The CrossFit Pittsburgh Podcast
We have been a CrossFit Affiliate since 2006. We are one of the originals. My wife and I opened our doors when I was home between deployments to Iraq. It's been an amazing adventure spanning thousands of miles between us over the course of 12 years deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. We formed amazing bonds. Lost good friends. And learned a lot about ourselves and our community. Throughout the course of this Podcast we will discuss all of that and more. We will talk about the people we have encountered along the way and the lessons we learned.
The CrossFit Pittsburgh Podcast
Systemic Failures and Their Role in Tragedy
What if the response to a life-threatening situation wasn't just inadequate but downright alarming? Join me as I dissect the unsettling social media reactions to the recent attempt on President Donald Trump's life, exposing deeper societal issues. Drawing from my extensive background in close protection, I critique the Secret Service's reaction time and communication failures during the incident. Reflecting on the troubled history of the shooter, I argue that the systemic failures in our school systems, such as ineffective "bully-free zones" and "gun-free zones," may have played a role. This episode underscores the urgent need for educational reform to prevent such tragedies in the future.
In our next segment, the critical importance of preparedness and proficiency for first responders takes center stage. Through the lens of a recent incident involving a young security professional who appeared unsure and unsafe while handling her weapon, I stress the necessity for security personnel to be skilled and ready for any situation, even under extreme conditions. We also take a moment to honor Corey Comparatore, a brave individual who sacrificed his life protecting others. Finally, we emphasize the importance of voting and taking action to ensure that the best people are in critical roles to prevent future tragedies. Tune in for a thought-provoking discussion that calls for serious action and reflection.
All right. So I've been putting this off for days now and a dear, dear friend of mine, childhood friend of mine, posted to my Facebook page on Sunday and it was very simple Mary has been a friend of mine since St Rayfield's Elementary School, all through high school, and then reconnected on Facebook since then my posts and she said, in fact, that the post was not about my post, was not about the uh attempt on president donald trump's uh life, it was. It was a different post altogether. And mary uh posted a comment to that post and said mike, you know, you've been conspicuously quiet about this, you know, and it was kind of unlike me. So I have been, I absolutely have been, and I just don't think I can. I just don't think I can stay quiet anymore.
Speaker 1:All right, for what it's worth, for whoever hears this, but here's my, here's my take on this. All right, and as I'm sitting here thinking about this on the drive-in here to the gym today, I'm going over and over in my mind the things I'm not going to address, right, like I'm not going to address the absolute poor, poor coverage, poor reaction time, poor response. I always try to make it a point to not criticize things that I know nothing about. Right, the older you get, well, you should do that all the time, but the older you get, you should really make it a point to stay in your lane. Some of you know, some of you don't, but close protection Was one of the things that I did for a living from the minute I left the, the Navy active-duty Navy in the a living from the minute I left the, the Navy active-duty Navy in the mid 90s. The minute I left there, I did close protection, most recently in the worst, worst, most non permissive environments in the world. All right, the reaction time of the Secret Service was pitiful. It was absolutely pitiful, augmenting as they always do with state and local authorities. That's a manpower issue. There's nothing unusual about that. But the lack of communication, the miscommunications.
Speaker 1:You have an exposed gunman on a rooftop less than 150 meters. 150 meters, yeah, it was like 425, yes, so you do not have to be a marksman to make that shot. You don't all right. This young man, this shooter, things are coming up now. Um, there's a lot of speculation between saturday and now. But uh, you know again. Hate to say. I thought so, I knew it, I told you so. I don't mean it like that. But I looked at this boy the first time they posted his picture and I was like, all right, my knee jerk reflexes. This kid has probably had it rough. You know, probably had it rough. You know probably had it rough. And now the most recent reports are saying that he didn't have it easy in school. He was bullied, he was picked on. You know what. Let's put a pin in that for a moment, because I've always believed as the countermeasure to that type of threat, it's background, it's a threat's been made. You look into the background, you can kind of connect the dots and maybe predict a pattern. But you know, in this case this young man was bullied. He was a young man, relatively, you know, recently out of school, and that's another issue as. Hence the put a pin in it.
Speaker 1:The absolute, total failure of our school systems. Right? Oh, this is a bully free zone. It's cut the shit. Okay, here's the deal bully free zones, gun free zones. Um, the power of a sign. I'm not laughing because it's funny, I'm laughing because it's tragic. Well, we don't tolerate bullying. That's's an automatic suspension, and yet you still have bullies.
Speaker 1:Maybe the solution is to embrace the truth that sometimes it's all right to punch a bully in the face, right it is, might, might, stem the flow right there. All right, but you got to engage, you've got to be the type of superintendent, principal administrator in a school district is going to have the the sack to say, all right, you know what. It stops now. It stops now a couple guys throw punches back. In my day I don't remember a fight escalating beyond punches, I don't, and maybe there's something to that. You know, maybe there's something to that is you clear the air. You clear the air with, you know, by throwing hands, and then you don't have some ass bag go home. You know, got got the other guy got the best of them. So he goes home and comes back and shoots the place up and hits everybody except his intended target. I mean, I think that's a big piece of it, but I digress. All right, I. I digress that's.
Speaker 1:You know, that young man is dead and, uh, you know, shame on, shame on everyone in his past who saw this thing coming, the superintendents that put it, on the principals, the principals that stuck up a couple more fucking signs that said, you know, bully-free zone, and maybe even a few counselors or administrators in there who, you know, sat down with a finger wave in an admonishment for bullying. All right, the, the young man's dead, um, and listen, just so, we're straight on this. Not a fan of him, not a fan, all right. Um, but what drove him to that, I think, is indicative of another larger, more, more, uh, sinister problem, and that is, uh, the total and complete failure of our school systems. Need to need to fix this shit yesterday. But you know, now, now more to the point, and this is this is what kept me quiet. Alright, this is what really really kept me quiet. Excuse me, so I'm trying to wrap my head around this.
Speaker 1:All right, within I don't know, hours after the attempt on President Trump, people are popping off on social media, things to the effect well, don't look at me, I wasn't in Butler, lol. And they think that shit's funny, right? They think it's funny. How about this? Maybe you're a public figure of some sort, maybe you have a position on some type of town council, city council, some kind of bullshit, and you, you throw out a comment like that on social media? Right? People have lost their jobs for things like that, because, guess what, it was not just an attempt on a former president of the United States. Like him or don't like him, vote for him. Don't vote for him. That man is still a former president of the United States, as any human being.
Speaker 1:By that logic, are you saying that somebody deserves to be assassinated, deserves to be killed? Don't get me started on that, because you can go down different roads. And yeah, you know, sometimes the way to end a longer, more protracted war might be with the elimination of strategic, surgical elimination of leadership. This was none of that. It was none of it. And for a civilian to pop off, don't look at me. Lol, I wasn't there, lol. This is the same type of person, mind you. The same type of person that, after Joe Biden wins the election, goes on social media, posts the names and businesses of people who supported Donald Trump in the election and puts out this let's cancel their businesses, don't shop there. This kind of thing, all right. What kind of twisted asshole does that? This kind of thing? All right. Kind of twisted asshole. Does that? This kind? This kind right here? Okay.
Speaker 1:So this is a post that I took from a friend's Facebook and simply put Okay, this was a screenshot that a friend of mine shared, and this clown's name is Tom Caraveau C-A-R-R-I-V-E-A-U. Tom Caraveau, caraboo right. Explorer Charters and Cruise Lines in Michigan, right. So now you Google that now Explorer Charters and Cruise Lines there's a little red bar across the search page that says permanently closed. Well, it seems old Tom ran his cake hole, all right, and he posted damn bad shot, would have done the world a service.
Speaker 1:And then some other schmuck posts to that comment. Ha, ha, we should watched Now I'm reading this as it's written, so imagine the gray matter capacity here in this individual. We should watched his ficken F-I-C-K-i-n-g. Ficken brains, brains blown away. If there were such a thing as the grammar police, this guy would be under the jail, all right. So stupid is as stupid does.
Speaker 1:But you got old tom caraval up there in michigan somewhere. Um, damn bad shot, would have done the world a service. You know, tom, I'm not really sure what to say to you other than you get what's coming to you. You do, all right. And the little mental midget there that commented to you I'm not even sure what he was trying to say, but flicking brains, brains, you know, blah, blah, whatever man, listen, listen. Here's the thing. I got a picture of, dash too, as some, like maybe 30, 40-something, you know, eats his own boogogers, lives in his mom's basement and yells up the steps every so often mom meatloaf. Now you know, picture that in your mind's eye, okay, or don't um kind of on a rant right now? But but this is how despicable this is. Okay, you got all the mixtures of pure hate.
Speaker 1:An attempt was made on a former American president that should bother you to your very core and it doesn't matter what side of the aisle you're on. An attempt was made on an American president. If that doesn't upset you, maybe you need to relocate, right? Because that is what separates us from a third world banana republic that we are so far down the rabbit hole right now. It's frightening. It really really is frightening.
Speaker 1:Then you got these little wackos talking about Civil War, this and Civil War that. Well, again, I paraphrase Rogan, because I won't do it justice but Andy Stump and Joe Rogan on a podcast together and the question was asked you got all these people talking Civil War like it's a cool thing, right? Not a caption. Like everybody wants to be a gangster till it's time to do gangster shit, right? Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. Uh, not for nothing.
Speaker 1:But I remember one time at a certain stage of my life. I, I had a position and I'm told that there's a guy in the neighborhood. Oh yeah, man, watch out for this guy. You know he still hangs on the corner, but you know, now, you, he's been shot so many times now he wears a bulletproof vest. I'm like, okay, um, and not my problem, it's not my responsibility, but if it ever came to that, the fuck makes you think I'd be shooting for his vest, right, I mean, anyway, I, I'm, I'm kind of off my point here. But one I did not comment because, you know, my dear friend Mary, that's why I didn't comment. Right, I didn't comment because I didn't know where to where to start with with all of this, and I'm not sure that I did it justice. I'm really not.
Speaker 1:But I mean, this thing has many, um, so many offshoots. All right, first the us secret service. All right, anybody can take a shot at the president. I mean, that's, that's a fact. But the way this thing was laid out, what appeared to be total lack of proper preparation, what appeared to be total lack of proper preparation, what appeared to be, I'm sure, every one of those agents received training right. But it's unfortunate and amazing at the same time.
Speaker 1:If you watch some of the recent videos that have been put out, there is one young lady in that protective detail who pulls her pistol like she's not sure why she's doing it. She starts to turn left, turn right, turn around 180, 360, 270, flagging people as she goes. And then it appeared to me that maybe she either thought about it or somebody told her hey, you know, holster your weapon right. And at least she, you know, kept her eyes on the horizon but couldn't find her holster right. So she's zing, zing, zing, like oh, I know it's there somewhere.
Speaker 1:You know it can happen to anybody, but when that is your life, that's somebody else's life that you're responsible for, you need to be able to find that in the dark, underwater, upside down, literally. Vehicle rollover, you're stuck upside down in the seat because your seatbelt's still on and you need to be able to find all your gear from that position in the dark. I mean, that's what you do, that's what you do. Or did you maybe get your job because you know, because, right, a lot of that happens, right, you get the best person for the job? No, not always, but sometimes that's just how it is.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, listen, apologies for the run-on. I didn't mean to go that far, but that is how it is, and it's an absolute shame because there's a young man from the area. Absolute shame because there's a young man from the area, corey Comparatore. Right, paisan, our thoughts and prayers are with you. Now here's a father who will never see his children again, who will never see his wife again. He's a husband, he's a father, he's a son, he's a good friend, right, and when the shit hit the fan, this guy was one of the only ones that didn't seem to have his phone out. What's happening? This will make a good tick tock, right or um, or you know, just running after his tail, right, he, uh, he put his people on the ground, covered them with his own body and died because of it. All right, so, yeah, all right, brother, rest in peace and the rest of you.
Speaker 1:Got a vote coming up Right, got a vote coming up. Need to fix this shit now. All right, mary, a little bit longer answer than you may have anticipated, but thank you for asking. Alright, I'm out.
