15: Life as a Police Officer & the Transition to Business (w/ Nyk Harper)

Sweet.

Nyk Harper, thanks for coming on the podcast.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

So we met last fall.

I was thinking about it, just out and about networking.

And ultimately, you ended up being a catalyst for me starting a leadership organization called Sun Leaders.

And, you know, that’s something really special.

And so, number one, I wanted to thank you for that push.

Whether you knew it was happening or not, it happened.

And Sun Leaders has become like a really cool thing that you frequent, which is awesome.

But also, just to kind of set it up, you’re a loan officer at Unifirst Mortgage Lending now.

Yes, sir.

But you used to be a police officer.

I was for six years.

Six years.

And so, you know, definitely want to dive into all that because, you know, that’s one of those industries and careers where it sort of feels like a black box.

You know, a normal citizen doesn’t really know what goes on as far as being a police officer and what the day-to-day is like and what tolls that take on your mental health and being out in the world and dealing with a side of society that a lot of us aren’t really ever exposed to.

And there’s just so much there.

And personally, I’m fascinated with it.

So I was really glad that you were willing to come on and talk to me about it.

And so thanks for being here.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thanks for having me.

And fire away, I’m not having to talk about anything law enforcement.

You’re right about the black box thing.

It is one of the draws to it, though, is it’s so unknown.

That’s part of why I wanted to get into it, is like you really don’t know what they do.

I mean, you see the stuff on TV, like your cop shows.

You have your NCIS, your CSIs, law and order, that kind of stuff that kind of gives you a little bit of an insight and a general understanding of the public.

But the real day-to-day and what you actually do is nothing like those.

Oh, I’m sure.

Yeah, as with a lot of things where you think one thing, you know, like a musician or a sports figure or whatever, and you think, oh, yeah, they’re day-to-days, like playing on stage or playing the game.

But really, there’s so much baggage and other things that go along with it, or practice or training.

And you kind of just alluded to it, but I wanted to first start out with, how did you end up becoming a police officer?

What drew you to law enforcement?

Yeah, so it did start off with the TV.

Like everyone else, you know, my hero, growing up was Jack Bauer from 24.

But I also really liked Olivia Benson and Elliott Stabler, Law and Order, SVU.

Those guys kind of were my heroes.

I really want to be like them.

So that drew me into it.

And then I think as I aged a little bit more and more, you see it as like, I want to be a hero.

I want to be somebody that people look up to.

I want to save people.

I want to help people.

So that was a huge draw to it as well.

And then again, you get older, and you become a teenage boy or your early 20s, and you think you’re invincible.

And it’s like, I just want to drive really fast cars, and I want to shoot guns.

It all comes into these things.

And there’s just so many different pulls that lead into it.

And then once you get into it, of course, there’s a million other things that keep you there.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, I guess I’m kind of interested, because it’s got to be hard, and I want to get into that.

But before that, I guess, if you could just give us a brief overview of what’s a normal day like as a police officer, you wake up.

And for me, I wake up, and I come to the office.

And for the most part, the most dangerous part of my day is driving to and from work.

It’s just the drive, and I could get in a car accident.

But when I’m here, I’m pretty safe.

I mean, I’m just kind of interested in all that goes through your mind on the setup of a day, then during the day, and then the unwinding and going back home.

And that, in particular, like going back home is such a hard thing for most officers because you’re trying to leave everything that just happened at work, and it’s almost impossible.

You see so many different things, you experience so many different things that are horrible.

I mean, the reality is you’re a cop, you’re dealing with negative things, you’re not dealing with, you know, no one calls the cops because they’re having a good day.

Like, no one calls and says, you know, I ate this great restaurant, you should go check it out.

It’s because there’s a problem, something’s wrong.

And if it’s something they can handle, they’re not gonna call you.

So you’re going for, you know, extreme acts of violence, things against children, suicides, murders, I mean, death.

I mean, these things are all very real and they happen a lot more than people think, especially just people dying in their home, like elderly folks.

And so you end up going on a lot of deaths, unattended deaths, and that’s hard to leave there when you go home.

But to answer the question of like a typical day, there isn’t one.

I guess it’d be the best answer to that.

You hear a lot on like the news and stuff.

They say it was like a routine call, and that doesn’t exist.

You might say it was nothing maybe abnormal on it once it’s done.

But going up to it, every call comes in differently.

You don’t know the address.

You might not know who’s involved.

You don’t know the circumstances behind what you’re actually responding to.

And so generally, you get as much information as you can from dispatch, maybe if they’re still on the phone with them on the way, you’re like, hey, can you ask them this?

Like, where’s the gun?

How many people are there?

You know, whatever information you feel is pertinent that you need to know at that point, try to get that on the way.

But when you walk up to it, everything that dispatch told you could be completely wrong.

And that happens frequently.

Like somebody, like in a public park, like, oh, I just saw this guy assault this other guy, and they might call that in.

But then you show up and it’s like, no, they were brothers.

They were just wrestling and goofing around.

Like, but if you just go strictly off of that, you might roll up, you know, guns out or something along those lines.

So you really have to take everything in step as you’re pulling in and as you’re getting out.

Like, it’s a constant process of information.

Depending on your agency and how many people you have your day could be doing some traffic stops, state patrols, things like that do a lot more of that because their main duty is traffic.

So they do a lot more traffic crashes and things along those lines.

I was a municipal officer, and so we dealt with municipal code violations, state crime, and there was some federal stuff in there, but most of the time it gets turned over to those agencies.

And that was out in Colorado?

In Colorado.

Yep, I worked for Palisade Police Department and Glenwood Springs Police Department.

And so you respond to, like I said, your domestic violences, assaults, thefts, a lot of thefts from businesses.

The more businesses you have, the more thefts you’re going to get.

If you have a Walmart or a Target or one of those big box stores, you’re going to be there pretty frequently.

So you get to know their loss prevention staff.

You get to learn where their cameras are and how they work.

And sometimes you know how to pull video better than the employees do because you’re in there so many times.

But you might respond to a bunch of different things.

And once you’re done out having your calls and you’re fun, you got to come back.

And there’s, of course, a stack of paperwork you got to do.

Everything’s thoroughly documented.

Everything requires certain legal language.

So that way, when you end up in court, the right words are in the report that you have.

Body cameras, you have to review footage from time to time.

It’s like, hey, I need to look at what this person say exactly, and you want to quote them or whatever it may be.

So it takes so much longer on the back end than just, I drive up, I deal with the problem, and that’s it.

And you have to do your charging documents, and you have to do just a bunch of different things on the back end.

Wow.

And so that’s interesting.

Not after the incident you do the paperwork.

It’s at the end of the day before you check out.

So you go back to the station, then you process all the paperwork for those things?

Or does it depend?

It depends on your day.

I mean, if you have time in the middle of the day, and you had some stuff that morning, and maybe there’s a lull in the middle of the day, it’s a work day, or once at work, not a lot’s happening, and you can go in and knock out your paper, you do that.

So at the end of the day, you don’t have to worry about it.

Yeah.

Most of the time, it’s done at the end, though, just because shift change happens.

So the next shift is coming in, there’s a little bit of an overlap, so that the guys on the street can get off, and the guys coming in can get back on.

And when you get off, you can go do everything, and not necessarily worry about another call coming out.

But it’s inevitable.

You’ll get started, you’ll get right into the groove of it, and then something major comes out, it’s all hands, and you’re flying back out.

Sure.

Next thing you know, it’s been an 18-hour day, and you’re on your 19th cup of coffee, losing your mind.

How long are normal days?

Different ages have different things.

Usually 12 is the max.

Some guys will run 12-hour shifts, some do 10s.

There’s some that do like a mixture.

They’ll do like 11, and then a 10 one day, and 11 a different day.

Gotcha.

Just however they need to spread the coverage out to make sure the road’s covered.

It’s wild, because you said a traffic stop.

Putting myself in that position, and I’ve thought about this well before, like years ago, where I just put myself in a police officer’s shoes one day.

And I was like, even rolling up to someone who is speeding, when they roll down the window, I don’t know what state they’re in or what they’re going to do.

I’m just fascinated and impressed and thankful that there are people like you who are brave enough and gutsy enough, and there’s so many words for it, to put yourself out there in such a vulnerable way.

Obviously, you’ve got a gun, a vest, you’re in a powerful position, you’ve got a car that’s a little souped up, if you will.

But overall, you are so vulnerable to whatever could happen.

Anything could happen, and everything kind of does play out.

And I’m just wondering, I guess maybe it probably is covered in training, though.

Is there practice on mentality, where how do you get courage?

And I’m sure traffic stop is much easier, but even with that, but like, okay, we just got a call, and there are literally people pulling out guns, and we’re going into like an active, serious situation.

What’s like the training to get into a mindset or to stay calm?

Can you walk me through that?

I mean, we do so much different training on trying to like simulate that as much as you can, because that’s the best way to remain calm, is it’s familiar to you.

So like, we do active shooter drills.

We went into like a middle school, and we had like simulation guns that shoot soap rounds.

So they actually shoot rounds like a normal gun, but it’s just soap.

Like a paintball gun.

Kind of, right.

Right, and so we’re going through the school doing active shooter drills with these soap guns, but it’s real.

They have actors, kids that are running down the hall screaming at you.

They put paint on them.

They have kids lying in the hallway, so like you’re stepping over bodies.

I mean, it’s all mock.

Nobody’s actually hurt.

Still.

But you’re seeing it, and it’s real.

And one of the times we did it, they put on like heavy metal music in the cafeteria, and they had like different lights going on and off.

Like they’re just trying to throw everything they possibly can at you.

So when you get on scene, and you’re going through one of these things, you’re like, well, at least the metal music’s not going.

You know, like, all right, there’s the kids.

I’ve seen that.

You kind of just keep going, and you rely back on your training.

Like, all right, what’s the first thing I got to do?

Find the shooter.

You’re focusing on the steps and the priorities you need to do, and that’s the best way to stay focused.

If you’re sitting there worried about like, oh, the gravity of this, like, there’s dead kids, this is going to be on the news, and oh my gosh, that kid’s hurt.

And like, that’s traumatic.

And if you get caught up in that in the moment, you’re dead.

I mean, that’s the reality.

If the shooter’s looking for you, they’re going to win.

And you’re trying to win.

You’re trying to win that situation.

You’re trying to help people.

But if you live in the moment, as opposed to just focusing on what needs to happen, you’re going to get lost in that.

And like, on traffic stops, those are generally referred to as like some of the most dangerous calls and things that you do.

Because you don’t know anything.

There’s no background information from dispatch.

You don’t know who you’re stopping.

You don’t know what their intent is.

You don’t know what their mindset is.

I mean, you have no information.

You have no idea who it is.

I mean, not even like who called 911.

Usually you get information as to who’s calling and can go from there.

And so you have to be on edge a lot for those.

And you try to do it with a backup officer if you can get one.

You try to do it in lighted places.

You try to control as many different things with that stop as you can.

So it will eliminate a lot of those factors.

And on top of that, you have traffic going by you.

You have, you know, people that are looky-looing you and causing other issues at the same time.

And people, we’ve had people run up to us on traffic stops reporting other crimes.

And it’s like, I’m in the middle of dealing with this.

I can’t…

This is not the appropriate way to report a crime, but they’re having that emergency, and they see you, and that’s all they’re thinking.

They’re not thinking, I need to call 911.

And so you have to be able to remain calm under so many unpredictable things, and there’s never anything that’s the same.

It takes a lot of practice.

It takes a lot of getting used to it.

I think, like, when I first started, here’s a funny story for you.

I was 23 years old when I first got into law enforcement, and when I first got my job, you know nothing at 23.

Like, you just don’t.

You don’t have the life experience, no matter what it is, to know society, right?

And I go on this call.

It’s a noise complaint at a hotel.

For an average cop, that’s nothing.

It’s like, tell them to turn it down.

You move on with your night, grab an ID, whatever.

And so I’m going out with my trainer, and my backup officer happens to be a guy from my academy that I grew up with.

We were friends.

And so, like, all right, I’m going on a call with my friend.

Like, this is going to be a good time.

Like, I’m kind of, like, bubbled up a little bit, ready to go.

And get up to the door, and he’s like, all right, you’re just going to knock, get their ID, talk to them that they need to turn it down, and we’re all going to get out of here, OK?

I was like, got it.

You know, like, I’m ready to go.

And so I knock on the door, the guy answers, and like, I almost panicked, because I was like, now I have to be the authority.

The dude who answered the door is like 45 years old, and I’m going to be the one telling him what to do.

And so for some reason, I said, you guys are causing a ruckus up here.

I have never said the word ruckus once in my life.

Not since, not before that, but that’s just what came out.

And as soon as I said it, my friends running down the hall laughing, the training officer turns around laughing, and the guy who answered the door, of course, sees all that, and he starts laughing.

So now I’m like embarrassed on top of trying to focus on what I’m doing.

Obviously, it was a serious call, but you go through those things, and eventually it’s like, well, now next time I go on a noise complaint, I’m not going to say ruckus.

Like, you’re just more confident.

And so the more and more you go through it, the more calls you go on, the easier it gets, the easier it’s to maintain your focus and just be objective.

Yeah, I’m thinking, I’m trying my best to compare my life experiences with certain mindsets that you’re speaking about.

One thing that comes to mind is playing on stage as a musician on drums, at first, like my first handful of shows.

My goodness, I’m just paranoid, nervous, scared.

What if I screw up?

And then as time went on, played at the Hard Rock or Ruth Eckerd or the Floridian, and those were the easier shows.

Honestly, it’s the smaller venues that somehow get into your head a little more because it’s more intimate, and you feel like people can hear the mistakes more.

But it was all a mindset on staying calm, especially as a drummer.

There’s something about having to stay loose as well as being tight at the same time, because if you get too tight, you’re too rigid, and you’re not going to flow well.

And it was all a mindset thing.

And I really quickly wanted to capitalize on that because I’m thinking about you and now in your current role in mortgage lending, you’re a loan officer.

It’s funny that that’s like officers filling…

I just, I literally, when that came out of my mouth, I just put that together.

But I’m wondering how your training as a police officer has affected your day-to-day in the entrepreneurial journey, because as a business owner, there’s a lot of ups and downs and different stuff that we deal with through the day.

Nothing like a police officer.

But has that affected the way that you carry out business?

Law enforcement, to start, gave me a great ability to work with people, because you have to communicate with literally everybody from every background you can imagine in some of the most complicated situations or confusing situations or intense situations.

And then you go into the business side.

Even on your worst conversation, it’s like, okay, maybe they’re mad at you and some deal went wrong.

It’s not life or death.

It’s not somebody who wants to harm you physically.

It’s just a conversation.

So at the end of the day, the stress level is drastically lower, but it gives you the ability to communicate.

It gives you good problem-solving skills.

If there’s an issue on your deal, you were able to go through that Rolodex in your mind pretty quick and figure it out just because on the street, that’s your resource.

I mean, you have to think quick.

And so it kind of translates that way.

But also just no problem in business has ever been, I guess you view it seriously because it is a serious thing, but it’s just at the end of the day, you’re like, it’s a deal, it’s a transaction, it’s a conversation, it’s not a serious thing where someone could die or go to jail.

And so that, there’s a huge difference there.

But the skill set and the communication and working with people definitely translates.

Yeah, that all carries over.

Thinking about my first job, I worked at a car wash.

And I was like a salesperson, and then I cleaned the car wash, cleaned the cars, I did everything.

But right away, starting to talk to people and upselling them on, hey, your rims are really dirty.

You want to just add tire shine for $2?

And they’re like, sure.

There’s skill there that translates to today.

Makes a lot of sense what you’re saying about how you compose yourself now, especially speaking to people.

I mean, and speaking to people in all sorts of situations.

I even run into clients or people who are kind of hot.

And they’re having a bad day.

Someone was just having a bad day the other day.

And I was like, whoa, you’re really hot right now.

And it’s nothing like life or death situation, but I felt like I was able to talk them down.

But that would be extremely valuable.

No matter what you do in life, I feel like you’re so prepared in so many ways.

It’s just learning the trade or the tool, but your mindset, your composure, you’re set on that.

It opened your eyes to how the world works, for sure.

I don’t want to say by any means I was sheltered because I definitely had an interesting childhood, but you learn how to appreciate the way society operates.

You learn about government.

You learn about the functions of business.

You have to, because you have to be able to investigate financial crimes.

You have to know about business operations to say, okay, this employee committed a crime because they did X, Y, or Z.

Or you have to learn about how government works.

I mean, you need to watch out for…

It always comes back to financial when you get into these things, but if they’re funneling money or they’re forging documents or all these kinds of things, you have to know at what level and what role these people can play to really interact with that.

And in law enforcement in particular, it’s entirely governed by government.

I mean, if you’re a government entity, you are a government bureaucrat on the street.

As a member of law enforcement, you are enforcing the government’s laws.

And so town meetings, state meetings, the legislature, the federal legislature, I mean, all these different things matter, and you have to know what’s going on with them.

And so when you go into the private sector and you’re going into business, for me, when I’m a loan officer, right, I have to follow the markets.

I have to watch, you know, the stocks are going up and down.

I have to watch the prices of mortgage-backed securities.

I need to know when’s a good time to lock, when’s not a good time to lock.

Are rates coming down?

Are rates going up?

And you talk to any realtor, you talk to your clients.

First thing they’re gonna ask you is, what are rates today?

Where are they at?

Like, that’s just the conversation.

What’s gonna happen next?

Tell me, if you know anything about the stock market, what’s gonna happen next?

Because, I mean, we all know generally it goes up over time, but it could crash at any moment.

We could have a bad thing happen at any moment.

And the same happens with rates.

And so you have to kind of follow the news as well, because anything can affect that.

Like when Russia and Ukraine happened, that was a bad day for markets.

Sure.

Like that affected things.

It’s a bad day in general.

The worst day we’ve had, oddly enough, in mortgage-backed security pricing in the last 30 years was Brexit.

Of all the things to impact mortgage-backed security prices, that was the single worst day.

I don’t know why in particular that connection happens, but if you look at the graphs, it is the day Brexit was announced.

We took a nosedive in mortgage-backed security prices, and now we’re dealing with the effects of COVID, and how the government responded to that and the checks and all kinds of things.

We had a problem, we had to find a solution as a government response to it, but there’s consequences, and there’s consequences for everything we do.

It just so happens that right now, the housing market is feeling the brunt of that.

Yeah, yeah.

The housing market is so intertwined with what happens because everybody, for the most part, needs a home, and you have to get mortgage most of the time to get a home, and I mean, there’s just so much contingent on that.

Oh, man, where to unpack?

I was going to say, you know, for me, I’ve been eventually here soon.

We’re going to outgrow our house, and it’s like, hey, let me know when those rates are going to go down.

But I know it’s a dumb question.

I mean, so we look at articles, and we have so many different analysts saying, this is going to happen, this is going to happen.

I mean, if you follow National Association of Realtors, they have their economists, and then there’s CNBC has their own economist.

Everybody has a different opinion, and they’re all different.

Yeah.

And it’s like, I interpret this data to mean this, I interpret this data to mean this, or they focus on different data points.

Sometimes there’s just so much information that you can’t come to a conclusion on the same level, but you kind of just have to go with your gut and experience in the time in.

You know, I’m fortunate enough to have a team member that’s been doing this, sitting in on 40 years.

Like, there’s nothing he hasn’t seen or dealt with at this point in this business.

He is saying, like, right now, it’s a little bit unusual than things he’s ever seen before, just because of that COVID implement.

I mean, we’ve never seen a shutdown like that before.

Right.

And I was in law enforcement when that happened.

Oh, were you?

I was in law enforcement, like, right after they announced, like, government shutdowns.

The next day, I’m on a traffic stop with my sergeant, and we’re like, what’s the policy on this?

Do we need to wear masks now?

Because we’re out in public, and, like, the jail had jail standards.

Like, they were like, if people are sick, do not bring them here.

Like, we can’t have the whole jail population getting sick.

It was just like, it expands so far-reaching, all these problems.

And so we’re sitting there on this traffic stop, calling supervisors and chiefs and jail sergeants, like, hey, we have somebody with a warrant.

What’s the policy?

Like, what do we do?

Wow.

And the strangest thing is, like, we weren’t even worried about necessarily the person with the warrant.

It was just like, what’s the proper policy and procedure?

Sure.

Yeah, you don’t want to do the wrong thing.

I mean, it’s a big deal.

Exactly.

Following the rules.

When you’re the one laying down the rules or enforcing them, I should say.

Exactly.

And it was another odd thing, is you’d have people calling in, like, complaints people aren’t following COVID protocols.

And it’s like, that’s not…

I’m not gonna enforce that.

Like, I don’t…

It puts you in such a weird position because there wasn’t really a statute on it, but there’s, like, CDC policies that have been issued, and social distancing was a thing.

And what is your role in doing all those things?

Like, it was just so interesting to watch that from the ground level.

Oh, man, I can’t imagine.

I also imagine the shifts in, like, traffic stops certainly went down.

I bet you could watch the graph plummet on that.

But domestic abuse, I bet, went up.

Everybody’s super tense, stuck at home.

Exactly.

A lot of people were ill.

Yeah, I just…

It was a wild time, but yeah, you were, like, right there on the front of it.

You know, I would imagine it was just difficult to navigate when, I mean, everyone was like, what do I do?

When do I stop wearing a mask?

When do I need to wear a mask?

And all this, and you’re trying to enforce rules that you don’t even know exactly what the real rule is.

It’s a wild time.

And I’m kind of balancing between careers here, but, like you said, you had everybody staying at home, so divorce rates changed, right?

Like, a bunch more people got divorced because they just couldn’t handle being around each other that much.

Wow.

How does that relate to the housing market?

Well, now you got people that need to go out and buy homes.

Now you have people needing to take cash out to pay off debt or pay off their partner so that they can leave and go buy their home, or you’re having a lot more divorce settlements affecting people’s home affordability.

And that creates a whole bunch of stress on those people.

Now you’re back into law enforcement because people are like, how am I going to make up this difference in money?

I’m going to go steal something, or I’m going to go steal money from my employer, I’m going to do whatever I need to do to make that happen.

And so everything’s intertwined.

That’s definitely what I’ve learned from these two professions, is you really see that the littlest thing in society has such far reaching aspects, and it’s so hard to legislate these issues away, and it’s so hard to take real meaningful action in a lot of these cases.

Yeah, I mean, that’s such a good point.

I mean, you know, we all share the same air.

My actions affect your actions.

My actions in this room affect people listening in a different state.

In some way or another, there’s ripples across all this.

It’s interesting that the two different lenses that you’ve seen it through.

Oh, man, it’s just fun peeling back the onion with you.

I mean, even doing that, taking that even a step further, like with law enforcement, it’s viewed as a collective.

Nobody knows the difference between cops.

You have a uniform, you’re a cop.

That’s generally the public reaction.

They can’t separate you from a state trooper, a county deputy.

You know, if you’re in that uniform, that’s just you’re a cop.

That’s be all end all.

And these different departments have different responsibilities.

They view things differently.

Like, I promise you, State Patrol knows more about doing a check on a commercial motor vehicle than I ever could, because they do it all the time.

They run the way stations and all that kind of thing.

But if you go on a shooting call or you go on an assault in progress, I’m going to be way better than them, because they just don’t respond to that.

Now, if they’re in the area and that call comes out, they’re like, hey, I’ll come back you up.

But they don’t have the same mentality.

They don’t have the same experience.

They don’t take the same steps that we would.

The same way I would on an inspection of a big rig.

I just, I don’t know how to do it because I don’t do it.

Right.

Yeah.

Geez.

Yeah, but you’re right.

Everybody, you know, hey, you’re in uniform.

Boom.

That’s who you are.

And that’s why, like, somebody, law enforcement messes up in Florida, it affects you in Colorado.

Somebody messes up, you know, in a different country even sometimes, that it comes back to you.

And yeah, you are all doing the same job, technically.

I mean, you’re all enforcing laws.

You’re all generally doing the same thing, but it’s such a diverse and large profession.

And there’s so many different theories and methods on controlling crime and preventing crime and policies and procedures for the expectation of officers to do that.

Some are better than others.

Some departments are newer than others.

Some have old, entrenched problems.

I mean, frankly, within them.

Sure.

You know, some of them have a lot of biases and things that we want taken out of that profession, obviously, because they’re negative to society and negative to people.

But if somebody from Atlanta, Georgia had a bad experience there, and they come to Palisade, Colorado, they’re going to say, well, I’m going to do the same thing.

They don’t know the difference.

Even though we…

Police totally different.

The mentality of law enforcement is totally different between those states.

And so you have to take into account, okay, they may not know how we do things here.

They may not know my approach.

And it’s like, okay, you’ve had a bad experience.

You kind of have to talk them off the edge.

Like, I’m different.

You don’t know me.

And let’s walk through this together.

And you really have to try to calm people down sometimes and account for things you had nothing to do with.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, geez.

Yeah, and the reputation of law enforcement is just so vast.

You get some people who just despise police officers because they had a bad experience, or they threw my brother in jail, or whatever.

And then literally the opposite, where a police officer saved my life.

I love police.

Everything in between, too.

Exactly.

It’s wild.

I can’t not ask this question, and maybe reason why people play this, although this has been absolutely fascinating already.

But I gotta ask, what’s the wildest story?

What’s the craziest call that you ever got?

Craziest situation that you were ever put in?

And maybe it’s hard to pinpoint one if you got two, but what stands out?

I’ve got two.

I’ve got 100.

But two that come to mind instantly.

One, so Palisade was a really small department.

And so I was the only officer on.

It’s the middle of the night.

Really?

Only officer on?

Only officer on duty in Palisade.

It’s a 1.1-mile jurisdiction.

That sounds scary.

And in and of itself, it can be.

You get used to it, oddly enough.

But your backup’s the county.

So if you need help, the county’s coming at you.

They’re probably five, six miles away.

And there’s Debec that’s not far either.

So I’m the only one on out there, and there’s what’s called license plate readers, or LPRs, that are on the interstates.

And so they can track cars and they know where people are going and things like that.

And one of the cars that drove through, hit a license plate reader, had a hit on it because it was entered in the database as a vehicle law enforcement was looking for.

And so Dispatch airs it, hey, this car is coming towards Palisade.

It’s going to be out there in a few minutes or whatever.

And I’m like, all right, well, I’m kind of close.

I’ll go see if I can find it.

Get onto First Street, and sure enough, the car passes me.

I’m like, oh, I got it.

What are we looking for this car for?

And so I’m trying to figure out who this even is and what the reason we’re going after them is.

Dispatch is like, well, they’ve been breaking into houses.

They stole the car out of this person’s house.

They broke in the house, stole a bunch of stuff, took their car when they left, and the car was the garage door opener.

So they came back later, opened the garage door, went and took more stuff, including firearms and things out of these people’s house.

And so it’s an insane call, but now we have information he may be armed because he stole firearms.

This person’s willing to do some crazy stuff if they’re willing to go back to a house they already burglarized, stole their car, and do it again.

And so I’m like, all right, probably not mentally stable, but you’re following them.

And I wasn’t going to engage until waiting for County, like, hurry up, County, let’s get here.

And he pulls into a parking lot, goes to the far end, and stops and just parks.

And I’m like, okay.

Did you have your lights on at this time?

Once he parked, I didn’t have a choice, I felt.

That was kind of my discretion at that point, but I turned them on once I was there, because I’m like, well, if I just sit here with lights on him, I don’t want him to think I’m just some random person.

Might as well identify myself.

Yeah.

And so I did.

And I’m like, kind of taking position to cover behind my car.

I’m like, where’s my backup set?

Like, this is what’s going on, this is where we are.

And eventually, he like really slowly backs out and starts driving towards me, but he’s going like five miles an hour.

Like, he is creeping along through this parking lot.

And I’m so confused, because I’m like, I don’t know what this dude’s intention is.

Like, if he’s trying to get away, wouldn’t you either run or like floor it, or like what’s happening?

And so like, he’s creeping right by my car, and like I’m going around it as he’s coming the other way.

And he just kind of creeps right by me, pulls out, and gets on the road.

And as soon as he gets on the road, of course, now County shows up.

So we start the fun part, where we get into the chase, and we’re going, and the deputies are now like flying into Palisade.

I’ve got like five or six, you know, all in there.

And so we’re like a mob of cops going after this car.

And it was their hit.

The county had actually entered it.

So they were like, we’re going to take lead on this chase.

I’m like, please do.

You guys got this, right?

And so now I’m just in the position, sitting behind them, watching them like, hey, we’re going to ram this thing.

Are we good?

They’re like, yes.

They start ramming it.

They hit it like four or five times before they spun it out in front of the high school into a fence.

And like, I don’t know how this cop got out of his car fast enough, but he jumped out and was on that hood of that car like half a second.

Like, it was insane.

He just had this dude at gunpoint.

And I get out, and I’m walking down, and the sergeant just hands me, like, it looked like a giant piece of military equipment.

It was a 40-millimeter launcher that had sponge rounds in it.

So, like, if you shot somebody with it, it’ll disable them, but it can’t kill them, like a less lethal munition.

And he goes, as soon as he gets out, shoot him with this, and he just hands it to me.

It was just an experience, but eventually they got him out of there.

So that one was pretty fun.

Another one had a shooting in progress, and this one was pretty interesting because it happened to be a night we had a lot of people on.

I had a trainee with me.

My sergeant was on, had a trainee with him, and then we had another officer that had just gotten out of training that I had just finished training.

And so the shooting comes out, and I’m with my trainee.

My focus is more on training them, necessarily on versus what the call is, but you’re kind of doing both at the same time.

And I’m like, all right, you know where we’re going?

Like, this is serious.

You got to know where we’re going.

I was like, yeah, I know where we’re going.

Start going.

I’m listening to the radio, trying to get all the updates.

Sarge is saying, hey, what’s the plan?

Where are you going?

I’m like, we’re going to respond in.

You go after the car, because this shooter had left in a car.

And we roll up to the street.

Of course, my trainee drives right past it.

I’m like, stop!

That’s the street.

And so he’s turning around, trying to get back there.

The other officer gets there that had just gotten out of training.

He ended up being the first on seeing he beat us.

And as soon as he gets on the radio, he is like shrieking.

Like, he is panicking, almost.

Like, you can just hear his voice cracking.

It’s really high-pitched, and this dude is ex-military.

This dude had been…

He’s seen some stuff.

Like, he knew what he was doing, but it was just…

It’s a different world when you’re at home, and you’re seeing, like, regular apartment buildings around you instead of, you know, desert in a foreign country.

It’s just a different mentality.

Yeah.

And so he’s shrieking.

I’m like, all right, now we gotta go deal with him and get him safe, and I’ve got the guy in the car next to me.

I’m like, I gotta take care of him and make sure he’s learning while responding to this guy who just got shot.

And so we get out of the car, the guy that first got there was like running towards the building, like, stop, stop, stop, you know, come back, so get him under control.

And then we go up the stairs, we’re in a stack, and get up to the second level of this apartment building, and I’m looking, and I can see the guy lying half in, half out of the apartment building.

He’s alive.

He ended up getting shot in the butt cheek.

So his pants are around his ankles.

He’s just like half in, half out of this room.

And me being like the immature child I am, it’s kind of like giggling on the inside.

I’m like, oh my god, this just got so ridiculous.

But it’s a super intense situation, and like guns are out, and like I’m talking to dispatch, and communicating with my team what we’re going to do.

And eventually we cleared it, and everything ended up okay.

We eventually got the guy that did it.

The guy that got hit was okay.

But it was just such a surreal experience with so many different things going on, and you’re still trying to accomplish what you’re doing, but you’re also you.

Like in that moment, like I care about these dudes.

Like I just got done training this guy.

And when you’re training in law enforcement, they’re with you the entire shift.

Like you get there, you’re together.

You’re in the car together.

You’re doing paperwork together.

You leave together, like all day long.

And you’re doing this for weeks on end.

It’s like four or five weeks at a time with a trainer.

And so you get to know them.

Like you have time to talk.

It’s like, I care about this person.

I want them to be okay.

And like when that came out and you heard him in that state, you’re like, okay, well, what’s going on with them?

I know him.

He had an issue with this or whatever.

And you’re running through so many different things in such rapid succession.

And you’re trying to be like, okay, this is also a shooting.

I’ve got my sergeant in my ear like, hey, what was the car?

What direction did they go?

I’ve got the trainee.

I’m like, hey, man, you need to do this.

Like, this is what we’re doing.

Like trying to explain on the fly.

And you’re trying to balance all these different things.

But in the moment, it seemed so easy.

Like, that’s what’s the craziest part.

It’s like I had been on enough intense things, like the intensity of the moment was nothing.

Like, it didn’t bother me.

It was more the responsibility of my teammates.

That’s what was getting to me.

Sure.

And so the call itself was fine.

It was smooth.

We took care of everything.

We eventually caught up with the guy later.

But it was just so surreal in that moment to like, be like, this is actually happening, but it was entertaining.

And I think that’s the messed up part.

Like, you had brought up the kind of person that a cop has to be, and like, the mentality that goes along with that.

I think in order to be a cop at all, there has to be a little bit of a screw loose somewhere that you’re willing to do that.

Yeah.

And the people that aren’t cut out for it find out pretty quick.

I mean, they’ll wash out in training.

It’s just not for me.

And that’s fine.

I’d rather them wash out then than four or five years down the line when we need them to be on their game and they just aren’t up to it.

Sure.

But yeah, that little bit of a screw loose I think came in that moment.

So I’m like, this is super serious, but I’m having a lot of fun.

There is no job you will ever do that gives you an adrenaline rush like that on either of those calls.

It’s just not possible.

No.

And so now I’m like, oh, it’s an exciting day at work.

I’m doing a podcast with my friend Josh.

You know what I mean?

It’s like that’s the excitement in my line of work now.

Like that’s a good day.

Well, at least you’re safe.

You’re safe here.

Hello, everyone, my name is Autumn Pilar, and I’m the Editor-in-Chief for the Lakewood High School’s News website.

And on behalf of our class, I thank Josh Naaman for coming in and teaching us the importance of learning and creating in the world of podcasts and teaching us about him as well.

Wild, man, wild.

I mean, I know we’ve talked, and you told me some other stories and such.

I figure maybe I’d switch gears a little and get maybe a different side of the coin, because I do want to shed light on, you know, different aspects of law enforcement, where, you know, like you hear, firefighters are in such a different light, you know, they saved a cat out of the tree, or they saved this woman from a burning building.

I was kind of wondering, what’s a story that sticks out that’s like, felt really good that you, like a heart warmer, that is like, man, I felt really good about that.

We helped, and nothing, you know, nobody was hurt maybe, or maybe they were hurt, but you helped.

I’m just kind of curious on if anything stands out.

I mean, the most heartwarming one I think we ever had, again, the LPR, the license plate reader, hit on a car, it was actually at Tennessee, for a kidnapping, and so I was actually in training at the time, but I was driving, had the car, I’m like, well, it’s coming our way, let’s go.

So we get up there.

Get them.

And see the car, and we’re like, all right, so we get it.

And all we know is that there’s a kidnapped kid that’s under the age of three, and they’re supposed to be in this car with this man that took her.

Ultimately, I think it was the father, but he had lost the rights to the kid and didn’t like that, so it took the kid.

But we pull it over, and we’re walking up to the car and approaching, because traffic’s on the driver’s side, so I’m coming around on the passenger’s side and look in the rear passenger window, and she’s sitting there, like the baby is sitting in her car seat in the back seat of this car.

And so we were fortunate, I think, on that one, he didn’t want to fight or run, but we had to get him out of the car once.

If he runs, it puts you in such a hard spot as a cop, because now you know there’s a kid.

You know they are in the car.

Oh, cool.

And so now, do you chase?

Because if you chase and they crash, you’re going to hurt the kid.

Do you let them go and risk them hurting the kid?

What strategy do you deploy at that point to limit their ability to run while also taking care of the kid?

It’s such a hard balance to put in.

Is there a protocol if he did run, or is it a we’re gauging it case by case?

You gauge it as you go is the best way to putt it, but so many agencies now don’t do chase.

They don’t have a chase policy.

With a kid in the car.

At all.

Yeah, so you let them go.

Yeah, and most municipalities now, it’s no chase.

They will not chase you.

And the reason is it’s such high liability that if I’m making, the way the courts have interpreted it is, I’m making you speed to get away.

And so if I let you go, that kind of stops it.

However, there’s exceptions to every rule, like there always is.

I mean, if this person’s wanted for homicide, OK, well, we’re going to keep going.

Like, that’s just the way it is.

You know, policies are you don’t shoot from a moving vehicle.

There’s plenty of stories.

Ask any veteran cop that’s been around for a long time.

Guys are shooting through their windshield because they had the shot and they had the opportunity to do it while in motion.

You’re responsible for every single one of those.

Like if you miss and hit somebody or something, you own that shot, but in the moment, you just do what you have to do and hopefully, you end up on the right side of it.

And you try to follow your training and the policies and procedures.

I mean, they are there for a reason most of the time because somebody shot through their windshield and missed, right?

And that’s why they tell you don’t do that.

But going back to that particular situation, we just got lucky because we were like, hey, man, get out of the car.

We need to talk to you about this.

And we just wanted him out because traffic was going by really loud.

We didn’t want to let him know we knew there was a problem.

Like, oh, traffic’s really loud.

I can’t hear you.

Can you get out and talk to me over here?

And as soon as he was out, we took the keys.

And I was like, we got the kid.

We got him out.

If he wants to run now, at least we have the kid.

Like, yeah.

And so we just got her safe, got her with DHS and it made the news.

And they brought her family back, came and picked her up and got a letter from the FBI who putted out because it was interstate.

Like, that was a commendation.

That felt amazing, like having that come in.

That was pretty cool.

Oh, yeah, that’s a huge deal.

I mean, you’re in a waste.

Maybe save that little girl’s life.

I mean, anything with a kid.

I have a 17-month-old, and I mean, I’m just getting worked up, even thinking if something happened to her.

So, I mean, this just, that changes the game.

Or when you were talking about school shootings and stuff like that, I mean, it breaks my heart.

Like, how is this shit happening?

But man, like having to respond to that stuff, that’s, I just can’t imagine it.

And responding to, and like, Nyk is like, I guess Nyk is a cop and Nyk as myself, kind of have to approach it differently.

Because when you’re in the role of a cop, it’s mechanical, it’s, I have to do X, Y, and Z.

My role is this, I can’t think, I can’t get emotional.

It’s find them and take care of it, do it safely.

Yeah.

And a lot of the times, like, especially with the shooting in Texas, where the cop sat outside, that one makes me extremely angry, especially because every training I’ve ever been to is go.

Like, I don’t care what’s going on, you just go.

I’ve never once been trained, you sit outside and wait, especially not for an hour or whatever.

Yeah, what was up with that?

I don’t know.

And it’s extremely frustrating, and there’s no defense for it.

And things like that are why people hate cops.

And like, especially on the civilian side of it now, like, I can see it, there’s a million reasons why people hate cops, and a lot of them are justified.

Like, cops mess up a lot, but the downside is, like, it’s such a public profession.

Yeah.

Like, everything you do is in public view.

Now, bodycans are a thing, so everything’s on video.

Every mistake you make is gonna be ridiculed and criticized.

And a lot of the times, they’re wrong.

Like, you’re just, you are wrong.

You’re human.

That’s the difficult thing, too, is you could have all the training in the world, but you’re human, and sorting through every scenario, and, I mean, you have to choose one choice.

You know, you have 20 choices in front of you.

There’s one path that you’re gonna go, whether it’s wait or go.

And everyone will do it differently.

I mean, the guys that have been doing it for, you know, 15, 20 years have such a diverse set of tools that they can use to do this.

They’re like, okay, I had this experience.

I can rely on that.

And they go with that.

A newer officer, a year, two years, three years in maybe hasn’t seen anything like this before.

And so they’re going off of limited information, kind of making it up on the fly.

And they’re going into a super serious situation.

And the media, like, I don’t want to harp on media, but like in particular, what makes the news is when cops do something bad or something bad happens, because that’s what’s interesting.

That’s what’s going to sell.

No one like that news story, like I said, that story where we got the kid made the news.

The only reason that made the news was because it was an interstate kidnapping case from the FBI.

Right.

Like we’ve arrested people for fighting and stopped domestic violence cases.

Those don’t make the news because nobody cares.

Like you stopped a wife beater, that’s not newsworthy.

But you saved the life, that’s extremely important to her.

Like you did your job, you did a good deed, but that’s not interesting.

So like the good deeds, a lot of the time the law enforcement does just simply aren’t newsworthy.

And that’s sort of the frustrating part is it’s a very negative profession in what you’re dealing with, the way you’re perceived, and the way the media has to portray it.

And I understand why it’s that way, but it is pretty frustrating.

Yeah, that is unfortunate.

It’s unfortunate in so many different realms, not just policing, but I guess a lot of it comes down to law enforcement.

But what’s happening all over the world, it’s like, let’s even it out continually.

All right, you have a story that’s negative.

Well, look at this scientific achievement, you know, or whatever.

Let’s balance it out, because there’s plenty of good stuff happening, and there’s plenty of good cops and good people doing great things throughout the day.

It’s like why people slow down when they see a car crash or whatever.

People are drawn to that, and obviously these private companies who are new sources, that their objective is to get more eyeballs, and that’s the thing that drives eyeballs.

And I think one of the most funny things that happened when I got into law enforcement, like I always wanted to know what was happening.

You go by a crash, what’s going on, what’s happening, like are they okay or whatever?

You see cops running with lights and sirens on, you’re like, oh, when are they going to?

It must be really exciting.

Like 99% of the time, it’s boring, it’s pointless.

Like somebody will roll their car and they’re fine.

It was just an icy road, and they got out with minimal injuries.

It just looks really bad because their car rolled over, or they’re like going to a medical emergency where somebody isn’t breathing, but it’s an old person who’s already gone.

They’ve already passed, but we don’t know that, and all you have is somebody who’s not breathing.

So you’re running lights and sirens, but when you get there, it’s just over.

The situation’s already done.

It’s interesting, it’s important, but it’s not exciting.

When you see cops doing that, you’re expecting, all right, there’s an armed robbery, or they’re about to go into something crazy and it’s going to make the news, and it just doesn’t.

And even when I got out, I see them going by, and that kind of came right back into my brain, like, oh, they must be going to something exciting.

So I text my buddies, like, hey, man, I just saw a bunch of cops going this way, what’s going on?

You just want to know.

And most of the time, it’s just not interesting.

And that just kind of sucked when you’re in it.

Yeah.

Well, I guess maybe that makes it easier on the outside because you know that maybe a majority isn’t, you’re not missing out, maybe.

I don’t know how you feel about that, maybe we can get into that, but I am curious of your transition out of law enforcement, you know?

So what drew you out of that sector and for the change?

There’s a lot that goes into that, honestly.

I think the short answer was I was a little bit burnt out.

Being in a smaller department like I was, there were some frustrations there with like minimal resources, not having as many people on at the same time as I wanted necessarily.

Sometimes your backup’s a little far away, and that got to me a little bit.

Any government job, the pay generally isn’t super great.

For that, putting your life on the line every day, not getting paid appropriately is wild.

I encourage everyone to look up what cops are paid.

It’s a lot less than you would expect.

Oh, yeah.

And the majority of jurisdictions and states.

All that kind of added up, and I had been in title insurance throughout college and things like that.

So I had a general familiarity with the real estate market.

My team, the ham team, Rick is my dad.

So that was a part of it is he got me out of it, and Zach is just awesome.

And so we kind of all talked, and we really bonded over it.

And we’re like, hey, you want to join the team?

It makes a lot of sense, and we think you’re looking for something different.

I said, sounds good.

And so I was able to transition out, and in the universe, we bought together.

And the idea of, or I guess bounded together, the idea of having your own business and that kind of a thing was really appealing to 30-year-old me.

And so we kind of decided to do that route.

And there are days I miss law enforcement, for sure.

The excitement factor of going to those super serious calls.

And Lights and Sirens is called Code 3.

It goes back to the ten code days of old, where they’d be like 10-3, 10-4.

Like everyone knows 10-4.

Like 10-3 is Lights and…

Letter Kenny?

I love Letter Kenny.

Oh, man.

But yeah, so 10-3 was Lights and Sirens.

So you’ll hear guys talk about going Code 3 or running code.

That’s just Lights and Sirens.

But that is seriously the most fun I’ve ever had.

Like, in the Academy even, I’m a generally level-headed, don’t show a lot of emotion kind of person.

And in the Academy, I was trying to take it super seriously.

Like, this is very serious.

It’s an important thing.

And I just was very neutral the entire time.

And then we got into the cars, and we’re doing driving on this private track.

And you’re going, they encourage you to go balls to the wall, floor it, Lights and Sirens are going off.

You’re doing high-speed lane changes.

You’re making the car spin out.

And the guy sitting next to me, we kind of became friends there at the Academy.

And he goes, I have never seen you smile like you were the first time you got behind that.

Like ear to ear, I was grinning.

This is so freaking fun.

Part of it’s the exhilaration of just doing that, and part of it’s just like, it is dangerous.

There is an inherent danger, even on the training track, that you could flip it.

And I got up on two wheels a couple of times.

It’s a lot of fun.

Sure.

I mean, why do people jump out of planes and skydive?

Exactly.

It’s so dangerous, but the flip side of that.

The exhilaration factor is just amazing.

Yeah.

Yeah, when you’re sitting behind a desk for the fourth or fifth day, it’s Thursday or Friday that week, you’re like, well, I wish I could go drive really fast down the road right now.

Yeah.

It’s just one of those things, and I definitely miss it some days.

Yeah, I was wondering about that.

Have you found yourself now as a civilian?

That’s what I call you, right?

Yeah.

Have you had to utilize your training?

Oh, I went past a situation, and as a citizen, I felt obligated to intervene.

Has something come up?

Not to intervene.

Generally, you don’t want to.

Just let the cops do their thing.

If you want to intervene, be a good witness and call.

That’s really the best answer.

And civilian-wise, I don’t know what’s going on.

And so I’d rather just stay out of it.

But if you want to watch and be a witness, go for it.

But the cop in you never goes away.

And so I’ve gotten a little bit better.

But when I first got out, I’d sit in my desk, and my desk had my back to the door.

And I was so uncomfortable for four or five months.

Every time somebody would come in, I would have to turn around and stare at them.

Otherwise, it was just weird.

Oh, sure.

I was freaking out about it.

And you go sit in a restaurant, you don’t want your back to the door, you want to see who’s coming in and out.

And things like that don’t ever really go away.

I’ve kind of forced myself a little bit out of it just because I wanted to, I guess, get back to a little bit of normalcy.

But you still play the what-if game.

All right, this is what’s going on here.

Somebody robbed that gas station while you’re sitting at a light.

All right, I might come up from there.

I might park here.

There’s my line of sight.

They’re going to run this direction.

You’re trying to figure out your north, south, east, and west.

You never stop really playing that game.

And you watch news stories or you watch crime shows even now.

And it’s like, that’s so unrealistic, or they messed up here, or like, I’m still infatuated with true crime.

Like, I watch all the podcasts, any documentary I can find.

And you just kind of watch it.

And sometimes you get frustrated by like law enforcement incompetence.

Sometimes you just appreciate the skill, the criminal.

Like, DB Cooper is amazing to me.

Like, how that dude still got away.

And some of them are just like really cultural events, like cultural crimes.

I mean, because I’m from Colorado, we had Columbine, we had, you know, the Batman shooting.

That was in Aurora.

You had, John Benet Ramsey was in Colorado.

And these are all like national major crime.

Like, they are cultural changing events.

And you grow up around that, and it just becomes a part of you, and you kind of…

I guess I became more infatuated with it than some other people might, but the idea of those things happening is so crazy to me.

When you…

A normal day now is you wake up, and you go, like I said, you drive to work, you do your thing, and you drive back home.

But to think that that could happen down the street.

I mean, here in Florida, we had the Orlando shooting, Pulse, all that kind of stuff.

And so it happens everywhere, but you distance yourself from it and think it can’t happen to me when…

I mean, it really can.

It would be crippling if…

And I think some people probably are crippled by it, but if we were always thinking about it, and it’s certainly more top of mind as far as school shootings now.

Having a daughter now, I’m like, man, homeschooling kind of sounds okay, because at least I know she’s more safe, but at a certain point, you have to put it out of your head and not focus on that, because most times you go to a movie or go to school, you’re going to be okay.

It’s these terrible people who ruin it for everybody.

Just like, you know, 9-11 changed the game for airport security, and now we have to go way earlier.

And in a way, I’m glad to be safe, but at the same time, it’s like, what a bummer.

It is.

I mean, we could just keep going down these routes, because I’m kind of curious from your perspective.

I do got a couple of things on that, if you want me to interject really quick.

So both my capstone projects for my undergrad and my master’s degree were on mass shootings.

And so what we did is we polled students from different universities about how mass shootings have impacted their day-to-day behavior.

Does it prevent you from going to class?

Have you missed a class because of it?

Have you changed your path of how you get to school?

Or do you make sure you’re with people all the time?

Do you have a bulletproof backpack?

Because that came out in between when I did my bachelor’s and master’s.

All these different things.

Do you avoid large gatherings?

And so I did my bachelor’s in 2013, and by and large, it was pretty, no, I don’t care.

It was more or less the response, like, yeah, that happens.

It’s worrying, but I’m going to continue to live my life.

It won’t be me.

By 2020, when I did my master’s stuff, it was a lot different.

There are a lot more people that are, you know, I am avoiding going to large gatherings.

I do avoid, you know, going through campus at night alone.

I avoid going to sporting events or whatever it may be.

They, the response was so much more, not necessarily afraid of it, but very much more conscious of that is something I consider.

I want to be around people I know and things like that.

And the defense, self-defense kind of stuff picked up as well.

I’d be interested to see what that kind of a survey would get today.

A few years later even, just because it hasn’t slowed down, the violence continues to happen.

And you mentioned like changing security at airports.

One thing that did happen is we had the town parade.

And so they had floats and stuff going down, and obviously we’re going to be around for security for an event, and they’re going through town in their floats, and there’s people all around on the sides, you know, watching them catching their candy, like a parade.

One of the floats that nobody told us about was for a laser tag company.

Oh.

And so the people on the laser tag thing have realistic looking rifles, and they are pointing them at the crowd.

Oh.

With their laser tag logo on the side of their thing.

And we didn’t know that.

And so I’m walking down, just kind of like watching the crowd, watching the floats go by or whatever.

And I see that.

And I instantly had my hand on my gun.

I was ready to go.

I’m about to have to shoot people in the middle of a parade.

I think it was even the high school parade.

They had high schoolers and stuff everywhere.

Luckily, there was a moment where I’m like, this can’t be real.

I crossed my mind and splashed for a second because nobody else was freaking out, running away.

So I’m like, there’s something here.

And I looked and I read the side of the thing and said that.

And I was like, all right.

But afterwards, I got our chief and another officer.

And we went and pulled them over.

And we’re like, who did you not tell that this is happening?

This isn’t OK.

There was no orange tips on them.

I was wondering.

There was no indication that these were fake guns at all.

They looked like actual assault rifles.

They were pointing them at the crowd.

And I was angry.

Like, it was scary in the moment, just because it could have been.

But it’s because of all these experiences, it’s because these things keep happening, that you have to prepare for that.

And you have to treat it as real until it’s not.

And I was, luckily, I guess, that I was calm enough to take the second to think.

Otherwise, even if I had drawn down on them, whether I shot or not, I’m national news at this point.

Yeah, even if you don’t shoot.

Even if you don’t.

They’re going to be like a cop pointed a gun at a guy during a parade, and all they were doing was shooting laser guns.

And now you’re like, every political pundit’s going to have an opinion on guns.

And you’re like, but if they had real guns, I would have saved your asses.

Exactly.

And it’s such a stressful thing to be under in that moment.

And the average ley line person, they didn’t know they were doing anything wrong.

They have a laser gun business.

They’re trying to show laser tag or whatever, and they’re not thinking, a cop might shoot me.

And they’re not thinking about cops thinking their guns are real.

They’re not worried about what the public perceives that as being.

And so it’s so hard, I think, to really have that conversation and to explain the differences, because you don’t want to over go one way with it and make it so people can have fun.

Like, I grew up with paintball guns, airsofts.

I love doing that kind of stuff.

I don’t want to take that away.

Well, I was going to ask, I was wondering, because it’s got me thinking, you know, from your perspective, with, like, the popularity of, like, fake guns, nerf guns, paintball guns, airsoft rifles, games, you know, all the first-person shooters, the true crime podcasts, the show Cops.

Do you feel like these things help?

Like, okay, there are paintball guns out there, so maybe people are less likely to buy real guns and do real violence because they can get it out.

Or same with, like, a video game, or do you think that exacerbates the problems?

What do you…

I’ll try not to get too political.

I’m pretty pro-gun control in general.

I don’t think video games have a real correlation to real life at all.

I think science has overwhelmingly proven that they just aren’t related.

Like, if you play video games, great.

You’re playing video games.

It has nothing to do with what you’re gonna do in real life.

The toy gun thing is pretty concerning just because you get information updates all the time in law enforcement.

They’re in your mailbox every day, go open up your email and see things.

People were turning real guns to look like Nerf guns.

They would say Nerf on the side of them.

They’d be pink and purple and blue and orange, all colors that look like toys.

I can paint an orange tip on a real gun.

Yeah, and they shoot just like real…

I mean, they’ll kill people.

But if you don’t know that that exists or you’re not treating it that way, they’re gonna have an edge.

They could do harm with these fake-looking guns.

And now we have ghost guns.

And now you have like 3D-printed guns.

I mean, you have all these different things you can get your hand on.

And technology is so far ahead of legislation on this and policy, and it is concerning.

And it is something you have to worry about.

I think ultimately the solution is gun control.

Whether or not that happens, I don’t know.

I think America as a whole, like you said, there’s so many of these events that are happening, we’re desensitized to violence.

I mean, one of my favorite shows, I think in one of our first meetings, I told you Game of Thrones.

It’s a very violent show.

There’s a lot of blood and gore in that show.

But it didn’t bother me.

But how much of that is because I’m desensitized to it from real life?

How much is because you see it all the time on TV?

How much of that is real life things?

I mean, so much now, even on the news, they’re showing like bodies under sheets to that extent.

Like, you can see blood on the news now, or Google crime scene photos, pick your favorite crime and look up crime scene photos.

I mean, you can see terrible things.

And when you get to that level that, at least with me, it’s very interesting, or somebody’s intrigued by it, now it loses its value in terms of a deterrent.

Like, you’re just not afraid of the violence.

You’re not afraid of the gore.

It’s not going to move the needle on policy either because people just don’t care.

And I think, ultimately, what kind of drew me over the line with gun control was Newtown.

When you have all the kids that are elementary school, and you went in there, I think you killed, like, 23 kids or something like that.

Like, and we did nothing.

I don’t get it.

And once you do nothing for that, I don’t know what it would take for anything to happen.

I don’t know if there can be an event that’s strong enough for that to happen.

I don’t understand how that hasn’t, the many instances haven’t.

Maybe it’s because the people who are ultimately making the collective decisions, because it’s not like one person.

I mean, if they could just put it in their minds, if that was your child in that school, just put yourself in those shoes.

Now, how would you react to legislating?

I feel like it’d be different, but oh, now it’s one of my kids, not my problem.

But it could be, and it was someone’s.

It’s like, how is that shrugged off in any way?

How is that appropriate, responsible, humane?

It boils my blood.

And so, like I said, my other master’s was in public administration, and we learned a lot about election cycles, and we learned a lot about public leadership and those kinds of things.

And now looking at all these issues, it’s like you think through the filter of, okay, how is that going to impact my voters?

How is it going to impact me getting to keep my job?

How is it going to impact these things?

Who cares?

Just make the right decision.

Come on.

That is my opinion.

I share that with you.

But so many of these folks you’re in, it just happens to be a red side.

If you’re on the red side of this issue, the answer is not going to be gun control.

And if you’re in a red district, which I’m from Grand Junction, Mesa County is where Boebert is.

So it is a red area.

And if that’s the public that you’re serving, and those are your constituents, you’re not going to ever endorse it because you’ll lose that ability.

You will lose your job.

And it’s that one hot button issue that everybody doesn’t seem to want to touch.

And it’s one of the most important, if not the most important, that we have right now.

And it’s like if no one touches it, then nothing happens.

So someone’s got to break it.

And obviously there are people out there speaking against it, but it needs to be overwhelming.

And it’s so surprising that it’s not overwhelming, especially like, okay, we’ve had a few mass shootings, school shootings, school shootings in particular.

It’s like, all right, let’s step back, let’s all breathe and work through this methodically and practically.

And two things on that too is, like there’s a website that tracks all the mass shootings.

I can’t remember what it is.

I think it’s any more than three people that get shot.

They count as a mass shooting, maybe four.

Right, something like that.

There’s so many hundreds of them we don’t hear about.

And if you follow online discourse of mass shootings, or you talk to people about mass shootings or true crime, that you’re just in that community that are interested in it, you have to specify which one.

We all know Columbine, we all know Batman, we all know Newtown, but there’s so many now, even if you follow them, you don’t remember.

That’s a problem.

Like, oh yeah, I had to remember that one, or whatever it is, and that’s insane.

And then you look at other countries that don’t have that issue.

Oh, we’re off the charts.

It is a uniquely American problem.

The one time it happened in Australia, they immediately passed gun legislation, and they haven’t had a single one since.

Yep.

Like, it is frustrating.

And from the law enforcement, like, as a human side, that’s kind of one thing.

But like, from the law enforcement side, you don’t want to be in a position where that’s a thought.

Like, we had a swatting incident at the high school when I was in law enforcement.

You want to explain what swatting is for anybody who doesn’t know?

Yeah, so swatting, somebody calls in like a fake crime or a bomb threat, so they can call dispatch and say, hey, there’s a bomb at this address or whatever, there’s a bunch of people in here shooting or whatever it is.

The goal is to get police to go in there with guns blazing and shoot somebody or harm somebody or to get cops to make a mistake because they think they’re responding to something super important.

Which is so not cool.

What this dude, I think they ultimately caught him to, he was out of like Kentucky or something, and he’d been calling a bunch of schools, but he called one of the local high schools and said, you know, hey, we got bombs and everything in there, like somebody’s gonna come in there and shoot up the school, don’t like leave or whatever.

So everybody from the school is freaking out and calling in.

And then now all these agencies are flooding this high school, and they have to go sweep the school now with bomb dogs because there’s threats of that.

So they’re trying to bust all these kids out, and you can’t just let the kids run wild out of the school because that’s gonna create more problems.

And so you’re trying to control all these kids, contain the situation, deal with the potential that this isn’t a threat.

Like they had to check kids’ backpacks for guns because we don’t know who called it in, and so much was going into that.

And they bust them all to Palisade to be picked up.

And so we’re out there trying to navigate another 600 kids coming in on these buses to get them to their parents who are all pissed off because they don’t know where their kids are at, and they’re worried something bad’s happening.

And it’s like, I mean, we’re trying to get them to you as quickly as we can, but there’s a lot that goes into this.

And something so small as the swatting call is so effective because of the paranoia that that can be happening.

And because that is such a realistic part of our society, and when you get the swatting call from law enforcement, you have to take it seriously until it’s not.

100%.

Because if the one time you don’t, it will be the time it is.

And your liability on both ends, if you do or don’t, sucks.

All you can do is hope you respond in like it’s real and hope for the best, but be conscious that if you show up and like it’s not matching what you’re being told, like someone’s like there’s an active shooter in the high school, and you show up and you’re not hearing gunshots, you’re not seeing kids down, people are walking around like everything’s normal.

Odds are it’s a swat, like it’s not a real call.

And you have to be conscious of that.

At the same time being like, hey, this is what’s called in, like lock down the school for one, let’s figure out what’s happening.

And like you have to play through all these steps.

And it’s a very difficult and complicated position to be in.

Incredibly.

It’s just unfortunate parts of our society.

And I certainly hope it gets better for me.

The solution is just more education and more access to resources for people to be brought up in better environments and living situations, so that they’re not having issues that lead to someone making a choice to do something like that, whatever the crime may be.

It’s wild.

And I don’t know how you remove violence from the American culture.

I mean, it’s been there since day one.

I mean, like, it is literally in our blood at this point.

I don’t know how you start to pull that out and the entertainment value of it.

I mean, everybody’s favorite movie or favorite show at some point is gonna have some level of violence in it.

I mean, that’s just the way it goes.

And some things the schools are doing now, like they have, like, the vestibules, secure vestibules when you go in, you can’t actually get into the school, and they have the bull or resistant glass.

Like, those are all good things.

It sucks.

It sucks that you’re, I mean, you’re putting your kid in a prison to go to school, essentially.

Yeah.

And they only allow, like, entrance through one door, but the reality is, if someone wants to do harm, you prop open a door, you break open a door.

Like, you can defeat virtually all safety mechanisms if you’re that committed to it.

Yeah.

Or if you’re really doing it, you’ll find some town that hasn’t made those changes, and it’s still game on.

And there’s so many different schools in the country that you can’t do that with every single one.

And it’s just such a difficult problem to have, but the only way you’re ever going to solve it is by talking about it and working through it and finding the technology and accepting the reality of these things happening.

And I don’t know what law enforcement’s role in that would be necessarily, other than to give their stories like mine or have somebody else like, hey, this actually did happen.

This would have been helpful.

Or if we had this, it would have been great.

And try to use that to our advantage of what’s happened instead of just saying, oh, that’s an exception, not the rule.

Yep.

I mean, it’s pretty clear those situations are the rule now.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, it’s one reason of many that I am passionate about this podcast is because as we move forward, we’re going to have more and more important conversations like this.

All the conversations we had are important.

I feel like this one’s up there in a different category, you know, where these are important conversations, and that’s ultimately going to be the thing that hopefully changes minds and gets people thinking more clearly or, you know, gives them perspective to make change.

Everything’s been pretty heavy up until this point, and it’s been fantastic.

We have this section called The Rapid Fire.

And I’m just going to ask you a few questions that I ask all guests.

It’s just a very interesting part of the podcast.

So are you ready?

Yeah, let’s do it.

All right.

Of course, he’s going to keep his composure on this one.

All right, what is your biggest source of inspiration?

Honestly, I don’t know if I have a specific source.

I draw a lot from athletes.

I am a huge sports fan.

I love the NFL.

I love the NHL.

So like Paul Korea was a hockey player, undersized dude, an Asian guy in the NHL, so out of place, but he dominated.

And growing up, I just loved watching him play because I am a smaller individual.

I’m not huge at all.

So playing sports like that, that was really inspirational.

Or hearing the stories of the guys that come from nothing or have so many problems, but they are able to overcome all these different things and make it big in the pros and make those millions of dollars and really become leaders.

And so I definitely think there’s a lot of athletes.

For law enforcement, as crazy as it sounds, Jack Bauer is still up there, man.

He still has a lot on my mind and just the risks he was willing to take and the morals and principles that come out of that.

And, I mean, of course, everybody loves their parents, right?

And so you kind of rely on those as leaders and let them set the example for you.

So I definitely look up to them.

Nice.

Just because it’s fiction, like you’re thinking about Jack Bauer, doesn’t mean that you can’t draw inspiration from that.

So that’s a great point.

Do you have a favorite book?

So covered this at the Sun Leaders meeting, I don’t like to read at all.

I haven’t really read for fun since probably middle school, so I don’t really have a favorite book.

The favorite book that’s been turned into a TV show is Game of Thrones.

But I also kind of dig the Harry Potter series and stuff, too.

Oh, you can’t go wrong.

Those books are great.

Yeah.

Cool.

Cool.

How about a favorite musical artist or an album?

Linkin Park and probably Meteora was my favorite album of all time.

Great album.

I’m pretty sure I listened to a song from that earlier today.

Everyone loves their first album, Hybrid Theory.

I think it’s ranked as the 36th best-selling album of all time or something like that.

Really?

I think Meteora is so much better.

It’s great.

Yeah, Linkin Park just bangs.

They’re great.

That would be my favorite.

Second would probably be Eminem and Marshall Mathers LP.

Oh, yeah.

That’s a great one.

Classic.

So good.

So intense.

He rocks, and he has a way with words.

There’s one song called The Ringer.

I don’t know if you’re familiar with that.

My goodness.

So intense.

He’s a lyrical genius, man.

He’s able to convey some pretty crazy concepts and inspiration through music.

I guess the source of inspiration would be him.

Just fingers to the world and being himself.

I mean, that’s the way to do it.

Yeah.

All right.

Last one.

How do you define success?

Like, all answers with law enforcement, it depends.

It depends on what you’re measuring it with.

I mean, if it’s business, most common answer is financial success.

Your bank account grows.

Law enforcement success is just everybody’s safe at the end of the day.

The case was solved, the people are happy, you know.

I mean, it just depends on what you’re dealing with.

I think for me in particular, what defines success is happiness, and I kind of correlate the two.

I think if you’re able to achieve, like you love waking up in the morning and you’re happy with your job, and you have people in your life that bring you joy, you’ve achieved so much in life simply by having those kinds of things.

And if you’re happy when you wake up, I do think that is a success.

Couldn’t agree more.

And most guests, that is a common threat between them is happiness.

So Jordan here, when he was on the podcast, that was his answer.

So yeah, you win.

Just to wrap it up, really quick, specific to you, what’s a quick big tip or hack that people can utilize when interacting with the police that they might not be aware of?

I mean, there’s the common ones, right?

Don’t ever put your hands in your pockets.

Make sure they can see what’s going on with you.

That’s practical.

That’s a practical one.

Honestly, the best answer I can give is if you think you’re a suspect, say nothing.

Give them your ID and shut up.

Cops have very limited leeway, honestly, in the American judicial system with what they can and can’t do.

Our rights are pretty extensive until you are in the system.

And so don’t say anything.

That’s where you build your crime, is you’re gonna say something dumb, and I’m gonna catch on to it, and that’s cops are master communicators.

I mean, that’s what makes you good at that job, is you’re able to talk to people, get them talking to you, and they’ll get them liking you.

And if they like you enough, they’re just gonna be like, oh, this guy’s chill.

Hey, man, I kinda did that.

And you solve the case that way.

Don’t be hesitant with your ID, because that’ll get you in cuffs or harmed.

But hand out your ID willingly, and shut up would be my advice.

All right.

Good deal.

I wanted it to be practical at the end here.

Future goals.

What does five, ten years look like for you and Uniforst?

I would love for Uniforst just to expand.

I don’t know what that exactly is.

I haven’t set a benchmark for that.

I do hopefully want to have an office here in Florida, because we only have our single headquarter location in Grand Junction.

So having a branch office here would be huge for me.

And just having the ability to have a wide network and reliability for our sources of business and being able to just be intertwined with that community and the ability to just take care of anybody’s needs.

Like, I have a guy for this, I have a guy for that.

And knowing that when your clients come to Uniforst, or your clients, my clients come to Uniforst, we have the ability to take care of their entire needs throughout the home buying process.

Sure.

And so having all of that layered out would be huge for me, and I would be proud as a business owner to be able to have that.

Sounds like you’ll get there.

And we’ll have the link to your website in the show notes here that people can get in touch with you and learn more about your business.

Last question I ask everybody.

Your biggest piece of advice for anybody listening in any way, some advice that you feel like is really important to you or that you would have wanted to hear when you were younger.

So we’ve got two.

One, it’s a campaign now, but it’s so valuable as the dude be nice.

Just be nice to people.

It goes so far in bringing you joy and happiness in your life because you feel better, because you don’t have that negativity around you, but you make better connections, you make more friends, people like you more, and it opens so many doors.

Even if you don’t like that person or disagree with them, just be nice.

Be respectful.

It gets you so much credibility.

And the other one is honestly just be you.

It’s okay if people don’t like you or they don’t see the world the way you do.

Just be tolerant that people can disagree with you and people are going to be different, but embrace who you are, whether that’s internally, whether that’s something that you view as gender, sexuality, or there’s so many social issues now that go around that.

Just be who you are.

You will find people that love you for who you are and that agree with that and want you to succeed in life.

And you can’t find those people if you’re afraid to be who you are.

I love both those points.

That’s such a high note to end on this.

I will say this is one of the fastest interviews.

Like the time I looked at my phone here, I can’t believe how quickly this one went.

And I just want to thank you again for coming in and sharing your experiences.

And also thank you for your service and being brave and what you’ve done.

That’s enormous.

And I don’t get to interact with many people in positions such as yours that you were in.

So I just wanted to extend thanks.

And I’m sure people listening also are thankful for people like you.

I appreciate that.

Thank you for having me.

It’s been a lot of fun.

Yeah, thanks a lot.