Mother's Day Special: Interview with Sergeant Jay "Packy" Dempsey

I already had all releases scheduled out through the end of July.  However, yesterday's interview with Packy felt fitting to cut the line and release on Mother's Day.

Packy and I had a great conversation about the fastest four seconds of his life.  A simple citizen encounter transitioned into a brawl, his service pistol being taken, and an attempt on his life.  Packy discusses the incident itself and what followed in both the short and longterm.

Thank you Packy for your openness and honesty.  Thank you for discussing your very personal issues that followed your shooting, and how you manage them to be the best man you can be.

May this episode save a life, career or personal relationship.

Happy Mother's Day.

-LEO

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:06

Good morning. Welcome back. And thank you, Packy, for being here today. How are you, sir?

SPEAKER_03 0:11

Every day's like Christmas.

SPEAKER_02 0:13

Okay. You're the man. Sergeant Packy, do you mind telling the listeners a little about your background and then we'll get into why we're here today, about the fastest four seconds of your life?

SPEAKER_03 0:24

Well, you know, I started in Selma, Alabama, Edmund Pettus Bridge, 1965, Race and March is where the voting rights started. Uh lived there all my life. My folks have been there. My grandparents built the house that I actually lived in in 1905. And I've had every side of my family, it's been military all the way back to Civil War. We got pitchers and stuff like that. So finally got hired at the sheriff's office, which had no application process, but made it through the process and made it through the police academy. And I served a little over 25 years in law enforcement, and I did six years in the Alabama National Guard, 217th MP Battalion as an MP.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

Okay. Do you remember what year you were hired? Just to uh some of these people.

SPEAKER_03 1:21

Oh yeah. Oh yeah, 1991.

SPEAKER_02 1:24

Hired in 91. So plenty of these folk, plenty of my listeners weren't quite born then or shortly thereafter.

SPEAKER_03 1:30

Oh now. They're just young.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

Yeah, they're just little chicken nuggets. So what'd you do during your career as a as a ended up being a sergeant, I believe, with the Selmer Police Department?

SPEAKER_03 1:42

Well, I started out as the canine officer at the jail, at the county jail. My first vehicle was a horse called Molly, and we took guys out, and uh instead of lawnmowers, they used sling blades, and we uh had over 40 bloodhounds, and we each section of the bloodhounds were fresh track to older track to days old track, you know. So we would track inmates when they escaped, which was pretty regular basis. It wasn't a maximum security, so we did have lifers there, you know.

SPEAKER_02 2:21

So they could kind of walk off if they wanted to.

SPEAKER_03 2:24

Uh man, my last guy went through a 12-inch exhaust vent over the stove. They have a lot of time on their hand?

SPEAKER_02 2:34

Yeah. And so nothing but so you had a bloodhound and I had 40 of them.

SPEAKER_03 2:42

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_02 2:43

Oh, so you were over the canine unit.

SPEAKER_03 2:45

Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

Okay. So man, the most country dude I think I've ever met, and I've policed South Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia, you know, Appalachian, Virginia. The most country dude I've ever met was a Georgia Department of Corrections dog handler. And they had bloodhounds, and they were, it reminded me of that song, you know, old Blue was going south and I was going north. And this Joker, we were out, I was on the Marshall Task Force, so we were out on an escapee. Somebody had, I think they had walked off from a work crew. So we went to round him up and we had the perimeter set, and I was in my truck and I saw this Joker, big old country dude. He ran into the woods out of nowhere. And I'm thinking, like, oh, he saw the prisoner. Well, this Joker comes back out. He's got a rattlesnake he's holding. And no, no, no, I'm sorry, I lied. He ran into the woods and he I see him clubbing something. And I mix that up with a story from the Marine Corps where a Marine was was holding a snake. He starts clubbing something, and he comes back out carrying a dead rattlesnake. And I guess he was concerned it would get him or his dog. So he, you know, me, I see a rattlesnake, I disengage. This joker chased it down and killed it. So that was pretty cool. Yeah. I guess he's used to the Georgia recruiters.

SPEAKER_03 4:14

I spent my time in Selma or Dallas County Sheriff's Office, went to the Selma PD, took a phone call, then you need a firearm instructor in Orange Beach, Alabama, when they had three red lights. Took a job down here, ended up being an instructor in everything use of force you can imagine. I was an FI firearm instructor at NRA. I did all the training. I hosted the did all the in-house training for about 10 years, rose to SWAT commander, and probably the funnest job and the best job I ever had was night shift sergeant.

SPEAKER_02 4:52

Yeah. What what made that more fun than everything else? Come on, you got some stuff.

SPEAKER_03 4:57

Well, you know, at five o'clock, everybody went home. And as my chief said multiple times, what's funny at 3 a.m. Ain't that funny at 8 a.m.?

SPEAKER_02 5:13

Yep, when it comes to light.

SPEAKER_03 5:15

And they, you know, they knew I'd been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, been on a narcotics unit. We served over Hunt Search once a year for five years in a row. So I've been there, done that, and I made every mistake. And I told every officer that. I like, there's nothing you can't even think about doing I ain't already done. Yep. So just come to me when you do it and we'll fix it.

SPEAKER_02 5:38

And that's that's the point of my program and all the stuff I do is I've been on a little, you know, a bit less than you, almost two decades of law enforcement, and same thing, just riddled with a handful of successes, but a heavy sprinkling of errors. And if these young guys or veterans can learn from the dumb stuff we did and avoid avoid the heartache that comes with it, it's a good day.

SPEAKER_03 6:04

My opening speech in my class is this class is not how to do it. Let me tell you how not to do it.

SPEAKER_02 6:11

Yeah. You're making a lot of sense. So did you, you know, you have an incident you talk about your your fastest four seconds, which I believe was an officer-involved shooting, correct? Correct. What what was your position at that time? Were you a canine handler or what were you doing?

SPEAKER_03 6:30

Yes, I was a I had moved from the jail. They moved me from patrols straight to narcotics because uh crack cocaine was hitting the streets, and the citizens were really upset about it, and they wanted to do something about it. So the dog was the way to go. The sheriff's like, hey, I want you to go investigate this thing called the drug dog. So I moved forward from there, routine call, which no calls routine. We had received somewhere around 2,000 calls in the high project uh former Air Force base in Selma. And uh they everybody was tied up for whatever reason, court and and you know, calls, you know, the county was 50 miles one way and 40 the next, and so everybody stretched out. So they decided to send me to a two-person call, which was gambling, drug use, loud music, and skipping school. I get to the call, activate my camera I had just purchased from Sears on my new thing called a credit card. And uh activated the camera, exited the vehicle, uh, knew up most of the guys from prior encounters, arrest, or just, you know, normal in interaction on the street. And there's this one kid standing there I had never seen before, and he had a between his finger and thumb, he had a piece of plastic and he stuck it in his pocket, and I knew that because I was assigned to the narcotics unit to be crack cocaine. Uh uh just off camera, I went to arresting. He uh attacked me, went straight for my weapon. We went to the ground, and uh I he he got the best of me, he got on top of me, and the other guys were coming in and saying things and putting hands under their shirts, and we're gonna we're gonna take care of you. And so I hit this new thing called a bailout system that I just had installed from a company just come out brand new, so they donated it to me. So the dog came out, the gang, the other makeshift, the wannabe gang guys ran off, and she took him off of me. He he couldn't figure out what happened, and then we go into the view of the camera, had him in a headlock, we tussled around and round, and he was pretty stout guy. I was a wrestler in high school, I played football, track, and sports, so I was pretty good. You know, I was in great shape, and uh the dog came in, and it was new to her, a lot of the stuff, because we hadn't trained it. And I get a lot, I get a lot of hate mail from canine officers, but we'll talk about that later. And he, while I radioed for help and handcuffed it, started handcuffing, he took my weapon and I didn't know it. Uh the dog came in, he s hit her in the ground to try to get her off of him, and it caused a stove pipe, which I didn't know and he didn't know.

SPEAKER_02 9:47

Oh, he hit her with your pistol.

SPEAKER_03 9:50

Right.

SPEAKER_02 9:50

He pistol whipped the dog.

SPEAKER_03 9:52

Right. And it hit the ground and the barrel was sticking out about that far, and I thought, wow, I missed setting the pet gam pet down. Mm-hmm. And he's fixing to shoot me because I could hear him pulling the trigger and he told me, you're gonna die. And uh, you know, the flooding memories of the photo on the dash of my truck of daughter and wife heading to the first day of kindergarten flooded me, and I thought, who's gonna walk her down the aisle? And I started getting pissed off. And I could literally feel the instructor who was a dear friend from the academy, was like, are you just gonna lay there? You went one minute, I could see the pulse in my eyes, my breathing was high, my pulse rate was high, and I almost gave up. And I was like, somebody else is gonna walk her down the aisle. I was like, you know what? He's gonna take me, but I'm taking him with me. And I rose and went from my primary weapon. You see me on the video looking, reaching twice to looking down once. There was no gun. And because of the last day at the firing range, I drew my backup weapon and emptied it. Pulled my backup weapon and fired five rounds center mass, just like he trained in the academy. And then the tunnel vision went away, and I could see the other guy standing behind him, and I was, and he just took off running like unaffected. And I was like, if I missed him, where'd all the bullets go? Yeah. So I gave chase, he fell over in the bushes, he turned and tried to shoot me again, and it was my dog engaged his arm, and I twisted it away like they taught in the academy, and I realized that's my gun. Cleared it, had a few choice words with the guys that were coming in, commanded the dog to bark, and she did, and he kept them off of me, went double zero on the radio, and uh things went downhill from there.

SPEAKER_02 12:11

So the guys were coming in, and uh, you made it pretty clear that if you just had a shooting and that Nobody else was fixing to die. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:20

If there's at least two guns in play, we don't really talk about it, but it was real ugly and unchristian like uh me, but I made my point.

SPEAKER_02 12:28

And nobody else died that day. So if your words kept somebody else from dying, then you said what needed to be said. And how long was that? You said you're you had your Sears camera on, how long was that from start from the start of all that? Because that's a lot of events to the finish, to him collapsing in a bush.

SPEAKER_03 12:48

The total encounters, two minutes. The struggle is one minute to the T almost textbook, FBI, statistics, and then the shooting went down in four seconds.

SPEAKER_02 13:06

Man, well, I'm glad you trained that backup because a lot of folks carry backup and I feel like do the backup weapon qual, which is usually pretty easy, but actually getting in the reps, drawing from where you carry. Sounds like between that beautiful princess of a dog and that training and that little button saved your life.

SPEAKER_03 13:28

God was there. There's no denying it. You look at the video and they're like, the FBI took FBI D E A, other agencies took my gun, struck it, threw it, did all kinds of things, it never jammed again.

SPEAKER_02 13:46

Somebody stepped in.

SPEAKER_03 13:48

Yes, he did.

SPEAKER_02 13:49

The big man, man.

SPEAKER_03 13:50

That's my story, you know.

SPEAKER_02 13:52

So Yeah. So do you mind talking about what went on after that so that you know the the many, many officers that haven't been put in a situation where they're attacked and they're about to be killed and they had to shoot so they can get a feeling for, you know, kind of what you experience over the next hours or days?

SPEAKER_03 14:13

I began to hyperventilate. I was looking, you can see me on the camera. Officers are walking up to me. Are you okay? What's going on? You have, you know, why is this guy dead over here? What are you doing? And I'm like, I'm looking for the cracker. I arrested him, and all I could focus on was if I don't find that crack, then I don't have reasonable suspicion and probably cause. And I was like, and my lieutenant walks up to me from narcotics, he's like, You need to sit down. You're white as a ghost. I just need so he sets me in the truck, and investigations start and go to the hospital, and uh the contact with my wife didn't go well because I broke down. They told me the guy didn't make it while I was at the office, and uh I felt distanced from the guys. These are people I went to church with, these are people I had over at my house barbecue, and they began to distance me because of the rumors, and and immediately, and this is pre-social media, a crowd began to form and like conclusion was jumped to. Oh, yeah. He shot him in the back because he's a minority, and no reason, and the dog bit him, and you know, in the struggle, the dog bit me too. So not only am I fighting the gang guys, the suspect, I'm I'm fighting my dog too. All these canine handlers are like, my dog would never bite me. Hmm.

SPEAKER_02 15:54

Maybe.

SPEAKER_03 15:56

Don't knock it till you've been there.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

Till your dog gets pistol whipped in the face with a you know, and then there's gunfire going on.

SPEAKER_03 16:05

Uh there's a video out on my website uh twice, you know, so and she kept coming back, which she was not trained to do. We were limited on our patrol training at the time, but I often say my training nearly killed me, but my training saved my life.

SPEAKER_02 16:27

What kind of dog is she?

SPEAKER_03 16:29

She was a German shepherd.

SPEAKER_02 16:31

Uh gotcha, okay. And uh so uh did you I know back then it probably wasn't like this. Now it's always suggested to officers to wait to, you know, give kind of a preliminary statement and then to wait to give a full statement, to wait to w write the report, to get legal representation. Did any of that go on?

SPEAKER_03 16:57

No, uh immediately I'm called in by one of my dear friends as a lieutenant investigator and another friend that was an ABI investigator, and they read me my rights. And I remember sitting back in that chair and I was thinking, What why are you reading my rights? The guy tried to kill me.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:15

Immediately they tried to, hey, sign the waiver, talk to us, we have some questions. So I signed the waiver reluctantly, and they were like, first thing we want you to know is all shots were fired from the front. And I was like, I I know that. And they were like, well, you know, the crowd is saying otherwise, and witnesses otherwise. And I was like, no. And he goes, Why is there a bullet by the body? And I was like, because he stole my gun. Did you not watch the video? Oh, we hadn't watched the video yet. It was relatively new technology at the time, eight millimeter was coming out, and they were rambling, trying to figure out how to take that tape and put it on a TV. Gotcha. So they had to watch it, so you know, and and the last thing they asked, they said, because I I locked up, I couldn't say anymore. I was like, the ability to speak, I was just blown away. Why am I being my rights? And uh he said, Well what was the last thing on your mind? I was like, my wife and kids, and who's gonna walk her down the aisle?

unknown 18:25

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 18:26

They kind of gave me a puzzled look, but you know, things went on, set at home for four months or so. First grand jury meets very uh unorganized. One minute they would hear about my case, the next they'd hear about a rape case somewhere else, and the next they you know, and then an investigator would come in and and uh they voted down the minority lines. Six to six. I'm sorry, nine to nine. It takes twelve in state Alabama at the time to night. I don't know what it is now, and I I I get the phone call. Hey, uh uh we're gonna have to regroup. Even though they're marching on town, they're burning pallets, they're shooting, they're call my my friends are out there fighting to answer these calls because of me.

SPEAKER_02 19:26

Yeah, I can get how you would see it that way. I mean, I you were put in a position.

SPEAKER_03 19:34

That they're in the foxhole without me. And uh so six months or so goes by, and the the ABI and Department of Forensic Science, which I had a great relationship with, they really got their act together, and my attorney that was paid for by an unknown citizen. Oh, nice was the top of the line. He was a mm-hmm, he was a fighter and organized the next grand jury, and uh they voted 12 to not indict and six to indict. And I was about a year or later before I was actually put back on the street, assigned again to the narcotics unit and doing the job.

SPEAKER_02 20:26

And some people think that administrative leave, that paid admin leave, is oh, I'm on vacation, but goodness.

SPEAKER_03 20:35

My guys can't talk to me, they're not talking to me. I had a few guys step up, sleep on my couch, and uh made a great relationship with the troopers because they didn't have a canine, so they would call me and they stayed in my front yard and death.

SPEAKER_02 20:53

You had some threats following that.

SPEAKER_03 20:55

Oh, absolutely. And and my guys that I work with are getting threatened, you know, and I'm like, man, this is my fault. I could have done something different. I felt I could have done something. Insomnia creeped in. So, you know, being released back on the street, I was very restricted. They assigned me to a partner hoping that would eliminate, you know, because canine is called when the SWAT's in trouble. So I was constantly put in crappy situations, but uh and then he shot somebody, so they decided that both of us needed to take a little time off. So we checked out at the dollar uh rental store and we rented a movie every day, and it took a long time for the administration and the community to accept me back to the streets, even though I did nothing wrong. Yeah they were worried for me and their safety.

SPEAKER_02 22:02

Yeah, you can be totally clear. But uh if there's a loud enough group, then it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_03 22:10

Oh yeah, well, you know, civil rights marches were from Selma and all the actors were there, and uh you know, my family was not safe. I had to send my daughter to private school. My wife had to teach in a private school, and uh so it it wasn't textbook perfect.

SPEAKER_02 22:35

Yeah, you know, I don't think it ever is, and people picture I think a lot of people that haven't either had an officer-involved shootings or or been around them picture it at uh, you know, people watch war movies or watch swap movies and stuff, or or TV FBI, yeah. Yeah, and they picture either somebody giving an order to fire or this very clear, like slow-motioned out process. And I know you say the longest four seconds, but I can't imagine how quickly that went. Did you experience any of the you know, time disport distortion or auditory exclusion or anything that people talk about?

SPEAKER_03 23:19

Dude, I couldn't sleep. Uh every night I'd wake up just sweating, and different scenarios would play out. He won, I won, my family was in danger. I I I didn't sleep for literally years. And I began to develop PTSD, which at the time they really didn't know what that was in police works. Soldiers were coming back with it and they were addressing that. But uh, if you told them you had issues, you were benched.

SPEAKER_01 23:54

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 23:55

And I loved the job. I I didn't want to be benched. It was my it was my passion.

SPEAKER_02 24:02

Yeah. Well, man, a lot of the stuff you said, I uh one of my pretty good friends, he's he got medically retired following a similar treatment after he had a shooting. He had a approach a 16-year-old that was in a stolen car, didn't know he was 16, but approached a stolen car. 16-year-old upped a gun at him, and he fired and killed him. And it was a similar uh department had a similar reaction. He's getting read his rights. You know, their line of questioning is confrontational instead of instead of trying to understand. And he ended up medically retiring because it just he couldn't do that anyway.

SPEAKER_03 24:44

He felt like, man, I didn't want to do this, but if I get put in this situation after that, any use of force, which I was put in crappy situations, so I used a lot of force, and they would go ballistic over it. So I took the job at the beach town. Uh we have about 5,000 residents in the winter and 150 visitors in the summer, and uh began to train, and I never spoke of the incident. People knew about it, but there was no speaking of it. So the PTSD began to come in and I couldn't sleep, so they tried ambient. Well, you know, you wake up the next morning, your jogging clothes are wet, you did an entire presentation, you have no recollection. So that didn't work, at least with me. Uh and then I began to say, hey, that drink on Friday afternoon turned into I gotta have it every afternoon to I gotta have it to you know, I can I make it to lunch and uh so I needed to check out because I I there's smells that bring me back to that guy where his sweat dropped on me during the struggle and I smelled the body and and it and it it began to take its toll and I began to view pornography and having extramarital affairs and anything to take him off of mine and believe me, I would do anything. I'd spend money, you know. So it all came to a head in 2020. I ended up in ended up in a spare bedroom with a wife that said, we no longer have a relationship. And uh I blew up with my kids from just being a jerk and uh I hit my knees and I began to ask for help. I got five guys I contact every mornings going through the same struggle and we contact each other prior to six o'clock. I put my as some physical guys call it, I put my reps in every day. Draw my weapon multiple times. Uh I clear the garage on the way out to the car, I pray, I listen to Bible study, I listen to podcasts such as yours, and it motivates me through the day, and I get to help a lot of guys because guys with PTSD, or I call it PTS because I don't have a disorder. And I begin to say, I've been there, listen to my story, and I connect with guys and females that would normally wouldn't open up about their issues, but I'm open, I'm an open book, so whatever you need to ask, just ask it.

SPEAKER_02 27:49

It helps, I think it helps other people to open up. I mean, you said a lot of stuff in the last few minutes that uh very honest stuff that it's hard to share with people. So I appreciate you doing that, and I think it's easier to talk to somebody that's already made themselves vulnerable.

SPEAKER_03 28:05

And it helps me.

SPEAKER_02 28:07

Yeah, and we you I know if I say something now, you're not gonna look down on me because you just said, man, I nor do I care.

SPEAKER_03 28:14

Right. You know, I got a call from the Alabama State Troopers, the head of a training, and he was like, I need you to come. I was there that day. I responded, will you come tell your story? And I was like, heck no. I got my butt kicked. I've ruined every family event because I would be at our family event and thinking that father, which I knew his dad, is not enjoying his son. He's not getting to. And I ruined it all. I was like, and it like the third phone call, he pretty much ordered me, get your butt up here and tell your story. And I did and I began to feel purpose and relief and God's blessed me with finances, and so I get to talk to these troops three days before they graduate when they're ready to take on hell with a water pistol. And I'm like, this could happen in four seconds. Be prepared because the statistics show sometime in your career somebody's gonna try to kill you 100% of the time. Your family don't want a flag, they don't want a casket, they want you, and it's your job to come home.

SPEAKER_02 29:43

I love something you said a minute ago that I wanted to revisit. You said, you know, you spend time training, dry firing, clearing areas, and it's it's so funny to me that most of us don't do that until we've had one or several critical incidents, which is a little bit backwards because you need it before.

SPEAKER_01 30:05

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 30:06

But it just doesn't, it's hard to make the reality of it click of it can happen anytime. You know, you go in, cut up, you're having an energy drink with your buddies, you hit the street, you're looking for some action, you have no idea that you're stopping somebody that doesn't mind killing a cop.

SPEAKER_03 30:24

Hey, you don't get to choose the time and place. They do, they plan for hours, days, months, years. The average police shooting occurs somewhere around four seconds. It's your job to be ready.

SPEAKER_02 30:40

Yeah, totally agree. And whatever we can do to enlighten people to that and get them to train, you know, fitness, fighting. I mean, you're you were a high school wrestler. I mean, I've tangled with some high school wrestlers, and they are not easy to deal with.

SPEAKER_03 30:58

Right.

SPEAKER_02 30:59

And and he was still, I mean, he was on adrenaline, maybe on some kind of substance, too.

SPEAKER_03 31:06

And the whole time I'm thinking, I'm gonna get sued. It's a dog bite in Selma, Alabama. My bosses are not gonna support me in this, I'm going to jail, I'm losing my job.

SPEAKER_02 31:23

Just worst case scenario in every time.

SPEAKER_03 31:25

All that was going through my mind, as I'm wrestling a guy that wanted to get away from me more than I want to take him into custody. I don't think that way no more.

SPEAKER_02 31:37

And he wanted, he was willing to commit murder over a crack rock in his pocket.

SPEAKER_03 31:44

And something, you know, he had warrants for his arrest, he had all that in his mind. He was a murder suspect, he had all that on his mind.

SPEAKER_02 31:52

So he didn't know what you were getting him for because he'd been doing so much crime. I don't want to speak ill of the of the deceased. Yeah. If that but I'm glad you survived that fight, and sorry it took a toll on you, but it sounds like maybe you found your true calling, which is getting on your knees and refining yourself and and teaching the young officers.

SPEAKER_03 32:20

That's right. And and I talked to men's group. I'm pretty tough on men's group when it's just the clothes and nothing but men. And I get into them, I get into them really hard about alcohol and pornography, and I told the secret will eventually come to light.

SPEAKER_02 32:39

So um so how do you get how do you get them to give those up? Because those are very, I'd say very pervasive in the law enforcement community. Is it, I mean, you had or have five guys that you contact every morning before six. What's your when you're teaching others, can you can you give uh some kind of version of you know what you try to give that might work to help somebody that's every day?

SPEAKER_03 33:05

Every day I put pennies in the jar. Okay. Every day. And each day the pennies get larger and larger and larger. Because it says in the Bible, the devil's a roaring line, he's coming for you. He's coming to take you in your law enforcement career because there's that statistic. You have built up this huge jar of pennies for your brain, and and you can pull from and you will win the situation. The war is already won, and I do the pennies in a jar every day.

SPEAKER_02 33:36

Literal pennies in a jar.

SPEAKER_03 33:38

Literally.

SPEAKER_02 33:39

Okay. And then as it's piling up, you can see your progress.

SPEAKER_03 33:43

That's right. And I can pull from that progress because if the pennies ain't there, your brain can't make it up. You're successful from from the attack.

SPEAKER_02 33:53

So you can see the process or the progress, rather. I I love that, and I I love that I really appreciate you being open about the mistakes that you were making following the shooting and how you were trying to cope with it, but doing it wrong. And sh I'm a hundred percent sure at least one listener, probably a bunch more.

SPEAKER_03 34:16

I'm after that one person.

SPEAKER_02 34:18

One's good enough, but probably many more. They're relating to one of those.

SPEAKER_03 34:23

One at a time.

SPEAKER_02 34:24

And they're hopefully going, I need to change that. Maybe I get a jar. Maybe I get some pennies.

SPEAKER_03 34:31

Contact me at the fastest four seconds. I have my phone number on there. I take phone calls from 5 a.m. I'm here for you. My book release is Monday, May the 11th. Read the book. It's a lot of detail, but God had a plan and He got me to speak to you today. So my mission is complete for the day.

SPEAKER_02 34:56

Thank you so much. And uh, I'll tell you this, Packy. I I have all my stuff scheduled out to release through the end of July 2026. But we're recording this on Saturday, the day before Mother's Day. And I feel like, you know, let's let's let's go ahead and drop it on Mother's Day just because if it saves somebody's son or saves a mother who listens and realizes they need that change.

SPEAKER_03 35:21

Your mother doesn't understand why you didn't come home.

SPEAKER_02 35:24

Right. Right. And I think somebody's either gonna get get more serious about their training to stay alive or make those changes away from infidelity, pornography.

SPEAKER_03 35:36

The department will will provide you with the minimum amount of training you need, but it's up to you. Are you gonna be the one that steps it to the next level? Are you the warrior that comes home at the end of the fight?

SPEAKER_02 35:52

My my theory on it is this the department trains you enough to alleviate themselves of responsibility and liability. They can say, Well, he shot an 80, he, but it's that is not combat shooting. No, sir.

SPEAKER_03 36:09

I've never met a firearm instructor that was satisfied.

SPEAKER_02 36:13

Yeah, they're always way beyond the qualification. They're not shooting 82s.

SPEAKER_03 36:17

Right.

SPEAKER_02 36:18

Give me a break. Thank you so much for your time. Fast as four seconds, people can reach you if they want to hear more and really appreciate it. I'm gonna let this go on Mother's Day for all the mamas out there.

SPEAKER_03 36:29

That's right. Always expect the unexpected and never underestimate your opposition.

SPEAKER_02 36:36

Yeah, we we do tend to think that we're tougher because we have a badge and a uniform and some very light yearly training. Some tough cookies out there that have been to prison, done some time, and been in some fights.

SPEAKER_03 36:49

May God bless you in this podcast, and may God bless America.

SPEAKER_02 36:53

Thank you, Packy. Appreciate you, sir.

SPEAKER_03 36:55

Thank you.