Sidney Blair: SWAT Team, Secret Service, Detective, Gang Unit & Air Marshall For Homeland Security

The Team Never Quit podcast is brought to you by Navy Federal Credit Union. Partner with Navy Federal Credit Union to pay down credit card debt. Learn more at NavyFederal.org. You should serve something larger than yourself if you have the ability to do it. I want to say that this tower here is trying to make a difference. Who is Never Quit? Who is Never Quit? Who is Never Quit? Who is Never Quit? Who is Never Quit? Alright everybody welcome back to the TNGU podcast. I'm your host Marcus LaTrell. Every week it's my job to fire you up, to ignite the legend inside of you and to push you to your greatness. Join me every week as I take you into my briefing room with some of the most hard-charging people on the planet. They're going to show you how to embrace the stuff of life, teach you the values of working your ass off and charge you whatever life throws at you. This is the Team Never Quit podcast. Don't buckle up, buttercup. Hello and welcome back to another episode of Team Never Quit podcast. Before we get started today, I'm going to start us off with the Patreon question of the day, which is if you were going to time travel, which time period would you like to go to? That's hard for me. I feel like I should have been born in like the late 1800s or maybe I'm still just very connected to an ancestor that was from that time period because my interests are all very old school. I like to garden, I like to grow my own food, I like to do the canning and all that kind of stuff. So I'm very pioneer-like. I feel like I need to, if I was going to time travel, I would go back and live a few days in that time period. It depends. Am I single or married? Here comes that rational brain. I hold my questions in back. We're a lot of them. If I'm single, I want to go back to the Roman era. I want to go start conquering on one side of the world and finish on the other. Exactly. Exactly. If I'm married, 1840s, 1850s, load up on a prairie schooner and take my family across and make my way. Yeah, head west. What about you, man? He had an answer, he messed it up. Oh, I'll read there, say the same answer. The same answer. I feel like you and me. The movie that we watched in 1955. Remember back to the future when it always goes back to 1955 America? Right. You know what I mean? I feel like if you could live in that time for in America with our tech, that was the coolest time period in America. It was, right? Absolute coolest. The car thing. The way they dressed, everyone, everyone even was in a suit, hat kind of deal with it was everything was everything. So I feel like you would have been in like Alexander the Great's army. Okay, I said if we were married. Frontline. We're not, then I had to go away. That's why I started out. So you look mad. Yeah, like you would. There might be a time frame where the fighting thing was going, the fight, feed and breed thing. Yeah. Alexander would have been a good one. Yeah. Like you're one of his big warriors that travels on horseback with him. Just slaying. Slaying it. Yeah. Wouldn't go as far as being a hunt, but I want to go because he's on board and fight. That's something you're real mean. Jesus. They're real mean. Yeah, they weren't allowed to kill to let an animal go through their lives. Yeah. Yeah. They like killed gophers and stuff. Yeah. That's why there's good. It's like killing him for the second killing. I kind of agree. I would really like to be around that Roman era because of all the times that we've been over there. I mean, it's so easy to fall in love with just the history, how rich it is and the culture over there is breathtaking. Yeah, Hunter has traveled a lot in his life ever since he was, I think I took him to Rome for the first time when he was nine. Pretty nice. And we went back as recent as this past June and many times in between. So he's gotten to see a lot of that part of the world and it really is neat being able to actually like see the history. So that is cool. I love the Roman stuff is really neat. What about you, John? I would like to see I think ancient Egypt in its glory day. Who put the big one there? I'd like to go back and see. I think everyone. Yeah. Yeah, just to see that. Just to see that take place. But you wouldn't want to be one of them that's actually happening. Yeah, I don't know that that would be the best experience in the world. What are you doing in big rocks? Yeah, come back real hard. Yeah, either that or 1955, I think as well because that there's this futuristic thing about that era that you know, different movies talk about that that particular I know my grandparents were in their prime at that time. So like my grandparents, both my sets of grandparents got married in 1955. So that's like when they started their adult lives. So anytime I hear that year, I always think of them. And actually my grandpa died yesterday, but he there's this picture his high school, his senior year high school picture and he legit looks like fawns like or what's the same? He has the leather jacket with a white just plain old t-shirt. White t-shirt. Yeah. And he just looks so cool. And my hair slicked back. Yes. And blue jeans and chucks man. Yeah, both of my great my mom's parents and my dad's parents actually grew up in the same area. And my mom's mom and my dad's mom competed against each other in beauty pageants in high school. Wow. Who is the animal? Like the towns are named after So it's really you can marry because you just go to the town. Yeah, I actually have a picture of both my grandma's in a beauty pageant. And one of them won first place and the other one second. That's fantastic. And the town has been divided every single year. Isn't that cool? But it's that from that time period. Like those pictures were probably from 53-54. Wow. And it's just those really pretty dresses that are like tight around the corset and then flow out. I just think that's so cool. The town is great still. Christmas time it's all lit up. They have a fucking tank at the at the yeah, the military memorial has an actual army tank. But yeah, it's just a great cotton port Louisiana. It's a tiny anybody nobody knows about it. It's a there's what if you don't have family there was no reason to go but I love it. It's to me. It's a magical town and I It's a town and I think that's a cool part about 1955 is you still lived in your town. Yeah, not a city. Right. Town. Yeah, they actually call it a village. It's it says the village of cotton port on the when you pull in the movie theater was in town. It's kind of like Yeah, the library actually the library is named after my great grandma. She was the librarian for 50 years. So yeah, anyway, so when I hear 1955, that's immediately where my brain goes. Yeah, if I'm time traveling, I want to go back further than that. I see that. I think if I really had the ability to time travel, I'm gonna have to answer that question about the pyramids in Egypt and the whole day. I want to go back and see it. So you're watching on some deli the day, the boys in Texas Rangers back when that was how much fun without a bend for us. I mean, can you imagine though how the one single thing that nobody nobody gives credit to back then is the weather. Oh, bro, imagine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No wonder that came in here a few months again a couple of months ago when he just went like from, you know, 60 to five. Yeah, they're riding your horse to this that knows. Oh, we're blowing. I had that five degrees. He said chill out there when you walk outside and it's punchy's you in the chest. Like you feel that sucker, right? Mm hmm. That kind of stuff. When you had to go number two, I feel like back then that would have been the worst thing getting on a whole like, there's no where to go. You don't get that right out of there. And you know what, but you don't know, you don't know what you don't know. Yeah. That young man, both of you can't imagine not having a telephone. Yeah. Nobody. I mean, I'm 10 years older than you. Nobody when I was growing up could have dreamed if you weren't Captain Kirk on Star Trek that you would have something in your pocket to talk to somebody else. Oh, yeah, I can be a kid. I remember when cordless phones came out. Mm hmm. I do too. Cordless. Just a cordless phone, it was like sliced bread. It changed the world. Yeah. But look, I mean, really, if you're loinsomed up, if you're in that time period and you've got to go to number two. Okay. So that's still it. That happens just time frame theory. When we're in the field, if you're on a mission, you'd be surprised. You can go along. You just drop down. Yeah. Just and if you got to go, you take care of your business. Oh, I've been to Uganda. I know what it's like to be a little pregnant. So you were turned after a run with half a shirt. It's awful. I'm just saying like, that's it. But living every day. That's a man cart. It's so hard. I mean, we need to put that down too. Like right then on the board for board Wednesdays. Like here's how you get a couple of things to get you. Return from. That's hilarious. I forgot the stock of the dumb or only one song. Yeah. Yeah. They always joke that the dryer eats the sock. It's really the dryer. Wait a minute. Hold on. That's the that's top secret, man. We'll even know that. Oh my gosh. Okay. Never mind. If you find an old sock in the woods, do not pick it up. Why do you think there's always the chip clips go missing and there's always a lot of stuff. That's right. And let me introduce our guest over here. Today we have one of our very good friends that we want to introduce. Sydney Blair. Sydney bleeds blue starting his career in law enforcement doing everything from SWAT, gang unit, detective work, switching over to Homeland Security as an air marshal, then retired and now is back to being a cop. Sydney has lived a life of service and we're very grateful to have him on. Welcome to the show, Sydney. Thank you. Thanks for doing this, Bob. Glad to be here. So, you know, we have this mix of guests on our show. Sometimes it's people that are very public and everybody knows and then sometimes nobody knows who this is. We wanted you to come on because you do have an incredible story of just service. I mean, it really is awesome and you just retired. Everybody had a big retirement party for you. And then how long did that last? A couple weeks and you're back at one. Maybe. Yeah. So, if you can just start off your story of why you chose law enforcement, maybe start off of like where you came from, where you grew up. Because people always ask too, when we're in the public eye in the high-vis thing. Yeah. Who is that? Yeah. Who is that? Where are you from? All the time. I'm from a small town. I was born in Navasota. So, born in Navasota and, you know, as a little boy, we lived in Huntsville, which was a big big town to me when I was growing up because my father was in the grocery business. My dad had Pigly Wiggly, Minnie Max. Are you kidding me? I was in my grocery store. No, you didn't know that? No. Yeah. All the left that part out. I did not know that. The Pigly Wiggly thing is funny as hell, man. There's only one of those that I know of left in Louisiana. It's in Cottonport. We have a Pigly Wiggly in Cottonport. Okay. True story. My first paying job that I ever had, I was the Pig in the 4th of July, down San Diego in Huntsville, Texas, walking along with a big plastic deal on my head. Oh, my God. Did you ever go in the family with my grandma? I was like, that's good. If you go to Mr. Hamburger, if you go to Mr. Hamburger in Huntsville, there are still ads that my dad wrote on the wall in Mr. Hamburger from my dad's Pigly Wiggly Grocery Store in Huntsville, Texas. Oh, my gosh. I did not know that. I didn't know y'all didn't know that. There's also the fact that the gentlemen of it's in here now, we grew up together years apart. Years apart. Same location. Same path years apart. A couple of young men were the bane of my existence as the young patrol officer in Willis, Texas. They literally got it from a younger older brother perspective, but I made it a lot easier for us. All right. That's a Navasota than Huntsville. Okay. I'm born in Navasota just because that was the nearest doctor to where my parents were. But I actually, where I grew up was the little town of Love Lady, Texas. I graduated from Love Lady High School. Graduated in class of 30 people. Yeah. You know, little bit of graduating class, small town boy, rambunctious kid. Basically, the same way you grew up, you know, going out, pasture parties, doing all that stuff, working hard, playing hard. That's what I did. And probably my first, don't come from a family of law enforcement or anything like that. A lot of my family, of course, we lived around the Huntsville area, worked at TDC and things like that, had a really good friend of mine who passed away a few years ago. His name was Eddie B. Hutchinson. His dad, Eddie B, had been a DPS trooper way back in the day. Remember seeing pictures of him and stuff and I thought, man, that's cool. I just like uniforms. The troopers are great at that. Troopers are great at uniforms. They look great. They're like a recruiting poster. The end of it. They're a Marine Corps. Yeah. Absolutely. Without questions. I was always we talked to be scared of them. Them and the Rangers. When you see them suckers walk up, you're like, oh, shit. That's it. When they pull you up. To this day. Yeah. To this day. You get pulled on by one of them, don't just say yes, sir, and answer the fucking questions. Don't do anything else. Yeah. When, when, like Steve Jeter comes to talk to me, I'm still like, oh, I'm a leader. Daring at it. Oh, man. I'm in the presence of Steve Jeter. He's a cow ranger now. Good for him. He's a cow ranger. Good for him. He's still out. He's still out of the men we had running the. All right. I'm done. He's still out of it. We'll get on some topics like that. But anyway, from Love Lady Texas, the first time I remember, I thought I might want to go into law enforcement because I was a heather growing up. I don't tell y'all. When I had to do my top secret clearance, when I was a fed, I'd have to do my top secret clearance every five years. And one of the one of the on your top secret, one of the things you have to answer is what's something you did that you were never caught at never convicted of anything like that, but it might be a crime. I used to bootleg with the bootleg liquor. Houston County was dry and I used to smuggle it in my truck. That's smuggle beer and liquor. I was right close to the bible belts at midnight. I stopped drinking. That's it. That's why the Trinity County line is where they sold all the alcohol because everything north of there's dry. That's why I grew up at the Trinity. Oh, we had to get our asses and drive a long way just by the time you got to any. Yeah, you didn't want to drink any more. Sit down long with dry. Anyway, I was coming back from, I was coming back from Trinity. That's where I worked one of my dad's grocery stores, the Mini Max. I was a cleanup boy in the meat market. I was coming back and there was a girl that had a wreck and she hit a tree. She was kind of pinned in the car. I got out of the first one there, helped her out, you know, did the right thing. I was, you know, because of course, back then you drive when you're 15 years old. I'm 15 years old. My dad's farm truck pulled this girl out and it was a girl I went to school with. Her name was Melissa, Melissa Wallace. Her brother is the sheriff of Trinity County right now. What he was, he's the sheriff of Trinity County. Pulled her out of the car after she was okay. This, that, no, she was okay. She was banged up, but she hit that tree. Her mom and dad got there. Her mom and dad got there and they were like, oh, thank you so much. Thank you so much. And I was like, I'm driving along the old farm truck later on. I was like, that's pretty cool. Yeah, you know, it feels good to help someone out. And that was the first time I can remember thinking, man, it wouldn't be bad to be a cop. Then I thought, I'm actually kind of a criminal. So I probably should straighten myself out if I want to be the bo-bo. It's got to be a place for us. Yeah. So wait, we found it right? We found it. Yeah. At 15, you were smuggling alcohol. What's called smuggling? I mean, that sounds bad when you say that word bootlegging is a lot cooler than it sounds better. Yeah, bootlegging in a, in a 79 Chevy pickup with a 454 engine, you had souped up, sounds a whole lot better. Yeah. Okay. But you were like a little teenager. It's not like you were 21 doing it. You're, you're, you're. I started doing this like that. Like I worked in Trinity and people be like, oh, you work in Trinity? I was like, yeah. And they go, you know, so and so over there. I'm like, no, but I can find him, you know, and they'd be like, go see him, man, he got something for me. They'd give me like a case of beer and I'd bring it back over there. So we just start driving in 15, too. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So we can get all them in. Whatever. Whatever. 15, 15 years old because I lived, I lived 18 miles from the nearest city limit sign. Oh my gosh. We lived down the country. Oh, man, we're smart. Because at that age, if we got busted, then it's been like, uh, yeah. You know what happened? If you got just carriers, they took your beer. Yeah, it just took you. They took your beer. I say they wanted to catch you. So they have to pay for it. Right. Oh my God. And I know that because we're adults now. Yeah. And I'm a cop now. So I can say that. Dude, it take that from us. I never thought about it out loud before. Yeah. But that's what I did. That's where I'm from. And from there, went to the police academy, knew that, uh, knew that college wasn't for me. I started going to, I went to both Sam and Texas A&M. Didn't graduate. I mean, I was terrible. I went to the Dixie chicken more than I went to. Awesome place. Yeah. And, uh, went to the police academy, started in narcotics. That's what they called the police academy was the Dixie chicken. Yeah. Literally, literally went to, uh, went into narcotics right out the gate and then worked as a, uh, I was what they would call now after I did a little stint in narcotics, came down here and was what they call a school. They would call now a school resource officer. I worked at the schools and stuff. You know, that's how I know. Yeah. Thornberry. Yeah. Kind of no Thornberry. He was one of my students. Oh my gosh. I'm that much older than everybody. I mean, I'm 57 years old this year. Oh my gosh. Um, so anyway, went from there. Montgomery County Sheriff's Park went to Montgomery County. Yeah. But the way we kind of looked at it is like we had an older one of us with a gun. Kind of keep you out of trouble. Yeah. And the thing about it. Well, that was the best part, man, is you weren't total. Yeah. This whole group of kids, they weren't all the people that surround Marcus and Mojo and that whole group of kids, they weren't terrible people. They were a little rambunctious. I'll never remember pulling up at a pasture party one night and I don't know whether it was you or Mojo, but they were so sorry, standing on this dude. I pull up everybody's sitting there. They put their drinks next. Nobody has a drink in their hand when the cops pull up. They're standing there and they're standing on a dude and I'm like, yeah, and they got all this guy. He, you know, he had slapped some girl or whatever this time was and and he had weed and fog it. We said that in the fire. You know, they're just standing on the dude waiting on the place to get there because he was creating a problem. They just solved the problem. They just solve the problem. I get totally. But that's what, that's what you did back. I thought for sure. He's going to tell a different story. Yeah. It was both. Like we, you know, yeah, that's funny. There was, but back then it was a different world. And people people handled problems. And once the problem was handled, it was over with. That's what attracted me to law enforcement. There were people, there were people that I arrested in law enforcement. There was a guy that I shot one time that I saw later on. And he was like, man, I, you know, I was a bad guy back then and this, that, and all this. And he was still locked up when I saw him. I mean, he's wearing a poop bag and everything. I mean, it changed his life. But you know, he found some Jesus while he was in there and got off dope and everybody was like, yeah, exactly, exactly. We do it around here. Yeah, it's a good thing. I was a bad shot back then. You don't want to run me now? Oh my gosh. That's kind of what drew me into law enforcement. How do you get? So when you, when you go through the academy, because it's different from the city, big cities to the country to how people think, well, you can't believe what they think about us out here in the country. It shares on a horse with the frickin, the, you know, posse and all that. But it's like, you get, you get selected. We have special units and everything just like everyone else. I went to the academy. The academy that I went to was over in, in college station, they had an academy over there. It was, there was, they had instructors from different. It's, it, it evolved into what now is teaks. It's now part of, of A&M over there where they have a regular deal. But this was prior to all that. But you all go to the academy in, in Texas, a piece officer is a piece officer is a piece officer. Whether you're a game board in a state trooper or city cop or county cop or whatever, you have to go to a base academy. The cities have their own academy because they also teach you city ordinance and just that and other. But you all have to learn this base thing. It's kind of like when you go in the Navy, you go in the Navy, everybody goes to basic. You're going to go. I want you to explain that. Yeah. Most people don't know that. Yep. You're going to go to basic. You're going to get your basic stuff out of the way you're going to be the po-po. You get your basic on back when I became a cop. They literally handed you a key to a patrol car, put a guy over in the passenger seat for about two days, gave you a key map. Do you remember key map? Yeah. The orange maps. I was great. Okay. I was wanting to get one of those. Do they get those just to have them? We still have some. At the agency I'm at now, we had a whole box of them. They just threw them away. I'm like, y'all got to keep one. No, no, no. You got to get some of those. I got the hand my kid that and like figure this out. Then I'll give you that phone. This guy would send you out. Yeah. She, this is the, is that how you got good at that? I was so good at that. Yes. I would, like even from my parents, I can't believe she can find, it makes sense now. That makes complete sense. I so key maps for people who don't know what that is because not every city had it. Right. It was literally a like a spiral notebook that had a map on every page and the page was numbered. And you can go to the index, which number and letter. Yeah, which would tell you like what, you can look up by street or by town and then you go to that page and you would literally have to piece it like a puzzle where you were going. So you'd have to flip pages and like paper clip them together of where you were going. And when I was a kid, my dad, I don't know why he did this, but he would make me almost as like a, I mean, we would just be at home. There was no reason to do it, but he would make me like try to find point A to point B. I needed to get, you know, tell him how to get from point A to point B. I freaking loved that. So in my crew, I was always navigation. I was always the one. I was always the one. I was always the one like I had key map and I can find anything. All right. Is anybody else out there having a hard time with their fitness goals? Not gonna lie. Some of us at T&Q, we're starting to plateau with the same old fitness routines we always do. But with the Fitbot app, there's so many features on it. 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You do whatever and what you do, what we did in 1989, when I started being a cop, was, and I tell young officers this today, you did exactly the same thing you do today. Your job is to protect and serve. You go out to the good citizens of your county or your city or your state or your federal jurisdiction or whatever it is. You protect them from any evils that exist including themselves and you serve whatever they need. If they got a flat tire on the side of the road or if somebody is attempting to ambush them out of the bushes, it's your job to handle that. That's it. It's simple. The rest is just paperwork. But in being a cop, and I love being on patrol and stuff like that, but I always wanted a little bit more than it offered when something cool came out. Like, I'm a gun guy. I like guns a lot. And I saw we had a SWAT team and I'm like, oh, I want to go do that with him guys. And I went to SWAT school. I signed up to go to SWAT school and I went to SWAT school and I remember the very first day I went in the guys like, and you're going to make it through here. I'm like, oh, I'll make it through here. That's the secret word. Yeah. Yeah. And that was it. You know what the guy said to me? They say that to you. That's right. And you're gonna make through here. I'm like, we've been on the make through here. No, you too fat. That's like, I said about that, buddy. And I did. I made it by the hair of my fat chinny chin. She was learning to get in shape after that. Because I've been out of the Academy long enough that a lot of police officers will become calorically challenged. They stretch that old bear a little bit. And I had done that, but I learned that that put me in shape. Anyway, my career path led me. I was a patrol officer. I became a supervisor on patrol. I went to SWAT. I spent most of my career at Montgomery County Sheriff's Department on the SWAT team, which at the time it was an overall special operations group. We had negotiators. I went to FBI negotiation school, went to sniper school, went to gas school. I was a gas. I was everything, all those things. Again, talking about running together, and I end up in a training facility in Lake Cramp, Mississippi called Mid-South Institute Self Defense shooting. Great school. Charles Place. Fricking great school. So I'm at Charles Place. And the first time we rolled down there, we rolled down there and there's set of seal teams down there. And I'm like, you got to be kidding me. And that's where I started running in just some of the team guys. And again, not, you know, we just started, you know, this person, you know, this person, you know, this person. And when I would train and go to schools, and I got to instruct different schools at HK and all over, I've instructed for Deftech. There's various things that the military and the police are, even though the Posse-Comatant, and you can't, you know, the, the one thing right there, that one thing. But, but you still, you run across each other, you know what I mean? New some of those guys started running across some of those guys and stuff like that. The special operations of police, such as SWAT and things like that, have so much kinship with special operations of the military, we would do the same thing. I mean, when they come down to train, we'd play op four for them and vice versa. You do the exact same thing back in our town. That's it. Tell these young kids coming up, like, I mean, and the great part about living out in the country is you get to do the big city things. You do, they send you there. Yep. So you get to hang out in the city and meet all the city boys and you come back and live in your town to do what they sent us overseas to do. And it truly is. If you think you get respect by bullying somebody and keeping them in fear, that's one thing. If you strap up to protect them, you can't believe what that does. And if you give, if you give the kids like we had at a young age, you get to see it just for a glimpse, just for a, because showing them fear, that takes a long time to condition a kid to be mean to keep that going. It doesn't take very long if you show them the cool part, like we were taught, they'll want to do it, no matter how tough it gets, because there's something that goes with it. Fear is forced, respect is earned. And I'm telling you, you know, you asked me earlier, when did I first get into law enforcement? I, my entire life, I've detested bullies, detest bullies. I don't care if it's a mean guy on the block who's bullying other people on the block. I don't care whether it's somebody in the household that's bullying family members that he shouldn't be. I don't care if it's one of the most powerful men on earth that is bullying one of his staffers. I'm going to not tell the story of when I was a federal agent, but believe me, I don't put up with that either. I detest bullies. I do not like bullies. There's no place for them in society. That's just my belief. And I believe as police officers, our job is to stop people from bullying other people. If there was no bullying in this, and I'm not talking about the bullying where he touched me and made an offensive gesture in my direction or something like that, I'm like truly using your power or whatever it is to make someone else do your will and they don't want to. I hate that. Yeah. I hate that. To the best one is the hunt down. Yeah. I feel like, to me, the best police officers are the lines when they see an 18 year old boy walking down the street, they pick him up, give him a ride. Absolutely. If they're going in the same, you know, if they're going down the same route, just say you need a ride or like you said, you see if someone with a flat tire, I had a flat tire one time actually recently in the last three years on the freaking highway and called my little on star. They said they would send an officer, the guy just sat in the car. He just tipped for the, like, so the traffic wouldn't, he just had his lights. I'm like, come on. Help me. So then they had to send somebody else to come and actually change the tire and like, I know this guy can change a tire. But yeah, community service is part to me is part of being a law enforcement. It's all of being. I can't remember if you're you telling me this or this is a while ago, but I've used it a few times on stage. When they're talking about it was at the one at the academy and they were doing the training and it was raining outside. So I was like, man, you know, I don't like being in a rain. I was like, I get that. There's a type of human that doesn't. That doesn't make you a bad person. We have one that wants to be a cop and we'll stand in the rain. We're going to use that. No offense, right? That kind of deal. People get bent out of shape when you go into any of these places and you don't, it's not that you don't qualify. It's just like, hey, man, we got something designed for this. Right. There's a place for you. This is just not it. Yeah. Not only will you be happy, everyone else will be happy. Right. As a police officer in the back of my patrol car, I'll tell you how varied this is just my opinion of how police officer should be. In the back of my patrol car, I have extra ammunition. Of course, I have extra guns. I have extra body armor. That's in case I have to rescue someone and I have strapped body armor on people before and ran out of houses with them because we were taking fire from a house next door. That's why I carry extra body armor. Everybody's like, oh, you got more body armor. Yeah, I got more body armor because somebody else may need it one of these days. There's something else that I carry. I carry tools. I carry a jack. I carry an electric impact wrench that I can change people's tires with and stuff like that because your job as a cop is protect. It's simple. It's protect and serve. Somebody breaks down on the side of I-45. If you're broke down on the side of I-45 and you got a carload of kids are just you and a friend. It's not that you don't have the ability to change your tire. It's dangerous. It's the fact that I'm six foot one. I weigh 250 pounds and it's easier for me to change the tire than it is for you and common courtesy dictates that I change your tire. Plus, the government is paying my salary. You pay taxes. So my job is to get out there and change your tire. Yeah, there's ones that want to do that. Yep, like drive around looking for shit like that. Yep, and if you don't want to do it, if you don't want to do it, I was a field training officer for a long time here at Montgomery County. If you don't want to do it, police work is not the job for you. Yeah, we got something though. Yeah, they can do some more else. That thing's shifted. We got all kinds of unions now. Well, you know what? It is what it is. I mean, I was on SWAT. We had SWAT because you have to have a specialized unit. You've got to have somebody who comes in when the police can't handle what it is. I mean, we had a little short story. We had just the other night. I now work for Walker County Sheriff's Department of Huntsville, Texas. When issued the other night, I won't leave any name, throw any names in or anything like that. We had an issue the other night where an individual had just spun off, went to left field. I mean, just crazy with the Charlie Melton dog. Yeah, he put the waist on off. Damn, I'm going to do exactly exactly. Exactly. How long have you been sitting on that? It's about you. You're living there really smooth. It's about the second time I'm rating into that dog. I use it quite a bit. This dog has literally popped every ball I've ever bought for my kids. Hey, Charlie, I was in an event and they auctioned off. Holy shit. Seeing that dog jump up and bust all the balloons. Yeah, bust all the balloons. That dog was busting balloons seven feet in the air jump and just having the time of his life. Anyway, just touring his ass about that too. You're not going to breaking from it with you training to do it. You know, or keep it in a kennel. He went to every one of those things too. But you know, dogs take the personality of their own or so. There you have it. Yeah. I'm great. That's what you're doing with Charlie. That's exactly what that is. Sorry. So I ran a rabbit trail. But anyway, this guy, he had, he had, and the guy had some weapons, some serious weapons. And he had decided that he wasn't going to jail, that he was done. And he had saddled up on an elevated position. And he had enough weaponry that he was going to do what he was going to do when the police showed up. Police got caught there and I literally got on the radio and went, no, do not go there. I stopped in a location far from there. I jocked up, got all my gear that I carry because I carry serious gear. I got all my serious gear that I carry. Got a thermal, got night vision, got all that stuff, got out there, crept up, took me a while to get up to the house, got in a secreted location where he couldn't see me no matter what he had, trained to do what we do. See the guy's head? There he is. He's armed. I'm armed. I'm seeing what he's fixing to do. This, that, and all this. You know what I did? When he made his self known when he was encroaching on where he thought those other officers were called out to him. Sheriff's department, put your hands up now. Had he not put his hands up now, he'd have been done. He would have been done. But he put his hands up. He gave up smart of him to do so because he'd got cut down if he hadn't. But police have to have that. Police have to have the ability to call that. I happen to be the guy that had that ability that night that your regular cop coming out. That's why SWAT exists. That's why SEALs exist. The Navy's great. Navy's great at a lot of things. Big green machine is great at a lot of their military is great at a lot of things. There comes a time when you got a call a specialized unit. That's why SWAT exists. And because of my history that I have in the training that I have the years that I had on SWAT, I'm able to do some things at a small local agency that can't afford that kind of training. They just can't. They can't put a million dollars in somebody. That's why I went to work there. That's why I chose to go to work there because I want to, I still have some fight left in me. I still want to serve my community. I still want to help the people that need help. And that my home where I'm from, I mean, I patrol the area that you grew up in. You know, four and a half roads in my area. I know. My kids are on the ground. Exactly. But they don't have the ability to hire someone or bring someone in with that kind of training and stuff because they're not, but there's guys coming back from overseas. There's people with that kind of, they already have it, that have that kind of ability to do those kind of things. And since police now are up against those kind of things. Oh, that too. Yeah. Oh, hell, that's a completely weak. Yeah. That's completely different topic all together. I mean, when you get somebody with a skill set out there, you got to have somebody with a skill set to take them down. Yeah. And you can't believe what we brought back with us. Yeah. So are there programs for like veterans of Special Forces to be able to integrate and to law enforcement and make it back? And for the younger communities, like they can't afford it. Is there is there enough revenue up top for the big ones that can just suck those guys in there for like if you bon him, absolutely no, they come from a department. Man, I'm gonna tell you, if you're looking for big money, you're not going to get it as a small part. It just is what it is. No, I got that because of that. Shouldn't they just be able to come in and do the sign up for it and you'd hope. But a lot of guys, I mean, if you're a full time SWAT guy, you work full time SWAT job in this cool department, you get all the neat stuff and you got am wrapped, you got all this kind of stuff. Yeah, you're not going to work at, you know, Mayberry. That's what that's when we go out there. That's why you drop all that. It's like, where's your stuff? Right. I broke it. I went when we went to Mayberry, we dropped it off because they needed it. That's what we always do to exactly. That's what you want to do. That's the only way they can get it. And they learn and we hate going doing and doing that. I mean, around here, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna to teach you horn a little bit. Okay. Hurricane happened. Hurricane Harvey happened. Whole world is collapsing. Everything is flooded. There's no way to get around anywhere or anything like that. What do we do? I don't have a phone. Hey, man, what are you doing? You able to get out? Yep. Yep. We're able to get out. We're going to get a big truck. We were having fun doing doing it. But to us, it's fun. That was a blast. To those people, it's the end of their life. We all saddled up in a truck and went and drove down and went and drove around. Every barricade, everything. Mark's is in the front seat. Marcus takes my federal credentials and holds them out the window. That's the best way. Federal ages, we need to get through. True story. That happened. That happened. We had a blast. But we go downtown and help out whoever we can help out because these guys are here. They have the ability to do rescues. They have the ability to help people to do things that the city or the county or the village or wherever can't afford to get that kind of help. You just can't. That's there's programs for small cities to get you know people look at it and they go oh they don't need these military things in here and this that and other. Okay. 99% of the time you don't. But the day you do, you do. And especially if you got the qualified people living in there. Like if you're men and women to have the calls, you might as well have it sitting in there. Yep. Worst case scenario, something happens externally and you want a soldier to have his gear. Right. That's right. That's yeah, that's a whole different thing. But that's kind of that's what I bring to the table when I went to after I retired and okay sorry. I was working at Montgomery County Sheriff's Department and then 9-11 happened. 9-11 happened. A couple of the first phone calls that I got. I will never forget the morning of everybody's got their 9-11 story. The morning of 9-11 I was dead asleep. We'd had a SWAT call out. We'd been out till like four o'clock in the morning. My wife calls me and she's like I don't know what happened. There's a plane here to build in and I think we're at war or something like that. Again, turned on TV. Saw the second plane hit. Boom. Didn't know the world was going to change from there. Started getting phone calls from a lot of people that I knew in special operations. Stuff like that. Hey, what are you all doing? Because we're you know the police special operations people, the SWAT teams are. And what are you all going to do this that? Now then all this people started. There were a lot of ideas out there right after 9-11 to make things set because they grounded all the planes. All the planes. They go to the ground. Nobody's flying anywhere. They were going to put there was a lot of things out there. But one of the ideas they had, they were going to put SWAT team members sitting in the front in the jumpsy. Just set somebody there with a gun. SWAT team military, whoever you can get somebody to make things safe. World's got to move. People got to travel around. From there somehow it evolved into a couple of guys call me up and go hey man they're putting this program together. It's called federal air marshals and it's going to be highly trained folks flying on planes. We'd like to have you. There were 300,000 people who applied for those jobs. I got a phone call before the applications came in. There were quite a few of us that did. Other guys that became federal air marshals that I'll throw their name out yet. You know Chad Robyship, Craig Sawyer, Norm Hooten. This is my safety sir. All those guys all became federal air marshals right after 9-11. I was one of that group of guys. Now a lot of them went back out, went back to their old life real quick when things weren't bad. But that's what we were doing. We were putting together looters and shooters to put them on airplanes and to get it moving around. So I was one of those original guys that came in. That was my I saw that was going to be my next service. I was in the middle of my couple of police career, highly successful. I was a sergeant on the SWAT team. Had all that in the bag of chips. Two little kids and mom at the house and I'm like hey guess what? I'm going out here. Don't know what I'm doing. Don't know where I'm going. You've heard my wife say it a million times. Where are you going? Classified I can't tell you. Everything I did for 20 years for 20 years. Hey dad where are you going? Can't tell you. Classified I can't tell you. I couldn't tell anybody where I was going. What I was doing. I could tell them after I got there because you didn't want to compromise the mission because the missions of United States federal air marshals are classified. I know now these days people talk about a lot of things they shouldn't talk about stuff like that but you were never supposed to tell anybody where you were going. You were never supposed to tell anybody what you were doing. The gun you carried where you set anything like that. Everything deeply, deeply classified with the air marshals. That attracted me. I went there became an air marshal. One of the very first ones then became an instructor. I instructed the other air marshals coming in and stuff like that and spent 19 of my 20 years strictly at the air marshals and went over at the very end of it. When COVID happened everybody got pulled back. I did the majority of my career was spent either training other air marshals or as a counter-terrorism operative overseas flying on planes wherever. I mean you get on plane and fly for 17-18 hours one direction to Sydney, Australia or to Lagos, Nigeria or wherever and then you get maybe there's something to do when you get there maybe it's not. Maybe you're just flying around or I got on a plane in Houston, Texas to float in a college station. My gosh. I mean you never know there's no boredom. Yeah. But did that and then just before that. So is there somebody when you're an air marshal does somebody actually giving you your flight schedule or are you mapping that out? No you get a schedule. There's an operations place. There's an operations schedule and all that stuff. It's again it's classified as how it's done. Sure. You get a schedule but you know the cool thing if you look up when air marshals started. Everyone just thinks that's that one deal. When you hear that people have this conception it's like that's a one thing that's not it works. The original air marshal program were called sky marshals. Right. They were started by John F. Kennedy and the line item budgeting that came in came in at the exact same time as we did the Navy Seals. I really. Yeah. So if you ever if you're an air marshal and you see someone that you believe is suspicious do you have a way of just reporting them if they didn't do anything on the plane and you're like just kind of flag this person for future. Yes it's classified but yes. Yeah. And and they also can communicate from the air. You know before anybody else could communicate from the air. We had some really really cool stuff that we could use that was like air to ground communications and stuff like that and all kinds of stuff. We got all the tech. Thinking about this as soon as we got hit all tech resources shifted to us. Yep. As soon as that. Think about that. Yeah. And they opened up the door the golden cruise box golden conics box whatever you that means something to all of us the golden mill van. Each one of those when they open that up means what do you want and if you got an idea we can get it. As a gun guy my job when I was an instructor up north where we trained air marshals in the advanced air marshal training. My job was because you know there were a bunch of instructors up there and there were different jobs. Who wants this job who wants this job. You can kind of pick your job you're good enough to. And I was a I was a really good shot. I've been firearms instructor for a long time. I'm you know. Suffice say I'm really really good with the pistol. And they're like yeah there's a pistol range out here and it's shooting the steel range. And I was like oh I'm your huckleberry for that buddy. I'll stand there and shoot steals all day long. First day they came out there with a skid steer and pulled up with a 55 gallon drum and put down a 55 gallon drum of spear gold dot ammo. Dude that's so much fun. And they were like yeah there's gonna be classes come through and y'all are gonna shoot this today. And every day they brought me a 55 gallon drum full of spear gold dot ammo. A six hour P229 which we don't they don't care anymore as I'm just saying it's not classified anymore. A SIG P229 in 357 SIG will spit out about 60 thousand rounds before the barrel literally burns out in the gun and the bullets start tumbling because I did it time after time after time. Set there and shot guns and taught other people how to shoot guns for a living. We were magnificent. The like he said the golden con Xbox. They opened up the cash register and said whatever you need. And when the air marshals were put together it was absolutely the highest level of training with handguns that exists. Our standards were second to none. Oh look we got to shoot. Any. Yeah. We. Yeah. The reason why we do that for the. We all listen well like why would you put that much everything to that kind of shooting is like because where you got to shoot. Yeah. Yeah. We're the gun. The gun fight goes down. Isn't it containing up in the air? Yep. With with civilians around so. 187. Put you like this. Long full of people. If you got a line full of dudes shooting at you the air marshals the last one you want to shoot now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They the the the air marshal standards the standards firearm standards for the federal air marshal service is the highest that exists. There's no other federal agency that has the handgun qualifications that they have. Space force might have it. Who knows who knows who knows. Yeah. Holy shit. If you get on that detail if you're still if you're as a still rolling on space force I'm going with you. Yeah. Yeah. That'd be cool. To bring some levity to everything and I just watched bridesmaids two days ago and one of the funniest scenes in there is when it's the girls next to the who she thinks is the air marshal. I thought that scene was so freaking funny. You know who he is in real life. It's her husband. Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah. It's her husband. I just found that out. I think that's one of the funniest scenes that I've it made me actually think like I wonder if Sydney has ever had an experience for someone's like calls him out when y'all stop when y'all get deeply. Someone said are you an air marshal? Yeah. Oh yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And what do you say? You know everybody had their story. Everybody had their story. A lot of people had the shut up story like we had one guy that would tell him he was a drug dealer. Oh my gosh. And they would just stop talking to him. No. They don't want to know anymore. We had other people and they're like they're like why are you sitting in first class? Some sort of disorder. They can't figure out what it is. And I'm going to try to get treatment for it. People just quit talking to you. Oh my gosh. They don't have to worry about it anymore. We have other guys that are like what do you do? I'm in the adult entertainment industry. What do you do? Oh my gosh. Into that conversation. You're a recruiter. Yeah. Yeah. We're a recruiter. Yeah. But yeah I actually had a guy. I had a guy who recognized me from being a deputy sheriff in Montgomery County. Oh man. That's like and it was in New York. That's like some Donnie Brasko shit there man. Yeah I get in the plane and he's like uh Hey man what are you doing up here in New York riding in first class seat? And I'm like I don't know this guy from Adam. I'm like what are you talking about? He goes I mean you're a cop. I go I'm not a cop. Yeah you're you're you're a cop you're a cop in Conrad. I'm not a cop in Conrad. And he pulls his hair back like this and goes yeah you're you did that to me. Oh my gosh. I had arrested this guy years ago for the rest of my life. And I had I had he had resisted somewhat and I used a piece of available equipment to use as an impact instrument and he deserved it. It was one of those guys that he told me in the story and I remembered it after he told me. He was in a big old fight. We were trying to pull him off. He turned around hit my buddy. I tried to pull him off again. He wouldn't come off tapped him with a light. But after that he quit drinking quit drinking got straight stayed out of the light. Yeah I saw the light. Yeah you know when he's straightened out when you see him do this number when they straighten around yeah but yeah I got recognized on the plane more than once would get on you know everybody in the world knows knows you know my family and stuff and there were family friends that had got on before and they'd be like oh you're oh oh I forgot I can't tell anybody and they literally in front of everybody go I can't tell everybody I saw you maybe like he believe it comes out of our talents. Yeah like these little surround yeah man like Conroe hunts the whole which for those of you don't know in Texas that's our prison that's where we keep the row death row. Yep that's it. So if you get brought up in there are you getting schooled in there? I think Air Marshal is such a cool job because you just don't meet a lot of people that are Air Marshal's and nobody ever talks about that so I think that's just there's very very few of them and it's it's it's kind of it's humorous that since I've been a real cop again twice we've dealt with people that went oh I'm an Air Marshal and the guys that are deputies on my street go really now bump me on the radio. Hey come over here. Hey yeah there's probably one degree of separation we all. Yeah. Has to be. If one. If one. Absolutely. And you and I immediately know when they call just like somebody calls you and goes hey I met so and so he said he's a Navy SEAL and that. You can usually sniff it out but if you can't then I pick you know we have a little text message runs around me him mojo you know Brad all of us. I see him on the list on that thing. I sent out a message one day and I said hey man there's a dude that says he was a Navy SEAL and he was recon he was fresh forces and all this that knows and all this. It just comes in and mojo immediately called me don't jack with that dude. I'm like you don't even know who he is oh I know exactly who he is they knew what I was talking about for I ever said tonight. Guys legit don't jack with him. We are killing you and all your friends. Oh my god. We had another one like that the other day I was running the trap zone he was a night and gal. I think I tried to call I mean I tried to call everybody and finally one of the rangers hit me back he's like don't know how it's possible dude's legit. Yeah that's all it said. Yeah they show up man some of them they're just like. But yeah air marshals there's there's a they're here I mean the thing about it they're retiring like crazy right now. There's a lot in there we're trying because again it's a 20 year career and it's a hard career it's a hard career they they spend a lot of time in airplanes that air marshals do a lot more than just fly on airplanes though. All the joint counterterrorism task forces have air marshals on them. When you see they had they're part of the Viper teams the visual intermodal protection reaction teams that stay at train stations and airports and stuff like that they're standing around in body armor you know sometimes a long gun stuff like that those are air marshals. The air marshal program has evolved and when I left because I left I had 20 years in about five minutes. It was it was during covid and stuff they had they had transferred a bunch of us over to the secret service and gave us just a real quick down and dirty school. Hey all of a sudden you're gonna go over here and I literally when I went over to the secret service you know federal agents or federal agents I didn't realize secret service did this but they have what's called they used to call them OTAs other treasury agents that during times of buildup of agents they would call in from other places. I didn't know that happened. When I went over to the the secret service job I immediately went over and my first detail was we were at Kamala Harris's house day one. They sent us over to their house. I called you and you're doing that. Yeah because he called me he goes hey dude we're gonna come up here and act like we're rushing in and make you look good. You tackle this stuff. I'm like what was there? No! Oh my god the word. Oh no! Oh where are you at? He's like I can't tell you I was like you're there. I knew it. During the campaign we're coming down here to Houston or whatever and he and Mojo are like dude we're gonna act like we're rushing in there and you can tackle this and you'll be a hero so dude don't do that. Don't do that. It didn't know it's not like the movies. I was gonna come in my life. Oh no. No dude. But anyway finished up after after the after the election and stuff everybody kind of went back to where they were. I went back to the air marshals from my detail over at the secret service. When I was detailed at Secret Service I was actually actually sworn as a deputy US marshal out of the southern district of New Jersey. I still have those credentials for that. Yes. Nothing's cool when we do Interop. We eat that up in the teams. I mean like with the DEA sometimes the guys they just get a little girl say the line. Pulling up to order something at a fast food restaurant. Let me get a big mac and I'm DEA motherfucker. Yeah. No one thinks y'all's jobs are cool than we do especially when we get to play with y'all. Yeah. I mean we just own that. But from there and I was a Secret Service with with the Secret Service I never went through agent school but I was with the Secret Service on that detail during the run up from the campaign through the election up to when they had the inauguration when they were inaugurated I went back to the air marshals. Oh so let me tell you what happens if you run into somebody so they have the Secret Service detail and then they'll pull us in. We're the bastards. So if you run into a bastard and start tucks shit they'll whip your ass because they're not a part of the whole crew. No, come here you. Secret Service. But we'll damn circuit exactly. Yeah. Who are you at? Secret Service. Make sure you say that. See this panel. That's true. That's a real thing. So it's similar to like in the steel teams like when someone just like does a deployment. Yeah. Just the same way. Just like strabbingers, cast members, masters, whatever you want to call them. Exactly. That's so cool. It's real hard. Retired one day I'm coming home from work and I show up at my house and why are all my buddies over at my house and Marcus and Mojo and everybody has me a retirement party. So I have a retirement party from the air marshals that he didn't know about that I didn't know about. We didn't know that he didn't know. They even flew a buddy. Hey, how about that? We didn't even know that he didn't know he was a tyrant. Flew a buddy of mine in from Albuquerque, New Mexico that I was on the team with 20 years ago that flew in just to come to my party and the whole time I'm sitting there going man it's so cool I'm a buzzer here in this side another how do I tell him I'm not actually gonna retire. I'm just going to another job. But did your wife know? Yeah, of course. Of course. She knew. Yeah. She knew. Well, she knew I was gonna go do something. But I just decided you know I wanted to finish strong. Get about get about I don't know five years in as a street cop. Just like I said I still got you know I'm I'm 57 years old this year. But I still got a little five to me. I when I went and applied to be a police officer I told no I mean I know guys in that department that I've known that are the head honchos. I know the sheriff the chief deputy in them known him since we were a kid. Well, I didn't tell any of them I was applying. I went into the guy who was doing the applications. I had no idea who I was walked in and handed him my resume. He looked at me and I remember him looking up and going are you fucking kidding me? Yeah. He looks at my resume and is like what what the hell are you doing at Walker County Sheriff's department. I said I want to be a patrol deputy. And he goes okay. And I went through the whole you know they have the testing procedure where you got a run jump do all this go through the academics of it and this that another. I went in a bunch of young you know hot kids and this that another went in about you know I don't know dozen or so of us starting off the end of the day is four people standing on one of them. I went through the whole qualification of everything. There's guys better doing it that way. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean you don't want to be that dude rolls in and just kind of didn't want no pool didn't know man nobody nobody. Now the one thing I did do is on my background when you're calling my friends so I put down on here Marcus LaTrell Morgan LaTrell and all these other like you know the brad Thor I mean people that were somebody you know senators and stuff like that. You wouldn't believe our crew. Yeah it's the damn divert. We got a writer in there. A congressman a cop. Yeah. Fug. Yeah. A couple of those. A couple of those. I mean it's hilarious. Yeah. Diverse brings this to you out. But anyway when they look at that of course there. So anyway I go to work. Work for Walker County Sheriff's department. I'm a patrol deputy. Love every minute of my day. I mean I'm excited to go to work. Go to work. I don't really ever. Paradise. I mean yeah we do. There is that. And I love rolling around literally riding around helping people. That's my job man. I ride around and help people out. That's what people look at police officers as you know you look up rear view Mary and you go oh shit there's cops. Man cops are out to help you. The real cops. Yeah I don't teach a sec because every time I look at my rear view Mary I see the same thing. I do the same thing. Dude I do the same thing. So I don't say that. You're in the rear view. Yeah been a cop for 30 something years and I still oh shit that's got. But you do man it's and it's the best job I should put that on the front windshield of the cruisers. Yeah shit. Oh shit it's got. Yeah that'd be cool. Yeah but I love it. I love my job. I love every second of everything that I do. I couldn't ask for a better job. It will be it will be very hard for me to step away from it but the day that I step away I'll close that door and I'll be done. I'll be done. And I have I have made the deal with my family because I missed a lot of family time growing up that when my grandkids are old enough to know what's what I'm not missing anything. Oh yeah check well I'm missing nothing. Yeah and you're right though it's driving around. I remember when we got out of school to get off work we we would get in the vehicle just to drive around. It's so cool out here. Yeah and now you get to drive around and you've got a gun and lights and something goes out on the right. You never know from minute to minute what's going to go on. Like the game guys they get to yeah they're ready to go build it. Oh yeah man. Some of the guys got the coolest toys. They do. They do. Like a game born. Join the military. If I could do it. I wouldn't in a position to be a game warden. I needed to be a real cop a regular cop because if I'd have been a game boy. No I could yeah say I'm a kid I'd have been in trouble all the time. I'd have stayed in trouble. Like the real like the real redneck kid. Actually probably half ass redneck kids. I mean you can't like someone we couldn't do that. Game wardens have the most um power out of any don't they they have like. It's like the barefoot driving law. Everybody believes it because you hear it so much. Is it. But in Texas a peace officer is a peace officer. Okay. They don't have any more rights or privileges than anybody else does. Other than they can ask you for your hunt license. And they can walk up on your land like it's nothing. They gotta have probable cause to do it. An animal. You can't just openly yeah you gotta be hunting season. They can't just like there was the old legend way back when they can go in your house and open up your freezer and check for whatever you found that. That's what I always thought. Like they can just go on in. They will. That's where that comes from. Oh I'm gonna tell you. No man don't try and test them on a cause I'll throw a secret out there. I actually had a bet. I've had a bet with people before. They're like oh you can't get in whatever if they don't tell you can get in your car or whatever. I'm not gonna violate nobody's rights but I guarantee you I've been doing this over three decades. I can figure out a way to do what I need to do. But there are levels too. Each one of those standards you hear something about a certain type of officer here in Texas. I don't know anywhere about anywhere else. Just there's something to it. And that's from our Rangers all the way down to our gang guys to the troopers. Man they're just. You learn your job and figure out how to do it. They're just really really good at it. But you can't just will and you'll just sign on my walk home so I'm always property and check them out. Yeah well I love that your never quit is that even after a 30 year career your back. You started at square one and you didn't do it just by pulling a card. You actually went through the school and you did all the things like you were just a brand new guy off the street. And that's what I know that even I mean I may run in here and go oh I got 30 years whatever because I hadn't been a street cop in 20 years. I needed some training to do that and I trained myself back up to do it. I went through a little supplemental police academy. Oh well that was in my spare time. Yeah. But I came back and went because when I again because the air marshals was is a pretty exclusive little thing when you're an air marshal or any kind of federal agent. When you retire buddy they are standing out there with buckets of cash looking for you. The NFL, the WWE, I can't tell you the jobs that I turned down. Big, big, six-figure jobs. Come do this, come do consulting, come do this, come do this. No I want to go be a street cop. I want to start at the bottom and I want to work my way up because my true belief and I'm like I told you I'm the last of the true believers you should serve something larger than yourself if you have the ability to do it. There's people that don't have the ability to do it. Then I have to train do it then I have the opportunity. I do. I do and I truly believe that every community deserves somebody to give back to them if they've gotten something from them. Like I've heard the story from you and your brother about what your dad told you. You are going to serve this country in some way. You should do the same thing to your community. You have the ability to serve your community. I know that when Hurricane Harvey happened you guys were out there giving out clothes to people. Being a cop is no different from that. That's all I got. I don't have anything else. I got being a cop. Being a specialized cop. Being a very experienced cop. It's a nature thing too. Yeah. Ability, you said I hadn't heard it said that way but that's right because you can get in you train that up but it's also a it's in your nature. Yeah. And some people don't have the right. For whatever reason you try to do a job because you think it's cool because your buddy is a man but there is a difference. Yep. Will you be sure of one day? No absolutely not. I've been asked that a thousand times. If you ever see my name. Morgan's a well hold on now. I'm telling you never. Well I'm holding just don't say this. Morgan's a freak in congressman. What are you talking about? But you know what? But you know what? He should be. He should be. He is the most qualified for that job. You should be the sheriff. Absolutely not. If she's saying that out loud. Why would you not want to be sheriff? If you ever see my name on a campaign sign it's graffiti. It is graffiti. I will never. There are some people that have. It'll be written like that. There are some people that have skeletons in their closets. I have my own graveyard. I promise you. No I'm kidding. I have no ambition whatsoever to be any political figure of anything. I like being a leader. I like training other cops. I like helping people out. I am very I feel that I'm very good at what I do because I'm not political. I cannot be political. I don't have to be politically correct in what I do. I separate right from wrong. It is laws are black and white but there's a huge gray area in the middle. My chief deputy. One of the best cops that I know. I'll throw his name out of your name is Tim Whitecotton. He has been Tim Whitecotton has been at Walker County for 32 or 34 years. The same agency started there when he was a teenager. He and the sheriff both started there when they were kids but he told me something. It was probably the most accurate thing I've ever heard about being a police officer. If you have never stood before a man with a badge and handcuffs and he held your freedom and your future in his life in his and life in his hands and he gave you a break and you knew what a break you got. If that's never happened to you you ain't qualified to be a cop. True. We need to be the roughest toughest thing we got. Yeah. When it's time to be rough and tough. You also got to have a soft spot. You get in there. Yeah. That usually happens to those guys. Well you have to have a moral compass. I mean you see so many things like what's going on right now on the news with the cops that beat up that. Young man like. Going to prison forever. Oh that was fun. It was so fucked up. They're going to prison forever. What the fuck. They were not. I mean I'm a hand-in-hand combat director okay. Well that's why I pissed off because of that dude. Man I saw that. We fought before. I mean we've wrestled on the floor and this that nothing all this. I can hold my own with anybody. There was those guys right there. They were not looking to take that guy in the custody. You see them. The second one. From second one I'm telling you they were not looking and I have had a number of conversations with young deputies. My department there's there's there's young deputies that I work with. They're in their young 20s and they were talking about you know oh yeah I don't know what to do and this that nothing all this and I said you know what this is what you do. You see someone get out of hand. I don't care if they're in uniform. I don't care what kind of star bar bell or whistle they got on their collar. You pulled them off. You physically removed them from the scene. You throw them in the back of your car if you got to but you saved them from themself. Everybody's going to go a little far at some point but you got to know when to back off. You are not judged during an executioner and you sure are not going to use another human being for a punching bag. I don't care what they did. Whatever the guy did in the beginning there's nothing he could have done to deserve what they did to him and anyone who does what they did under the color of office. They should be executed in town square. That's that's my belief and I would say that to their face. They never know one no one that I know of. No man or woman who ever became a police officer ever had in them to do what those men did to that other man. Whatever had them jacked up like that. I mean you were talking about like rabid dog status. You know how hard that when we were in that kind of to get you didn't stand when us to get to that. That wasn't their first rodeo. Yeah. How do you weed out that has to be hard. You the academies and our life has to be hard. Yeah. You either have a standard or you have no standard. So does that lie within the leader of the police department or the sheriff or whoever they're working for? There's a field training that there's an academy. Okay. And the state of Texas does a very good job. There is a you you will do a psych test to be a cop in Texas. There's an actual psychological exam that you go through to be a police officer. I would submit to you that police agencies all law enforcement agencies they have a culture. They have a culture what is acceptable in that department in that department what is acceptable even in that unit. Yeah. What is acceptable. A psychological exam has been done. They've been trained in the police academy. But when they go to their department. That's different. And especially when they go to a specialized unit. Yeah. It's going to have its culture. Okay. So they call them. 17 5 the scorpions scorpions. When you take a title and a name on something it it that's it. You you become a culture. 17 5 has a culture. So you're doing damn sir. 17 3 has a culture. Sixers have one. Everyone is. Yeah. Gold team black and we act like that. And they act that way. They act that way. Punisher team. You know anybody you go. No army specialized units. You know Delta has a they have a culture. They have a culture of whatever it is. That unit that scorpion unit it was street crime whatever prevention acronym acronym whatever it was it was called scorpion unit. They were a specialized street crime unit. I used to work in the street crime unit here. When we had in the mid 90s when gangs were I'm talking about when it was bloods. Crips when it was gang banging drive by shooting. Boys. Yeah boys. I mean this was we rode around listening to Snoop Dogg. I said that's right. That's right. I mean it was this was. No I'm telling you. It was the day of the. Right. We. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Right. So California. This was not too far post Rodney King days. But I worked in a specialized unit. You cannot act like the people you're after. That's what those guys did. When the very first I know there's an initial traffic stop and then the guy ran from it and this that another not just find the guy running from the cops. Okay. But that cop gets out from the time they exited their patrol units. And I this is a this is an unpopular point of view with a lot of my fellow police officers from the time they exited those units they were out of hand. They were screaming MF and people pointing guns to fucker don't let me do the fucker don't you know every other word this that know that you can't have them fired up man something they that's why I'm saying it was missing they were not the right people for the job you know people like that you know people that look just sitting at I don't know I'm saying they're there they're there's a little guy I don't know somebody said I'm telling you right now I don't know be the guy be the guy wanting to take me into custody that runs up and puts your steel against the side of my neck buddy I'm fixing to end you the bad since you better hope I just get up and run but I'm just saying those guys didn't have the attitude they didn't have what it takes to be a cop and they are a stain on the badge anyone who does anything like that there's cops out there that make mistakes but my son who is a police officer said it best he said that is a lack of leadership somewhere within the ranks of that agency either that specialized unit or whatever it is it became acceptable for people to do things they shouldn't have been doing and those guys didn't care I mean that's their body cameras that you're watching yeah you're watching their body cameras and the cameras out of their car they knew they were being recorded when they did that they beat a man to death and recorded evidence against themselves of them doing something horrible to another human being that's not acceptable we can't have those type people being cops I'd rather be 50 cops short on the street than to have one guy like that on my or gal like that on my police force yeah it's so hard because it's making it even more divided there's this huge no doubt just culture right now we're definitely going through some of like this anti-cop movement and we have to have law we have to have one order those aren't cops those are criminal with a bad we have to have the good cops that like you said we'll pull over and change someone's tire if they see someone walking down the street give them a ride or you know someone stranded in a parking lot help them out an actual community servant I will tell you this at and you know it sounds like I'm recruiting for him but at Walker County Sheriff's Department that's what we do that's what we are trained to do that's what we do we had a kid that came through field training that was a nice guy he was a nice guy didn't have a lot of motivation this that another he didn't make it through field training and he was like I don't really want to do that you know what man go to work over here you're going to work in in the jail division or in the the courthouse division or in the transport division or something like that something where you're not out on patrol or something but just because they're not at that you know I've known cops that have gotten themselves in trouble because they take an attitude to work they get mad they're confrontational the minute they meet with people when you walk up on a car when he approached that car your training does a police officer do it's called a step-step approach hey hey do it my name is Deputy Blair I'm with Walker County Sheriff's Department reason I pulled you over because of your excessive speed and erratic driving is there some reason you're driving like that yeah I know maybe I'm going to give you a ticket or give you a warning or help you out maybe you're trying to get your you know your wife or your friend to the hospital or something you know maybe there's a reason for that but I give you a reason for that but I jump out of the car and I'm like MF this and GD and gun in your ear and I'm going to mace you don't make me tae you and boob boob boob you know boob party when you get the hell you did. You're the problem. Fred God you better be here you would. It's going on and there better be something cool. You don't you don't that's that's not a police officer no police officer I've never I've never countless times I mean I've arrested I put people in handcuffs who shot at me actively shot at me dude who shot me I've arrested people like that you you can't you can't bring that attitude you have you are to protect and serve you're a servant of the people. You've got to help them out you've got to help them out. So hard because we you know you hear all this bad stuff and you see that kind of stuff on TV and but we know so many good cops like you and like the constables around here they're so awesome they're just good human beings. A lot of the guys down in Houston I mean we know a ton of really great law enforcement and it's like we want to scream from the rooftops there are good cops. Everybody knows there are but people feed off of bad news yeah people feed off of bad news you know that's your attention yeah that's the yeah it's the shiny object we you're trying to to look at it like well do we need to pay attention to it that kind well they look at it and then they're like okay get rid of all of them. I hate that mentality. One thing that I hope and I saw this coming 20 something years ago when you start lowering stuff like I said in the beginning you either have a standard or you have no standard when you start lowering standards to hire people because you want to check a box for whatever you know we want a bunch of uh we want a bunch of females or we want a bunch of this we want a bunch of this or you want a bunch of whatever hire the most qualified people. I don't care what they look like I don't care who they are. I don't even can I saw something that said well the college education stopped this no not at all. Yeah not at all it wouldn't I have nothing against college education I admire those who have a college education. You know if you have a doctor good for you man you wait smarter than me that doesn't make you have the intestinal fortitude that is required to serve other people on that level. Yeah yeah because that that degree doesn't apply for what you're trying to do. And or it might if it does apply for it that's great you can be in a command status you know you can be a lieutenant a captain of whatever you can see them you recognize them immediately when they get into any position especially at the lowest train they're like they're like they just they'll work their way through that's a thing that's what that place is designed for to see who does what and pressure does that yeah or you can wait let them through let them get into the real scenario where that pressure won't come off because our civilians don't fuck around. Yeah our Americans they don't they don't mess around do they they know the law better than we do if not better and you know that's just you better and we have people all the time you know you go out to a noise disturbance or something you're out of the noise disturbance you're like hey man you turn music down and somebody resized you my means is not off my property in over 85 that's my point. That's my point. I have a registered I have a decimal meter in this that's in the house. Yeah okay. All right Roger that but still you know what public intoxication is because buddy you're fixing go jail for your regular day. We're standing in the street. Yeah. There's always a law around the law. They're great. Our people are brilliant. So build in and know the laws whether you do. You got to you got to enforce regulations within the bounds of those laws. I can sit here and say that I have never within my law enforcement career have I knowingly intentionally violated the civil rights of any one I've ever arrested and like I said I've had a conversation with people I put a bullet hole in. You know I've had life and death struggles with people who later on became acquaintances of mine. Not say I'm gonna be friends with them but acquaintances of mine. I mean I see them it's a small town. Just small town and you're gonna run into here we set right here. A kid that used to be at pasture parties you know when I was a young patrol officer rolling up. I mean I could have come out there swinging a baton and spraying mace on people and you kids get that you know you don't do that. Hey man y'all got right home don't get it go get in a vehicle if you've been drinking. Be sure your parents know where you are. Be sure your girlfriend's parents knows where she is you know and all this that and other and y'all keep it down. Have a good night. Don't make me go mad. Don't make me take home your old man. I know I know because that's the problem in our town. The sheriff being around then my father and my brother and mother. That's it. Seeing church. Don't make me because I'm not gonna take you home to your daddy. I'm gonna get you daddy. I'm good. Make him drive up here and get you. Oh my gosh. With our ass. Yeah and it'll be on for you and the worst day in the world that we can get the the those paying I don't know anything about those people that did that but the worst thing in the world that we have is the breakdown of the nucleus of a family that people don't have upbringings where they learn to respect other people. I mean what those people did something like that are just merely you know the way people treat people nowadays. Yeah you know I was talking to somebody the other day there's a big fight when all women broke up the fight and stuff. Remember back in the day when a disagreement started and ended with two people having a disagreement you get in a fight punch each other in the mouth a couple times. It's over and done with. Yeah. Now it turns into a melee. Everybody runs in there. I mean our buddies would be like hey this is one on one. Yeah. Let them get it done. Now everybody runs in there and sucker punches people and beat them up kick them while they're down and stuff like that. What happened to our system? I mean even in disagreement we can be decent each other. It's like because kind of there was a a time frame when the whole just sucker punchin just you couldn't do that anymore. Like there was no fist fights anymore there was no solving it with your fist. It was like time out. You know you got put in time out at school or whatever you get in school suspension or whatever it is. I didn't and my kids didn't have problems either. But I'm talking about like right after our generation. So right after we graduated high school it kind of turned into that. Well and then your people's aggressions just it just there's that fire inside you. You sometimes guys like this just have to get out of aggression. It's all kind of good soft people. Well and then it's like well if I'm gonna fight I they have to do it in groups because they're scared. It's like they're fighting out of fear now not to just to solve a problem. And they all look like they miss leg day too. You see them swinging the bat at the windows. You ever see somebody that swings the wrong side or they don't they don't want to do it. Comes out and knocks them in the head. I mean they're dressed apart. They look great. But when they when they go to do their action you know you know if you know what you're looking at you can see it. Yeah. But I would you know people people 100 age all the time ask me you know oh I want to be a police officer I want to do this. I want to do this. And I'll ask them why do you want to why would you why do you want to get in law enforcement. They say oh we all make good money don't you. No. That's the wrong answer. Actually law enforcement today is pretty fairly compensated. Yeah. They it's not back in the days when you know you're a government assistant. Exactly. That's not why you go in. Law enforcement like the military. Like and I would say even the priesthood. You either it is either in you or it's not. Now the peripherals of that might determine whether or not you're going to make a career out of it. If you make enough money if you can advance enough if your family will put up with it. You know if you marry somebody that'll put up with you being in there or something like that. But the initial belief to I'm either going to be a cop or not be a cop is just like I'm going to be in the military or I'm not going to be in the military. You always knew you're going to be in the military. Correct. Yeah. You knew you were. I feel like if you're going to go in to any kind of service industry for the money or for the power. It's your that's not you're just automatically that should be you should be just declined. But if you're but also. Yeah. I think you kind if you go in it's not immediate money. Like if you it's you have to. Right. It's a long process and then you'll get out and you you built this reputation and but then it's solid though. And then at some point you gotta make a living. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm saying if that's your intention on going in not to actually serve but with the intention of. I'll make them. Yeah. Well we got them with them. You want to be a financial advisor. I want you to be in it for the money. Yeah. Because I want you to make me money. You're going to be a accountant for long. But besides that. Yeah. Any form of service that has to do with government service. Yeah. I believe that from the lowest level to the highest level if you don't have the and and I said this before. Honestly one of my favorite books. I'm not talking the book here but I'm going a little bit is a book service because you talk about a number of people in there and how they continue to serve. How they serve their community. How they serve their country. How they serve your service to others. There is no better feeling that exists than you helping out another human being. Yeah. That's something that goes with it. Yeah. It's different for everybody. Yep. And it's an actual thing. Yeah. It really exists. When I was an air marshal I can remember sitting there on the plane. And when people would get on the plane. And especially a lady because again I'm from Texas I'm not being sexed I'm just saying. The lady would come up and she'd be managing kids and bags and this that and other and all this. And you get up help her with their bag put their bag up there. Yeah. Oh man I appreciate it. That feels good. It feels good to help other people out. I mean I am such a strong believer in just chivalry. Like every man should have that. We went to a restaurant the other night. Marcus was in the car and me and the kids were walking out and this adi was holding my daughter. Was holding the door open for me to come out. And this man just shoves his way through with his family while adi is holding the door and I'm like what the heck are you doing? I'm not gonna have my daughter holding the door open for you. There there's something something has started to turn in the world where people have become rude and where rudeness is accepted. Mm-hmm. And my personal belief is those people have not been punched in the mouth. Yeah. At no point in their life have they been punched in the mouth. Yeah. Because if you get punched in the mouth right wrong or indifferent it lets you know that another human being can bring harm on you. Yeah. I got one for the the tech guys like the F.S. the billionaires the kids brought those wedges. You got to bring those back. Oh Marcus wants to give him wedges. If I run across that dude his ass. The guy that is. He's getting a power wedges from hell. You know. The crypto guy. It'll reset your wardrobe. I'm a kid man. Some of these freaking tech dudes if they knew that was a thing. I'm telling you. It'll reset your shirt so far up your ass man. You won't even want to mess. Dude. You be singing sopranos the next two weeks. That's why you don't get out of line man. That's so funny. I want to beat your ass and fight men. Alright. I don't fight. That's all I fight is men's man. You're not one of them. I mean something else we can do to you. There was always a pecking order. When when I was growing up and I know when you were growing up there was always a pecking order and that pecking order was created by you were either smart popular strong whatever this I know that but that pecking order was created by what you did. Created by God. Yeah. That's where that comes from. I mean there's an alpha list. There is. There's an alpha list but even if you're not high up on that alpha list if you're not six foot two strap and warrior and this that another I don't care if you're of the littlest person around. You can simply hold the door open for another person. Yeah. That is a form of service to help somebody out. Yeah. Help them out man. Help out your fellow man and in law enforcement all you're doing is helping out your fellow man with the ability to take their freedom or God forbid their life if they're that far out of line. Yeah. But your job is just to help people. You're just helping people out man. I mean I'm telling you right now I wouldn't do a firefighters job. Ah I wouldn't. Running in a burning house. Nope not my thing. Not my thing. You get me? I'll jump in. I'll jump in moving water. I'll do to undo the bombs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. EOD. Yeah. Dakota Meyer and I had that conversation and I'm like dude why don't you run a burning house? You know I'm like I'm all about swift water rescue and this that another I'm all for that fire. I think Cody told me I was like why don't you do this. Like that's cool. No it's not it's hot. It's not cool. It's not cool. It's hot. All of our firefighters buddies do that. I had to get the hands off to them man. Get the hands on fire. I'm gonna be out. I'll call you. I'll call you man. That you go boy. Yeah. Cheering you on. I'm having a new year. I'm having a new year. I'm having a new year. Yeah. I'm having a new year. Yeah. I don't do much electricity either. That's funny. Yeah but that that's their thing. I wouldn't do their job. You know everybody looks oh man how can you be a police officer nowadays. Man how can you not? Yeah. I don't it doesn't register with me how someone who wants to serve their community can not at least consider law enforcement. Defunding the police is a portion of how we got where we are. When you take away money from the police when you take money out of their budget I can tell you the very first place it comes from training. Yeah. And when you fail to train people as police officers you get the frustration that brings out the animal and you come out of it. Yeah. We get what you're seeing now on the news. Yeah. Well. Well when the first time somebody gets hit it's completely different. Yeah. The police academy should be the toughest thing every other every day you should get hit in the face. And you don't know who we're going. Like we're gonna do the halls going to class. You should be looking around the corner because somebody's gonna smack you right in a grill. Funny you should mention that because as a federal air marshal that is an evolution of training. You know when you go in that at some point because as air marshals we trained on airplanes we trained on slide ramps we trained in any kind of environment but at some point in your training you're gonna be walking up the aircraft going to put your bag up whatever and somebody's gonna hit you right in your snot locker. Oh my gosh. I'm not talking about a tap either I'm talking about they're gonna take your feet off the ground and you got to fight through getting punched in the mouth because you know if you're gonna do something nefarious and there's some person that you suspect is in your way you want to take that person out you're gonna have to learn to fight through it but that yeah it's actually an evolution of air marshal training. You get right in the mouth unexpectedly. Oh my gosh completely unexpectedly. Well thank you so much for coming on and we appreciate you and your service and you're never quit story. I'm just getting started too. Yeah. Right. I love it. Is that a wrap? Good luck. Thanks for having me. Yeah. That is it. Thank you everybody for listening in. We'll see you next week. ♪♪♪