thousands of chiefs of police, I've never seen anybody walk into a crowd of people that did not like him. Maybe Daryl Gates walked into a crowd of people who did not like him and said, tell me what's wrong with me the way you have. Talk about that.

Chief John Perez: For me early on, you know, learning from other chiefs like Bernard Malikian, the others that have been around, you have to engage the community and you have to do it your way. And I believe the only way to do that was to be as open as I could with our community. We had something called community conversations where we went in with frontline officers to engage the community and talk to one another about real issues in policing.

Anytime people called me on my cell phone, I answered. Anybody sent me an email, I answered it. You invited me to your forum. I did my best to be there. And those engagements were hugely important, not just with people that I connected with. And philosophically, we might have been the same arena. It was connecting with people that we weren't in agreement philosophically on a lot of issues. And some of them are very close friends. They're what could be considered activists, people in the community that wanted police reform. I wanted police reform.

And for them to understand the route I was going and reorganizing the whole department. We flattened it, we regrew it, we put new equipment, new training, new technologies. We're a better police department. And many police chiefs and departments had asked, hey, how did you do that? We created new units. We put more officers into patrol without raising a penny on the budget. All that done.

And so how did that really happen? A lot of work, a lot of meetings, and a lot of teams of people coming together. And not everybody was in agreement. I eliminated the gang unit for a new model, a contemporary model that was intelligence led model that we have today. We still put units out there when we need to on overtime to patrol these neighborhoods. But much of the work we're doing up front is intelligence led.

We're going to identify these career criminals, the gang members, the people that are doing this crime, and arrest them before they do it or immediately after the arrest. That's the goal to ultimately get.

Jon Becker: I think saying philosophically disagreed is a gross understatement of people who are calling for your resignation while you're inviting them to be on a chief's counsel.

Chief John Perez: And some people even threatening my life.

Jon Becker: Yeah, I mean, literally, it's interesting because, you know Sen. Tzu, know yourself. Know your enemy better. Hold your enemy close. Hold your friends close. Hold your enemies closer. It was interesting to watch you start a chief's advisory council with people who strongly, philosophically disagreed with you and then open yourself up to criticism in a forum you created.

Chief John Perez: Right.

Jon Becker: Talk to me about what that. What was the advantage of that?

Chief John Perez: Well, it's where it came from. And where it came from was, you know, on July 29th, 2016, I had a v fib incident where I had died for, they said 60 something seconds on a heartbeat and came back and had a surgery and blah, blah, blah.

Jon Becker: I think you might be skipping over.

Chief John Perez: Yeah, probably.

Jon Becker: How about you dropped dead and were dead for a minute or more.

Chief John Perez: Yeah. So with that.

Jon Becker: And would have remained that way if.

Chief John Perez: Not for people in the room.

Jon Becker: Not for people in the room putting you on.

Chief John Perez: You know, Bill Sanchez and many of the officers in that room did a wonderful job in making sure I was still around. But during the time I was off a lot of reflection. I always thought I was a pretty good person. But, you know, when this happens to you, you want to be even better, you know, and you strive for ways to do that. And much was done in terms of reading and really finding yourself. And part of that was reading about Theodore Roosevelt and many of the presidents I read, including team of rivals on Lincoln and how he brought people into his cabinet that were against him.

And when the opportunity created itself for interim chief, which nobody was searching for at the time, not me, and the permanent chief, which I really wasn't searching for, and let the city know I wasn't going to apply for that job, it really was interesting that that reading, that approach, that study, helped me embrace the activists even more and create a chief's advisory that, in fact, was made of people that were looking for deep, deep rooted defunding or, you know, changing the police department in ways that was not healthy for the community. And many of them, if not all of them, I believe, really changed their perspective over the years of how they viewed the police department.

And, in fact, in the beginning, the union. Absolutely. You know, I love Roger Rodin, one of the best presidents in any police union anywhere in the state, if not the country, and the way he approaches his work, but he heavily was saying, hey, man, this is not a good idea. I don't think we should be doing this at the conclusion of all this.

If I were to get rid of it, Roger would have beat me up first, because the union appreciated this group of people, to engage them and to have meetings with them, because each one of the board members represented multiple nonprofit organizations, representing hundreds in each one. So you're touching on thousands of people. Some of the chiefs advisory members even lost some of their credibility in the community for what they were learning at the police department.

So when they see how diverse we are, when they see the changes we're making, you know, change doesn't come from the outside. Change comes from the inside, not just on the leadership to say you're going to do it, but the management work that's taken to create the systems and the budgets and the protocols and all the things in management that are hugely important. And that's a learned skill, as is leadership, which is a leadership, which is a tool. It's a skill set you have to have.

So all that put us in a place that helped me during that period of time to really function through and keep the chief's advisory updated. If that chief's advisory was made of all John Perez friends in the community, what good was it to brief them before the occupation of city hall? Really, it wasn't going to do me any good. I needed people that were going to criticize me and say, well, wait a second. But to explain to them why they helped market some of the things that needed to be done in the community from an education standpoint.

Jon Becker: Yeah, it's interesting. There is currently, with law enforcement, a bit of a siege mentality, where there are a lot of vocal critics and a very quiet law enforcement lobby where every bad thing that happens gets publicized and dragged through the news. And law enforcement is not proactively defending itself. And it strikes me. Yeah, but not at an organized level.

Chief John Perez: I understand that completely.

Jon Becker: And you look at some of the legislation that's happening in California related to law enforcement, and some of it is just moronic. AB 481 and this idea that, oh, military equipment is what's causing the problems. Well, first of all, half the things on that list have nothing to do with the military.

Chief John Perez: Military use it.

Jon Becker: But it strikes me that part of the reason that that happens is this siege mentality and this kind of pushing out of criticism and not having a willingness to engage.

Chief John Perez: It's a lack of education that we really need. Even internally, on both sides. Yeah, even internally. I started a Sunday email that was based, you know, it was based on our last chief, Chief Sanchez's Sunday email about everything went on in the community. Way too much information for what I could do.

So I changed it to a format which was about educating our personnel, the new laws coming out, the promotions, the areas that needed policing focus, as well as leadership issues, providing good video on leadership and things we could all learn from collectively. And it was a starting point in the organization. No matter where I went, I could start my conversation at the Sunday email. Hey, chief, you wrote this in the last Sunday. I agree or don't agree. Well, let's talk about it. And it was a great place that when I didn't do them on Sundays, I would get half a dozen or more texts from people.

Jon Becker: Where's my email?

Chief John Perez: Where's your email? Yeah. And in the beginning, I didn't send it to everybody. I only sent it to the lieutenants. I wanted them to talk to these points. And I quickly discovered there was a portion of the lieutenants that said, I don't talk to this stuff. They could read it on their own. I said, nope, not until you guys learn how to read it to your people and have this discussion. I'm not going to get it out. So a lot of pressure started to come to send it out to over 400 people every Sunday, and not just the command staff and lieutenants and the administrators of 23 people.

So it really was a platform I stuck to as long as I could before I released it out to everybody. And it was helpful, and I tried to do it all on my own. So it came for me. You know, it wasn't ten people writing it, sending it to me, and whatever mistakes or things you didn't like, it's my stuff. This is from me to you in a love letter here. And so I think it really did help in a lot of our communication with the new laws that were coming out and things that were happening.

Jon Becker: But it's once again inviting potential criticism. Oh, without a doubt, it's once again commander's intent, open to discussion, which, I mean, that's kind of leadership 401, right? That's not – You better have your ego in a pretty comfortable box.

Chief John Perez: Let go of your ego.

Jon Becker: Yeah, like, you got to leave it at the door. But I think that comes back to kind of last thing I'd like to talk about before we go into the rapid fire questions, which is this notion of servant leadership and this notion that, you know, the most important person in the organization is not the one at the top of.

Chief John Perez: 100%.

Jon Becker: Tell me your views on that.

Chief John Perez: Well, growing up, playing sports, and having a large family with seven brothers, servant leadership is the direction you go. You follow others, and you're a strong follower in supporting your family. Coming into the police department as well. Always following the new chief, following people around me, following to learn, has really always been part of my platform foundation for myself.

If I believe in you and I support you, I'm following you everywhere because I want to learn from you. I want to learn how I could be better. And I want you to believe in me. And that's just part of having a circle of friends. I have the same friends for the most part I've had since I was 13, 14 years old, you know, which is really cool, right?

Because we believe in one another. And the same friends that have been core with me over my years at the police department are still close friends of mine because we haven't lost that connection. And with other people, you come and go depending on the decision. And so servant leadership is an actual management leadership principle that was written by Dr. Peters in the early seventies. And his leadership principle at that time was about learning how to follow others in your leadership, knowing that it's important to listen to people around you and their issues so you could become a better manager. But it was also about leading.

And I believe that this foundation of servant leadership is something that is going by the wayside and we got to bring that back. The most underrated leader forever will be the most consistent leader. It's an unusual place where we define our leaders by the home run, by the moment, by the things happening.

But the most consistent leaders over a period of time are usually lost. You know, they're lost in time. For some reason. We just say, well, you know, John was really good, always treated us well over those 20 years as a leader. But it, you know. Cause it wasn't that one time the building burned. You carried everybody out, man. He was the guy.

So we tend to devalue the consistent leaders over time that do it in a servient leadership style. Yet it is the essence of everything we do in leadership.

Jon Becker: That's a fantastic place to move on to our rapid fire questions. So these are…

Chief John Perez: Do I need a lawyer?

Jon Becker: Say again?

Chief John Perez: Do I need a lawyer?

Jon Becker: Probably not.

Chief John Perez: Okay, good.

Jon Becker: I mean, you did for the last five years of your career, probably not now. So these are kind of single sentence. I want your kind of quick reaction thoughts. What's your most important habit?

Chief John Perez: Relationships. People around me making sure that if you're going to lead, that people believe in you, at least they know who you are. So it's about creating those relationships and the conversations with people around me.

Jon Becker: Leader versus manager, what's the difference?

Chief John Perez: Leader versus manager? Leader has got to know the opportunity to lead. Managing is something that we do every single day, the majority of the day, hugely important. But we have to really have the skill sets to be leaders, to understand when to identify it and how to treat it with respect and love.

Jon Becker: What's the best book you've read?

Chief John Perez: I would start probably with 7 habits of the most effective people by Dr. Covey. But that could probably be sharply debated with Jocko's extreme ownership, which took a lot of those principles and his experience. And so I'd be jockeying for those two. But you know what? Jordan Peterson, 12 rules for life is amazing book. Jordan Peterson is absolutely our Plato and Aristotle of our times.

Jon Becker: What's the most profound memory of your career?

Chief John Perez: I would have to say likely the feeling that we had as a command staff after occupying of the city hall and the fact that the department, everybody believed in what we were doing. The community believed that we did the right thing at a moment that I think many people wanted the opposite thing to happen, to feel good in terms of activists and so forth.

So I believe that moment, that feeling, that driving home at four in the morning with no sleep for over 24 hours, I really felt like we had done something collectively together. There are very – Almost no moments in our lives where we think about the best thing that ever happened. It was just you, it was always people around, and that was an example of just that.

Jon Becker: What's your favorite resource? Online resource, website or podcast?

Chief John Perez: I have to go back to Jocko, man. Well, the debrief, I'm going to say, is first, without a doubt. Debrief is it? That's the new learning place for us to find our leaders locally. You connect with them because of the profession. You know what they're saying. You could learn from the leadership lessons being thrown out there.

But for the last few years before the debrief, Jocko was really the place to be for me because he's taken the science of leadership from all the years before with management, and you could break it down with great guests that he has and also the principles of what's worked for him in wartime.

Jon Becker: What keeps you awake at night?

Chief John Perez: Has to be the safety of police officers. My heart goes out to every single one of them doing the best that they can. The absolute love they have for their communities. It's really undervalued by the media and people out in the community. There's so much great things going on that they don't get the credit they deserve for their love for what they do. They're sacrifices for what they do.

All the many different areas of policing, from homeless to having to take action, to working with people in need, the amount of work that's needed and all the training that comes with all that the love these people have for this profession and their communities is unbelievable. Yet I don't think they get the respect for that. I don't think there's enough there to remind our communities how lucky they are to have that one 2% of society serving as police officers.

Jon Becker: And that is a fantastic place for us to stop. John, thank you so much for doing this!

Chief John Perez: Thank you, brother! Thank you!

I hope there was something I offered for everybody out there. I appreciate it!

Episode 14 – Inside the Bataclan Hostage Rescue with a BRI Operator

Jon Becker: This episode of the debrief will have a slightly different format. My guest today is an active member of France's elite brigade for research and intervention, or BRI. Because of the nature of his current assignment and the nature of their work, it is critical that we maintain his anonymity. As a result, we will not be showing this episode on video or using my guest's real name.

Additionally, because these events resulted in the deaths of 130 people and the injury of more than 400 others, we will not be glorifying the attackers by using their names or their organizations. These details will hopefully be forgotten to history, while the memories of their innocent victims will not.

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!

On November 13th, 2015, Paris experienced a series of coordinated islamist terrorist attacks. These attacks took place over three separate areas of the city and were carried out by multiple teams of attackers. Almost 4 hours after they began, the events ended with a dramatic and successful hostage rescue. That will be the topic for todays discussion.

Jay, thank you for joining me!

Jay: Thanks, Jon. Thanks for inviting me!

Jon Becker: So why don't we first start for the American audience with just kind of an overview of the French policing structure, at least as far as tactical teams go and how they kind of relate.

Jay: Okay. Just for you to understand the structure, in France, we have two main law enforcement agencies, the national police and the national gendarmerie. National police is almost 140,000 officers who handle all the cities all around France. National gun armory is a kind of military police with civilian tasks who handle all the countryside of France.

Jon Becker: So that. So the national police cover the cities, the gendarmerie cover the areas between the cities?

Jay: Yeah. Small towns, little city, and up to 10,000 inhabitants is the police.

Jon Becker: So it's more. It's almost like a sheriff's department in the United States.

Jay: Yeah, we can compare police to police department and John Amery to sheriff departments.

Jon Becker: Got it. Okay, so where does your unit fit in that national police and gendarmerie structure?

Jay: We are part of the national police, but because of the specifics situation of Paris, who is the capital of France. Paris has its own organization of police his own intelligence service, his own riotous control unit and also his own tactical unit. That's why we are Paris tactical unit. But we are still part of the national police.

Jon Becker: Okay, so then if my understanding is correct, the gendarmerie would be the tactical unit would be GIGN. And then you guys are obviously BRI part of the parisian law enforcement. And then where does raid fit into.

Jay: That for your understanding as an American, I try to find some instance. So let's say HRT is GIGN and red also. So GIGN will handle all the, as I said, the countryside, all the airplanes. Also if some hijack airplanes. And also if a French citizen get involved as a victim in a foreign country, GIGN with the special operation community will be involved in that.

The red as the HRT can handle any situation on the French territory. Hostage rescue, barricade people, counterterrorism. And then BRI is more like the LAPD SWAT. We are in charge of the city of Paris. But we also can work with the red if they need to. And they also can support us in Paris in case of a major event.

Jon Becker: Got it. Okay, so then when did BRI start? Give me kind of a history and background of BRI.

Jay: BRI had been created in 1964. At that time there is a bank robberies, violent crime increase in the city of Paris. So the police commissioner create a special unit to fight this type of crime. After 1972 attacks in Munich, police think about creating a special unit in case of such attacks. A contrarism unit, because there is nothing on a tactical at that time. There is no tactical police unit. So GIGN was created on the John Armory side and on the police side. The BRI was designed to be the tactical unit of the French national police.

Jon Becker: Got it. Yeah. In a lot of the interviews that I've done, the Munich massacre was the triggering event for almost all of the counterterrorism units around the world. LAPD can trace their expansion to that. They were founded slightly before. But the expansion of SWAT can be tied back to the Munich massacre. FBI HRT. So many of these units happened because of the failures in Munich. This one little event in Munich can trigger units around the world, yours included.

Jay: It's a kind of revolution for the police community. So at that time and until 1985, where the red was created, the BRI was in charge of all the police tactical jobs in France. And also at that time they did a few operations in Netherlands. Because there were no special units also in Netherlands at that time, in the seventies.

Jon Becker: That's interesting. So then in 85 they split it and BRI retains the city of Paris, but the rest goes to the rest of the cities go to raid.

Jay: Yeah, that's it. Don't forget that we have been created to fight organized crime and violent crime. So all the guys at the BRI in the sixties, seventies, they were detectives. And we keep these specifics until now. That's what one of our DNA is, to work on violent crime. And then after 1972, we start doing the tactical job until now.

So this is very important to understand that we do both jobs and we still do that for our best understanding. It's like, for those who know how the LAPD works, but we do, like the SWAT job, the LAPD SWAT job, and also the SIS job. We are the only unit to do that in France.

Jon Becker: Yeah, I think it's actually worldwide. It's a very unique mission set that you have because generally speaking, units will have a violent crime or organized crime unit, and then they'll have a tactical unit. And it's unusual that the two be combined the way that you guys do.

Jay: That's true, but we think that it's the best model because, I mean, in France, if you just are a full time tactical unit, you will be spend most of your time training and waiting for the call. What we do is working on a daily basis on bad guys on the streets. Keep you ready. And there is kind of for the guys, for the operators, they know how to handle the stress on real life situation. Also they know how to hold their fire, how to manage a very emotional situation. And that's what we think. It is a good model.

Jon Becker: Yeah. So, I mean, one of the things that I think is unique in your mission set is that you handle kidnaps. Right?

Jay: Also. Yeah, that's true, Jennifer, we, on the whole, the ransom delivery field operation, when there's a kidnapping, also like the SIS.

Jon Becker: Does, which, I mean, it's kidnapped is, you know, living in the US, kidnap is nothing. It's not a very common occurrence, and it's usually a domestic thing. But in Europe, kidnap is a business. Right.

Jay: Used to be a business until recently, but to be honest, now kidnapping comes in more bad guys for kidnappings today, most of the kidnappings today we face in France with some exception. For sure it's drug related between bad guys, you know.

Jon Becker: Oh, yeah.

Jay: Kidnapping are always very sensitive case. And we work side by side with the homicide squad, who will handle all the investigation on the kidnapping case. Our negotiator will be in charge to negotiate with the family and the perpetrators. And our perturb will be in charge of the ransom delivery operation. And it's a synergy which worked well. I cannot speak too much about our tactics in this kind of offense, but that's work. And we did it for now almost 60 years.

Jon Becker: And then you also have a counter terrorism tactical role.

Jay: Sure. Even Paris had been a target for terrorism since the 1970s. Actually, it never stops. And BR had been respond to this kind of threat for now 50 years. It could be islamic terrorism, it could be left wing terrorism. And more recently, since 2015, we faced big mass hostage situation related to terrorism.

Jon Becker: Which probably is a perfect segue for us to talk about. November 13, 2015. So, just to set the stage, if my memory serves me correctly, there are three. The event starts at 09:15, but we end up with three separate areas that are affected and multiple locations even within those areas. How many teams were there, actually, that hit the city simultaneously?

Jay: You spoke about the bad guys.

Jon Becker: Yes, bad guys.

Jay: Okay. It was a Mumbai style attack, multi location, multiple perpetrators. There were almost nine guy night attackers, all of them wearing suicide SBID, suicide vest and AK-47. Sorry, Jon. It was well coordinate. And the main task of these guys, like in Mumbai, is to create a chaos and made the police law enforcement response more difficult. And so they should be able to kill as much people as they can. That was their main task, actually.

Jon Becker: Yeah. I mean, in the end, terrorism is about creating spectacle and creating media attention. And the more locations you can hit, the more people you injure or kill, the more chaotic the situation is, the more effective it is. So let's start with the first site. So at 09:15, three suicide bombers detonate themselves outside the Chate de France in Saint Denis.

Jay: Actually, there is three different attacks on the Stade de France. Remember that night? It was a soccer game. Stadium was full, almost 80,000 people. French president attended the game also. And at 920, we have a first explosion just in front of the entrance.

Jon Becker: So the first. Okay, so to go back and set the stage, there you have France versus Germany, a full stadium. The president of France is in attendance. And at 09:20, a guy blows himself up at one of the entrances to the stadium.

Jay: Yes, yes. Actually, I was watching the game at home at that time, and we. You can hear the explosion through the television. But at that moment, everybody was thinking about an accident or something happened in a restaurant outside the stadium. That's our first information.

Jon Becker: Then what happens?

Jay: Then very quickly, some bomb squad guys were handled, security on the stadium, went to the scene, and understand very quickly that it was not an accident, but it was an attack because they. They spot some on the scene, some elements of a suicide vest.

Jon Becker: Okay.

Jay: So the information start coming to the authority and. But the decision was made to keep everybody in the stadium and to keep the game going and not to tell people in the stadium that something's going on. That was the best decision they can make.

Jon Becker: Yeah, because otherwise, you're gonna have, you know, what, 60, 70, 80,000 people freaking out and running out of the stadium.

Jay: And because, exactly, Jon. And you have to remember that at 09:30, there is a second explosion of the second attacker around the stadium.

Jon Becker: Okay.

Jay: And something weird that it's. He detonates himself in the middle of nothing on a parking lot where nobody was there because everybody was inside the stadium. And he wasn't able to go inside the stadium because of the security, the private security measure. But he detonated himself at 09:30. So maybe it was his mission to just detonate himself at night 30, wherever.

Jon Becker: Things around him or the security measures were effective, he couldn't get in and decided to complete his jihad alone.

Jay: Yep.

Jon Becker: So then there was a third attacker. When did the third attacker detonate himself for that?

Jay: Kurt detonated himself at 09:33 also, five minutes from the stadium in the middle of a parking lot also.

Jon Becker: So really, only one guy effectively attacks the stadium.

Jay: Yeah. And he killed. And one killed one civilian, and one did more than 50. But the two other one, they just better than themselves. What? On my opinion, maybe they did that just because the mission was to dead end themselves of a specific time on a specific time.

Jon Becker: Got it. Okay, so then at the same time, well, 09:25 ish, you start having a second group attacking restaurants and cafes in a different area.

Jay: Yes, Jon, the first. The first shooting start at 09:25.

Jon Becker: Okay.

Jay: You have to understand, that stadium, it's 15 minutes driving north of Paris. And the shooting at 09:25 took place in a very popular area with restaurants, bars. And that night was a really nice night, very warm for a November day. And a lot of people were on the terrace enjoying the Friday night.

Jon Becker: Yeah, 09:25 is. I mean, you know, Americans tend to eat early, but 09:25 in Europe is like you're just moving past appetizers and into dinner.

Jay: Yeah. Specifically on Friday night.

Jon Becker: Yeah, yeah. So you've got crowded cafes, people on the terraces, people in bars. And these guys begin by just open firing.

Jay: Yep. They use a car, park the car in front of t=Terrazze of a restaurant and a bar, and start shooting people randomly with AK-47 on full automatic.

Jon Becker: Okay.

Jay: They know how to reload. They communicate to each other. When one reload, the other one tell him so they can coordinate their shooting.

Jon Becker: So this was a trained assault force.

Jay: Yeah. So they start shooting at 09:25, stop their car shooting, go back in their car, and go around, like, two blocks away and start shooting again.

Jon Becker: So they just basically just driving from restaurant to restaurant and open firing on the restaurants and get back in their car, drive a couple blocks, do the same thing again.

Jay: Exactly. And the bad thing for the dispatching the police organization, that they've got, like, thousands of coal of people who get shot of neighbors also report that, but because they were moving like this, everybody was calling the 911.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Jay: And it saturates all the systems, so we don't have any good intel of what's really going on.

Jon Becker: Yeah, I can imagine that. I mean, you start with the chate de France, which is 15 minutes out of the city, but now you have a terrorist attack there with the president of France, and, you know, a full stadium, and now you have a second location and a third location and a fourth location. And every one of those locations, everybody in the restaurant picks up their phone, the neighbors pick up the phone. So dispatch is getting thousands of calls.

Jay: Yeah, exactly. And all reporting different information and, yeah, sometimes it's very difficult for them to understand what's going on. We get the call for our concern, we get the call in the BRI, we get some information very quickly because of the bomb squad guy who called our aud guys and say, hey, be aware that it's not an accident. It could be an attack. So we were, I mean, ready to go. And around 09:25, 09:30, we got information that the shootings in Paris. So we called the guy. Actually, we're on call first. It was our team, and said, let's regroup to the unit.

And we've got also call from our unit boss, say, all the guides available go back to the unit. Usually we have a QRF in the unit who is ready to go directly from home to the crime scene. I mean, to the location. The location where something happens. The thing is that we don't have really the location where to go. So the tactics that night was to regroup the unit, prepare and just waiting to be sent at the right location.

Jon Becker: Yeah, it makes sense. So, basically, your leadership looks at this series of attacks and just basically raises the flag and rolls everybody to come together and be prepared for whatever location you're going to get sent to.

Jay: And when we arrived, group put the gear on, and at that time, we asked one of our big chief and say, where do you want us to go? And he said, let's check it out because we don't know where to send you. We have too many information. And a few minutes later, they get information that something is going to happen.

Five minutes later, they have information that something happens in the Bataclan. And also they have information that one of the shooter of restaurants still on the location. So they create. They send two teams of the BRI, one to the shooting location, one to the battle clan. Our unit. Our team was the one who was sent to the battle.

Jon Becker: So let's, before we get to Batalan, let's go with the – So the first unit that deploys, do they end up encountering that suspect?

Jay: No, it was a fake information. But they have to search an entire building.

Jon Becker: Yeah, this is. I mean, it's a common theme in, you know, mass killing events, active shooter events, is that the. Not only is there an overwhelming amount of information, but the information received is usually wrong. So it's – Oh, there's ten shooters, there's three shooters, there's two shooters, there's three locations. And you compound that with the fact that here there are – There are nine assailants in, you know, four separate restaurants have been. It's just, I can't imagine the chaos that it must have created for the dispatch.

Jay: Even for our team was sent to the Bataclan. We have no intel what our chiefs told us. Something happened there. Let's go and check it out.

Jon Becker: Okay, so then, talking about Battleclan. So to set the stage. Battle clan is a theater. They're having a concert. Eagles of death metal, if I remember correctly, 1500 ish people inside the venue, concert actively going on. And. And what happens.

Jay: So at 09:40, free tourism through free tourists. Sorry. Park their car just in front of the theater, the concert hall, start shooting immediately to the security. It was an unarmed security because in France, most of the security of private building like this, it's unarmed.

Jon Becker: Okay.

Jay: So they start shooting the security and made the entry from the main gate of the theater. And so the main gate was behind all the crowd. The crowd was looking at the scene. And they made the entry by behind at the rear of the theater, actually.

Jon Becker: Okay.

Jay: No, no.

Jon Becker: Well, the front. So if I'm understanding correctly, the front of the theater, like, when you walk in the front doors, you're looking at the stage.

Jay: Yeah, that's it.

Jon Becker: And so the crowd is facing.

Jay: The crowd is facing the scene and the main gate.

Jon Becker: Got it.

Jay: So they made the entry from the rear of the crowd and start shooting for seven minutes nonstop.

Jon Becker: So the crowd has no idea they're watching a concert. They're in the darkest, and all of a sudden, you have three assailants behind them open firing on them.

Jay: With full auto. The only people who actually saw the tourists came in was the band, the american band Miguel of death metal. And they were. So they saw what's going on, and they left the scene. And at that first time, the crowd, people on the crowd, thank. He was like, a part of the show, and then they realized that they were just shot by three guys.

Jon Becker: Do you know at that point how many rounds are fired? What? Like, what's the – How many victims do we have? What happens in that initial engagement with the suspects in the crowd?

Jay: What we know now, it just. They kill almost 80 people at that time, and one did more than 200. How many rounds is difficult, but we.

Jon Becker: Retrieved at least 280.

Jay: We retrieve a lot of mag, empty magazine after the scene, but hundred.

Jon Becker: I mean, obviously, 280 people killed or injured. Hundreds of rounds.

Jay: Yeah. And as I said before, it was well organized between the three terrorists. So they speak to each other, communicate, reloading, start shooting. Stop shooting, moving.

Jon Becker: Is the theater just a big open room? Yeah. Is this like a theater where it has seats and people are in seats or people kind of standing on the ground in a big open room?

Jay: On the first floor just in front of the scene? It's full space without any seat. You've got seat at the second floor, actually, like in a classical theater on the balcony.

Jon Becker: Got it. So the suspects enter. They've got, you know, maybe as many as a thousand or whatever people in a big group in the dark, watching a concert. They open fire on them. What happens next?

Jay: So they shoot, shoot, shoot with Alanis for seven minutes, and two of them took position on the balcony. One of them, after the end of the shooting, and one of them stay on the scene, and then they start killing people, randomly speaking to people, kill people one by one.

Jon Becker: So they basically now have. I'm assuming some people ran.

Jay: Yeah, some people made it through the exit.

Jon Becker: Yeah, I'm assuming. But at some point now they've got captives on the ground, a lot of dead people.

Jay: And then you have dead people, wanted people, and people were acting like dead people because as soon as they move, they get shot. So most of the people, like, maybe 700 people stay inside. They were acting like dead people, if you know what I mean.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Jay: One guy of the security made a great, great job also, because he crossed all the space to open one rescue door. And so people were, a lot of people were able to exit because of his action.

Jon Becker: So he ran through the crowd.

Jay: Through the crowd to open one door on the left side of the theater.

Jon Becker: Okay. And so. So two go up on the balcony. One stays on the first floor. He's engaging people. They're engaging people from the balcony.

Jay: Yep.

Jon Becker: And somewhere in here you get a call that something's going on at the battle climb.

Jay: Yeah, but without any more precision. But at that time, the twelve minutes after the shootings, after they made the entry, like 09:42, 09:45. The street police, actually, it's a street crime unit, arrived on the scene. So because they're patrolling on the car, so they are more quicker than everybody.

Jon Becker: Sure.

Jay: So they made the entry at 09:45. Two of them, especially, only wearing nine man and engage the only tourists they have on site. Actually, there's a gunfight between them. They were able to shoot the terrorists on the scene. This terrorist detonate himself. But the action, the action of the street police stopped them. The main shooting, the mass shooting.

Jon Becker: Got it. So the two that are on the balcony, so they basically engage the guy that's on the first floor.

Jay: They engage the guy who was on the scene on the first floor. It's the only one. They are on site, actually.

Jon Becker: Okay, where the two that are on the balcony, where, where have they gone?

Jay: They stay on the balcony and engage the two police officers.

Jon Becker: Okay. Okay.

Jay: So they weren't able to go further because they have the advantage because of. They're on the balcony and they have AK.

Jon Becker: Yeah. They're pinned down by the guy, the two guys on the balcony with AK-47s.

Jay: And the street police are only nine.

Jon Becker: Yeah. But they do engage the guy that the first guy they encounter, he ends up detonating a suicide vest, probably killing more people, I'm assuming.

Jay: Not sure, because what we know now, it's most of the people around him. Was he on the floor?

Jon Becker: So maybe, maybe not. We'll never know.

Jay: But they stopped the shooting.

Jon Becker: Yeah. Now the suspects turn and are engaged with them, so they're stopping killing.

Jay: It's from active shooting, active shooter situation. It became a massive hostage situation, but they stopped killing people at that time.

Jon Becker: Got it.

Jay: So this is very important to say, and that will be the case in real life. The tactical unit will never be the first responder. The street police will be first on the scene.

Jon Becker: Always. Always. And it keeps with, you know, the theme and a lot of the active shooter training in the United States, which is to engage a suspect as quickly as possible.

Jay: Sure.

Jon Becker: Because he kill himself and at a minimum he focuses on the police. Okay, so then suspect one on the first floor is now dead. Suspect two and three are on the balcony engaging the officers. Are either the officers injured?

Jay: No, not on. No.

Jon Becker: Okay, so they managed to avoid getting shot.

Jay: Yeah. And they set up a perimeter and they regroup, try to make a signal entry. But because of the fire of the terrorists from the balcony, they weren't able to do it.

Jon Becker: Yeah, well, they're outgunned. I mean, 9 mm versus 8 mm.

Jay: Ended up real shield and it was tough for them.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Jay: So they set up a perimeter and wait for the tactical unit. First team of ten operators arrive. Our team arrived around 1020 on the scene. We have a really quick brief with the street police to try to understand what's going on. It was difficult to get information. So our boss, stay with the street police and we. We reach the scene, actually, so we – Because of something very important also, it could be useful for when they set up the perimeter, the street police, most of the. They left most of their car without any driver inside.

So we weren't able as a tactical team to arrive close to the theater. We have to park our car, like two blocks and move with the shield and all the stuff by foot, so.

Jon Becker: So you're not able to bring armor up to the location. You're having to run.

Jay: Yeah, we lost some time about that because the street police left their car. Yeah, and I can understand why they did that, but you have to think about it. But it's the same thing. If you need an ambulance to go on the scene, if you set up a perimeter, you have to be able to open the perimeter when you have to be open.

Jon Becker: Yeah. You have to be able to get vehicles in and more importantly, resources in.

Jay: So we make contact. We make contact with a few guys from street police who will handle the entrance of the theater. We pass the button, take the position. And now we discovered the pit. It was full of body, more than 600, 700 people in front of us. Nobody was talking. The only thing we can hear was the complaint of the wounded people, actually, who were screaming or crying or whatever, but nobody was speaking, nobody was moving. And then we start to understand what we're going to have to do now.

Jon Becker: So you make entry into the first floor. Yeah, there are 700 people on the floor.

Jay: Exactly.

Jon Becker: Some of whom are dead, some of whom are, you know, injured or mortally wounded, and some of whom are pretending to be dead so they don't get shot.

Jay: Yeah, that's it. That's the situation. So as a tactical officer, you train to handle mass shooting, active shooter, hostage situation. This is a combination of something very weird and the worst you can face, actually. You have suicide vest, AK-47 and hostage situation. Not an active shooter anymore, but after shooting anymore, but could be.

Jon Becker: They've obviously manifested intent at that point to be an active shooter because you've got 700 people that you have no idea. You can't triage them because you don't have time. So they may have killed 700 people, for all you know. When you walk in the door.

Jay: That's our first feeling, everybody is dead. So immediately we tried to set up a kind of strategy. It took a few minutes, to be honest. We didn't make the entry. Like, we didn't make a dynamic entry for sure. We tried to get some intel of what's going on. So we tried to speak with the guys who were the victims, who were very close to us to get some information.

So some of them told us they left. They left. Come and help us. They left. There's nobody. No more terrorists in the fjara. Some of them say, no, they're still there. Second floor on the left. Second floor on the left. So what we decided to do is to go and to climb the stairs, clean up all the left side of the theater under the balcony and use the stairs and take position on the left side of the balcony. Because of the intel they gave us, we have a medic with us, actually, it's MD. And we keep it there and ask him to start the triage of the victim who were very close to him. And also he started to call all the rescue units and he was able to tell them what's going on here on a rescue point of view.

So with the team of ten guys, we asked for also we asked for backup from another team of the. But the other team of the bi was stuck, you know, in – They were not able to come very quickly to the scene because when they have to cross the street to come to us, and as soon as they try to cross the street, they get engaged by the, one of the terrorists from the second floor also. So we have to manage situations for now. We were ten guys, so we have to make a choice, and our choice was to go second floor on the balcony and see what's going on.

Jon Becker: So let me just recap that so I make sure I get it right. So you get up, you get up to the second floor to engage a suspect. There's two suspects. You don't know how many suspects there are at this point. So it's somewhere between two and a million. And the suspect is engaging your second unit through the outside windows of the building to prevent them from coming in. So you can't get your backup in immediately. So you have ten guys to clear a theater with an unknown number of suspects and 700 victims.

Jay: Yeah, that's…

Jon Becker: Yeah, that's pretty ugly.

Jay: Yeah. So we start to do that. And I heard on my radio that finally the second team made it. And also we heard that we have a backup of the red team also on their way. So we did what we tried to do. We cleaned up. We search all the left side of the first floor and then go through the stairs to reach the balcony on the second floor.

Jon Becker: And at this point, you have not seen the suspect or engaged the suspects. But the consistent theme among the victims is that the guys are on the second floor.

Jay: Yeah, got it. Our main fear was, you have to understand that we were working in the middle of the people, actually. And when they start. So they start to ask for help from us. Help my sister, help my husband. What are you doing? Help me. Can I come? And we have to keep them, you know, lay on the floor. We were afraid that if somebody stand up, everybody will stand up. And if the terrorist was hiding somewhere, it's gonna be a mass shooting again.

Jon Becker: So when you also don't know. I mean, 700 people we now know are victims of. But for you it's 700 suspects.

Jay: Yes. Because you don't know.

Jon Becker: Yeah. They can hide anywhere in. In the crowd, outside of the crowd.

Jay: From the balcony, from the beat, from whatever. So it was a difficult time because we spent like 20 minutes working in the middle of people. But dead bodies wanted people, people who grab your pants, people will ask you for help. And I remember my friend of mine was my deputy in the team. He found in the restrooms a young girl, about 16, 17 years old who get bad wounded on the left arm. And he tried to put very quickly a tourniquet on it. But when he put the tourniquet on, there was no more flesh. It was only the bone. So that's why we faced at that time.

So we were working around the bodies of people. It was a really difficult time, to be honest. It took us like 20 minutes. And we made it on the balcony, second floor, until the last door of the balcony. There was a door, a simple wooden door. And we were. We did, like, open a lot of door at that time. And it was the last one.

So, I mean, now we know. We know it's the last one, but at that time we didn't know about it. And we were to open it and someone spoke to us and say, back up, back, back up. We are the. I want to speak to a negotiator. So our first reaction is, what do you want to negotiate? Just kill so many people, really? So it's not. Yeah, I'm not supposed to say that, but it was our actions.

Jon Becker: It's a little late to negotiate.

Jay: What do you want to negotiate? But then we came down and, okay, what do you want? We want to negotiate. We have people under control. We want to negotiate. They ask one negotiator. That means they know how we work out of the process. That's very important. So we start talking to them.

And very quickly, they gave us a phone number, a cell number. I tried to forward the cell number to the negotiator who was just at the entrance of the theater. It was not easy. First they gave us a fake number. It wasn't working. So after we get. We managed to communicate. I transferred the phone number to the negotiator and negotiators called them and they start speaking directly from the negotiator to the terrorists.

The very important thing at that time, it was around 11:15, because we made contact. We tried to contain this area and our leadership asked us, is it safe? Can we start evacuating the first floor? It was difficult to say it's safe, but we say we knew at that time, we have to do something for the people. We get wounded very quickly.

So we say, we're going to contain this door. You can start the evacuation. And they start the evacuation. My team and I, we didn't really see what's going on on the first floor. But you have to imagine that they have to start the recreations first. They had the non-wanted people to camp, but they have to check each people who get out of the. Of the theater.

Jon Becker: So, yeah, because they could be suspects.

Jay: They could be suspect. They could also wear suicide vests. They could be a victim. And terrorists put them suicide vests on. So they check one by one, all the unwanted people, and then they start evacuating the wounded people.

So you have – That was under the control of our MD. You have two different MD. Also MD. From the red came another one from the BRI. And they organized the triage and they asked the street police under the protection of the red and the other team of the BRI. Who were on the first floor to organize the evacuation.

Jon Becker: So you've got the suspects, or at least you believe you have the suspects pinned in behind a door. And the second team has come in now and is providing physical security for the doctors for the triage and as well as elements of raid to evacuate the first floor, treat the wounded while you are dealing with the suspects in a second floor behind the door.

Jay: Yeah.

Jon Becker: Okay.

Jay: Exactly. The thing is, now that you have two major priorities for the unit. You have to contain and to neutralize the threat, but also you have to rescue the victims. And it's, you have to find a balance between the two priorities.

Jon Becker:

Yeah. Because it's stopped the killing, stop the dying. Right? Like, who knows how many more, how many more hostages they have. But, you know, you have hundreds of victims who, if you do nothing, are going to die.

Jay: Yeah. And on the other side. If you, if you acting too quickly, you can create a chaos. More than.

Jon Becker: Yeah. You can. You can create more victims. You can.

Jay: So it's a very difficult balance to find. And a few years later, it's important also to say there is an inquiry, a commission from the parliament. We're working on the event. And they really don't understand why we don't go quicker. We wouldn't be able to go faster than what we did.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Jay: And some of them say because you weren't faster, some people die because of you.

Jon Becker: That's horrible!

Jay: And it was very tough for us. We really don't understand this because we really did a thing the best we can at that time. And we find the balance between rescuing the victim and searching the terrorists and neutralize the threat. And you cannot just on the scene like that go through running inside and shooting everybody. That's not the way we work.

Jon Becker: Yeah. And there's no, the problem with all these situations is there's no good choice. You have. You have no good choice. Every single thing you're faced with is bad. And so it's just trying to minimize the bad with an extremely limited amount of information under fear, pressure, people grabbing you, people asking for help, all the while not knowing where the suspect is.

So it's not really fair to, you know, look at it Monday morning and say, oh, that was a man. They could have done a better job.

Jay: And it was the first time that a European tactical unit faced this kind of event.

Jon Becker: Yeah. Yeah.

Jay: So it's easy after a few years later say, you should have done that.

Jon Becker: Or that it's easy to pick the winner of the racehorse, the winning racehorse, after the race is run.

Jay: Yeah, always.

Jon Becker: So at what point do you become aware that these guys have hostages behind this door?

Jay: So they start talking to our negotiator by phone. That night, there were, like, five phone contacts between them and each in contact. They gave information to the negotiator. They want to communicate on their actions. So they told us they were harmed with AK. They have explosives. There are multiple people under the control.

Jon Becker: So they gave us information, and just without divulging any identities, the negotiator that is negotiating. I know the negotiator, and this is not the first time that this negotiator has negotiated with a professional terrorist organization or even this particular terrorist organization.

Jay: Yeah, you're right. The negotiator in Charles that night was the same who handled all the situation of the kosher market standoff in January 2015. So that's helped a lot because he had experience of this kind of situation.

Jon Becker: And the suspects are expecting. The terrorists are expecting to negotiate.

Jay: Yeah, they negotiate. They want us to broadcast their political communication on the news channel. That was the big thing. So during that time, during the negotiation between negotiator and the terrorists for on a pact, on a tactical point of view, we use this time to prepare our action.

So we immediately set up. We immediately set up assault plan, emergency assault plan, in case they start shooting people. That was the first thing. They start to shoot people. We go. And because of what's happened in January 2015, we got the green light to make the assault in this case, very quickly, from the leadership, because of our experience. And in the meantime, we use this time to create and to build and elaborate assault plan.

Jon Becker: So just to go back, you say January 2015. What happened January 2015? That's the kosher market event?

Jay: Yeah, the kosher market.

Jon Becker: Got it. Okay.

Jay: And because it was the first, I mean, on large scale attack like this, it was more difficult for the chief of the tactical units to get the green light to make the assault.

Jon Becker: The first time.

Jay: The first time in Japan.

Jon Becker: Yeah. But the second time, now we have this event from ten months ago, eleven months ago in recent memory. They're willing to make a faster decision.

Jay: Don't forget that France is a very centralized country. In this kind of event, the decision will be taken by the minister of interior. Prime minister and the president also could be involved. So the good thing. I mean, the good thing that night, we get the green light to action very quickly.

Jon Becker: Got it. So the suspects are negotiating with you, they're barricaded. What ultimately makes you make the decision to make entry?

Jay: After the negotiator told us after the second contact that there will be no surrender, based on his experience and based on what the terrorists told him, he was sure that there's gonna be any surrender.

Jon Becker: Yeah. They're there to die and take as many people as they can.

Jay: Exactly.

Jon Becker: Got it.

Jay: Just as they did like Munich before. So the decision was made to storm this. They regroup. So the two terrorists regroup in a very small corridor for you to understand the situation. The corridor is 1.5 yards large and 9 yards long.

Jon Becker: So it's 27 ft by 5 or 6 ft of – It's basically a hallway.

Jay: And you have, at the end of corridor, also a green room with a. Regroup some more people. And at the end of the corridor you have the stairs, who go through the scene, actually.

Jon Becker: Oh, down to the stage.

Jay: Down to the stage.

Jon Becker: Okay. So if I'm understanding correctly, you've got a door, closed door, a hallway that's 5 or 6ft wide and 30 ft, 27 ft long with a bunch of hostages in it. You go down, you make a turn, you're into the green room, which is where the bands would get ready for the concert. And then there's a spiral staircase that goes down to the stage.

Jay: Yeah, exactly.

Jon Becker: Okay, got it.

Jay: There is two windows in the corridor, but we were not able to get information from outside because they asked the hostage to stand close to the window and to give them information about what's going on outside. So it was not a way for us to get intel of what's going on in corridor. We were blind of what's going on inside.

Jon Becker: Got it.

Jay: This is very important. We have no intel about it. So what we decided to do is to use a shield on wheel, a big shield on wheel. It's a class four shield, almost 180 kg.

Jon Becker: So three almost 400 pound rolling ballistic, level four ballistic shield.

Jay: Yep. So our tactics was to bridge the door, engage through the – And get through the terrorists in this particular corridor. The thing is, we understood at that time that they put some. They asked some hostage to sit. You know, we can hear that. That the hostage were closed to the door. So we went. The decision was made not to use explosive breaching because of that.

Jon Becker: Yeah. Because they've placed hostages up against the door.

Jay: Up against the door.

Jon Becker: So if you use explosive breaching, you may kill those hostages.

Jay: Yeah.

Jon Becker: So you have to mechanically breach the door.

Jay: That's what we did.

Jon Becker: While the suspects are engaging you.

Jay: It was the risk.

Jon Becker: With hostages between you.

Jay: So we were preparing the assault and Ayod guys come to us for a briefing and said okay, we were able to retrieve a vest who partially failed on another location. It's TATP. If you shoot TATPs that's going to detonate so what you have to do is to shoot, make headshots. So okay, headshot is good on when you playing at call of duty but when you are in real life it's not the same way.

Jon Becker: So you're getting ready to make an assault in a 6 foot wide by 27 foot hallway with 10 to 15 hostages, two suspects and a barricaded door and the EOD guys come to you and say oh by the way, don't shoot the vest, don't shoot them in the chest because you may detonate them. You have to shoot them in the head. Yeah, sure, yeah, yeah.

Jay: So that's what we were preparing for the assault. The initial the alpha team. Alpha team and the leadership of the unit prepare a second stack just behind us in case of something happened to us and we saw that and Montale was really tough. It's the first time. Usually when you prepare your assault you have some backup but you don't have another stack, another team prepared to do what you are supposed to do. So we expect the worst.

Jon Becker: Yes. You have a second team staged in case they blow themselves up and kill all of you.

Jay: Yeah.

Jon Becker: To then send in a second team.

Jay: Just behind us ready to go if.

Jon Becker: If they need to rescue you or.

Jay: Rescue or rescue the – That was the first time in – on my experience that something happened like this. So at 00:18 decision was made to storm the discover to make the assault. Okay, so we start moving with the shield in front of us. I'm not going to speak in detail about the tactics because I want any bad guys to.

Jon Becker: I'm good with that. Yeah.

Jay: So we went through the scarter trying to open the door to bridge the door. We bridge the door we immediately get caught on a fire but one of the first terrorists was maybe 4 or 5 meters from us in the corridor and start shooting I guess at us immediately.

Jon Becker: So you breached the door on this six foot wide, five foot wide hallway that's 27ft long before it ells to the side and as you breach the door, about halfway down the suspect engages you with an AK-47.

Jay: AK-47, 5 meters range, two times one guys of the team were able to fire back two or three rounds and then we receive a full magazine of 7.62 in the – On the stack. Actually 26 impact in the shield. And unfortunately when a bullet impact one guy who was in the middle of the stack, he was hit in the left hand very badly.

Jon Becker: If I remember correctly, he was the only left handed guy in the stack.

Jay: He was the only left handed guy in style.

Jon Becker: Murphy is always present.

Jay: Oh yeah. And he was a very tough guy almost with all the four gear, maybe 120 kilos. And because of the energy of the round, it was just behind me. But some guys from the stack saw him jumping like the impact made him fall down.

Jon Becker: Yeah. Violently.

Jay: Violently. And my first feeling at that time, Washington, s***, we didn't make the really the entry and we already lost one guy.

Jon Becker: Yeah, but it's good. Your position is kind of in the middle of the stack.

Jay: In the middle of the stack, yeah. Six, seven. The stack was twelve guy got it. But the guy was handled the shield after get hit 26 time continue.

Jon Becker: Continues to….

Jay: Move towards to move through other suspect. This is because of him we were able to go through the suspect.

Jon Becker: It's hard to conceive of. Had you not taken the ballistic shield, your stack would have taken 26 AK 47 rounds.

Jay: I think we had lost a half of the stack.

Jon Becker: Yeah, half the stack. I mean, 26 rounds would have been plenty to do. At least half the stack. So as you enter 26 rounds at the shield, one hits the only left handed guy in the stack. In the left hand, the guy that's controlling the shield, despite the shield being hit 26 times, continues to move towards the suspect, which then allows the remainder of the team to enter.

Jay: Yep, because of his action, we were able to pursue action.

Jon Becker: Yeah, if he had stopped. You're stuck in the doorway.

Jay: You're stuck on the doorway in a funnel. Yeah, in a funnel. And as soon as we made the entry, people start quarrying to us, the hostages in the same time. So we have the shooting, but in September of people recording to us. So you have to check also who is coming to you.

Jon Becker: Yeah, because that could be one of the suspects. That could be a suicide vest, could be anything. And you've got what, 10 or 15 hostages in this?

Jay: Yeah.

Jon Becker: So we have a. We have a six foot wide hallway with 15 people in it, a suspect 5 meters away dumping a 26 rounds of an AK-47 into your shield. While you're making entry, the hostages are crawling towards you and you're trying to engage the suspect.

Jay: Yeah, that's the situation.

Jon Becker: Yeah, that's about as ugly as it gets.

Jay: And we start using flashbangs very quickly. So you, then we have smoke also smokes from the fire, the smokes from the gunfight, the gunfight, and also the smoke from the flashbangs. And remember, we have to shoot the guys in the head. In the same time, you got full of different people were crowded to us as a hostage tried to escape from this corridor, and they came to us.

But the thing is, you have to check all of them to be sure that they are not wearing eids, they are not terrorists trying to escape. So what we did, our EOD guys were at the rear of the stack, search for them very quickly and evacuate them in the same time that we went into the corridor, something we didn't notice on the plan of the theater.

After 1 meter in this corridor, there is two steps. And what's happened because of the weight of the shield, after two steps, this is just after the first shooting, the shield collapsed, and the guy who was holding the shield was not able, because of the weight, to keep it. So the shield collapsed and our guy face without any protection, the two terrorists at that time.

Jon Becker: So they fire 26 rounds into the shield. He continues to progress, as he progress, not expecting two steps, the shield just snaps away from him. And does it pull him down onto the ground too? Or is he.

SpeakerBNo, no.

Jon Becker: He's able to let go of the shield.

Jay: Yeah, it lets go to shield.

Jon Becker: And now he's face to face with two terrorists with suicide vests and AK-47, SDE, surrounded by hostages at 5 meters with no protection.

Jay: Yeah, that's the situation.

Jon Becker: That's when you were standing at the door, you were probably thinking, how can it get worse?

Jay: Yeah.

Jon Becker: And that that's how it can get worse.

Jay: And it was the only one to see what's going on, because remember, it's a corridor, so in the stack we didn't see s***.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Jay: So he holsters his sidearm and I start shooting and progress in the same times.

Jon Becker: So he continues to close on the suspects, firing at them with a handgun. Yeah, because he was expecting to only drive the shield.

Jay: Yeah, got it. And this shield, you need the two hands.

Jon Becker: Yeah, I've seen the shield, it's huge.

Jay: So it still progressed through the terrorist. What we understand, after it hit one of the tourists, we get wounded, the tourists back off at the end of the corridor at the corner, and our guy is still going through them. And one of the terrorists, the guy who gets hit, detonates himself.

At that time, we were the first of the stack were at maybe 4, 5 meters from the detonation, and all the stack was beyond them. So we were very lucky because all the fragmentation went through the wall. So what we felt. We felt the blast of the explosion, but nobody was hit by the fragmentation.

Jon Becker: So the frag went out sideways, basically, as opposed to coming towards you guys.

Jay: So we're still on going. So the first guy detonated himself when we arrived. When the first two guys of team arrived, they discovered, like him, in different pieces all over the place, the stairs. And they spot the second one, who was heavily wounded, but is still trying to detonate his vest. So they have to neutralize him.

Jon Becker: So the second you've engaged both the suspects, they've both been wounded. The first guy successfully detonates his s fast.

Jay: No, it's not exactly that.

Jon Becker: Okay.

Jay: Only one terrorist was on site. The second one was already in the….

Jon Becker: Oh, it was around the corner in the green. Got it.

Jay: So the first in the stack were able to hit the first one who detonate themselves and wanted his friends. His friend.

Jon Becker: Oh, so his s vas injures.

Jay: Yeah.

Jon Becker: Suspect number two.

Jay: Exactly.

Jon Becker: Got it.

Jay: Okay, tango number two. So tango number two was every one that still trying to determine his vest. So there are no choice that to neutralize him.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Jay: So.

Jon Becker: So they shoot him, which then neutralizes that threaten.

Jay: They neutralize the suspect, but the threat still. Because the threat is the explosives.

Jon Becker: Yeah, he's still a human bomb.

Jay: Yeah. So that's why it's very – We were very lucky to have EOD guys in the stack because we have to go through him because we understand that we have some ten more people we're hiding in another green room. But for that, we have to go through the tango number two.

Jon Becker: So you have to move over the suspect.

Jay: To move over him. So we called the Yodi guys, who was a former army, the Yodi with a lot of experience, and he says, okay, as long as you not touching the vest, there is no risk. So you can go over, step over him.

Jon Becker: Just don't touch him in any way, shape or form.

Jay: So what he did.

Jon Becker: And if you do, you'll blow up. Yeah, yeah.

Jay: So what he did, he stand over the body of the tango number two, and we step and we go through using his. The body of the Yodi guys as a protection to go through. And that was.

Jon Becker: Was he in a bomb suit?

Jay: No, nothing like us. Only a ballistic protection.

Jon Becker: So he's just wearing soft armor.

Jay: Soft armor.

Jon Becker: And he places himself between. Above this. Above the tango, above the bomb. So we allow you guys to move through.

Jay: I will remember that forever.

Jon Becker: Yeah. I don't know how you'd forget that.

Jay: And then we arrived to the second green room, who was locked and stopped asking people, okay, you need to open the door. It's okay, you're free now. And those people, we understand at that time, they barricaded in this room at the beginning of the shooting. So they didn't see anything of the attack. They know that something was bad, this was going on. And maybe an hour before the tangos, they tried to make the entry in their green room and told them that they were GiGn and something interesting, they make a vote inside the room, should we open or not? And like a democracy stuff. So they say, no, it was a good, good decision.J

on Becker: So the suspects tried to lie their way into this other green room 1 hour before. An hour before when they had everybody else held hostage. And the susp. And the people in the second green room basically said, no, you're gonna have to force your way in.

Jay: But the thing is, now we're gonna ask him the same thing.

Jon Becker: Yeah, yeah. Now you're standing there saying the same thing the suspect said an hour ago.

Jay: So they say, no way.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Jay: So we have to speak with them, tell them to call the 911. We also call the 911 and say, if those guys call you, tell them that we are the police.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Jay: It took 15 minutes.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Jay: So then they opened the door and we discovered like, maybe 12, 15 people in a very small room. And you have some American citizens, British, German and French, and something interesting. We get to show you the difference of culture and relationship with police and population. So we had the room and we asked them, leave your stuff, leave your bags, put your hands up and come one by one so we can check you and start the evacuation.

So the american guys complain, braids, Germans, and then the French guys starting insulting us and say, no way. I gonna keep my belongings with me. And why does it take too long for you to come? It was funny, actually, we have in the middle of this. It was something funny. I don't know if I can say funny, but, you know.

Jon Becker: Yeah, funny.

Jay: So all those people didn't see anything about the attack, but the only way for them to evacuate the theater was go through the pit.

Jon Becker: Oh, God!

Jay: And the pit at that time, there were only the dead people, but almost 90 people.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Jay: With really bad, bad wound. AK-47 makes you like you have a car crash. It's not only a hole, it's like they crush your bones.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Jay: So these people who didn't see anything.

Jon Becker: Are now traumatized by having to walk through and see. Walk through, literally a butchery.

Jay: Really tough for them. There were a kid also we found because after we still searching everywhere and another team of the beer I found people were hiding in the attics, you know, and there was a kid there. So I remember one Gaviri puts his hand on the eye of the kid to cross the pit to inside to avoid him, to see the.

Jon Becker: Yeah, to prevent the kid from seeing anything that happened. So just to at this point that you've cleared the hostages. No hostages killed?

Jay: No, not, no one.

Jon Becker: None of them were injured or seriously injured?

Jay: During the assault, the final assault. No.

Jon Becker: One of your guys shot in the left hand. I'm assuming he's recovered.

Jay: He's recovered, get promoted. But yes, he left the team because of his wounded.

Jon Becker: The nerve damage to his hand. What is the aftermath for this event, for your team? How does this affect the team?

Jay: Something I can. Something I want to tell you. It's after the – So we left the theater, the scene maybe around three in the morning. EOD stay on the scene to keep the search of explosives. So at 04:00 we were at our headquarters. We saw all the victims who are also witness came to the one where not wounded, were regrouping buses and came to our unit because our unit is at that time was at the same location where all the criminal investigation division was. So they want all the people who get involved to be interviewed at the time.

Jon Becker: Sure. Yeah.

Jay: So. And we saw like hundreds of people there. So for us it was the first shock, you know. And then we left the unit and we were back home around 05:00 so something very strange, weird. It's you just back home and try not to awake your family. And our wives and relatives were, they were waiting for us with no information, with no real good information. And then they ask you, so what's going on? What did you do? How are you? And you really don't know what to say.

Jon Becker: Yeah. How do you even begin to….

Jay: It's not like a soldier who's, for example, is in Afghanistan. You have a combat in Afghanistan when he's coming back. Yes. You know, he takes a plane stop in Germany and then there is a kind of saskimon, you know, a kind of decompression.

Jon Becker: Yeah, yeah. There's an opportunity for them to separate themselves from the battlefield and their home, which is still, you know, we know, not long enough and, and, but this is….

Jay: This is directly from the battlefield to the home.

Jon Becker: You're, you're going back to work taking a shower and going to your family.

Jay: Yeah. With your suit. You know, I remember my. My shoes and my suit was full of the bloods of the tangos when we detonated them himself. You know, it was really something weird. So when I went back. I wasn't able to speak and to. To tell my wife what's. What's going on, what's happened a few years before.

Jon Becker: How do you even, I mean, I can't imagine how you even begin to articulate that night?

Jay: And because also something important, our family, during the January attack, when we stormed the kosher market, it was broadcast on the. Live, on French TV. And so some guys from our units, red and BR, get shot during this assault. And saw the family, they saw the action, you know, life.

Jon Becker: I see their family members being shot on live TV.

Jay: So this time there were no broadcasts from the inside of the theater. You have broadcast from outside, so you can hear the assault and the gunfight, but you don't see anything of what's going on inside. So for me, I wasn't able to speak or to tell anything. I tried to sleep well, maybe I sleep like 1 hour and we get a call back from the unit and they want us to go back on the field. It was like 09:00 something, for surveillance on, one of the car left by the terrorists on the day before was full of arm. And they expect that some other tangos will come and take the car and they want us to arrest them in this case.

So we were – After 2 hours of sleep, we were back to the unit, go back on the field. The surveillance didn't. After a few hours of surveillance, they decided to tow the car away. But also something important. When we lost our guy get hit in the hand, it was so much chaos that we evacuated him, but we were not able to know where he had been evacuated for hours. We didn't know about him. There were so many victims dispatching different hospitals without names, without nothing. So it took like maybe 3 hours to get the information on which hospital is he and how is he.

Jon Becker: Yeah, because you have no idea how badly he's wounded. No, they just pull him out, take him to a hospital. Nobody knows where he goes. And I mean, you know, it's 400 injured victims of – Across Paris it's 130 dead. Like, it's. You can only imagine. Every hospital in Paris is in full triage in…

Jay: And the priority was not to the name of the people and all this.

Jon Becker: Yeah, they're just treating people so.

Jay: And for him also because he was alone in the hospital, and he didn't know nothing about us.

Jon Becker: Yeah. So he doesn't know whether….

Jay: What's happened to us during the assault and after the action.

Jon Becker: Long term, how did this affect the unit? Like, the guys that were involved in this event, obviously, the guy that's injured ends up having to leave the unit because of the damage. Did it solidify the unit? Did it break it up? What happened to the guys that were involved in the event?

Jay: It solidified the unit for sure. A few of us decided to leave the unit. Some of us tried to join the red or another tactical unit, and some of us left Paris, you know, to live in the south of France, west of France, whatever. But most of the guys after the 2015 stay in the unit. And what I think is the best protection for. Against PTSD, on my opinion, was your friends, actually, because when you share experience like this with friends, you can speak about it, you can understand each other, but if you leave a unit just after a traumatic event like this, you're going to feel really alone. We cannot share this kind of event with people who weren't there.

So I think this is – This protect us. The leadership they sent us sent us some psychologists, but because it was police psychologists, nobody wants to speak to them. You're afraid of, if they detect something wrong, they will tell your leadership and you will take your position out of the unit. So nobody talked to the psychologist. We heal each other by speaking about the event and by sharing some time.

Jon Becker: You've shared with me in the past, your recollections. What are the most profound memories you have of this event?

Jay: As I told you before, when I make my way back to home, it was very tough on the scene after the first wave of recreation, when only the dead people stay in the theater. What I remember, it's the cell phone rings in all the pockets of the victim. Because at that time, people all over France know by TV that something happened. And the relatives who know that some of their family is in the concert start calling to get some news about their relatives. And you can hear the cell phone, see the light of the cell phone on the dead bodies and hear the ring ringtones. That was tough. Really.

Jon Becker: Yeah, because you realize that every single one of those cell phones is somebody who's not gonna see that person again.

Jay: No, it was a bad memory. It was a very bad memory. And also something we did two days after our leadership asked us to go back on the scene in the theater, grab the shield, who stayed in the scene to bring him back to the unit because the minister of interior wanted to see it. So our team was designed to do that.

So it was a Monday morning, I think. So we went there. It was full pitch black inside. So we used our lights and went inside. The smell was terrible. The soul was sticky about the tons of blood everywhere. And we made through this shader to get back the shield. And it was a very bad idea, actually.

Jon Becker: It was a terrible idea.

Jay: It's a terrible idea. It's a terrible idea to ask us to go and grab it. Maybe if you ask another team,.

Jon Becker: Someone who hadn't experienced it.

Jay: Yeah.

Jon Becker: So basically, you've been through a traumatic event and they send you back there a couple of days later for a show and tell.

Jay: Yeah.

Jon Becker: The two days later to walk back through the area where this whole traumatic event took place. Smell the smells. Feel the blood on the floor.

Jay: Yeah. This was bad. Really bad.

Jon Becker: Yeah, that's a terrible idea.

Jay: The next day, so the Tuesday morning, we got a call around five in the morning for my unit bus. Say, hurry, hurry, we have to go in. Suddenly, the redhead located the terrorists and there is a big gunfight between the terrorists and the red. So go and back up the red. Now. This time was really, really tough for the family, I'm sure, because. And I called the other guy from the teams. Each team leader called the other one, you know, and I have to say. And they ask, what's going on? Don't ask questions. Just gear up and…

Jon Becker: Yeah, just show up.

Jay: Go. And so they told me that the family has. Where are you going? Are you going? It's not finished. No, it's not finished. We have to go. It was a red operation, but we just back up them. But we were on the scene, so for the family, it was really, really tough. It's a never ending situation.

Jon Becker: So when they subsequently raid, subsequently hits the house and gets the remainder of the cell. Right?

Jay: Say it again.

Jon Becker: Raid subsequently hits a location and gets the remainder of this terrorist cell, at least the ones that are still left.

Jay: They killed the element leader of the tangos.

Jon Becker: Got it.

Jay: And two accomplice.

Jon Becker: So I think to kind of work our way towards wrapping up, I would love to hear your thoughts on, you know, the specifically, like, debrief lessons learned, kind of stuff that your team took away from this that you would want other teams to know as they train or prepare for these kinds of events.

Jay: Okay. Something that, you know, in the states, because of the active shooting situation you face, it's the street. The first responder will always be the street police. So what you need to do is to train the street police to train them what to do. To train them what not to do and to train them how to prepare your action. It's as we did after 2015 with the street crime unit, with our – In France, you have three levels of police response in case of an event like this. You've got level one, it's street police. Level two is the street crime unit. They are patrolling. It's like the metro division in LAPD.

So your police station, metro division, and then the SWAT in France, it's the same thing that you have to train the street police, and you have to train also the metro division to prepare your action and to act and not to. And also teach them not to act. What, I mean, it's, they should be able to identify in an active shooting situation where they have to go, an all state situation where they have to wait for you. This is very important, in my opinion.

Also, it's something we improve after the 2015 incident. It's, you have to gain time on the evacuation of the victims and of all the people involved in this kind of crisis, especially in a massive hostage situation. That's why what we did, we trained and equipped some guys from the fire department with ballistic shield.

Jon Becker: Yep.

Jay: So now we train them with the metro division guy. So as soon as we secure one area of the situation, for example, the pit is secure. Now this fire department special team, under the protection of the metro division, the level two police will be able to evacuate people very quickly. This is very good, because if we have that at that time, maybe we can save a few people. You don't have to wait that this become a cold zone, you know? You know, there are three different zones. You know, the hot zone.

Jon Becker: Hot, warm, and cold.

Jay: Yeah. So far, until 2015, you have the rescue organization, EMT, fire department. They only work on the cold zone. What we did not did now is to train there under protection of police to be able to intervene on the warm zone. This is very important, and that can save lives.

Jon Becker: Yeah. So you have to, I mean, to do that, you have to train the metro police that initially, the second level of response to secure the perimeter and protect the fire guys, and then you have to train the fire guys to be able to respond into a warm area. But you don't have to train them to the level of a SWAT team.

Jay: No.

Jon Becker: You just need to teach them how to secure a facility and protect fire so fire can go in and evacuate people. That's a really good….

Jay: Except if it's an active shooting situation, they have to go.

Jon Becker: Sure, sure.

Jay: But otherwise, they have to be able to organize themselves with us because, you know, the free zone is not. It's not.

Jon Becker: It's not a clear partition. Clear partition.

Jay: It's an ongoing situation.

Jon Becker: Yeah, it's a fluid. So, for example, temperature changes.

Jay: When we arrived, the full theater was a hot zone.

Jon Becker: Right.

Jay: And then the pit was a warm zone, and then because of what we did, the pit was a cold zone. You know, this is an evolutionary…

Jon Becker:

Yeah, it's evolving.

Jay: It's evolving. So that's why you have to train with them. This is something I think really works. And also, I spoke about it later, but before. Sorry, it's the eod guy. You must. We think that you must be able to take one to have a guy in the stack, or if you cannot have a guy in the stack, train one guy of your bomb squad to be able to come with you.

Jon Becker: To move into a hot zone, and also.

Jay: Not only to defuse some explosives, but to be able to make the – Possibly the stack to go through.

Jon Becker: Yeah. Well, like in this instance, I mean, if you. If the. If the EOD guy doesn't make a call on that device, you are either risking your life stepping over it, or having to change course and move a different direction. So his expertise and his willingness to put himself in harm's way immediately moves the problem along when it would otherwise stall you. Yeah, yeah.

Jay: Otherwise, you know, you can be blocked, for example. I don't know, but the tourists left like a grenade on the floor. If you don't have the expertise.

Jon Becker: You don't know what to do.

Jay: You don't know what to do.

Jon Becker: How did this event change the way you guys train?

Jay: I used to say that before 2015, we were acting like police officer, and then we have to change our mindset a little. And in this case of situation, you're still a police officer, but you have to acting like more like a soldier. And this is something really difficult, because a few months after the events, we have a warrant for drug, you know, and we prepare ourselves, and I can see that the team prepare as they were going to war. You know what I mean?

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Jay: And we have to say, hey, calm down. We are back to the police work now. We have to arrest him. Nobody get killed.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Jay: So it's something. You have to be able to change your mindset. In this case of type of situation, there has been no surrender, no arrests, for sure, but you're still a police officer, so you have to respect some procedure, the policy, the SOP. We are not able to kill everybody, you know, even the tangos. So it's, you have to move between the police mindset and the military mindset.

Jon Becker: Yeah, I think one of the things that when we first started dealing with the US military for non lethal and they started putting the US military into riot control situations, I had a discussion with a colonel who basically said, this is, we don't, you know, this is not what we do. Force is a switch. When it's time to engage, we flip the switch and we turn on the military machine and it goes until somebody, until we reach surrender or an armistice and then we turn it off.

He said, it is very difficult for me to understand, like a police officer does, that force can go up and down at any point and can start at any point. You know, everybody you pull over could be a deadly threat to you or could be an old lady lost on her way home from the store.

And I think that line becomes finer when you get into tactical situations. And I think that there's a lot of discussion about demilitarizing police and how law enforcement militarizing is, you know, is promoting the wrong mindset. But I think that that's a naive position. When you look at a situation like Bataklan because you were in a war.

Jay: You're in the war. But yeah, to be able to be.

Jon Becker: Able to switch, yes, and that's a very difficult switch. I mean, that that requires a great deal of training and expertise. And I think that's why it is essential to have units like Brih who have the ability to engage this kind of a threat. I mean, I told you when we first did the debrief for this at Aardvark, I mean, I remember introducing you guys, briefing this and saying to the teams that were there, were there, you know, 200 guys, every single one of you has a tactical nightmare. You have a situation that you're afraid of and that haunts you and that you picture. And none of those are as bad as this situation, right?

Like you just go back to the hallway and explosive devices and AK-47s and hostages and smoke and you think about all of those things. To be able to effectively execute this hostage rescue in all of that chaos and all of that danger and all of that threat is a testament to how well your unit was trained and the kind of guys you've selected. Like there is – If you played this in a simulation game a hundred times, everybody is okay and only one guy is shot in the hand is never going to be the result of that simulation.

Jay: You're right.

Jon Becker: Yet somehow you guys managed to pull an amazing victory out of this horrific situation. What? When you look back at this, and this will be my last question, when you look back at this, what are you most proud of?

Jay: The behavior of the unit member? None of them. All of them. Sorry, all of them did the job. All of them got forward to the enemy through the theater. It was something you don't know how people will react before the situation happened. So that night, all the guys who were involved with us, with the unit, did the job, and without any hesitation. So this is something that you never forget.

Jon Becker: There are a lot of people that are alive today because of you guys that certainly would not have been alive. You know, I hope that your unit and, you know, you know how proud you should be of the actions you took that night. And, you know, I would encourage anybody that listens to this podcast to watch.

There is a three part or four part documentary series that Netflix did called November 13th, Paris, that shows the chaos and shows the events and talks to the victims and talks to the people that were there. And, you know, if it's certainly not, you know, family TV. It is violent. It is dark. Even I watched it in parts. Despite 35 years of being immersed in this. It's. It is a heavy documentary. But, you know, I would encourage any of our listeners to go back and watch that video. And, you know, buddy, I thank you so much for doing this with me. And, you know, like I said, you guys should be very proud of what you did.

Jay: Thanks, Jon! Thanks for the opportunity to share with you, and thanks again for the invitation!

Jon Becker: My pleasure! Thanks, buddy!

Episode 5 – Ed Hinchey: Surviving and Recovering After Being Shot

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 Ed Hinchey. Ed is a former Forest Hills, Pennsylvania police sergeant who spent 21 years on the force working a variety of assignments. Ed retired from the department after an officer involved shooting where the suspect did not survive. And Ed, having received serious life threatening injuries, was left clinging to life, having been saved by his armor.

Since his retirement, he's dedicated his time to ensuring that police officers are properly armored and that those who are shot in the line of duty are cared for the way they should be. Ed's current role is as the armored technical specialist for Safariland and the head of the Safariland saves program.

Ed, thank you for joining me today on The Debrief!

Ed Hinchey: Jon, thanks for having me!

Jon Becker: So maybe start with just kind of your history, the beginning of your career, and kind of working the way forward.

Ed Hinchey:

Sure. I got into law enforcement early. I went to the academy when I was 19 years old, while I was working my way through college, hired on with a couple of small departments before I was lucky enough to get on with the Forest Hills Police department.

Jon Becker: So at some point in your career, you start to care about body armor. When is that?

Ed Hinchey: Well into my career, I'd been like the other officers I was issued to me. I wanted something comfortable, something soft, something I could function in. One of my best friends, Ed Limbacher, was working the state AG's office in a task force when he was shot in his chest and his body armor failed.

After coming home from the hospital and crossing our fingers that he was going to survive, I'm holding the vest in my hand with a hole in it that shouldn't be there. And I called down to the NIJ. I got through to Lance Miller, explained to him what I had going on, and I've got to tell you, the NIJ jumped in a car, drove from DC to Pittsburgh, and we were all in the crime lab 24 hours later trying to figure out what happened.

Jon Becker: So let's walk through what happened, because that was the one catastrophic failure of body armor in history. That was hit with a round that was supposed to stop, right?

Ed Hinchey: What we learned later was the vest was made of a monolithic construction. It was Zylon front to back. Zylon initially was touted as material that was stronger than Kevlar, lighter, more flexible, higher performance. And initially, as it's woven, it probably was. As it got worn and exposed to moisture and UV radiation, its degradation curve was drastic. It basically fell off a cliff.

Ed's vest was only five and a half months old, but he worked in that jump out van, so he sweated through it all day, every day, and he got shot June 23rd, 2003, and the round just blew through him. It went in, it went through his lung, his intestines, into his spine.

When I get over to him in the parking lot, and he's on his back and he's holding a picture that he always carried in his plate pocket of his family, his wife and little girls, that – I've never had an emotion go through me like that before. And he's looking at me, he says, you know, you go to go get my wife and girls. And I, you know, that day, that moment will live with me forever.

Jon Becker: Yeah, I imagine it would. What went wrong with the vest? Like, let's kind of talk about the NIJ recall, and, you know, what actually was the problem?

Ed Hinchey: Yeah, they've looked at a lot of causation factors of what degrade Zylon, and the best that they can come up with is UV radiation. And a lot of the rolls. The armor shows up in a roll, it gets pulled out on a Gerber cutting machine. It gets cut to fit. The package you're building gets sometimes stitched together, sometimes tacked together, put inside.

At that time, under that particular standard, a water resistant cover, and then issued to the officer, they anticipate a little bit of a degradation. But the UV radiation and moisture combination on Zylon was like nothing they'd ever seen before. And the long term testing, as came out later, showed that, well, at that.

Jon Becker: Point, with the NIJ standard, you also. There were a lot of flaws in the standard at that point, right?

Ed Hinchey: There was no condition testing. They really didn't look at it down the road. There was no fit audits at that point in time.

Jon Becker: Let's define those for people that don't know. So, condition testing.

Ed Hinchey: Right, condition testing is when they take the armor in its new. You submit 28 packages, and they take a grouping of those, and they put them in an industrial tumbler. Now, it's 149 degrees, 80% humidity. It tumbles 72,000 rotations for ten straight days, and then they take it out and under the current standard, they reduce the speed, but use the same rounds they test new armor with, and they shoot the armor, and it's got to perform the same as it did in its new conditions.

Jon Becker: Because we're looking at a degradation curve now.

Ed Hinchey: Correct.

Jon Becker: So, previously, under the old standard, you just had to pass on the day of the game.

Ed Hinchey: Right. The first day, in the best possible condition that vest will ever be, it passed a standard.

Jon Becker: And using potentially the hottest material the manufacturer has and…

Ed Hinchey: Produce in the largest size, there was no size limitation.

Jon Becker: So you could send a horse blanket built out of the best material you have, and even if you failed, you could resubmit the same package.

Ed Hinchey: Correct.

Jon Becker: And as long as you passed one time, you were good to go.

Ed Hinchey: Exactly.

Jon Becker: And so, in Ed's case, he gets, at that point, the thinnest, lightest vest on the market.

Ed Hinchey: Correct.

Jon Becker: That had passed the horse blanket standard.

Ed Hinchey: Yes.

Jon Becker: Probably with the hottest material possible.

Ed Hinchey: Exactly.

Jon Becker: Meaning. And when I say hottest material, I mean the material that shoots the best.

Ed Hinchey: They lot tested it and made sure it had the highest numbers.

Jon Becker: Yep. And then he starts wearing the vest, and five and a half months later, it falls. You know, if you think of the standard as a horizontal line, it falls below that line.

Ed Hinchey: Well below.

Jon Becker: And what was he shot with?

Ed Hinchey: What was the round 40 cal? And we don't know that the gun was filled with a couple different types of ammo. It was really a piece of crap street gun wrapped with electrical tape.

Jon Becker: 40 is not, you know, amazing bullet.

Ed Hinchey: Usually not a huge challenge for body armor. Correct. Yeah. This should have been easily defeated by the vest. The vest should.

Jon Becker: So, on the heels of ed shooting, they recalled Zylon.

Ed Hinchey: Right.

Jon Becker: Which required that every vest currently on the street that contains Zylon be replaced.

Ed Hinchey: Exactly.

Jon Becker: And at the same time, they started to revise the standard to the new NIJ standard.

Ed Hinchey: Yeah. And that's. I've got to give the NIJ credit. They work directly with Ed Lembacher. They had him involved in it. They came to our buildings to figure out, was it. We're in an old building. Was it radon gas? Was it this? They looked at every possible causative factor, but they also considered what Eddie been through, the traumatic injuries that he had, what his family had to suffer, and they looked at it going forward.

So Eddie's sacrifice, what he went through, has paid it forward to law enforcement. Every officer that wears body armor today should call in Ed Lembacher and tell him. Thank you.

Jon Becker: Yeah. Unfortunately, Ed became the canary in the coal mine for the NIJ standard and for materials. And fortunately survived, correct?

Ed Hinchey: Correct.

Jon Becker: Which was amazing in and of itself.

Ed Hinchey: Absolutely. And it's a testament to Eddie's being in shape and his will to live. I mean, the guy's an absolute warrior. And I can't say enough about him as a man, about him as a police officer. He was phenomenal. He's one of the guys I chose to be on my shift. He was that guy. And it was no surprise to me. He's the first guy coming out of the van for the AG's on a jump out because that's Ed Lembacher.

And, I mean, to this day, I look at what we do in the lab, and I know a lot of that. The condition testing, the waterproof versus water resistant, the lot testing, the fit audits were the NIJ comes in and what are you making on the floor today at Safariland? We're making these three packages. Great. We'll take the next grouping off the line of each. We're going to send it to one of our independent labs. It better do just as well as it did when we started it, and we're going to cut it open and make sure you build it right. It better meet the build sheet specs.

Jon Becker: Yeah. You better have the right layers of material, because prior to that, there was no inspection.

Ed Hinchey: None.

Jon Becker: As long as you're, you know, as long as the package you submitted for testing passed, that was it. You were done.

Ed Hinchey: Yeah. And it was never looked at again. And they didn't care what size you built it. They didn't care if the C-1 performed as well as the C-5. The horse blanket, you know, the small, the 110 pound officer who's as lean as can be wearing the smallest panel that we can build. That performance now has to be the same as the largest one we make.

Jon Becker: Yeah. And from a kinetic energy standpoint, it's a lot easier to pass with a horse blanket than it is to pass with a baby gap.

Ed Hinchey: Oh, without a doubt. Yeah. That's the analogy I like, is the horse blanket, because truly, if you take a look at some of the panels that had been submitted in the past, and we only thought about this after I started working with the NIJ after Eddie'd been shot and his vest failed. And I saw some of the. The size of the panels coming in, there was no limit you could put horse blankets in.

Jon Becker: It's ridiculous.

Ed Hinchey: Yeah. So, great job on the NIJ's part. They. They reacted to it, recognized there were failures in the, the way the, the forward testing was that it didn't exist. And so they limited, they took theC-1 through C-5. You can look at the CPL today, the compliant products list, and you'll see there's still armor out there that's C-2 through C-5. C-3 through C-5 means the small and medium panels didn't pass.

Jon Becker: Yeah. Which is crazy!

Ed Hinchey: Oh, yeah.

Jon Becker: So it's, you know, you're going to. You're buying armor for your department. You're like, oh, well, the small people, they're not going to wear it.

Ed Hinchey: Right.

Jon Becker: Yeah, it's. It's. I think one of the things that frustrates me most with armor is the consumer is not particularly well educated, truly. And part of that's because that's not their job. But it has led to, over the years, there being some pretty unscrupulous practices in body armor.

Ed Hinchey: Oh, absolutely.

Jon Becker: It's a point of frustration and passion for me that literally prompted me to write an article for NTOA about plates because there were so many people playing fast and loose with the standards.

Ed Hinchey: I mean, I get asked all the time while I'm out in the field, do you have a three plus plus? I mean, that animal doesn't exist. That's not a type from the NIJ.

Jon Becker: I mean, hopefully, under the new standards, it will be.

Ed Hinchey: I believe they're addressing it and they're being very strict about it. And the NIJ stamp on it now is a game changer.

Jon Becker: So then, at this point, you've gone from a guy who's kind of marginally interested in body armor to a guy who cares passionately about armor.

Ed Hinchey: Oh, weird. And again, the process that happened with that Zylon armor, as we began to look into it, there was a whistleblower involved from the company that had built the Zylon. They knew the degradation curve was drastic. He'd written a company wide memo saying, we are going to get a phone call about an officer killed because his body armor failed.

So they knew which – You've got this young, like I said, true warrior officer who's got a wife and incredibly young family, and he's wondering, how do I provide? How do I do this? And then he finds out more and more and more that should have never happened in the first place.

And again, the NIJ's response was phenomenal. We did our best to be with him throughout the entire process as he moved forward. We knew relatively early on from doctors that he wasn't going to be able to come back to work and his preparation for the next phase of his life. And it could have gone a lot of different ways.

And again, I always say Eddie was the right guy because he never shut down. He knew that he had to step up. Regardless, he can't be his passion anymore. He can't be that police officer. What can I do to carry the day, you know? And he's presently still in public service. He's a fire chief now, you know, here's the guy you want next to you.

Jon Becker: So after Ed shooting, how long is it until your shooting occurs?

Ed Hinchey: About 19 months.

Jon Becker: So you are working on body armor because of edge shooting.

Ed Hinchey: Right.

Jon Becker: And 19 months later, your life will literally depend on it.

Ed Hinchey: If I didn't have body armor that worked that day, somebody else is tucking in my kids and kissing my wife good night.

Jon Becker: So walk me through what happened.

Ed Hinchey: It was in between shifts. I was doing a double day before I was supposed to go on vacation. And we get a call. My dispatcher, Joe Klimko, yells up to us, hey, there's something bad going on up on the pike. Start up towards Bob's lounge, and we. We go up the hill. We're going over. We border with Wilkins Township on that side. And he's given us details as we go. It's a severe domestic woman has run into a bar, which is called the plaza. She's got a child, really young child, tucked under arms. She's screaming that her ex husband is trying to kill them. He's on his way to kill the mother. We've got a unit responding to that location. The mother actually lives in Forest hills.

I call out that I'm going to go ahead and get to the mothers and secure that location, which I do. As soon as I knocked on the door, the mother of the first two victims, I knew on her face because she saw my uniform, and her first words to me was, my baby's all right, what's happened? And so we begin to try and calm her down and get information on who we're looking for.

Wilkins Township pulls up. He has the first two victims of the ex wife and child in the car. I've never seen a baby look terrified. That was a big red flag for me, because this baby looked terrified. She was young, and it was. The look on Janelle's face was just terror. And she wanted to know if her mom was okay.

So we realized we got to get them off the X, get that area secured. They took them to get medical. I called out I'd set a command post directly across the street. In Bob's lounge, and we began to go out and try and find this guy. We had a good description of him. We had a good description of the car. I swing in, I go down the street. I'm gonna make a quick loop before I park in that parking lot. He is literally parked in the next lot down from Bob's lounge, basically, where he can see where we're at.

And I call out that I've got him located. And I fully anticipate a chase. If he goes one direction, we're going out towards the country. Other direction is right in towards the city of Pittsburgh. I'm in an unmarked car, but I'm fully lit up, and I come across, and I position myself so I can go either way. Whatever he chooses, I'll get in behind him, and we'll begin this.

And as soon as I pulled up, I watched the car go from. He's actually a floor shifter go from park. You can watch the brake lights flick. And so I knew he was in drive, and he came out. He came into the parking lot, and I'm on the radio. I'm telling him, hey, we're going to be in a pursuit here. I've got, you know, I'll let you know which way. And he never deviates from the front of my car. He comes across in a gravel lot, and he hits the front of my car, just literally dead.

And I'm looking at him, and we're looking across two hoods now, and I'm looking at him thinking, well, no one's ever done that before. Yeah, well, that's new. This is new. And I call out, you know, you know, hey, we're up here in a lot. Get me some units up here.

I just been through a class run by Brian Avery, and again, we'll talk about training as we go on here. I'd been lucky enough throughout my career to have some absolutely phenomenal training and Brian Avery's happened to have been the most recent. And it was a lot of containment, and you know, what we do in those exact type situations.

So, six weeks prior to this incident, we'd been up on the Beaver Valley racetrack practicing what happens if you've got to get a car contained? And it was a lot of that front end collision. Let's get him, you know, cornered in. Now I'm by myself. I'm one on one here, but I'm able to floor my car. I'm still up on the pavement. And get him kind of locked under. He had an old Solero and it was really kind of scooped down on the front end.

So I got up over top of his front end a little bit, hit the emergency brake, put it in park, came out of my door, went around to the passenger side, went over top. We knew he was armed with a knife. We didn't know what else he had. I will admit that I missed a complete red flag. One of the pictures, I saw him, he's in dress blues. It didn't throw the right numbers for me that I'm dealing with a military veteran who probably has combat experience. And I begin again to try and de-escalate the situation. I'm telling, shut it down. I've seen your wife and baby. They're okay. I've seen your mother in law. Everything's okay. Let's figure out what we can do here. Shut the car off.

He opens a beer, takes a drink, throws me the finger. You know, this guy's engaging me in a completely different way than I've had, you know, 23 and a half years of experience. This is, this is not the way things usually go. Second officer arrives on a scene, I have him take my post. I go back around to my pillar. I want to see inside the car. I want to know if there's anybody else in there.

When I half moon out, I get a good look in the car, and I come back and I call out that he's alone in the car. We need some more units up here right now. And he starts to go from reverse to drive. Reverse to drive with a floor shifter to break the cars free. I know I've got them contained. I make a decision at that point and I tell Bill, hey, I'm going to move up. I'm going to bust out a window and put some spray in. It's late November. It's cold out. I know his window's down on his side of the car, the driver's side window of the assailant.

I tell again the other officer who arrived on scene. Where I'm going, I move up, I break out the window with a collapsible baton. So I'm by the front wheel, front wheel drive car. He's throwing some gravel up.

Jon Becker :And you're on the driver's side, passenger side?

Ed Hinchey: I'm on the passenger side. I'm moving from my driver's side to his passenger side.

Jon Becker: So you're looking at it this way. He's sitting here. You're looking at him this way.

Ed Hinchey: Exactly. I'm Caddy corner across the hoods. And he's in full postal uniformity. He was working as a mail delivery person. That's one of the ways, I think he got into the secure apartment building that his ex wife and child lived in. It's the holidays. Who's not going to hold the door for the mailman? That's an easy way for him to get in there at that point in time. I'm thinking, I've got the window broken out. I know his window's down. I want my partner. I'm going to put spray in.

The second red flag that I missed was he looked at me and said, don't spray me now. I'd taken my spray out. I shook it up behind me. I don't think there was any way for him to know that's my next step, unless he'd thought this through. And it's one of the things I've gone back to in my head several times, doing kind of debriefs. And he truly knew what I was about to do. He really did. And I wanted him not to be able to take off if he got free of the front of my car. We're on foot in a parking lot. He's gonna. He's gonna go. One of us.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Ed Hinchey: He's either gonna take Billy out or myself. And so we need to get him to the point where he really can't operate a vehicle. And so I make the decision to spray. I let Billy know I'm doing it. As I step forward to get the left hand in to the window. His hand had moved from a shifter to what I didn't see, which was a Glock 23. And it's coming up. And my exact reaction was exactly that.

I see the gun coming up, and I realized I've got a handful of collapsible batons and a handful of spray, and that's not where I need to be. And they found both of those next to where the first blood splatter was. First round came in just over the top of the door sill of the car, because he's leaned across the street.

Now he's this far away, and it comes in at an upward angle. It goes into my groin all the way through. I didn't realize what it had done. Destroyed my femoral and saphenous veins, and pieces of it splattered out, and then a big portion of it went into my hip bone. It was much hotter than I was prepared for. One of the first things that went through my mind as I'm starting to try and get off the x was, oh, my God, that's hot.

Something that, you know, in all my years, I'd never heard of anyone. We'd heard the terms hot rounds before. We just assumed they're fast rounds. You know, when you're shooting, you get that one. That really gives you a little laser kick. Well, that was hot round. This was a whole new level of meaning. Hot rounds.

Jon Becker: A completely different meaning of hot round.

Ed Hinchey: This one resonates now, you know, I get it. He hit me two more times. Almost immediately, the gun's climbing up a little bit. He's shooting one handed. So I get hit through the groin. I get hit towards the bottom of my armor, again at an upward angle, and then I get hit directly against the rib cage up here. He fired a total of ten shots and hit three times. Three times out of those ten, I'm now moving back to my a pillar. I've got one hand clamped completely over where the. What I know is the worst of the three wounds I draw, and I put 14 rounds through the medium of the windshield.

At that point in time, I look over to see where my partner's at. He's moving. He had lost a sight picture, I think, in discussions and taking a look at the scene and pictures later when the bad guy. And I don't think the bad guy consciously knew he was getting behind the engine block from there. He just wanted to get to me.

Jon Becker: Yeah, he was just leaning out to shoot you, but bought himself cover.

Ed Hinchey: Exactly. The ancillary side of that, getting closer to me, was putting himself behind the engine block so that the sight picture for Billy just kind of disappeared. And at that point in time, I reload. I'm looking back at him, I'm watching him reload. And I'm thinking to myself, I've got to be faster. I've got to be faster. I get another 13 rounds through the medium of the windshield.

I hear a shot come from behind me, and it was a muffled sound. That auditory exclusion thing was working strong that evening, Brian Armstrong, my K9 officer, had arrived at the scene, moved up behind, assessed the situation, got around downrange, came up, and I called to him, clear the vehicle. Clear the vehicle. I've got you covered. Clear the vehicle. Brian's a combat veteran marine again, one of those guys you want with you if it goes bad and he moves up, clears calls.

I'm already on the radio calling for two ambulances, getting supervisors, getting county homicide notified, making all the calls out there, trying to make sure everybody else is okay. And I keep checking with my hand. I can't control the bleeding. That's, you know, and I know it's bad and I'm pushing. I'm doing what I can. And I also, at that exact same moment, realize these don't burn. You know, it sucked. It felt like getting punched by someone that really knows how to throw a punch. They don't burn. I'm okay there. And I dismissed those wounds at that moment. I'm okay there. Those aren't. Those aren't bothering me at all.

Brian comes back, and there's a pause as he gets to me, and I'm like, okay. And he gets his vehicle. He's a k nine guy. Swings up beside me. He's like, we got to go now. There's some things we need to do here. We've got some stuff going on. Thank God for Brian Armstrong. He doesn't take my direct orders as his sergeant. He recognizes he needs to save my life.

And he throws me in his car, clears the front seat, throws me in, and we take off out of the parking lot. I get on the radio, hand it off to the guys who are coming in. Carl Parabola, some of the other officers I know, I can hear them on the radio. They're coming. They're my guys. And at that point in time, Brian, I've called that I'm en route to Mercy hospital with a gunshot victim. And Mercy hospital is a great hospital. I have family that are surgeons down there. That's where I know I need to get to.

We have several great hospitals in Pittsburgh, so we're kind of blessed that way. Brian immediately turns off, we have a non-trauma hospital right down the road from us. And I said to him, Brian, Brian, where are you going? He said, we're going to Braddock. I said, no, Brian. We absolutely need to be going downtown to Pittsburgh. And I'm looking at myself. I'm creating a puddle. I can't control this bleeding.

And he looks over at me and he says, get your hand inside the gun belt and get your finger in a hole now. And he's white knuckled on the wheel, and he's rolling. Maybe not the world's best driver, but we're okay with that. And we're hustling, man. We're really moving. And I said to Brian, I'm gonna give you direct order. You need to take me to Mercy. And his answer to that was, sarge, I'm gonna knock you the f*** out. Okay? I went back on the mic. I called. We're en route to Braddock hospital, and you can literally hear a pause in the radio traffic.

And Joe Klimko, who's my dispatcher, one of my dearest friends, he was the dispatcher for Eddie when Eddie got shot and handled the scene like nobody I could have ever. If you had to take every great dispatcher in the world and compile him into one and say, this is the program for police dispatcher. You get Joe Klimko.

And he'd been through the Eddie ordeal, and now he's got me. And he says, switch attack, sarge, who shot. And I look right at Brian, and Brian's got that look on his face. And I said, I am. Apparently, I'm just winged. He goes, ten four. [Crosstalk]

And so we go back off, and now we're on the wing with a femoral vein. Yeah, yeah. And I didn't want anything going on over the radio. I didn't want people hearing things that didn't hear it from me. And we get. Pull up into Braddock, jump on. He's got the back of my gumball. We walk into the first hospital. I got blessed there. I had incredibly experienced nurses. They rip everything off me.

And one of the nurses gets his fingers and gets up inside me and really controls the bleeding. But now he's in a very stationary mode. Joe Klimko again, has called. They've shut down the parkway that surrounds the city of Pittsburgh. They've shut down the line that'll take us directly to Presby Hospital, another phenomenal, you know, trauma hospital in the city. And they're part of this, you know, smaller, non-trauma center that I'm at now. And they've got an ambulance on the way to get me there. They're doing everything they can. They're getting fluids in me.

One of the things I will tell you is you can hear what everybody says. I don't think, you know, we take that into consideration as officers, that they think you're focused on combat breathing and trying to get better and, you know, survive. I can hear guys in the background, and I hear a couple of them saying things like, there's no way he makes it out of this hospital. He's gonna die right here, that kind of stuff. Who's gonna tell his wife? Who's? You hear all of that?

So if there's one thing we can talk about, you know, maybe later on the debrief, it's, you know, here's how to talk. When you're standing around a guy who's bleeding out. Here's one of the things you gotta consider. His faculties aren't down. They're heightened.

Jon Becker: Yeah, they're all.

Ed Hinchey: They are truly heightened. I. And he's picking up on everything, and so they're getting fluids into me. You know, I get on the phone, I make a phone call to one of the guys that I've known my entire adult life, one of my work partners, and again, another one of those great policemen that we're blessed to have in this industry. And he's the lieutenant for the county homicide. And I call him to let him know what's going on, because now I don't have a radio. I don't have a. Anything.

And give him a heads up and also say, hey, man, my family. And I look at the nurse. I said, where am I going? They said, you're going to Presby. I said, I'll be at Presby. And so he'd already been given an indication he'd already had the calls from dispatchers and everything that runs through while a critical incident goes on. So he kind of had a heads up that he's got a lot of work in front of him. And at that point in time, they roll me out and they get me down to Presby.

So I'm on my back in the ambulance. The nurse is over top of me, and he's a young, experienced, incredible trauma nurse. His fingers are up inside me. Brian is over top of him with his arm around his waist and his hand on the top of the ambulance, keeping him steady. And I've got those two faces above me, and you can kind of hear what's going on. I wear St. Michael's medal. I have a ring that never comes off that, it's got a claw on it.

And, you know, my wife put that on my hand. I know I'm going into surgery, and I don't want those getting lost. And so I kind of work it, and Brian's helping me do it. And I've mentioned Brian's a marine combat veteran. It's one of those guys. You give them. You give him a suggestion, it's. It's going to get done. So it comes off me. It's covered in blood. My rings covered in blood. And I reach.

I said, you need these. You need to get these to tam my wife. You've got to make that happen. And he says, sergeants, I've got them. And he locks them up in his fist. And, you know, we get down to Presby, doors open. Dr. Tishman's waiting for me, and they saved my life.

Jon Becker: So when they roll you into the hospital, kind of walk me through what happens next.

Ed Hinchey: Again, I had. While I'm on the gurney at the first hospital, and they're getting lines into me. They're doing everything. I grab my phone and I flip it open, and I call Chris. I know somebody needs to tell my wife. I want it to be somebody she knows. I live a fair distance outside of forest hills. I know they don't have time to get anybody out there, and I know they're busy up at the crime scene.

So I call Chris again. You talk about a friend you've had your entire adult life, entire career. You've hashed every incident with somebody, and he happens to live four doors down the street. And I call him. I said, listen, here's what's going on. You need to get your best team up to Bob's lounge. I've been in a shooting. I'm pretty sure I killed the guy. I'm hit. I said, you need to grab Tam and the kids. My daughter was eight. My son was six at that time. You need to get him down to Presby hospital.

And so he says, all right. He says, I'm going to take care of everything here. He said, you're going to call Tam, let her know I'm coming, right? I said, absolutely. They'd gotten a line into my left arm. Brian's behind me. Nurse has his fingers in my hip. I flipped the phone back open.

Another nurse takes that phone right out of my hand. She's got to get a second line in my arm because I'm crashing. They need to pump fluids me in because I'm pumping them out. Like I said, my femoral and saphenous vein were destroyed. They were gone. My leg was beginning a compartment syndrome.

I didn't know any of this at the time. I just knew there was a lot of blood. And I was practicing combat breathing. I was trying to get, you know, a whole lot of things done. The administrator side, have all the right people been notified? Do we have people at the scene? How are the initial victims? You're going through that whole side of it.

And I said, hey, listen, I need the phone back. And she says, sarge, you need to quit moving. So I never get to notify my wife. So I'm in there. They roll me in. Dr. Tishman starts to work on me. They get the first clamps inside me to start trying to control the bleeding. Chris comes through the door, my friend.

And I know when I see Chris, that means my family's there. I didn't find out until later. He had brought my wife down. He had brought his wife up to keep an eye on my kids, because he knew that hospital atmosphere and surgery and everything else was not the right, again, ultimate professional.

I'm surrounded by some of the best people in the world. I was absolutely blessed. And I said to him, hey, man, I said, bring my family. I really need to see him right now. And Dr. Tishman intervenes, and he says, sarge, he says, we can save you. You can see your family. It's not going to be both.

And so I had to make a decision right there. Knowing my family's on the exact opposite side of those doors, knowing I might not come out of this to take a shot at living. And probably one of the hardest decisions I've ever made, because there was nothing more in my core being that I wanted than to see my wife and kids. That's all I wanted.

And so I knew that when I went upstairs, they're going to knock me out. And I don't know what's after that. I have no idea. But Dr. Tishman, ultimate professional, said, sarge, we have to go right now. And Chris looks at me and says, I will take care of everybody. And off I went.

Jon Becker: Well, and you were really fortunate as far as Tischman being there.

Ed Hinchey: Oh, my goodness! One of the most incredible experienced trauma surgeons, especially for gunshot wounds, with his background in existence, let alone in Pittsburgh, let alone there. That night, he was there checking up on some other patients. Just happened to be on his way out when they called him, said, hey, they're bringing an officer in, gunshot victim.

And so he stood by the ambulance, had gotten to the crime scene. They did transport the shooter down to the exact same hospital. Dr. Tishman had another team waiting for him. I think they probably had information that. That there wasn't anything they were gonna be able to do. He was pronounced there, and Dr. Tishman had his best team waiting as I came out of the ambulance. Worked on me several times.

Originally, we thought we were gonna have to take my leg off. I'd signed all the paperwork for that. They assigned a nurse to sit at the bottom of my bed. So in between surgeries, she had a set of headphones on, and she was looking for any kind of pulse in my foot. And I knew that if they didn't find it, and they were, they'd explained to me they were going to try and take it below the knee, but there was no guarantee. It may have to be above the knee.

And I told him, I said, listen, I said, the light comes off. As long as I wake up and I see that family, we're all good here. Do whatever you've got to do. And about 2 hours before the actual surgery, she told me to hit my. My call button, and I didn't understand what was going on, and I hit the call button.

Another nurse comes in. They whisper back and forth. That nurse goes back out. Doctor comes in, lifts the headphones off. They work the foot, and he says, we've got a pulse. Can't guarantee that's going to be later today into the tomorrow, you know, in the future, but for right now, you're going to go ahead and keep the leg.

Jon Becker: So you were 2 hours from having your leg amputated?

Ed Hinchey: Yeah. Yep. And like I said, I had a five point fasciotomy done on it. They. They cut all the way through the calf.

Jon Becker: Why don't you explain what a fascia is?

Ed Hinchey: Fasciotomy is where they have to take the internal pressure off your legs, killing itself by the pressure that's built up inside it.

Jon Becker: By the fluids that are leaking.

Ed Hinchey: All the blood could get into the leg. It had no way to get back out. The veins that deliver the vein back out are gone. Luckily for me, somewhere along the way there, my femoral artery allowed sympathetic flow. The doctors explained to me later, there's no way to induce that. Your body either does it or doesn't do it.

Jon Becker: When you say sympathetic flow, what do you mean?

Ed Hinchey: My femoral artery delivers blood into my leg and back out. I got lucky. I have a good femoral artery. I got sympathetic flow in there. And they. I said, did you make that happen? What did you do? And I said, no, we can't make that happen. We can't induce that.

Jon Becker: So your body just makes a decision.

Ed Hinchey: Either happens, it's a defense mechanism. It either happens or it doesn't. The pressure was so bad on the leg, the leg was killing itself. It was. It was so big. It was just. I've never seen, I couldn't imagine that was a human leg, let alone my human leg. Black, just blood ridden. I mean, it was truly, there were, there were SWAT guys that couldn't go on that side of the bed. It just wasn't going to happen.

And introduced my eight year old daughter, Caitlin, who has locked her fingers to the side of the gurney on my side of the bed, and she has refused to leave my hospital room. She stayed the first 72 hours. And Dr. Tishman was like, sergeant, if you don't mind her staying. I don't mind her staying because trying to get her out of here is not going to be a good thing.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Ed Hinchey: You know, so here she is. I should have known that I had my hands full, because at eight years old, she's staring down a surgeon saying, I am not leaving my daddy.

Jon Becker: I love that!

Ed Hinchey: I am not leaving my daddy. That's not going to happen. And my son's out playing football in the hallway with the other SWAT guys, which was good. It was a good place for him. And, you know, my wife was trying to balance the two of them. Me life with me laid up there, you know? So at that point in time.

Jon Becker: So they fillet your leg open.

Ed Hinchey: They fillet the leg open from the knee to the hip on top, from the knee to the groin on the inside, from the knee to the hip on the outside, and then through the calf from behind the knee down to the achilles.

Jon Becker: Just open it completely open to give the tissue room to expand.

Ed Hinchey: Right.

Jon Becker: So it turns your leg into a chinese lantern.

Ed Hinchey: Exactly. So it's up on a thing. And they've got to change the wound dressings every couple hours. So you've got wound dressings inside there that literally have to be peeled out. You've got a fresh batch of them that need to be pushed back in. It was open for five days.

Jon Becker: That sounds like a barrel.

Ed Hinchey: Yeah. And we had. It's a training hospital, teaching hospital. And we had groups of interns coming in, and I looked at him, I said, you never seen a knee before like that? And he goes, not anyone that was alive. So that's a great thing to hear from the intern sitting next to your bed, you know, glad I hear for you. But again, the nurses. My mom was a nurse. Her grandmother on my wife's side was a nurse. It's kind of in the family. My sister's a nurse. They literally gowned her up, gave her a set of gloves, and she would stand there and hold the tray of the packing material.

Jon Becker: Oh, my God!

Ed Hinchey: And she's on this side going, daddy, we're doing really good. Are you okay? And she's literally a giant brown eye staring up at me.

Jon Becker: Your daughter's a badass.

Ed Hinchey: And, oh, she's just incredible. And my wife's like, hey, we got to get Connor out of here for a little bit. I'm going to be gone for a little bit. And Caitlin was like, I've got this. Like, I'm here. And just. Just amazing. And so she stayed for. She did not leave the hospital. Slept in a chair next to me. Surprisingly, the right side of my body was 100% fine. There was nothing wrong with it.

And truly, I mean, she's an angel, absolute angel. But she is her mother's daughter. Day three, she's still there, and we've got things calmed down a little bit. There's probably no more surgeries on the horizon. They are rolling in a cauterization cartae on a daily basis, because as they unpack it and there's still little tiny bleeds inside there. They cauterize those. Good times. Great smell.

Jon Becker: That sounds like fun.

Ed Hinchey: Good times. There's some things you learn.

Jon Becker: So we got your leg turned into a chinese lantern, and just for fun, we're gonna go through and light it on fire.

Ed Hinchey: Exactly. Exactly. Let's introduce this.

Jon Becker: Can you feel that?

Ed Hinchey: Yes, I can.

Jon Becker: And Caitlin is there for that.

Ed Hinchey: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Jon Becker: Just smelling dad cooking.

Ed Hinchey: Absolutely on top of it. So we get a little break. There's a couple, you know, incredible nurses taking care of us. They're bringing her some drinks and everything. And I look around, I realize these are the good nurses. These are no doctors in the room. These are. I said, hey, Caitlin, come on up. She goes, really? Come on up here. I need to hold my little girl.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Ed Hinchey: You know? She climbs up, she gets cuddly. Now, like I said, she is her mother's daughter, okay? She looks up at me with the biggest brown eyes you're ever gonna see, and she says, daddy, are you gonna be okay? And, I mean, I'm like, baby, I said, I'm gonna be just fine. I'm absolutely gonna be just fine. Don't you worry about a thing. But my thoughts are, are you gonna be okay? She gives it a full dramatic pause, nails me with the big bronze, and she says, I'd be better if I had a puppy.

Jon Becker: Wow! My God, what a fantastic time! Deliver a dog.

Ed Hinchey: She'd been waiting for probably 71 hours to nail me with that one.

Jon Becker: Well played.

Ed Hinchey: Kept it. Kept it right in the back pocket till it was time. Yeah, yeah, she's good. She's good. Yep, yep, yep. The puppy's name was Bailey. Yeah. Carrie blue terrier, you know, absolutely positive. We drove out together when I was okay to drive a car. Again, crutches in the backseat. Picking up the. Picking up the puppy. Yeah.

Jon Becker: Well, and just, I mean, this kind of fast forwards a little bit, but, like, that permanently impacted Caitlin. Arguably, in a very positive way, absolutely.

Ed Hinchey: If you think it doesn't affect your family. And I'd love to go in depth with that throughout the interview today. Again, my wife is in the medical field, she's a pharmacist. Her grandmother was a nurse. My mom was a nurse. Caitlin had nursed me through the worst time of my life right there. And fast forward to when she graduates high school, begins nursing school, and becomes a trauma nurse at the same hospital.

Fast forward another two years. My son graduates, goes off to WVU for a little bit, enlists in the military, does a deployment to Jordan. He got sworn in four weeks ago in the Dormont police department. Yeah, the whole family, it's, yeah, no, that's, it resonates and it becomes a part of their lives as much as it becomes an incident for us.

Jon Becker: Well, I think that's, I think that's something we should discuss in more depth as we go on today, because I think that it's, I don't think people understand necessarily the impact that it has not only on the officer, but everybody around them.

Ed Hinchey: Oh, absolutely.

Jon Becker: Coworkers, family like. It's a much broader reach. Why don't we, let's kind of finish out your career and then we'll come back and talk in that. So how long is it till you get out of the hospital?

Ed Hinchey: I'm in the hospital in ICU for eleven days. It's a little bit disruptive. They've got police in the hallway. You have to be code worded in to get in. I'm taking up a lot of their space time and it's one of those, I need to get home. I want to get a good night's sleep. Dr. Tishman has a talk with my family again. My wife's a pharmacist, neighbors are nurses. We've got doctors on the street, we've got a court, we've got, again, family that are surgeons.

My road department goes over, literally installs railings in my home because they explain I'm not going to be ambulatory. They get everything set up for me. They get a bed, a recliner that lays flat. My agency, my guys from my department had laid out cash for things that they needed immediately and didn't have time to go through a po. The ambulance came and I got to ride back to my home in the ambulance that was originally sent to take me from the crime scene where I got shot to the hospital. Every one of those paramedics chewed me out for not waiting for them.

So I caught a lot of heat from Rob and the crew. I said, hey, I'm here now, you know, take me home. And he said, you have no idea how mad we were. And I said, sorry, guys. Brian Armstrong. You ever try to say no to Brian Armstrong when he's made up his mind?

Jon Becker: Well, there's a funny story about Brian, too, when he goes to put you in the car, right?

Ed Hinchey: Oh, yeah.

Jon Becker: You're refusing?

Ed Hinchey: Yeah. He's not taking no for an answer. And I still want to get a couple things done. And the marine, and let's get it now, because he knows how bad I'm hurt. He's seen this in the field. I don't. But he absolutely knows time is the one thing that's against us here. And I had a bruise right here from the common perennial strike that drove me into the car.

Jon Becker: So he planted a knee in you.

Ed Hinchey: Brian, picked you up by the seat of your pants and threw you. There was no discussion. There was no longer a sergeant patrolman relationship. There was a Brian Armstrong is going to save my life relationship going on. And no matter what it took. And even if he had to throw.

Jon Becker: You in the car?

Ed Hinchey: Exactly. And almost carry me into the hospital, all of those things. And that was, again, I'm surrounded by the right people at the right time. They talk about it being, you're on the job because of the guy next to you, and never more.

Jon Becker: True.

Ed Hinchey: Absolutely.

Jon Becker: So how long is it before life begins to get a normal cadence?

Ed Hinchey: Well, I get home, my wife's been given time off from work. Her employer was great about it, but now it's been two weeks. They need the pharmacist back. She's like, honey, I got to go. And I will tell you that part of me had been the alpha male. I take care of everything. The kids need something, I'll take care of it. My wife needs something, I'll take care of it. She's an incredibly independent woman.

But again, I'm a police officer. Let's take care of business here. All of a sudden, I can't even get myself a drink of water. I can't stand up without both hands locked onto a walker. I can barely. Barely get the words out to the folks like, hey, everyone needs to leave the room for a minute because I've got to go to the bathroom. That's who I am now. I've got my kids bringing me a snack, bringing me a glass of water. Six years and eight years old, they're taking care of me.

My wife sitting next to me, holding my hand like, honey, I actually have to leave. I have to go to work. And it's breaking her heart that she's got a. She's got to step up and do that. And I'm like, I got caitlin. We're good. Like, everything's going to be okay. And the neighbors had all chipped in. They were all waiting again. It's wintertime. The whole neighborhood's waiting.

When I come home, they've cleared everything that needed done so the ambulance could come and get everything in. They moved furniture, I mean, you name it, everything had been taken care of. And so she goes to work shortly after, a couple of days goes by, life does begin a little bit to return to normal. We're counting on some other people to help get our kids places.

One of those places is actually Sunday school. And so it's time for, you know, Caitlin to go back to Sunday school. And, you know, I'm gonna have a little quiet time in the house there. Phone rings and it's Sunday school calling, telling me my daughter is being disruptive and I need to come get her.

You know, again, you mentioned what can happen to the families, things that never get discussed. The lesson plan that day was the Ten Commandments, and they got to thou shalt not kill. And she tells the nuns, hey, my daddy had to kill somebody. And their answer to that was, well, your daddy's going to h***, and she loses it. And so we had a way to go get her.

Jon Becker: And that's when Ed slapped a nun.

Ed Hinchey: Yeah, well, we've never. Let's say we've never been back there. Yeah, yeah. And luckily, Father Lou Valone was around, a good friend of mine who rides motorcycles and is a priest. And it kind of explained that there's a big difference between thou shalt not commit murder and thou shalt not kill, and that God still loves daddy and everything.

But my wife's at work. She's got co-workers who she thought were her friends who aren't speaking to her because I killed somebody and I don't find out about this right away. They don't want me to have to deal with that. While I'm dealing with some of that, the kids at school are saying different things to my kids. The news stories. There's still reporters showing up, pounding on the door of the house, trying to get, you know, an interview and answer.

We also had some great reporters, you know, guys like Mike Clark, who called, went through channels, through the agency, went through, you know, my family to make sure everything was okay and to assure me that it was going to be respectful and, you know, we discussed what. What we were okay discussing.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Ed Hinchey: And so there was some incredible reporting being done, but there was the other side of it, as well. Articles in the paper weren't correct. Everybody's racing to get the story out first rather than correctly. So we suffered through some bad reporting, but we also had some great stuff. Folks came out to the house and actually showed what we were going through. Medical devices on the floor, a restructured home, walkers port a potties. I had to live on the first floor of my house for months. My bedroom is upstairs.

Jon Becker: I imagine it's probably a challenge to try to remain positive and try to focus on the good things that are happening when there is this negative stuff that's going on, you know, the Sunday school and the reporters and, like, how did you manage that? How did you keep yourself focused on surviving and getting healthy and not allow yourself to get mired down?

Ed Hinchey: My wife, Tammy, she sat next to me every moment she could and would not tolerate me being down. Just wouldn't put up with it, you know, and she'd say, you're alive. We love you. We have the best kids there are. What else do you want? Focus. Get focused. Look what you have. You know, and I'm, you know, I'm worried, I'm not going to be the man I was. I don't know if my leg is going to come back. I've got rehabilitation folks telling me I'll never walk correctly again, let alone be able to go back on the job.

And in the end, part of that was. Right? I was not able to go back to work. I was medically retired. I couldn't pass the independent medical exam. I could pass the physical agility test, but I couldn't pass the independent medical exam.

Jon Becker: Blood flow issues.

Ed Hinchey: Right. I was device dependent. I had to use a lymphedema press to get the swelling down. Every day I wear compression stockings. They took me in. They done ascending venograms, trying to figure out what the mapping was inside there. Good times. That's really exciting stuff. That's where they plug the needle into your foot. They put you on an inversion board. They push all the fluid backwards and map it with chemicals.

Jon Becker: That sounds.

Ed Hinchey: That's exciting.

Jon Becker: This one, they actually give you a bite stick. Oh, yeah. Good times. And they don't talk about that part, you know, if you're watching the TV, The Hour TV show, he got shot. He's back, he's fine. Yeah, yeah.

Jon Becker: No, that's the part we miss all that stuff.

Ed Hinchey: No, we don't. We don't get the, you know, eight, eight season documentary of your life is now completely different, which is, again, I'm blessed, surrounded by all the right people, my wife leading the way. You know, from the time we came home, from the time we got to the hospital and she was allowed in the room the first time she took charge, you know, just, you know, she is. Her dad was a Pennsylvania state trooper, so she grew up in a law enforcement family.

I think that aspect of it played into it. You know, she came from a very strong, well structured. Her grandmother, the nurse, her mom. Everything along that way was, was solid. And so she just wasn't taking no for an answer. She's honey. She goes, if we have to move on. If we have to leave law enforcement behind, you're still at Hinchey. You're still going to get the job done. We will figure this out.

Jon Becker: So how far after the shooting did you make the decision that you were going to retire?

Ed Hinchey: Actually, it was like I said, it was a doctor they brought in, the independent medical examiner. They had me on the table. He's listening to me. He's working me through. And he said, sergeant, stay here for a minute.

So I'm there with the nurse. He goes back out and he came and he says, get dressed and meet me in my office. And he was actually a little bit upset with me. He says, I just spent the last 30 minutes looking for your femoral and saphenous veins, and I couldn't figure out where they were. He said, you don't have any. They ligated them out from below your aorta to your knee as well. The bullet helped that along.

Jon Becker: Yeah, they didn't ligate them. They stopped the bleeding.

Ed Hinchey: Yeah, they went below to where there was actually a structure and kind of tied down, to be fair.

Jon Becker: The suspect ligated, right?

Ed Hinchey: Yeah, yeah, instantaneously. First shot of the gunfight. What I found out later, again from Dr. Tishman, was good news, bad news. Had it hit the femoral artery? I don't make it. I flat out don't make it. Even with Brian's incredible work, I don't make it.

Jon Becker: Yeah, just that limit, that limited reduction in pressure was like your life literally hung in that battle.

Ed Hinchey: Oh, yeah. And they X where the hit was. I mean, they were that close. A couple millimeters the other direction, it's lights out of the hit up here. If you look at the angle you work, the trajectory of the round to me, my aorta is on the other side of the hit. My armor flat out saved my life. Either one of these rounds hits my intestines, my lungs and my heart, and all they did was put leave a little burn on my chest behind it.

But back to the doctor explaining things to me. He explains that there's no way to put a new vein in that technology doesn't exist yet. The best they can do is make this leg compromised by cutting the saphenous vein in my ankle, fishing it out of this leg, fishing it across my groin, trying to reestablish it in this leg. And there's only about a 40% chance it'll take.

Jon Becker: And if it doesn't, then you've lost this.

Ed Hinchey: There's 100% chance I've now diminished function in this leg. So this is explained to me by the doctors, by the independent medical examiner. He said, if I'd have known, if I'd have seen in your file those veins were ligated out, we'd have never gone in there to look and begin your exam. He said, sergeant, your leg isn't going to work. And he said, you're going to retire out.

So they retired me out at the end of the year, about a year and a few months after it had happened. In the meantime, before I get retired out and before I go see this independent medical examiner, I get a phone call from armor holdings, what is now Safariland. A guy by the name of Steve Samek calls me. He runs a couple of their programs there. Incredible lieutenant from Pueblo, Colorado.

And he says, hey, we do a thing here with saves, and you're a save, and your story's kind of out there. We'd like to bring you down to South beach to the IACP conference so you can meet the folks that built your armor. And I'm like, I need to tell a whole lot of people. Thank you. And that was something that kind of dawned on me. Like, I knew the armor saved my life and kept me in the fight. I knew my training kept me in the fight and saved my life. I knew how to thank my trainers.

Brian Avery was in the hospital room, and that was the first person besides Brian and Chris that my wife wanted to speak to. And she wanted assurance that I'd done my job right because she knew I'd be a bear to live with if I hadn't.

So once she had that, she said she felt a lot better, that part of it, for me to go thank the folks that actually built my body armor was kind of the first time I realized there's more out there I need to go say thank you to, because I thanked the medical people. I thanked the nurses at the first hospital. I thanked everybody. Joe Klimko. I couldn't see the guy without giving him a hug. His voice on the radio carried the day. But now I knew there was a whole nother level to that.

There are a lot of people I'd never heard of that helped bring me home. And so I said, listen, I'd love to come do that. I said, the problem with that is my family has stood by my side for the last year and a half. I can't jump on a plane and come down to South beach and leave them back here in Pittsburgh. And Steve Simmons, this apparently I wasn't clear. We'd like to have you and your family come to South beach so you can meet the folks that built your armor. That was my introduction to the Saves club.

And so I went down. We did all that. There was another event shortly thereafter called November to remember. I got to go to and be the save and meet more people. These were people from Dupont and Honeywell, and they had built Tajon that built the material that was inside my armor. So going a whole nother layer beyond the folks that designed and built it. Here's the folks that created the material that they designed and built into armor.

And I knew about these folks from working with the NIJ on the limb walker part of it. And now it's all coming together. All the pieces are falling into place to make me understand the industry a little better. And at that point in time, I explained to John Gaucher and a couple guys that worked for us that, hey, it looks like they're going to retire me out. That second visit. I'm like, because they wanted me to come to shot show.

And John got a smile on his face. Rod Dornsife got a smile. They went off and had a talk. They came back and they said, if they retire you, when do you think it'll be? I said, end of the year. They said, great. If that happens, we'd like you to get on a plane to come to Florida. And sure enough, they created a position for me.

Steve Sammick was moving on. They needed somebody to pull a three different groupings of saves clubs because armor holdings was a holding group. We had an ABA camp. We had a second chance camp. They purchased second chance off the auction block after it went bankrupt. Because of what went on was Zilon and Eddie Limbacher's fest. You had Safariland. You had Bianchi.

There was a lot of different moving parts. And Scott O'Brien sat me down and said, I want you to pull it all together. You understand this. You are safe. You know what your family's been through. Cause we'd had these same kind of discussions one on one. Cause Scott was a hands on boss. We're blessed to have him. He's still with us. He's just moved up the chain a little tiny bit. And so he sat me down and he said, you know, the directive is this.

Once they become a save at Safariland, they should want for nothing. They should get their armor when they're ready for it, their replacement armor. They should get what support we can give them. If we make it and they need it, it's theirs. He said, I want them to know we care. And, you know, he said, you know, this is a together thing. This is. He says, nobody rents a chair at Safariland. You own a chair. He said, I want the people inside Safariland to know that's what they did. They saved a hero. And I want that hero to know they've got a family right behind them.

Everybody with a Safariland on their shirt is part of this. He said, whether it's the person that carried that role into the building and secured it behind a curtain, because now nothing's allowed to see UV radiation. If it's the person who cut it on the gerber, if it's the stitcher, if it's any of this, that's all part of it. Your job is to make it all come together.

And of course, being Scott, he said, if there's anything in your way, you don't work your way to me, you call me. And I said, yes, sir. And there was career number two.

Jon Becker: And that began your career with the saves program?

Ed Hinchey: It sure did. Yeah. And I couldn't ask for a better second career. I went from catching bad guys to taking care of the good guys. I'm blessed. I couldn't be in a better place.

Jon Becker: I love it. So, Ed, how long have you run the saves program at Safari?

Ed Hinchey: Over 16 years now.

Jon Becker: And in that time, how many saves has Safariland had in the last 16 years?

Ed Hinchey: Right now, we've announced 2128 officers saved in a line of duty.

Jon Becker: And how many of those 2100 do you think you've personally interacted with?

Ed Hinchey: I am saved, 941. I came in a few saves after me as they were kind of pulling the Saves club together. And in my time with Safariland, I have inducted over 1100 saves into the club. But all the guys who were still active duty that were saved prior to me, I got to interact with. I've worked with over 1000 officers shot in the line of duty.

Jon Becker: I don't know that there's anybody else maybe in the world that has interacted with as many officers shot in the line of duty you have. So what I would love to do is dig into the lessons learned.

Ed Hinchey: Oh, absolutely. And this is where the Safariland umbrella really gets some teeth in it. Most of the other groupings out there. And any save, I don't care whose brands on the front of your armor is a great save. If the armor helps bring you home. If the duty gear helps bring you home, the helmet, the shield, the plate helps bring you home and makes you a save regardless of brand, and keeps your name off the wall. In Judiciary Square in Washington, DC. It's a great day for law enforcement.

Jon Becker: Yeah. So let's say for the industry, too.

Ed Hinchey: Exactly. Let's get right out in front of that. But I'm blessed to have a position with Safariland who has two out of every three saves, so. And we were able to include duty gear. We've got an officer by the name of Janine Triolo who was beat to the ground on a snowbank on a side of a road by an assailant who was doing everything he could to kill her. He pulled a gun out that he just didn't know how to use. Tried to kill her with that. He used it to beat her. You know, he broke bones in her face. He put her on the ground, and then he grabbed her gun and tried to get it out to use it.

The holster was a retention holster. It was a Safariland holster. He could not get that gun out of the holster. He was literally lifting off the ground by it, and he couldn't get the gun out of the holster. Janine, absolute warrior, kicks him backwards. Her gum functions perfectly, even after the assault from….

Jon Becker: Because she knew.

Ed Hinchey: She knew how to use the retention and had been taught how to use a retention holster, and she was able to end that assailant. So she's here because of her gear. We've got plate saves. We've got, you know, Kevin Malone, who took a round in a helmet. Buddy Brown, that took a round in a helmet. We've got Dorian desantis. That was part of that navy yard shooting in Washington, DC, where his plate took a center punch.

Jon Becker: Sean Harris, who took a….

Ed Hinchey: Oh, gosh! Sean Harris down in Texas. The list goes on. Jared Reston, Katie Lawson, who won the Presidential medal of Valor. You know, I get to work with heroes. So again, I don't know who's watching over me up there, but I have the best job on the planet being a motor sergeant in Forest hills surrounded by the best group of guys on the planet.

And now I get Scott O'Brien tapping me on the shoulder, saying, there's a whole crew of heroes out there that need you. Go take care of them, groundhog. Yeah, and it's, you know, I've been to Australia to take care of saves. We've worked with guys in Portugal and Italy, and anywhere Safariland touches, there's most likely going to be a save.

Jon Becker: In the time that you've worked with these guys and girls. Let's walk through what you think from a surviving a shooting standpoint. What have you seen as a common pattern?

Ed Hinchey: Training would be absolute number one. And let's go back a step further than that. Selection process. You've got to have the right clay to mold into a professional police officer. So selection process, I truly believe that we're failing the communities, the nation a little bit at the moment today because we're looking for officers who are really nice and community oriented, and we need them. That should be part of every officer. That officer also may be called upon to have to visit incredible violence on somebody or take their life. They've got to be prepared for all of that.

Again, my son just graduated the academy. A huge percentage of his training is community oriented policing. It's, you know, how to apply the law fairly equally, and I'm a huge believer in all of that. But the preparedness for the physical side of this, again, when there becomes no choice, you've got to save somebody else's life or your own or your partner's.

You know, it's that civilian first you've got your community, you've got your partner, and then that priority of life becomes the person trying to end all that around you, and you give them every chance you can to survive. But sometimes it takes incredible violence to stop that threat.

Jon Becker: Yeah, it's interesting! I recently read a book called when violence is the answer and which we'll link to in the show notes. The whole premise of the book is, yeah, you should avoid violence whenever you can.

Ed Hinchey: Absolutely.

Jon Becker: But in those percentage of cases like yours, like Buddy Brown's, where the person is going to kill you, violence is the only answer.

Ed Hinchey: Absolutely.

Jon Becker: And being more violent more quickly than they are is the only way to win the fight. What do you think is wrong with our selection process? Are we trying to find you know, people that are really nice but not, not, I don't want to use the word hardened enough, but don't have that warrior ethos in them.

Ed Hinchey: I truly believe, and I've sat in through all type of selection process, they're trying to avoid that warrior ethos. They're staying away from the person who can flip the switch when they need to. They're more worried about civil liability if they have that guy on who may go the distance. And that's atrocious. It's atrocious to the community when someone calls 911. They need the true professional who has the whole playbook with them. And they may be calling, want 911 because their baby's choking. He needs to come in there and know how to provide the immediate treatment to save the child.

It's a great day for the family. It's a great day for the community. It's a great day for law enforcement. He needs to be the one that can console somebody when you have to knock on the door and say, hey, you're your child. That it was away at college, isn't coming home. You know, those are tough days. You have to be sympathetic to what information you're about to deliver. It's going to change their world forever. It may just be the lonely widow who calls because she hears something up back, but she's just that. She's a lonely widow. She wants to see a human, that's all.

You know, shovel the wok on your way up. Make sure she has groceries in the fridge. Check in with her. Put a little note on your notepad. If I'm going by, I see you're in the window, I'm gonna stop and say, hi, you gotta be that guy. But if the call is, hey, you know, we just had two victims run into a bar covered in blood. Her ex husband's gonna go try and kill her mom. You gotta be that guy, too.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Ed Hinchey: And, you know, where we're failing is we're not preparing the officer in the academy at that level to come out and be ready to flip a switch.

Jon Becker: I think it's an interesting theme. Like, you know, in a lot of the interviews that I've done, there is a recurring theme, and in my brain, it's that we. We've become too safe.

Ed Hinchey: Yes.

Jon Becker: We've become too comfortable. And we've moved so far up the Maslow triangle that we're starting to think, well, I mean, we don't really want to see policemen. We don't really want to think about violence. And the problem is that, yeah, violence is relatively rare in the United States, and really, truly sociopathic violence is extremely rare relative to other cultures, but it still happens.

Ed Hinchey: True.

Jon Becker: And when it does, the only solution is having people on the street to deal with that situation who have that capability. Doesn't mean we want psychopaths running around. It doesn't mean we want people that enjoy killing people.

Ed Hinchey: No, but there's no enjoyment.

Jon Becker: We do a disservice to the community and to the officer, because I'm sure in your career you've seen a lot of people who probably shouldn't be on the job that end up getting shot and it destroys them.

Ed Hinchey: Absolutely. It's heartbreaking for me. And there's a failing again, begins with a selection process. Maybe this person should have never been placed out there. Number two, no one ever sat them down and explained to them, you may have to take a life. Do you assume that the person knows that when they're getting sworn in, you're a policeman, you've watched tv shows, you know what police work is.

But if you ever sat them down and explained to them, you may have to go home to your family and say, hey, I killed somebody tonight. Have they ever prepared the officer for the aftermath of a lethal incident? Is he gonna bottle it up and not discuss it? Is he gonna start to eat his lunch?

You know, there's for the saves that I've been blessed enough to work with, who came out of it strong and better, and paying it forward, and doing after action debriefs and showing, hey, here's a red flag I missed. Here's this. Let's not make. Let's make sure that doesn't happen to anybody going forward. Building the playbook better based on real life experience.

The ones that came out of it strong, they had great training, continual training, well above and beyond the mandatory minimum, you know, in service hours. These are guys that took time out of their own lives, money out of their own pocket often, and went to extra training. I literally, I took Brian Avery's training on my time. I worked shifts, drove to the raceway, went back and worked shifts. I knew how important that training was. I wanted to come home to my family. I knew bad things could happen, and I knew training would make me better when that event took place.

Jon Becker: Yeah. Recurring theme in my interviews is being a student of the game. Absolutely, it is. Being a student of the profession and understanding far beyond what you're going to get in the academy.

Ed Hinchey: Yeah. Professor McIntyre up at IUP, who was a retired DC officer, one of the best guys I ever met, took a class from, referred to himself, and it always resonated with me as the eternal rookie. He said, I'm the eternal worker. I want to learn something every single day that makes me better.

Jon Becker: And the thing is, I think even apart from the profession, it's good life philosophy. Every year, I'll pick something up that I don't know how to do. It might be playing the piano, it might be a foreign language, it might be whatever. But it's like, take yourself out of your comfort zone, because especially in this line of work, being comfortable is a very dangerous place.

Ed Hinchey: It's stoicism. The obstacle is the way. Yeah, that's what it is.

Jon Becker: Yeah. It's interesting. I remember years ago, I was working on a demo, and we had LAPD's bomb squad there, and Sid Heal and I were rigging an explosive. And I looked over and all the LAPD bomb squad guys are behind their suburbans, said, stop. I said, why? Bomb squads hiding behind their cars? So walked over to Joe Powell at the. As a sergeant. I said, why are you hiding behind your car?

He goes, you guys are going to blow yourself up. And I said, why are we going to blow ourselves up? He goes, you are way too comfortable with explosives. He said, if you ever find yourself comfortable with something that can kill you, it's about to kill you. Oh, yeah, and those words, that was really early in my career, and those words stuck with me. And he said, the thing is, you have to remember. And then I had a firearms instructor that said the same thing. You have to remember the difference between an operational act and administrative act.

Putting together an explosive device is an administrative thing. It's not an operational thing. It's kind of like loading and unloading a gun.

Ed Hinchey: Oh, yeah, right.

Jon Becker: It's an administrative act. You can take as long as you want, be as careful as you want. Reloading a gun, operational act, got to be a little faster, got to be a little looser. It feels to me that we are seeing a point in time where society is becoming too comfortable and the profession is becoming too comfortable.

And there's this tension between, well, we want you to be trained in these 25 different IT devices, and we want you to understand community oriented policing, all of which matters. But if we're gonna continue to add things, we need to expand the amount of time we take to prepare a police officer. And it feels like a mindset, and training has got to be part of that.

Ed Hinchey: Training is absolutely. Mindset comes from training. It's got to be there. And I think we're failing the officers out there with it right now. I think we need to do a better job. And as much as it's comfortable, they're becoming comfortable in their profession, I think they're also becoming a little too cautious in their approach to use of force. They're worried. It's actually, I've had saves who were shot in the line of duty, who didn't draw a gun because they were worried about civil liability, which is horrifying. Yeah, they are – They are – Someone is actively trying to kill them, and they would not.

Someone else had to come in and expose their lives and end it, rather than you have the moment, you have the ability, you have the sworn oath to do, and you chose not to because you were worried about the report afterwards.

Jon Becker: Yeah. I mean, I don't want you to fire a gun until you are constitutionally permitted to do so. I don't want the government to use violence against people unless they have to. But I also don't want that thought to inhibit a police officer from protecting him or herself.

Ed Hinchey: And that is happening. And it's on a supervisory level, too. I've seen active shooters, hostage situations, or truly a non barricaded suspect who's waving a gun at police officers who were there. And an administrator says, somebody go get a beanbag shotgun or somebody get a taser. We're going to try that first. We have incidents, reported incidences in law enforcement where officers were killed trying to deploy less lethal force in a lethal force situation. California supervisory issue.

Jon Becker: California just amended the penal code to require that it's not only that the person has the ability to kill somebody, but that it's, it's imminent. So, you know, I've got a hostage. I come out on the porch, I tell you I'm going to kill him. I come out on the porch, you have a shot at me. You can't take that shot because I'm not imminently killing them like this is the thing. And I think that there is a recurring theme also in the interviews that I'm doing of we're not doing enough to educate the public about what actually has to happen in law enforcement.

Ed Hinchey: Right. And I think part of that is the public perception has been skewed. I can't tell you how often I watch an interview about an active shooting involving law enforcement. You've got an officer, they'll be reporting, three officers were shot in an incident. And the first thing asked of the public information officer who's reporting on how these, if they're going to live, if these officers are even going to live, is why did the officer stop the vehicle? The officer was just shot. May die. Your first question is why did he stop the vehicle? That was your concern. You're looking for the story. You want that next?

Jon Becker: Yeah. It's man bites dog. Right? Like, it's. This is, this is part of it is the problem with our news cycle where we have just, we are so driven by our evolutionary biology to look for, for negative news that, that that's what we consume. Right? We don't want to hear that.

You know, Officer Smith, you know, helped a kid, you know, helped a kitty out of a tree. We don't want to hear that. We want to hear that he shot the cat and that cat fell out of the tree because that's what our dopamine system wants to hear, so. Oh, that's really bad. Oh, I'll pay attention to that. I mean, you look at what happens on social media and we'll talk, you know, in a minute about, about the effect of social media on officers.

What if Ed Hinchey is the czar of the universe in law enforcement training and selection? What does that look like?

Ed Hinchey: I'm going to surround myself with a lot smarter people than me, and we're Going to start building…

Jon Becker: For either of us. Either of us. That's an easy thing to do.

Ed Hinchey: We're going to start building that playbook. But we take the lesson learned. We go back to the Ron McCarthy's, the people that have lived through a cycle like we're in now, and we find out, what did you find? Worked with interaction with the public. What did you find work with training. What did you find work. Because the circumstances haven't changed. It's the speed at which we're aware of them that has social media cameras at a scene from 80 different angles while you're trying to take somebody into custody. All that's changed. So perceptions have changed.

We are starting to pick up on the fact that this camera angle may show this and it may look bad, but this camera angle shows what the officer saw, which is a whole different, which we've just seen a couple guys cleared recently who were crucified in the media. And then when the entire story came out, we find out they had no other choice.

Jon Becker: Yeah, it's interesting. Initially, I was not a fan of body worn cameras because I thought it was going to create a situation where, you know, everybody's going to second chat. You know, we're all going to. We're going to Monday morning court. Realistically, we're going to Monday morning quarterback. Anyways, let's at least have the game highlight film.

Ed Hinchey: Right.

Jon Becker: And it does seem that the way that it is working now, more often than not, is, you know, people go, oh, you know, he wasn't armed and the police officer shot him and he was running away and it's like, no, that's him pointing a gun at the officer, you know, pulling the trigger and the round going over the officer's shoulder. Oh, yeah. So I agree with you. I think that there's benefit there.

Ed Hinchey: There's huge benefit. Yeah. And it's, you know, there's been studies done. There's a couple famous ones out there and we'll link to them, I hope, later, where public funding. Funding was given grant money to show that there is an unequal application of use of force in law enforcement today. And these studies were done by incredibly smart people who admitted, I truly thought I'd discover that, yes, in fact, there's racially motivated, there's worse stuff going on. And that's not what turned out.

The study showed, in fact, the exact opposite, which is great for us. And the body cameras support all that. So good cops have no problems recording good police work. That's what we do. We didn't have body cameras when I got shot, but we had car cameras.

And honestly, I think that made it easier for the shooter's family because they knew we did try and give every chance we could. And when they brought some lawyers in to see if there was going to be any civil side to it, they said, we might want to see this tape first. So my family didn't have to go through civil actions or anything else to defend my actions.

Jon Becker: Yeah. Or threats of criminal prosecution. I mean, this is kind of the new thing in a lot of bigger states is, you know, we're not only going to look at it civilly, we're going to look at it criminally. We're going to have a, you know, the LA County DA's office. That's become kind of a project for them too. We're no longer putting crooks in jail, but let's see how many cops we can put in jail.

Ed Hinchey: Right.

Jon Becker: Because that's somehow going to help. But, you know, it's, you see this kind of movement towards that and, you know, what you see is an officer that's involved in a shooting and it's a year before the DA's office clears them.

Ed Hinchey: That's so criminal.

Jon Becker: These things are hanging over their heads, you got threats of civil. I mean, I honestly look at a lot of these situations go, I don't know why anybody would want to do.

Ed Hinchey: This anymore now, because we have people that we need who know doing the right thing for a living is an honorable career.

Jon Becker: Yeah, thank God. I mean, because it is becoming less and less a job where you're thanked and appreciated and more and more a job where you're under threat kind of constantly, you know, it almost drives a siege mentality.

Ed Hinchey: I look at my son, Conor, and I kind of knew this is the direction he was always going to go. But a lot of things happened between when he graduated high school, when he went to college and enlisted and served, a lot of media attention, the George Floyd stuff, everything that went on.

And he came to us and say, I'm going to get Air Force money now. I'm going to go to the academy. I'm like, sure about this? He got a big smile on his face. He's like, dad. He goes, yeah, I'll sure this. I was never more proud. I knew what he was going to do and he knew what he's going to do, and it's for all the right reasons. He's that guy. He's the guy you want at the end of the 911 line.

Jon Becker: Yeah. Which that's the thing, is ultimately doing what I've done for 35 years, the number of those people that I've been exposed to, and a lot of the motivation for this podcast is there are amazing stories like yours that no one ever hears, right. That no one ever sees, that don't see the light of day. And it's just the more you dig into these things.

And honestly, my motivation every day is those are the guys I work for, right? Ultimately, my job is to protect those guys. I had somebody ask me, why do you do what you do? I said, I protect people who place themselves in harm's way for people they don't even know.

Ed Hinchey: Right.

Jon Becker: Like you're willing to run into, you know, to a burning building or take on an assailant to protect your family. That's a different thing than doing it to protect somebody else's family.

Ed Hinchey: Right.

Jon Becker: When you've never even met them and you may not even meet them afterwards, right? It is, you know, it's unfortunate how from your perspective, talk to me about armor and the relationship between the police officers in armor.

Ed Hinchey: It's interesting that even today, even after the Zylon debacle and everything that Eddie had to pay the price for, and then we've had the response. We have the NIJ having a much more vigorous standard to test to. I had a save last week. I called him for the first time, talked to him. He's home from the hospital.

Armor changes the game. If you're only hit on armor, your average stay in the hospital is 2 hours. You're home. You know, they go, they check you out. They make sure you're okay. You have what we call back, face signatures. So the round gets stopped on the armor. You've got kinetic energy turning heat. There's friction against your body that happens incredibly fast. You get – You're treated for a burn behind the armor. So nines, forties. In the hospital, you get to the higher calibers or shotguns hitting soft armor. You can crack ribs, you can collapse lungs. You can get that kind of thing. You've got the gyaradosite cases. You've got the Jason brown cases. So you've got some stuff out there that is a game changer. Yeah.

Jon Becker: All of which, I mean, I will take. I will take burn and broken ribs over shotgun slug through the chest.

Ed Hinchey: All day long.

Jon Becker: Yeah, all day long. That is a…

Ed Hinchey: You know, you're still coming home.

Jon Becker: Yeah, yeah.

Ed Hinchey: Okay.

Jon Becker: Maybe it's the next day.

Ed Hinchey: Right. I'll take that. But I called to save, and I said, hey, were you wearing level two or three a and his answer was the same as mine. When I first had to call the NIJ and look at Eddie's vest and answer what that label meant. He goes, I had what the department issued me. I have no idea what it is. I don't know what it is.

He goes, I will tell you, it was really comfortable. Turned out to be an SX02. He said, it's a really, really comfortable vest. I said, well, you're in our house performance vest. You're in a good place. I said, we're going to get you a brand new one. Do you like what you're wearing? He goes, I won't wear anything else. And that's another regular thing. I hear. I want the same vest back.

Jon Becker: Oh, yeah.

Ed Hinchey: Yeah. That saved my life. That's what I want. He trusts it now, and so that part of it's. But the feedback we get, they're so incredibly honest. They are our best t and e group, because they'll tell you, hey, that vest saved my life.

But, man, this carrier rubbed me here. It was too high up. I know you may be trying to give me more coverage, but I couldn't move in that. I had to really tack it down. I had to change some things up. And we have an incredible, incredibly wonderful R&D department. Guys like David Pittman who, can you give him a call and say, hey, is there something new? Because. Absolutely. And sometimes it's a little sizing issue. The officer gained some weight. He's out of the academy now.

Jon Becker: He's eating McDonald's. It's fitting four days a week, twice as gym.

Ed Hinchey: You went from morning and evening pt to 8 hours in a patrol car with literally a bag of Wendy's next to you. And that's changed the game a little bit of then you find out that it's not really a carrier issue. It's actually a fit issue based on the officer's body composition has changed.

Jon Becker: It's one of the things that has always frustrated me, and I've had exactly the same experiences we've had people call holsters. What kind of gun do you have? It's black. I'm not sure. One of the things that has always frustrated me is that we as an industry have done a bad job of educating our consumers.

Consumer and law enforcement as an industry has done a terrible job of educating police officers about armor, about how it works, why it works. You know, you and I have done classes together for groups to kind of explain, like, this is how your armor works, and this is what happens, and this is why it happens, and this is why you need to care. Right?

And it's like, it's funny because you'll see guys that will spend 14, 16 hours picking out wheels for their car or which gym equipment they're going to buy or what cell phone they're going to buy. And then you ask them, what kind of arm are they going? That's kind of bluish.

Ed Hinchey: Yeah. And that's something they dawn every single time they go to work for a minimum 8 hours a day, it's going to be against your body. And it may be the one difference between you coming home and not coming home, and you give no thought to it whatsoever.

Jon Becker: And the thing is, you're also placing your safety into the hands of the industry. And there are certainly very reputable companies in the industry, like Safariland, who are doing the testing, who have fantastic ballistic engineers who really care about the end user.

Ed Hinchey: We have our own lab.

Jon Becker: There are also the opposite. And I think part of what I would love to see happen is at least give them the ability. The article that I wrote for ntoa was entitled caveat mtor. Right. Buyer beware.

Ed Hinchey: Exactly.

Jon Becker: And it's, you just realize, like, we've got to do a better job of educating cops in the academy. What it is, how it works, why you need to care.

Ed Hinchey: Behind the armor class that you helped me build originally, I'm showing some pictures of Todd Mackler, my boss, and, you know, he says, you need to sit down with Ron McCarthy. I said, I'll sit down with Ron McCarthy anytime. And I show Ron the pictures that I have from saves. And he said, are you teaching this to every person that you can show it to? And I said, not at the moment. He said, well, you failed, but let's get to work on it.

Jon Becker: I'm disappointed in you.

Ed Hinchey: You can redeem yourself, but let's get to work here. And I've had those moments. Oh, yeah. That's why you love Ron McCarthy, man. He put it right out there, man. And so we began to build the behind the armor class. And the first group I taught it to was actually a group of cadets at the Michigan State Police. And I taught it, and the cadre staff there stopped me, and they're like, you need to do it again.

To our cadre, I was like, okay, like, we've got something here. And so we did that. I've taught that class all over the world now, but I now also teach medics, doctors, guys that run with SWAT teams, because they've never seen the pictures. They may be incredible trauma surgeons, but unless they were also military, you're not going to get the gunshot wounds or if they work in Detroit or somewhere like that.

So I just worked with a group of doctors up at Massachusetts State police that run with their tactical teams to teach the behind the armor class. These are what the wounds look like. Yeah, this is. And these saves share it all with us. We're working with Dr. Cindy Burr, who's on a DOJ grant, to go ahead and study backface and what happens to the trauma on the body, because the only litmus test we have at this point was the group of goats during the Vietnam war that Neil Perkins, our founder, helped design to figure out what's an acceptable backface.

Jon Becker: Yeah. And, I mean, you know, it's interesting because, like, I've worked with numerous agencies, with competitors, armor, where they've come to us and they've said, we had a shooting and the vest failed. One in particular comes to mind where they said, the vest failed, the officer's badly injured, and we're going to sue him.

And I said, well, okay, can I see the vest? Like, what? Can you. Oh, yeah, you can come see the vest. Open the vest, said, okay, show me where it failed. Oh, you know, he's big, he's got a hole in his skin, and, you know, the bullet went through him. Okay, where's the bullet? Like, well, they didn't find it. It's. Okay. Well, is there an exit wound? No. Well, where do you think the bullet is? I mean, I know where the bullet is, but where do you think the bullet is?

Ed Hinchey: Right.

Jon Becker: We think it must have, like, gone through his skin and come back out the same hole. Or we're going to cut the carrier open and it's going to be in the carrier. And you owe this manufacturer an apology. It was not one of my favorite manufacturers, if I'm being honest. It was one of those like, oh, God, here we go. Right? But it's like, yeah, I think you need to send them a thank you card because the bullet's in. Like they didn't even understand and hadn't educated themselves, having had a shooting and a save, that it was a save.

Ed Hinchey: Right.

Jon Becker:

And it just feels like there's gotta be a better way for us to train people.

Ed Hinchey: There's gotta be. There's gotta be an industry wide educational push on armor. I would love to see that. Make them truly understand what its capabilities are. You know, we probably can't pick up a severe edge shot at an angle going towards the outward edge. If it's coming towards the inwards, you've got a little better chance. Does a perimeter stitch help or hurt? Let's take a look at the package itself. What's its composition? Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't.

Again, those are things that go to guys like Frank Smith, Dave Pittman, guys that really are on the interior design of that package. Oh, gosh! On hard armor, he's genius. Absolutely positive. We get into it. We haven't even really touched hard armor. And what it's done to save one good shield, save can save five guys. You got a stack behind there, and it takes multiple hits. You've saved five guys with the technology in that shield we took.

In Raton, New Mexico, a twelve gauge shotgun hit from about five and a half feet away on a viewport. Our viewports are supported because guys like Mark Cardett decide they have to be. Does the NIJ test them that way? Do they look for that? No. Do we look for that internally?

Absolutely. And we brought guys home on that because we over. We built to not just what the minimum spec, minimum standard was. We built to address what could happen in the field. And a lot of information is what we've gleaned from saves prior. So we are paying it forward. Those saves have made us build better armor. And now that's what's saving the next guy.

Jon Becker: So let's talk about what happens after a shooting, the aftermath, and the effect on the officer that's been shot.

Ed Hinchey: And this is where I feel that I need to do a much better job. I'm actually in a position now where I know what happens. So many people are unprepared of what their family is about to go through. I truly didn't understand. Even though I'd been through it with Eddie Limbacher and his family, the light had never clicked on. Hey, I should prep my family in case that happens to me. That was a failing on my part.

So I'm doing everything I can right now to let folks know from the training part four. When you're doing the academy class, you need to sit that officer down and explain to him that you're not the only one going through this critical incident. Your family is going to get a knock on the door or a phone call.

And now they're going through the critical incident. They're going to leave your presence in the hospital and they're going to be in the hallways and the waiting rooms and they're going to hear people talk. They are going to go to their work. They're going to go to their schools. They're going to go to CCD, and they're going to hear things or be told things. They're going to force your family to question your actions. If your family asks you a question, you've got to give them an honest answer.

You know, when my little girl looked up at me and I mean, again, eight years old, old soul, eight years old. And she says, daddy, what happened to the other guy? And I've got to tell her I killed him, you know, that's, that's one of those moments. It's pivotal and it's got to be handled right, but it doesn't, it's not over. You don't close the chapter, wake up the next day and everything's back to normal. It is an ongoing process. And you watch the evolution of your children because you've changed that evolution. You've redirected it because you chose this as a career. And this was the outcome of a critical incident.

So they truly, I think they've, the ones I see survive it really well, were prepared beforehand. They knew it could happen. They had trained as hard as they could to handle it professionally and they had talked to their families about, you know what I do for a living. We may have to have a hard talk one day because I'm going to come home from work and I – Things went truly critical, went fatally critical.

Jon Becker: Well, it strikes me, too, that one recurring theme is social media and community reaction.

Ed Hinchey: Social media is truly the viper in the room for law enforcement. You can have the best trainers in the world tell you you did the absolute best job on the planet. You go home and you open up that social media feed and you start looking at the comments and you find strangers, usually absolute lumps in the basement of their mother's houses, firing off. I wish he would have died. We could have gotten rid of another one.

Why is this monster still in our community? How is he not in jail? And you're laying there with a wound vac in your body, hoping you'll be able to walk again. And now you've got people wishing you dead, wishing your family ill, threatening, threatening your families, you know, your family having to be protected as they get driven back and forth to the hospital. Social media is an absolute viper. It can ruin your psyche if you let it.

Jon Becker: Well, we were, you know, you and I were with save last night, and that was the big comment was, you know, I made the mistake of going in and looking at social media. You know, all I could see was, you know, oh, he should have died.

Ed Hinchey: Yeah, we had one of those heroes and absolute heroes. The incident is known. They did everything they could have done, and yet, and they sacrificed their bodies and almost died. And what's eating their lunch? The one young hero said, he goes, I'll scroll through 100 comments going, great job. Prayers are with you, officer. You know, thank you for being there for us. And I get to the one comment with, I hope you're dead and I'm not going to sleep the rest of the night.

Now, you know, that's, that's atrocious. It's a failing in our society. It's a failing to give social media that much credit. And we've got to be better. We've got to understand that's not the litmus test of did we do the job right or wrong?

Jon Becker: Well, and I think, I think it's, it is one of those things where when you have this kind of an event, you need to stay away from it.

Ed Hinchey: Absolutely.

Jon Becker: Resist the siren's call to go and see how everybody, you know, because a thousand people saying, hey, this is great, is not going to offset the one guy that says, I hope he died.

Ed Hinchey: Right, right. Cause your, your blood, just cause you know what you've been through, you realize you are mortal. The mortality is there. It's. You're conscious of it now. You may have been, you know, hey, I'm out there. I'm a warrior. I'm going to get this all done. I know I'm coming home. But all of a sudden, it's mortal. And you realize somebody else could be tucking in your family.

Jon Becker: And that's how all of a sudden, that resonates that quarter inch that it misses the femoral artery with is what separates you from.

Ed Hinchey: Thank goodness I had my armor. You're 14 times more likely to survive a critical event if you're wearing your armor. And yet I'll see officers out there with no armor on.

Jon Becker: Yeah, I mean, I think that that bears repeating. If you are wearing body armor.

Ed Hinchey: Right.

Jon Becker: You are 14 times more likely to survive.

Ed Hinchey: Right. And that's. That's not just your. Your assailant deciding he's gonna end your life with a gun. That's the DUI crossing the centerline. We just lost two Pennsylvania state troopers who were helping an individual in a car by a DUI running them over on the street. You know, you're 14 times more likely to survive that DUI. Cross on a centerline, hitting your patrol vehicle. If you've got your armor on, it doesn't have to be a shooting. You know, most of the ones we count and look at and compute are.

Jon Becker: So talk to me about the actual shooting and what you have seen from a pattern of who survives a gunfight.

Ed Hinchey: Again, as we discussed earlier, I've gotten to work so many of these cases. I actually have gone in on cases where officers took hits on the armor but also off the armor and didn't survive. And I've looked at that offer armor to see what it did. Right. And, you know, had he only taken the hit on the armor, the officer lives.

So it's more than just our saves. You know, it's officers that have made the ultimate sacrifice and their duty gear or their armor still played a part in that. The Boston terrorist bombing from the marathon, the officer at the MIT who was on the perimeter protecting students and was executed so they could get to his gun, they couldn't figure out how to get the gun out of the holster.

So even though that officer made the ultimate sacrifice to protect his community and the students in the school, the absolute, ultimate sacrifice, the holster stayed in the fight, and they weren't able to use it to visit more violence upon the community. You take a look at all those sides of things, and it goes back to training, selection, making sure the officer has the right gear when it's there.

And mindset the officers who truly come out of it solid and better even are the officers who check all the boxes. Their selection process was they were the right guy to begin with, the right female officer to begin with, the right individual. They then were given the training that they needed above and beyond minimum compliance standards. They were given a selection of the exactly the right gears they could perform optimally in every role they needed. Run fast, climb fences, perform CPR, sit in a car, direct traffic, you name it.

But that's the same gear that picks up a twelve gauge 1 oz slot shotgun slug to the chest and that officer continues to stay in the fight. And I think that's where we really, really need to look at it, is there is no time out in a critical incident. Unfortunately, we're seeing some of the selection process fail us or training fail us. And officers get shot and they don't take an action from that point forward.

Jon Becker: So they just get shot and fall down.

Ed Hinchey: They're basically calling a timeout and that's not how it works. Those are some of the officers we lose. They don't engage to survive the critical incident. You've got to have the mindset beforehand. And when, when somebody tries to take my life or the life of somebody I'm sworn to protect, I'm going to flip the switch, I'm going to visit the violence that's necessary upon them to end the threat.

You've got to have that mind. You have to have thought about it before the incident or you're not going to have it when you need it. It's got to be in your toolbox. You've got to survive the incident, but you've also got to survive afterwards, the aftermath of the incident. You've got to stay off social media, you've got to get the help. You've got to talk to your officers, your team, your trainers, because you need to know in your heart and mind that you did everything you could not to have to take a life.

But once you have that, you did it by the book. And you need to hear that from people you respect and people that have the knowledge to tell you, yes, you did the right thing and you could have done nothing else. And that has to also be shared with your family. So it's not really just about surviving the critical incident itself. That's primary, but you've got to survive after the incident as well. You've got to be prepared for the aftermath.

Jon Becker: I can't think of a better place to end than that. Ed, thank you so much for doing this with me. I really appreciate everything!

Ed Hinchey: Jon, I can't thank you enough for having us here, giving us a platform to get this out there!

Jon Becker: Thanks!

Episode 22 – Lessons Learned From A Legendary Tier 1 Operator – CSM Tom Satterly (Ret.)

Jon Becker: My guest today is Tom Satterly. Tom is a highly decorated combat veteran having served in the army for 25 years with the last 20 spent in the US Army's most elite tier one unit, Delta Force. During his career, Tom was involved in and led some of our nation's most important military campaigns, including the battle for Mogadishu portrayed in the film Black Hawk down, the capture of Saddam Hussein.

Tom is the recipient of numerous medals, including a silver star and four bronze stars, one for valorous axe. He was also the first American to ever attend Germany's ranger school. Tom retired from Delta in 2010 as a command sergeant major.

Tom's willingness to speak openly and honestly about his mental and emotional struggles have saved the lives of countless other warriors who believed they had to suffer in silence or make it alone or not at all.

Today, Tom and his wife and partner Jen are the co-founders and co-CEOs of the All Secure Foundation, a nonprofit organization serving special operation warriors and their families to help reconnect and to heal.

Tom's best selling book, All Secure, is available at all major bookstores. I'm excited to have Tom on the debrief, not only because of his extensive leadership experience in one of the world's most elite units, but for the amazing work he has done since leaving Delta.

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!

Tom, thanks so much for joining me today on The Debrief! It's great to have you!

CSM Tom Satterly: Yeah, thanks, Jon! I appreciate you having me on!

Jon Becker: Why don't we start just for those that are not that familiar with a quick Satterly bio so that everybody kind of is brought up to speed with who you are.

CSM Tom Satterly: Yeah, I think I hate to date myself. Back in 85, I graduated high school and it was a John Cougar moment. A friend of mine had just got out of basic training from the army and he was on his way to Germany and he was telling me all about it on the way up to this concerte.

By the time I got up to that concert, about an hour and a half drive, I decided to join the military just to get college money. Yeah, I'll go for four years and get out. And ended up going to Germany, was there for three years and had one more year to get out.

But during those three years, I went to french commando school, german ranger school, tuned confidence training, and the swiss march. It was like 40 miles a day for five days. And it just felt good. It felt different, you know, and it felt more than just motor pool Mondays, where you sit in the motor pool and you do s*** and you're never gonna go anywhere. You're never gonna do anything, and you know it. You're in the regular army, you train a little bit.

But once I got a little taste of more of a special operations environment, I guess I just wanted more. And a friend of mine used to showed me a picture of him as a baby, and his dad's holding him in his arm, wearing his dad's green beret. And I kind of adopted that dream right then and said, that's what I want to do, you know. So I kind of enlisted. Re-enrolled for jump school.

So I get to Fort Bragg, get a green Beret, you know. And as soon as I got to Fort Bragg, I started hunting down the green Beret recruiter. But come to find out about two years ago that that was a stolen valor picture. His dad really wasn't SF, so, you know, my career started out with a stolen valor moment, which was fine. I took that valorous moment, made it my own, and then I went to become a green beret.

And then when I was in language school, I got approached by a couple of guys that were in the unit, you know, and they're like, hey, we saw you in the cue Corps. I think you have what it takes. You should go try this out. I'm like, okay, sounds cool. So I put in first selection date and got accepted and made that in 91. And I stayed there for 20 years.

Jon Becker: Through 20 of the most probably tumultuous years in special operations. And if you're going to pick 20 years, 91 to 11 would probably be the 20 busiest years in special operations history.

CSM Tom Satterly: Yeah, it was a fun time, I'll tell you. It was, you know, after a year and a half, you know, thrust right into Somalia as my first combat, you know, engagement. That was. I remember thinking, holy s***, that's not any idea what I thought this would be. You know? I mean, you don't think about it, right? You train and you. You're the heroes and you're the winners, and you're the good guys. But when your friends start dying, you realize, oh, okay, this s*** goes two different ways. It comes back at you, too.

Jon Becker: Well, and, like, why don't we put context on Somalia? Because I think there were a lot of things that happened in Somalia that were bad. The operation you were involved in was so historic, and, for lack of a better term, so rough that we made a movie called Black Hawk down about it. Why don't you give us kind of a quick thumbnail sketch?

CSM Tom Satterly: Yeah, that was a quick day of a time sensitive target where a guy on the ground had done the signal, you know, of, hey, the guys are here. We're looking for some people on the ground. And he had done what he was supposed to do, pull up with his car, open the hood, shut the hood, and drive away. And that tells us, oh, he's there, and it's this house, you know, the guy did the wrong house. They're all idiots. But still, we figured it out.

So we loaded up while the team leaders were getting a quick debrief, we all loaded up, you know, after the pagers went off and sit on our helicopters and wait for the team leader to come up and scream at you with a piece of paper pointing, and you're just nodding your head going, sure, I got it. But you don't know what the h*** you're doing, right? I mean, you can't hear him.

The helicopters are cranked up, and he's screaming and pointing, and you're like, whatever, we'll do that. Infiltrated and realized immediately we're already under fire. You know, it was in the heart of the beast. It was in the Bakar market. So that's where all their weapons were and just bad guy territory, of course. We thought, in and out, right? In and out before they even know we're there.

And, you know, you shoot one helicopter down, and then they shot another helicopter down. And I remember watching it fly overhead off to the northeast and then crashing. And I knew that's when I knew during that mission that it had changed. It was going to be a lot longer. You know, up to that point, I was still joking about, we're going to make a home for dinner. I wonder what they're going to have for dinner tonight, you know, and we're still kind of cracking jokes like we did.

And then people started getting shot, and five ton trucks started blowing up, and helicopters were shot down, and we had to fight our way up the street to the crash site, and then basically were pinned down to that crash site for 18 hours. It was like the longest sustained firefight since Vietnam at the time. And it may still be. I don't know.

But it was the night that I watched friends die. I thought I was going to die. I kind of gave in. We ran out of ammo, and my team leader came in, and I asked him a question, because you could hear the convoy trying to make it to us, but had been going on for hours, just hours of raging gunfight going off in the city as they tried to fight their way to us. There's a gunfight at our house as they pick our house apart with rocket propelled grenades and, you know, AK-47 fire.

But thank God we had the little birds to keep them at bay. And we were kind of, in the Alamo situation, the best we could be at that crash site, but they just kept picking us apart. And when my team leader came in, I asked him, do you think they're going to make it? And he looked at me, and I was, like, waiting for that motivational speech, you know, like, hey, you know, f*** up young camper. And he just looked at me, goes, I don't know. And he turned to left, and I thought, well, s***, you know, s***, this sucks.

And I kind of, at that moment, like a calm, you know, washed over me versus the harried, like, what's going on? What's going on? And looking everywhere. And it was kind of like, here we are. Right? Here we are. I'm going to break as much s*** as I can tonight, kill as many people as I can, and help as many of my guys as I can, because I didn't figure I was going to make it. And it just kind of gave me that courage and strength to keep going.

And then when we got back the next morning, that run out, I'll tell you the run out. When the two vehicles finally showed up, maybe at dawn, right before dawn, and they hooked up chains and pulled the helicopter frame off of the pilots that were stuck underneath, which is why we wouldn't, you know, we wouldn't leave and then fought our way back. You know, we put all the dead on top. We put all the wounded inside those vehicles.

And then when I went to get in and pull the door shut, it was like, there's no room inside, you know? And it's like, all right, we hashed out a new plan. We'll run alongside the vehicles. They'll use this cover, and we'll work our way that mile back to where everyone else was. And as soon as the first shots fired again, they took off. Those vehicles just took off. We're sitting there like, all right, new plan, we're just going to run back, you know, so we just ended up fighting our way back until we ran into the tanks and Bradleys and Humvees that we climbed into and made our way back.

And when I pulled back into the two Humvees I was in got lost. I went the wrong way. Everybody else went to the Pakistani stadium. Our two Humvees got lost. And I didn't find that out until about three years ago when I made a post and somebody wrote back, that's my vehicle from the 10th mountain. And I'm like, hey, what happened, man? And he told me, we got lost. All right, good enough, you know, good enough. Now I know 30 years later that we got lost, but we made it to the back gate of the airfield. I waited a little bit. Nobody else came. I'm like, well, s***, let's drive all the way around to where our hangar was.

And when I did, I noticed, like, twelve bodies laying on the street, covered in poncho liners and whatnot. And I started looking. I could see the boots, and you see desert boots, then you see black Adidas boots and then some more deserts and more black Adidas. And I knew ours were the black Adidas. And that was the first hint that I had of how bad the night was, how really bad it was, how many lives we had lost, you know?

And then I just went inside and started rearming and cleaning up, charging my radios and getting ready to go back out. And then everybody started flying back in from the Pakistani stadium. And then we started getting word that Gary and Randy were missing. There were live people out there missing. And it just anger. Anger washes over you. Everybody packed up, rearmed, and got ready to go back out, and they just wouldn't let us do it. They wouldn't let us go back out. I think they knew, like, don't let them out. Don't let these angry people out. It'll be bad.

And then I, but I think they also knew that we were decimated. We just didn't realize it. That had never happened to us. We were just angry and probably wanting to go back out. But they had decided they're going to bring another squadron over and replace us. And all we got to do after that day was train with the other squadron, show them what we knew, talked about what we knew before we packed up and left. We had. I think I'll screw these numbers up. I know it was 19 Kia, and I want to say 98, probably wounded.

Out of all of us being a little over 100, you know, I'll screw those numbers up this much later, but there's very, very few left that were unscathed. But a lot of the walking wounded made it out and then finally evac back to the rear. And it was kind of more of a decimation than I realized up front how many people were injured and couldn't go back out.

Jon Becker: That was a pretty violent way to start your career at Delta, too, wasn't it?

CSM Tom Satterly: My first trip was to Jackson hole, Wyoming, skiing. I was like, this is the life, man. I've never been skiing before. Paid by the government. And then you go out and crawl over a mountain at two in the morning, make it all worth it, and sleep overnight in a snow cave. But, you know, the skiing was fun. I thought, this is a pretty cool place to be, you know?

And then I went, did a trip down south and early 93, and then, boom, Somalia pops up. You know, we rehearsed for Somalia before they called us up to go in August, I think. And I remember. I remember landing on the ground, like, ready to roll as a kid. I was a kid, you know, and I remember how hot it was. Just how hot. And then the rainy season kicked in, and then, you know, your hanger's full of holes, right?

So it's just raining on you all the time. And then you're on the ocean, you're like, well, let's go swimming. And then some tigers eat a couple of 10th mountain guys. You're like, all right, no more swimming. You know? So everything that you can do, they kind of take away from you over there. This is a horrible place to be.

Jon Becker: Does it? How did Somalia – So at that point, you're young in your army career. How did that inform your leadership later as you got older and got responsibility, how did that impact you?

CSM Tom Satterly: I relied upon that a lot, and I screwed that up, too. It had been such a long time. 20 years before I'm back, and now I'm in charge, and I'm calling Black Hawk down, and I'm like, we don't have enough water. I did it again. It was one of those things that we learned so much. Then we rewrote how we do mount training and urban warfare. I think the whole military changed how they did it. And I had one of those feelings like, this will never happen again. We're just going to keep training until this never happens again. I just put my head down, and for the next 30, 20 years was like, this will never happen again. Just keep training, keep training, keep training.

And it kind of drove my leadership into the arena of, I know what the most horrible things are, and that's what we need to prepare for because we're so highly trained that we don't need to keep being so highly trained. We need to maintain that. But the things we had never done. The downed Hilo, the occupying of a four way intersection properly, was a small element. We don't operate in large elements. Understanding that that was not our real mission. Our real mission is in and out in small elements, you know, and.

And then fast forwarding to 20 years of war in the Middle east again, and we're doing the same things. We start doing the same things again because we've lost a lot of knowledge. So I started instilling a little bit of that back into our people as much as I could. Like, hey, we can't have our helicopters hovering over the target. It tells everybody where you're at, and then they get shot down.

Then you have another issue. So that started to repeat itself, you know, and what caught me was that mission we went on where I said I had to call Black Hawk down over the radio. Cause right up on infill, a helicopter got hit with an RPG and had to do a hard landing, like about 150 meters away in a field.

So I had to send all the rangers over to protect that and surround that crash site while our guys were taken down. The target, which was, by the way, not a wedding party, as they told us, was a weapons training area. So they had all their weapons ready to go, and they were training and just Starburst everywhere. So that night ended up being ac 130 gunships. I mean, just everything went wrong that night. Nobody. Nobody killed one person injured that night with a suicide vest in our house. But other than that, man, we found a huge cachet in the carport of 155 rounds, setting up huge IED. So once we left, we blew that house up.

But that was another all nighter that wasn't as violent. And it kind of gave me that feeling that maybe we handled it better this time, you know? But it wasn't an urban area as much as Somalia was. It was still a little bit of an open area where we had some advantage. Plus, we had our night vision. You know, we had everything we were supposed to take with us.

So I tried to instill that along the way of people like, don't think that your plan will be executed the way you think it'll be executed. Right? You bring everything that you think you might need to stay overnight, 24 hours at a minimum, no matter where you go. Instead of cutting out things like, well, we'll back in there. I don't need a lot of extra water. It's a daytime. I don't need my nods. You know, all the things that we did back then that the newer guys were starting to think of again, like, let's lighten our load. I'm like, hmm, no, why don't you go work out and carry that load, right? Do extra workout with that load in your back, because you need that s***, you know?

And when you need it, it's better to have it, right? So that's kind of what I went with Washington was that deep thinking of beyond our training, beyond the plan, when it all goes to s***, that's what we need to worry about.

Jon Becker: Yeah. It's interesting! In your book, one of the things that really stuck me was you described the second event and the helicopter going down and calling Black Hawk down. And it instantly struck me that the contrast of now being in a leadership position and having what appears to be the beginning of a very similar event, it starts in a very similar way. Had to be kind of a profound emotional event for you, where it was like, oh, God, now it's going to happen. On my watch!

CSM Tom Satterly: I was. And when I get emotional or when I get scared or when I feel shameful or when my wife calls me out on something, I get Madden. I go straight to rage. I used to. I used to, I don't. Now I just get mad like normal people. But I would go, because I was living at a seven, right? Most people live at one or two. I was. I was living at a seven. That was my normal day. So when you made me mad, I go to ten right away. It's not very far to ten, you know, or eleven even. I go all the way to eleven.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

CSM Tom Satterly: And it was one of those. I had to break that process of the rage that came up. And that night when that happened again, and it came over me, my boss was a new officer, and he was like, on the roof. And I was telling him, we need to do this, we need to do that. And he was kind of timid about putting it in because it was one of his first hits, you know, that was like that.

And he kept telling me, hey, the command wants us to go chase these squirters. And I'd tell him no, and I'd go about doing more business, say, hey, hey, they kept hitting me up again. They really want us to send a team after those squirters. I go tell them no, you know, and I'm over there doing my job again.

He goes, hey Tom grabs me, and he goes, listen, we're on the roof of this building. He's like, they really want us to either take a helicopter, fly over with a team, and chase the squirters that ran into this house about, you know, half a mile away by now. And I looked at him. I go, let me show you how to do this. And I grabbed the radio from him, and I got on there, and I called back to headquarters, and I said, we've got a downed hilo. I've got rangers surrounding it. I've got my assaulters scattered about this target area, trying to figure out we're still under fire, we're still chasing people. We're not chasing squirters out. And I threw it back at them and go, that's how you f****** do it, you know?

And I turn around so freaked out and so mad that I. Since then, I've learned to operate. I was operating out of fear back then, right? Since then, I've learned to operate out of love and get the same thing done, but on target, there's no time to mess around. And I was just overwhelmed with those emotions from Somalia and being in charge and thinking, this can't happen. I can't let this develop into this.

So they were trying to make us still go and do things while I'm trying to secure something now, right? I just couldn't. I couldn't do it. And I'm glad I didn't separate our men more, you know, I'm glad I did, because I already had a guy missing, and he was out there in the field, just messed up on ambience.

So once I found him in, then I could use the ac 130 to suppress the site. So that moment of Somalia, I was just a kid breaking s***, you know, and shooting people, and it was just me two. You're in charge of all these people was a great difference. And it was worse to be in charge, even though you might not be in as much danger entering the door first, you know?

Jon Becker: But I think it's – You raise an interesting point, and maybe it is a lesson that we learn out of trauma and pain and mistakes, but as a leader, we've got to have moral courage. We have to have a willingness to stand up even to those above you when there is peril.

And I think that one of the things that came through to me in reading that story was that you had come to this point where it's like, I have responsibility for these guys and I'm willing to put myself, you know, I'll call it in political harm's way to make sure that we're not going to repeat the mistakes of the past.

CSM Tom Satterly: I just, I felt it was my job. That's what I get paid to do. That's what my men expect me to do. I think they might have been using the timidity of the new commander, or they're sitting back in the back and they got an overall picture at the top and they think they know what's going on, but they don't know what's going on under the trees, in the building, and running around as much as we do on the ground.

My point to him was, you're the ground commander. You're number one. You make the decisions. You deal with it in the rear when you get back. Don't let them bark in your ear about, go do this, go do that. I mean, they're sitting in the backseat driving right now.

You know, they can shut up, put some socks in the kids mouths, let's go get this target secure. Then we can call them up and tell them what's going on and ask them what else they want us to do. But they don't drive the target from afar. And that's what I was trying to teach.

Jon Becker: I think it's easy if you are not managing up, right, if you are not as the ground commander, if you're not delivering ground truth to those above you, it's very easy for them to go, oh, well, let's go do this, and let's go do that. And I think that one of the things that came through to me in the book was that kind of realization, probably born from the fires of Somalia, that in the end, the ground truth is really the only one that matters, because that is where the guys are in contact.

CSM Tom Satterly: Yeah. Cause the same thing happened in Somalia. They were passing information from above. They were trying to drive the convoy, but by the time they radioed down, it was too late. The delay and the radios turn right and they missed that and then turned right at the next one. Now they're lost again, and they had to keep doing it, trying to guide them to where instead of just telling them where to go and letting them navigate there. They were trying to help them through the burning tires and the roadblocks, but the system wasn't in place, so they were trying to drive it from the top down. And it just made it very difficult on the ground.

Jon Becker: When you raised one other point, kind of in passing. But in the 20 years that you're in the unit, are certainly 20 of the most tumultuous years in American military history. And I think that you were on the front end of the great American experiment of how hard can we drive our special operations forces and not kill them? How many times can we deploy them? How many times can we. How much can we feed them Ambien and energy drinks and see if they go psychotic?

And I think one of your lasting contributions, not only from the book, but the work that you've done since, is this realization that we were doing it wrong. I look at how many of our best and brightest, right? The assumption is that the guys that are in the unit, the guys that are in DEVGRU, the guys that are in our SOF units, are the best and brightest our country has.

And I think the lasting consequence of the war on terror is that we ground up hundreds of our best and brightest through, you know, overworking them in attention imbalance and everything else. I would love to hear kind of your thoughts, you know, as. As the canary in the coal mine, Tom, I would love to kind of hear your thoughts on our approach to that.

CSM Tom Satterly: I think our leadership has found out that it's cheaper and faster to send special operations in repeatedly and then pull them out, versus sending a large organization and that they've never really trained well. You zero your weapon once a year. You work on your vehicles. Tankers do their tanker s***. I get it. You know, they've just. We used to call it 1% does 99% of the work. We just keep deploying over and over again.

And it got so bad that they added another unit to every special operations organization. We're going to add another SF company, we're going to add another ranger. Whatever company. We're going to add another squadron over here to the organization. Probably added another SEAL team group. It's one of those. We'll make four instead of three of everything. Change the whole cycle. Guys will get an extra 90 days off. Never happened. What it did was allow them to deploy to two different locations with two different elements while one was on alert and while one was training to go again.

So you're still training all the time. That whole bullshit about, oh, there's an extra squad or an extra element, you can get an extra whatever off. Never happened. Leaders just took that because, honestly, again, we're humans. And leaders chase promotions. Leaders chase. You know, it's their job. They want to show off. Right? It's where we show everybody what we can do and how we impress people.

So the leaders want everyone to do other jobs that aren't their legacy tasks, like hostage rescue or taking out foreign leaders. And now we're out running around chasing everybody. The Rangers are running out chasing everybody. The SF guys running around chasing everybody. They all got out of the legacy tasks until near the end of the war, when I think General Sokolik started pushing everybody back to your legacy tasks. We need that. We brought these people up for a reason. SF, you're nation builders, right? You shouldn't be running around killing people all the time. It's time to start training and building the nation. Rangers, you know, you're designed to do this. Oregon Delta, you're designed to do this.

So pulling people back, there was a start of that. I don't know how far it got. Didn't get too far. Special ops organizations are still doing the 99% of the work around the world in places we don't even know about. It's never ending. And they abuse. I say abuse, but it's abuse on the body. They abuse the operators. I know in the unit we were never fully manned. It might be now, but I doubt it. We're never up to our full tone. It's always just a six man team.

Well, I've had four, you know, so we're always short anyway. And you're barring people from here and here. So this guy might be off around training. Okay, we need four. Horse of hands go up. You know, you have four guys now. Now there's four wives with no husband again for another 90 days. And it's such a high competitive place that no one's going to back down.

I mean, I'm talking to my friends now, some people that are still in the organization, I get some help. When you're healthier, you'll be a better warrior. It's not like, you know, and it's not like you're going to hide behind a car and say, please don't shoot at me when you go get help, right? And you deal with this stuff where you get a stellit shot which turns down your fight flight or free, so you're not an a****** at home.

And they're like, well, when I go back, I want to be aggressive. I go, oh, you'll be straight aggressive, right? This just calms you down while you're here. But it takes these guys. It took me a good. I've been working on it for a good ten years now to get past that a****** phase that I'm in the military still phase, you know, where you talk like a pirate when you want to be mean and angry, but I – You got to give up your past or it develops you and destroys you, especially when it's a past like this. Because the things that we had to do were not natural.

Those aren't natural things to do, and it affects everybody. I don't care who you are. I don't care the story you try to tell me, it will affect you, the s*** that we've done, and it will take you a long time to get back to feeling good.

Jon Becker: Do you think it's possible to do that job and not be that way? Is it possible to have that balance now retrospectively? Is it possible to do, you know, to be in the unit, to be in one of these units and have a normal balance? Or is it just going to be an unbalanced state for the whole time you're there?

CSM Tom Satterly: I think it's an unbalanced state while you're there. But I think if leadership took an active role in making you do things right, they don't want to make you do that. It's an extra thing for them. It costs more for them, you know, on up. But I think if we came back as a squadron, they made us go and have two sessions with a counselor that was really had our interests at heart, and you weren't going to get fired, and you weren't going to have somebody say, well, this dude's crazy. Because we're all crazy, right? We're all crazy. That's who they pick, crazy people.

But if you come back and you have a class on, this is how it affects you, here are some tools to work on it. When you go home, you're going to be angry with your spouse, you're going to scream at your kids, you're going to get mad about everything, and you don't want to. You're going to have that Homer Simpson syndrome where all this s***'s going on in your head and you're going to say it, don't say it, don't say it. And you say it because you just can't help it because we've been inbred to win everything we do, so everything we take on, like dishes in the sink, I'm going to win that argument. I don't care if you're 16 or 15 and you got all these excuses.

To me that's bullshit. Back in the day, that would be bullshit, and I don't want to hear it. There were no excuses because my mind was operating under the aspect that if it's chaotic, you could die. So it takes over, you get hijacked and you start behaving like everything needs done right now, or we're going to die. To include the ditches in the sink.

So I had to get past the fact that I was programmed to be that way. I've been given awards and rewarded for being violent. It got me through all the h*** on earth I'd been through, you know, hate and anger and just lack of love for mankind. But it's time to let all that go because I no longer need it to keep me alive, right? I don't need to act that way anymore.

And I think a lot of it is guys can't let go. It's your identity, it's who you are. It's the last best thing you did, right? Some people talk about college all the time. You see them flying their college flags. They're like 55 flying a college flag, wearing their college shirt and going to the college games all the time and having college parties.

And I'm like, is that the last great thing you did? You didn't do anything since college or that last high school touchdown pass you through. That's your story for life. Move on, make something else happen. Just like the same guys at the organization or any special ops unit, when you get out, no one gives a s*** what you did. No one gives a s*** what you did for a living. Generals get out, they go to Home Depot like, get out of my way, old man. They don't give a s***. You know what I did? I don't give a f***. Get out my way, right? They don't care. And it hurts and it will affect you. So you have to go get some professional help. Not even help. You need to retrain. You need to retrain how you act in your relationship. You need to retrain how you behave around normal humans. You just don't need the help, you just need retraining.

Jon Becker: It's an interesting point because we, you know, human beings have a wide range of sensitivity to stimulus. We have a wide range of how we respond to that. And in normal life, it's very easy. Somebody bumps you in the store, it's no big deal. A group of military age males are standing around with their hands in their jackets. That doesn't mean anything other than their hands are cold sometimes.

And I see it especially when my friends come back, they're at eleven because they've had to be at eleven because everything is life threatening. And I think there is this kind of balance that we have to strike as warriors. That is a really difficult balance, and it becomes more and more difficult as the assignment and the op tempo increases.

CSM Tom Satterly: Yeah, we definitely have a lack of trust issues of our own. You end up only trusting those that are around you and that know what you're going to do and what you do, and then you forget that you've gone out to do it for those people that you're running around and bumping into. Right? I mean, people that are burning a flag or something, I don't like it, but I fought for the right for you to do that. Right?

So I think that a lot of guys need to understand the job that they're doing is what they're doing. And then deep down, think about the job that you're doing. You know, you're protecting and defending the constitution of the United States, which states you can protest and burn a flag. Right now, it's very emotional for others, but it's not emotional to some who are doing it right. To them, it's a protest, which we fought for the right for them to do that.

So we have to be real careful what we try to shut down because then someone else is going to shut us down. But we've been at war too long. We're probably going to beat another one soon. Right? And it's just, it's one of those things where people are going to get more and more screwed up. Society's going to change because of it, and it's going to be another divisive line between us all.

Jon Becker: Yeah. The thing that I find we're seeing more and more of is we are training our rank and file, like, you know, TTC, law enforcement. We're training our rank and file less, we're putting them in more missions, making their lives more complicated, which then, you know, elevates the need for special units. I look at that, it elevates the need for SWAT teams and for soft units. And the whole point of a special unit is it's doing something special. Right?

The point of a Delta is, like you said, hostage rescue and very difficult small team insertion kind of stuff. And they were like, no, actually what we want you to do is go do these normal missions because you're just better at it. And it doesn't strike me as a particularly intelligent plan.

CSM Tom Satterly: Take Fallujah, you guys, you 15 guys. Go take Fallujah over. It's like the marines couldn't do it. 80 seconds, can't do it. I don't think we're going to do it. It's hard, but we're going to try and even law enforcement. This comparison thing, I call comparison a thief, right? It's a thief of healing. It's a thief of joy when we compare and when we judge versus being curious about people, and we've. I've spoken to law enforcement often, and sometimes they're the worst.

You know, I look at the regular law enforcement like the regular army. They get very little training. They're expected to do so much, but there's no time to train because they're always out doing so much police more. Police are more doing their job on a daily basis versus training. The regular army doesn't do their job and train.

So do they rely on your SWAT guys more to do more than what they're supposed to be doing? They call the SWAT guys out or, and they, they use them even more and more and more. Right? And then those guys get burnout, and they're the ones that do the comparison. Well, I don't mind. I don't have combat time or, you know, the s*** I go through is nothing like yours. I mean, how do you know? You live in your own combat zone, your family lives with you in your combat zone, and you never leave it. You can bump into the enemy that you fought recently at a store. Right?

So consider that when you sit there and judge that, well, mine's not like yours. Mine's not like yours. I got to come home from my combat zone. I got to relax.

Jon Becker: Yeah. It's one of the guys that I interviewed last season, beginning of this season, was one of the guys that made the entry in Batta Klon as the team leader for the Bau Declan rescue. And he made a really interesting point that I'd never thought about. He talked about when the operation was over, they went back to their headquarters. They'd had two suicide bombers blow themselves up. They're covered in suicide bomber and all kinds of stuff.

And he said, we took a shower and then we went home. He said, it's the first time it ever struck me that in a military deployment, which was very similar to, there's processing time. You get to fly home. You're going to transition back. And he goes, I got home and my family said, well, what happened? He's like, I just needed to go to bed. You can't say those things.

CSM Tom Satterly: You can't. I mean, when I got back from Somalia, I didn't talk to my wife, took her to the house, and then she said, how was it? I mean, literally, how was it start bawling. I didn't know what to say. I just broke down. It was too much to even try to make someone understand because, you know, they can't. They'll never understand it, right? So why even try? And I literally could feel his feelings in that, you know, I just want to go to bed. Just let me just don't talk to me.

Jon Becker: Yeah. Just kind of let it. Let it work its way out of you. How do you know now, retrospectively, how do we find that balance between what we do and who we are? Right? Like, what struck me, as you were saying that is, you know, Delta was what you did. It wasn't who you were, right? The two get conflated, and at some point, like you said, you move on.

And I think that the guys, like, I see it in my law enforcement friends, the guys who police work is what they do, retire pretty well and go on, and they find meaning in being a Walmart greeter or being a soccer coach or just being a good dad or moving on to some other thing. The guys that being a cop is who they are are the ones that struggle. How now, retrospectively, how do we better strike that balance?

CSM Tom Satterly: You know, you need a hobby. You need something that you do other than work. I never had hobby. I don't think I still have a hobby now, other than cleaning. I literally. People are like, what are you doing? You're offtown, I think. I don't really have off time. I'm still always helping people. I'm still always waiting around to help somebody or the phone call or to talk somebody down off of something, but I don't have a hobby.

I mean, my wife and I, we drive our convertible at the end of the day when we're just wiped out from talking to people or hearing people's s*** problems in their lives, and it just weighs you down. You have to have a thing, and I would suggest it being in nature, you know, where we go out and get grounded again, and you just. My wife and I'll get in the car at the end of the day and just start driving out towards the Ozarks, hitting those hilly roads and just staring at nature, not even talking, just wind in our hair, just driving. Drive about 45 minutes in one direction on this nice, straight, beautiful highway. We turn around, drive back.

We get back, and then we might start talking about things we've done that day. But you need to decompress. Like, really decompress. And I don't mean go get drunk, you know, I don't mean start taking pills and getting drunk. Because that's what most people do to decompress. That's just another depressant. Right? Added to it. I'm not saying don't drink. I'm not a teetotaler. Everybody's like, I didn't know you drank, tom. I go, I don't drink at all anymore. Okay? I just have a couple. I've set limits and rules, which is how I think people can learn to manage that at work.

People don't tend to have problems, right? They're showing off. They're shining, they're doing their thing, and they can prove who they are. They can climb up and get rewarded for it. And, you know, it's happiness. It's kind of like, hey, you're my bros. I feel good here.

We're torn between going home. Guys are torn between having second lives. You know, you're gone so much. It just happens a lot. That adds more stress, the stress of getting caught, the stress that you're doing wrong. You know that, right? You have this feeling that one day you're going to get caught, you know, the shoes going to drop. And that's a horrible feeling to have every day of just waiting for an email, a phone call, knowing you're doing wrong.

But if we set rules and abide by them, like with our spouses, how we fight, making rules for fighting. I ask people who has rules for how you fight, and they're like, stupid. Like, we have the law of land warfare. We make rules for war. We have signs everywhere posted, don't jump in the tiger bin. Because people have done it before, right? So they post a rule, don't eat the gum off the railing underneath the f****** seats or something.

You know, you make rules. And when I see a rule, I'm like, that's because somebody did it and they had to write it down, you know, or a bunch of people did it. So if you make rules about how you fight, you know, you make rules about, you know, your wife's got you up against the ropes and you feel bad. You're like, you cussing her out? She's cussing you out and she's winning. You pull out the nuclear option like, oh, yeah. Acting like your mother, knowing that that's going to freak her out, right? You're both just trying to be right, right? I know I'm going to win and be right. And I've told her that before.

If she started talking to me about something and got a little elevated, I've looked at her before and I'm like, you know you're going to lose. You know, I will do anything to win. You know, I will tear you down. I will say the dumbest s***. You'll walk away crying, and I'll feel like I won, and then I'll feel bad, and I'll come say I'm sorry.

Or we can follow the rules of we, you know, we only take it so far. If it gets emotional, we back off. Because emotions are s***, right? You go back to logic. You talk about those things. If it gets emotional, you back off. Because when we get emotional, we start arguing and fighting. And when we do that, our relationship starts to tank. The kids start to know, and they start to tank.

And then you have this stressful home life, which carries over to your work life. People can't have take one out of the other. You bring your work life home. You bring your home life to work. And so with that, I tell leaders, you need to know your people more than just at work. So if he starts having an issue at work and he's fine at work, you can determine, oh, are you having a trouble at home? You know, your wife have cancer, your kid dying? Are you just arguing a lot? Is it you?

I think we could do a lot better with that. Be open and honest about it. And that will help people nothing, trash their home lives as much, because you can get it under control. You can control it while you're doing it. If you have the awareness that you're doing it. And most of us don't think we're doing it. We don't realize. I would prove that. I would prove it all the time. Those are facts. You can't tell me those aren't facts. You know?

And my wife would say, it's not what you're saying, it's how you're saying it. I'm like, oh, I don't need to scream that. I don't need to scream at you when I talk, you know, so the awareness of how we behave and that it's not needed here in the civilian world, they don't want it.

Jon Becker: I think you raise a really interesting point, which is I teach a block on culture centric leadership. And one of the things I talk about early in that block is Maslow's hierarchy of needs. For those that are not familiar, Abraham Maslow is a psychologist who determined, came up with a framework to explain that people have a hierarchy of needs that starts, picture it like a pyramid. The bottom of the pyramid is physical security and safety and the ability to eat and all those things.

And, you know, when you get up to the top of the pyramid, you're into self actualization and concern for others and everything else. One of the things that I talk about in that class is you have to understand that people you're interacting with people who are in a variety of positions on that hierarchy of needs.

And as a leader, you better know where your people are because, you know, if somebody's life is well grounded, and things are great, and they're happily married and their kids are wonderful, then, then they're going to be thinking different thoughts than a guy that has a wife and a girlfriend and, you know, a side job and a drug problem and a drinking problem, and is way down at the bottom of that triangle trying to survive every day. And I think that one of the points you make is as a leader, we need to know that.

CSM Tom Satterly: Yeah, I mean, just to fully know what's going on more than just at work, because that's a human. You get to know the human, then you can help that human be better. And if that human's better, that makes you look better.

So it's easy, it's, you know, I call it choosing your hard. It's hard to train people, it's hard to corral those stallions that work for you, you know, I mean, they're not mules you gotta whip, they're stallions you gotta steer them and hold them back a little bit, and that's great. But they're humans. And if you don't get to know them as humans, you won't know what's bothering them. And if they're not operating fully, then you're not gonna get all you can get out of them.

So not hate and anger gets you through, but love and respect will get you through. Hate and anger can make you feel better, like you don't have any emotions. But I think a lot of us try to hide our emotions and keep the emotions at bay because we think they'll make us do our jobs differently versus actually helping us heal by venting out those emotions and releasing it.

Jon Becker: Well. And it's interesting, as you're saying, that I'm thinking back to earlier in our discussion, when we take a group of people and we place them in a harm's way for an extended period of time, and we turn them up to eleven, and we're putting them to sleep with Ambien, and we're waking them up with energy drinks, and we're sending them out on 4, 5, 6, 7 hits a night, and we are pushing them so far down the Maslow triangle that there isn't anything else.

After 20 years of war, I'm not sure that anybody comes out, quote unquote, normal or healthy. And I think that it's something that we really need to think about as leaders, what we're doing to the people that work for us.

CSM Tom Satterly: It's our job to care for them, not work them to death. Right? They always say humans before equipment, you know, blah, blah, blah. But they don't do that in their actions. They don't behave that way in their actions. They've taken all the money for the preservation of the force and family funds. So military organizations that used to bring us in to talk to people like, we don't have any money.

All of it went to COVID vaccinations, this and that. They pulled money. They don't have money to help families anymore, even though they save, you know, people before equipment, families before this. And that great motto, you can shove it up your b***, doesn't work. You know, it's – They don't. They don't behave that way. They behave as if you're another number, right? It's a big organization. You're another number. They'll replace you. They're already working on replacing you, right? So if you're just not working out fully for them, then you can be gone.

Jon Becker: Which, I mean, organizationally, it has to be that way. Right? Like, organizationally, the trains have to run on time, et cetera. And I think that one of the difficult balances to strike is between the organization and the individual. And there's always a tension between the organization and the individual.

If Tom is having problems, somebody has to move into Tom's spot because we need to go capture, you know, Saddam Hussein. In your case, literally, we need to go capture Saddam Hussein. And so we do need to have that organizational readiness. I just question whether we run these organizations. And I see this with SWAT teams. I do it all the time. Are we running them too lean to be able to effectively protect the personnel?

It's like you said, we added a fourth team, and the net effect was that now we have two missions and nobody gets any more rest. Like, is the right answer here for us to say no? Let's have six teams. Let's have six squadrons in Delta, and two of those at any given point are at summer camp and are running five ks on the weekend for fun and tour training and tour operation. How do we do that, you think?

CSM Tom Satterly: Logistically, it's a nightmare, but there's so much money out there, right? There's so much. There's obviously trillions. We give it away all the time. You know, we print it, we f****** borrow it, but we give it to things that, well, I don't know. We should be giving it to other things, like the mental health, the care of our warriors.

And then again, old people are going to go, what about the old people? What about this? The money's there. I don't think that they sit back and honestly care about the humans part of this. You know, I think they want the numbers. They got to fill the slots. They got to get a job done. And that's what they'll tell you is our job.

When we spoke at Congress and we were talking to the Department of Defense and the VA, we were speaking to the VA about biomarkers, right? Picking up on biomarkers that will determine if you have post traumatic stress early on so you can go get help. That way you can't, you know, somebody can't say, oh, you're just saying it. You don't want to go somewhere, right? There's actually biomarkers in your body that tell you things are wrong with you, and you probably should go get help.

And the VA was saying, I love this. I love this. And then John McCain at the time, he sent his staff over to listen in, and they came up and they said, look, John McCain wants to move this into the DoD, too. Help the warfighters while they're fighting. Maybe they don't need to help them as much when they get out.

And I said, that would be perfect if you could give them the help while they're in. You probably won't spend as much when they get out. You probably won't have as many problems. Just like you used to teach us in the army, you know, preventive maintenance checks and services. They always have these little cartoon books. They hand out this little dude with big muscles and a wrench in his hand, keep it running. Right?

You know, take care of your equipment, because if it breaks, it costs more and takes longer to get it back. We need to do pmcs with our humans. We need to do that with our relationships, right? We need to do that with ourselves. Why wait till we're so broken that it takes so long to fix us? Why not keep maintaining?

I'll sit there, and it goes to the same thing with relationships. I have a stadium full of couples I'm talking to, and I'll say, show of hands. How many people have a perfect marriage? Zero hands ever go up, right? Zero. Okay. How many people here see a therapist? Couples therapist? A couple hands go up, I go. Why aren't all of you seeing someone every now and then? You just said, it's not perfect, which means you could work on it. If you work on it, it'll stay perfect. If you let it fall off and trash and die and you rock bottom and you're all the way down, it's going to take so much more to come back.

We apply that to everything, keep our operators healthy and maintain them and still train them. But as part of that training, they get the training on mental health and how to take care of themselves. They'll be better all along the way, and I know it. You'll get a better warrior. I won't have to worry if this guy to my right or left has got an alcohol problem or he's taking pills or he's on Ambien because he's hooked to him or his kids are hate him and his wife's leaving him and is his head in the game.

I'll know that I have healthy people with happy families at home that they're not worried about and that they know how to take care of themselves as well, versus only knowing how to kill other people.

Jon Becker: Yeah, I think it's very challenging as a type personality and as a man, especially a man in the kinds of units that we're talking about. They have a hard enough time admitting when they're physically damaged, much less emotionally damaged. We've created such a disincentive to look at our mental health, and I've had conversations with friends where it's like, you need to go to a therapist. I gotta be a therapist. If your knee was damaged, you'd go to an orthopedist.

CSM Tom Satterly: Yeah. You break your arm. Imagine breaking your arm and just going to work and saying, f*** it, I'm fine. And it heals at an angle. It's all screwed up now. It's worse now. If you want to fix it, you got to re break that sucker. Right? It's biological. I know. You can get a brain scan and a doctor can tell you what you do day to day by looking at your brain scan without even knowing you at a doctor in LA, look at my brain scan and called me. So I had to call you because this was such a difference between when I got a Stella shot before and after.

He said, before you have the brain of a 35 year pro football player. He goes from the colors of your brain. From the scan, I can tell what's firing wrong. Do you do this, this, this? And this and this, and I was like, oh, my God. You know me perfectly dang, over the counter pills, hyperbaric oxygen, tenta, other things along the way. Not one prescription met, and I had a stellate ganglion block shot. And he said it overnight, that my brain looks so much different.

So I try to tell people, and I felt different immediately, which is not the end all, be all that. Put me in a space where I could go get more help to change my behavior. Right? Because people don't like our poor behavior. So you have to do behavioral change. No matter what you do along the way, you have to change your behavior. And that's muscle memory developed. I got rewarded for being aggressive. I got awards for it.

So I have to change that muscle memory of being aggressive to be thanked. I got to behave differently, and that takes a lot of work. It's like when you try and teach somebody how to shoot, and they have anticipation recall, right? You're like, I got to break that before we can go anywhere. So I have to back up, stop this one thing, and then start again and start working on shooting.

So I have to back up with people, stop what they're doing, and then start piling on top of that with the new stuff. And that takes time. It takes a lot of time, and I honestly just don't think people have the time for it. You got to be persistent and diligent, and you can't quit. You just can't quit. It takes time.

Jon Becker: But I think we've got to. We've got to. As a society and as leaders, we have to prioritize it. Right? Like, people do what. What they have to do. Right? We, most of us do what we have to do and a little bit of what we want to do. Yeah. If we want to spit out healthy warriors, we need to require that they stay healthy.

CSM Tom Satterly: Mandatory, like sexual harassment, whatever. Sharks, whatever they call it. I mean, we have to take computer classes in the army, we had to take them. I got to check the block. You know, sexual harassment. Everybody did that. Okay. Drug and alcohol. Yep, yep, yep. Checking the block. Nobody's even tried to check the block on mental health, even if it's s***** and doesn't work. No one's even done that yet. How about check the block?

Jon Becker: No. If anything, in this realm, in the tactical realm, it's actually the exact opposite because we've weaponized mental health. Like, oh, Tom isn't right. We need to take Tom out of service here. He's not right. And we're focusing on using mental health as an elimination tool.

CSM Tom Satterly: Yeah.

Jon Becker: Rather than as a maintenance tool. And it strikes me, you know, you see it in shootings all the time with, with police officers. You know, they'll get involved in a shooting and they don't want to talk to the therapist because the therapist is going to say, oh, he's not. Right? He's got to come off duty. There isn't this, you know, it's become. Mental health has become a hurdle. It's become a means of us taking you out of service in much the same way in specialized units, you know, like yours, physical ailment becomes like, oh, well, he's not, he's not fit for duty.

His, you know, his knees blown, man. His brain is blown. He's not fit for duty. And it feels like we have to turn that around. We have to get out of a mindset of using it as a means of pulling you out of duty and get into a mindset of using it as a means of keeping you fit for duty.

CSM Tom Satterly: I think we need to get out of the mindset that if you can't see it, it's not real. Right? I bet people if you break your leg, they'll give you light duty and you sit at a desk for six, eight weeks, right? Heal up, bro. You got a broken leg, you had a cast on it. But if the same guy said, hey, I'm an alcoholic and I can't stop drinking, I need six or eight weeks to dry up, they'll fire you. Mental health.

Hey, I'm having trouble at home. I need to speak with my wife more. I need to get some help because of the things I've gone through have made me behave poorly at home. They'll get rid of you whether you break your d*** leg, get a bone sticking out of your head. They're like, oh, poor you. They want to take care of you and then throw you right back in the game. Right?

Jon Becker: Yeah. I think one of the things that made me initially want to talk to you that I loved about your book is, you know, there's so many instances in mental health where, you know, people perceive the attention to mental health is weakness. Where we go, yeah, that guy, he's a big sissy. He's emotional. He's whatever. I read your book, and my reaction is telling one of my friends that he should read the book. And he's like, why?

And I said, it's very easy in a mental health context to attack and make an ad hominem argument. Oh, that guy is this. I said, I will challenge you to invalidate Tom Satterly's man card. Like, if you can. If you can invalidate Satterly's man card, then we're all f*****, right? 20 years in the unit doing the things that he did. What I loved about the book was that it is difficult to impugn your man card because of what you did.

And yet the book is so raw. It is not. There is no candy coating at all in the book. It is absolutely raw emotion. This is what's going through my brain, and it feels to me like, that's really what we need to be doing, is we need to be telling those stories.

CSM Tom Satterly: It was cathartic. Very, very cathartic. Difficult to do. Still difficult to do, but not as difficult. But writing that book got a lot out of me. It terrified me. I mean, it literally terrified me. But we got to the end. I started thinking, maybe we should take may – I don't know. You know, everybody's going to think I'm this, and then my friends are going to, you know, and I started thinking of all this crap.

Then I talked to my wife again, and the final answer was, we wrote this book for a reason. You know, not to brag about anything I'd done, but to help others understand and see that it affects you and you can get better. You know, my wife wrote arsenal of hope right after that and published it, and it's a continuation of that story.

And it's an add on at the end of when I met her, how horrible it was for us and how we fought to get through because we chose each other versus the easy part. You know, it's hard. It's hard. Marriage is hard. Divorce is hard. It's what hard do you want to choose? Right? So I chose being married hard versus the divorce hard. And. And it turned out. Right? It just – It works out. If you put the effort in, things really work out. And that was hard to throw everything out there, right, and worry about being.

Jon Becker: Oh, yeah, no, it is raw and naked. Like, it's, you know, standing in a room naked with 40 your friends and bright lights on. Like, there. There is no. There's no hiding in the book. You know, there are a number of things that struck me. The description of you sitting in your truck, contemplating killing yourself, being literally seconds from doing it and deciding not to because of Jen was. Was, to me, kind of the pivotal moment of the book and may have been a pivotal moment. What was a pivotal moment in your life? It strikes me that she was kind of your spirit animal for a while there in a way that you say in the book that she saved you. But it strikes me that that's very much how you feel about it

CSM Tom Satterly: To this day, her wisdom, her calmness and demeanor, and I've made her tough. I made her real tough. Tougher than she was. She thanks me for some of it. We've duked it out. She's pretty hardcore. And it's. I mean, she literally did save me. And she'll say, I didn't save anyone. You did the work, but I wouldn't have done the work, and I wouldn't have done the work if I didn't have somebody to do the work for.

And I certainly didn't love myself at the time, and it made it very difficult to love anyone else. But she was lovable and taught me how to start liking myself, and so that made it doable. And then I got to a point where, okay, I appreciate me and respect me again, and I don't hate me, because when I hated me, I hated everybody. You know, you can't love anybody unless you at least love yourself first. And I just couldn't. She helped me see that, pulled me out of that s*** and then stayed strong the whole time when I fought it the whole way.

So, yeah, I credit her with saving me and to this day, over and over again. And she'll deny it, but without her, I wouldn't be here.

Jon Becker: Well, I think sometimes we can be catalytic in other people's lives, though, right? Like, it, you know, she was. She was the spark. Obviously, you had to do the work. But I think that, especially from a leadership standpoint, it is important to realize that frequently we are having an asymmetric relationship with somebody and we need to pay attention to it. Right?

Like the things that she said to you that day that, you know, led to you going and meeting her at a bar rather than blowing your brains out in a car, probably were not that significant to her.

CSM Tom Satterly: No.

Jon Becker: But they had a very large asymmetric effect on you. And I think that it's important for us to realize the effect that we have on other people.

CSM Tom Satterly: Yeah, she dug in and grabbed the one thing she knew I hated because she didn't know what I was doing. She knew something was up and she took the one thing I hated, and that's being late, and threw that at me, and that snapped me out of it. And it was that easy. And that's when I started to realize after we talked about it down the road, because that's how easy it is to interrupt that process for somebody. Right?

Everybody's terrified. I think about killing myself. I don't know what to do, right? And they call us. I'm like, I don't either, man. Just talk to them. Talk to him as a human. Don't tell them not to do stuff. Talk to them. Say, don't. Say, don't do it for your kids. Right? Their kids might be the reason they feel like they're f****** up. Right? So just listen. Just listen. And then offer love. Because you can change somebody in a second. All they need to do is feel worthy again or needed, and it goes away pretty quick.

Jon Becker: Yeah. And I think that, you know, we can. We can walk this balance. You know, you and I talked before we went on the air about this balance between work and family, and it is an achievable balance. It's never, you know, it's kind of like riding a bike. Right? You're never, like, just balanced.

CSM Tom Satterly: Right.

Jon Becker: You're actively, constantly balancing. And I think that it's a difficult message for a type personalities who want to win everything that we have to work at it. But it strikes me that we do, and we need to do a better job in leading people, of helping them to achieve that.

CSM Tom Satterly: I think we could learn to swallow our ego, you know, would all do a little better.

Jon Becker: Yeah. Yeah. Ego and pride are definitely not the way to go. Why don't we? I'd love to pivot and kind of get your thoughts on some things. So there's been a lot of overlap since the global war on terror and the rise of SOF.

There's been a lot of overspill from the SOF community into the law enforcement tactical community. You've got everybody doing training all over the place, and we see law enforcement units equipping themselves and training more and more like military units, and we see this kind of rise of the warrior. Copy the arguments against militarization.

I think that there are, from my seat, dealing with both sides, the law enforcement and military side of the house, it seems like a lot of times we're actually taking the wrong message rather than taking tactics and moving the tactics from SOF units to law enforcement. I think what's missing is the amazing levels of proficiency and the leadership skills in SOF units, and that could be what is carrying over. What are your thoughts on that?

CSM Tom Satterly: I had to be careful. Teaching law enforcement was one of those things that I had to think about, you know, when I first started. Oh, just teach them how to shoot, right? CQB, blah, blah, blah, blah, just like we do. And then you have that realization of, well, they don't have the powers that I have when I'm at war. Right?

You guys, you do a shooting, it's a big, big, big deal. And so the whole. When I would teach them, I would say, listen, you have a certain thing that you have to do. You have to call out, you have to announce yourself. Whatever those things are that you have to do, that's on you. My training for you will be this teaching, marksmanship training, and anything after that moment that you decide that you need to protect yourself or someone else. That's what I'm teaching. You don't hold me accountable for anything else. You're supposed to know up to that point where you have to make that decision.

I'm just giving you the skill, once you've made that decision, to engage a target properly, you know, and I've tried to help law enforcement with the leadership aspect of it and the training aspect of it, but the budgets are different, the jobs are different. So I think a lot of these soft guys that get out and do the training really need to be careful. It's a lot more than just marksmanship and CQB and dominating the room.

There's a lot more in law enforcement that comes before that happens that they need to understand as they instruct. It's a lesson I learned. You know, we don't come in and say, drop it, drop it. If you have a threat, you're dead, right? I mean, your rules could be different about that and individualized and politicized and s***.

So I would wish the soft guys, I hope that what they're doing is that method of, you have a certain job to do, up to a point. I can't teach you that. I don't want to. I was afraid to even think about becoming a cop when I got out, because if I saw somebody with a gun, I'm afraid that my instincts would be to shoot them immediately.

Any threat in your hand, a knife, whatever, my instincts are to kill you. So very difficult to get out and do that job, and it's very difficult, I think, to get out and teach that job unless you're thoughtful about telling them what you're teaching them after the point of they made that decision.

Jon Becker: I do think that there are things that carry over from the unit very well to law enforcement. I think that, for instance, selection, I don't think anybody pays more attention to selection than Delta does.

And I think that there are messages in the way Delta selects that are very valuable for state and local teams. And looking for the right people from the outset and paying attention to how you're selecting, I think, actually really matters. And as a guy who's dealing with the top units all over the world, the one common theme in the really good units is they start off with a really good modeling clay.

CSM Tom Satterly: Yeah. You have to start off with decent physical fitness. Obviously, that just keeps you more mentally healthy and things. But I tell you that what they look for is individuality. That can work on a team, but you can be an individual people that can take a lack of information and create something from that.

And then the psychological evaluations, you know, whatever they pick out of that, I don't know. You know, they could looking for the crazy ones or the ones that have a little propensity to be more loose and free, maybe, but they're looking for a specific person that can go do those things. It's the foundation of what we do. Right?

It's the foundation of everything. If you select somebody before you allow them to come in versus if you meet a certain minimum requirement, you can start our training. And if you fell out of that training, then, okay, sorry, we'll recycle you.

But if you make it all the way through, because it's not too difficult, then you have someone, you really don't know what they're doing that you've given equipment to to go out and do a job, versus getting a good foundation of who you let in first, you know, and I think organizations change their selections to meet quotas, and then they can't change it back. So they drop their standards to meet a quota. And then when that trickles off, they drop their standards again to meet another quota.

Next thing you know, every cop used to be in jail and every soldier, you know, used to do something that they would never do. It's one of those, we've never dropped our standard. We've only changed two things since I've been there, and that's because it didn't matter. You know, not everybody saw the one thing, so they had to remove that to make it even. And the other one was like the swim test. They moved it from selection to the training portion because it'll give you more time to learn to swim, and then they'll cut you.

I don't know. You know, I think they're banking on the fact that, okay, in six months I can teach you to swim, and then we'll keep you, you know, but that's the only thing that they've ever really changed. Even though they've been pressured to change other things to increase numbers, they just won't. They say, look, it works. We get good people, we rarely fire people, right? Our guys rarely make real s***** decisions.

Now, when they do, they're real big and s***** decisions, but that rarely happens. So they've done a good job of selecting the maturity type of person with the minimum age limits and things that they're looking for. But I think if everybody could afford to do a selection like that, an evaluation before they hire, one, they wouldn't have enough numbers. Two, it cost a lot of money, but three, that have a wonderful element of people that they could trust and work, you know, and work for them well.

Jon Becker: Well. And it's, there is a lot of pressure to change standards and to drop standards. And, you know, one of my favorite sayings is that your standards are what you told, I, not what you, not what you say. And, you know, we've seen, I had a friend that for years ran buds, and when, when the global war on terror took off, you know, they were trying to increase the number of seals, and so they started feeding them more and more at the top of the funnel, and the same number kept coming out the bottom of the funnel.

CSM Tom Satterly: Isn't that funny?

Jon Becker: And, yeah, and he said, you know, he's, he's arguing with Congress about it. Like, no, like, you can send me a million people. There's, you know, there's, there's 40 guys a quarter. That's, that's what it is. And so I think that one of the things we have to do is, is realize that we may need to create additional units.

We may need to create different standards for different jobs, but we can't take, you know, every single person, you know, in, if you look at, you look at, you know, Delta as a specific unit, like, there may only be, at any given point in the United States, a few hundred guys that would be capable of serving in that unit. And we just need to accept that and not try to stuff the top of the funnel because I think the more we stuff the top of the funnel, the more noise we have and the less signal we have.

CSM Tom Satterly: And it's ruined forever. It's ruined forever. Once you change it like that, you know, it's.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

CSM Tom Satterly: Are you going to take freedoms back? I mean, even though they're trying, but, I mean, it's hard to give somebody something and do a certain thing and then retract it because the next group's going to go, hey, wait a minute, you know, so it's got to hold hard and fast on those things that, you know, you know, works for you, brings in leadership. You know, I'm not saying don't ever change. I'm not that guy.

But if something's working well, and it's always worked well, changing it to meet a number, like you said, you're only going to get the same amount coming out the other end anyway, right? If you're, if you're looking for the same things, you can let as many people in as you want, but you're really just wasting airfare and food money on those guys because you're going to send them back home anyway.

Jon Becker: Yeah. And one of the things that has always struck me with the unit is each of the operators. One of the things, one of the most misconceptions is people think that the unit operators are operating in large teams all the time. And you even talk about it in the book, there are circumstances where it might be one or two guys, you know, it's not going to be the, you know, the entire squadron lands and off we go.

You know, it's a unit that requires a very high level of individual responsibility and also an extremely high level of individual proficiency across a very broad range of skills. What is it about the units approach, you think, that allows, you know, a guy who's dumb enough to go to a John Cougar concerte to develop extremely high levels of proficiency and then maintain those for that many years?

CSM Tom Satterly: What was the question about that?

Jon Becker: What is it about their system that allows them to maintain these high levels of proficiency across broad spectrums of knowledge?

CSM Tom Satterly: I think it's who they select through selection. They know that those people have a propensity to fit into those jobs. Well, I mean, we recruit separately for support and direct support. So those guys do their own thing over here, operators do their own thing over here, and then they bring them all together in the end and they work out great.

But I think they're looking for a certain personality type or whatever it is. I don't know. There's not a lot of people that know the magic of a selection, you know, just a few at any one time, and they're just looking for that individual that can meet those time standards because they know that those certain time standards says something about somebody, you know, here's a distance, here's elevation, here's the weather.

I mean, everything we did up there was kind of analytical. Everybody at every RV took the weather, you know, the temperature and the weather at every RV. So you could calculate the different times for what that does to humans and how cold it is and. And the elevation. So it's real analytical to determine, in the end, that individual that's going to be able to do those things that, you know, you want them to do now, how they built that over the years.

And it's a lot of bigger brains than me that put that together, figured out what worked, and stuck with it. But there's a ton of psychological evaluations before and after and during selection that I know what they're looking for is an individual that will be able to do those things, which lends itself to keeping them healthy. Right? Because you're sending a dude on a mission by himself or maybe with two, and it happens all the time, all around the world.

If he's not mentally stable because of other things he's done, the chances of him making a poor decision are greater. And when you're going out with one or two, the backlash, if you're screwing up, can be greater. And so that's where they need to determine and decide that, yeah, we brought him in. We selected the right guy. Now we got to keep him right. We got to keep him doing that way the way we picked him, because he's going to get worse along the way.

So if you don't maintain it, you've selected a guy that you're beating down and he's getting worse versus maintaining it again. Again, that preventive maintenance checks and services, you know, keep him up and running. Right? And keep him healthy, he'll be able to do those jobs.

But once selection grabs a hold of the right guy and the training gets him trained with what you want, and then you get to the squadron, and two years later, you almost worked your way up to where they think you're worthy and can run with them properly, you're already starting to break down. Just the stress of trying to keep up. Every day you're telling yourself, you're not good enough, do more. All your brain hears is, you're not good enough.

So you start to break down, even with the competition. Every day of trying to fit in, trying to keep up, wears you down, makes you feel like s***. You start putting yourself down, and then you believe it. Your brain doesn't know the difference between perception and reality. So the more you put yourself down, the more you feel bad. And it's just tanks over the years, you know.

Jon Becker: If you were advising law enforcement, especially law enforcement, tactical teams on training and, and how to maintain high levels of skills. What would your counsel be?

CSM Tom Satterly: Know your basics very, very well. Everybody wants to come in and get the magic shooting. Show me the magic shooting. I'll go, yeah, I'll show you the magic shooting. Five rounds, slow, slow fire, 20 minutes. Give me your five best rounds. Guys will fire off in 3 seconds. I'm done. You got like four and the, you know, zeros and you got 110, maybe one nine. I want five in the X, right? I want five in the X. And I want you to do the basics right?

And then I'm going to have you run a mile or run a half a mile carrying cinder blocks and drop them. Then you're going to shoot the same s***. Because now I'm simulating you being hyped up and jacked up and your blood's flowing and you're angry as s***. Because I need you to be an exact marksman within your craft, right? Because the worst thing is shooting a civilian, shooting a non-hostile.

But it's all basics. You know the basics of human contact, right? How to talk with an individual, how to de-escalate. Because cops need to de-escalate, then they need to de-escalate themselves. I know if I get in a high speed chasing somebody for about five or 10 miles, and he's run over s*** and I've almost wrecked, when I get there, I'm ready to beat some a**, right? I am jacked up. What that law enforcement individual needs to think about is, okay, we've crashed, we're here now, count to ten or whatever. Breathe deep, but don't run up there jacked up because you're hijacked emotionally.

So I would tell them to. Excellent marksmanship, learning how to deal with people and de escalation. Because if you can de-escalate those fights, you won't need your gun, you won't need this or that. I mean, now I don't work in that world. And I see the news and it looks a lot sheer than it used to be. And nobody listens to cops anymore. And I've seen a lot less cops on the road and I'm like, I wouldn't be either.

If I was gonna get fired for pulling somebody over, you know, I'd be f******, I want my paycheck and go home at night, screw it. But if our leaders aren't covering and protecting, you know, our law enforcement officers, then they're not going to do their jobs, they're not going to go out and get in trouble. So, yeah, that needs to clean itself up, too. But, yeah, I would say marksmanship, de-escalation and pretty high up there.

Jon Becker: So why don't we talk about the foundation? Because I think it's important to kind of get the message out. Started by you and Jen.

CSM Tom Satterly: Mostly Jen. I kept working so we could eat food because we were working together, doing realistic military training exercises when we met, and we helped co-found an organization. And then during that time when Jen was working, we were working together, getting to know each other.

People were dying, people were going overseas and getting killed and not coming back on the next iteration and would be doing it, working with the SEAL team four or whatever. And she'd be like, hey, where's Bob? Oh, Bob got killed, you know, or, where's Jimmy? Well, Jimmy got killed, too, so it started breaking her down, you know, once teal got killed on a training exercise we were on, and she freaked out, and we just kept training. She's like, are we gonna. No, we gotta keep going, man. People die all the time. She's like, what? Yeah, people die. She's like, I don't get this.

So one day she said, I can't do this anymore. I don't want to train people to go to war. I want to train people to come home. She used to sit around on target and talk to all these guys about their issues, and they ended up talking about their families. Now they want to be better at home.

And so she decided, and I kept working for a couple years, a year and a half, and she started working on it. I helped along the way, but my job was to make money, and she was researching what to do. Finally got it going. Start in 2016. 2017 went official and started really pushing donations to help. And what we do is we became a resource library up front.

Things that we would research, that I did, I would go do it, video, send it out there and tell everybody this works or this doesn't work. And I tried this, and I trust them. It was easier for people to come to us to find everything they needed, versus what I had to do was go find it myself. And it was very difficult, so we wanted to bring it all into one spot.

Then we got more money, and we hired licensed clinical social workers to be coaches, and we started doing coaching over the phone to people who needed it all along the way. We were the first to start up to help spouses as well, the whole entire family. So we were the first to start that up. And if the warrior doesn't want help, we help the spouse. Anyway, it doesn't matter. We're trying to fix the family.

So we travel around as well and teach about post traumatic stress and relationship issues. And now we've just changed our programs to where we used to run four to six marriage retreats a year with eight to twelve couples, which got to be very expensive because we paid for them to come in, we paid to stay and we paid for their date nights and we. Very effective, very effective. But now we've morphed into a program that we have coming up in October at Fort Bragg, well, southern Pines, to where we're bringing in 150 people.

And instead of doing the real close marriage counseling stuff, we're going to give them a showcase of sleep experts. You know, hey, you guys have trouble sleeping, so here's how you sleep up on stage. Oh, here's a relationship expert, here's a psychedelic expert talking about all the things that helped us, all the information that they may need from the mouths of the people who have done it. And all these guys are special operators as well.

Plus I we're going to throw out music and games and we have 25 glamping tents, you know, 25 couples can sign up for to camp out overnight two day event. So we can dump as much information into them and then offer them the coaching that we offer. Because every time we do a retreat, phone lines start ringing. Hey, that was great. I want more help. More help. So we give everyone up to twelve counseling sessions, unless they need more. But up to twelve counseling sessions for couples all throughout the year.

Jon Becker: I love it! How can people find out more about the foundation?

CSM Tom Satterly: Well, has everything on there. It has the request a coach button, it has a camp home front button on there. It has a donation button on there which I beg people not to pass up because nothing that we do is free and everything that the veterans do and the spouses do that we bring in is free to them.

So it obviously takes donations, anything that you see on the website. Actually, there's a podcast button on there too, for all secure podcasts, which is part of our programs. Because on the podcast you have the listen up series to where we have experts talking in a short form about here's what you need to do, here's what you got to do to this, this, this and this. And then we're done.

And then we have the longer format to where we get to know people and talk about different special things that people can understand. But we consider those programs because they're all learning events for people.

Jon Becker: Yeah, I mean, I guess it's important for people to understand that nothing that you're doing is government funded. Everything that's happening is happening because of private donations. And I would encourage our listeners to go and support the foundation and support your work.

Tom, I'd love to finish with – We do five rapid fire questions. Short answer. Yeah, short answer. Sentence. Thoughts. Something quick. What is your most important habit?

CSM Tom Satterly: Cold plunge. I started cold plunge in the morning, and that changed my life.

Jon Becker: Give me more.

CSM Tom Satterly: What's that? Give me more about the cold plunge. Yeah, man. You know, I started reading about it, and I'm like, I don't want it. I don't want it. I don't want it. It's stupid because I hot tubbed every morning, and then I finally bought one, threw some ice in it, got in the hot tub, jumped in that thing and about died.

And then I got to where I could do three or four minutes just sitting in it, chilling, and I would get out and have more energy. I feel better. All my sore bones have been, you know, the inflammation that I have so much of from the multiple surgeries feels better. I'm more alert all day, and then if I get in the afternoon, I'm feeling a little down. I just jump in it real quick and get out of. But I got sick of all the ice, so I bought a water chiller, and it's supposed to keep it down pretty cold. And I've got it set at like 39 right now, but it's 105 outside.

So I got out of the hot tub this morning, got in and I went, nah, nope, not even worth it. You can't keep something that cold out there. But that's changed me a lot. It's made me feel a lot better. I have a lot of pain from all the surgeries I've had and all the arthritis from those surgeries. So that really helps out with that pain, and it really helps me sleep at night.

Jon Becker: Love it! What's the most important thing, in your opinion, for building an effective team?

CSM Tom Satterly: Trust. You have to trust the people that you work with in order to expect them to trust you and to work together.

Jon Becker: What's your favorite current online resource? Website or podcast?

CSM Tom Satterly: You know what? I just started, and this is funny, I just started the story of Jesus. I don't know why. I had a feeling the other day I was watching a YouTube video, and it was something about. It was a religious thing, obviously, and it was something about, you know, if you want to go to heaven or you want to feel this way or a certain way, you have to know Jesus. And I was like, whoa, okay.

I mean, I'm not a religious person. I'm spiritual and I believe in it all and everything, but I don't go to church. I do my own thing. I thought, okay. So I started a podcast about the story of Jesus. And a lot of it so far I knew about, but a lot of it was, like, very new to me. And I was like, okay. And I just got into it and I just started liking it.

So I've been listening to it over and over again, different stories. Like, it keeps going on. Not over and over again, but there's like ten minute stories, and I just pop them in and it's like the life of Jesus on up. And I'm like, all right. A lot of understanding out of that. A lot of good lessons.

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

CSM Tom Satterly: Courageous and not courage to do anything but moral courage. You know, the courage to do what's right, even when everyone else is trying to talk in and doing wrong. And even doing the wrong thing is easy. Right? But choosing the proper, hard through courage.

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

CSM Tom Satterly: Sitting on a bed in Somalia, pulling guard out of a window with bars on it and hearing a dragging noise coming up. It was dark. I looked out the window, and there's a dude with an ak on the ground crawling towards me in my window between the two buildings about 3ft apart. I just happened to look, and there he was, his little man dress or whatever, and I couldn't get my m four at that angle.

So I had pulled out a grenade, and I was like, oh, my God, I've never done this before. I just pulled the pin and dropped it on his head out the window. And I remember him looking up as I did it, laying on his neck. And I just laid on the bed, and that thing blew up, sprayed the ceiling and broke glass out and everywhere.

And I was like, I sat up and I was like, holy s***. And somebody kept running in the room goes, what was that? And I go, it was a flashbang because I thought I was in trouble. And the guy in the room with me goes, he's lying. That was a grenade. And I go, you're right. It was a grenade. Look at this dead f***** down here. I mean, I'll never forget that. It was almost comedic and gross, obviously. But, yeah.

Jon Becker: That's fantastic! Tom, I can't thank you enough for doing this, man. Thank you, first of all, for your service to the country. You sacrificed a lot for the blanket of freedom we sleep under, and I think it's very easy for us to go. Oh, yeah, these guys did a lot for us. I think everybody should read your book and understand that the price that our soft warriors pay for the freedom we enjoy is very high. And it's easy for us to say thank a veteran and clap at a baseball stadium. It is a different thing to look somebody in the eye and say thank you. Thank you!

CSM Tom Satterly: Thank you! I appreciate that!

Jon Becker: And thank you for everything that you're doing to continue to keep our warriors safe, man. It's the work you're doing now matters more than the work you did previously. So thank you for doing it.

CSM Tom Satterly: Yeah, I feel the same way! I appreciate that!