#91 - Jailhouse Dynamics To A Deputy’s Worst Nightmare: When Inmates Found His Home w/Alex Wolf

Three bangs. Wood splintering. A three-year-old whispering, “Dad, someone’s at the door.” That’s the moment everything changes for Alex, a detention officer who thought he understood danger until it crossed his threshold at 10:15 a.m. Two recently released inmates, a pregnant wife, a boxed duty pistol just out of reach, and a living room turned battlefield. What follows is a raw, step-by-step account of survival, the click of a misfire, and the long tail of fear that lingers in a child’s bedtime questions.

To watch this episode, click here: https://youtu.be/npcojaSZ4Gw

We pull back the curtain on the world Alex knows best: county jails. He explains why jails can feel more combustible than prisons, how gangs recruit with small favors, and why protective custody isn’t just for “chomos” but for dropouts, snitches, and high-profile cases. You’ll hear how COVID quarantines frayed minds in days, how respect beats bravado on the tiers, and how a soup can turn into a debt you pay with your fists. We get specific about contraband pipelines—from legal paperwork and compromised staff to “amenities” turned weapons—and the strange calculus of taxpayer-funded tablets that doubled as clubs and shanks.

This is a story about systems and choices—the design of custody, the incentives that drive behavior inside, and the vigilance required outside. If you care about criminal justice, officer safety, home defense, or how small policy decisions ripple into the real world, you’ll find hard truths and practical takeaways here. Listen, share with someone who needs a wake-up call, and leave a review to tell us what part hit hardest.

Chapters

• 0:00 The Home Invasion Shock
• 1:00 Setting The Stage: Alex’s Background
• 5:10 Jail Versus Prison: Real Differences
• 11:40 Gangs, PC Housing, And Control
• 20:30 COVID Lockdowns And Mental Strain
• 27:20 Revolving Door And “Reform” Myths
• 34:20 Contraband, Corruption, And Staffing
• 43:15 Violence, Weapons, And Cell Extractions
• 53:50 The System’s Odd Comforts And Costs
• 1:00:15 Transition To Wyoming: Culture Shift
• 1:09:10 The Casing: Ropes, Lights, Footprints
• 1:13:50 The Break-In: Fight For The Gun
• 1:18:30 911, The Response, And Aftermath
• 1:25:40 Identifying Suspects And Motives
• 1:34:20 Trial, Sentencing, And Closure
• 1:41:00 Trauma, Recovery, And Next Steps

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:00

I get off night shift at 5:36 in the morning, went to sleep. Next thing I know, my daughter's tapping on my shoulder saying, Hey dad, someone's at the door, mom wants you to check. And I opened my eyes and heard three loud bangs. Just wood snapping. My daughter screaming. My first thought was gun. And he shoved my head into the dog crate and sliced my face open right here on the left. My wife pointed the gun at this dude's head. Gun clicked. He ran.

SPEAKER_03: 0:36

Holy shit. Alex, you have quite an interesting story. Yes, sir. You were a detention officer.

SPEAKER_02: 1:04

Yep.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05

And during this time, you had two inmates. Yep. They were recently released. Recently released inmates find out where you lived. Yep. And broke into your home while your wife and children were home and you were home sleeping. Yes, sir. Okay. We we are going to dive into that. Absolutely. And so I want to get into the vowels of anything corrections, jails, prisons fascinates me because there's so many layers to it. Right. And I feel that there's so many opportunities for corruption. Yeah. Good cops, bad cops, correctional officers, detention officers, which I'm not 100% clear the difference of them all. So we want to break that down. And this is right up my alley as far as just wild chaos, crazy shit. Because I had a previous guest on Austin Legg. He talked about an inmate finding him. Right. And he kind of got called out by like, you're like, that doesn't happen, bullshit, not real. Then you end up reaching out immediately, like, yo, these guys broke into my house while I was sleeping. My wife and kids were home. And I was like, perfect. Right. Because then you know you get the internet heroes on TikTok, like Bet, BitCap, all this other shit. And I'm like, this why would this guy make this up? And it has to happen. And we actually had a lot of a lot of correctional officers, cops say that like people have showed up to their workplaces. Yeah, absolutely. Family vet things, and it's it's interesting, and especially if you're working in a small area. So I guess, bro, let's just jump into it. Where are you from? And then we're gonna get into why you went into the correctional or I guess the law enforcement world.

SPEAKER_02: 2:33

Okay. I uh grew up in Arizona, spent 18 years there. Okay. Um met my wife online down there. What app? Tinder. Okay. Yeah. Uh she was from Montana. Okay. So very quickly, she's like, Man, we gotta get out of the heat. Like, trust me. So what part of Arizona? That's Phoenix. Oh super hot. Um, yeah, so we met down there, and right away we knew like we're gonna stick together because you just know when you know.

SPEAKER_04: 3:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 3:09

Um after about three months, I proposed to her. Really? Yes, sir. Okay. Uh I mean, from the day we met, we spent every single day together, just like best friends. You knew. Yep. Okay, I love that. Um, so we got engaged uh about nine months later, got married. Um and right about the same time frame there, we got pregnant with our first kid. Okay. We were 19 years old. Um, and we had our first kid. During that time, I I was a mechanic outside of or when I got out of high school and just wasn't making a ton of money. So when she got pregnant, I uh kind of panicked, like young man, you know, what do I do? So uh I started looking into being a cop because I knew kind of throughout my childhood that's what I wanted to do. Okay. My dad was a firefighter, so kind of different route, but first responder way is completely good. So um yeah, so started looking at that, but I don't think I was ready to be a cop on the street at 19. So I went uh I applied for correctional officer for the state and detention for the county. Okay. So that's the difference, kinda. Okay. Um and I got a job offer from both. Um decided to go county because I thought that'd be a little bit faster way to go to the streets eventually, because they have deputies on the streets.

SPEAKER_03: 4:38

Okay, so you can evolve from county detention officer to the streets? Yeah, so you have to go through the academy and everything afterward.

SPEAKER_02: 4:47

Yeah, so it's two different academies, two different I mean, everything's different really, but depends where you're at. So Maricopa County is where I worked or got ended up getting hired at. Um, and you go through a 10-week detention academy there. Okay. You can work in the jail as long as you want or as short as you want, and at any time you can apply to be a deputy as long as you're older than 19 and a half.

SPEAKER_03: 5:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 5:11

And then with that county specifically, you have to go through the whole hiring process again. So polygraph, background, all that stuff. And then if you get hired, then you go to a deputy academy, which is six months.

SPEAKER_03: 5:26

So at county, obviously, you're not dealing with lifers, these hardcore gang units in normal prisons like a normal correction officer, correct? Or am I wrong on this?

SPEAKER_02: 5:38

You're wrong. Okay. You do. Um, okay. We like the house I worked in was a maximum house. Okay. So you you do have a lot of gangs. Um, you have lifers. I mean, they're not sentenced yet, so they're all pre-sentenced inmates awaiting trial. Okay. That's what jail is.

SPEAKER_03: 5:55

Got it. Okay, okay. So that okay, that clears it up for me. So these guys, I mean, obviously you're dealing with uh the worst of the worst, but you're not living with these guys and dealing with them for their whole entire life in prison. So that how long can somebody locked up in the jail, how long can they be in there before the sentencing?

SPEAKER_02: 6:11

Oh, we had guys in there that had been in there for seven years. What? Yeah, fighting it, like just fighting their case, pleading non-guilty.

SPEAKER_03: 6:19

So Okay, so okay, so you're really getting to know some of these guys.

SPEAKER_02: 6:23

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03: 6:24

Okay, that was my big like what's the true difference of the okay, that completely makes sense to me.

SPEAKER_02: 6:30

And I mean, eventually they're gonna get transferred to prison once they're sentenced. So, you know, there's more of a turnover rate with dudes coming in, coming out, but working in a maximum house, like they're in there for a while going to trial, awaiting trial.

SPEAKER_03: 6:44

So now, do you feel these guys is it more of a volatile stage for them because they're it's still so new, they're fighting it, they still think they have a chance, there's a glimmer of hope that they're not gonna get this horrible sentence, and then you're you're dealing with them coming in and out of court or dealing with attorneys. Do you feel that is there any of that that like it's almost a worst-case scenario because they're they haven't truly accepted their fate of like, hey, they're doing 20 to life now or whatever it is? Yeah, sometimes some of the dudes, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02: 7:17

Okay, um like deny it completely, telling us they're innocent. Okay, like we don't care what you are, like we're gonna treat you the same anyways, but um honestly working with like minimum inmates that are they know they're gonna be in there for maybe two weeks or three weeks, they always were the worst. Why? Uh I mean, I don't know why. A lot of younger kids, first of all, okay. I mean, they're in there on DYs or drug charges, and they uh just seem to want to make a name for themselves real quick. So uh they have something to prove. They have something to prove, and that's where a lot of officers would get in assaults was minimums. Minimums and mediums in our jail, yeah. So it's just guys like if you get an older dude in a minimum house, he wants to be the pod boss because it's a lot of kids. Okay. So then he's trying to screw with the officers and just make a name for himself, you know. So the maximum maximum dudes they kind of establish it themselves. And I liked working with the maximum dudes because there's gangs involved, but I worked in a protective custody house, so the gangs weren't housed together. They might be in the same housing unit, but they come out with their own, like we keep them separated, you know. So are you separating these guys by gangs? No, we don't we don't keep the same dudes like if you're in a gang, we don't keep them in the same gang in in jail. Okay. Because that's gonna cause you're hanging out with your boys, you know? So causes more problems, but yeah, uh, we try to keep them as separated as possible.

SPEAKER_03: 9:01

So you said you're in a protective unit. Are you you you have a lot of like pedophiles and stuff in there, or is it just the gang protected side of things? It was more the gang and like why are they protected?

SPEAKER_02: 9:11

They they decided to PC up, which pr like sign a form saying I want to be in PC because they dropped out of a gang or snitching, uh and sometimes they get in a fight and they're just like, I'm done with this life. Like, I'm gonna try to be a good dude in here and PC up and stay out of trouble so I can go to trial and be like I'm been just fine in jail.

SPEAKER_03: 9:36

So how often does that happen? Like when they're when they're come to you and they're like, Officer Wolf, right? Yeah, I'm done with this gang. How are you taking this in? Are you like, okay, or is it actual like these guys are legit, or are they trying to say they're done with it to get into protective to try to get to somebody?

SPEAKER_02: 9:56

That happens too, okay for sure. Okay. Um they never really own up to like I'm getting out of the gang, but that's kind of the way we saw it. Okay. Like some dudes would get jumped out, so like other gang members or their own gang would beat them up and they'd PC up to go to protective custody house so that they can be safe and like just ride it low, you know, like stay out of trouble there. So they didn't really admit to it, but you know what's going on. Usually like the younger dudes that were in gangs that got beat up, they would stay in there, like be a man about it, stay in the gang, you know, like prove themselves. But some of the older dudes, they didn't they don't want to be a part of it anymore. Just over it. Yeah. And then also on PC, we'd have uh high profile cases. Uh so guys that were on the news, let's say, for a mall shooting, like we had a couple of those dudes, or uh we had a few cops in there arrested.

SPEAKER_03: 10:58

So So as a guard or detention officer, yeah. Is it the same? Can I call it a guard, or do you not I don't care.

SPEAKER_02: 11:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 11:07

I mean Well, I want to make sure I don't I'm not like downplaying people's positions. So as a as a detention officer, when you get a high profile person in there, is it like a different vibe or a feel in when they come in? Uh knowing that you you just watch this person mass shoot up a mall, or it's uh some cop that really did something, now he's coming through the system. I mean, what's the vibe like when they come rolling through?

SPEAKER_02: 11:30

Yeah, it's definitely weird because you pretty much knew exactly what they did. Okay. Versus this guy could be in there for murder and you just hear rumors like you don't know the real story, you know, because it wasn't on the news. You don't you don't get their case file, you know, you just see their charge potentially. So you can't pull papers on these dudes? Nope, just charges. Really? And you're not really supposed to like look a dude up randomly. So did you ever? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 11:58

I would have 100%.

SPEAKER_02: 12:00

That's why I ask. So uh because I mean there'd be weirdos data, it's like, what is this guy in here for? So you know, you have your number in real quick and see what it's all about. Um, but yeah, high profile d it's a little different. And we'd house them alone so they get their own cell and they come out on their hour out by themselves as well, so they're protected as much as possible.

SPEAKER_03: 12:23

When you lock somebody up by themselves, what does that do like to their mental state? It tears it up. Really?

SPEAKER_02: 12:31

Oh, yeah. Isn't that bad? Yeah, and I mean, like this one dude comes to mind who did shoot up a mall, he took an AR to a mall, opened fired, and shot little girls and stuff. Um he was already crazy. Like he was not in the right state of mind, anyways, you know. So he would yell, kick the doors, and drive all the other gang members, max inmates crazy because they're chill, they want a quiet house most of the time. So yeah. Otherwise, they're locked up by themselves, and yeah, they do go crazy fast. Real what's fast? Two days, three days. Really? That quick? Yep. Um we this was during COVID. So So they're already in lockdown. They're on lockdown a lot. We had a house specifically for quarantine. So if you get transferred to our jail, because this county has seven jails. So I worked in a this jail was uh had us about 1,600 beds. So really big jail. I was gonna say that sounds like a lot of beds. It's uh I want to say third or fourth in the country for the largest jails. The jail systems, I should say. Not that specific jail. But uh we had a quarantine house where if you got transferred to that jail, you'd have to spend 14 days in there. You get 15 minutes a day to shower, and that's it. So you're in your cell almost 24 hours a day, 14 days, and we had dudes in there that would either say they want to kill themselves, and I mean they weren't about it, but they'd say that to just get out of their cell for 10 minutes to talk to mental health, you know. Oh, okay. And then we had dudes that like if medical would come around and we an officer would have to escort medical, so we'd go cell to cell with the medical nurse, open their door, and they'd assault us to get out of the house for two hours.

SPEAKER_03: 14:32

So I mean it it tore them up. The mindset of of people that are in prisons and jails blows it blows my mind. Yeah. Of how correct me if I'm wrong, it's like I hear so many stories. I've had guys that have done 10 plus years in the system sitting the chair right there that have completely changed their lives around and having those conversations, and it's I feel none of our correctional facilities are established to actually help any of these people. I feel it makes everybody's case, it just amplifies it because it's survival of the fittest when you go through those walls. And so, in that, and like, you know, I think I've told this story on my this show before, but like I had a very good friend for a while, he passed away, but he got put away for life.

SPEAKER_04: 15:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 15:17

And like 10 years into his stent, he's tattooed from like eyebrows to pinky toes, right? And they're like, Hey, you're free. And he was like, What the fuck? So, like, but he did everything he could to survive in there, and he was honestly, and what from what he told me, innocent. I mean, he ended up getting a strike, a felony strike in California when he was real young. Yeah. And then he ended up one night as an adult was walking home uh and caught these dudes trying to molest or rape a woman in an alleyway, and he got he defended her, and he ended up getting they pulled a knife out him, he got one of the knife out of him, stabbed both of them with the one guy's knife, ended up catching two more felonies, so they put away for life.

SPEAKER_02: 15:48

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_03: 15:48

And then, like 10 years in, they're like, Hey, you're free. And him telling a story, he was like, dude, I I don't want to be in there, but I had to join a gang. I had to start pushing this. I had just to fit in. I mean, that happens that does it happen that quick in the jail system, or are they all still trying to figure things out? If they want it, they'll get it.

SPEAKER_02: 16:06

So some kids want to avoid it. Okay. Like it's usually younger dudes that want to avoid it and they get sucked right into it. But it's over. I mean, you start to see them run with certain people that you know are gang affiliated or created their own click in the jail. So I mean, probably a month, month or less of younger dudes just sucked right in.

SPEAKER_03: 16:31

And you just watch it that easy.

SPEAKER_02: 16:33

Yeah, because I mean if the if you're in a group, you're gonna get more out of it. You're gonna get more food, you're gonna get you know, you can network more. So if you're lone wolf in there, you're on your own. You're on your own. No protection. Yeah, no protection. You you know it's just gonna be harder. So it's way easier to just jump in with the other guys and eat with them and you know, get more canteen, like the store stuff that they buy. So yeah, I mean it I mean.

SPEAKER_03: 17:05

So you're almost forced. Oh, for sure. I mean, everything I've heard, everybody's like, dude, it's not even an option because you know, you get the protection is a huge one, and then more commissary stuff. But how are they getting these guys so quick? I hear like even if somebody just offers you something inside of a jail or prison and you accept it, they ought you're in. Like they expect something in return. Is it that exactly they do?

SPEAKER_02: 17:28

Yeah. So like the older dudes that are kind of more like the head of the gangs or the head of the house, even if that's the way it is, then yeah, I mean, they'll be like, hey man, you want a soup? Give them a soup, and then two days later, hey man, I gave you that soup, but I need you know, X, Y, and Z from you. And then you're not gonna give it to them, then they're gonna someone else is gonna beat him up for the old dude that's running the place. Just like that. Just like that. And that's I mean, it could be different at different jails, but this is how it was in ours. Yeah, yeah. I mean, a big jail like that, you you know, you gotta just join in. It's the easy way. Oh shit. But I mean at the same time, like, how is that fixing a system? Like, how is it how do we not you know it's it's not, man. You're right. Like, once you're in and you join, and then once you get out, it's easier if you're already in or associated with a gang inside to just keep on doing it on the outside, and then you come right back to jail and it's just a big revolving door.

SPEAKER_03: 18:33

So you saying the revolving door is I that's why I'm so I'm so like set on that our correctional facilities are just a huge money laundering, money-making scam in this country because they all talk about reform or changing these inmates and giving them hope and opportunities, and it's yeah, and every correctional officer or every everybody I've talked to's worked in jails, any other type of the system, they're like, There's absolutely no way. Yeah, no way, dude. Because even though they let the ones that they know are gonna screw up again, they let them out because then they get caught back up again, they go through the court system. It's just it's a just a trail of money, right? But if they're locked up in there, they're not making as much. So they just exactly it's mind-blowing to me. Yeah, and I get it, it's a job that you're doing it, but this is way above your pay grade of uh right. It comes back to like our senators and everything like that that are building these prisons and just letting them run like this. Yeah, right. Do you think there's a way that we could ever change the prison system to where it's actually beneficial and helps our that community of individuals? Have you ever thought about that?

SPEAKER_02: 19:35

I've thought about it, but never come up with a good answer. Nobody has. Yeah. I mean, some of these people need to be in there. You know, they're dangerous people, but you know, how are you gonna help them? I don't know. Yeah, I just don't know.

SPEAKER_03: 19:49

And the mental side of it that's is I I'm with you. I know there's a lot of people in there that belong in prison for forever. Yeah, they should never see daylight again. But then I feel like the kid that gets caught with like a gram of Coke in his car, and then he's now he's in the system, and you see that and these guys are just plucking these kids out into these gangs, and it's like, well, you just had some kid that could have just had a shitty run, scared the crap out of him, and then straightened him up, and now he's in the system and now he's getting pulled into a gang and now he's committed.

SPEAKER_02: 20:21

Yeah. And I think some of these kids would get two weeks for a drug charge or something, and they would get out quick, and it was like they didn't learn anything from it. You know, it was too easy. Two weeks isn't too bad. So they're gonna do it again just like that. You'll see them again in three days, you know.

SPEAKER_03: 20:42

So see, I wonder if it almost should go to I don't know how it would work like with our judicial system and laws, but let's say it was like everything. If you if you got caught for something mandatory, there it's that, you know, right. That's your stent you're doing a minimum, it's not a minimum, there's no minimum or maximum. It's like, okay, you got caught for this violation, that's 60 days. You got caught for that. So then it's like there's no, and then it's just a quick process. Yeah. As soon as you're found guilty, cool, then that's your time, and then you're done. But it's it's what's happening during that time, is what people are adding more points on, which is extending time. Exactly. It just it just starts snowballing from there. And before you know it, some kid that might have gotten nine-month jail time or prison time. Now he's looking at years because he had to carry out some fight or beat up a correctional officer to to get into a gang or whatever they're told they have to do. And so it's now it's like, okay, we could have had this kid out of the system in nine months, but now he's we're housing him for several more years as he's pulled into a gang. Yep. That's the craziest part to me about our correctional facilities, is just like the money they're making and this the corruption of just ruining these people's lives even more just to make a buck off of them.

SPEAKER_02: 21:52

Exactly. And they're only making it more comfortable in there. And our jail, we uh the sheriff at the time bought them all tablets so they can read books, play games, video call people, listen to music. I mean, it's like having a cell phone almost. Like they have to pay for games and pay to video chat as far as individually, they have a night tablet? Every inmate has a tablet. And at night we collected them to charge them, and then at 7 a.m. they all get them back.

SPEAKER_03: 22:25

You're you're telling me that you have to collect the inmates' tablets, yeah, charge them, and then give them back to them in the morning.

SPEAKER_02: 22:31

Yes, sir. All all that being a detention officer is is just a glorified babysitter. That's all it is. Sounds like I mean, we'd hand out their food to them, hand out their canteen to them. I mean, you could use an inmate to help you, but sometimes that caused problems too. Just yeah, I don't want him touching my stuff or whatever it is. But yeah, I mean, we'd collect the tablets, hand them out, you know, make sure they're good to go.

SPEAKER_03: 22:57

So as a detention officer, I mean, you guys are obviously in the trenches and you're seeing and you're seeing what the warden and what the state's approving to these guys are. You guys all just sitting back at some point and being like, what the fuck are we doing?

SPEAKER_02: 23:08

Yeah, so at the county level, the sheriff's the highest. Okay. Um, and he can kind of make the rules of the jail. So versus the state, it might go higher than that, like in a prison. Um, so yeah, the sheriff approved the tablets, spent I want to say a couple million dollars on them. Tax taxpayers' money. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_03: 23:28

Uh so yeah, I mean blowing to me. Right. I've this is I've I've I'm so anti-tax. Like it's it's and this is the sh this is the reason why. Right. Like, why are we giving inmates that have raped women, beat their children, sold drugs that have killed people, and now they're they get a plush life in prison. Like, right. What is the point of even having them in prison? Right. Or jail. Right. I mean if you're comfortable, why why would they ever want to leave or do better?

SPEAKER_02: 23:58

Right. They have free access to everything. Call their wife or whatever, the girl. This is so wild to me that they why don't they just give them phones? Right. And every time I tell someone, they're like, no way. Absolutely. Every single dude in there got one. I mean, you said what earlier, 1200 beds or something like that?

SPEAKER_03: 24:18

Uh 16, I believe.

SPEAKER_02: 24:20

1,600 beds.

SPEAKER_03: 24:21

So you're talking almost 1,600 inmates got an iPad?

SPEAKER_02: 24:23

Yep. And they became the biggest weapons. I mean, they're heavy because they're like Samsung tablets, and they have like a hard, almost like an otter box case, like all sealed up, pretty heavy, plexiglass on the front, and dudes would put them in socks and just whip people with them. They probably weighed like two or three pounds. So you get enough momentum, you're doing damage with those. So they turn these tablets in the weapon. They take them apart, they'd break the glass, make shanks. Like I mean, they didn't care.

SPEAKER_03: 25:01

Are they replacing these tablets or once they're gone, they're gone?

SPEAKER_02: 25:04

They'd fix them. And you know, I mean them right back. They might be on like tablet restriction, is what they called it, so you don't get a tablet for a month, and then you get right back.

SPEAKER_03: 25:14

This is so interesting to me.

SPEAKER_02: 25:16

We had a dude that was on tablet restriction, and someone gave him a tablet, he'd use it, and then like I went in there and I was like, hey man, I need that tablet back. Like, can't have it, you know that. And he would just smash it on the ground, just spike it towards the concrete and it'd shatter the screen, break it. And it happened all the time with that dude, like just accidentally, because like if you don't work a house all the time, you don't know who these people, so you're just flinging tablets out. There's 36 cells in a house, so you're trying to get it done as quick as possible. And yeah, sometimes this dude would get one and just every time, hey man, let me get that back, just straight to the concrete, shatter it. And then taxpayers are just paying to get it replaced.

SPEAKER_03: 26:08

Spend the money, fix it. I just I feel like the normal American just doesn't look into our correctional facilities enough because they're out in the desert, they're always like kind of tucked away somewhere. Yep. We don't ever think about it, we just see bob wires and towers and shit, and you're like, oh, there's a bunch of prisoners. Right. But we're not realizing what the amount how the amount how much money is being just hemorrhaged from these facilities. Yep. Absolutely. That blows my mind. Right. And it's not like you guys could be like, hey, this is a bad idea.

SPEAKER_02: 26:40

Right. I mean, we we didn't agree with it because they're like on their tablet watching their old lady get naked and stuff, and it's just causing problems like all the time, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03: 26:54

Like it's these dudes are just having their wives' FaceTime. Yep. So they're pretty much just watching porn in their own rack.

SPEAKER_02: 27:03

Yep. And uh there'd be dudes like certain officers were assigned. Um, it was like a special unit that would watch the video calls and monitor phone calls and the mail and stuff. Yeah. Um, and yeah, I mean, if you did that or anything else bad, like talking to other affiliates gang-wise or whatever, um, then you'd lose your tablet, but that's it. I mean, just lose your privilege and you'll get one back in a month. So, you know, it's or borrow your rack mates, your sellers all your rack mates, yeah. Exactly. That happened all the time too. And you can't you can't monitor that. No, not on the floor, like I don't know, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 27:42

So that is wild. I never I've never heard this before. Yep. That's a new one for me.

SPEAKER_02: 27:49

Tablets. Tablets, yep. I work in two county jails, yeah, one in Arizona, one in Wyoming, and they had tablets too. Both? Both did. Is this a common thing? I believe it's getting more and more common, yeah. What in the hell is going on? Yep. And yeah. They pay for it. You pay for them, I pay for them. So it's crazy.

SPEAKER_03: 28:14

That makes sense. Right. Okay. That is that's a new one for me. Yeah. I'm sure there's so much shit like that. I'm sure there's so much, so many things. I mean, you hear about these guys getting little TVs and stuff too. I think they buy those through commissary or whatever, but yeah, I think prisons more like you can buy more stuff in prison.

SPEAKER_02: 28:36

Yeah, yeah. But county jail is just food, and like uh you can buy like different bar of soap than what you would normally get. Okay. So pretty standard what you need kind of stuff. But I believe prison, because I know a lot of inmates were like really excited to go to prison because you could get like a MP3 player and a TV and like more freedom, as far as I know.

SPEAKER_03: 28:57

So what the hell is like the the fact that these dudes are trying to pick and choose where they're going to s for what they're gonna get and right they know what the comforts are gonna be exactly waiting for them? That it should not be like that.

SPEAKER_02: 29:09

Right. And I mean they'd know because either someone else told them or they've been there before. So it's just they're in and out and back in again, you know.

SPEAKER_03: 29:19

How are dudes getting contraband in into the jails?

SPEAKER_02: 29:22

Uh we always found uh attorneys are big. Really? Yep. Because we I don't know if it's a law, but it was a policy that if an inmate has a stack of legal papers and it was obvious it was legal papers, we can only flip through it like really quick. You're not supposed to read anything on it. So they meet with their attorney, they'd go into a little room with their attorney with a little slot to pass stuff through, and you know, the attorney could bring whatever he wanted in almost. He goes through a metal detector, but there's ways around like what everything. How how to get around it. Yeah, how to what what are they getting around and how are they doing it? I mean, mostly it was drugs, cigarettes, even, tobacco. Um I'm not sure because I didn't like we had a lot of special units, so um I didn't deal with any lawyers or anything. I just tell the inmate, like, you gotta visit visit upstairs, it's a legal visit, and that's it on my part. Yeah. But as far as I know, it's paperwork. They're just sliding it inside of there, just sliding it in. The fact that an attorney's gonna risk everything for an inmate. Right. Um, also compromise nurses. Nurses were our next biggest one. Interesting. Um, because officers and nurses, they just walk straight into the jail. You scan your ID badge, go through the Sally port, and you're in the jail. So like we weren't even allowed to have our cell phones with us, but everyone did. Okay. Uh so they don't check that stuff. And nurses would bring whatever in, you know. I mean, they would mostly bring sometimes a cell phone for them. Tobacco was a big one. And if they really wanted to, they could bring drugs, knives, whatever they wanted to. It'd be easy.

SPEAKER_03: 31:21

So did you see a lot of correctional or a lot of the officers bringing anything? Then did you ever see anybody get caught?

SPEAKER_02: 31:27

No, I heard stories. Yeah. Uh like girl detention officers hooking up with inmates in the janitor closet, stuff like that. Like, but I never witnessed anything like that. We had a pretty good crew. That's good. We were understaffed, like super understaffed during COVID. So you didn't have time for nothing. Yeah, it was a tight ship for sure. Yeah. Like a full staff for the jail was 90 officers. Okay. And we ran off 40. So how dangerous is that for you guys? Um I think the more like usually you'd work the same house. And that was easier and safer because you get to really know these dudes that are in there. So I worked almost always worked the maximum house. Okay. So I knew the guys in there, they knew how I operated, and all the other officers were pretty much in the same house the whole time. So I didn't feel like it was that dangerous. There was an officer that actually got killed in there, same jail I worked in, right before I got hired. He was uh working in a child predator house. And believe it or not, uh the child predators versus having a cell, they're in a like uh a big room with bunk beds. So they're all there's like 40, maybe 60 inmates on bunk beds that are four stacked in a room, and then the officer sits in a little cage box in the middle of the room. So they have free range all day. Well, the officer went in there, told an inmate to lock down or something like that. I mean, you can look it up on the news. I'm not gonna I don't know what happened, I wasn't there, but uh pretty much as far as I know, he was picked up and dropped on his head. The officer was really killed him. Really? Yep. And you're sitting in the middle of this room watching chomos all day. Chomos all day, and they are the most annoying people to deal with. Why is that they're just a bunch of pussies, man. Like every little thing is a problem. Like, this dude looked at me in the shower. Okay, man, it's an open shower. Like, maybe take a shower at another time or something.

SPEAKER_03: 33:44

Like you're in a pedophile, what are you bitching about?

SPEAKER_02: 33:46

Right. Like, I I really hated working up there, man. Not because of my personal beliefs, like they're chomos, but yeah, they just bitch and complain all day. No shit. Yeah. Like, what the hell do they have to bitch and complain about? You've molested a child. Yeah, I'm like, you guys can go and I can write you up for whatever, like not locking down or having contraband or whatever. And you can go sit in a normal jail cell, and then you'll really be complaining because you're on a schedule to get out or whatever. So you guys have it good up here. They had it really good.

SPEAKER_03: 34:22

That's another problem that I have with prisons and jails, is that these pedophiles are so protected, and I hear a lot of times they have really comfortable living conditions because of their protected status. Yep, absolutely. Is absolutely mind-boggling to me that you ruined a young child's life or a woman's life, whatever it may be, whoever they molested. Right. Then they go to jail and prison and then they're protected. Right. That's that to me blows my mind because that should be an incentive of okay, I am not going to do this because I'm going to be put in gen pop.

SPEAKER_02: 34:59

Right.

SPEAKER_03: 35:00

Someone's going to check papers, and I'm not going to last very long. Right. Yeah, you would think. Like what why where in our judicial system and our courts and state levels that somebody was like, yeah, we need to protect these people. Like they need their own rooms where they're just able to come and go as they want all day because they're not gang members or affiliated and they're not some murderer, but they're they ruin some child's life, but we're going to protect that.

SPEAKER_02: 35:25

Yeah. I think they always avoid conflict. The higher-ups want to avoid the conflict, you know? So I mean, you and me would think, yeah, let's put them in gen pop, let you know, let nature take its course. 100%.

SPEAKER_03: 35:38

But that's how prison should be. Like, that's how jail should be. And that's part of the incentive of like, I'm probably not going to assault this woman right now because I'm going to go to prison. Right. And I'm going to get put in gen pop and they're going to check my papers and I'm going to get found out who I am. Right. Exactly. Now, if you're a cop, depending on the cop situation, like DUI, assault, whatever, okay. I feel like those guys need to be protected. Right. Now, if you're a cop and you snap and you murder your wife or some shit, gen pop. Like, you're yeah, one of those.

SPEAKER_02: 36:11

Really? Yep. Cop. He was local cop, murdered his wife. He was in PC, housed alone. And he'd always tell us, like, he was really cool to us. Like, I think he was trying to play the not guilty card, but he was easy to deal with, but he's like, I didn't do it, man. You know? Like, oh, he stood. He stood on that ground. Yeah. A lot of them do. Yeah. Oh yeah. Well, they still have hope, probably, at that point. Oh yeah. And that's why some of those guys are in there forever, because like I didn't do it. They just keep telling themselves that. Some guys will be like the guy who did the mall shooting, he'd ask me all the time, because like I say, he's kind of crazy. Like, do you think it's right what I did? Like, no, man. And just keep walking. Like, you really shouldn't get into it with them about their cases, you know?

SPEAKER_03: 37:02

For sure.

SPEAKER_02: 37:02

But yeah, I mean, a lot of dudes just not guilty all the way through. Spend a bunch of time in there fighting it and go to prison.

SPEAKER_03: 37:11

Yeah. Was there ever any that you saw found not guilty? And you were like, oh no shit.

SPEAKER_02: 37:15

Um there was guys in there. I don't know how they got released, but they would get released. Okay. I have no idea how.

SPEAKER_04: 37:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 37:23

But it was surprising because I'm like, you were hack acting all hard in here. I really, you know, my opinion was you were you definitely did it. Did something bad, but release them to the streets. They snitched. Yeah, something.

SPEAKER_03: 37:36

Yeah.

unknown: 37:37

Yeah. For sure.

SPEAKER_02: 37:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 37:39

You just happened to get released. Okay. Yeah, 100%. 100%. Yeah. When it comes to other correctional officers, I feel there's two types. Maybe three types. There's the very by the book. This is my job. I've talked to everybody the same. I treat everybody the same. No ifs, ands, or buts. This is how I'm going to be. And then I feel there's these other correctional officers that are build more relationships with these inmates. They get to know them. Then that kind of leads them into I don't want to say getting corrupted, but I think eventually down the line it just happens very organically because the prisoners are just studying you all entire the whole entire time. Yep. I mean, do you disagree with that? Or is that do you see like because I know that there's the officer on that route as well, the one that kind of does their own thing. I feel like a lot of times those are the dudes that are assaulting people for little things and like taking that badge and that power to the next level. Right. Did you run into a lot of that?

SPEAKER_02: 38:47

Not a lot. A lot of us were buddies. Like we became buddies. So we ran close together, and I think we all did a really good job. But there was a couple guys, like this one guy I went to the academy with. And even in the academy, like we all became buddies, but there's a couple, like a couple girls, couple dudes that you could just tell they're gonna be hard asses in the jail. Okay. You know, and that's not what you want to do because you're gonna get assaulted or taken advantage of, and that's exactly what would happen. No one wanted to work with them because inmates would be like, Hey man, can I get a pencil? Next walk, hey man, can I get a pencil? And they're only allowed one pencil, but this guy's like, sure man, you know, like one pencil next day, another pencil, let's say, and then he'd do a cell search and take all of his shit. Like all the contraband.

SPEAKER_04: 39:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 39:43

So I mean, they were scared. I think some of them were scared, and he was one of them.

SPEAKER_03: 39:51

Reacting out of fear.

SPEAKER_02: 39:52

They're reacting out of fear, very power hungry because they're scared. So if I did a cell search, I'm gonna Respect your house because that's their cell. Yeah. So I'm not gonna just rip your shit off your bunk and make a mess. And you know, I'm gonna try to put everything back normally as best as I can. Okay. Um if I know you, I'll probably not cuff you up. I'll just let you go sit at sit at the other side of the table, you know, kind of keep an eye on him. Like they're good to go. Um, but like, for instance, this dude would go in a cell and just destroy it. You're making a mark on you're putting a mark on your back. Exactly. And at that jail, we didn't wear any sort of stab vest or anything. It was just a button-up t-shirt, normal uniform. This guy wore a stab vest. Like he was just, you know, he's he'd always tell the inmates, my wife makes me wear it. Like, dude, come on. Like you're just big red X on the back of your, you know, on the back of you.

SPEAKER_03: 40:53

Well, you also have to think that inmate has nothing to do, yep, but think and plot for 24 hours a day. Exactly. And if you go in there just pissing on everything and tearing up, and I'm sure some dudes probably deserve it. Like the chomo section and shit like that. But you got some OG sitting in there and you go in and just trash a shit because you're a new officer on the block. Yeah, you're screwed. You're done. Yeah, oh yeah. Because and it that's where that fine line of respect inside the walls has to be matched because you at the same time, I mean, you you gotta protect yourself, and if you're in there just trashing everybody's cell, yeah, not good. Yeah, I mean, that's gotta be scary.

SPEAKER_02: 41:39

Like, how do you not process that and these dudes are doing this? Right. Oh, yeah, yeah. Few definitely a few officers were doing it constantly. And no, like I said, no one wants to work with them because if he gets in a fight, I gotta save him too, you know. So I mean, no problem with getting into fights, but if you can avoid it for some something stupid like that, then do it. That's a completely avoidable situation, right? And uh, yeah, I mean, just power hungry, just want to take control of something they don't really have to take complete control over. Yeah. I mean, I'd walk in a house and first walk of the day, pretty much ask everyone how their day's going, you know, just simple conversation like that where it's not personal, but like what's going on, you know.

SPEAKER_03: 42:26

And that could probably change a guy's mood for the whole day because he they might I'm not speaking for the the inmates and guards, but it's gotta be a very tough mental battle in there for to be locked up.

SPEAKER_04: 42:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 42:42

And it just you being like, hey man, how's your day? Might oh, this guy might actually care, or hey, somebody actually might be thinking about me instead of like festering and letting their emotions just get out of control, then they become violent or whatever it may be. Right. So I guess there is probably a fine line of just letting somebody know, hey, I'm human just like you, but that's our boundary. It's not gonna go any farther than that until you're on to the next one.

SPEAKER_02: 43:06

Yeah, exactly. And you know, sometimes they're like, hey, I asked the officer before you for a new pair of pants because I spilt my water everywhere or whatever happened, and they never got them. So, like, can you get them? And be like, yeah, eventually, man. Just remind me if I don't, you know? Yeah. Like, just that little respect goes a long way with them. Oh, respect everything. Yeah, build a good morale, and the respect just it really helps you out. It makes your life easier as an officer, too, because they're not pounding on the doors all day, they're not yelling at you, you know, not causing problems.

SPEAKER_03: 43:41

Would you see a difference in shifts of teams like officers when they would go in? Like, would the prison where the inmates just get really rowdy with them versus other teams where they respect more?

SPEAKER_02: 43:52

Yeah, I think like we had three shifts a day, so I was on swing shift like 2 30 p.m. to 10 30. Um we like you want the house to be quiet. If it's loud in there, you're having to yell at them through their doors. So we all built good like a lot of respect for them. The shift before us, there'd be days where we go in and just absolutely, you know, they're banging on doors, yelling. So I think they just had a busier shift with handing out breakfast medical stuff. Maybe they had officer assaults or something, so you know, they don't get let out of their cells for a lot of that stuff. They're locked down. Okay. So we'd come in and it'd be pretty chaotic. But once they saw who's working their house, like a familiar officer, they'd ask questions, ask for a bunch of stuff, and we just did our best to not not to overcompensate, but yeah, I mean, help them out. Because biggest biggest thing is to treat them like humans. For sure. They are sure. 100%. But you can't give them too much because then they're gonna take advantage. So they'll take advantage of anything.

SPEAKER_03: 45:09

Very fast, yeah. Anything. Yep. What's the craziest thing that you saw in there where that just made you go like, what the hell? Man, so much.

SPEAKER_02: 45:19

Such a busy jail being that big. Oh yeah. We'd have man downs, fights, officer assaults, probably 10 to 12 a week. Officer assaults or fights? Every yeah, fights and officer assaults, probably 10-12 times a week.

SPEAKER_03: 45:35

Oh shit. Yeah. How many fights? I mean, what's your worst fight you've ever been in? Damn, you gotta think about it.

SPEAKER_02: 45:45

I mean, yeah. Seriously. I'm trying to think.

SPEAKER_03: 45:50

Uh did you ever have anybody pull a weapon on you?

SPEAKER_02: 45:54

Uh brimstick, but he ended up dropping it because I pulled my taser out. Okay. So that's the only weapon. I mean, it's considered a weapon if he's willing to use it as a weapon, right? Yeah. Uh well, craziest thing that comes to mind is we had this dude in there locked up for doing a drive-by shooting. He shot up a car when it pulled up in the driveway. And there was a little girl in the backseat who got shot and killed. So he's locked up for murder. Um well, it he was PC'd up because it was a big case. And one of the dudes in his hour out group, because they come out in like six cells at a time. So there's there's 72 inmates in a house, and there's like eight dudes coming out at once. So one of the guys in his hour out group found out the name of the girl who died, and realized it was his cousin. So the guy who shot her was upstairs because it's two tiers. There's like 18 cells on the bottom, 18 on top, so 36 total. Um, he was upstairs showering. This dude went in, grabbed him out of the shower naked, and threw him off the top tier headfirst. And totally I we thought he was dead. Like he wasn't breathing, nothing. Um his face was just destroyed. And probably three or four weeks later, dude, he comes back. Like, face all bandaged up and stuff. He lived through it. We we seriously thought, like, because it's like gosh, over the railings, probably 16 feet tall. So he f he fell 16 feet on his head on a concrete floor. Yeah, blew his face apart, right? But he came back. Um shit. We had a a fight I got into was uh was in a minimum house and I took a guy in, like obviously was coming off of drugs. Or when you come off of drugs, you get housed alone for a little bit of detox. Then once you go to Gen GenPot, which could be four days later, a week, I don't remember totally. Took him in GenPop with his bedroll, which is your mattress, sheets, blankets, like your standard issued stuff. Showed him to his cell, came back for my next walk. He's like, hey man, I don't have any blankets, no sheets, nothing. Like, dude, I just gave them to you. Yeah, where the hell they go. Walk upstairs and I see them on a bed, on a perfectly made bed with a fresh set of blankets and sheets on top folded perfectly. Like, man, I know exactly who sell this is, but I'm gonna take them and give them back to that other dude. I walk down the stairs, and this tall black dude's like, Man, why why the hell are you taking my sheets? Like, these aren't your sheets, man. They're that dude's like either way, you can't have two sets. Yeah. So I have them stacked like this, and he reached for them. So I shoved him back and he swung at me, missed, and I just shoved him onto the ground and put him in handcuffs. Like that was a pretty mild one. But I mean, officer assaults, pretty standard like that. Okay. Um I responded to a bunch of them. Of you pop a cell door, inmate just runs out, punches the officer, and goes back in his cell. Like just for no reason. Just for no reason. Like to get out of there or something, I don't know. Just build some adrenaline. Um the trays we served dinner on were like three inches thick. Pretty heavy. Why? I don't know, man. Like I feel like that's not a smart decision immediately. Exactly. Those were weapons too. Uh how heavy are they? Probably like a pound and a half. I mean I mean, heavy enough to do some damage. Yeah. All the time, guys would throw them. Like, that was their they like to do that. Just frisbee them across the house, like whatever the hell they wanted to do. I had this one of my buddies on shift got into a fight with an inmate, and he was using the tray as a shield, and the officer went to swing at him, hit the tray, and snapped his arm. Like fractured both bones in his arm. I mean all off of a food tray. All of a food tray, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 50:41

Dude, people that work in the correctional facilities, like guards and officers, are gotta be some of the wildest human beings to me. Yeah. To deal with the worst of the worst every single day for like I I've I had some guys reach out, they said they got paid pretty well, but I would say for the most part, like dog shit pay. Yep. And and you're just dealing with just scum all day, every day. I know there's some really good dudes in there that made some mistakes and they gotta do their time now, and they're not there to hurt anybody, they don't want any problems with anybody, but there's a huge majority of them that are there that are there every day just just to try to hurt somebody or ruin someone's day.

SPEAKER_02: 51:21

Yep. We had a guy who's in a quarantine pod. Okay. He I wasn't working the house, but I was on the same level. So pretty much like the house next door. The officer came out, he's like, Hey, I got this guy barricading in his cell. Well, we all go in there, and he built a hammock out of his sheet and tied it off the top bunk down to the toilet, and he was laying in it, so it like closed up over him, like tacoed over him, kinda. So we don't know if he's in there hurting himself. He's talking to us, so like that's good, he's breathing, but uh, he won't come to the door. So sergeant came, he's like, let's do a cell extraction. Um, in order to do a cell extraction, you need a mental health nurse to sign off on it. So, and this is just our policy at this jail. Um so mental health would come in, say, Hey sir, would you come to the door to have a word with me? Of course, they'd say no, you know, screw off, whatever. Uh so we got our team together, which I think the correction officer explained it well. Where you have a guy, like we had a guy up front with a shield, like a right shield. Um, second and third guy do the arms, left arm, right arm. The other next two guys do the legs, left leg, right leg. Then we had a guy in the back with a taser. We had the video record it, and then a sergeant and the mental mental health nurse had to witness it. Just to get somebody out of their cell. Just to get someone out. And that's just to like cover your ass. For sure. You know, that's all it is. So we tell him we're coming in, he gets out of his hammock, climbs up on the top bunk with a pencil, and he's like ready to fight. So we're like, we told the dude with the shield, we're like, just pin him up against the wall, yeah, and we'll see what happens. Open the door, he tries to do it, and the dude kicked the shield out of the out of the officer's hand. So I'm like third guy in, I want to say, and I just saw an opportunity to grab his arm, so I did, and I just gave him a little tug, and he just fell face flat on the concrete. From the top punk. Yeah. And you know, I was joking, like I assisted him to the floor because that's yeah, you had to put him in the back. But then he's belly flopped on the concrete. Well, he was fighting us on the floor. Yeah. The dude tased him, the officer tased him, slipped, hit me in the leg. He dry stunned him, and the guy was squirming. The officer dry stunned me in the leg, and it didn't hurt that bad because probably adrenaline, and it was really short, but it was enough to just immobilize me, and I fell on this dude. And then the officer tased him with the prongs, like actually shot the taser off. This dude screams like a little girl. Oh yeah. We get him in handcuffs, then we pick him up to carry him out of the house. And this dude's all the way in the back of the house, so he's got to walk, or we have to walk him out all the way across the house in front of all the cells. We start walking him, and we sergeant's like, hey, his butt cracks out. Like, everyone's got a butt crack, leave it. The inmates like, hey guys, I I think my dick's hanging out, guys. Like, pull my pants up, please. And Sergeant's like, yeah, his dick's hanging out, guys. Pull his pants up. So pull his pants up, and right away he starts like that taser wasn't shit, dick guys. Like, you guys are a bunch of pussies, like, let's go again, you know. So he's like sweet talking us to pull his pants up, you know, and then right back into it.

SPEAKER_03: 55:15

Soon as he got what he wanted, just went back the mother F and y all exactly. Yeah. That was the funny one. Yeah. Did you have you ever had anything thrown on you from inmates? Um I don't remember what they called it. Uh there was like a there's a term for it where they throw shit on officers, but I never got shit thrown on me.

SPEAKER_02: 55:36

I've been spit on a few times. That piss you off to no other or what? Yeah. And usually like if you get spit on, you'll just like exit the scenario. Like you'll walk, like if there's enough officers there, you get spit on, just walk away. Like sure. They'll handle it because some officers would get really pissed off, you know, and then start taking it out on the inmate, which doesn't look good. For sure. But yeah, if you get spit on, like our thing was just like if there's eight officers there, you're good to just like this guy freaking spit on me. Let's get a spit mask on and get him out, get the officer out of there and go get cleaned up and stuff. But I never got shit thrown on me. Um a lot of blood. Like we we always wore uh latex gloves. Every time you go in a house, wear gloves. Uh just because you don't know what these guys have, you know, diseases, whatever. Um sometimes there'd be fights that we'd never caught. Like we never saw them start or happening. Yeah. And the guy who got assaulted, or like the second dude in the fight, would be like broken fingers or cut. So you gotta cuff them up, take them out. So a lot of blood involved. Um I had a dude take a staple, like a paper staple, yeah, out of his legal paperwork, start slicing his stomach open, pulling his guts out. Like he wasn't there to like pulling his guts out, but he that's what he wanted to do, and just a blood bath in his cell, man. From a staple? From a staple. He was determined. He wanted to do it. That'd say, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 57:18

How deep, how big of a cut? How deep was it?

SPEAKER_02: 57:21

Uh it was a short, like it was a small cut. I don't know how deep it was. Yeah. But there was blood frickin' everywhere. So he was either at it for a long time or it was pretty deep. It was hard to tell because yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 57:37

Okay, so that dude clearly had like a mental disorder. Right. What's it like doing dealing with the mental the mentally ill in a prison? So or in a jail, sorry.

SPEAKER_02: 57:52

In our jail, we had a psych unit, and officers were assigned just to psych. Oh, really? So we would see guys like that dude every once in a while that would get filtered into Gen Pop or wherever in our houses. But we actually had a psych unit and we respond down there eventually, or uh I should say sometimes for officer assaults or inmates hanging or whatever. Okay. But they're in a the psych unit only had padded cells. Their toilet was a grate in the floor, and they wore a suicide jacket. So all they can do is like shit on the windows and stuff, and they do that all the time. Like you'd go down there, the windows are brown, and there's piss everywhere. So, and you walk through the house and they just start yelling stuff at you, like random, crazy stuff. Is it sad while seeing that? Sometimes, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think when you go into jail, like as an officer, you kinda put your blinders on, you know, and kinda you're there to do a job, and like none of that stuff, like the dude with the staple, none of it bothered me after. Yeah. It's just like on to the next thing, and you your buddies are there, like like I said, we all became friends, so you joke about stuff and everything else, so it's pretty like it didn't bother anyone really, I don't think.

SPEAKER_03: 59:17

Yeah, it's just it's wild. I mean, you're scribing the the the mental ward side of it. Almost sounds like dog cages. I mean, they're shitting in a grate in the f in the ground, like that's wild. And then upstairs the dude's got iPads. Yeah, exactly. Like jail is it's insane to me. Oh, yeah. Each different pod or house is like its own little world. It is, absolutely. And you're dealing, you got like I couldn't imagine being an officer just in the psych ward of that, and that's all you're assigned to all day, every day. Right. That's got a wear on you.

SPEAKER_02: 59:52

Yeah. And usually it was like the really good big officers that would work down there because they're getting in fights all the time and dealing with these. Dude, you can't have a normal conversation with them, you know?

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:03

They're just crazy. Completely crazy. Yeah. That is uh that's an interesting, interesting place to be. Yeah. Oh yeah. So, dude, let's talk let's shift gears a little bit. I want to hear this story, what led up to you, your house getting broken into by two dudes that were in the facility that you were that got released. Right. Okay. So let's walk me through this.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:27

So I get hired in Wyoming. So I quit Maricopa. We wanted to move from Arizona. So we moved to Idaho for like two years almost. Yeah. And then moved to Wyoming. Okay. Um I we moved to Wyoming because the law enforcement there just made a little bit more. And I couldn't get it hired on anywhere here. Okay. So we're like, let's just go over there, see what happens. Sure enough, get hired. Um I get hired as a deputy for this county. Okay. But you have to go through the jail first. So you spend like pretty much you get hired as a deputy, you get sworn in and everything. You wear the same vest and uniform, everything, you get a gun. Okay. Um, you know, all the goodies. Uh then you work in the jail until someone retires and there's a patrol spot open for you. And then you go to patrol academy.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:31

So you're technically almost a cop in a way. Yeah. You just haven't done the patrol side of the academy yet. Right.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:38

I mean, I won't take credit for being a cop. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was definitely between Maricopa County, where you're strictly a detention officer, and here you're a detention deputy. Okay. Um, there was more freedoms. Okay. Um, like just getting firearms training, and uh we knew a lot more of what the cops did. So like we had access to their call system that would tell us all the calls going on in the county and stuff like that. Um, so we were just more involved with them.

SPEAKER_03: 1:02:10

Did you like that versus the Maricopa just being a guard in the detention guard versus an actual like absolutely officer?

SPEAKER_02: 1:02:19

Yeah, because like if you'd work intake, you'd deal with all the Casper cops and the deputies and so you're potentially getting to know these guys that you're gonna be on the road with eventually. Eventually, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:02:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 1:02:30

So it just opened up that bond, you know, with some of these dudes. Um, so yeah, I I really enjoyed that more. Um, this still was only like 215 beds for the whole county. So nothing. Because the the houses I worked at Maricopa was 144 inmates just for me, like just in my house.

SPEAKER_03: 1:02:52

So what you went from handling at your own job, 140 dudes, whatever, and then you moved to Wyoming, and now the whole jail is what you used to run on your own. Exactly. So now you walk into this. I mean, did it feel good? Like, was it like a almost a relief? Like, okay, I'm not. Like, what was the mindset shift uh between Maricopa and Casper?

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:17

It was boring, man. Nothing was going on. Okay. Like I started out on night shifts, and you do your like by law, you have to walk a house every 30 minutes to check on these dudes. Okay. And then you go sleep in the tower, like in the control tower. And then timer goes off, like one person stays awake. Uh-huh. Go do your walk, come back.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:39

So you just do a 30-minute nap shifts throughout the night? Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:43

We played board games, like I was like, this is the other place we're doing reports and all sorts of stuff in our free time, not playing board games.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:52

It sounds cool, but that eventually becomes horrible. You're your own prisoner at that point. Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:58

And that's what it felt like almost like, you know, just boxed up in a dark room with a couple other officers like having fun, but it's boring, you know, like I'm not here to play games, I'm here to make a difference, really, you know. So, real quick, it was like, this is you know, I don't know, like I want to get out on the streets. Um the types of guys that were in there were like minimums and mediums. Okay. So there wasn't many, if any, maximum inmates. So they're all on drug charges or you know, car theft, stuff like that. Um, we also had woman house there. Okay. So that was a little bit different dealing with girls.

SPEAKER_03: 1:04:47

What was what's so different? I mean, obviously we could probably guess, but what was the the big difference that you learned dealing with the women versus the men inmates?

SPEAKER_02: 1:04:55

Um, they're emotional. Uh they try to take advantage of you a lot faster. Oh you know, like, hey Wolf, you know, how's it going? You're nice and tall, you know, like whatever. Can I get a you know, whatever they wanted, you know. So they like they played that card a lot. For sure. And you just treat them the same, like, no ma'am, sorry. Like, not doing that. Yeah. Um, so yeah, that was different. Um also there was 215 beds, but there's probably only 150 inmates in there. Just not fully housed, you know. Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:36

So it's pretty relaxed where you're at. Super relaxed, yep. Boring, mundane, same shit, groundhogs day every day.

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:44

Um, so I'm there to go onto the streets, you know. That was my goal. That's still my goal now. Like, um, that's what I've always wanted to do. So you're not still there, are you? I'm not, no, no. So we live in Idaho again. I just I drive trucks. I'm a truck driver. Got it. Um, but I've been going through multiple processes. Like I just went through the state police process and didn't get it. So you even looked here? Meridian or yeah. Yeah, and they make good money, but daughters in school over there and stuff, so I was gonna say they're so understaffed here.

SPEAKER_03: 1:06:22

I mean, I just had a buddy get on not too long ago, and he was telling me how they just they don't have enough bodies for anything.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:26

Yeah, and compared to over here is a lot better than over there in southeast Idaho. They make way more over here and a lot more benefits and more officers than they have over there. So I've thought about it, but I'd have to convince the wife. So uh, but yeah, Netrono County was super slow. Um I was on FTO because I was new. Yep. Even with experience, you have to go, no matter where you go, as a lateral or whatever, you have to go through FTO program because you learn the policies, learn their rules, how they run and stuff. So um on FTO, everything's going good. Um I finished phase one in the jail, phase two in the jail, you only work intake. So you're working intake, booking inmates, uh doing strip searches, pat searches, fresh off the street, stuff like that.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:22

Did you ever find anything with those guys? No, man. Really? Nothing. Officers did a pretty good job cleaning it all up. Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:28

There were stories of even like at Netrono County, there was a story of a gun getting through an officer into the jail, and they found it in his pants, baggy pants. They found the gun. No shit, that's scary. Right. So, and some some of the cops just become lazy or busy. Complacent. So complacent, yep. So, I mean, very often, I mean, a lot of times they wouldn't remove jewelry when they arrested them, so we do that. But that's about it. They they did a good job, and I think they respected us, even though we're working in the jail, like we're still a team here. Yeah, absolutely. That's good to know. Yeah. So FDO program working intake. Um at this point I'm on night shift, so it's like 5 30 p.m. to 5 30 a.m. Okay. Um, I get to work one day for briefing. There's like a 30-minute brief every shift. So you kind of learn what's what happened that day with the previous shift. Um my wife texts me and says, She may have called me. She actually called me. Um said, Hey, someone just tried our front doorknob. And three minutes later, they tried the back doorknob. And then the back we had a spotlight on the back of the house that went out. Said, Well, don't talk to me to call the cops. She called the cops, Casper Petey went over there. Um they walked around the house, knocked on the door, said, Hey ma'am, you're everything's clear, I don't see anything. My wife went out there and she saw footprints in the dirt that were not mine. Like I wear size 14 boots, like I'm not wearing size 10 running shoes, you know. So she knew she wasn't crazy, you know. It it happened. Um, I get home that night or that morning, um, walk around the house, and there's fingerprints on the light bulbs in the back. So they definitely unscrewed the light bulbs, they were loose, tightened them back on. Uh light worked fine. We had chickens at the time, and I was letting them out, and I noticed on our fence there was a a uh like a paracord rope um tied to our fence. And we had a three-foot chain-length fence around our property. Just a like pretty small yard, but big enough. Um, but yeah, just a three-foot chain-length fence. Saw this paracord tied to the fence. Um talked to my wife, I said, Hey, uh you and the girl do this, or like just curious, you know, no big deal. She said, No, I've never even seen that before. So, okay, no worries. I walked to the backyard, there's another one on the back gate. Said, what the hell? So I took it off, went inside, I said, There was a paracord on both of our fences. Like, what the hell is this about? And we agreed, like, I think our house got cased. I think someone's gonna come back. There's plenty of stuff outside they potentially could have taken. Okay. I had like my blackstone grill outside, bunch of tools, um, like all sorts of stuff worth of value that they could have taken, sold whatever they wanted to do. My kids' toys, bikes, whatever. Um I kind of brushed it off. I didn't tell anyone it happened. I asked my wife, I was like, Do you want me to tell my lieutenant? See if we can park a patrol truck here or something, like, you know, something crazy. She's like, No, like let's get cameras, let's start with cameras. So we went to Best Buy, bought a doorbell camera, um, and like three other cameras. So the whole house, we had a camera in our front window looking forward, our doorbell camera, um, one in the back window that faced the whole back backyard. Then we put one on the chicken coop facing the house itself and both side yards. Okay. So I'm like solid, you know, solid cover coverage. If anyone comes back, we'll see them, no doubt. I also bought two signs that said you're on camera. Like, it's pretty obvious you were on camera, but just to deter a little bit. Yeah, deter a little bit, whatever. So I put one up front next to the doorbell almost, and then one in the back of the house that they just yellow signs that said smile, you're on camera. I asked her, my wife, uh, like what else would make you feel better? Because I'm working night shifts. You witnessed or went through this experience already with this dude trying doors or whatever. She just stayed in the bedroom, stayed quiet, you know. Um so we decided to get a dog. We found a dog that just had a loud bark, little puppy. Okay, like nine-month-old dog. I forget what kind of dog it was, but it's like a cattle herding dog. Yeah. Um it would bark at me, like just a friendly bark, but it was a nice deep bark. So if anyone were to knock on our door or anything like that, it would bark and potentially maybe scare him off. You know, if I'm not home, then it's worth a shot, you know, and we didn't mind having a dog around. So about I want to say two weeks later.

SPEAKER_03: 1:13:05

Okay, so it's been two weeks by this point.

SPEAKER_02: 1:13:07

Yeah, a week and a half, two weeks. Okay. Um middle of November, November 17th. I get off night shift at 5:36 in the morning. Uh normally when I get off night shift, shower, go right to bed, like join my wife in bed. She's still sleeping. Yep. I get in the shower, my wife comes in there, she says, I just don't feel good today. Like something's weird. I don't know. She's seven months pregnant at the time, so maybe that's it. But she's like, I'm just gonna eat something, sit on the couch, hang out, like enjoy your sleep. I'll make sure nice and quiet for you, whatever. Well, my daughter ended up waking up too with her just by chance. Um, so I get out of the shower, she's like, hey, we're just gonna watch cartoons on the couch, have breakfast together on the couch, whatever, like go to sleep, see you later. Well, the next thing, went to sleep by myself. Um next thing I know, my daughter's tapping on my shoulder saying, Hey dad, someone's at the door, mom wants you to check. And I opened my eyes and heard three loud bangs and just wood snapping, and my wife screamed. Um well I stood up, my gun, my duty weapon is on my uh my dresser, about probably four feet away in its Glock box, like the box you buy Glock in, a little handheld one. Um my first thought was gun, like get the gun. So I took two steps, look to my right, and there's two dudes standing in my bedroom doorway. My daughter that quick. My daughter's right behind me. Like our room's probably as big as this room. She's right behind me. I these two dudes are right here. I flipped the case up, open it, and this dude shoved me so hard, I couldn't grab the gun. I flew through the closet door, snapped the doors off the wall. Get up, push him onto the bed. He breaks my bed by landing on it. I try to go back for the gun, and he shoved my head into the dog crate and sliced my face open right here on the left. Um, my daughter's screaming, she's three years old at the time. I really was only thinking three things. Protect my life, myself, protect my family's, you know, their lives as well. And where the hell is my gun? Yeah. And get this dude out of my house, you know, like those things.

SPEAKER_04: 1:15:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:15:53

So now that I know the gun's behind me, because it didn't fall or anything, I knew that it stayed on the dresser. Um, I'm like, I'm gonna just get this guy out of my house, whatever it takes, make distance between him and my gun. That's all I gotta do. So I'm pushing him out of the house. He's still trying to push me, like we're pushing on each other. Well, he goes to grab my we're in our living room, he goes to grab my leg, like to try to take me down to the ground, and I like spun out of it and landed on him on the couch and snapped our couch in half. Um at that point, my wife, like I said, seven months pregnant, went into the bedroom, grabbed my duty weapon. She was coming out of the bedroom with it. The second dude, he didn't do anything. He cornered my wife during this whole thing, but that's it. He came into the bedroom and backed back up to corner my wife. He didn't like he didn't put hands on anyone. He's not the one who kicked the door in, but he was still there. He's in your home. Yeah. And uh my wife pointed the gun at this dude's head, and this is her story at this point, kind of, but she pointed the gun at his head and pulled the trigger. Gun did not go off. Was there a round in the chamber? There's there's a round in the chamber. Gun with the duty rounds, you know, the good ones. Gun clicked, he ran. He ate he jumped over the three-foot chain link fence and ate shit on the sidewalk. This dude, we kind of shoved each other off, like shoved each other away from each other. And he walked out of our house like he was just buying a soda pop at the gas station. He gave no shits. Like super slow. Just he walked out the front door, cut a right, went around the house, down the side yard, stepped over the back fence, and walked down the alleyway. Like he did not care at all. Holy shit. My wife I take the gun from my wife, rack it, get a new round in there. Um and honestly, kind of stupid, but I didn't know where my daughter was. I knew she was in the back of the house, which is secure, you know, but she's still in the bedroom at that point. Um my wife calls 911. I got the gun. 911, you know, she says, Hey, two dudes just broke in my house, assaulted my husband. Like, we need help. Here's our address. Um she's like, Okay, any weapons involved? My wife says, Yeah, husband's got a gun. She's like, Okay, please lock the gun up, put it away safely, please. I was like, girl, I'm not putting this away. I'm sorry. And my wife's like, Yeah, he doesn't want to put it away. He's a off-duty deputy, like, he's good, you know. Like, we don't know where these guys went, and we're scared, quite frankly, you know what I mean? So um she just asked that I put it away when the first cop gets there. So that's fine. Um, first cop gets there, three more cops get there, and before you know it, man, like there's tw 20, probably 15, 20 cop cars outside of our house. The whole Casper police department showed up. The all the deputies on duty showed up, the under-sheriff showed up, the sheriff showed up, the administrative sergeant showed up, uh, detective showed up, like the whole frickin' police force was at our house.

SPEAKER_03: 1:19:31

I mean, I'm sure there's not this isn't like popping in Casper, like yeah, so like this is like a big deal, especially to uh uh you know an officer.

SPEAKER_02: 1:19:42

Right. So we had the whole team there. Um they start the investigation, uh, they're interviewing neighbors, stuff like that. No one knew this happened. And I was yelling. I sent you that video. I don't know if you watched it. But I'm yelling, man. And I'm telling him to get back during this whole thing because that's just police training. When you're in a fight, you use verbal command commands, and like that's just what I learned in the academy. Okay. Like, you know, you watch cop videos in the academy, they're always saying almost like, get back, get back, you know, get on the ground, whatever. So you did revert to your training in this right away. Okay. From dead sleep to I'm in a fight, training kicked in right there.

SPEAKER_03: 1:20:32

Those lock boxes. Yeah. I don't know how yours was. Is it was it the finger code one you push the button combination, or was it already unlocked? You just have to flip it open.

SPEAKER_02: 1:20:40

So this was just the manufacturer gunbox from Glock. Oh. So okay. The one you if you go buy a Glock at the store, they give you a nice, I mean it's pretty nice to me, black case. Okay. So that's all it was in. Because this is a um agency-issued gun. And I just got done with like qualification or something. So I was gonna clean the gun. Yeah. So I just put in the case, left it there. My daughter wasn't able to reach it or anything like that.

SPEAKER_03: 1:21:08

Um the reason I asked that was because I was I wanted to know in a real-world scenario how your motor skills were able to like, because I see those things, you know, and like oh, they have their certain combos they remember. I that was what I was curious about because I wanted to know because obviously all motor skills are maxed, adrenaline is maxed, and I wanted to see if it was actually you were able to open that. But that did it, were you did you have because you know those have two locks on them, like the little plastic lock. Yep. Were those locked, or did you was it already unlocked and you just flipped it open?

SPEAKER_02: 1:21:43

I had to unlock it, like flip them up. And I opened the case because it's kind of one motion. Yeah. And that was it. That was all I was able to do.

SPEAKER_03: 1:21:51

So when you came out of a dead sleep to hearing somebody pounding on your door, by the time you registered that someone kicked your front door in and you're getting out of bed and you're seeing a dude standing in your doorway with your daughter in your room and your wife screaming, what how are you processing this? Like, did you try to see if it was somebody you knew? And like what was your mindset coming out of a dead sleep? Because it's like worst case scenario. Yeah. And then now you have a guy in your room, you're reaching for your gun, he shoves you. Like, what it was it just instinct at this moment, or what?

SPEAKER_02: 1:22:27

Yeah, it was like instant threat. Okay. Um, and my wife, just to be clear, because she's gonna watch this, wasn't screaming, she was just saying, like, Alex, Alex, yeah, get up. Um, but yeah, it was instant threat. I didn't I heard the wood break. My wife said Alex in a frightened tone. Yep. So it was instant threat.

SPEAKER_03: 1:22:48

Um that's terrifying.

SPEAKER_02: 1:22:50

Yeah, it was. I think if I had a lockbox like you're talking about with the finger codes, yeah, I don't think I would have even gotten fingers on it. I mean, like any sort of any part of the code in.

SPEAKER_03: 1:23:03

How did these dudes know where you're is you are you in a small home, or how is it that quick to kick a door, your door in, and by the time you're even getting out of bed, they're already in your room. I don't know. Do you think that they s like they knew the layout of your home? I mean, there are there other rooms they could appeal down, or what?

SPEAKER_02: 1:23:21

Yeah, it's a pretty small house. Um, but every part of the house was almost its own room. So you walk in the front door, the kitchen's its own room to the right. Okay. There's a wall. Next room, the bathroom. You go straight, there's a bedroom on the right, and a bedroom, which was mine straight ahead. The first dude that attacked me, he blew past my wife, and he knew where he was going. I don't know how. I don't know if his thinking was quick too, and he just saw me in bed sleeping. But can you see down the hallway into your room? Just about. If you're at the front door, you could catch a glimpse of the bedroom for sure.

SPEAKER_03: 1:24:06

Okay. Um then your daughter ran straight to your room.

SPEAKER_02: 1:24:11

So they weren't in the house yet. Yeah. Uh my wife being pregnant was like, hey, go wake dad up. Uh tell him to go check the door, please, because there's these two dudes at our front door.

SPEAKER_03: 1:24:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:24:23

Um, and there's more video of it. I didn't uh attach that, but they're out there for I want to say a minute or two. And I wish stuff happened just ten seconds faster on my end. Because it would have turned out differently. Um but yeah, he he knew where he was going. I don't know if he peeked through windows if that was him before. We never still don't know if that was him or either of them that possibly cased the house two weeks before. What are the chances? What are the chances? Absolutely. Uh, but we couldn't try them in court on that on that incident, which is fair. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. But come on, I mean, what are the odds? So he could have had a little bit of intel, you know, little recon he did, but so the whole scenario breaks out, dudes kick your door in, they're in your room.

SPEAKER_03: 1:25:24

Do you feel your training on the range, just being going through the deputy program, the you know, work in the jails? Did how much of that come into play, do you think, in this situation?

SPEAKER_02: 1:25:38

Well, honestly, like 100%, because as a kid and stuff, I never got in fights. Never I was a good kid. Um, so the only fights and only training I had was through the academy. Um, I kind of enjoyed boxing. Like I had a heavy bag that I would hit, you know, do some training there, but nothing rigorous, like so everything I knew was from the academy, like jujitsu, uh boxing, striking, takedowns, whatever it is. So it all came from that. Oh shit. Yeah. It's a good thing you had that. Right? Yeah. And after the fact, and there's a lot more to this story we can get into, but um there's parts after the fact, days after, weeks after, that I was like, I can't believe I didn't freaking shoot him. Like, I was right there. You know, I pretty much touched my gun. Like, what kind of guy am I for not shooting them, you know? But at the end of the day, like I still protected my family. Absolutely. You know, absolutely. Um protected myself and the gun. That was what what was important at the time. Got these dudes out of the house, broke all of our furniture. We broke our TV stand as well.

SPEAKER_03: 1:26:58

Like So you were brawling through this house, like get these guys out of your house. Yeah. Thank God the second guy didn't get involved, huh? Right.

SPEAKER_02: 1:27:07

Absolutely. I mean, I don't even know what would happen. He was a sm quite a bit smaller dude, but still, like, I think I could have taken both of them with the amount of adrenaline I had. But when there's a wife and kid involved, there's nothing getting in the way. But I mean, I don't know. I feel like he was roped into this situation, the second dude. Okay. I think he was roped into the situation. Okay. And my uniforms and my duty belt, my vest and stuff, I had like a gear rack in the hallway next to my bedroom. I think he saw that and backed up and just stood in the living room with my wife. Cause I think he's like, Holy shit, this is not what the hell I signed up for. Uh okay. So I think the guy who attacked me was definitely the aggressor and the planner in all of this. The ringleader for it all.

SPEAKER_03: 1:28:04

So after the situation, and I'm sure it you know plays out and a week or two go by or whatever it may be, how did that affect you emotionally, physically, spiritually? Because like if you get something stolen, say your car gets stolen or broken into and somebody goes through it, like it's very personal when somebody breaks into anything and steals something or just becomes inside of your bubble and violates that personal space. Yep. How did that feel moving forward that you had two dudes kick your door off with your wife and kids at home, pregnant wife, and you sleeping? Like, right, did that mess with your mind for a while?

SPEAKER_02: 1:28:47

Yeah. I mean, I I'd say I struggled for a bit um just with like not trusting anyone anymore. For sure. Um, I didn't sleep for probably two weeks after that because I was sleeping when this happened. Yeah. And I don't know. I mean, I just couldn't sleep. I that night it happened, or I mean, the night following the event. Uh victim services bought us a hotel in Casper. Okay. So we check into the hotel, kid goes right to sleep in my arms. Me and wife are staying up. She ends up falling asleep, but dude, I just slept with my gun on my chest. Oh, for sure. I mean, I I said slept, but I did not sleep that night. Um, we got up at like five in the morning the next day and figured out what the hell we're gonna do because all of our furniture got broken, our door got blown off the frame, you know. So luckily the police department and the sheriff's office took really good care of us. Um the under-sheriff stayed, boarded up our door, like made sure the house was good for the night. Yeah. Um but yeah, I mean, it it messed with me, man. We we ran off to Montana to stay with family because we just couldn't be in Casper, because Casper, there's about 50,000 people that live there.

SPEAKER_04: 1:30:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:30:10

But there's only like there's only two Walmarts. There's only a couple grocery stores. So the chances of running into these guys' family with this tall dude, a pregnant girl, and a daughter, they're gonna probably this was our thought. Like they could put the pieces together potentially because Yeah, you're pretty tall. Yeah, six five. Yeah, you stand out. Um these guys ran when they did it, and they weren't caught. They got away. Um the one guy who didn't do anything, I don't want to use their names just just cuz, but that dude he was caught later that night. The other guy was caught the next day in his trailer house, like a double wide, and he was caught in his house with fentanyl on the table and his like six or seven-year-old daughter with him. So he caught another charge for child endangerment because of that situation. The other guy that didn't do anything, he caught another charge after the after the fact because in the interrogation room with the uh investigators, he got pissed off, picked up a chair and threw it at the two-way glass and shattered the glass. So he got property, property destruction. Um well, kind of going out of order, but all the cops at my house, the lieutenant or uh administrative sergeants there, and the investigator asked, like, do you think you knew these guys from the jail? It's like I don't know. Like, I didn't even really see them, honestly. I knew one was wearing a gray baseball hat and one was wearing a red hoodie, and that's all I really knew about him. You know, like I didn't stand out to you. Yeah, I didn't black out or nothing like that or freeze, but like I'm just fighting this dude. I don't know what he looks like really. Um so the sergeant does some digging and sees I worked with these two dudes who were housed together in the same cell about a month earlier, so middle of October. Now nothing happened between us. Like I tried I'm sure I treated them fairly, whatever, because you stay consistent when you're an officer as best as you can, because you know, treat them fairly, whatever. Um, so nothing happened between us. But I did work with them in this house.

SPEAKER_03: 1:32:49

When they found these guys and showed you a picture of them, yeah, did they did it trigger, did you remember them or no?

SPEAKER_02: 1:32:56

So later that night after the incident, the detective called me and said, We know who these guys are. I'm gonna tell you the names. Tell me if they ring a bell. And she said, This dude, the guy who attacked me, attacked me, words are hard. The guy's name who attacked me stood out to me perfectly. I knew exactly who it was. And that could just be from handing out laundry or passing meds out with a nurse or something, but I knew I knew exactly who it was.

SPEAKER_03: 1:33:31

Um does that does it hit differently in this situation? I mean, I know obviously somebody breaking into your home, kicking your door in is a very personal thing, but then now when you hear their name, are where you was like, oh shit, did it hit? Like, even did it I guess what I'm trying to ask is did it strike any more fear into you, knowing that like you were actually you personally interacted with these guys at some point. It wasn't just some strange house that they just happened to hit. Yep.

SPEAKER_02: 1:33:58

The uh the detective called me that night. She called me a bunch that night. One of the calls, she said, Hey, we found out more information. We got a tablet from this dude who they found that night, the second dude that didn't put hands on anyone. There's a conversation between both of them how they were supposed to bring a gun, and the other dude's an idiot for forgetting the gun, because the guy who attacked me picked the other dude up. They're driving, and so he picked him up. Before that, he's like, Bring the gun. He didn't say bring the gun, but he's slang for gun, whatever it was, I forget. But uh they were supposed to. So if they brought a gun, I would have been done with. If they wanted to use it, you know, I wasn't fast enough, they could have put dumped a whole mag into me, it wouldn't have mattered, you know. I was vulnerable. I was wearing only boxers when this happened, you know, like in the comfort of my own home, I thought. Um me and my wife had a conversation at some point when I started at the sheriff's office, this one in Wyoming. I said, It seems like their security there is poorly managed. How so? I got to work one day and I was driving to my wife's red Kia. And when the inmate workers would take trash out, it was in the employee parking lot. So they're walking through getting plates. Getting plates, getting making models, colors. I mean, a red Kia like stands out versus the these other dudes lifted trucks and jeeps and stuff, you know? And they gave me shit for it. The inmates did like like when I would came on shift. Like, Wolf, you're you know, 6'5 and you're driving a frickin' Kia. Like, what the hell? You know, you need to buy a Jeep like these other dudes. So these guys know what you're driving. Yep. So they know what I'm driving, and they're not necessarily in the same house as these two dudes, but word gets around a jail of 150, 160 fast. For sure. Um and small town, they all know each other for the most part, you know. Like they went to high school together, they you know, like Maricopa, a lot of these dudes don't know each other because they could be translated.

SPEAKER_03: 1:36:30

Millions of people were there.

SPEAKER_02: 1:36:31

Yeah, yeah. Um, so they're talking shit about the car I drive. I don't care, whatever, man. It's my wife's car. Like, yeah, whatever. Um then I realized they're taking inmates into the administrative offices up front in the front of the jail, and having them clean the jail or uh the offices, I should say. Well, this is where the lieutenant's at. All the administrative sergeants and corporals and officers, if they're up there. There's papers on the wall of birthdays and start dates and that's not very smart. Nope. And I caught on quick because I wasn't ever paranoid, like working in jails of this happening, really. I mean, I don't give out information. I never really told anyone I had kids or was married even. But I wouldn't even wear a ring, and I still don't. Just it was just a habit. Um, but yeah, I mean I caught on quick, like these dudes know what I drive. They have I mean, they can take a guess of where I live because Casper's Casper. There's no other towns around really. Um I lived six or seven minutes from the jail, just across the interstate, down the street, take a left. It's right there. Oh shit. You know? The detective later told me that these two dudes were out your outside your house for almost a week watching. So they knew. But what's funny is we actually bought a brand new car during this time.

SPEAKER_04: 1:38:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:38:09

But if they're watching, they knew that. You know, temp plates, brand new car. Um so yeah, I knew I dealt with them in the jail. No events happened there, but knew who they were.

SPEAKER_03: 1:38:24

Oh my god, man. Yep. So during that the two weeks at their stake in your house, besides the rope on the fence, was there any other signs? Any did you pick up on anything?

SPEAKER_02: 1:38:39

No, I'm not.

SPEAKER_03: 1:38:40

So they knew you were in the house if they were watching. They knew you they knew your schedule if they're watching for two weeks.

SPEAKER_02: 1:38:45

Yep. And this happened at it was like between 10 15 and 10 30 in the morning. So broad daylight. That's ballsy. Yep. If you like the video I sent you, there's a mailman delivering mail right across the street. Like, no one knew it happened. He didn't even know. He no one came over, like, whatever. I don't really care about that, but like it was broad daylight, so there was people around. They still did it just fine.

SPEAKER_03: 1:39:12

If there is one everything that you've learned from this whole scenario of these dudes breaking into your home while you're laying in bed, sleeping in bed, what's something that you would do different setting up this whole scenario if you knew it was gonna unplay again or to protect yourself or anybody listening? What's something that you would have completely changed about this?

SPEAKER_02: 1:39:33

Um probably sleep with the gun a little bit closer. Yeah, more prepared, ready to go. As in the gun being ready, like having it on a mount where you can just draw it and it's ready to go, maybe that would have helped. Because if I didn't have to take three steps to get to the case and unlatch it, that's let's say six seconds where I could have grabbed it off my headboard. Say done what I needed to do. But the more I thought about it after the fact, I realized, you know, maybe it's a good thing I didn't blow their brains out all over my wife and in front of my daughter, because that would have released more trauma for sure. And my daughter still struggles with sleeping now. And she asked about that whole situation still. So if it was worse, then couldn't imagine what that would have done. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:40:29

Did this make you realize the true danger that is out there? Did you have a good grasp on that beforehand, or did this set home like, oh fuck, like this is these people do exist? I mean, I know you worked in the system and you're dealing with them every single day, but now it's personal. Did you ever think anything like this would ever happen and like escalate so quick?

SPEAKER_02: 1:40:55

Yeah, I mean, I think I was surprised it happened. For sure. During and daylight too. I mean, what are the odds of that? I mean, before it even happened, I kinda I think every most guys at least are like, if someone breaks into my house, you know, I'm gonna light them up and be done, and I'll I'll know they're there eventually, like inside the house or whatever. But I had no idea. Like I always thought it would happen at night, let's say or something, but I was sleeping. I knew it was gonna be daytime, so I at least expected it. Um and yeah, I would say it definitely kind of a wake-up call, like these dudes are out there, and like these dudes didn't give a shit about breaking into a deputy's house, you know?

SPEAKER_03: 1:41:44

That is mind-blowing. Yep. What was the biggest lesson you took from these guys breaking into your home?

SPEAKER_01: 1:41:51

Um gosh.

SPEAKER_02: 1:41:56

Probably like that's not a hard question, but I just can't think of a solid answer, like be more aware, maybe.

SPEAKER_04: 1:42:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 1:42:13

Um if they're outside my house for a week. I mean, we lived on a street that was probably a mile long, and I didn't recognize a car that was out of place, you know, come on. I mean, there was like on the down the street on the corner was a old folks' home. So cars come and go from that all day. In front of our house was a apartment complex, like a pretty small apartment complex. But if they were somewhere in there watching, just sitting in their car, and I'd go on runs, I'd get home from dinner or something. I didn't see anyone. Like I just I felt too too safe in my own home, I guess. And rightfully so, you should. Yeah. And I guess, you know, now I still don't feel 110% safe in my own home. It's every little noise, I'm like, what the hell's that? I'm gonna go outside ready to ready to go, you know? Mm-hmm. And I was like that before, like just having girls at home, like you know, but it's even worse now. So you got a taste of it. Yeah, I think just the reality of what how how fast things can escalate. Right. And you never know how it's gonna happen. You know what I mean? Like they could use the back door, front door, side window, you know? Think outside the box when you're thinking about someone possibly breaking into your house because it could be nighttime, daytime, sleeping during the day or awake, or uh, you know, awake at night, whatever it is.

SPEAKER_03: 1:43:48

Like you gotta think of all these uh and also think of a an average Joe that doesn't have the training. Yep, the law enforcement officer, correction officer, military, people that are just training on a regular basis, right? Have that mindset because I mean it sounds like you didn't even hesitate when you heard your wife's voice, you heard the wood breaking from the door, you were straight to gun. Yeah. I mean, think about how many people are gonna be like, what it they're gonna start trying to process it coming out of a sleep. Right. Yeah, I don't before you know, you're not even out of bed yet if you're if you're not in that mindset.

SPEAKER_02: 1:44:21

Right. And thank God it happened that way because even nowadays, man, I like daughter could come wake me up and I'm like, let me sleep, you know, for a little bit. But like, yeah, I got right up straight for the gun.

SPEAKER_03: 1:44:34

Did these dudes once they caught the guys that broke into your home, and obviously they went they got investigated, interrogate, and all that, was there a motive behind it? Did they ever admit to anything?

SPEAKER_02: 1:44:46

Uh no. The one guy who didn't break the door in or didn't put hands on anyone, um, he pled guilty to everything. Which I was kind of like, sweet dude, thanks, because now I don't have to go to trial with you. Yeah. I don't have to see you ever again. Like, just go away. Go away. The dude who broke the door in, fought me, all that, he pled non-guilty. And their motive was behind pleading non-guilty, at least, was when the investigation investigation happened at the house, the detective uh turned their body cam on and said, Walk me through the whole uh incident in person here. Show me everything that happened, your s the steps you took, everything. Um well I said the dude in the gray baseball hat was the attacker. The guy in the red jacket didn't do anything. And I said it with confidence, whatever. Probably two hours later, I was like, Man, it was the r red jacket that was attacking me, not not the gray baseball hat. But it's already on camera. That part's done, so that's going to trial eventually. So that they his legal team caught wind of that, and they're like, he doesn't even know who's fighting, man. You're good. Plead non-guilty. We'll take him to trial and we'll give it a shot. I'm sure that's what they were thinking. Has this all played out? The trial? Yeah. Yeah. It was I mean, it was less or it was about a year ago now. Okay. So this happened in 2023, November. Um, this was trial was September 24. Um, we go to trial in Wyoming, and we meet with our attorney for the first time, and I'm like, this dude's a badass. He's a cowboy, like hard ass, you know, we're gonna be good here. Yeah. So he ex he asked me a bunch of questions, like, where did you work? This is my attorney, right? Asking me where did I work? Just basic streamlined questions, what happened that day, whatever. His attorney gets up, and he's just trying to get me and catch me in a lie. He asked me like four questions, and he absolutely sucked at asking questions. This this guy that broke into your house is uh attorney? Yeah, okay, and he's like, So you said your daughter was in the living room when this all happened. How did she end up in the bedroom? Like, sir, no. She was in the living room this morning watching cartoons. That's where I left her. Like, that's where I last saw her. I she came in there, poked me on the shoulder, said, Wake up. None of that happened. And he's like, Okay. Next question. Like, you misidentified the guy who attacked you. I was like, there was three things on my mind protection of my life, protection of my family's life, protection of my gun. I don't care what they're wearing. I didn't think, oh, nice jacket, man. Thanks for coming in, you know? I don't care what they're wearing.

SPEAKER_04: 1:48:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:48:00

So he asked me a couple questions along the same lines, just trying to flip my story around. And that was it. He just sat down. No, like, thanks for your time, man. He just sat down. So I'm like, this was easier than I thought it would be. I've never been to trial before, and my attorney's like, be prepared to be railed through this, you know, for a while. No, dude, he he did a shitty job, just really stupid questions, I in my opinion. And he sat down, I was done, left. Well, he got sentenced, found guilty on everything. Like he had that quick? Yeah. Well, like, it was like the next day. Yeah, yeah. But I'm saying, like, it wasn't just it wasn't drug out over a year. Right. Um, they also had the mailman come and testify. They had neighbors come and testify. Like, people, people's wife, wife, and family from my shift came to sit in on the trial. Okay. So, like, big support. Yeah. And, you know, the detectives and everyone did a really good job at getting the mailman and these dudes that they saw in the footage. Like, there's a lady sitting on her porch over there, and mailman. So they got them all in. He was found guilty on everything, like bodily harm, breaking and entering, uh, uh, like, I don't even property destruction, all sorts of charges, right? Everything that makes sense with that. The child endangerment for his daughter or whatever. He got sentenced to 26 or 27 years. No shit. Yep. He doesn't he was he was 42 or 44 at the time this happened. So he's 46 now. So he's got he won't get out till he's what almost 70. Yeah, late 60s at least. Yeah. So that was good enough for me. Yeah. I'm like, he's gonna that's a really long time. Yeah. I'm not even that old. I'm not even 27. So like good luck, buddy. Yeah, deserved. Yeah. And going to prison with a child endangerment charge, maybe that'll take its course one day, you know?

SPEAKER_03: 1:50:07

For sure.

SPEAKER_02: 1:50:08

So the other dude that didn't do anything caught uh he got seven years, so quite a bit less, but reality he didn't do much. Yeah. My wife struggles with him the most. It's like we each have our own person in this. The guy who attacked me is obviously my like screw that guy, you know, whatever. Well, she tried to shoot the other dude in the head, you know, and she's not a gun girly, like yeah, she didn't have much experience with guns, if any at all. And she just grabbed the gun, pulled the trigger, aimed it at his head, nothing happened.

SPEAKER_03: 1:50:45

Um I mean, in a way it's a blessing. Yeah, right. But for the kid trauma, brain matter, yeah, disaster of what the cleanup would have come. Exactly. I say that's the blessing part of it, but at the same time, she had all the right in the world to just split that dude's wig wide open and right.

SPEAKER_02: 1:51:05

And almost every cop that was there was like, Man, you could have totally legally shot these two dudes, man. Like, yeah, you know, better luck next time.

SPEAKER_03: 1:51:14

So here's a here's a personal question, I guess. If you would have got your hand on your gun before he shoved you, do you think you would have shot him, or just you as a show of force? Oh, I was ready to dump a mag, man. There's kind of a buildup to this. I mean, obviously you knew somebody was staking your home. Yep. Yep. There's the edge.

SPEAKER_02: 1:51:37

Because during this week there was like Mormon missionaries coming by knocking on the door. Okay. Every time I was home, someone would knock, I'd answer the door with my gun. Not show it, but it's on me or behind my back or something, in my hand, whatever. Uh so yeah, I was ready to use it absolutely. 100%. Oh shit. I was, I mean, I think I would have been a mess afterwards, possibly, but I was ready to light him up, man. I mean, that's the training I had.

SPEAKER_03: 1:52:08

Trying to like process the thought of going from dead asleep to seeing somebody, a man, standing in my doorway. Like that. That's like the ultimate fear. Not fear as in it terrifies me because we up at night, but as a husband and a father, the last thing that anybody ever wants to see is another man standing in that doorway. I mean, that hat that's such a and then to have no time to even process, you're just strictly instinct. Yep.

SPEAKER_02: 1:52:41

And like I said, like I don't think I was fully awake. I didn't even know what it was like. I don't know. Like, it didn't all come to me until like later that day when I was like, this is exactly what happened, you know? Like this the dude wearing the red attacked me, not the other dude. Like um, and yeah, I mean, he scratched the hell out of my back because I was just wearing boxers. He cut my face, like slamming it into the dog crate. Nothing hurt. There was so much adrenaline. Oh, yeah. Um, I mean, I was wearing loose ass boxers, dude. There's no way my dick didn't slap him at some point during this whole event, you know? Like, made my wife joke about that, dude.

SPEAKER_04: 1:53:28

No way it slipped at some point in that.

SPEAKER_03: 1:53:30

You're not even caring at that. You're just fighting fighting for your life at that point.

SPEAKER_02: 1:53:35

Yeah. The uh there was news articles about this. Oh, yeah. Like quite a bit. One of them was uh headline was off-duty deputy gets assaulted in bed. Like, what the hell kind of picture are you trying to paint here, guys? That's not what freaking happened. You're like, none of none of that happened. Yeah. And then one was like pistol packing mama, you know, because she grabbed the gun. Okay. But having this uh situation happen in the news uh agencies writing stories, it really showed me that they lie so very much, dude. Like everything. None of the stories or their news stories are what happened. No shit. Like some of them are like 20% truthful, and the other are just like, where the hell did you guys get this from? It's just uh right up to make it even more exciting, and you know. They're just trying to get clicks.

SPEAKER_03: 1:54:38

Yeah. That's it. I mean, everybody sees where the media is at the at this point in society, it's just all shit. But that's so crazy that they would take a story like yours, yep, the officer's house got broken into while he was in bed, and then spin it in so many different directions. Right. It's almost the media is like how I look at like YouTube thumbnails. Yeah. It's like exaggerated. Everything's so exaggerated, and and you watch the video and you're like, what the fuck? Like that. It was like two seconds of the whole hour video I just watched, and that's that's how I would describe media news is just go scroll a YouTube homepage and just watch all of just yeah, the most obnoxious shit, and then you're like, Oh yeah, this is the media. Exactly. So, as far as your wife, I mean, how did she take all of this? I mean, as a woman, she's pregnant. Yep, they don't forget and move on from things clearly as easy as men do. Right. So, what was the process afterward with that? I mean, she caught you guys come home the next day, you got your door boarded up, your hinges are broken off, I mean, your whole seals busted in from your door, and your house is a mess. Where where is she at mentally with this?

SPEAKER_02: 1:55:51

Um, I think she was scared and frustrated. Okay. Um, I mean, like her favorite couch got broke, like her bed frame snapped in half, you know. And we quickly made the decision. We're like, we're moving out of here. So we right away we went to Montana, stay with family. Yep. Our house was just left the way it was. Um, we just got our basic belongings or necessities, I should say. Yeah. Went up there, stayed with family. It was right before Thanksgiving, had Thanksgiving. Um, and we're like, I think we just need to move here. So the sheriff's office was continue or kept paying me. They told me to take a couple weeks, we'll keep paying you, don't even worry about it. So it gave me time to think about what we're gonna do. So we start planning our move up there. Um, we go back to Casper for the first time since this happened, and it's like, man, we love this place. Let's try to make this work. So I went to talk to the under-sherf, and he's like, Well, I'll give you a little bit more time. And I have a bunch of leads on houses through officers that are landlords, like stuff like that. Okay. So that day we start looking at these houses, and these guys are like, you don't have to pay a deposit, like, don't worry about rent till the first comes. Like, you guys can just move in, figure out the rest later. Don't have to apply, nothing like that. So we're like, sweet, we can move super easy down the street, whatever. Different part of town, obviously, because yeah, we're not going back over there. Um, and man, these houses were just shitholes. Like stained carpet, bugs everywhere, uh, just stuff like that. Yeah, it was so frustrating. Like we thought we were definitely into that. Yeah, we thought we were like getting somewhere, but it just was like, no way I'm moving into this place when we had a we had a perfectly good house that it's pretty nice, but yeah, yeah, no thanks. So we get all of our stuff, put it in storage, so we're moved out of that house. Um landlord there was cool. He's like, Yeah, guys, sorry that happened. Yeah, like you're good. Um go back to Montana. Um, and we're like, Yeah, we can't go back. So I quit the sheriff's office. Um that was hard because that's what I wanted to do. For sure. We really liked living there and everything, but I had to take care of the family and they weren't doing too well. And honestly, I wasn't either. So it's just what I had to do. I had to go back down to Casper and turn all my stuff in because I still had my gun and my uniforms and stuff. So yeah, we moved on. Uh the wife still struggles with it. Very little. It's a very personal thing, so I could understand. Yeah. Like, I told her, I messaged you about doing this, and she's like, good for you. I hope it releases. I've never told this whole story before. No shit. Yeah, so thank you. I thought, great opportunity here. I don't think my parents even know the whole story. Like, really, no one knows the whole story here. Yeah. Um, so I told her that. She's like, Great, good for you, but like I don't want to talk about it. Like, you can ask me little questions, but like keep it on the download because I don't want to talk about it too much. So, and she's been super supportive and everything, but I respect her for sure, you know. Especially not in front of my daughter, who for weeks after that said would ask me, like, Dad, do you have your gun on you? Am I safe? Like, she had to sleep in my arms, you know, like everything flipped. She was in her own bed, own room, stuff like that, and now she's sleeping in my arm, asking me if I have a gun next to me. Doors locked. Uh stuff like that. She still asked me that. It's almost been two years.

SPEAKER_03: 2:00:06

That's a pretty traumatic thing for a child to watch is Yep. Dude's fighting her dad in the bedroom for almost for your gun. I'm sure if you had an opportunity to get to her, he probably would have grabbed it. And so that she watches this whole entire process go down, and then her mom points a gun at a dude's head and pulls a trigger and doesn't fire. I mean, right. How old was your daughter at this point? Three. Three years old. Yeah, I mean, hopefully she I mean that's young, but still a pretty traumatic incident for him to be able to even know what's going on.

SPEAKER_02: 2:00:39

Right. I thought we kind of were like, maybe she's too young to remember it. And she kind of got better after a few months, maybe. Yeah. So I'm like, maybe she's young enough to move on. And we were staying with family, so everything's fun, and we tried to make everything fun and you know, exciting for her so she can move on. But no man, like it's just the other day I asked her, she was going to sleep. I said, Hey, you mind if I laid next to you on the floor? Like I'm just gonna hang out with you for a minute. She said, Absolutely, Dad. Like, am I safe? Said, Yep. She said, Okay, with you here, I can go right to sleep now. You know? Yeah. And a month ago or so, she brought up the whole situation. She said, Are is what happened in Wyoming gonna happen again? Are guys gonna come into my house tonight? She said, No way, it's not gonna happen again. It's hard to promise her that because it freaking happened, man. You know, like seriously. Yeah, you lived it.

SPEAKER_03: 2:01:41

Yeah, like I mean, this the odds of it happening again are probably very slim to none, but it happened. You can't say it already happened. Never happened to us.

SPEAKER_02: 2:01:50

Right. Because you're that number. Yeah. And me and my wife joke about it now, like that's how we got over it, like just joking about it. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I mean, for her, it's still very real and it affects her a lot. Yeah. So okay, so what's next for you now? Where's what's life been like afterward? Um, good man. We were back in Idaho, obviously. Yep. Um daughter's in kindergarten now. Uh just driving trucks now. That's been my what type of truck? Uh I drive a flatbed. Okay. Um, hauling steel. So I'm over the road, like regional, so Utah, Montana, Idaho, sometimes Washington. Oh nice. So it's been hard because I'm I sleep all week out on the road. But it provides a lot for us. So that's why I decided like it's a good time to do it. We're in a good town and a good house and stuff like that. Yeah. Um I was gonna be a state trooper. I applied, went through the whole process, um, like physical, uh, oral board, the background investigation, the polygraph, and I passed everything, and they sent me an email that was like, hey, someone will be in touch to schedule your medical exam and your psych and your getting your fingerprints taken. So at that point, I'm like, hell yeah, I got it. Like that stuff's easy, good health, you know, like fingerprints, I'm good. And even the captain at the district I was applying at was like uh start dates the 6th, like of July. Just be ready. You're not hired yet, but like you're this far, you pass the oral board and everything, your background, you say it's good. The rest is on you, you know. Well, they just never got back to me about anything. I reached out a couple times, no response. So I think I don't know if they got busy. The academy start date came and went. I kept trying to reach out. Um you gonna try it again? I'm gonna try it again. They hire about once a year, I think. So next year I'll try again. That's what I really want to do, is be a state trooper.

SPEAKER_03: 2:03:56

Bro, get your ass out here. I don't think they can find enough bodies. Yeah. Tell my wife that, man. Yeah. Eastern Idaho is so beautiful. That's actually like on the list of places I want to start bringing her and start look exploring.

SPEAKER_02: 2:04:07

Oh, yeah. I mean, we're about an hour from West Yellowstone. Uh we have the Tetons right there. I mean, it's great. Like, we love to go hiking and stuff. Yep. Uh but yeah, I'm gonna start applying. I've just kind of been in limbo right now because the hiring process is almost like a part-time job on the side. Oh, okay. Uh, especially for the state, because I applied there when we lived here last time um before Wyoming. And at the time they had all their applicants come down to Meridian and do the process here. Yeah. So now it's they try to put it together in your district you're applying for. So my district is Idaho Falls. Yep. Um so that's where the physical happened, the oral board happened there. The polygraph polygraph was in Pocatello. So I'm driving around. Like it's a lot. It's a lot for the state. For sure. Because you gotta travel some. I mean, it's a lot more time consuming, I should say. Absolutely. Um if local PDs hiring out there, I'll test, see what happens. Yeah, I don't think you should give up on that. Yeah. By any means. I mean, it's definitely what I want to do. Even after what happened, I don't really doesn't affect me anymore. I'm good to go, you know. So I think I wanted to do it my whole life pretty much. So I'm sure you can go back to Casper and get back, get in there and get back on the road eventually. They uh they called me a few times afterwards, months, even up to like eight months after. Like, hey, are you guys wanting to move back? Because really you guys can uh if you apply, like you should be good to go, man.

SPEAKER_03: 2:05:54

I that's rare to hear. Like every cop that I deal with that you know, I mean their their biggest biggest bitch moan and complaint is the department's never caring about them. So that's that's awesome to hear that Casper was actually pursuing you and what they did and took care of your family and the home, and even though the other officers probably had some slumlord places they were trying to wrench you out. It's still the offer. Yeah, but yeah, that's that's one of the biggest things that I'm like, holy shit, in the cop community is like if you just not I'm not even saying turn your back, but like want to better yourself because it's huge in the military. As soon as you want to better anything in the military, you're automatically like pushed out. So yeah, that's that's that's a cool thing to hear that Casper Yeah, it was good pursued you for you know along those lines to get you back in there.

SPEAKER_02: 2:06:40

It made it hard harder leaving. Oh, I'm sure. Like, this place was actually good. Maricopa when I quit was like, give me your badge, good luck, man. Yeah, and I was like, all right. Have a nice life. Yeah. And yeah, Casper or in Toronto County was really good. Uh like I said, they paid me to just be at home for you know quite a bit of time. And I kept telling them, like, you don't have to pay me. Like, after the two weeks passed, I was like, don't pay me anymore, I'm good. But they're like, in order to keep you employed, I have to keep paying you. So uh, but yeah, the even the Casper officers that I didn't know, a lot of them, I mean most of them, they were all there very caring. They pretty much babysat my daughter the whole time because me and my wife are with the detectives going through this, the through that. And my daughter's out there, you know, rolling around in the dirt with these cops and playing with them, and it felt really good.

SPEAKER_03: 2:07:36

I like to hear that because it's it's a lot I deal with a lot of the negative side of the law enforcement, which seems to be huge. Yeah, the majority of it. And so it's it's a breath of fresh air for especially me to hear that a department was you know went above and beyond for one of their guys. And you weren't even like a sworn-in cop.

SPEAKER_02: 2:07:53

You were just yeah, and I was brand new pretty much two or three months in.

SPEAKER_03: 2:07:57

So that's that's cool.

SPEAKER_02: 2:07:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 2:08:00

Well, cool, dude. I appreciate the time, man. This was hell of a story. Hopefully, everything goes good for you, and you can get on a department. And I hope so. And I'll I'm gonna be checking in on you and rooting for you. So yeah, I wanna I want updates if it happens. And then yeah, um, and when it does happen, I want to have you back on the show because I want to hear about all the uh the adventures of the academy and how it is and where you're at. Sounds good, dude. You had a you had an angel, you God was looking over for you that day to protect you and your family. And and um, yeah, I'm rooting for you, bro. Hopefully you can get on. And dude, what a couldn't even imagine the just because we had like I said earlier, we had vehicles that got broken into, and it took it, I was so like so personal for such a long time. I could not even imagine someone being in my home, right? Especially me fighting them, and so to be able to just push that and overcome that and move on. So good luck to you and your family and the little one, and hopefully, you know, just a memory one day for her, and yep, I hope get to move on and start this whole new chapter that I'm sure you're looking forward to when the academy opens back up. But yeah, yes, sir. Appreciate your time, dude. I appreciate the story. I've never heard of that. So thanks, dude. Thank you, appreciate you. That was great, bro. Holy shit, I could not imagine some.