The Security Circle
An IFPOD production for IFPO the very first security podcast called Security Circle. IFPO is the International Foundation for Protection Officers, and is an international security membership body that supports front line security professionals with learning and development, mental Health and wellbeing initiatives.
The Security Circle
EP 035 Todd Martin The Texas Rangers...A Career of Catching Bad Guys and a Dedication to Protect
M. Todd Martin
Lieutenant, Texas Rangers (Retired)
Todd previously co-founded 1823 (Protection Development Group) and RANGLUR (Architectural Protection Firm) based on the synchronization of 3 Protective Pillars: Infrastructure, Intelligence, and Influence. This protection evolution continues from the collective ideas between lifelong learners within the corporate business, legal, military, law enforcement, & special operations areas combining over a century of experience. These teams reimagine and transform outdated security protocols into revolutionized protection combatting the myriad of societal’s natural & human-made threats.
Todd honorably served almost four decades in numerous operational and supervisory roles within the military, law enforcement, investigative, special operations, and intelligence disciplines. During this time, Todd has conducted and supervised the infiltration of several high-profile criminal organizations and investigated complex crimes against persons, public corruption, & officer-involved shootings-deadly force encounters while serving in numerous roles for the Texas Rangers Special Operations Group.
Todd’s motivation & experience has pursued ongoing research into the failures in adequately protecting against active assailants & mass casualty events, along with embarking on research and writing of an enchiridion series surrounding the evolution of the Texas Rangers as the “First Protectors,” who continue utilizing the 3 Protective Pillars in defense the Republic and the State of Texas for 200 years since 1823.
Todd previously earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and a Master of Arts in Security Management.
Security Circle ⭕️ is an IFPOD production for IFPO the International Foundation of Protection Officers
Hi, this is Yolanda. Welcome. Welcome to the Security Circle podcast if PO is the International Foundation for Protection Officers. And we wanna thank all of our listeners around the world. Thank you for listening. We are dedicated to providing meaningful education and certification for all levels of security personnel and make a positive difference to our members mental health and wellbeing. So with me today, I have my first ever Texas Ranger. His name is Todd Martin. He's also the co-founder since retiring from the Texas Rangers. He's a co-founder of Wrangler, a protection architecture firm, forging leaders in into protectors. But let's go back to the beginning. Todd. First of all, thank you so much for joining us
Todd:today. No, yoyo. Thank you. It's an honor and it's all my I I'm so excited about talking to you today. Thank you for having me. We are just
Yoyo:so listen, I know that I want to learn all about what a Texas Ranger does, but let's go back, what did you wanna be when you grew up? Did you wanna be a Texas ranger or was this a very different step for you?
Todd:Growing up in Texas, far east Texas, I always knew about the Texas Rangers. It's not only an icon for the state of Texas, but for the United States and also for the world. I've met wonderful people all over the world that wanna know more about the Texas Rangers. And by the way, this is our 200th anniversary of this for the Texas Rangers from 1823. Wow. Amazing organization of men and women that are as I classify them, as protectors of others that give their life for others. And so with that we have a shady past, just the United States and the world in general. There's some things that the Rangers had done that kind of get a black eye, but as a whole today a lot of great men and women. So you ask about my childhood, don't know if I specifically ever wanted to be a Texas ranger when I was a child, but one thing I did want to be was a protector. And that's what I pushed today. And so with that I always played the underdog sometimes, like I'll never forget, speaking of the Rangers Cowboys and Indians that's what it's always called, even though that's a bad. Name for our indigenous Native Americans in the United States. But and thanks to Christopher Columbus, he got it wrong on that. But anyway, with that being said, I always played and wanted to be the indigenous native, not really the cowboy. And so I think that says a little bit and itself that I always wanted to be the one that was sometimes the underdog and wanting to protect those that were bullied or were pushed off to the side. So that kind of created my core of wanting to be a protector and protect others that cannot protect themselves. That's
Yoyo:actually super cool. And I think a lot of people that work in security across the board or even the military and all of the disciplines that sit within our very broad spectrum, would want to have that element of wanting to protect others. That's why we're not all bandits, right? Chasing, yes. Chasing, absolutely chasing down banks and cause we wanna be on the other side. Okay. So you're applying to the Texas Rangers, right? What's that process like back then and how was the journey for you?
Todd:So before I became a Texas Ranger, I was in the military and I served as an officer in the Intelligence Corps. And then I got out and joined the the Texas Department of Public Safety as a trooper, a state trooper, and served for like little over four years. And then I worked in our narcotics service and our criminal investigation division, doing investigations and getting that experience skillset from working around a bunch of great mentors that had taught me so much and worked in really large cases when it come to drug trafficking organizations on the federal and the state level tied to task force and another type of things with that. So I did that almost 13 years. And then I applied with almost 17 years as a law enforcement officer, and was accepted the first time into the ranks of the Texas Rangers, where I'm very honored. A very difficult process to navigate and to get into because you have so many qualified individuals In the state police trying to get into the Texas Rangers, which you have to be in the state police to get into the Texas Rangers today in Texas, I believe it was some time in the sixties where there was an Austin Police Department officer who actually neutralized Charles Whitman, who was an active shooter at the University of Texas campus in 1966. Wanna say that he and those around him he was like one of the last ones that were appointed to become a Texas Ranger outside of the state police. Since then, it's always been internally coming up through the ranks of the Texas Department of Public Safety State Police ranks. And so after 17 years with the department I was very honored and fortunate enough to join those ranks and serve. So why is
Yoyo:it difficult to get into?
Todd:It's difficult because of the quality of individuals applying. The not very many slots to serve as a Texas Ranger. Right now there's less than 200, like a hundred, and it fluctuates in the one 70 s I'm not sure. When I left last August, it was around one 70 and it fluctuates. We also have a big special operations group now that are not rangers, but serve in the Ranger division. And we also have a localized company special response team. So the rangers in the ranger division within the Texas Department of Public Safety is growing and it's wears a lot of hats, and so you have to be able to multitask and be way out, as I call it, be way out in front of the car, about a thousand yards, a thousand miles instead of right in front of the car. Because if you. Do not have that type of mentality to look and be a visionary and look way out. You'll get caught. So the Rangers look for those that can think in the gray area, that can be a leader, can show up and assist local law enforcement officers to help serve and some type of leadership capacity to bring a calmness to the carnage that we deal with on a daily basis. whether it's homicides, murders, child sexual assaults, investigations, terrorism, domestic or otherwise, officer involved shootings, custodial deaths, complex public corruption and so on. We investigate a lot of different types of crimes.
Yoyo:So we know that one thing that's incredibly topical right now is the officer related shootings. Yes. Knowing that the Ranger's role and responsibilities is to investigate those, how does that affect the relationship between the police officer and the Rangers?
Todd:we have a great relationship with our partners on the city and county levels, and also our district attorney's office that prosecute all over the state of Texas and to include our federal partners great working relationships. Now, when it comes to investigating the officer-involved shootings, the reason why the rangers are often tasked or asked to do that is to be independent and unbiased. And so with that, To follow through and gather all the facts and evidence that have to do with the officers shooting themselves. I would think, I would hope my experience, the tangibility to the numerous officer-involved shootings that I have investigated. Many or all law enforcement officers were happy to know that a Texas ranger was investigating that shooting. Now, if it was a bad shooting, they know what's coming. If it was a good shooting, which are large, majority of 99% of the times, they're in fear of their life or to protect others. As you well know, the facts and evidence are there. And I think that we have a great relationship with our working partners and that's why they continue to ask the Rangers to conduct that independent and unbiased investigation. That's
Yoyo:really cool to hear, to be honest. Okay, do you remember, for example, your first big case where you are thinking, oh, Todd, you gotta get this right now. This is your first big case. Can you remember what it was and how you dealt with it?
Todd:Yeah, it was probably my very first, I've, investigated a lot of big, huge cases before the Rangers and so that's was what was able to give me the experience and the mental mindset to be able to become a really good working Texas ranger to include surrounding myself with a bunch of rangers that mentored me. But as a ranger, the very first investigation that I probably had the ideas of what you just described would've been the very first investigation that I investigated as a Texas ranger. And that would actually be a homicide murder as actually a double murder. And so with that, You realize at that point all the weight that's on your shoulders and the responsibility that you have to speak for those two individuals that can never speak again or any individuals that lose their lives from violence. And so with that, there's a lot of responsibility that lies on your shoulders to gather the facts and evidence to be able to speak for those that cannot speak for themselves ever again. I take and I took that type of responsibility very seriously to know that to be a professional, we have to be all in 100%. And so I took that as something very personal to be able to provide the families of the victims and friends and families of the victims, the answers that needed and bring those that were responsible to justice.
Yoyo:It sounds like you have all of the reasons, there's no doubt about it. The police I know are coming under a lot of scrutiny here in the UK around the motives for why an individual would join the police and then once join, get found out for just doing some ridiculously stupid and horrible stuff to other people. And so the police here I know are having to almost revamp their vetting processes to ensure the right people are being selected. And I think that's quite important, isn't it? You might have people who just wanna join because they want the kudos and the glory of having a great job, but they don't really have the heart and soul in it for the right reason. Did you ever work with anyone that you just thought shouldn't be doing this
Todd:job? Of course. Absolutely. And it goes back to what we call the 10% rule. 10% of any organization, those individuals shouldn't be there. And so that's the human nature of us selecting those that join our ranks. You do everything you can to vet those that shouldn't be there, but there's 10% and some organizations that's much more than 10%. Like for example, in my business now, I work around a lot of tier one special operations assets that have retired and worked for us. And they are, like the best of the best and they still have the 10%. So with that, my biggest thing is you want my answer to how I can really absolutely vet someone whether they should be a ranger or not be a ranger This is something that is missing in our society today. And if all of us had this. We would be better protectors as what I pursue. Let me tell you what that secret formula is. Are you ready? I'm ready. Before I do that, let me qualify this. Everybody thinks the protector of the Texas Ranger is the rough, gruff, strong mean, can just get it done type individual, whether it be man or woman serving in that role, wearing that cinco peso, let me tell you who is the best to serve in those ranks. You need to have compassion and empathy. That is something that is missing today and a lot of law enforcement individuals have that, a lot of individuals in our society to have it. But today, we're so divisive as a planet, the United States where whether it be. Society against law enforcement against society, or the red team versus the blue team. I love that. In the us, my, my point being is that to serve as a Texas Ranger and be that independent, unbiased gatherer of facts we need, as a whole, Rangers need compassion and empathy. Those are things that I cannot teach you. Those are things that we cannot teach you. And if you have that, we can teach you the skills that you need to perform the job. But to love your fellow human, to love those that you are either investigating and or investigating for the victims, that is a core trait that you cannot teach. And I'm not saying that it's lacking in law enforcement. I'm not saying it's so lacking in society. I'm saying it exists and it exists within that 10% rule that I was talking about.
Yoyo:It's Certainly true of my experience in the police where we, I joined in 2002 11 months after nine 11. And most people that know me know that nine 11 was my trigger to change my life and do something with more purpose. And I chose the police. And and look, it was the best of times. It was the worst of times as we know. And I joined after pace, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, and it was pace that really did transform British policing and how the detainees were treated and bringing around the human rights element and, making sure that misuse and physical violence something that was, historically quite prevalent. And, I was dealing with a particularly significant case as a detective of a teacher who was accused of some historic sexual offenses interestingly, when we went to arrest him some 30 years after the actual accusation, he was residing at the back of a school and his house overlooked a school playground of the very age he was teaching. It was classic textbook this, and I remember I was reading out his charges and there were a few charges there of indecency to boys under 16. And as I let him go out the police station, cuz he was bailed to, to come back to the police station, the, it wasn't deemed to be a very serious case to to remand him in. And as I said goodbye to him, he held out his hand and shook my hand and he said, thank you for treating me with such dignity and respect. And it's always stuck in my mind. My peers, however, thought I should have worked for social services because of the way I managed them. But I believed I was doing it just as you said, with empathy and compassion because it's not for me to cast my judgment on him or what he's done, even knowing the victim and knowing how this has traumatized his victims. It was about me acting in a professional capacity. And I can see that you really resonate with that. And you're right, But is this something that we can introduce to modern policing,
Todd:do you think? You can, but you also have to understand, it goes back to what I was telling you about what is believed. To be a protector or a ranger or anybody who serves in that capacity is a big, strong, hardcore, tough individual, whether it be woman or man. And when you start talking about the touchy-feely things, whether it be compassion or empathy, sometimes a shun of today, sometimes somebody would put quotes around that as the woke or woke ism, We all need the compassion, especially our politicians today who are serving in capacities where we put them in, they need to have. That compassion and empathy to understand whatever decisions they make, whatever bills that they design and vote on and implement. It has to be for all of us, not for a select few, because that is having compassion and empathy for everyone. Now with law enforcement trying to introduce that to the tough gruff individuals, and they have to be like that to go home to their loved ones every day because it can be a violent society we live in that they have to police. Sometimes that's a little difficult to be able to attach to any type of curriculum because it's oh, we have to go through this again, the touchy feely stuff where I personally think it's important and if you understand the compassion, you understand the empathy, the rest of it comes quickly. The tough rough thing comes quickly, do I think we need it? Absolutely. Do I think it exists to a certain extent, a little bit. Yes. Do I think that it's the absolute core of what we need to be teaching? No, that's not the core, but it is a strong, large part.
Yoyo:I think when you have that as a quality, you're definitely approaching everything with the right intention. And we do have to question, don't we, if we look at some of the high profile, let's just look at officer involved shootings. There has been tensions, and we can put this down to, especially in our pre-chat, we talked about culture in the police, and you've been at the forefront of this in relation to investigating when those incidents, become very challenging. Take me through an experience that you've had where you know that the culture has been the issue and maybe decisions could have been made better. And this is where, even in general, we all need to look at making things better.
Todd:I can actually argue what the failure is on both sides, whether it be the society that are policed and those that have been shot to include maybe some others. We can go to George Floyd. We can talk about about that one. That one, to me, even though I was not involved in that investigation, I've read enough to know that could have been a excited delirium brought on about by drug induced psychosis. And so with that, you get them to a medical facility fast. You don't pull'em out of a car. You don't put your knee on their neck. No matter how bad they're tearing up your squad car. look what caused after that. Yeah. I can also look on the other side where any. Officer involved shooting automatically is being questioned because we have a society that doesn't trust law enforcement to use deadly force. And so let me walk you through and you know this from being a law enforcement officer, but from the us from the Texas walking in the shoes of being a law enforcement officer, we have to go home to our families at night and we have officers that are killed. It happens. They're killed violently. It's not on the media as much as it is about other officer-involved type shootings. But I have worked both, I've been involved where many times where officers have shot and killed people in the use of deadly force. I've also been involved in ones where officers were killed. And so with that, you have to understand going back to understanding gun fighting 1 0 1, and so gun fighting 1 0 1 is this, is that reaction will never, ever beat action, which means as if a bad person is wanting to kill me or you. I cannot stop that from happening. It's like playing the hand slap game. And so with that, sometimes law enforcement can be quick on the draw and they shouldn't be. They should be able to look at things a little differently and be trained and make it second nature to understand that, this is what this is what that is. And we have individuals that have been shot holding cell phones that they pulled out quick. Let me tell you something. Law enforcement officers, and not the ones I've ever hung around, they're not superheroes. And so with that, they don't have this innate ability like Robocop to be able to automatically understand that's a cell phone. If that had have been a weapon that someone either made a furtive movement or pulled it out and it was a gun, they would've been shot and killed. And so that's where the disconnect is that we have. Law enforcement that needs more compassion and empathy. We have a society that understands, Hey, I understand. I've seen officers treat people bad. I've seen it firsthand, talk down to'em, but that place out on the street is not a courtroom. If an officer is acting bad, there are grievance process through the the individual officer's entity. There are due process where facts and evidence determine whether you committed a crime and if you're arrested wrongly, that's gonna be worked out. What I see on a large majority of all these officer involved shootings that an individual doesn't have a weapon or it turns into mass chaos in society, is this, a lot of them are f fleeing or fighting the police, or they're wanted. And I'm telling you, you have a high propensity of living against an officer, even if that officer is absolutely wrong in treating someone bad. You have a high propensity of living if you don't fight, resist or flee from law enforcement. But when you bring that up, a large segment of society gets mad about that and says, no, that's not true. Law enforcement is hunting down and murdering or murdering innocent civilians. I go back to that disconnect where we have one side that is not understanding the other side. And I also use the analogy of, it's almost like the red and blue team, the Democrats and the Republicans in the United States are not understanding each other. One speaking one language and one speaking another. And if we had more compassion and empathy, we could get at a table and we could work through these things to make society understand as a whole. Yeah.
Yoyo:And it's a shame, isn't it, because there are a lot of media interests as well that are intent on just polarizing both sides, no matter what those sides represent. And having them, go at each other. On a funny note, we have a wonderful black woman comedian here in the UK called Gina Ya. And she was talking about, driving in America and how different it is cuz obviously she's black and she couldn't help but notice there was a police car following her. So she pulled over and she got out the car and she said, excuse me, officer, I can't help but notice you are following me. And they just said, clearly they recognize, she said clearly they recognized that I wasn't American by the English accent. And they all went, yes, sorry ma'am. We don't wish you any harm, you'll be on your way. But if that was a black American woman there was a view she was gonna be treated differently. And here in the uk, and it's such a funny sketch that I'm not doing any justice, but check out Jenny Ashrae on YouTube stopping the police instead of them stopping her. It was incredibly funny. But even here in the UK I. I have a black friend who would be probably in his mid sixties, late sixties now, and he said as a young man, even in the city where we live, he never felt really safe being alone in his car. He always felt that his car put him at a huge disadvantage and sometimes he was very fearful and I can't imagine what it's like to go through. I have the white privilege. I get that. But there is a definite disconnect isn't the, with different communities. And I know that we can't fix the world? What needs to happen to try and bring about some more trust,
Todd:compassion, and empathy. I'm serious. my family is mixed race, okay? So I understand. Different races besides my own white race that I'm in. And I don't feel so much like I have white privilege. My thing is I feel very privileged whether I'm white or I grew up in a family that provided what I need. There are a lot of others, whether they're in other different races in our ethnicities, that they're not as privileged. And so with that, we need to understand those that are not like us and understand that it's okay to exist on this planet if they're not like the subsect that you live in, whether it be law enforcement, whether it be white, whether it be black, whether it be Middle Eastern, whatever. We need to be more accepting of those that are not just like us on looks and opinions. Yeah. And I think we'll be much better off
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Yoyo:I think in relation to George Floyd, I know that from my own police experience and we discussed this before that, I find it so frustrating when you watch the video and it's very thought provoking. I feel that I'm there and I'm there shouting, can someone get off his effing neck? Yes. Because when I was trained, especially when we had to do cell exit processes with violent detainees, we knew about asphyxiation and we had special training on that because we had a death in custody. And because of that death in custody and the way it was investigated, and he happened to be a black man, they believe he had asphyxiation. He did have previous for being violent and violent against the police. So there were lots of mixed signals and he did die. But the whole police force went through a whole kind of, Training program to make sure that we recognize positional dis as dis asphyxia. And it's quite hard to say. And and that meant that there's always one person responsible for making sure that the detainee is breathing and well at all times. And usually if they're screaming or bloody murder, it means they're well, and alive and breathing and, no one really wants to be in that situation. But we went through that training and I'm just thinking, that could have been, and I'm sure with all the documentation you've been a part of reading could have been massively prevented. And why wasn't there any kind of systematic look at why. Certain people didn't have certain roles like we have in the uk you have a certain role. You have number one, you have number two, number three, number four, you'll communicate with each other. You sense check each other, you double check that everyone's doing what they should be doing. Why doesn't that process exist? Or does it exist? And I'm ignorant and maybe it just wasn't followed.
Todd:I think that law enforcement specifically what you're talking about is actually being educated today. I have Wow. So where you're going now is specifically to what? I go around with a presentation that's actually a discussion that I have a, that I've created called Radio Silence that comes from Valdi. And let me tell you what you're talking about is social psychology, and you ask about the George Floyd, why would people stand around? Why would law enforcement stand around and allow that to happen? Which goes back to compassion and empathy for our fellow humankind, yeah, so the point being is this, is that there are two things, and the reason why I know this, I'm not an expert in social psychology, even though that I have been involved in human behavior a lot in my experience in law enforcement, But with that being said, what the two things are with the social psychology of that is gonna be one obedience to authority, and the other one's gonna be diffusion of responsibility. And for example, the George Floyd example, you give the obedience to authority would be Chauvin is the almighty most ranking guy there and law enforcement is paramilitary. Or in some countries it's military and you do not ever question those that outrank you. You just sit there and support it where we have a duty to intervene and stop bad things from happening. So that's the obedience to authority that we have to talk about. I can directly relate that to Uvalde as to what happened to those 19 children and two teachers that died, where that is absolute obedience to authority, to some of it cowardice, some of it incompetence they were obedience to the wrong authority. The second thing is diffusion responsibility. And that is human beings as a whole. And again, I'm not an expert in this field. I have been mentored and taught by those after valdi that are social psychologists about what I'm talking about. The other one is diffusion of authority, where it's like we're humans that go yoyo, that's my not my responsibility. I'll let somebody else do it. Somebody will eventually stop this. Somebody will eventually stop. Yeah. And those two main things that we're talking about in the social psychology realm is what caused besides Chauvin doing what he did, which was wrong, absolutely wrong, is what caused the George Floyd incident. Yeah. We have a responsibility of law enforcement, and I can say this as a former Texas Ranger, if something is wrong, you step in and you stop it from happening then and now. Yeah. And that will, amongst law enforcement where we will not allow that to happen again or should never allow it to happen.
Yoyo:I don't think anybody wants to go home and know that they've shot someone. I don't think, unless of course we include the 10% rule, but I don't think anybody wants to go home that day to their families knowing that they shot somebody. And you've got firsthand experience, as to how this can affect a police officer in the execution of his duty, shooting somebody. Tell me about that. And, what are the variances of, emotions that one
Todd:goes through. So that is so interesting. You asked me that question cuz it just happened to be within a week. And I'll tell you why. I have a good friend of mine that I grew up with my entire life that was involved in an officer-involved shooting. He's still an officer. I don't want to give specifics cuz it's still going on investigation and I'm not involved in that investigation. But he reached out to me not as for advice on what to do, he was needing to talk to someone. He has compassion, he has empathy, and he was 100% justified in, in this shooting and an individual that pulled a weapon on him. But with that, he is a human being that cares to know that he shot an individual and he has to live with that for the rest of his life. That's one side that society doesn't understand that just like what you said, We as law enforcement officers have to go home and live with that of being around our family knowing that we either injured or took another life in defense of ourselves or a third person. And I go back to that talking about chapter nine of the Texas penal code, which drives, and it's not just for law enforcement, it's anyone who used deadly force in instead of Texas. And so he has to live with that for the rest of his life. And I've had conversations with him, not talking about specifics of the shooting itself, but just about him and letting him know that it's okay to get mental health and counseling to get over these kind of things. Because I'm telling you right now, law enforcement officers are human beings and they have feelings even though some think that they may not. Now there are some that may not, there's always that 10% rule we talk about, but the ones I've worked around and been around, they are absolutely have big hearts. But they don't wanna let you see it. Sometimes they want. It's what my family talks about to me over the years, it's like a gummy bear wrapped in steel. And so we have big hearts, but sometimes we think it's a survivability mentality to not let the public know that we have that big gooey heart. Does that make sense?
Yoyo:Yeah, 100%. In fact, here in the uk, if an officer has a firearm as part of his or her responsibilities, and they discharge that firearm with permission, because usually orders are given that the use of forces sanctioned. And even if it's been executed completely perfectly, they are still after the incident removed from their post, put into a, another role that takes them away from the frontline. And so one could say for just doing their job, they are penalized afterwards whilst everything is thoroughly investigated by, the relevant investigatory bodies. It's pretty tough. I know, but, so take me through an example where maybe the officer was at fault and it's all gone a bit wrong, and how you've been involved in that investigation and what's been important in your learnings in that case.
Todd:Yeah, so you can show up and you start gathering the facts and evidence being objective in nature being independent and unbiased. You can see some of them that are, hey, You're claiming this, that you were in fear of your life, and that's the majority of them. And I'm not really sure why you say that because something happened. So I know of a couple of investigations that were very much in the gray area. And what I can tell you about that is that I gather all the evidence. It's really important that you conduct an interview A to Z and you're very specific on what is said. I personally, during officer involved shootings, I didn't like written statements. I wanted to speak to somebody. I wanted to capture their emotions and the lack of that emotion sometimes would tell me something. And so I had a few that were very much in the gray area, never investigated an officer-involved shooting where an individual was arrested or an officer was arrested and charged with murder or manslaughter or whatever case that could be brought against them. But there were a couple that were in the gray area. So after gathering evidence in investigating this entire incident, it was. Turned over to the local district attorney's office, and with that they looked at it, whether it's presented and it's always presented to the grand jury. The grand jury in the state of Texas either comes back with a true bill or a no bill. And so with it, I've never ever been involved in an investigation where I presented to the grand jury as an independent, unbiased witness and facts gatherer that an officer was actually indicted. I can't go down the road of what happened because I never had to testify against a police officer and an officer involved shooting. I personally haven't, I know Rangers that have, and really there's some that they claim they are officer-involved shootings and they're just straight up murders. The Rangers are going to prove those because look, there is evidence to prove otherwise. And Rangers have been around in investigating these kind of crimes and or incidents and they'll know the difference. WFA heard Yeah.
Yoyo:Yeah, just with the years of experience mass shootings, look, I cannot let you escape without talking to you about mass shootings. We've grown up in the uk, always been, have, we understand the special relationship with America. But I have to say, certainly of late, it seems to have just become a very chaotic, scary place to be. And I probably have many listeners that are thinking they went to America and it was fine and they never had any issues. But the perception is changing now that with the, I think when we had our pre-chat a few weeks ago, there were like 130 separate, 36 separate of, shoot mass shootings or shooting related incidents. I might be doing it an injustice. I should have checked my facts. You might even know the figure, but it's too high. Have you been involved in investigating any of these?
Todd:Yes, I have. And I lay awake at night in bed thinking about what has happened and why this is, this active shooter phenomenon is happening. With that said when you quote stats when it comes to active shooter, I stopped doing that. I stopped doing it because it changes every day and I cannot keep up with it. But specifically Allen, the Allen Texas strip mall this last week. Yeah, I've been in that strip mall numerous times. I can tell you every part of it I can tell you, I lay in bed at night looking at the ceiling, thinking about what has happened with this happening. And, you have one side, there's always divisive factions. One side is just totally mental illness. The other side is just totally weapons. once again, I think we go back to the whole compassion and empathy thing, and I think that's why I, after Valdi, That's why I go back to doing what I would put the absolute right people around the table that have the right answers and they're smart and they're not making it about themselves. And they're adding to the discussion of why this continues to happen. And that's why I put together radio silence, where I will be actually speaking to the New Jersey State Police in September about the Chiefs of Police Association where radio silence talks about where we were, where we're at, and where we're going and why this continues happening. And I'll go back to using it, Uvalde as an example. Walmart, I was on the pavement. It was just a horrific incident of watching 23 of my fellow humans murdered by a individual that was just incited over. Crazy stuff that's open source racism. Now, I cannot talk specifics about Walmart because that case is still pending on the individual, Patrick Cruses that's been in the news about that. It's just awful. It's terrible that, I look back and with school shootings, a large majority of'em are internal threats, if not all of'em. And so with that being said, I remember growing up in school and hey, we had fist fights. We'd go to the playground and bloody our nose and then we'd hug and probably spend the night with our fellow friend that we got in a fight with on the school ground. Now today, individuals, whether they're bullied or whatever the case may be, that is the catalyst driving this entire active shooter phenomenon. They go and they find weapons, they come back and make people pay for what has happened to them or others or whatever. I think it's a really big problem. It's not. Outlaw or banning certain type of guns. And I'll tell you why I say that. Somebody asked me the other day and go, Todd, do we need to ban assault weapons? I go, I don't think everybody needs an assault weapon, but you go ban assault weapons tomorrow. There were 19 propane bombs and Columbine in 1999. So the point being is that just banning a certain part of that's causing mass casualties and death. We're not looking at it at the a hundred thousand foot view and looking at this objectively and holistically, we have a much bigger problem just banning certain types of guns. Yeah. So collectively we need to come together and if we need to make sure that certain people do not have certain guns or if. The entire public in the US doesn't need assault weapons or any guns at all. That's fine. But humans have been killing humans since the beginning of time. So the point being is that we have to look at this collectively, objectively of why it's continuing and how we fix this. So
Yoyo:I've got Wikipedia here and there's a map and there's red dots all over the United States on where the mass shootings have been in 2023. They seem to be very centric to the East coast, all the way down to the tip of Florida and up to New York. And you've gotta, pardon of my ignorance, you've gotta laugh. I don't know the top states. So if you look at the top border of Canada, all of those states, you've got couple big ones and then you've got a couple underneath. They've got none. So I'd be thinking, okay, if I'm gonna go to America, I'm gonna go there. My chances of living are gonna be greater. But it just goes to show that it is endemic to the United States. There are several states that have never had mass shootings, but it does seem, is it being glamorized in any way? Is there some sort of notoriety? Have you spoken to anyone that's survived one of these mass shootings from a perpetrator perspective and has given any kind of motive as to what they want as an outcome?
Todd:Yeah. The one that I can speak about, I cannot speak about. The rest of'em are usually in the end, they either take their own lives or shot by law enforcement. So I've never actually interviewed and sat down with an individual who perpetrated, planned and executed a mass killing. I never have. I would love to, from a case study and a human behavior side, I would love to, so I can learn more about, it's almost like the serial killers talking to them. You learn about future type incidents, right? Yeah. I would yoyo, I would answer your question like this, is that the media, I don't care if it's left wing media, right wing media, completely independent media, there's no doubt what drives them, our ratings. And so we, as a society, media is going to polarize certain things that are right or wrong. But with that being said, do we have an issue with active shooters at our schools and workplace violence, which workplace violence statistically is higher than actually schools and school active shooters? Do we have a problem? Of course we have a problem. It continues all the time. Do you remember hearing about I, I can tell you this, in school, I don't remember hearing about active shooters. Didn't even realize that Charles Whitman in 66 was classified as technically a campus school shooting until I became a police officer. The polarization is one thing, but we do have an issue that we need to deal with. And not just in the United States globally, but the United States has an issue with mass violence. We do. Is it at the level that everybody has the mass hysteria or do we need to be are we hypervigilant of it? Maybe more so today because of media, because of information travels so fast. But I, I don't know if it's at the levels that I know the world looks at the United States specifically in Texas and the media, whether it's right or wrong is putting a lot of things out there. And so I would just say this with the misinformation and disinformation that is put out there, I can tell you this, I would vet any and everything I ever heard from any media channel, whether it be written or live on air. Yeah. I've gotten to a point in my life where I don't believe a lot and I have to vet things.
Yoyo:Yeah. What about the people that aren't smart enough to do that? That's what I
Todd:worry about. That's what scare me. Cause that seems the masses sometimes. I
Yoyo:know that one of the ones that really triggered me was when I read here that and through the media again, that this young man who had been an intern in a bank just went into work one day and started shooting up his colleagues that he was working with. And I don't know collectively if I can put this crime, this mass heinous crime down to mental health. I don't, I think mental health getting off lightly. And it do, it also makes those people who really genuinely suffer from mental health issues, it puts them in that kind of pot where they don't wanna be tared with people who can commit such bad crimes. What's your fuse on that?
Todd:I don't know if I'm qualified to talk about mental health. I can tell you that I'm with you. I think it's easy to say everything that's mass violence is mental health. But I will tell you this, anybody who wants to go commit mass killings, I would say that they're not all collected with their mental faculty. And so I will say that I'm not an expert in mental health, but I can tell you if somebody wants to commit mass violence there is something wrong. There's something missing there. I think we would agree on that. And I think,
Yoyo:Certainly there are trends at the moment, certainly here in the uk that young men are, and some cases being very drastically radicalized. They're isolated. They're not socialized, they dunno how to socialize. And they're very vulnerable to being radicalized by lots of different groups, including groups that hate women, for example. And there's a certain sort of vulnerability that I can see growing and this young man is systemic of the fact that I think we're gonna see more of that. We're also seeing more son on mother domestic violence increase in the United Kingdom. And then to top that off and you would compound this, it's quite dynamic. I have a, another guest who's gonna be on a podcast and he basically created the insider threat program for some very big, large, well-known businesses. And his research that he talks about, basically, I'm giving a spoiler here, but he says, especially Gen X. They are more loyal to each other in the workplace than they are loyal to the business. And so that develops a whole new type of insider threat. And, a young generation in part, I'm not talking about everybody that will ultimately feel more loyalty towards each other than they will be overwhelming needs of the business and the purpose of the business. And then you compound that now with a very isolated radicalized de socialized generation coming through that have been gaming way too long in their bedrooms. And I see more trouble ahead. I think there is a kind of a crisis of several factors there that I've demonstrated. I can see it coming together and us having a very disconnected part of society.
Todd:Oh, I think you're absolutely right on with that. And no different than now in Texas where we're talking about radicalization. It's amazing to me how and I will say this, and this is one thing that I see all the time, is that people claim to be Patriots. Patriots, Patriots. And I'm laughing because they're being radicalized online by either far left wing, mostly far right wing sites, and I call'em domestic internet terrorists. And so with that, they are becoming radicalized. Absolutely, no doubt. How is it any different than ISIS or Al-Qaeda or any other right type radicalization? You could actually point a finger at that. As far as what you're talking about the sub sex within a or the groups within a business being more loyal to those around them than the business itself. I can almost say that well, Some of those are pointing fingers at law enforcement saying that they're protecting corrupt police officers instead of actually standing for society. So maybe it's humans in general, they do that. And so now what you're talking about within the workplace and not looking out and having compassion and empathy for all in a workplace to include clients, vendors, contractors, and internal co-employees. I think there's a problem all the way around. Yo-yo it's it's not just Gen Xers. It's it's everyone and it's affecting everyone. And I think all of us need to take a step back and I think we need to look in the mirror and ask each other, what am I doing today to make our society better? And who is in need of my help today as a protector? I think each individual one are very specific and I think that you have to do almost like a bio on each one and understand who you're talking to. And this is the biggest one I want to end with, is that. Law enforcement as a whole wanna make sure if they're the lead investigator or the lead ranger on the case, they wanna get in there and get that confession of somebody who just killed a whole bunch of people or over years committed serial murders. You know what, this is where we have to be very smart. I may look at this individual, we do a bio on'em. This is what triggers them. This is what, I may be the wrong person to interview this person. I may need to go get a female ranger or a female officer, or a different type of personality. And I think that behooves us to be professionals enough to understand that I may not be, need to be the one that's in that room interviewing that serial killer.
Yoyo:So of all of the television programs that have portrayed Texas Rangers and films, which would you say is your favorite and why?
Todd:So two things. One, I never watch law enforcement movies on the tv. I just can't do it. My wife will tell you, she, it's just every time we watch one, she always tells me like, stop. It's a movie. Stop trying to put realism in it, number one. Number two, when it comes to the Texas Rangers look, my go-to, I used to watch it with my father all the time before he passed away was Lonesome Dove. Cuz I just love Gus and I love Call and they were the old former rangers just living life and doing their thing. But the Walker, Texas Rangers and all that, I, it, none of it does anything for me. I'm sorry. So
Yoyo:Not even true detective, nothing like this. There's nothing that sort of remotely look, at least they went to some trouble to try and get it half right. Nothing
Todd:like that. I laugh, I served in the Texas Ranger Special Operations Group, so I actually got a call not long ago from a consultant up in New York who was doing Blue Bloods, I believe, and I think Lyle Lovett was acting in one of the scenes. And I said, Hey, so if a Texas Ranger is gonna show up here with the New York PD and they're gonna run a search warrant, what would they wear? I said I don't understand your question. They go so he's gonna get on the stack and he's gonna go in the room and clear the room with'em. I said, would never happen. They go, what do you mean? I go, we would let New York PD do their job, and then we would be involved with an investigator there, and we get'em in the interview room, and hopefully I would be the person that would need to interview whatever the crime may happen to be, but I would not do that. They go that we're not gonna rewrite the script and this is what we want. So what would he wear? I said, okay, it doesn't make sense to me, so I don't know what to answer. Do you want me to put on a tactical vest and a big white cowboy hat, or a sprint? Helmet? A ballistic helmet. I, so I said, all I can tell you is this is what I wear as a special operations ranger in Texas. This is what I wear as a white shirt, white hat, Texas Ranger, working, investigating cases. Outside of that, I have never gone to New York, and I don't know any rangers that go to New York and kick doors in and arrest people. No. And so that goes back to the realism of it. And so sometimes people watch tv, they watch movies, and they just think it's exactly how it is. And it goes back to what I said earlier about misinformation and disinformation. You need to vet what we have out here today.
Yoyo:And nothing gets solved in an hour, does it? Either Exactly. Like more like months, and then you're still I remember here in the uk, you I had to wait weeks sometimes just to get into the crown prosecution service, which would be the equivalent to your district attorney to get a case in front of them to say, look, can we prosecute? It's oh, it takes ages. Yeah. Okay. What's coming up for you over this next year then with your business?
Todd:No, we have Wrangler. Yeah, so we're so excited myself and the co-founders of Wrangler we're developing and it's going great in expanding and scaling protective architectural firm, which really specializes in what we call protective. Infrastructure. And so within our Greater Protection Development group, which will actually have three companies under a big, as we call it a Mother Earthship we will specialize in protective influence, which is the leadership core foundation of teaching people how to become a protector. And with all the tabletop op field training exercises, SOPs, security assessments, the things that are the leadership component of being a protector and protecting people. The second pillar is protective infrastructure, hardening the targets with digital and analog, the most advanced type techniques and materials and services and products that exist on the market today to make what we call the X, where bad things happen, make it safe with concentric circles of protection. The last one is protective intelligence, and this is one where schools and workplaces are not doing enough of. I need to know, and you need to know as a business leader, What you don't know. And the only way we do that is, like I talked about earlier, don't be right in front of the car. We need to be a thousand miles out. And if we're a thousand miles out using open source intelligence, social media intelligence, be able to grab those signals. 80 plus percent, I think it was 83% the last I saw it, of all active shooters leak. And when they leak, they tell you what they're gonna do. They just, you just need to listen and you need to go find the right people. And so whether it be schools or workplace, we're gathering those signals from the social media, the open source intelligence. And with that, we're connecting the dots, pre-incident type measures and measures. And so with that, we're targeting individuals not to go arrest them, to save their lives and others that have homicidal and suicidal ideations. Back to having compassion and empathy for not only the individual that's having in distress or whatever the problems are being. They'll tell you, 80% will tell you online what they'll do. Salvador Ramos and Uvalde, same thing. It happens over and over. And so why are we not understanding this? It almost reminds me of the definition of insanity. We do the same things over and over, and next expect a different result. And that's wow. So you take those three pillars and you synchronize it. And that's the biggest problem with the threat space today. It is not being synchronized. It's almost like the military. The military synchronizes the battlefield with infantry, armor, air defense, artillery, close air support. Okay, that's the military version of it. Now let's do the threat space of understanding all the different components that need to be synchronized. So nothing falls through the gaps. Now I'll end with this. Can we make it a hundred percent? Absolutely not. We can't make anything a hundred percent ever. But can you imagine where the percentages are? We are today of how schools. Businesses and others are protected it's way down on the scale where we could be way much higher if we would synchronize the threat space.
Yoyo:100%. Oh my God. Super cool. Todd Martin, thank you so much. Thank you for your time, your expertise. Top Texas Ranger. Thank you for your service.
Todd:Thank you so much and I'm so honored again to tell you to be here with you today and I look forward to chatting with you in the future. And if you need anything, please don't hesitate to reach out. Sure thing. Thank
Yoyo:you so
Todd:much. Goodbye from Texas.