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!