Hector Bravo UNHINGED
Official Hector Bravo Podcast
Hector Bravo UNHINGED
Kevin and Mike - From Correctional Officers to Entrepreneurs: Navigating Challenges and Embracing Change
The episode dives deep into the experiences of correctional officers Kevin and Mike as they discuss the pressures faced in their profession and how they transitioned into running Vigilant Home Consultants. Topics include mental health, the importance of situational awareness, and strategies for effective communication both in and out of work.
• The pressures of being a correctional officer in today's climate
• Introduction to Vigilant Home Consultants and their mission
• Understanding criminal behavior and how to avoid becoming a target
• The significance of situational awareness in personal safety
• The role of training in effective conflict resolution
• Mental health challenges and coping strategies for officers
• The importance of family involvement and communication plans
• The future of security consulting and community outreach
Hector Bravo unhinged chaos is now in session welcome back to our channels, warriors. We are still growing. Different setup today, but same podcast. Today I have two special guests. I have Kevin and Mike sitting before me. What's up, fellas? How you doing, how you doing. Thank, thank you for having us. Thanks, for sure, man. Thank you for being here. They are in the correctional officer world. You guys asked where we have it. Man, I may or may not have worked with this guy in a past life. Yes, you have. Yeah, I met you, definitely. So how was your guys here? We did, how was that Really quick.
Speaker 1:It's not that long of a flight 45 minutes an hour.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was about an hour. Fly got delayed a couple hours because of the fog. You guys get random fog, cool, cool, but it's all right, so are you guys co-workers?
Speaker 1:We are.
Speaker 2:Yes, we are. We used to work together for a couple years. Yeah, work in the same building together Really, yeah, work together.
Speaker 1:So what year did you join the department? I joined in 2015. 2015, you 2016. 2016,. Man Young, but oh, you're still young. Both of you guys are young, man 38. Nah, it's a pleasure having you guys here and we chopped it up a little bit beforehand and I like you guys, where your head is at, you know your aspirations, your dreams. Man, because it's I mean, I'm sure you guys can agree people get bogged down in that career field, true, yeah, right, yeah, absolutely, man.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of pressure on us where do you think that pressure derives? From oh boy, this uh defund the police was the biggest. Now I could feel it in the department. Um, just everywhere you go, it's almost I want to tell people that I work for the state and nothing else. I don't want to tell them exactly what I do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when I started the academy, one of the instructors was saying hey, don't tell anybody where you work at Right, he's like. He's like. You know what? I tell people where I work and this is one of the instructors from the academy he goes. I thought about that for a second.
Speaker 1:I goes. I thought about that for a second. I said sounds uh, you know, a part of that is to um security reasons. Right, we don't want people to know where we work or can come back. Speaking of security, you guys own your own business. Now we do correct business partners and what's the name of your guys business? It's consulting so consulting.
Speaker 3:So it's Vigilant Home Consultants.
Speaker 1:Vigilant Home, because you guys have a website. Yeah, what's the website? Vigilanthomeconsultantscom, sweet man. And what do you guys do? What services do you guys offer?
Speaker 3:We have the unique ability all of us that we've worked with a population that have been convicted, and they did crimes that everybody in the neighborhood doesn't want to be a part of. So how do you have the threat landscape of your home? How do you protect yourself and your family inside of the home? And when you're out in public, what should you be looking for and who are the people that the criminals are going after? Do you look like you're paying attention or not? And that's the biggest thing If your head is in the game, then you know what you're doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the reason I started, the reason why I thought this would be a good idea, is I have 10 years of private security background and I feel like I have a lot to offer as far as giving back to the people, to the community, and teaching, you know, these private businesses owners, these residential owners, right whatever how to protect your home, right? I've heard too many cases of people having their homes broken into. My personal relatives had their homes broken into, my house was broken into before and it all comes down to that. You know, coming from a correctional background, that correctional awareness right plays a lot into it as well. Right, so you know, teaching people, hey, don't leave your car and, like, be aware of your surroundings.
Speaker 2:You know, maybe you should invest a little bit about insecurity and that's kind of where we come in and we want to teach people and explain to them, hey, how important it is to know your surroundings and consult them and protecting their home, their family and businesses.
Speaker 1:So how to be a hard target versus a soft target? Exactly Getting into the mindset of a criminal, looking at easy entry points. And you mentioned, you did, private security beforehand. I have, yeah, before I joined the department.
Speaker 3:And you were prior army. I was MP, that's right MP man Pogue.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you showed me, dude, you showed me your tattoo of your. I got a blank fire Blank adapter bro, just show the camera that man.
Speaker 3:That'd be kind of cool. I have a blank fire adapter.
Speaker 1:I like it, I like it. So you guys are no strangers.
Speaker 2:Criminals, criminality, danger, violence and all of the above man no man we worked around hardest criminals in the whole state has to offer, Definitely. So you hear from their perspective as well. Right, You're around these criminals all day long. You hear what they say, what they did, what they did. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:How they ended up in prison Right, we hear it all day long. And how they ended up in prison right we hear it all day long. And how they choose their victims. They choose their victims, right. I mean, would you agree they're probably not going to go after the biggest, baddest dude right? Attempt to victimize them?
Speaker 3:and the underlining is the manipulation. Who's going to get taken advantage of easy. It's almost like you can pick them out of a crowd. Anybody who's on their phone, not paying attention. They have their, their valuables just right in their hand, just ready for somebody to take it and run off yeah, speaking about the phone.
Speaker 1:Right, I don't want to jump around too much, but it almost seems like we are brought up the phone. I know we were talking about generational, uh, generational, you know ages. Right, it almost seems like these younger kids now are on their cell phone all day long.
Speaker 2:Right, oblivious, oblivious and you try to talk to these youngsters. Yeah, explain to them. Hey, pay attention in your opinion?
Speaker 1:do you think people are oblivious because they haven't um experienced or been victim of?
Speaker 3:violence. I think it's also um mass media, that the legacy media they haven't been telling what was happening. In the 80s we used to know about the cocaine cowboys, how many arrests there are. It seems like you have to almost dig to find what's in the news and really happening. You have to have the apps that are telling you daily hey, there was a shooting in your city. It's just you have to take the time to look for it, If not, you have blinders on and you just don't see it I never really put that much thought into it, but you're absolutely correct, man.
Speaker 1:If you listen to mainstream media, you would think you know whatever they put out, and it's propaganda, it's the news right before commercial.
Speaker 3:That's fisa and then goes on from there damn man as um in your employment?
Speaker 1:how difficult is it to work with individuals that do not have the proper mindset for their environment?
Speaker 3:It's quite complex, but when you take as an authority or an expert in your position I like to take it by the numbers, each step, and tell these youngsters what's going on. If you know what building you're in, then hey, you can make a proper radio call. If your radio is on the right channel, then you are still in the fight. If you can effectively communicate, not with saying control this is Kevin and I have be advised, under advisement. It's a five-minute process to get it out when it should be you this is me, I need help. And's a five minute process to get it out when it should be you this is me, I need help, yeah, and then everybody's already run into you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now I teach alarm response for you. Yeah, I do.
Speaker 1:Alarm response instructor. Yes, that's what's up, man, I didn't even know that. No, I love that.
Speaker 2:I was too but it was man it was good learn a lot, learn a lot.
Speaker 1:Great group of guys. So what you were saying is preparation, man, preparation. Know what building you're in beforehand, know what channel you are on your radio, know where you're working, what your post number is. Uh, that way, when, when shit hits the fan, you're just reciting what you've already been rehearsing in your brain.
Speaker 3:Right, and it's just someone to take them under the wing, under the guns man, and tell them hey, if you listen to what's happening, if you're aware, you're 10 times more effective than playing catch up.
Speaker 1:If you're watching it happen in front of you, then you're able to see what's going to happen let's go more into detail about that, dude, because I hear what you're saying and I know what you're saying. But for these youngsters, man, you probably think some guys are more seasonal or experienced or solid and have that's because they have rehearsed everything that's about to happen, right. So you're right, you're not playing catch catch up. It's like back in the day when the ogs used to be like hey man, uh, there's a two-on-one stabbing right there. Let me hear the radio call. You're going to make Running scenarios.
Speaker 1:We used to run scenarios back in the day.
Speaker 2:It doesn't happen anymore man it doesn't happen anymore. Those are the old days, I guess.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, Were you in when we had the shadow program.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:I think they've made the right decision with hey, give me a shadow for one month and let me train. I explained to him hey, put your hand where the radio is, because it's Lieutenant Colonel Grossman. He's got two books, one's on combat, one's on killing.
Speaker 3:He says some really great things that are so simple. You just can't put it into words. You're never going to rise to the occasion. You just always fall back on your lowest level of training, the what-if game. If I walk into a building, I'm thinking this is building seven, this is building seven, this is building seven.
Speaker 1:If I'm on bravo yard, I'm going to change my radio to be right bravo yards channel, so I can hear what's going on. So, basically, if you're an sni on delta yard and you have to go run some paperwork to adsec on b yard, you're right, you're going to be pre uh, proactive and change your radio to bravo, just in case you see a staff assault. I mean, fuck, that's really what matters, staff assaults, yeah, um, and you're able to get on that radio and even though it broadcast over central control, you want everybody else to be able to hear you on that yard immediately I just want my partner to be the most important person that's next to me, because they're the ones that are going to help me out absolutely we got a long way to go, man, but it's a's a work in progress.
Speaker 1:I have hope.
Speaker 2:As do I. I agree, man. I think this is where training and teaching people.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, this is yeah, this is the. This is what it's going to take to bring people to light. Yeah, or get them trained up or exposed to the knowledge Right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely One day at a time. One day at a time and doing this type of work, you know, podcasting and talking to people.
Speaker 3:That's a new age, bro 2025, man yeah, and you got a big following on the kids who are coming in, yeah, that they've heard from you. Seasoned officers are listening and what we just want to promote mostly is that it's us that are handling it. I want, I want to be responsible for my partner. If my partner isn't trained enough, I don't want to blame anybody else. I just want to say, hey, this is this is me that's failing. I don't play the what if game all day long.
Speaker 3:I had a partner recently with is asking me how are you so patient with these kids when they're just not paying attention? Well, I'm a, I'm a position of authority. When I first grab them, I'm going to ask you know, cadets come through my building all the time and I tell them I'm like hey, where are you, when are you right now? How many of you are in this group with you right now? And they got to think and look around and start counting. You should have known that. But when you walk through the gate, it it's just not something that's promoted. We have too much involved with um and teaching that in the in the academy, so now, when they get to us, it's my job there's, there's a lot going on, a lot.
Speaker 1:There's a lot going on, man, so much right. But I do have the experience, as you stated, uh, seeing these younger and I call them younger kids and I don't mean any disrespect by that, but the younger guys or girls and the ogs getting frustrated. You know, I was. I was a lieutenant, so they used to tell me the staff would talk to me like alt, these, these youngsters, they don't, they don't listen, they don't listen. And I would tell them just just keep telling them, just keep telling them, do your part if they listen, or they don't, just keep doing it, man, you don't become discouraged. Um, and I think that's what it's going to take, bro, like, just keep offering or soliciting, soliciting that advice, and whether they take it or not, that's ultimately on them if they get fucked up and or killed you did your part, yeah, and I don't see many of them that aren't paying attention right I just need someone to be patient and walk right through, because there's so much that I don't remember why I do something.
Speaker 3:Why do I walk by and drag my knuckles on the door? I don't even remember why I started doing that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just something that I do every day yeah, changing the mentality of of these young individuals coming into the department. You know they're 21 years old, they're got to do 35 plus years that's fucking painful, man.
Speaker 1:Hold on, bro.
Speaker 2:You gave me eating, just saying that, um yeah, so they got a long way to go, right, I mean, as do I got about 20 more years to do with 20 more years, bro.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you guys are doing the right thing. I can tell you guys got a good head on your shoulders. Clearly, man, you guys want the best you didn't I get. This is how change is going to happen yeah, this is it.
Speaker 1:This is it so when, uh, I mean, and let's talk about the younger generation and teaching them. You know I was t for t as well and they wanted they teach us the. Whiff them what's in it for me. So you know when, when your child says, well, but why, dad, but why? But why? You got to tell them the why, right?
Speaker 2:right.
Speaker 1:You know beforehand. This is why we're about to do what we're going to do, and it's just communicating.
Speaker 3:The important of what's in it for me is that it was. It was lockup. I think it was a while ago I went through a transitional Academy from the youth authority to the adult side and we saw one of the guys that was on lockup and way back in the day he was stabbed in the head and so you could see the blood running down his face and my partner wanted to go up and meet that guy. Real bad because of what he said in lockup. I'm never going to visit my partner in the hospital with flowers. I'm going to be in that room in the bed next to him, because what happens to me happens to my partner. I know where my partner is all the time and that what if game? Just back at it.
Speaker 2:Facts no, I was going to say until something happens. You know what, what you we see, what we see in alarm response and everything else. You could probably attest to that until something really happens to one of us, you know one of our partners, then people start really paying attention. But why do we have to wait until something happens?
Speaker 1:Let's, let's be a little more proactive in this you know, and I observed that a lot, dude Um, every time there would be a stabbing Donovan or staff assault a staff was a real bad staff assault or a stabbing on staff. I used to observe the staff and real bad staff assault or stabbing on staff. I used to observe the staff and you know, see their emotions.
Speaker 1:Oh, they're angry. Oh, they want to go to cell searches, oh, let's be on point, and I used to watch it. And then complacency. A couple days pass by and back to square one. They just get complacent all over again, and I used to watch that routine over and over. But if you always have it in your forefront, hey, we can get fucked up at any time.
Speaker 3:it kind of keeps you alive, no, I have to ask how long was it that you you were out of the infantry, out of active service, that you started in cdcr?
Speaker 1:one year, okay, because there was a two-year hiring freeze back in 05.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, initially, when I applied to the department really yeah, and then they, they said no, not right now. Um you know, it was a big.
Speaker 1:It was a two-year hiring freeze dude. It was fucking two years before anybody can get in. Um, and was I mentally prepared? I was not in the right state of mind, bro. Uh, I had the right heart. You know what I mean. Like I had the right heart, but as far, I had a lot of unresolved issues when I first became a ceo. Right, untreated ptsd, untreated alcoholism, young 22, yeah, yeah, yeah what do we?
Speaker 2:what do we know? What? That is right, no you're right.
Speaker 1:Anyways, we even dive into this topic. These young kids, I mean, they got their own issues right anxiety, freaking, fucking, probably fear of public speaking. The communication skills are non-existent. You're put in one of the worst, to me, the most toxic environment in the world. I agree, if you like, I agree, not 100.
Speaker 3:I agree, man, I feel like I've been prepared because, um, in 08, I started in the army correction system and I was training 18 year old kids how to how to be prison guards alongside of how to buy a car, how to do your own laundry, how to tie your shoes.
Speaker 1:It seems like I'm just falling in the same let me, let me ask you guys this how much outside influence do you think is um affecting these young kids? I'm talking about agendas, propaganda, fear. How much of that do you think is affecting their decision making?
Speaker 2:a lot, I think a lot they're they're, and I think it all comes down from inability to really understand their job, what their duties are and, like the training, they don't take it as serious. So then, when they and then they get, they're they're afraid of getting scrutinized by the department. Right, and they're they're afraid of losing their job. So, hey, let me just do the bare minimum, let me just do what my post orders say, and I'll get paid the same as the other cop and I don't need to do anything extra. That's the kind of mentality that I've been seeing with the young generation. Now, hey, why do I got to do anything extra? Why do I got to do these pat downs? Why do I got to go do this? Why do I got to go do that? I get paid the same as the regular cops, as the OGs or whatever. So that's the kind of mentality. I think that they're afraid of losing their job and if I just do the bare minimum, I'm going to keep my job, keep my paycheck, keep my retirement.
Speaker 1:That's not necessarily true though. Hey, youngsters, listen up. That's not necessarily true. If you think you're going to do the bare minimum and survive your career and survive life, that is not. I mean, look at the escape. That dude did the bare minimum, but we had a level four run out, Is this?
Speaker 2:still on the loose yeah, 35 days.
Speaker 1:I saw your little calendar you have 35 days, right yeah, what I'm trying to get at is, you know, trust me, this whole episode is not going to be about bashing youngsters, no Whatsoever and we will eventually give some freaking knowledge and some hope. However, you got to understand, you're creating this environment for yourself. You know, by being passive, the inmates are observing that. They're capitalizing all over it.
Speaker 3:Right, you got an experience, expert, expert, manipulators, and they see sheep that are coming through.
Speaker 2:Sheep, yeah, yeah, we're trying to teach the new people coming in not to be sheep and be more aware, more you know vigilant.
Speaker 1:So let me ask you guys, this man what can a CEO youngster do to work on their communication skills? Or how can they communicate in a building and develop a rapport with an inmate without crossing any lines?
Speaker 3:I think, the more that they come to people who've been around a little bit and have a little humility and start asking questions. Ask every single question that you can. Why do you have that key set? Why does your belt look different than his? What do you have set up? How long did it take you to get to there? Because I know personally I got so many weird things that I do that I don't remember why I started doing them, but I accomplished that task and it's a part of my day.
Speaker 1:So you're talking about the officers asking?
Speaker 3:experienced officers, questions, of course, begging for information, and I know I learned from one of the greatest, greatest partners that I had, ernie. He taught me by the numbers, each step, and I had already been a prison guard before. I went in Washington with military personnel and then I went to Guantanamo. And those guys are just so strong.
Speaker 3:It's unbelievable Strong will and coming here, I had to relearn everything that I knew, because this is a different mentality, with gangs and all the influence that they have from the people that are home I mean it's parents that were bringing in drugs.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's definitely not Norway, bro.
Speaker 2:They have. So if I'm coming across a new officer coming in, right, if they asking questions, I'm willing to give them 100% of my training, my experience, everything right With the CRT background, with range and alarm response, all that stuff. Man, I'll give you 100% of me, but you have to ask questions.
Speaker 1:What advice do you have for a young cop that goes up to an OG and says hey man, tell me about this. And that OG looks at them and just scoffs at them?
Speaker 2:I got a lot of that when I started the department. You know there's a lot of OGs like, hey, don't talk to me until you get some time under your belt, but that's. The mentality has changed a lot, especially where I work. Where we work, it's changed and people want to help.
Speaker 1:Right, but would you advise that youngster today don't get discouraged?
Speaker 2:and just keep asking, keep asking, move on ask somebody else.
Speaker 3:And now you know, don't talk. Email me yes, I'd love to help out.
Speaker 1:Hey, that's another Bro. We're in 2025 now. Nothing is this limited right. You have resources everywhere they can reach out to you. You know what?
Speaker 3:I mean, I've had kids that caught me up. I went to and day one man, we were hit. It was bad times. Wardens were dishing out food and our first day when I hit the strike team, this one kid kept on telling me he knows me and I'm like man, I don't know you. I've been with you, you've got 10 months in the department, we've never crossed paths. And then we get in a vehicle and we're going to go do a transport. He says oh well, when I was a cadet, I came to you when we were at D so I remember you because I started yelling at him.
Speaker 3:No one knew what the count was in the group. I know how many partners I have. I know where they are at all times. If I hear the key shaking or something, I'm going to pay attention to where they are because that's the most important person. And he told me it was like a year or two later that I was the difference that made them think and go back on the bus and say, hey, we felt like real cops. This is the first time that everybody's put us in the position of we're not in Kansas. I need to pay attention. It's really a small department and I just got through reading to the kids. I went to a school and read to the kids on my own. I mean, I just wanted to do something for the community and people hit me up on email throughout the whole state. I forget where everybody goes. You forget who you've worked with.
Speaker 1:How dangerous is that environment? Putting aside all the shit that I yell on my YouTube channel? Putting aside what they publish on their website? Putting aside how actual the reality? How dangerous is it to work in a correctional setting?
Speaker 3:it could be dangerous at levels to where, if you're going to pay attention, there's no reason for them to look to attack you if you're just out in your own world a thinking about something else. That's what eap was for so that we can channel our work time at work. There's other things to help us. A financial EAP will help you with that. I did peer support because it's my partner that matters. With the necessity to be on point at all times, it seems like you're going to mitigate your danger. If you're just out of bounds, not paying attention, it doesn't matter where your partner is. Well, yeah, it's much easier for them to take that advantage. At any point. If you're going to give them advantage, then that's on you. You give them advantage, they'll take a mile. Yeah, true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and participate in you know we preach that all the all the time and alarm response. Participate in alarm response, take it serious. You know what I mean. And that applies to your home as well, right? So whatever tools you're going to get from this department where we're giving to these young cops and, you know, seasoned officers, whatever you could use that in your personal home as well, right? This is why we, while we're doing this as well, we started this company and to give back to the community as well. Right, because it applies to businesses, homes, everything, our families, our relatives, neighbors, everything.
Speaker 1:So and you guys brought up a good point eap families. You know, now have the beauty of hindsight. Now, dude, and I can see you're right, the stressors of being a correctional officer. Dude, you have to worry about the stresses while you're at work. Your home stresses. What's your wife doing? Is she upset? Is she going to leave you? What about the kids? How are the kids doing? Your supervisors are they going to burn me? The inmates are they going to fucking kill me? Right, right. So if you do not identify, I think identify would be most important, true, right, because you wouldn't even know where to fucking start.
Speaker 3:And you have the memory of what it was like when your team leader was there, that you started out what 18 in the infantry, 17. 17. And then you had someone that was responsible for you. You went from your home to the team leader and they knew your spiritual, your, your fundamental, your finances, everything. And you've got to do a counseling once a month. That's what I remember about the soldiers that I train and led. That was the honor for me to have the people that. Hey, they're the ones who are most important to me and I wanted to take it into this job. The same thing who are?
Speaker 3:most important to me and I wanted to take it into this job. The same thing yeah, I don't. I don't think that us as OGs are picking up that problem. Hey, I want to know everything about your life. Let me know. If in the parking lot, we don't like each other, that's totally cool, but at work, I want you to be trained and efficient in your job.
Speaker 1:Well, realistically, it's not the job of a correctional officer to do that to their partner. Realistically, it's not the job of a correctional officer to do that to their partner. That's the job of a supervisor. Right, right and um, that's what also lacks in in many law enforcement agencies the short tenure tenure that they have in the department. Being sergeants, lieutenants, captains, they're definitely the fucking asking the ceos hey, man, how's your family, how's your finance? Right, right. It's more like hey, why the fuck did you take those handcuffs home? Why, the fuck, why didn't you do this, why didn't you do that? And just adding fuel to that fire.
Speaker 2:But it falls on us, as you know, just as officers as well. Man, we're both officers. So putting too much pressure on the supervisors to do all that, I think it takes a collective. It takes all that. I think it takes a collective, it takes everyone to bring each other up, and we do that. You see that amongst the peers, right, we all, we all bring each other up I don't need the potlucks, potlucks right, we're doing that.
Speaker 2:Now we got bullshitting, right, you know, shooting the shit. Exactly, our union, our union has been really good. They provided us some black stones, so now we have black stones on the yard so now we get to do this, the food sharing events and yeah, and we get to. You know, we get to better, have better camaraderie amongst each other and bring each other up when you promote it up.
Speaker 3:Did you feel like that was?
Speaker 1:I was gonna take it from what I learned in the military well, a couple right before I promoted, a good sergeant told me uh a, your staff will make you or break you. They either make you shine or look like shit. Right, it all how you treat them, and and I held on to that. But other than that, I subconsciously brought in everything that my, my former army leaders. I just copied their fucking style, right exactly, and their style is just embedded in me. You know what I mean ultimately, just being a good person, no, right, um, oh yeah. And you know, one thing I noticed as a supervisor is to not burn out your all-stars, not burn out your mvps, and with and going back to these youngsters that are just not giving a fuck and doing the bare minimum, they're not realizing that they're burning out the ogs right there. I resigned because I couldn't fucking stomach it anymore. You know a lot of people are retiring because they can't take in another damn day in the department joining different departments laterally laddering over going to different departments.
Speaker 1:It's in some crazy times right now it is.
Speaker 3:I've heard that the department's 80 percent under 10 years and that the 20 that makes it up is wardens cc3, cc2, cc1, sergeants, lieutenants, captains, associate wardens all that position is in the top 20 that's ready to retire. It's everyone with almost 10 years and under that's going to run it here pretty quick.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's been like that. It's been like that, but you're right. We're at that point now, yeah, but it's been.
Speaker 3:This has been in the making because you came in right after the hiring freeze. In what did you say? 2006?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's a big department, you don't have to get burned out. It's so much you can do like, right, we talked about it, right, join, right, you want to do something else? Go do something else. Right, join, crt join, be alarm response, do a range, do whatever you want. Just do something that is outside of you know, sometimes, your comfort zone. You got to get out your comfort zone.
Speaker 1:But I'll tell you where the department went wrong from my perspective is the favoritism and hiring non-qualified individuals for certain positions, nepotism, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, that happens in every workforce. However, it almost kind of plagued the department.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I always saw it in the Army as the fast pace, that A. If you can run a 13-minute two-mile, guess what? You're a sergeant now I couldn't run a 13-minute two-mile, specifically.
Speaker 1:So you mentioned other avenues and you're right. There's so many opportunities, you can do right, and you were part of the tactical team for your agency? I was, yeah, how was that?
Speaker 2:academy for you. It was great. It was challenging, hardest thing I've ever done in my life.
Speaker 1:How was the shooting, I mean you know you went through it how was the shooting aspect.
Speaker 2:It was good, man, how challenging was it. It was good, it's challenging. You show up first day, boom, you qualify. You don't qualify? Hey, go home.
Speaker 1:It's a lonely ride.
Speaker 2:back home it's a lonely ride back home, but it was extremely challenging. It's probably the hardest thing and the most rewarding thing that I've ever done is join, crt join.
Speaker 3:Is it higher standards to immediately qualify on your first day? Is it a higher standard than that? It's different in the department.
Speaker 1:It's a damn near impossible standard, bro. I'm not even kidding you and former army legitimately that, that's that. Uh, qualification course is no freaking joke, dude no joke.
Speaker 2:and this is and, and they and they designed CRT Academy to parallel military, so it's a lot of what we did in the academy. A lot of those guys used to be former drill instructors, former Marines or whatever, so they pushed that training style of paramilitary. And I was never in the military, uh.
Speaker 1:but well, I got to see on that team crt it's uh, that shooting is way more precise than the military. In the military you just gotta hit the dude center mass right. Hit him, set to hit the mobile anywhere center mask, drop him in crt, you're hitting the dude. I mean they tape off the target.
Speaker 2:They tape off the target right here and right here, yeah, scoring zone you're smaller, you're hitting them right in a little thoracic cavity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yep, yep, yep, and they fucking shot groups on these individuals.
Speaker 3:Well, it's almost. They want their partners to be the best of the best. You were talking about that earlier with uh triple canopy. Yeah, when you went in, that's where I first wanted to find you. When I saw that that you were going through, I've applied for academy I don't know how many times and they just over and over, they'll get you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, especially with what's happening now. Ukraine, all fucking rush everywhere. It's popping off right now. They're gonna need it. North korea is soldier, soldiers over there in russia, oh that's crazy man yeah, being russian descent oh, descent. Oh, you're Russian, aren't you? I am Russian.
Speaker 2:You did mention that bro, you did mention that it's crazy to hear what's going on out there.
Speaker 1:It's not just Russia, though. You've got the war on drugs in Mexico and coming in from China, and the drones everywhere.
Speaker 2:I've got relatives that live in Ukraine, do you? Yeah, it's not what the media is portraying it to be. Man, you know and all that you know. All that money's going out there, all the money we're sending out there. The people aren't seeing any of that money, man, it's going in somebody's pocket.
Speaker 1:Huh, the higher up the higher oligarchs.
Speaker 2:You know they take all that money and then they funnel it.
Speaker 1:Oh, I have a clear view on propaganda not propaganda, but on corruption. Now I have a clear view on how government works, dude, and it's disgusting.
Speaker 2:Not that I hate my government or anything. I just observe how everything plays out now, oh yeah, alarm response right.
Speaker 1:Do you enjoy instructing in that capacity, absolutely Formal capacity, where you're in front?
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, I love teaching man, I love giving back, I love what I learn and then give it back to the, to the, to the rest of the, uh, to the people.
Speaker 1:What can some officers do? Maybe ask to gain more knowledge or get the help. What are some things. You see, we're like man, if this person would just do this or this person would just ask this, or this person is not getting this it goes back to what barry was saying, what Kevin was saying about hey, learn the basics.
Speaker 2:Learn how to use the radio, learn about your surroundings, learn your equipment that you're issued right. Just learn how to use all that properly. And just, you know, we give you guys all the tools when we teach right and just follow that basic format and you'll be safe and your partners will be safe and everybody gets to go home at the end of the day. That's the ultimate goal, right, that we all get to go home safe. That's, that's what. That's why I do what I do and that's why I love doing it.
Speaker 1:The ultimate goal is make sure everybody goes home safe and that the inmates stay incarcerated. That's it.
Speaker 2:it right, don't take off don't, don't take it as a source of your brain. Well, I mean, it's just it's fucking corrections 101.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. Like, uh, that's it, and I used to break this down on my staff. I mean, I, when I see you guys I see you guys, you guys carry yourself like supervisors I say you only care about three things in this order your safety, make sure you don't get fired and make sure you don't get me fired in the process. Other than that, I don't care what comes down the pipeline, whatever, but I only care about these three things.
Speaker 3:Right, right, absolutely, and if you can break it down to the necessity, then mitigating the danger it's, it's an easy process from that. If those are the questions that you're putting through your head, hey, can I release right now. Can I do this, no matter what the radio is telling you.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you this, and do not give any details at all, but have you guys ever seen or been in a position where you're asked to do something that violates policy from a superior?
Speaker 3:I've been in a position where they're not properly reading the documents that keep our safety and, when they don't know what it is, they're just moving as quickly as they can what they've seen happen before. They don't have the experience to say why am I creating this problem? What do I need to do to make sure that everybody's safe? Without that knowledge the foundation of what am I doing why am I doing it? What's going to be the outcome is not a straight path. If you're clearing a code before you know where all your staff is, you're the problem. And why does it have to go so quickly? We're we're just responding to what happened. We don't need to quickly push it forward and and move back into what regular program is how much does rushing back to resume program?
Speaker 1:how much issues can that cause?
Speaker 3:that that gives everyone the opportunity for that little crack in the concrete. That that's where the weeds grow up at. If you see that on a constant basis, to where you've learned, hey, once everything's done, it's done. We got this guy over to TTA, no problem. Hey, he's up off the yard. Now it's a resume. Well, you got 15 dudes who all don't have chemicals. Now, just what's on my belt is not useful to me. They're like yep, it's me that's fucked up. I'm the one that's making the mistake. At that point, yep, I better turn and look. I better make sure that everything's going good and I want the assistance from everyone around. I just don't see, like that's the path that everybody's going on. It's almost you've learned it one way and there's no reason to deviate from what that direction is.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you said that for the future supervisors, for the future supervisors that will eventually promote. But you're right, though, it's kind of scary that they don't have a proper baseline. They don't have a good example of what a normal code is supposed to look like. As far as resuming program, uh, freaking. Securing the area, evidence preservation, medical aid equipment, accountability a lot of supervisors are really young too.
Speaker 2:As soon as they hit their two years, they want to promote. They've only worked one position, right, so experience comes a long way as well, correct? So when somebody asks me should I promote, I said, well, get a little bit experience, work all the jobs, learn the department first before you decide to promote.
Speaker 1:That's just my personal opinion on on promoting so I actually used to tell the youngsters they say, alt, should I promote? I only got two years. I used to tell them this yeah, go ahead, man, you should. I said if you should, because if you don't, that other fucking lame will and you don't want that dude in charge of you. I said but understand this, you don't know it all. Clearly, evidently you don't know it all. So you better ask. You better ask your seasoned fucking cops and you better ask. And they'll be walking around like you fucking think you're better than everybody else, because you're not nice to tell them that. Because they do need to promote. Regardless, there's a problem. There's positions that need to be filled right. So it's better if you fill them with the proper, the good people, for sure.
Speaker 2:No for sure, we need good supervisors.
Speaker 3:So much In the army. I was an American Corrections Association. I was the clerk and the policy was laid out in front of you. These are the things that you can do. There's 61 folders that are mandatory in ACA, those you cannot move around. But there's other things that are guidance to show you. If you haven't read it clearly over and over and over again, you might not understand why it's in that place. I just see so many people that I'll tell them what the policy is and it's just shaken off Like no, this is the way we've done it all the time.
Speaker 1:Well, I don't want to go to prison, so I'm not going to do that Correct, that's fine and dandy, until something goes wrong, right. And then what they're going to say is oh well, we didn't know, or he should have known better. Or what does policy say? You're right, dude, you can get fucked off if you do not follow policy.
Speaker 3:I remember you just had somebody on that was training about Pobar and he was. He was the investigative LAPD. Yeah, my goodness, he has so much information. Because you have to. You have to clearly understand why you're doing it. And the one, the one major point that he brought up to me is a de-escalation. De-escalation could be forced to. That's a part of it, correct. That's not being taught to, that's a part of it, correct. That's not being taught to. Hey, brand new kids, I would never even taught about it. I always say mitigating the danger, but I can't go any further into that If I don't understand what the deescalation of force could be. I've deescalated it because me and my partner are safe. I had to use force. I blinded him with oc right, he's not able to see for a couple hours and hey, that's a good thing. Now his violence has been stopped, I lowered it.
Speaker 1:So you're right, man. Uh, pole bar rights, dom title 15, penal code. All of these are black and white of what a peace officer can and cannot do.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:That's true. Now, mind you, even if they jerk you around in that entire process, at the end of the day they're still black and white, and you know what do they say? The truth, I mean the truth will come out. In the end, it'll set you free. Well, that too, man yeah, come out, in the end it'll set you free. Well, that too, man yeah. Um, so how important is it for staff members to know policy?
Speaker 3:extremely. It's the bible. That's everything that you do throughout the day is designed. It was written in blood. We don't, we don't know what was going to happen in prisons. Look how they made san quentin and old fsom. You got five tiers. You look up, you can't even see your partner unless they're flying off the tier for the ground. I see now in a 270, I've worked in six different prisons in four different departments and I've seen the change and what could be different. It opened my eyes to seeing. This is why this policy has been written. If you haven't ever seen san quentin, you wouldn't know. Well, why do we do something that we do? It is insane to go on those yards. It's just crazy that that's how they started. Five tiers, 700 people can find in one unit. That's just insane.
Speaker 1:We're talking about policy and you, being an instructor, Um I you ever see instructors that kind of just tell war stories all day long and veer off of policy?
Speaker 2:Sometimes people do veer off and talk about other things, but hey, you know it's part of their way of you know how they came up and maybe that's how they learned it and then maybe that's their way of expressing themselves and maybe that's their teaching style right. Every instructor, as you know, has their own teaching style, how they do things right. So you know, has their own teaching style how they do things right, so you know um what's your teaching style, man.
Speaker 3:I I'll tell you right now, mike is by the book. He can. He can teach, and that's why I'm glad I give too much.
Speaker 2:I'm known to give too much information, so my, my, there's no such thing as too much information. There's not my, my, you know they're probably going to watch this, but they're going to be over the shit no, they're not, it's fine they're. They're going to be like damn, mike teaches way too much, he gives way too much. Hey, stay. You know, can't give. Teach them like a five-year-old. That's kind of how they. They want me to teach. I said I can't.
Speaker 3:You know, I can't teach like the check on understanding, and I've been with you when you're teaching the range, the check on understanding. 15 people out of that class might be fine. There's five of us that are looking like why do I do that? Why don't I put my hand in front of the muzzle and and open up to see it? Why not in front of the, the ejection port? Why am I doing an action and then being able to be brought up to say, hey, this is, this is for danger? That's why you do it. Your teaching style is very clear, to the point Um, and very refined it it's it's something that you've done and you cared about. I can see that in your training.
Speaker 2:I always want to give everybody, as, like I said, as much as I can and if, if, one percent sticks, I feel like I've done my job properly. You know I stay within policy. 100 within policy, hey, I'll give you. But I'll give you my personal experience and, like you said, some supervisors do like to veer off and talk about their worst stories and stuff like that. You know, once in a while I'll throw in, hey this is what happened to me.
Speaker 2:This is my experience. Don't do it. I made a mistake doing this. I don't want you to make the same mistake.
Speaker 1:So technically, as a lieutenant, I was not authorized to show correctional officers AVSS, body-worn camera video footage, but I would do that on the regular as a training tool, something. I mean, you would see something far out and I would pull them in like, look at this shit, don't fucking do this. You guys see this like, oh shit, cool, right, don't talk about this and fucking. But I felt that that was necessary because it was fat. Like you said, it's a fast, dynamic environment and I didn't want them to repeat the same mistake. Yeah, because it can cost you your fucking life. Some of the shit that I was seeing was like whoa.
Speaker 3:Why? Why did you do this? Come here into my office, why did you do this? Please tell me why. Give me a reason why you did this.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm just talking about inmates aggressively in a fighting stance in front of you and fucking, cocking back and the CO just standing there looking at him cocking back and then bam finally.
Speaker 3:And the CO just standing there looking at him cocking back. And then bam, finally made it through Not understanding de-escalation that you have that ability to. You're a peace officer in my place. I think of myself as an 80-year-old woman because if she feels in danger, I represent. When I'm at work, when my uniform is on, I'm not a bigger and stronger this guy, I'm representing someone who isn't as strong. You can't be violent to them, you can't be violent to me. I might be able to take one of those punches, but and what you just said, hector, about.
Speaker 2:You know, people just standing there and watching and they freeze up, right, they freeze up, and you know it was beat down into me when I was a ptm, back to crt. Real quick, um, do something, right, do something. That's, that's what was ingrained into us, right when we were going make a decision, make a decision within policy. Make a decision, do something. Don't just stand there, you know if, if somebody's already doing something, go find something else to do, you know, go find work, find work period, just find work, and that's, and that's kind of how my you know my. Back to the teaching style and and what we want to, you know, help people at work as well, right, and and at homes as well, people, you know, within their homes as well, and finding out, hey, if there's something that needs to be done, corrected, we want to make sure that people do have that, you know, those options available to them so, now that we've beat the shit down of the uh youngsters man, let's talk about some proactive ways that they can get better.
Speaker 1:What about physical fitness? You're fit as fuck, bro. Physical fitness and maybe some martial arts you too, by the way, physical fitness and or martial arts you think that'd be beneficial for correctional officers?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, man.
Speaker 3:That's everything You've got to start Jiu-jitsu especially Jiu-jitsu, when you have the ability to be calm in the fight and not overpower the person, but put yourself in a position to effectively take them out of the fight, that your positioning is better than them, faster than them, and you know what you're doing. There's not a lot of inmates that know Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
Speaker 2:And me. I don't have any martial arts background, but I like to lift some weights once in a while.
Speaker 1:You've never boxed or did anything.
Speaker 2:No, nothing like that, nothing, dude. You've got to get in on that. On that, bro, step up your game a little bit. I do, I do it's fun.
Speaker 1:It just mixes up the the monotony you know for sure for sure, I think that's the word. Yeah, the boredom correct. Yeah, no, so so you just left. I just left some weights and just stay in shape, stay in shape.
Speaker 2:That's that's so important these days, man. This job will beat you down, man, it will. You know, working 16, know work in 16-hour shifts, back-to-backs-to-backs, doing overtime, 10-plus overtimes a month. It's going to take a toll on your health, man, as you guys know.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about the cortisol levels, and you asked me about TRT earlier. You asked me about testosterone. My first levels were 200 two years ago when I got tested. Bro, that's extremely fucking low and I didn't. I felt it right. I just didn't realize put two and two together that I had low fucking testosterone. That is a result of over a 20-year span in the Army and CDCR, of the fight or flight syndrome just skyrocketing flight syndrome just skyrocketing.
Speaker 3:That's really. That's really lined out in um on combat, on combat with uh lieutenant colonel grossman. He says when we're up here all day long that you go under norms to where nothing matters in the house. If somebody steps in front of the tv he used as an example you just look around them, right, not even.
Speaker 1:You're not even aware of your surroundings at that point it's all the dopamine uh flooding the adrenaline and like about raising the cortisol levels like that will fuck your world up. If you're a ceo, I don't give a fuck where you work or in law enforcement. All that, uh fight or flight simulation will fuck your world up after a prolonged period of time.
Speaker 3:For sure. And just the awareness, the awareness all day long. Watching, watching, watching. It seems like you fall into a path to where, hey, either I'm going to get better or I'm going to escape from what's happening. And I know in the military that happens a lot. I know you quit drinking quite happens a lot. I know, um, you quit drinking quite a while ago, 14 years ago, yeah. I stopped about 20 something. Even before I joined the military, I was watching people at a bar and their lives just fast crashing.
Speaker 1:Well, let's talk. I mean, we've we've covered a multitude of topics, but let's talk about not only is physical fitness good for being able to run up a flight of stairs and save your partner from getting their ass beat, but also for mental health purposes.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Mental health is everything, man. That's why I work out to release that stress, at work or wherever at home. The gym is my escape, right. So when I talk to everybody at work as well, I'm like hey, this is what works for me right, so it might not work for you, maybe video games, whatever avenue you want to pick, but drinking's not definitely, definitely not a good escape.
Speaker 1:That's the worst thing you can do that is self-medication, whether they realize it or not.
Speaker 2:Right and with these new laws coming around, right, the marijuana. The marijuana is coming into play.
Speaker 3:soon it's a horrible rumor, because I don't want my partners to leave for something so simple. Yeah, just don't use drugs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a terrible escape yeah.
Speaker 1:And let's keep it real, you're not escaping your problems by putting the alcohol down the hatch or smoking marijuana or snorting a line of Coke, because the fucking problem is still going to be there when you sober up and it matters are going to be worse, and I know this from speaking from experience. You truly have to identify the problem and address the problem in order for it to resolve it. What do you do to keep your mental health Family?
Speaker 3:is so important. Yeah, I keep involved in my family as much as I can. I read an article when I first started that your children are 80% less likely to have teen pregnancy if you have dinner around the table every day. How much 80% less likely to have teen pregnancy boys and girls. And it's important just to have that stability, to be able to listen to them and what they're going through, to hear what their days are like. We get into a path of just overtime and overtime and overtime. I made the commitment to say I'll live within my means, I'll sit back and I'll watch everything that happens at family. I'm almost an empty nester now. So two more years and then maybe I'll hit a whole bunch of overtime and try and get a plane or something I don't know take over the world.
Speaker 1:No, you did it right.
Speaker 3:What about you?
Speaker 1:Do you spend time with the family? Do you focus?
Speaker 2:too much I have. The one of my biggest downfalls with the. You know working for the department was my personal downfall was working too much. I became a workaholic at one point. You know work was my escape. You know it went from the gym to work. Work was everything to me and I started to see that my family life declined progressively as, as I did, picked up more over time, pick up more shifts.
Speaker 2:So that went down a rabbit hole of but I'm sure you were working to provide and support your family exactly right, exactly that was my thinking, correct my, but my family, oh well, you know, I'm not at home anymore Fucking ungrateful people bro, and I say that because you know, I was recently separated from my wife and it's like, yeah, man, everything I did, I did for the family.
Speaker 1:I don't want to go to fucking work.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, that cost my marriage as well, Did it? I'm sorry to hear that, bro. It's all right. I'm sorry to hear that it's all right.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry to hear that, but I understand. I never thought it would be a statistic man yeah, neither did I, no. But it is important to manage family life with work life, for sure Right, and ultimately prioritize the family, but also understand that, hey, the bills got to get paid, that's right, it's a career.
Speaker 2:It's a great career man. It's a good career. I'm extremely happy. Private security was nice too. I learned a lot this. I had some great experiences as well, and I think that's what paved the way for me to be here and do this.
Speaker 1:What about individuals getting financially in debt, banking on the overtime, buying the boat, buying the car? Living beyond their means. In the department you ever see that backfire. Oh yeah, for sure, we or living beyond their means in the department.
Speaker 3:You ever see that backfire? Oh yeah for sure. It would be dangerous. We had one recently. I mean, you can know someone so well and then it's like a slap in the face that, hey, this person used criminal behavior at the job and they did something that endangered me and my partners. When, boy, if somebody would have came to me, man, I can help, please let me know. We have so many things in place. I keep on saying EAP, but I've used them a bunch.
Speaker 3:If there's a problem with your finances, so many people would come in and at least rally around you and help out. But if you think you're going to take it on yourself and do it without anybody, that's one of the things that happens. You decide that your financials is more important and I'm going to take the easy way. I'm going to smuggle something into the facility which just hurts all of us. We look like crap when that happens and I do my five days, I come in. I do my five days, I come in, I do my work. If I'm held, hey, it's my turn and then move on.
Speaker 3:But to be able to just say I don't care about any of my partners or what this department stands for. At least to me it means a lot that I walk in every day. I know when I went through Academy I beat out a thousand people to get there. I'm not the smartest dude in the world, but to get it to sit in that chair it felt. I felt like a lot of pride. Same with the military. I felt a lot of pride when I joined up. It was, it was just hurtful to hear that someone close to me made that big of a mistake without coming up and saying, hey man, I'm hurting, I'm making bad decisions, where do I go from here?
Speaker 1:I'm glad you bring up the AP a lot, dude, because, uh, the resources that are out there, I mean they're there to be utilized. I don't know. I think you get seven sessions a year, from what I last remember, and be able to speak to somebody on one specific point.
Speaker 3:So on top of that, you can change the point like hey, I got a problem with um, my finances. I got a problem specifically with I'm trying to start a business in my finances. Next I can say hey, I got a problem with my personal finances and merging the two, they want you to be there and ask for the assistance. And in the military, too, we had so many things that we could go to. I don't remember what the school was that you could get while you were active duty, but you could do corresponding courses and get credits from that. I used every part of that, and then I would tell my soldiers there were a lot of kids that just sat in their barracks and just didn't do nothing. You've got to grab it when it's there.
Speaker 3:I know they say that we make so much money on the books. When we start with, a lot of that is in hey, your retirement funding, um calpers helping you out with a little bit extra retirement eap. Those are things that they group in to say that you're making that much money. If I'm not using it and I pay for my own therapist or own financial advisor, why I get it for free? That's one of the biggest things that I try to promote when I'm talking with these youngsters. There's so much that you can have an opportunity to use. Just you have to know about it.
Speaker 1:Power of attorneys. Right Legal representation. Mm-hmm Life insurance. Divorce for right legal representation. Life insurance. Divorce for 400 bucks. Divorce for 400 bucks money to get that divorce for 400 bucks just to do the paperwork if you guys can agree on something, and you know this is.
Speaker 3:This is the same problem that I went down law enforcement military and it's so hard for people to stick in. When 2015 came around, I had already been away five of my 10 years marriage my previous marriage and I can't hold it against anybody to say, hey, you're supposed to be there with me. I was asking to uproot my family again, right, and that was the straw that broke the camel's back that I can't ask for that anymore because I've already asked for it so many times.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about the importance of asking for help. We're all males, right, the machismo, the masculinity. It may be perceived that it's weak to ask for help.
Speaker 3:What's your take on that? Oh, I'm weak. Then I ask nonstop that's good, bro, I don't care, because there's so many people that are there to help me. My biggest thing I started talking to Mike about the crazy idea that I had for consulting and without him backing me on it and saying I have some insight with it, If we move it this direction and we spent days just really developing an idea of what we wanted to go through, and that's where Vigilant Home came from If, if we didn't have the, the, the conversations, me asking him for help, if I thought that I could do it myself without my partner there, I would have been. I would have been on step one, just in my mind thinking I can't do this, why would I even try? It's, it's Mike's enthusiasm that really showed me.
Speaker 2:Hey, it can be done. There's, like it's okay to ask for help, man. It's it's yeah, yeah, you know we're, you know, alpha male whatever, whatever you want to call it, man, that mentality, but it's, at the end of the day, we, we all, we all could use a little help from our, you know, from our brothers and sisters, man. So absolutely, it's okay to ask for help, you know, from our brothers and sisters, man.
Speaker 1:So absolutely it's okay to ask for help.
Speaker 2:That's the way I look at it. 100 man, you don't have to ask. You know supervisor, you can. You can talk to whoever you want. Maybe you connected with somebody at work you're like hey, can I talk to you a little bit about you know, I'm going through some personal stuff and that person can refer you to eap or whatever, right? So, um, there's still some help out there, for sure.
Speaker 1:But it definitely saves lives.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you that oh yeah, for sure, man. Mental health is big right now, man, and and they're so focused on, they're putting so much money and funding into mental health, and the resources are there.
Speaker 1:The resources are there available, so everybody should take advantage if you think you need it so one thing that I realized right now I'm talking to both of you is that you guys are able to do this entrepreneurship endeavor of starting your own business Right and launching it because, because your foundation is so solid, because you're physically fit, because your finances were in order, because you prioritize your family Right A lot of people think that business people are rich people. Oh, they were just born rich or they fuck. No, you're putting in the fucking hard work behind the scenes.
Speaker 2:For sure it'll pay off. It'll pay off for sure and it's not right away, but process. It's a process, years it's years, decades. But you gotta want it, you gotta want it, you gotta be hungry for it.
Speaker 3:What is it? 90 of anything that's just showing up? All you gotta do is be there.
Speaker 2:We're just talking about that. You know, like you said, we would have never started this if we just didn't show up and just start doing it. Right, you know?
Speaker 1:yeah, that's what it takes pulling that trigger and fuck and just yeah, I'm the type of dude that wants to, or that uh whether it begs for permission or uh begs for forgiveness and ask for permission type of guy. Man, it's better to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission. My wife hated that shit about me, but that was my fucking style, man.
Speaker 3:But you as a type, a personality. My fear is, hearing that you made the decision to resign, that I'm so scared I couldn't even imagine Was there somebody that helped you with that decision.
Speaker 1:So I'll say right here, for the first time there was a uh. Stewart scheller was a marine. He was a marine. I'm not sure if you're familiar with stewart scheller, and when the afghanistan kabul uh explosion, the car or the suicide bomber killed 13 service members marines.
Speaker 1:Stewart Scheller was an active duty Marine and an instructor in some base on the East Coast and he went on record, you know, denouncing the leadership, saying, hey, you're fucking responsible for this. And I thought to myself man, I took a lot of fucking balls. You know, in the military you can't do that, you can't put your higher ups on blast, especially on the media and in uniform, no less. So that planted a seed of like hey, there's dudes out there that are, you know, kind of doing the right thing ethically, ethically and morally, just because I feel that we had gotten away for so long, right. So when I made that decision and, just like you guys, I'd already been working out religiously, eating healthy, uh, uh, so that was just. Everything was set up for that decision. Now, was that a major fucking decision? Oh, it was a risk, bro, it was. But, as they say, I burned the boats. You know, you burn the boats, meaning that you can't go back on that decision no one can go back.
Speaker 3:You have to build a life where you've landed yeah, dude, hustling, grinding, it's been fun.
Speaker 1:um, you know, inspiration to a lot of people. Man, no one can go back. You have to build a life where you've landed. Yeah, dude, hustling, grinding it's been fun.
Speaker 2:You're an inspiration to a lot of people, man. You definitely are an inspiration to us as well, man.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of things that hold people back from leaving the department or leaving health insurance. You realize, I just got on my laptop the other day and just went to fucking Blue Shield and just signed up for insurance on my own Right. I don fucking blue shield and just signed up for insurance on my own right. I don't even think people know, I didn't know I could do that, right, yeah, yeah, they, you can get insurance on your own dental insurance, vision like it's expensive, but yeah, I mean, it's not even that expensive.
Speaker 1:To be honest with you, bro, it's not like I think. Literally I'm paying 50 bucks for fucking what I got going on, right?
Speaker 3:well that's pretty cheap and if you're're healthy. I know Tucker Carlson has had Carrie Means on and she's really big in explaining what the food that we eat has to do with our body. They're talking about Alzheimer's and dementia is diabetes 3. So if you don't have the right diet diet, then you're just putting poison into your body and you're having those insulin spikes all day long, up and down and up and down. Yeah, to where you can't fix that problem. Later on they're giving you obs o obsempic is for the weight loss drug. It's.
Speaker 1:It's just too much to go on your body's failing diabetes, erectile dysfunction that's my running joke, in case you guys haven't caught that. Um, resigning from the department. Man, you know that was a major decision. And when I would ask of people you know my viewers I don't ask you guys to do major decisions. You don't have to do life, but I do preach. Hey, just be fucking nice to the next person, don't be a fucking asshole, don't be a piece of shit, don't be a scumbag. You know it's kind of simple In my mind. It's simple, man. I don't know I'm getting the point across.
Speaker 3:No, no, it is, it is. Oh, we've had a lot of conversations about your podcast and what it means to us that if you do air your dirty laundry, at least everybody knows what's happening. It's really helpful to all of us to start the conversation. Hey, this is a problem that we have, but I can't turn and not see the problem.
Speaker 2:I have to be a part of it the transparency. Even inmates have podcasts.
Speaker 1:I mean so I learned that from two separate reasons. One, the military. You know the military does after action reports Exactly and you got to pick apart why, where shit went wrong, so that doesn't fucking happen again. And then I took a crisis response. I took a SWAT team commander course here in San Diego.
Speaker 1:Swat team commanders from fucking everywhere dude, oakland, pd, phoenix, la Sheriffs Sounds like fun. It was that. And it was a tactical liability course as well, where they had a lawyer that deals with tactical teams, law enforcement team. So they're dealing with a bunch of bullshit. You know, yeah, yeah, murder, not murders, but shootings in on the job and stuff like that. And they're like hey, man, one thing that the police agencies, police departments, learned was you have to get in front of the media. You have to go out there and give a press conference. As fucking painfully as it is or embarrassing, you have to say, yeah, hey, we fucked up on this one, we dropped the ball right here, and that is that makes all the difference. Man, people are not stupid, right? People get insulted when you attempt to lie to them or cover shit up right.
Speaker 3:People get insulted when you attempt to lie to them or cover shit up. And knowing the graham versus connor, yeah, that's. That's so important too. You have to know that. Hey, I didn't. I didn't have time to think it was an action that I did right. And case law yeah, I have to deal with the ois now. There's nothing that I can do. When did you take that that course? How old were you when you took it?
Speaker 1:when I was like the pio, that had to have been in 2019, 2020, fucking five years ago. It was a great course, man. Bunch of uh after action reports, debriefings of major incidents, man, where swat team members were killed in the line of duty, right it was. It was pretty surreal, dude great training a bit oh bro man yeah, a lot of, a lot of physical.
Speaker 3:Talk about it. No, no, not physical classroom powerpoint presentation speeches.
Speaker 1:Uh, for people that were actually involved in some crazy fucking incidents, because that's how I learned. I learned by, like you know, hearing stories and like fucking learning what not to do through other people's mistakes or yeah, that's pretty much my teaching style. Is it yeah?
Speaker 2:of course man Don't do what I did. Here's what not to do.
Speaker 1:You guys plan on promoting at all, or you guys want to stay where you're at, or it's a little bit.
Speaker 3:It's a little bit different. In the institution that I came to, I was a guy and it shut down, oh yeah. And once I moved to this institution, it's it's a little bit different. I haven't really navigated where to go yet. I let my. I had my sergeant's test. I ranked pretty good and and test I ranked pretty good and now I'm just kind of three.
Speaker 1:That is pretty good man.
Speaker 3:For me it was awesome, yeah, and now I just step back. I want to see where I can be useful in my position, because I can't break through. I can't break through in this place. It seems like as a whole department. Hopefully the pendulum has gone all the way to here and it's going to start coming back, kevin.
Speaker 3:The pendulum has broken off and flown into the fucking pacific ocean well, luckily, I saw what the army corrections was, where I didn't have a choice to go to the union or anything. There was specifically you do what you're told and it's going to happen this way. I didn't have any choices and they were really political. There in guantanamo it was. It was policy, like you're saying, you get out in front of it first. Whatever happened when I was there, you get out in front of it first and you get into the news, and it was reactionary. So here at least I can see you know if you're going to make a mistake on policy, you do have the checks and balances. I wish that we used the after action report more to show this is this is what we should have done. This is what we did. Well, it's just not something that's used in this, even at the co level. Man at the correctional officer.
Speaker 1:if you fuck up, admit that you fucked up, tell on yourself. They always say tell on yourself, man. Oh, it's just not something that's used in this, even at the CO level, man, at the correctional officer level. If you fuck up, admit that you fucked up, tell on yourself. They always say tell on yourself, man. I remember he doesn't work for the department, no more. He's a good kid, real good kid.
Speaker 1:He put an inmate in handcuffs on the upper tier and the inmate was straight fuck your mom. Literally told him fuck your mom and and fuck your mom. And his mom had passed away. So he took off the handcuffs, inmates spun around on him and well, the inmate then ratted on to the lieutenant. I wasn't the lieutenant, he just told me about this that hey, yeah, your officer took off the handcuffs on the upper tier when he wasn't supposed to. So you know, he called him out to fight and I and he's like, what do I do? I was like hey, write a memorand, write a memorandum, write a memorandum. What happened? Lost your cool, fuck it, it happens, fuck it Put it on.
Speaker 2:We're human beings.
Speaker 1:man, Submit it to your lieutenant Shoot it up to the captain. All right, literally you got nothing. You know what I mean?
Speaker 2:Yeah, nothing and truthful oh yeah, that's it, that's that's how you're gonna lose your job at the end of the day, start being less than truthful and start covering up lies and I told don't do that shit again, though, bro.
Speaker 1:He's like oh no, dude, I'm fucking scared that's the last time I'm gonna do that.
Speaker 3:I don't know what to do, but I mean I mean, I'm human.
Speaker 2:I'll admit I lost my cool couple times too. You know, guys, some, some mms, really know how to push your buttons and they want to get a reaction out of you. They want that lawsuit, they want all that man.
Speaker 1:Both of you guys seem extremely seasoned and extremely experienced, right and level-headed. What is some advice to officers? To not bite. To not bite when an inmate is just fucking getting under their skin.
Speaker 3:How do I deal with it that, hey, somebody's making a mistake and they're challenging me specifically Correct. I can as loud as I can be. I can rattle off what the department wants what's in title 15. Right, what I have to do as a no-transcript. Now everybody hears what's happening. Right, most people in a unit, most of the population, the incarcerated they want to bring everything to the lowest level. They want it to be real calm. A the co is not looking at what we're doing. It's all in the shadows. If you bring it out into the open, yeah, oh, that's all bad news. Now he's looking bad at setting me off to do crazy things I mean psychological warfare bro.
Speaker 3:And I don't. I don't mind getting as loud as I have to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just stop and think, man, just be, take a breather. Sometimes, maybe your partner hopefully your partners next to you shouldn't be, you shouldn't be doing this job alone. You should always have a partner next to you. So if you have a good partner next next to you partner will pull you back. But like, hey man, not worth it, not, not, not worth losing your money over this, not, this is not. Just take take a step back, think about, think about your actions and we're held to a higher standard too.
Speaker 3:If you're playing the what if game non-stop and you won't get into that situation, sure? If he's talking about one family member, how does he know who my family members are? If I'm not putting that on the tier, if I'm telling everyone oh well, I got you know this problem with my, with my spouse, right, and that's just one crack in the concrete.
Speaker 2:That's bizarre to me. Now they know what hurts me. Everybody's just sitting there talking about you know inmates in the day room and they're just talking about their personal life, their kids, their, their you know financial problems or gambling problems. Oh, I just lost $5,000 in a casino this weekend.
Speaker 1:I'm like and you got the poor right there sweeping around, they're listening, You're hustling oh hey, I can help you with that financial problem. You know and I was raised correctly in the department Centinella by the OGs they don't ever talk bad about your partners in front of inmates. You don't ever talk bad about your partner to an inmate. You don't say personal business when you've got a reporter around or a yard crew worker, for sure.
Speaker 2:That's a big no-no.
Speaker 3:Divide and conquer, that's what they're looking for In manipulation. They want two partners to be at odds, not doing the same thing, not on the same path.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just like praise in public what they say, praise in public, counsel in private, right. So just if you have an issue with a partner, hey, pull them aside, hey, away from everyone.
Speaker 1:Talk it out, what's going on if you have to bring a supervisor line, though now, man, a lot of people get butt hurting but that's maybe bring a supervisor in as well, maybe bring them into a sergeant's office, have a supervisor present that way.
Speaker 2:Hey, you're right. That way you don't lose your job that is the correct way, because people will file on you. You know, like you said people fuck dude.
Speaker 1:You got seat staff members wanting looking to file on other people right to get a ticket out of there, just as you have the inmates looking for a payday.
Speaker 3:I know recently they've implemented care for cops. I can't remember what the training is called, but it's kind of like the tap-out method. Hey man, you got a phone call in the office. This is really new that they're actually addressing the fact that we're in a high stress. Before it was like oh you're, you're a babysitter and why are you mad about these kids? Now we do have training in IST, which rolled out last year. I think it was to where um it's it's looked on. The supervisors are supposed to check in a little bit more. Um, your partner is supposed to tap you out if they see you got yourself caught up and there's a lot of young kids that they don't have the fundamentals of being able to have a conversation with someone. It's not in a text message and you got to tap them out. Hey man, go into the office. You got to go do some paperwork. It's your turn for the phone. The phone's bringing off the hook, it's for you and then move in.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm really, I'm really disappointed in the supervisor ranks man, and I don't ever talk about this much. But, like you're right, it's like the military dude. I know it's not the military, but it's paramilitary dude. You have to. It doesn't even matter what career field you're in your employees. You got to look at them not as like fucking objects. You got to get to know who the fuck they are. Man, it goes back to the spartan days. Why do you think they were so fucking successful man? They slept, ate, fucking fought, made jokes all together. It's like a fucking brotherhood. No, uh, trooping the line in the military they call it trooping the line. Your commander goes around and checks on everybody, how everybody doing.
Speaker 3:I know my soldiers and I'll always place their needs above my own. It's it's the the motto that we took. Now it's it's almost like that's missing in the uh supervisor sergeant ranks, where you're not going out to go see the soldiers, you're not your officers, you're not going out in investing in what they're doing no, because you're getting trained at the sergeant academy.
Speaker 1:Uh, transgender pronouns you're getting trained. Uh, staff disciplinary, uh, union bullshit. Uh, you're getting trained and everything other, and I get it to a certain degree right, but's missing that. It's missing the human element to it. That fucking system will chew you up and spit you out, man.
Speaker 3:I think I was really blessed by being in the military before this. Right, Because it's so important what your job duties are morality, Like hey, I'm responsible for these guys that are with me. That was really. My honor was to train and lead soldiers. I was so lucky to be able to do that.
Speaker 1:Well, how bad would you feel if your mistake or your downfall caused somebody else to get hurt or killed?
Speaker 3:That's crazy, I don't know. I always say to my partners you know, we'll be sharing a hospital room, I can't just bring flowers to them People have retired because of that, because they, they, their actions led someone to get injured.
Speaker 2:And then they said, man, I can't take this. This is, this is too much for me. And they resigned, Unfortunately they're hopefully none of us will ever be in that position that somebody gets hurt because of our actions. But that's why we fall back on training, that's why we, that's why we do what we do and we teach safety, safety, safety from day one, so that never happens.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about the training, the training that's allotted. What do you get? You get one week out of a year, Monday through Friday.
Speaker 2:How many hours is it?
Speaker 1:I changed it now Monday through Thursday, 10-hour days now 40-hour training, 40-hour block training oh yeah, for a correctional peace officer to get to go over. And then again, man, from 06 to now, what was being taught then? As to what is being taught now, right, because that's all you get. You get 40 hours, man, you get 40 hours. Whether we're going to teach you how to pat inmates down or how to push them in a wheelchair, but we're giving you 40 hours of some type of training, right? Um, do you think 40 hours is enough?
Speaker 2:I think it's enough. I think it's enough as long as they take whatever they give them and and they actually listen and apply, right? I mean it also falls back on instructors as well, right? How serious are we going to take this lesson plan that the state approved through their lawyers, through whatever they you know? However, they do this through the union and everything. So I think it's again that's just my biased opinion I think it's great and I think it gives officers a lot of tools to be safe on the job and to do this job effectively and accomplish the department's mission, right? No, would it?
Speaker 1:benefit? Would it benefit them to do training on their own or gain knowledge and insight or do stuff that'll benefit them in the job on their own time? Absolutely, I mean such as maybe going to a fucking gun range and going with buying an instructor.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean?
Speaker 2:shit like that for sure, dry firing in the pad for sure, man, you know I, I teach this all the time too. I say, hey, you, how long you have to do in this department. One of the questions I asked oh, you got 30 years to do. Okay, do you want to come back here and quarterly qualify and and fail and and have those? You know that worry. You know. I know from speaking from experience. I used to show up to the range barely qualified. I taught myself how to shoot, like you just said, took that personal time to go to the range. Hi, talk to some cert guys. Right, talk to talk to crt members like, hey, man, if you have time, can you teach me how to shoot right on your off time? You know, so I put in that time. I forced myself to learn because I didn't want to come back and get those. You know those.
Speaker 1:But that's the sick feeling to your stomach. Like man am I gonna?
Speaker 2:qualify today or not? Am I gonna do this or not? Yeah to get away from that. That's. All the people have to do is just put in that extra time on your own time and or maybe just listen to instructions that people have given you.
Speaker 3:And I see that this, what you've designed here, is almost another ability for all of us to hey stop and think, to learn from the other people that you're bringing up and it's a lot of law enforcement now that are teaching such great things. Right, In the Army, we had hip pocket training to where A if I had soldiers that are on a downtime. You're not going to sleep, you're going to listen to what I have to say. React to fire. What are we going to do in this situation? And there's always a book for it, there's an FM for every single thing that you're doing, right? Hmm?
Speaker 1:You're David.
Speaker 3:You're definitely hip pocket training. I haven't heard that shit in a while, bro. Hey, you know what I still got in my calendar book? I still got something that I can pull out and refer to that whenever these kids come around. You just give them five, 10 minutes, give them some inspiration to think about.
Speaker 3:I know that this podcast, specifically though is is in the format of hey. What can we do to make it better? What can we do to train and lead? It's important that we have these people that are going to join up and and complete selfless service right to say even though this is a rough job, even though we die early, right, even though, hey, I got a chance to be assaulted every day, every minute, I have to be on the best of my abilities still people sign up for it, and these are the partners that I want to be with. Definitely, they made that decision. I remember when I went through Academy, I beat out 1,000 people to sit in that chair and it felt really powerful for me that I was the one who was doing it right?
Speaker 1:no, I appreciate that and you know this podcast is a work in progress. It's fairly new getting the guests on board and, you know, having these conversations, but you're. I believe this is the start. This is the start of change for sure not to sound cliche, no, no, no. But we're giving individuals a place to come and gain knowledge or at least listen to fucking stories at the bare minimum. Yeah, they got to take something from it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because you, you also have a lot you're you're uh involved in the documentary coming up pretty quick also.
Speaker 1:Grunt, yeah, february 1st, looking forward to it, can't wait yeah, um, but ultimately the goal dude, the goal has always been to give back and I I mean, fuck, I quit. Right, I resigned so that I can help. I mean, I was at Donovan. Now I have the world looking Somebody's Spain, new Zealand, australia, the UK so basically, just giving a bigger platform to speak and have the opportunity to bring guests like you guys on man.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because no one would know. It's so weird when you sit around and you're speaking, I know I I take enough vacations because I can pay for him, right, and it'll be me and my wife and we're sitting around and everybody goes through hey, what do you? What do you do? I'm a teacher, I'm in, I'm in this. And then I try to say, oh, I'm part of the state. And then when it comes up, well, what department do you work in the state? Well, I work in a prison. Now everybody the spotlight's on me. They're so curious because there's no time that anybody has really broke it down. This is what I do on a daily basis. This is what it looks like. Lockup was a big one that that was one of the first ones that you got to come in and see in the 90s, early 2000s.
Speaker 2:Lockup msnbc lockup, yeah, and any like just piggyback, where you say anytime I bring up firearms, everybody's like oh man, teach me how to shoot, teach me how to shoot I want, I want to know, you know everybody comes out of the like you say. Everybody just comes out like hey, you're a firearm instructor, can you?
Speaker 1:can you teach me a little?
Speaker 2:bit. I like the glock.
Speaker 1:I like the glock I love the glo, bro, and I did not prior to the department.
Speaker 2:Which Glock do you In general? Do you prefer just any Glock?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, just the whole platform, and I wasn't really a fan of them prior, but once I got in, especially on CRT, it's like, oh my God, dude, this fucking thing. It's like an AK-47 of handguns.
Speaker 2:My first gun was a.
Speaker 3:Glock, pull the fucking trigger. See, I like the Ferrari, I like the sig sour you do. Oh, love that thing, the, the, it's what the new m9. So I have mine chambered in a 45.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you have newer, sig sours p3 20. Oh, you do.
Speaker 3:Fucking drop and it shoots on his own is no, that was in the beginning and I don't think. I think they really made it Big like Tesla.
Speaker 1:They say, oh well, you know it blows up whenever they were just what did just blow up in front of the trump tower, or have you? Have you?
Speaker 3:read into that. I was watching the sean ryan show and, yeah, that's the one that hit me when he said that he was going to go into hiding. Yeah, I was afraid too, but sig sauer just feels like it's a ferrari of of the oh, I thought the staccato my.
Speaker 1:My first gun was a sig p220 and I unfortunately sold that to a co-worker of mine. I regret it.
Speaker 2:You know I will eventually would like to buy another sick people yeah, that's what I carry off, dude, I carry p3 20s compact. Love that guy man.
Speaker 1:No, I carry the 220, the 220 240 45 okay, okay, big size.
Speaker 3:and now with the 320, I mean, they're interchangeable. You can go up in caliber, down in caliber, that's the funnest part, With what?
Speaker 1:with the barrel change.
Speaker 3:The barrel, the grip, the slide, everything is interchangeable. I do like the Glock, I do like it, but I want to pull out something that was a little bit better. When I'm showing that off to everyone, they call it the barbecue gun.
Speaker 1:look at this, look at this one mine is a north american arms 22, the small one that fits in your palm whatever, that's my little conversation piece it's funny. When I put it out on the table I was like what the fuck is that? That's awesome good stuff so how important are hobbies? I mean, we're talking about guns, now we're letting loose. How important is it?
Speaker 3:you have a life outside of the department it gets me to think about something else than dwelling on the job that I'm in. I like to ask my partners really weird questions when I'm there, like um, what can't you put peanut butter on? Would you have peanut butter on pizza? But if I'm not talking about my life, I can talk about woodworking. I was a carpenter before I ever joined the military in construction and I get the opportunity to bring up things that I didn't know that a lot of people else were interested in. I can't draw, I'm not artistic, but yeah I can run a saw.
Speaker 3:That's one or two things that are time consuming to get me out of the place yeah, and hobbies is everything, man.
Speaker 2:Like you said, even just you could pick up shooting as a hobby. You could pick up right hobby it's. You could pick up running hobby it's expensive.
Speaker 1:It's an expensive hobby, but it's a damn good hobby bro.
Speaker 2:It is, it is for sure. I mean you could you know my buddy's building cars? You know there's, there's so much you can do out there. Man, just do something. Just get your mind off, whatever you know, this negative environment that we're in, this corrections, you know.
Speaker 3:Do something else as a hobby that will get your mind off and refresh your brain and I feel like when we started this, this venture, it's almost just something to fill the time, to be able to acknowledge that we have a unique opportunity to see what manipulation is like in its purest form and then be able to move into entrepreneurship. I listened to a lot of podcasts. One of them is how to, how to purchase homes and every money, how to make money. It's it's so nice to think that we have the opportunity to to jump in with both feet and do something.
Speaker 1:That's so crazy with both feet and do something that's so crazy. So part of the problem is growing up. I think, well for myself. You're taught by your parents hey, you're gonna shut up, you're gonna listen to your boss, you're gonna go to work for eight hours, you're not gonna fucking question anybody and you're gonna punch in, punch out and go home and be miserable. But that's kind of what we're in bit. That's kind of what we're embedded like to think outside of the box. Or, hey, I want to fucking launch this idea or I want to fucking embark on this. It's always the ones closest to you that kind of put you down, um, and not because they dislike you, it's because it's fear of you failing. They don't want to see you fail.
Speaker 3:They don't want to see you get hurt um, to become an entrepreneur is a huge jump. I've I've really been listening to richard kiyosaki and his uh rich dad, poor dad, right, I mean that model. Yeah, you gotta jump in and do something, you gotta, you gotta be the the one that takes control of your own future.
Speaker 1:And you know, it's not just necessarily creating a product like a Tesla car. Now, it's services like services like consulting, like you guys do. If you are skilled in a particular skill set, you can sell that service to other individuals that are willing to learn. That's right.
Speaker 2:That's right, and I have a good time doing it too. I mean, just what we love to do, right? This is our passion, right? There's something like you said. Back to the hobby, this is our hobby in a way yeah, among other hobbies but this is one of the things that we both like to do and both like to help people out there.
Speaker 3:I really don't want any of this experience to go to waste, because I have so much in my mind from the military that the hip pocket training that we did so much, the NCO creed.
Speaker 3:Sometimes I'll catch myself saying it on the way to work. I'll never need that again, I'm never going to go to a board again. Why do I keep on thinking about it? I feel like when you jump into that position you live that job completely and I don't find any other jobs that are like that, where people completely surround themselves in that position, other than law enforcement, military. I know doctors. They're just kind of at work all the time, but I don't see anybody else that. Oh well, I sell homes. You're a realtor even when you go home. You're not looking for the sale every minute of every day how do you guys feel about failure, failing?
Speaker 3:I think I have more anxiety for success than anything else failing.
Speaker 2:I don't mind, I'm not even scared.
Speaker 1:No, my failing I kind of knew you guys were going to answer that way bro, because I mean I can read you guys and that's how I feel, man, I fucking love it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you gotta fall in love with the process they say that most businesses fail and but then you just got to keep pushing and, pushing, and pushing until they succeed. You can open up five companies. Four will fail, one will succeed, will work right, so it's okay. If it fails it's all right and you know we'll pick up again. We'll change the name, remodel, restructure and get, get right back into the beauty of it, man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love, I love that whole process, dude yeah, right.
Speaker 3:Um, how many things do you have your fingers in? A lot, quite a few. A lot. That's good, then it keeps me busy.
Speaker 1:No, I think that that's good, but it keeps me busy. No, I think that that's like. My hyper mindset is, you know, um, and on top of that I'm a dad, you know. So that softball coach, that's been a blessing, right, that's been a freaking blessing, dude, I never thought I'd be a softball coach. Um, that's good. But yeah and yeah, I try not to spread myself too thin, though it's like, uh, I'll work on the project until I can not master it, but get comfortable and being able to operate it, and then I'll start another one that's good, staying involved doing everything.
Speaker 2:You're not bored man, you're doing it, you're not, but you have no time to be bored. I like that. That's and it's positive.
Speaker 1:You know it's positive. I'm very selfless these days where I want to help other individuals.
Speaker 2:Nice.
Speaker 1:Right on, good deal, bro. Do you guys plan on staying local or branching out with your company? What do you guys see in that we?
Speaker 3:talked about that it seems like this model is untapped yet. Right, I really looked into it to think, boy, somebody's got a thought of this before, somebody had this on their mind to be able to teach people. But I see it's a path that no one has taken yet. There's one or two, but not on the same idea.
Speaker 3:If I have the unique ability to see in into the, into the realm of what we're in, into our job and and daily interaction every single day, there's so much knowledge that we get from that. Just to tell a few, a few people at at at their point in life, when they're discovering like, hey, I might want to have safety for myself. I watched on the news, it was bad, but there's a lot of people that aren't going to be really point in life when they're discovering like, hey, I might want to have safety for myself. I watched on the news, it was bad, but there's a lot of people that aren't going to be really invested in weapons. So how are, how am I going to teach them with maybe non-lethal something, something that's a path away from just I'm going to shoot and pray, because now in California, I don't even think the new castle doctrine, the castle doctrine, is in precedent.
Speaker 3:You still have to have more than fear, no matter if they're in your home or not. What do you do? Do I retreat out of my house? Is that the best idea?
Speaker 1:Well, there's so much you can do to prevent, even up to that point Surveillance cameras, right reinforced security doors safe rooms right.
Speaker 3:Your threat landscape is so important because we get a dog that get a you know signs.
Speaker 2:What kind of dog, what kind of dog.
Speaker 1:Do you recommend that these viewers get for home security?
Speaker 2:dog. That's a dog, that's aware dog, that's a you know not. Don't get a small little puppy dog yeah I just get something.
Speaker 2:I mean me personally. I had a rottweiler before. That's a big dog. You don't have to get a big dog, big, scary, mean dog, just just have a dog, that will be. At least you know if there's threat or there's, you know, danger, it'll bark, it'll alert you, something like that. That would. That would help out as well. But it say you, you don't, you can't have pets. Most, most of these homes, apartments, whatever people live in, no pets allowed. Okay, fine, get some lighting, get you know, make sure your lighting is set up, your signs posted. Hey, you know. Um, it's locks. Are you got good locks on your doors, your fences, whatever right.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of barricade tools too, which has opened my eyes recently. I was looking for other options and there's products like it used to be on a steering wheel you could put a lock on it. The club the club yeah, I forget what it was called, but they have that to where it's an added barricade against the door. Right that, once you get discouraged from, from something that's a lot stronger than you thought, right, you got to move out. You don't have much time to assault the, the objective. You have to. You have to read.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Because, I'm not going to say criminals are lazy, but you're right, they look for a weak target they're not going to fucking sit there and be banging on the door and draw attention to themselves, unless they you know, consciously made that decision that they are going to go inside your home.
Speaker 2:That's where maybe a firearm will come in great handy what are some other weapons shotgun? 100 a shotgun shot for home defense. That would be my personal recommendation to get a shotgun. I mean easy to use, very effective right probably not slugs keep a couple slugs in the back, I would probably put a couple bird shots, you know birdshot.
Speaker 3:You ain't never leaving. What about uh?
Speaker 1:taking a step further and thinking about. You know, the drywall and the backdrop.
Speaker 2:Of course.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Kids rooms, right Spare bedrooms.
Speaker 2:That's why I wouldn't recommend, you know, full metal jackets.
Speaker 3:I'd probably recommend getting some hollow points, but you know, and there are products that are coming out right now. There's non-lethal, like a pepper ball launchers that are handheld. I guess can you call it a pistol, but it's a pepper ball, so maybe that's the distraction I need to get my family out.
Speaker 2:But also have a plan. Sorry to interrupt, but also have a plan. Have an alarm response plan for your home. Right, we have one at work. Have one for your house. What if? What if? Right? Play, right, just, we have one at work. Have one for your house. What if? What if right? Play some scenarios out. What if, you know, get a crazy, crazy vagrant trying to break into your house? What are you gonna do? What is, what are your options? Right, you know what is your go-to have a talked with your kids. Right, I have a son, you got kids, you have kids. Talk to your, talk to your children. Hey, if daddy, you know, is doing this, you do this. Right, you go hide, go do whatever.
Speaker 1:right, call 9-1-1, do something and I've told my wife that at the mall, hey, where there's like an active shooter or whatever, just fuck. I tell them, get away from me. I'm about to start drawing fire, like you know, returning fire and the clearly the motherfucker's gonna come. I don't need you standing right here. It'll depend on the situation right of course if I can get the fuck out of there. I'm getting the fuck out right.
Speaker 2:I mean that gun. That gun is to protect you and your family out of there, right?
Speaker 3:you're not, you're not superman, you're correct, right, that was big in, uh in on combat with the lieutenant colonel crows and he was talking about if you're armed, you're the one that's bringing a weapon into it. Any conversation that you have, there's a weapon involved. When I'm out with my family, they're usually walking a little bit ahead of me and they know my word is get away. If I'm going to say get away, there's no question, there's no nothing. They might even go to go make a phone call. Hey, this is what Kevin's wearing. Make a phone call. Hey, this is what. Uh, this is what kevin's wearing. He's an off-duty peace officer who is armed and he needed to get away from the family. I don't know why yet. Because if somebody's going to see me and I notice them, they have no idea who my family is. All they're going to see is me. I'm the threat, I'm the danger. If I leave them, then I bring the danger towards me. I never thought about that before when I was reading his books.
Speaker 1:I never even considered that, dude, we're so much alike, bro, because prior to having our daughter, my wife and I used to travel Europe all over the freaking place. And it's sketchy. Being out in the world is fucking sketchy man, it's sketchy characters, and it was my PTSD and my anxiety and my ability to perceive threats. We made up a code word as well. I can't really remember it now, but it was. When I say it, it's a get up and go. Same shit right.
Speaker 3:And I just don't want them to address me to say, hey, where are you going, why are you leaving? Hey, hey, what's going on? Now you're attaching yourself to me.
Speaker 1:So the reason we came up with this code word is because we were in new york one time fucking can't remember 2012 ball dropping in 2012, and we were on a with a trolley subway. We're on the subway, the fucking homeless guy and I'm watching him. He's, he's, he's a eop man about you. He's fucking having a meltdown. And I tell my wife, get up and walk over there. She's like what? Why, why, why? This motherfucker is becoming more irate. Hey, get up now and walk over. What what? Oh dude, this motherfucker got up, got up in my face. Oh dude, I was pissed. I took out my anger on my wife. I said the next time I tell you to get the fuck up, you get the fuck up, like I literally foresaw that happening.
Speaker 1:But you know, and that's not fair to my wife because she's a civilian and right, they don't think.
Speaker 3:They don't think like that. It's not. I've addressed this so many times to where I'm talking with people and they have no idea what reality is like that. Yeah, you're, you're a victim just walking around, you have your head in your phone, no attention whatsoever about your surroundings. It feels like almost it was a necessity for me to scan. I started as a bouncer before I was ever in the military and I could almost see what was happening in a large crowd of people. Right, you can watch those fights happen in between two guys. Once they get and look at each other. It's almost like I know the future. Now they're gonna be the ones that are fighting. It's the often the the reaction that we have to what is possibly going to happen. And if it doesn't, hey cool, no problem, I can go on without my day, but if it does, I'm out of there. I don't need to be a part of it.
Speaker 1:Hyper vigilance now, everything we're talking about is good, but too much of it, like I said, it's bad. Right, you see adverse effects that it can have, such as me flipping out on my wife. You know, right, probably, why I'm divorced now or separated, but you know it's good to let the public know, or and or cops like, hey, what you're going through is fucking check that shit out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, understand what is transpiring that's never happened before throughout the years. You know they called it shell shock in world war ii. Right, they had no idea how to deal with it with the uh g-bot soldiers. Now, not the understanding that I have. I have a friend of mine. He was what? Five years uh overseas in seven. So he got his seven and seven and he, he really was overseas non-stop. He never had the time to take back and and take a break. Right, he was going full force the whole time. He's, he's really solid guy. But I don't think I could have done that with the effects. I was I was overseas one year and not in combat, it was in in a um in guantanamo, so it had nothing to do with somebody shooting at me. I don't know how I would have dealt with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but back to, you know, talking about our exes, same same thing happened, man, it's used constantly. I keep hearing hey, stop talking to your son like he's an inmate, stop talking to your son like he's not an inmate. You know, he constantly tell me lock it up, go do this, go do that. And that's just how we're conditioned. You know, we're constantly doing this type of work and we take it home. We take it home, but there's no, there's no off switch. Sometimes they're the ones that have to suffer through all that law enforcement and military.
Speaker 3:Those are the highest percentage of divorce rates.
Speaker 1:I feel you it almost feels uncomfortable to talk about this, bro, but we need to talk about this to let it know like, hey, it's a real fucking thing, dude, and yeah, I experienced it.
Speaker 3:You just said you experienced it. I know in the last couple of months, not even towards the job, just being so focused on making this, um, this work, I've pushed everyone away by just not thinking oh, I got to be involved in this situation, right, I'm on timelines to make sure to get to even this podcast right here. Right, I pushed everything to the side. I'm on my computer non-stop, yeah, and if anybody's talking, I'm not a part of that conversation, so I'm just sitting there typing as much as I can do. We get into the alpha male. One point is going to there, right, and everything else I can pick up later on. It's a hard subject.
Speaker 1:No, it is, but it needs to be talked about, I think.
Speaker 2:Cause there's a lot of people that are going through it as well. I mean, we're not the only three sitting in the room going through something like that or have experienced that.
Speaker 1:Everybody I think everybody's going through some, some form of what we talked about.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, dude, you know definitely, and maybe, hopefully, maybe they can benefit. By just hearing, I'll be like, oh man, I'm not the only ones going through this, right, these guys are also went through some these three squared away dudes fucking have issues.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're fucking human.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it happens it happens.
Speaker 1:We're human man. We're human man, but we try to put our best foot fucking forward and help out the next guy. That's right. So I want to thank you guys for coming on the show. Thank you, brother Is there any last things you guys want to say. The floor is yours, man.
Speaker 2:I appreciate me down. Thank you, thank you, no, no, like I said, you've been a big inspiration to us, man. This is, and you know we appreciate you giving us the time to come out here and talk about our business.
Speaker 3:And where you're saying take it seriously. I think a lot of people you haven't seen yet how much you're influencing a lot of what we're doing. Uh, the, the change that you're making is really profound. Well, I'm really proud to be on your podcast and have the ability to be a part of this. Thanks, dude, because what you're doing is just we don't see that anywhere. I mean, this was an awesome opportunity and really appreciate it, appreciate you guys?
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, thank you Cool. If you guys ever want to come back, we'll set that up for sure.
Speaker 3:I know you love San.
Speaker 1:Diegogo, yeah come out sacramento.
Speaker 2:Once we hopefully get our setup going too, we'll have a podcast maybe come visit us in sec. Absolutely yeah, for sure. Well, there you guys have it.
Speaker 1:Folks. Another banger man. You guys have been asking for it. We're all about helping other people here by sharing our experience, strength and hope. If you like what you saw, make sure you hit that subscribe button. Love you guys. Keep pushing forward you, thank you.
