Episode 58 - Thomas Carchidi: The Good, Bad & Corrupt

Most people only meet police on their worst day, then assume they understand the job. We don’t and that gap is where judgement, stigma and burnout grow.

I’m joined by Tom for a blunt, grounded conversation about what law enforcement really demands. We talk about why people join, why “get a steady job” isn’t enough and why a service-connected medical retirement doesn’t make anyone less of a real cop. Tom shares how a career can be packed with incidents that stack up quietly, plus what it’s like to carry both pride and grief for the work.

We also get into first responder mental health, PTSD, anxiety and the trap many officers face when seeking help. Speak up and risk being labelled unfit for duty or stay silent and let it fester. We unpack why truly external counselling matters, how camaraderie has changed and how body-worn cameras can protect you one moment and be used against you the next.

Along the way we touch on trust and integrity inside policing, corruption, cop-involved domestics and the fine line between necessary force and avoidable harm. We finish with what keeps us steady, what we’re grateful for, and Tom’s memoir, The Life in Law Enforcement: The Good, the Bad, The Corrupt.

Connect with Tom here

Purchase Tom's book here

If this conversation hits home, subscribe, share it with someone who needs a clearer view of policing, and leave a review so more everyday warriors can find these stories. What part of the job do you think the public most misunderstands?

Transcript

Tough Job And Hard Motives

SPEAKER_01 0:00

And it's a tough job. People don't realize it's a tough job. Some people don't realize. Some people think they're going to get into law enforcement. And for whatever reason they have, different people go into law enforcement for different reasons. Whether it be a steady, stable job, a decent, a great pension benefits, and a decent salary, whether it's stability, job stability, whether it's which today's day and age is really not much job stability in law enforcement, the way the public views law enforcement. But we're like public enemy number one these days. But I think everybody has a different reason for getting into law enforcement. And if you're going to get into it today, I think you really need to get into it for the right reasons.

Trudie Marie 0:42

This is the Everyday Warriors Podcast, where courageous guests share the truth of what they've survived, what they've learned, and how they have rebuilt their lives. I'm your host, Trudy Marie. Listen to these stories of resilience, purpose, and hope so you can remember you're not alone. Please note that the following podcast may contain discussions or topics that could be triggering or distressing for some listeners. I aim to provide informative and supportive content, but understand that certain things may evoke strong emotions or memories. If you find yourself feeling overwhelmed or in need of support while listening, I encourage you to pause the podcast and take a break. Remember that it is okay to prioritise your well-being and seek assistance from trained professionals. There is no shame in this. In fact, it is the first brief step to healing. If you require immediate support, please consider reaching out to Lifeline on 13, 11, 14 or a crisis intervention service in your area. Thank you for listening and please take care of yourself as you engage with the content of this podcast. Before we dive into today's episode, if you'd like to support the show and go a little deeper, you can subscribe to Everyday Warrior Moments. These are short personal episodes from me released between guest conversations. A few minutes of reflection, perspective, and encouragement. You can also visit my new website and apply to be a guest and share your own story. Or you can explore the Everyday Warrior Journal if you're ready to write your story in your own words. All the links you'll find in the show notes.

Meet Tom And Police Reality

Trudie Marie 2:43

Welcome to another episode of the Everyday Warriors Podcast, and I'm really excited for today's conversation because it is with a gentleman from New York who goes by the name of Thomas or Tom. Can I call you Tom?

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Please call me Tom, yes, ma'am.

Trudie Marie 2:59

He and I share a same career. So welcome to the show, Tom.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

Thank you so much for having me, and it's my pleasure, my honor to be on.

Trudie Marie 3:07

I'm so excited to hear your story because obviously we share a career, and that's where I want to start your story, which is back in July of 2022. That's like 24 years ago now.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Yeah, yeah. Time really. I hate it, I hate to say it. When I turned 50, I kind of fell down. Like, remember that movie Michael Douglas falling down? I don't know if you saw it. When I was a kid, I was probably like 18, 19 when that came out. And talks about a guy in his midlife who's going through crisis, and and you never think you're gonna be that age. You never think it's gonna happen. And all of a sudden you blink, you wake up one day, and you're 50 years old, and you're like, what the F just happened? What where did my life go? 24 years ago, long time.

Trudie Marie 3:51

Yeah, I can totally relate. I turned 50 last year, and all these people that I remember as children and now adults, and people I thought were old at 50, I'm like, I'm now that old age, and I'm not old. So I totally relate.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

Yeah, I mean, July 2002, that's pretty much when I started working in Baltimore City Police Department. I was in my mid-20s, I think I was about 25, 26 years old. And the ladies and gentlemen, the guys and girls of my class ranged anywhere from 21 to I think the oldest, because Maryland didn't have an age requirement that at that time. So a lot of military people would go in. I think we had a guy that was like 50 in my class, but mostly everybody was like right in that area 20, 23, 25, 26. And it's just a different life. You have you're full of piss and vinegar, so to speak, and your ideals, the way you see things and you approach life are different, and you think you're gonna go and make this huge difference, and you're ready to to go clean up the streets and bust down, crack down on crime, and then you learn pretty quickly what it's really all about.

Trudie Marie 5:00

I totally get that because I was a mature recruit, so I was at that upper end of my squad. I think the youngest person in my squad was 19, and you uh there was, I think, two or three people older than me in their mid-40s, but I was like 40 and going, yep, gung-ho, but I could see all the young guys really more in enthusiastic than I was. And I was like, oh, this is gonna be an interesting experience.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

Well, like we spoke about talking about experiences, not to get into specifics because that's your personal scenario, but you you retired on a service connected with disability retirement injury, whatever you want to call it, like me. And we were talking, and I truly believe I don't care how much time you have in law enforcement, in jobs like law enforcement and the military, especially, you know, definitely law enforcement. I can only speak for law enforcement because I was never in the military, but they're kind of similar in a lot of lot of lot of ways. You can have, we were talking about this, a year on the job, you can have 50 years on the job. You're always gonna have your own unique experiences. And especially it's one thing if you have two, three, four, ten, twenty years on the job, and you don't retire in good standing, you get forced off, you resign, or you quit, or you get fired for whatever reason. That's one thing, right? It's another thing totally, it's completely different if you retire in good standing, whether that's after 20 years, whether that's after 40 years, or whether that's after six months with a service connected injury. Is someone in the military or someone in the police any less worthy of having that of that title of retired law enforcement officer? If God forbid, on your second week on the job, you go to a burglary, and God forbid you catch fire or you get shot. My friend, one of my friends I went to the academy with, he got his foot blown off. His foot was shot off in a car stop. He retired after four years. Is he any less of a quote unquote cop, a hero, than someone that had 40 years on? No, it's quite the opposite. He's the man, he's the man, you know. So everybody's experiences are different. You could do 50 years in podunk somewhere and never do anything. So everybody's experience is different, I think, in law enforcement.

Trudie Marie 7:30

I 100% agree on that because no two people will ever walk the same path, especially in military or law enforcement. And like you said, your friend who had his foot blown off, his world is now never ever going to be the same. And yet, somebody who has been in the job for 20, 30, 40 years, if you've been lucky, and I use lucky in inverted commas, to never have experienced that in your whole career, you still have your own story, but you cannot compare apples to oranges when you're dealing with this. And at the end of the day, we are not robots, we are human beings having a human being experience, and we are going to have emotions, we are going to have things come up for us. I look at my own experience and say, okay, well, I never got to do X, Y, and Z. But then over here, I did a whole bunch of stuff that no human being should ever have to encounter. So I I totally get what you're saying there.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

So the way I look at it, I don't really care where you worked, I don't really care how much time you had on the job. That doesn't really none of that matters to me. What matters to me are your experiences, right? And really, if you left in good terms, if you retired in good standing, if you did your job admirably, like if someone comes to you, so forget about how long I was in, whether I was in for a year or whether I was in for 15 years, or if I come to you and I say, Listen, we're just talking, you and I. We're out, we're having a beer. I don't drink, but we're having dinner, whatever the case may be. And I tell you all the things I've seen in my career. I've seen a guy I worked with get stabbed in the eye. I've seen buildings explode at 9-11. I was part of that volunteering, helping out down there. I watched, I was around when another partner got shot in the leg. I've watched countless people commit suicide. I've seen so many, you know, I don't know what number of DOAs, people that have dead on arrival for people that don't know. They died naturally, so to speak. Homicides, five, 10, 15, 20 of those. If someone comes and tells you something like that, right, does it even matter how long he was working or where he worked?

unknown 9:52

It doesn't, it doesn't matter.

What Makes A Real Retirement

SPEAKER_01 9:55

They've seen too much as it is, and it's a tough job. People don't realize it's a tough job. Some people don't realize. Some people think they're gonna get into law enforcement, and for whatever reason they have, different people go into law enforcement for different reasons, whether it be a steady, stable job, a decent, a great pension benefits, and a decent salary, whether it's stability, job stability, whether it's which today's day and age is really not much job stability in law enforcement, the way the public views law enforcement, but we're like public enemy number one these days. But uh I think everybody has a different reason for getting into law enforcement. And if you're gonna get into it today, I think you really need to get into it for the right reasons. Not just because it's a job, not because you have nothing else going on. You're gonna be dealing with some serious, serious BS, you know, dangers, psychological and emotional turmoil. It can change you, and it most likely will change you. So I I put a cautionary tale out there for people. They need to question these youngsters, young young people coming up, they need to question themselves as to why they're doing it. And if they still want to do it, great. But just don't do it because you need a job. That's all I'm saying.

Trudie Marie 11:13

Yeah, I have to agree with you on that one. And I've had people throughout my time of being in the police force and even now, and they say, Oh, my child wants to get in. And the first thing I say is go live your life first, at least until you're 25. Go have some life experience between 18 and 25. Live your life, do the good stuff, do the bad stuff, do whatever you like before you even consider it. Because then if you come back at 25 and you say, Yeah, that's something I still want to do, then go for it. I entered as a mature age because I had a dream as a child, which I was told it's not a job for women in policing, and that's a whole other story. But I entered at 40 going, This is my time now, and I really want to do this. I've watched friends and family graduate, it's now my time. I had no idea what I was getting myself in for, to be honest. And I never thought that that career would destroy me mentally, physically, emotionally. And do I regret any moment of it? No, I don't. I loved my career. But like you said, it is not for the faint of heart. You are going to see the worst of mankind, and you have to prepare yourself for that. The other thing I always say to people too, especially now if I see young people on the job, is go and get a support person, whether that be a counselor, a psychologist, somebody who you can turn to that has your back the entire time you're in the job, because that will stop you from literally bottling everything up until you hit a breaking point.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Well, that's super interesting, what you just said. Two things. I had a friend, a female friend. Actually, three things. I'm trying to compartmentalize everything you just said. I don't care if you're a guy or a girl, I don't care what you identify as, it doesn't matter to me. I don't give a damn. The job is the job. I don't have a problem with women doing the job per se. I don't have a job with men doing the job. I have a problem with people that cannot do the job. So if you're a hundred-pound man and you can't do the job, don't pretend you can do the job. If you're a hundred-pound woman and you want to walk around starting shit, escalating the job, going to calls, escalating shit, and then I gotta, and then I gotta fix it for you, don't come on my scene, don't do it, don't take the job. Go go do something else. So it's not about man or woman or some of the best people I ever worked with were females, but win or lose, they would get in it, and they were in it with me. I can't tolerate men or women that are like, okay, Tom, we're gonna go back in the car, you handle this. No, that's that's not what this job's about, man. So that's the first thing. The second thing I had a friend that came out, she had about the same amount of time as me, and she was involved in a police shooting. Uh, I think it was a, if I remember correctly, I think it was a it started out as a theft, maybe even a burglary of a store, and it progressed into uh a death by cop, suicide by cop. The guy wanted to die, and he had a knife, and she kept telling him to put it down, put it down, put it down. He wouldn't put it down, and he charged her and she shot him. And she probably had about five, six years on at the time, and after that, she couldn't do it no more. That was it. She she retired, she had PTSD and some other stuff going on. And I remember her telling me at headquarters, I saw her when she was retiring. She's like, Tom, I just keep having the same dream of him goggling, like spitting out blood. And I was like, I'm so sorry, that's terrible. So, yeah, you're gonna experience things that you don't necessarily want to, and you're gonna experience things that are gonna change you and things that you don't want to experience. So keep that in mind when you go to headquarters, you go to recruitment, it doesn't matter if you work in Baltimore City, it doesn't matter if you work in New York City, it doesn't matter if you work in Alaska somewhere where the population is 20 people, something's gonna happen sooner or later. And even in places like that, up in Alaska, you have next to no backup, you're on your own. So when things pop off, they really pop off, and you have no one to depend on. So it's it's tough. The job is tough, I think.

Mental Health Help Without Losing Badge

Trudie Marie 15:40

It is, and honestly, we've been talking about the stuff that can often happen psychologically or emotionally, but it can then happen physically. And we briefly mentioned that you had a colleague have his foot shot off, but even with your own experience of going back to 9-11, now I don't know anybody who is involved in first responding at 9-11 that would come out of that without some kind of post-traumatic stress. But you yourself end up having physical repercussions from that that you've had to battle.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

So not only have I had physical repercussions, and we'll exchange information, we'll talk off the air one day, because something that I think is super important, but one of the most important things you spoke about earlier, about five minutes ago, was mental health and support groups. I don't know how it is in your country, but the problem here is they send you to the wolves, and as soon as you have a problem and you need help, oh no, no, no, no, no, you're not fit for duty. Give me your badge and your ID, give me your gun. You're on death duty, we're gonna retire you or we're gonna fire you. It's the same thing over and over and over, and people don't want to talk, they don't want to talk to these shrinks, they don't want to talk to these doctors because number one, they have their own issues, if not more than us, and then they judge you. So it's like you're screwed if you do and you're screwed if you don't, because if you're honest about your emotions, then they look at you sideways, they look at you crooked. If you're not honest, then you're harboring all this, and it just grows and just festers in you, and that's when it gets really bad for people, right? So, yes, I I think that there should absolutely be more mental health guidance, more mental health awareness, advocates, and I think it should really the stigma it's people should start looking at this differently because this isn't 1920 anymore. We're not giving people the botomies with an ice pick, we're not giving people electric shock. People really need to understand that certain things that you and I experience, that we experience collectively or individually, can hurt you physically and mentally. And I think that's super important what you brought up earlier.

Trudie Marie 18:05

Yeah, and I think one of the issues is especially in that area, and I when I say to people go and get some external help, I mean completely external to the agency. Never go to an agency psychologist or you want to have your own external one that's very private and looks after you, not because of the agency. But I think looking at the agency, and I don't know what this is like for America, but I know what it's like for UA police, is that it's become so corporate and like a business, and they run policing like a business, that it becomes about the bottom line, it becomes about KPIs, and the person who's working now is just a number. You're literally your badge number, you're replaceable. But it used to be back in the day, and you listen to the old timers where you could, and I know you don't drink anymore, I don't drink a lot, but where people would sit around after a shift and have a beer and debrief, or they would get together and go and talk over drinks, or whatever the case may be. No one does that anymore because you're not allowed to do this on site, you're not allowed to do that on site, people don't want to be there any longer than they have to be, and so all the camaraderie of the old days where you would debrief and have these conversations that would allow you to get it out and not take it home and fester it, they're gone. And so you're now individuals harboring all these feelings and emotions that you've got not a clue how to deal with.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

Um yes, 100%. I I even remember and things were really changing when I got on, but I guess I was still a little bit of the old school a little bit. I remember when I got on, and I'm not saying this is right, wrong, good, bad, indifferent, but I remember going to midnight shift. We started at 11 o'clock, 11 p.m. We had a 10 39 roll call, and I remember parking my car in the parking lot, and the other shift was ending. They would get out a little earlier, whatever the case may be. And I remember literally 10 guys standing around, whether they were just getting off, and I have to be honest, sometimes they might have even been going on, going on shift, and they were sitting around in the parking lot drinking beers, bottles of beer. And I remember one day, I don't know if they were testing me or not. I was a new guy. I found out later they weren't testing me, like they were nice guys. It was a different, it was a different world back then. They a couple of the guys came up to me as I was walking up the role call and they were like, they I don't think they realized I was going in. Yo, Tommy, you want to drink? You want to drink, you want to have a drink with us? And I was like, no, bro, I'm going to work. And I think they looked at me kind of strange, like I was the straight, straight lace, straight arrow guy. And I didn't mean to offend them. They were trying to, how do you say, I guess kind of feel me out, but they were trying to bring me into their little group, which was nice. But I'm not gonna drink before I go to work. I mean, I'm I'm carrying a gun. If God forbid I get into a shooting, I'm finished, you know. So it was a different world back then. It was definitely a different. So I understand it's a double-edged sword. I understand how things in policing, I understand how the government slash police did a lot of things to themselves, and a lot of things needed changing. But I also see now how it's gone way too far to the left. The pendulum has to swing back. Otherwise, there's no such thing as policing anymore. Like, I don't know what cops do anymore today. They don't proactively police, they're afraid to put their hands on anybody if they have. To make an arrest and go hands-on. They're afraid to tell somebody to keep quiet or shut up because they're going to get an internal affairs complaint. That's lunacy to me. It's nuts compared to the things I saw. That's insane. I don't know how you even police anymore. So it's a strange world. It's a very strange world now.

Body Cams And The Corporate Shift

Trudie Marie 22:23

It is. My husband is still a police officer, and so I still see what goes on inside the agency from his perspective. Obviously, what he can come home and share with me and what he's experienced. And I know even for us, like when body-worn cameras became part of our regular uniform, and we thought that was going to help us because we then had concrete evidence of what went down. But that that evidence can be turned against you. You can be reprimanded for how you behaved. And then these days, everybody has a camera and wants to record. They don't want to get hands-on involved, they would rather sit and watch a crime be committed. But then they're the first to only show a portion of what happened and say that was the whole story. So we have these things that are meant to benefit us, but it's not always the case.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

Well, like you just said again, it's a double-edged sword. If someone, God forbid, you have someone in the car and they say, Oh, that that police officer molested me. No, I didn't. It's right on T. But if you do something just a little bit out of the ordinary, if you tell someone shut the F up because they're going nuts, they got you. They got ya. Courtesy complaint, they got you. So it works both ways. It really does.

Trudie Marie 23:46

Yeah, and that hurts us as first responders overall.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

Yeah. I agree.

9/11 Volunteering And Health Consequences

Trudie Marie 23:53

But going back to like you said, like with 9-11, and you obviously had some repercussions come out of that, like with medical issues and stuff that ultimately ended your career. What was that like having to deal with that? Because I never had I only had one physical incident during my career that I had medical injuries. But to be medically retired or retire because of your injuries?

SPEAKER_01 24:18

So I was a volunteer. I was in between law enforcement jobs. I was briefly working for the government, and then I was heading into the Baltimore City Police Academy when 9-11 happened. So I volunteered down at 9-11. I was only there two days. There were people down there for two weeks, a month, six months. Those are the real tough guys. Those are the guys that really, it's the men and women that really, really soar a lot. But I give them all the respect and all the credit in the world. But what I will tell you is even being down there, even if you were down there for five minutes, I was down there on, I think September 11th was, I believe, a Tuesday. And I think I was down there on that Thursday, September 13th and the 14th, Friday. Even if you were down there for five minutes during that period, you saw something that 99.9999% of people aren't gonna see. It looked like a bomb hit. It just literally looked like a nuclear explosion hit that area. It was crazy. You don't realize it at first. You're a kid, you're young, things don't affect you as you get older. I have terrible asthma. Is it related to that? Who knows, right? Probably. I'm covered by the 9-11 Commission, so probably it's related to that. I had stage four cancer. The 9-11 Health Commission, World Health Commission, they cover that. So that could be traced back to that too. But who really knows where this stuff comes from? I had her needed discs from the police department, car accident. I had all kinds of stuff. I'm banged up. That's the physical stuff. That's not the you know, the stuff that you're talking you were talking about earlier, or we were talking about. That's the physical stuff. Then as you get older, some people come all of a sudden they start feeling anxiety, they start feeling depression, they start feeling PTSD, claustrophobia. All these feelings start to creep up. And you're like, where is this coming from? How is this happening? And you look back at your life and you say, dude, you've been through a ton. You've been through a ton. Like your body changes sometimes, your mind changes, your chemicals that regulate your nervous system, your brain, uh you just regular day-to-day living, it changes. So I definitely, definitely think it's not a matter of time on the job, it's just a matter of if. If you see too much of the wrong thing, I think you can definitely be affected negatively. Even if it's just one time, even just one time, something significant, it can change you.

Trudie Marie 26:56

Yeah, and that's the thing with law enforcement is that we literally run into danger when everybody else runs away. And you never can be prepared for what the job is going to bring you because you never know. That was one of the beauties I loved of the job because I had lived in somewhat a very regimental life. I knew what to expect every day I went to work. But going into work as a law enforcement officer is you don't know what the day is going to bring. You sign on at the beginning of your shift and you're like, okay, well, throw it at me, because you don't know what to expect. And it's not until you actually deal with these things and you think about it, whether it's at the end of the shift or a couple of days later, or weeks, or months later, I'm still reliving stuff now. From like things will pop up, and I'll be like, Oh, I remember a job I did like that. So things happen randomly, and it's how you process that information and what you do with that information. Right. And it can destroy some people, or it can just make you live your life differently. I think again, it has the positives and the negatives.

SPEAKER_01 28:09

Yeah, I agree. And something else that I think plays into all of it, your overall health and fitness. You so we were speaking, and I said I got in my 20s. I was in my 20s, right? You got on in your 40s, you were 40. Two different two different times of my life. I was totally different when I was 25 than I was when I was 40, and definitely than I am when I'm 50 now. So you go on at different periods, your mentality is different. Your view on the job, on life can be different. I'm sure if you got on at 25, you wouldn't feel the same way you felt as if you got on at 40, and for me, vice versa. So it also depends on your life experiences. I think that plays in a lot to how you're going to be as a law enforcement officer, you know, just thinking about that.

Trudie Marie 29:08

I totally agree because some of the people I worked with, or most of the people I worked with, were much younger than me, unless they were a supervisor. Supervisors were quite often older than me, but I had a lot of supervisors that were younger than me as well. And I brought life experience to the job. And I know that some of the teams I worked with, I had this life experience from pre-policing that they called on, but then I was constantly calling on them for their policing experience because they were going to help me out. So yeah, I wasn't the same as that 19-year-old in my recruit squad that was getting on the job, like gung-ho, or that had the whole life ahead of him. And after that time, I don't know where he is now and what he's doing, but even in his mid-20s, he would be looking at life really differently.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

I agree. I absolutely agree. Yeah, I think law enforcement, police work is just a microcosm, another microcosm of life. And I think just like any other job, you bring your experiences in with you, emotional experiences, things you remember. And that's what makes you who you are. That's what makes you the type of person, the type of police officer you are.

Trudie Marie 30:26

100%. And I even think that what we are exposed to in the industry also depends on our previous life experience. Because if you've somebody who decides to join law enforcement at whatever age group, but have grown up in, say, a family of domestic violence or some kind of abuse or whatever they've been exposed to is going to treat the job and treat the people they deal with completely differently to somebody who has grown up in a nuclear family with say church every Sunday and good schools, and then they decide to go into law enforcement. That's two different worlds colliding right there. And you send two people on the job to go to an incident, they're going to both look at it completely differently purely because of their life experiences.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

Yeah, I listen, I couldn't agree with you more. I think life can definitely make or break you. It can make you stronger, it can make you weaker, and it can make you both at the same time. So I think, like you said earlier, somebody, say somebody that experienced domestic violence or was a victim of domestic violence growing up and then becomes a cop. They could go either way, right? They could be the best cop in the world because they understand it. They could be very calm, or they could be trigger happy, they could have PTSD, and they could the first second that there's any kind of furtive motion, aggression, they're right on it, they're going hands-on, they're going to their gun, their baton. So there's no there's no real measure, there's no rhyme or reason. It's everybody's different, you know? And you just gotta try to for me, I pray, and I just I always try to do the right thing when hope it turns out okay.

Trudie Marie 32:15

And often that's all we can do is hope for the best, regardless of the circumstances.

Corruption And Cop-Involved Domestics

Trudie Marie 32:21

And I know I've had like many experiences, but is there any in particular for you that you look back and go, wow, whether that's good or bad, but just really resonated with you that you saw things differently after that experience?

SPEAKER_01 32:39

In life or on the job specifically?

Trudie Marie 32:41

On the job specifically.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

I mean, there's so many things that are just floating through my mind, but so many good things. Like I remember saving people and guys and girls I worked with, men and women, helping people and saving people, but I also remember crazy things. I remember, and that kind of made me a little jaded not to trust people so much, including law enforcement. One of the females I worked with, which was crazy. I was one edward three, or one ed with four, I believe, and she was one ed with three. We were right next to each other, our posts, our beat, and we backed each other up a lot, and we became friends. We didn't hang out after work, but we hung out during work, we went to eat together and stuff, and she always had a ton of money, this girl. And I was never concerned with what people did. I was always concerned with myself. Sometimes the police department was like gossip central, it was like high school, and I hated that shit. I used to shut that down quick. I don't I'm a grown-ass man, I don't entertain that nonsense, but other people would, and they'd always be like, How does so and so? I'm not gonna mention her name, but how does she have so much money? Like, how is she getting this and that? And sometimes during her break at lunch or whatever, if it was slow, she'd go to the mall, she'd come out with a thousand dollar bag. And then years later, I believe it was the FBI, I believe it was Customs and Border Patrol, and I believe it was Montgomery County Police Internal Affairs. They came in the roll call and they locked her up. And to make a long story short, her fiance, future husband, was a drug dealer, and she was using the police databases to get all the information on the guys that were not paying her husband, and this was going on for years, and she finally got caught. And I just said to myself, I said, like, am I that stupid? Is this really going on? I only worked with her for a short period of time because she went to a different unit, right? But I said to myself, shouldn't I have known this? Shouldn't something have shouldn't I have been triggered? And I always felt a little something, but I never wanted to get into her business because I said, you know what, maybe her parents are rich, maybe her boyfriend's rich. And her boyfriend was rich, but it was because he was this drug dealer. You know, it was things like that. And it happened a little too more than I liked. Things like that kind of made me weary when I was like, you know what, I think I'm just gonna stick to myself, unless if I really, really get to know somebody in the police department, then maybe I'll form that camaraderie and tightness with them. But other than that, I think I'm just gonna do my job, say to myself.

Trudie Marie 35:33

Yeah, and I it's something that we don't often talk about because anyone you work with, and regardless of whether it's law enforcement or corporate, you spend so much of your time with these people. And some people you will get to know really well, other people you won't. Some people like like, for example, yeah, this particular girl, she had money, but you don't know why she had money. Like you said, it could have been from family, it could have been that her husband, say was a hedge fund, I don't know, whatever, that had money, and so you never question that. But then when that does infiltrate your work experience, like I remember a colleague I worked with who had a partner that ended up causing domestic violence within the relationship, and both of them were police officers, and you know, that's what we're meant to do in a job is attend these types of incidents and put protect the people that it's involving, and now you've got two police officers going at it, well, one of them more than the other, and it just changes how you view things. It's like we honestly don't know, and anybody is capable of it, whether you're wearing a uniform or not.

SPEAKER_01 36:48

You're 100% correct. The uniform means nothing. We're all human and we're all fallible, and we all make mistakes, and we all do the wrong thing. We all choose to do the wrong thing at times, you know, if that's what we choose to do. So the badge means nothing to me. What means something to me is the person you are. I don't care what you do for a living. I literally don't care what you do. As long as you're trustworthy, you're to me, you're a God-fearing, honest person. That's what matters. I don't if someone tells me oh, I'm a cop, okay. I don't give what does that mean to me? I don't I don't give a shit. I don't give a damn. That doesn't, it means nothing to me. You could be a cop and you could be working for the mob. You could be a mafia cop. Like that doesn't mean anything. So the way I live my life, I really have to get to know someone, to trust them, to really, to really feel safe and warm around them with my emotions, with with my life. And that's how I was in the police department. I'd really have to, how do you say, vet the person, really get to know them before I really opened up to them, before I really trusted them on a job. And to follow up on what you were saying, let's be honest. How many times have you heard of cops getting cops calling the cops on other cops? Meaning domestics. Cops are always involved in domestics, right? You start drinking alcohol, you and your girlfriend start going off on each other, next thing you know, the cops are there. This goes on all the time, and it's such an embarrassment. I hated showing up to a job. I hated showing up to a job where it's two cops, whatever it is, a male and a male, male and a female, it doesn't matter. I work with these people and they're like, yo, you're gonna cut me slack, right? You're gonna cut me, you're gonna give me a break? I'm like, dude, the whole thing's recorded, it's it's all on 911. The sergeant knows, the captain knows. What do you mean? You got a black eye, she's got a missing tooth. How am I gonna give you a break, brother? How? That was the worst. I hated going to cop-involved domestics because I want to help them, but how am I gonna help you when you just knock your girlfriend out? Or your girlfriend, or your girlfriend is taking over the head with a flying pen. How am I gonna help you?

Trudie Marie 39:04

I think the important thing to note in this is like when they say law enforcement officers work with one percent of the population, because as a general rule, the majority of the population are good human beings. It's just the 1% that choose to do the wrong. And I think it's the same for law enforcement. The majority of people who put the uniform on do it for the right reasons, do it because they want positive change in the community. It's only 1% of cops that do the dodgy, and it makes it difficult for the rest of us because let's be real, the crime that happens in the world is because of 1% of the population that makes it bad for everybody else, and it's the same for law enforcement. Majority of us are good people and are doing it for the right reasons, but that 1% just break the image for everybody else out there.

SPEAKER_01 39:57

But what I will say is I agree with you, but there's an afterthought, there's a nuance to that. I believe most people get into most people get into careers such as law enforcement, politics for a good reason. Most people start off that way. And I think the bureaucracy, the red tape, the politics, the crime, the stress, I think it all breaks you a lot of times and it changes you. And I think that 1% becomes way more because you're subjected to certain things and you think this is okay. I can take it a little further, I can go one step further as a cop, I could take three more steps, and I'm not gonna get in trouble. And then the next thing you know, you're doing horrendous and heinous things, and you're like, how did I get to this point? So I do agree, most people go in with the best of intentions. I think after two, five, ten, twenty, thirty years, I don't think you're the same person. And if you are, God bless. What us Italians, uh, us Italian New Yorkers say, to salute if you are, God bless.

Trudie Marie 41:15

Yeah, I never really thought of it from that perspective, but now you say that you're right, because you're not the same person once you're exposed to certain things and certain behaviors. You have a choice. You can either try it on and see how you go, or you can stay well away, but then that causes issues in the job as

Outlets That Keep You Sane

Trudie Marie 41:32

well. So, how did you cope during that sort of stuff? What did you do to keep yourself sane for a better conversation? I know you work with dogs, but is that something you did in policing or just after?

SPEAKER_01 41:45

No, not in policing. I think if you don't have an outlet in life, so I'm a lifelong martial artist, one of my loves. I love baseball sports, I love fishing. I have my things, but like I collect things. I'm kind of a geek like that. I collect the vintage toys, sports cards, watches. I have things that law school, forget it. That's like all-encompassing. So you have to have things that movies, cooking, eating. I'm a fat Italian. We love to eat. If you don't have things that you enjoy that take your mind off the same old, same old, or the negative stuff, you're not gonna have a good life. I don't think you're gonna be able to function. And to get back on what we were talking about before, it's a fine line.

Use Of Force Then And Now

SPEAKER_01 42:30

And I'll tell you, I'll tell you what I meant by you start to change. When you're in the academy, first thing you see all these movies, and in all these movies, you or the television shows, you always see a little scene where the guy gets out of the academy or he gets out of field training. We own the city about Baltimore City Police Department, The Wire, Baltimore City Police Department, two of the best shows ever on HBO. There's a scene in We Own the City where well you think it's cliche, you think it's rah-rah, tough guy talk, but it's really true. The field training officer calls the recruit from out of the academy. Hey, how you doing? This is your first day. I'm your field training officer. Sit here next to me. Forget about all that bullshit you learned in the academy. Listen to what I'm telling you. And you think that's bullshit, that's not real, but it really is, especially back in the day with the salty veterans. So, two examples. When I worked, I'm not gonna, I'm not because I worked in different agencies, I'm not gonna be specific. Because one thing I never do is I don't, unless you do good, I don't mention your name. I don't rat, I don't talk bad about people. I tell a general story, but I'm not ratting nobody out, and I'm not ratting the agency out. But in one of the agencies I worked at, the general rule on the street was and the perps knew it, the suspects knew it, the criminals, and the cops all knew it. If you wanted to follow through on it, that was your business. But most of the tough guy cops did. The rule was we're the cops, you're the bad guys. We respect each other. You do your thing, we do ours. If we go to lock you up, if we're affecting an arrest on you, if you fucked up, you broke the law. If you go with no problem, we call the bus, the paddy wagon comes, you go, no problem. There's listen, no one's getting hurt, there is no problem. You're going right to book in nice and easy, we're good. If you resist, or if you run, if you make me chase you a block or more, when we get you, you're getting it. That was the unwritten rule. Now I saw that go on. I saw it. I'm not making this up. That's how we police back in the day. I'm not saying it's right. I'm not saying I did it. I'm not saying I'm okay with it. I'm saying this is what went on. Okay. Is that right? I'm gonna leave that up for you, for the audience, for people to decide. I'm not saying what's right, what's wrong. I will tell you, a place like Baltimore is the Wild West. Places like New York City in the 70s and 80s, wild west. Chicago, parts of parts of Detroit. Places like this, if you don't, if they don't hear you and they don't respect you, they're gonna kill you, they're gonna spit on you. So there had to be some kind of give or take. You understand what I'm getting at? Not saying, again, not saying it's right or wrong, but that's how we police. Do you think you could ever get away with that today? Hell no. Never, never. The cop would be indicted, he'd lose his job, and he'd be in jail. So everything is different. Everything is different, and it's just such such an interesting conversation. The way policing has evolved and then backtracked, and hopefully the pendulum is swinging back a little bit, because now it's like it's at the point where you don't want to beat people, but you're afraid to even go hands-on at this point. And that's when cops are gonna get hurt and killed, and that I can't tolerate because what happens is the media and the news, if you if a cop is on tape, on camera, on video, putting his hands on somebody, he's a bad guy. But if he doesn't, let's think about it the flip side that people don't realize if the suspect, the perpetrator, is being aggressive, if he's resisting, if he's running, how hard is it for him to turn around with a gun and shoot you? Or like one of my friends was working plain clothes in Baltimore City, he was chasing a drug dealer, a gang member. The guy turned around, took out a box cutter, and literally almost sliced his nose off his face. He had almost 100 stitches, I think. How hard is that to happen? So people don't understand. Sometimes you gotta be aggressive and go hands-on as a cop. And I'm afraid that those days are all gone at this point.

Trudie Marie 47:20

I get everything you have said, and even to the thing where you spoke about that unwritten rule. I've worked in Indigenous communities, and one of the things we used to say to indigenous perpetrators was we can do this good ways or we can do this bad ways. And I would really like to do it good ways. And sometimes you just needed to talk their language and make them realize that you don't want to go hands-on, but if you're forced to go that way, you will. And nine times out of ten, the person would not resist, they would just do it because they knew they were in trouble, they knew they got caught, and let's just go and deal with this the way it needs to be dealt with. And that 1% of times that you had to go bad ways, then they kind of bought the bought it on themselves because you've given them that grounding to do it. But like you said, they can turn on you. Obviously, Australia is not, we have really strict firearm laws and you can't carry like you do in the States, so we don't have that issue. But there is still glass that can be broken, there are still knives that people can carry. There are so many other weapons that you know, even if they're into like you said, you're in martial arts. If you get somebody who knows martial arts, I mean, as a cop, you could be on the floor in two seconds if they overpower you. So you really you really are in a tough situation. You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't sometimes, of how you control the situation. And very early on, and I think this is something I pride myself on, is that the biggest tool we have in our repertoire is quite often our voice and the way we communicate. Because if you can communicate with somebody and remain calm, clear, tell them what's going on, explain the situation, use your voice, then nine times out of ten, you will get full compliance, and you will have it's whether it's a victim or a perp or a colleague. Communication is the key, it's one of my highest values. Yet, so often we just resort to everything else other than using our voice.

SPEAKER_01 49:29

Well, over here in the States, at least in the Northeast, we call that assertive verbal judo. So if you're listening let's be honest. If you come up, if you're a perk and you see me, and I'm six foot two, and I'm yoked, I'm jacked, I'm in shape, my uniform looks good. You hear, yo, this guy's a martial artist, and I present myself, my my verbiage, I'm verbally strong. Understanding, but I'm strong. You're not gonna want to test me. Nine out of ten people are gonna back down, they're gonna, they're gonna let it go. Then you got that one out of ten that you're gonna have a problem with, and that's what I find interesting about what you said. Two different things. People from outside the states, they don't realize it's not the people that can legally carry firearms that give us problems, it's the ones that are illegally carrying the firearms. They're the ones shooting everybody up, they're the ones killing. I've never in my life had a problem with a law-abiding, gun-coding, legally gun-packing citizen. Never. The ones I always got, they had 10 arrests on their record, they had an illegal firearm, and they're shooting at us from across the street. That it was the same story all the time. But one thing I did want to ask you, I find very interesting. Obviously, I'm educated, so I understand what indigenous people means, but to you, everybody's different. Specific policing is a general term, right? But the areas are different, the people are different. When you said you policed indigenous people areas, what were the people like there? Like what was their culture? What was

Policing Indigenous Communities With Respect

SPEAKER_01 51:13

that about?

Trudie Marie 51:13

So I'm talking Australian Indigenous, so some people would refer to them as aboriginal, and I'm talking about working in communities where the primary population are indigenous people. Okay, Caucasian white people are the minority, and these communities still exist within Australia, and they are culturally still very connected to land, very connected to community, and have their own way of dealing with things. And when you try to introduce white man, I say that in verticometers law, they don't necessarily always comply. And it's sometimes the hardest way to deal with these people because English often isn't their first language, and they have their own tribal ways of dealing with things, and you have to try and come across them. And sometimes it works, sometimes it does it. You get out-of-towners who come in off the lands where they live into community for it, could be just seeing family, it could be for a funeral, it could be for whatever the scenario is, and they're in a whole different environment to what they're used to. They're exposed then to drugs and alcohol, which may not be the norm in their communities, and all of a sudden you have a whole different one of the things I will describe of how I've dealt with this is if in our indigenous communities we have a thing called law. And normally males age 16 and over get invited, they go out onto land with elders of the community and they become men, so to speak. And they come back into town, some of these teenage boys or young adult males, and they now think that they're better because they've been through law and they're now classed as men, and they can cause so much trouble in the community because they're just they're on an ego trip, and sometimes you have to put them back in their place. And I remember in particular this group of four young males who were doing stuff in around the town, and the town I was working in at the time, I was actually born in. I was delivered by an Indigenous midwife, so I had a connection to the land and to the town that most other white coppers wouldn't. And I spoke to these boys this particular night, they were causing problems, and I happened to say to them, Where were you born? And none of them were born anywhere near the town. And I said to them, Well, this is my town, this is my land. You need to start behaving because I'll kick you out and send you back home. And they were coming at me, going, Oh, you're a white chick and doing all the things. And I had an elder who happened to be there and said, She talks truth, boy. Behave. And you know what? From that moment on, I never had an issue with those four boys. For the rest of the time they were in town, they were like angels because they knew not to mess with somebody who had a connection to land, because I wasn't just the white cop who'd come in to make money to police the town, I actually had a connection to land, and that made such a huge difference. And it's not something I often talk about with my policing experience and stuff, but when you can relate to the people you're dealing with, and like you said, it's those unwritten rules or the ways you deal with culture that if you can understand it better and you have this sense of respect or rapport between the individuals, it makes life so much better. Because when you become just that person that just wants to go at each other because I wear the uniform and I'm in control and you're just the bad person, you just lose all forms of respect. And that's where people start disrespecting the uniform.

SPEAKER_01 55:08

Yeah, yeah. That's interesting. It's not to that extent, but we have places like that even in America, right? You have people that live. I gotta be very careful the way I say things with this now because now we're heading towards politics, like gender, you know, races. People, let's just put it this way people in West Virginia up in the mountains, people upstate New York, people in the bayou in Louisiana, I'm thinking in Florida, in certain places of Florida, I'm having a memory lapse right now, but they live different, they live off the grid, so to speak. And I get it. They want to live life a little different in a different way, but they're still living in your country, they gotta obey the laws, they're still living in America. So uh it could be difficult at times.

Trudie Marie 55:57

Yeah, and it's a tough one to manage and a tough one to police, but it's about respect at the end of the day. And if you can respect any person's background and treat them as a human being first and foremost, you arrest people and you deal with people and you deal with the bad people, but if you can still treat them as a human being through the whole process and just be a nice person, I don't I didn't like locking people up. I didn't like what people had done, but they didn't deserve to be beaten, kicked down, whatever while I was dealing with them. That's for a judge and jury to determine. That's not me as a human being to judge somebody else. I don't know the circumstances behind whatever's happened, and I think as law enforcement, we often forget that. It's I've seen coppers, like you said, you've you they put the uniform on and they almost become a different human being. And the ego kicks in, the macho kicks in, and they're the types of people that you don't want to deal with. But the average copper who just puts on the uniform and says, right, I have a job to do and I'm gonna do this the best of my ability, they're the coppers that you want more of.

SPEAKER_01 57:09

Yeah, it's so crazy to think this topic we're talking about. I remember being younger and going down and visiting my aunts and uncles, my grandparents in Florida. And I remember going down to the Everglades because I loved fishing. And it's just it's a different world there, right? You're literally you're in the woods, near the water. It's a different world. I remember just looking at these people and being like, this is so amazing down here, but they're so different. Just so different, like we say, off the grid, right? So there's that word, there's that umbrella term, police. But policing it means the same thing throughout the world, pretty much, throughout the nation, the United States, but there's different kinds of policing. A Baltimore City cop is not gonna police the same way as a police officer or a cop in the Everglades. It's not the people are different. A New York cop, in New York, they're faster, people talk fast. You hear how I talk, we're aggressive. They're not gonna be the same as someone in South Carolina, Georgia. They're much slower, not slower mentally, I mean slower pace of living. It's a different life. It's just interesting. You were a police over there, I was a police over here. You have police everywhere, but they all have their own unique experience.

A Memoir Of Good Bad Corrupt

Trudie Marie 58:33

Yeah, we're a special bunch of people. And you've actually written a book about your experiencing, like your experience in policing.

SPEAKER_01 58:43

Yes, ma'am. It's called The Life in Law Enforcement, it's a police memoir, The Good, the Bad, The Corrupt. And it's exactly what it is. It's it's the good, the bad, and the corrupt. I put it all out there, and I think it's jaw-dropping, eye-opening for people, for the 99.9% of people that don't work in a sworn law enforcement capacity. It's a true read, it's a gritty read, it's a real read. It's not like this amazing written prose, it's not like uh I joke, like some famous book, like the Scarlet Letter. It's nothing like that. It's a journal, a memoir, like I'm talking to you right now. And I think that's what makes it so realistic, is that I'm telling you right from my perspective, my view, my stories.

Trudie Marie 59:29

I think that's the beauty of a book written like that in a memoir form, is that you do tell your own stories from your own perspective. And the life of policing and law enforcement is not pretty. It's not a pretty prose that is like you read crime fiction and stuff, and it's all oh, it's so convoluted comparative to somebody who has really lived that experience and is telling stories from that lived experience.

SPEAKER_01 59:58

Listen, I I know we're we're close to the end, but I'll just leave it at this. There's a yin and a yang. I've had so many amazing experiences, times, friends at work, saving people. I could go on for days. And then I'll never forget this one story my cousin told me. When I was a bookie cop, he's like, Tom, listen, if you want to do this, this is great, but understand what you're getting into. And he's like, my big brother, my cousin Danny, he told me the story, and it's a little morbid, but I'm gonna share it. There was a wedding, and the limousine, the bride's groom, the whole wedding party. There were several children in the party, and after the wedding, they were going to do their thing, they were in the limousine, and a drunk driver struck them, and a little girl was decapitated and killed. And that was right after a wedding. A wedding, and my cousin never forgets that. My cousin tells me that story, and he told me his partner that responded with him was never the same after that. Excuse my language, fucked up. He was holding the child while the mother was saying, Save my baby with a decapitated child. And how do you tell the mother I can't save your baby? Your baby she's decapitated. You're not gonna be normal. Most people are not gonna be normal after that. So it's not all what you see on television. It's good and bad, and it's a hard life, and it it can get to you.

Trudie Marie 1:01:45

Yeah, and I just in some ways want to dedicate this episode to any law enforcement officer who stands on the front line and does the hard job because it's a job that most people, if they knew the facts, if they knew what we experienced on a day-to-day basis, they would one never go into it themselves, and two, they would treat law enforcement officers completely differently.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:17

Yeah, I couldn't see it any better. I'm not even gonna follow up with that. That was perfect.

Trudie Marie 1:02:22

Thank you so much for being on the show today and sharing some of your experiences and what life is like as a New York copper or a Baltimore copper, because and I say copper because that's our Australian term that we use here. It is it's such a privilege and such an honor to share experiences with law enforcement, like you said, somebody on the other side of the world. Policing is a broad umbrella and we all do it differently. We all do it in our own way, but at the same time, we have so many similarities that carry us through when we wear the uniform.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:00

Yeah, Trudy, I really appreciate you having me on. Thank you so much, ma'am. It was a great conversation.

Gratitude And How To Connect

Trudie Marie 1:03:06

No worries at all. And I always like to finish the conversation by asking, what is the one thing you were most grateful for today?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:14

The one thing in life, one just one thing? Uh honestly speaking, I I don't think I I don't think I can ask for anything else other than my mom and dad, some good family and friends. That little group, mom, dad, a few family, like my cousin Lisa and a couple others, and my uh my dogs and a few friends. That's it.

Trudie Marie 1:03:37

Thank you for tuning in to the Everyday Warriors podcast. If you have an idea for a future episode or a story you'd like to share yourself, then please reach out and message me, as I am always up for real, raw, and authentic conversations with other Everyday Warriors. Also, be sure to subscribe so that you can download all the latest episodes as they are published. And spread the word to your family and friends and colleagues so they can listen in too. If you're sharing on social media, please be sure to tag me so that I can personally acknowledge you. I am always open to comment about how these episodes have resonated with you, the listener. And remember, lead with love as you live this one wild and precious life.