Episode 21 - Day 1 Week 1 with Billy Bowering

Welcome to Outside the Line - the podcast for cops who are learning to stay anchored to the real world.

This week I'm joined by Billy Bowering - a navy veteran, former law enforcement, DJ on the Thin Line Rock Station, and founder, CEO and chaplain of his non-profit organization Day 1 Week 1.

Billy talks about growing up on a dairy farm in Upstate New York, his career in the US Navy, why he ended up in a dark place after being fired for political reasons while doing his job, and how that led him to become a chaplain and start an organization helping other cops who are struggling with their mental health.

Connect with Billy:

https://day1week1.org/

http://youtube.com/@Day1Week1

https://www.instagram.com/day1.week1/

Connect with me:

https://www.instagram.com/outsidethelinepod

https://www.facebook.com/outsidethelinepodcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to the line. Conversation resilient and mental hell. And I'm developing awareness and an identity outside of career so that we can enjoy life and live in the real world. Outside the line. Welcome back to another episode of Outside the Line, the podcast for cops who are learning to stay anchored to the real world. My name is Dina Campbell. Thank you for being here. And I am here today with Billy Bellering. He first, first and foremost, he is a Christian, a child of God. He's also a Navy veteran, former law enforcement, DJ with me on the Thin Line Rock Station, and founder, CEO, and chaplain at his organization, daywhenweek1.org. So Billy, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

This is exciting. Um, I know when you weren't on my show, I I believe they we've got a lot of uh we got a lot of views. People were very interested in knowing about the uh detective that looked like she was 21. So that was the big deal.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

I mean, I don't want to brag.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

I'll brag for you.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Thank you. And I'm so excited. I'm sorry if you can hear my dog in the background. I'm so excited to have you on because I did all the talking last time. So now it's your turn.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Okay. Um, so yeah, I I spent eight years in the Navy um right out of high school. Um so I kind of back up a little bit. I lived on a dairy farm up in upstate New York, up in the Syracuse area. We had about 500 acres, roughly. Uh, had a bunch of cattle, cows, um, we had pigs, we had chickens, we had horses, goats, turkeys, all of that. All the things that you would have, right? Um, and as I grew up, it we didn't really have to go to the we didn't have to go to the store very often because we we had a huge garden and we had all the food that we needed right there. Every month we would we would butcher one of the cows or something like that. And we we were just self-sufficient. Um my grandparents had grown up through the Great Depression, and so they knew how to use everything. Um the only thing, the only time we ever really went to went to town was to get new shoes or maybe a new coat or something that that my gram couldn't couldn't make. So um I don't know if that's telling you my age at all, but anyway, um, so I lived on the farm, worked on the farm, and then when I turned 18 years old, I went into uh the United States Navy. Um I spent eight years in the Navy, and because I was a punk in the Navy, um, I could have done a full career, but they gave me the option. Um, they gave me an option. They said, Well, we need you to go back to sea for for three more years. Uh, three more, three more uh sea billet. And I said, Well, there's nothing on shore to have or anything. And they said, No, we don't have anything open on the east coast because that's where I wanted to stay. And I didn't necessarily want to go out of the country, so they didn't have anything. They were like, No, you you're gonna have to do at least three more years, and then we can get you on a shore billet um without having to go to sea. And because, like I said, I was a punk and I didn't realize it, I just I decided to get out. And a lot of times I'm resentful for not just sticking it out for three more years because I probab I probably would have had a great career in the Navy. And but then again, you know, the the way we do things and how we go where we go is because of the decisions that we make, whether they're good or bad. Uh, we try to follow whatever guidance God gives us. So um, so when I got out of the Navy, I was a truck driver for about 15 years. Um, I've been in every single state um across the country, I've been in all the big cities with an 18-wheeler. I've come up through New York City, uh, I've come through Manhattan, I've come through all the boroughs.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

No thanks.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Yeah, the funniest part, I had to make a turn, and I'll never forget this. I had to make a turn, and there was a car parked right on the on the end of the road, and I could not make that without running over that car. And there was an officer standing there, and I threw my hands up and he looked at me, he goes, Just go, just go, don't worry about it. And I was I was like, What? He's like, just go. He said, They're not supposed to be parked there anyway. Go ahead. I'm like, What? I never heard anything about it. Nobody came out and got a license plate. Um, yeah, I took the front of the car right off. Okay, because I couldn't, I couldn't get down the other. Yep, that was a non-reportable accident right there. So hey, the cop told me to do it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Listen, don't worry, I'm not taking a report now, so you're fine. Right.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Yeah, I'm not taking a report, so I didn't see anything.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

I didn't say anything either. But that was the that was probably the worst uh experience going just for the next two days wondering if a SWAT team was gonna come after my truck, you know. So uh, but I did that for about 15 years, and um when I got done kind of roaming the country, um, I came to South Carolina and I'd been here a couple times before bringing different loads in to different paper products and things, and I really liked it in this area, so I decided that I was gonna stay here. Um being on the road cost me a marriage anyway. Um, so I figured if I'm gonna make a new start, I might as well make it in in a place that I can call paradise. Excuse me. And it was that for about the last 10 years. And uh so I got a local job, started driving local, and then I met my now wife, um, and we went to an event, and there was a couple of deputies that were at this event just standing out there enjoying the vibe. You know, there was a it's a it's called Brook Green Gardens, and it's uh it's a old museum type of property that used to be part of the rice fields back during the revolutionary and civil war days. Oh wow, yeah, so there's a lot of history here. I'm a big history buff, so that that was really big. Um, but I was they had a a a band or something like that out there that night. And so we showed up, and then because I always did, I always had respect for law enforcement. Um, I walked up to the lieutenant and the sergeant and stuff, and I was like, Hey guys, thanks for service. You know, thank you so much for what you do. You know, I got a lot of respect. You guys, I don't know if I could do what you do, stuff like that. And the lieutenant goes, Well, you can you could definitely do what we do. And uh I said, I said, No, man. I mean, I'm like 43 years old, there's no way. And he's like, No, no, no, you can you can do it. If you can pass the the pat test, you can do it. I'm like, isn't there a written kind of a thing? Come on, dude. He's like, You got this. So I thought about it for a week or so, and I asked my wife, I said, What do you think? I said, if you think I, you know, I mean, I've always wanted, I always wanted to be in law enforcement, never thought I was good enough. That was my response to that. And you know how you always hear people say, Well, I almost went in the military. Yeah, yeah, I was gonna be uh in the army. Well, congratulations, you know. I mean you don't know what to say. Uh so I knew that if I didn't go for it, I would I would have regretted it. So I went for it. I got hired, went through uh, like we were talking about polygraphs, uh, did a bunch of polygraphs, did a bunch of the other tests. Um, the physical test wasn't as strenuous as I thought it was gonna be. Um, I was a runner at the time. Um, so I I didn't have I didn't have that much uh training, I guess, to do to get ready for the for the uh academy or anything like that. Um so I passed everything, I went to the academy, um, had a great experience at the academy. I was the oldest guy in the class, which it was kind of cool. I mean, at 45 years old, um, and you got a bunch of kids that are in there that probably you you could be their dad. So they called me, they called me Papa Billy a lot of times, which was okay. Um, they had the academic part because they are, you know, they're fresh out of school or fresh out of college. It'd been 20 years, 20 plus years since I'd been in school, so or more, actually. So it, you know, that would that didn't come right to me, you know, how to study, how to do all these different things, learning the elements of crime and you know, all the legals and stuff was really hard uh to get the first couple weeks understanding the terminology. And um, but then uh it kind of kicked in. I I got with a group of guys and we just kind of sat together and I'm like, okay, guys, explain this to me, you know, whatever. And they're like, All right, only if you let me go run with you in the morning. I'm like, yeah, let's go. Let's get up, four o'clock. We'll you know, meet me out front, we'll go around the track, we'll go run a mile or two miles, whatever. And we would do that. So we would run, uh, we'd run a couple miles in the morning, I'd run a couple miles at night. Nobody wanted to run with me at night. I'm not sure why, but uh, other than just being lazy, they were like, uh, I've been in a class all day, you know, whatever. Yeah, I would go change, I would go run and do three miles on the track, and then I'd go in and get something to eat, study for about an hour and a half, and I'd go to sleep and do the same thing the next day, next day, next day. Well, we had a um we had a um what do they call it? Jeez. This is my age right here. Um it was like a fitness exam, fitness test. Um, and and one person would get a fitness award out of the class if he could pass all of the different sections and do it exceptionally well and worse in a better time than everyone else. So I started focusing on that. I thought, yeah, this is this is something I want to do. And and it wasn't, I didn't do it with the with the means of, hey, look at me, because that certainly wasn't the part of it. It was, hey, I'm 45 years old, and I want you to be able to rely on this guy when the stuff hits the fan. I want to make sure you know that I can do what I've been trained to do, so you don't have to worry about me getting your six because I got you. So that was my thing. That was that was the big thing about that. And I um I was the only one that got the fitness award at the academy.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

So oh wow, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

So that was pretty that's kind of my my academy thing. It was funny because the uh the captain of the academy, he's like, he said, um, oh sure. He says, You might know it's the oldest guy in the class over here getting the fitness award, you know, and everybody just laughed and thought that was funny. But I stood up and he he gave it to me. I thought that was pretty neat.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

So yeah, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

So uh I had a lot of fun with that. Then I um then I got into FTO, did a bunch of things with uh FTO. I started out in in a different agency, so I started out as a deputy, uh deputy sheriff. My thing right off the bat was getting the DUIs. I was a big DUI guy. And there were weekends where I would get two or three a weekend. Uh there was one night. I think the most I got in one night was three in one night.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

Wow, that's a lot for one night.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

I started, yeah, because the paperwork takes like three hours. It's crazy. I I literally, well, I definitely had over over um over time that that one shift because I got one right at the beginning of shift, one in the middle, and then I got one right towards the end. And my supervisors and everybody like, dude, what are you doing? I mean, we got off at six, and I pulled this guy over at five, and they're like, 'What are you doing?' I'm like, I'm trying to save families from getting killed from drunk drivers. That's what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_02 12:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

So that was my goal, you know, was to was to just keep the roads safe more than anything. I didn't really go after speeders too much unless it was um, if it was blatant, if they're going in and out of traffic, you know, then I would I would pull them over. I'd be like, hey, listen, you're being reckless, you know, you're gonna get a ticket. Stop being reckless, you you're gonna hurt somebody or yourself. Um, but the DYs was my big thing. So I had a secret spot where I would sit every single shift, right about 11:30, 12 o'clock, and it was two or three miles from the bar, you know, it wasn't like I was sitting out in front of the place or nothing. Um, but they would come through this four-way stop, and when they left the place that they were leaving, they would go to that four-way stop. Some of them would just tap their brakes, kind of look both ways, and keep going. And it was perfect. By the time they got up to the bank up the street, I had blue lights on them and they were pulled over. So, um, and that's how I got them all the time. It was just like fishing in a barrel.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

I was just gonna say fish in a barrel.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

Yeah, it really was, it really was. Um, but I I I enjoyed that. I I did that a lot. So I did that a lot, and that was working on the beach side of um of that county. So they allowed me to do that quite a lot, and then I guess I don't know if somebody didn't want me to do it that much or something. Well, they changed my they changed my sector and they put me out in the country, out in the rural spots, uh, really rural, where like help is like 45 minutes away.

SPEAKER_02 14:29

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Yeah, there was only three of us in the in the town side of the county, and there was only two deputies on the beach side of the county. So those three, me being one of the three, I'll give you an example. Let's say if I was in that it's a place called Plantersville, and they're in the city of Georgetown, it'll take them 45 to 50 minutes to get to me. So if I'm in a if I'm in a mess out there, I better not fight. So um, so there was that kind of thing going on. So as as I progressed with the agency, I tried to get into um I tried one time for corporal while I was there because there was a lot of spots, uh, top spots that were available. Um, I was about two years in, and by no means was I eligible or equipped to be a corporal, to be a supervisor at that point. I the reason I did it was because of my age. Um, I thought maybe I brought some more life experience to the table. Um come to find out you got to have more police experience when you're in a supervisory position. So um obviously I didn't get that position, but I stayed on the town side for for a while. And then one night uh they let me be an FTO, they let me be a field training officer, uh, where I would train the rookies that are just coming out. They would ride with me for two or three weeks, and then they would go to an actual training sergeant who would teach them all the admin stuff. They would just kind of come out and be a part of what we're doing. Um fully certified, able to arrest, just no confidence whatsoever yet. Yeah, right, just standing there just as green as anything. So this is uh this is kind of where this whole story ends, or starts rather. So I've got a I've got a trainee with me and he's driving, and I see this car coming. Again, DY was my was my thing. I see this car coming, and I could see it on the other. So there's two lanes going south, two lanes going north. And I saw this car cross over, it was middle of the night, two o'clock in the morning. But I saw this car cross over into the uh left lane without a blinker or anything like that, and then it quickly went back over to the right lane. And I went, that guy's drunk. Go go get him like that. And I said, Hey, look at this. This is uh this is your first chance to to do a DUI. And he was nervous, of course. He said, Well, maybe I'll watch you do one more. And this was only his ninth time riding with me. So I'd already done three or four of them with him in the car. He says, Maybe let me watch you one more time. I said, Okay, because it's a standardized field sobriety, and you want to make sure. I mean, he passed it in the academy, so you have to know it before you get out on the road. But he just wasn't confident to tell somebody to walk and turn or whatever. So I we we get behind the car, pull it over. I tell him, I'm like, you can go ahead and approach the driver if you want. He goes, uh, he comes back, he's got the driver's license, and he says to me, she's wasted. And I said, All right, you want to do this thing or or what? And he's like, he's like, I guess, because I said to him, I said, if you know already that she's wasted, this is gonna be an easy one. You know, you don't have to really get a lot of evidence. She can tell by her slurring, the way she's talking, you know, the not able to keep her balance, all of that. And uh he's like, No, I I wanna I want to see you do it one more time. So I said, Okay, long story short, she's plastered. Um, I mean, she probably would have blown four or five times the limit. Um, so I I placed her under arrest, but she had a uh passenger with her, and they she was also impaired, so there's no way she was gonna ride uh drive. So I said, uh man, I you know, I really didn't want to have to take you to jail tonight. I was hoping you could, you know, you could get somebody to come out here and get you, or get your car, rather. You know, if you get somebody to come out and get your car, I won't have it towed. Because that was part of the policy. If you you can't leave cars on the side of the road. So she calls somebody. I tell the guy I'm on I'm on the phone with him while she's talking to him, and he says, uh, he goes, Yeah, I can be there in about an hour. I said, No, no. I said, You got 15 minutes to get here. I said, otherwise, I'm gonna tow the car, she's gonna go to jail, and then her friend is on her own. I I don't know what to tell you. All right, all right, I'll be there in 15 minutes. Well, he comes, it was about 20 minutes. So it was about 20 minutes later, and I uh was just getting ready to call for the tow truck, and uh I was just getting ready to call for the tow truck, and all of a sudden he comes pulling in with his truck, and it's one guy, it's not two people because somebody's supposed to come get the car and then drive his truck out of there. Well, it's one guy, he basically falls out of his vehicle, and he's intoxicated as well. And I'm like, so it because I saw as soon as I saw him do it, I said, Have you been drinking? I mean, I was in the bed, and I'm like, Oh, okay, you're in the bed, but before you were in the bed, how much alcohol had you consumed today? And he goes, I mean, you know, I ain't trying to get in no trouble or nothing. I said, Too late. Too late for that, yeah. Too late, partner. You made a bad decision coming by yourself. You really did. I need you to stand over there. I'm gonna go call highway patrol, they're gonna come out here and they're gonna talk to you about you possibly being impaired, and that's how I left it. Told the rookie, I said, Hey man, don't let him get back in his truck. Make sure he doesn't go anywhere. I'm gonna go call highway. So I got in, I went and grabbed my phone out of the car, and I'm talking to Highway. I'm look not looking at the scene or anything. I just got my back to everything because everybody, everything, everything's calm, right? But then I I said to uh highway patrol, I said, All right, you'll be here in about 15. And he said, Yeah, that that'll work 15 minutes. I said, Okay, cool. So I hung up, I looked over, and old boy's in the side in the passenger side of his truck, and he's just thumbing around in there. And the first thing I thought was he's trying to get a gun.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Right? So I yell at the rookie, I'm like, get him out of that truck, get him out of that truck. So he goes walking over, and he's well, when I turn around, he's doing this on his phone, not even paying attention. By the way, he's a detective now.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

Oh boy, yeah. I mean, let's hope he's got more experience on him now.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

Yeah, he's got probably he's probably got about six years, six or eight years on him now. Uh no, not eight. Definitely not eight. He's probably got six years on him now. Um anyway. So I I walk up there and I'm like, hey man, I told you not to get back because I told him not to get in his truck. I said, stand over there, I'll be back with you in a minute. I said, hey, I told you not to go over there. I told you not to do this or whatever. And he's like, he starts pointing at me like, you ain't gonna tell me what, you know, this and that. No, he was about 6'1, 350 pounds. He was a big old joker. Country boy from from the sticks of South Carolina. Okay, he was a country boy and he looked like he was born right there beside the road. So I mean he was he was country. He's like, You ain't gonna tell me such and such and whatever. And I said, Listen, man, don't act up. I don't know because when he when he turned to get it to get out of his vehicle, I saw him put his hands in his pocket. So I don't know if he armed himself with a gun or or a knife or whatever. I said, Listen, man, so I said, because this is getting a little bit out of hand, I said, I'm gonna go ahead and detain you until highway gets here. Generally, if you put somebody in handcuffs, this is the way they do it down here. I don't know why. If you put somebody in handcuffs, that's your that's yours. Okay, you can't say, yeah, he's in my custody, but I'm gonna transfer him. He stays in your custody. But he I didn't want him to act up. So I was just detaining him. So I was gonna tell the trooper, no, he's just detained, he's not under arrest or nothing. I'll let you handle that. And sometimes they would they would cooperate with that, sometimes they wouldn't. Well, anyway, I said, Hey man, we're I'm just gonna detain you right now. And he's like, You ain't detaining nobody, and he sticks his finger in my face and I reached up to grab his hand and he pulled it away and he started walking away from me in towards the road, like into traffic. So I grab him and I pull him back and he grabs a hold of the side of the truck, and we start wrestling, and then I just reached down underneath underneath his right shoulder, and I just reached down and I just lifted back, and when I lifted back, he landed right on his face. And uh, I couldn't believe I put him down like that. Was actually pretty cool, anyway. So um we get we get down there and we're fighting and stuff. He gets up on all fours. I mean, I'm like riding a daggone bull because he's you know, he's keeping me. He's he's like I'm on, I'm riding him like a daggone, like a cow. Well, he it's true. So uh we're we're doing, you know, I'm doing everything I can to try to get his hands behind him and it like this. And I look up and I see old boy, my little rookie guy, just standing there with his hands like this, like, what do I do? What do I do?

SPEAKER_01 24:14

Oh man, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

So I said, Hey, can I get some help here? And he comes over and he grabs my my arm. It was dark out, like I said, he grabs my arm and he starts pulling. I'm like, What are you what are you doing? And anyway, long story short on this, eventually he gets his hand free from me, he gets his left hand free and he puts it behind the back of my head and he starts pulling me down like he's getting ready to flip me over him. And I'm telling you right now, all of those videos that we see in training about the officers that get overtaken, they get their gun taken, they get shot, and they get left. All of those videos went into my brain. And I don't know if it became super old man strength or whatever, but I I reared up and I started pounding him with my hands till he let go. And when he finally let go, he's like, he's like, quit, quit hitting me, quit hitting me, and all that. I finally got the handcuffs on him. We had to use two sets of cuffs because he was so big and couldn't get his arms all the way. Finally got him handcuffed. I stood him up and I put my my arm up through his arm, which was behind his back, and I grabbed a hold of the side of the truck. So if he tried to pull off or anything like that, he would he would have to stay right there. And I said, and I remember saying, Man, why did you have to why did you have to go there? I mean, you didn't have to do it this way. All you had to do is chill. You probably would have been fine. I mean, he wouldn't have been, he'd have gone to jail. But some some things that I didn't know ahead of time um after I found out after this, he'd been arrested 49 times. 18 of them were for DUI. And it was not DUI first, second, third. It was every single time it was DUI first. You know why? Because he had an attorney who got him off every single time. Reckless driving, reckless driving. So that was the lesser charge. He would get off every time because his daddy knew the sheriff. So that worked out for him really good. So he got his he got his lip busted up pretty good because uh this old cowboy wasn't gonna put up with it. And uh I busted his lip pretty good. So um he spent, I think they said he spent 23 minutes in the jailhouse. Um they let him right back out. And within three hours of that of that incident, I was brought to the office, had my gun taken, had my badge taken, had the keys to my car taken, all my equipment, my my gun belt, everything. Give me your gun belt, whatever. Here's a piece of paper. Uh we'll get so it was the night after it was a night after Thanksgiving. So naturally that Friday, um we weren't doing anything. The offices were closed. They said we'll reach back out to you on Monday. So I'm and I was supposed to work the weekend. So I'm sitting there thinking, what's going on? Right. So that's what kind of started the whole spiral into uh depression and all of that kind of thing. Listen, every car that went by my house I thought was gonna be the sheriff coming to come to pick me up. And then it continued because I went in Monday. I went in that following Monday, and the sheriff says, he says, I'm gonna tell you three things. Listen, he's he's been sheriff for a long time. I I can't be mad at him because he's uh doing the best he can, but he's uh he is what he is. Okay, he's he's pompous, uh he acts like a politician, um and just he knows that people serve at the pleasure of the sheriff. So if he's not pleased, you don't serve. So that's how that works. So he walks in, he says, I'm gonna tell you three things. Number one, you're no longer a deputy with Georgetown County Sheriff's Office. Number two, we're going to take your certification. We're gonna we're gonna file the paperwork necessary to take your certification because we don't want bad cops on our streets. He said, and number three, we're also gonna find out with the solicitor's office if there are charges that need to be filed against you and you may be arrested for um misconduct and abuse of force. So I'm just sitting there just watching him. And I said, uh, so do you does anybody want to hear what happened? He said, I saw the I saw the camera footage. And come to find out, I saw the camera footage afterwards, and my rookie was a pretty good cameraman. I ain't gonna lie. But there was nothing that I did first, you know what I mean, to to put this guy in in the situation that he was.

SPEAKER_01 29:10

He chose to drive drunk in the first place, right?

SPEAKER_00 29:12

Right. So anyway, I got fired and they said they were gonna file charges. So I had to wait for the solicitors to come back to tell me whether they were gonna file charges. Um, and that took, I don't know, a couple months. They're never in a hurry, you know. No, so like I said, I waited for somebody to show up saying, hey man, we got a warrant, you know, you you got to come down to the jailhouse and whatever. So um, so I waited on that for a while and I got to a spot um in between there where um I fell into a deep depression. I felt like this is it. I can't, there's nothing I can do, I can't provide for my family. They've taken my identity. I worked so hard to get in that position, and I thought I was not only I I don't want to sound like I'm boasting, but I was I was damn good at that job, you know.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

I mean, it sounds like you took pride in your work and you worked hard, right?

SPEAKER_00 30:06

My uniform was squared away every single day. I polished my boots, all my stuff was good, you know what I mean? So I really took a lot of pride in it. Um, and I respected other people that did it, you know. So um shortly thereafter, I got to a point where I was like, I can't, I can't do this anymore. So my wife and I were about to go camping that weekend to just try to get away, get a you know, get away from the stress. I'd found out that the solicitor said he wasn't, he couldn't prove beyond a reasonable doubt that um I had committed malpractice or uh yeah, male not malpractice, um misconduct and um abuse of force. He said, I mean, basically you were fighting for your life. So we're not gonna file any charges, but um whatever else the sheriff's office wants to do is gonna continue. So there was a little bit of relief, but still, I mean, I'm still in a position where I mean, I got fired as a police officer. Who's gonna trust me to do anything? Because they're gonna think I was on the take or whatever. I don't know. So I was cleaning up the camper because we were gonna go camping for the weekend or glamping as my friend calls it. And uh we I was cleaning up the camper, and um there just came a moment and I said, This is it. I'm just I'm not gonna do this anymore. So I started walking in the house. Um, I had the plan in my head. I'd I had planned it out in my head several times. I started walking in the house, I grabbed my phone, and the picture of my wife came up on my phone, and I said, Well, I I probably should at least talk to her first. So I talked to her, and I remember she told me afterwards, she said, You said something that kind of triggered it. Um Normally she said, You say, Don't worry, baby, we'll work this out. We'll we're we're gonna be fine, you know. But she said, This time you said you're gonna be okay. And she said, and that hit me wrong. So she called one of my buddies, name was Steve Clippinger, and thankfully she called him right after I got off the phone because I had the gun in my hand, I had one in the chamber, I had walked to the back of my house into the stand-up shower that we got in the back of the house, and I was just getting ready to open the door to walk in there because I was done. I had made my decision, and all of a sudden there was a knock on the door, and I instantly got ticked off. I was like, Are you kidding me right now? What is going on? So I put everything away. I walked to the door, he knocked a couple times, he opened up the door, I said, What's up? He's like, What's going on, man? I'm like, What do you need? I mean, I was irritated. Like, what do you need? He's like, Well, I need to come talk to you. That's what I need to do. And I'm like, Well, what do you want to talk about? He's like, he said, get your butt out, you get your shoes on and come and get my car. We're gonna go for a ride. I'm like, listen, man, I'm not in the mood. He goes, I don't care. Go get your shoes, let's go. And uh I got in the I got in the car. He didn't go anywhere, didn't even turn it on. He said, Let's pray. We're gonna pray right now. We're gonna get this demon up out of here. He said, We're we're interrupting what what the devil's trying to take away from this this world. We're gonna interrupt it. And so he he became the interrupter, I guess is what we called him. Um so yeah, Steve, well, my wife and Steve saved my life that day. And it was about being present because if he had called my phone, I would have ignored it. Um, and I know that. I know that if my wife had called me back, I would have ignored it. In fact, I turned my ringer off. Um because I didn't want to get interrupted, but I did anyway. So he like I said, he ended up showing up. And uh that was my day one, week one. That's what um that's when I realized that there is a purpose for why I'm here. Maybe I've got a little bit of you know, a little police uh experience in me to understand the traumas and understand um kind of the heartache and how it's so hard to put some of that stuff away or put it down, um, or how to go through those challenges so that people aren't feeling like they're hopeless. Um and then being able to step into a different place where there's hope and there's understanding, and there's people that actually do care if you hurt yourself like that, or or take yourself away from them. Um, I think you know, as being a police officer, you never ask anybody if you if they want to hurt themselves, if they're suicidal, because no, I'm not gonna hurt myself. I'm I'm gonna relieve the pain, right? So are you suicidal? Are are you planning on killing yourself? Do you have a plan? And that's the question. You don't you can't beat around that bush because they're like, no, I'm not trying to hurt myself. Then you walk away and you hear a gunshot before you get to your car. You know, um, that only happened one time to me, but it's happened to some of my guys a bunch of times. So now we don't we don't ask questions like that, you know. Um so anyway, um we ended up going camping that weekend, um, and we had a great time. It was a good time to to kind of chill out and relax, but the the emotions that I put my wife through during that, um, every time she hears me tell the story, she lives it again, she relives it again. And um I I try so hard to not hang it like a badge on my chest, like look what I almost did. You know what I mean? Because that's the last thing, because I don't want anybody to get to that to that place. Um because I would have missed a bunch of different things. And one of the things I would have missed is while I was waiting for the hearing to see if I was gonna lose my certification, that guy that I fought with that night went over to his ex-girlfriend's house and shot her and her new boyfriend in the head and killed them both right at the scene in front of a nine-year-old child.

SPEAKER_01 36:48

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 36:50

Yeah. And just a couple just a couple months ago, he just got two life sentences for doing that. This is the guy that I was fighting. This is the guy that they fired me over.

SPEAKER_01 37:03

Right.

SPEAKER_00 37:06

So I go to the hearing. That's the that's one of the parts that I would have missed because I got a phone call. Because I'll be honest, a lot of my deputy friends thought I got a raw deal on that. There was a lot of guys who are like, dude, man, you got you got messed over bad. You got jammed up for no reason. And so the morning, it was it was kind of funny. I was laying in the bed. All of a sudden, my wife says, Babe, oh my gosh, you're not gonna believe what happened. And I thought maybe Ronnie Todd got in a car wreck and he killed somebody or something, you know, in a car wreck. She said, She goes, Ronnie's Ronnie's in jail. And I said, What's going on? She goes, he shot and killed two people. And I was like, What? And I looked at my phone and the investigator who was working that case, he's he said, Billy, do you know how bad I wanted to call you and have you serve these warrants? That was so good. I was like, that would have been that would have been, you know, whipped cream on the on the top of it right there. He said, I wanted you to come and serve those warrants. He goes, but the sheriff was not gonna let me do that. So um, but that would have been awesome. But uh, so I would have missed that part of it, and then I would have missed the part where I got to uh tell my story in front of the training board at the academy, and they all raised their hands in unison saying, Yeah, he should still be a police officer, uh, and he's doing good work and you know, things like that. So then I got rehired um with the agency that I that I was with until last year. So um there's a lot of changes from from the beginning of uh law enforcement back in the day. So now my main focus is um, so since then, um my main focus is uh my chaplaincy. Um I went and got certified as a chaplain. Um in the chaplaincy that I that I use or where where it's referred to is um for for day one week one. Um and if I can, I'd like to give you a few minutes on day one, week one and what that's all about, or if you have any other questions you'd like to talk about personally in a career.

SPEAKER_01 39:22

Before we get into day one, week one, which I definitely want to get into, I want to thank you for sharing all of that because it's infuriating to me the fact that cops are getting fired and and tossed aside for doing their jobs.

SPEAKER_02 39:38

Right.

SPEAKER_01 39:39

And if this guy had been locked up when he should have been, first of all, he he never would have even met you, probably, because he would have been locked up however many arrests prior, you know. Um, and those two lives could have been saved. So it's really a shame. And the way agencies in general, I'm not speaking for any particular agency, but there's no transparency at all when you're going through a disciplinary process and you become a pariah. Nobody wants to reach out to you because they're afraid for, I don't know. There's this weird thing that nobody ever reaches out because they don't want to get in trouble too. They don't want to be guilty somehow by association. So that just further contributes to your isolation. Um, my question to you since you basically had a whole life before you became a police officer, were you able to maintain an identity outside of policing when you got into it? Or because you you did say that you felt like your identity was being taken from you. So do you feel like you kind of got enmeshed in the world of policing, or were you able to maintain an identity outside of law enforcement?

SPEAKER_00 40:55

That was my that was my whole world. Um, when I was in training, I was like, I'm gonna be the absolute best at this. I'm gonna this is what I'm gonna do. Um, yeah, the so my identity when you know, when my friends would introduce me to their friends, they're like, Hey, this is Billy, and not anything else, other than yeah, he's a cop. Yep, it's not, you know, he's a farmer, you know, it's nothing like that. It's hey, my my friend Brilliant here, he's a cop.

SPEAKER_01 41:24

And not even he's a navy veteran, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:27

Yeah, or or anything else, it's like he's a police officer. So um, that was in you know, that there's there's a lot of pride that goes with that because, like I said, integrity means everything to me. Um, and that was the thing, is that I I did exactly what I was trained to do. You know what I mean? Let's uh so anyway, with that being said, I didn't have I had transferred my identity to being a police officer. I was the guy that they told you not to be during the academy. When you get home, take your uniform off, shut your radio off, right? You know, park your car, whatever. You just get away from it, go do something, go be with your family, go be with your friends, have friends that are not cops. I wasn't that guy. I come home and I'd set the radio right next to me while I'm watching the news, eating my dinner, and like, oh crap, something's going on. I go go check the computer, you know, and I would go out and see what was going on, who's you know, look at the notes on the CAD system. And you know, I was just I was all in all the time. And um I just felt like it got completely swept away from me. The one thing I will say about identity, though, that was the part that was replaced by the incredible grace of God is that I was able to realize right up to the point where I almost took my own life when Steve showed up, he was a deacon in our church. So he's he's showing up saying, buddy, you're you're better than that. You're better than that guy. You're I mean, you're a child of God. You know, you you got a purpose beyond whatever. And it was when I realized that I can't be defined by being a police officer or my career or a husband or a father or any of those things. I need to be defined first as one of the the people that God died for, that that Jesus laid laid his life down for, um, and worry about making him proud instead of everybody else, you know. That's the hardest thing we do as Christians is we always want approval. I mean, that's anybody. Everybody wants approval, they want acceptance and um they want to be seen and heard. You hear you hear all the things in the counseling, you know, yes, you are seen, you are heard. Um, and you can. seen and heard uh from christ too so and and that's the cool part so yeah the identity shift was was definitely something that i did because before that they weren't like hey this is my buddy Billy he's a truck driver you know it was you know it wasn't it wasn't about that though i love to drive truck and i i got to go all over the country um it it prepared me for just being focused on what i was doing so on a side note that sounds like a really cool way to see the country by the way it is so how did you get into day one week one so after um after all the incidents that were going on and i um got exonerated from the uh training board um i started thinking about man i was in a really bad spot i know that i got buddies that are like this um so i i said to a friend of mine well it was a couple years after actually i got involved in a shooting and one of my one of my buddies um one of my coworkers was injured and we he he was fine after a few months he had to have some surgery and stuff but he was fine he was able to go back full duty in fact he's he's doing phenomenal uh with the agency now um but we we could kind of talked about it and I said hey man you know you know we're kind of connected for the rest of our lives here I said we kind of took shots together and he's like yeah yeah you know I said so why don't we why don't we start like a podcast or something you know a police podcast and I was gonna call it the shots fired uh podcast but there was like three of them so I decided not to do that so I called at first I called it uh breaking point that's okay yeah and I started it with my church so what we were doing at the church was we were ministering to veterans and first responders and just being there for them you know just bring being that hope and that understanding for those and and kind of praying for them and maybe doing some guiding and and scripture references and and just edifying each other things like that. Well I got these ideas about doing the podcast and doing um you know reaching out and raising money and being able to help some of these guys to do things. Well the church made it pretty clear um that their ministry not that they not that they didn't want to do it but it somehow with the bylaws and the rules and all that kind of stuff you can't you can't be a ministry inside of a ministry making money or or raising money to do something. It it just something was legally or financially um conflicting with it. So I was like okay well you know maybe I need to step away and and do it on my own. And um they left uh breaking point at the church so it's still a ministry there so I was trying to figure out how am I what am I gonna name this this organization? What am I gonna do? How am I gonna name it? And all of a sudden it just kind of came to me I remember the salty old uh Navy chief that I had during boot camp and he yelled out to us today's day one week one boys you know you're I'm gonna own you for the rest of your life you're gonna remember my voice and my name you know all that kind of thing and obviously I did because I'm still saying it today so um so that's where the name came from but I've been able to kind of there's an understanding with day one week one if you remember all of the emotion all of the excitement um all of the fear the anxiety that you had when you first started doing something um for example going to the academy getting married having children all of these things that you're like oh my gosh this is so exciting but I'm scared to death kind of thing right the concept for day one week one is that we want to bring that every single day we want every day to be day one week one we want to be so excited about stepping into the next day because the Bible says that we receive new mercies every morning and with those mercies comes another opportunity to bring favor to to the Lord and by doing that seeing every day in that light you don't have to worry about the mistakes you did yesterday because they're already written down they're already there if you need to repent for those then please do that but understand that this day you're not going to be perfect you're not gonna do it right it doesn't matter but you're gonna do it the best you can so when I when I do the when I do the thing on thin line rock station I say hey listen when you're out there what you're doing today do it to the best of your ability 100% do it to the best of your ability and while you're out there grab somebody and take them with you and make their day two and that's kind of my closing for the for the radio program. But um so that's where kind of day one week one that's what it represents is bringing all of that emotion all that anxiety all of those things and starting every day with that same excitement that you had when you started something new. And it's hard to do that every day because you you get drifted away into thoughts and there's always distractions and there's always someone either cutting you off or flipping you off or whatever it is um you know not even in your uniform I will say this um for months after for months after I got out of law enforcement um somebody would do something in traffic and I'd be reaching down for the blue lights it was so reaching for my radio you know it was like yeah and I I was like oh crap I'm in my truck okay old habits die hard they do so um but day one go ahead I'm sorry no no you go no I was gonna say what what a an amazing way to turn a situation such a such a dark situation and a dark moment in your life into something so powerful and full of hope for and and the ripple effect that that's going to make that you may never even know about right right exactly um we got some really big things coming up this year um we've got the um the a league baseball team it's the Myrtle Beach Pelicans okay um they're the farm team for the for the Chicago Cubs and we are gonna on military appreciation night this year on may May 16th we're going to be taking over the stadium day one week one's gonna be everywhere that's amazing we're gonna be bringing out um hundreds and hundreds of veterans we're we're getting people that are donating tickets so that they can come to the game um we're taking we're taking uh nominations for the home run hero and the home run hero will be the guy that gets the first pitch and he'll get a jersey from the team and a signball and all that kind of stuff. So that's gonna be awesome. And um we I'm able to bring like 15 vendors with me so that they can bring their they they can bring their uh their business in front of the folks um I gotta I still haven't done it yet but I gotta do I got to record a uh 60 second commercial because as soon as the guy uh as soon as the batter comes up on in home plate uh they're gonna run the commercial just before they start the first pitch every game which is gonna be kind of cool so it'll be day one week one at every home game this this year so that's that's amazing congratulations yeah I'm really excited about that so yeah if not for anything else one person's you know um one person's uh question of who we are what we do they check out the website or they scan the QR code and they're like hey man this is something I could definitely do because the concept behind what we do is we elimin we try to eliminate the stigma I was challenged three years ago somebody said how are you going to eliminate the stigma and I said I have no idea I have no idea what I'm I but I'm gonna find out so over the last couple of years I've come up with an idea that I think so far it's it's been really good it's it's helped several people so far is we've made it anonymous so they don't have to go to their agency they don't have to worry about insurance cost they just come and get the help that they need and I kind of bring it alongside of kind of like getting your teeth whitened. Okay so you're not gonna tell everybody that you know hey I'm gonna go get my teeth whitened right because I mean there's some cool thing about that but then there's sometimes people have snaggle tooth and that's not cool. So so I kind of liken it to that because the only thing you your coworkers or your supervisor are going to realize in a couple weeks is that you got a brighter smile and you you know you you're able to laugh with your mouth wide open maybe or whatever. I don't know you want to show them off right so it's the same thing with with mental health you come and get the help that you need it costs you nothing to go through day one week one it's paid for by the donations and and all the charitable gifts that we get it's all paid for uh by that but you come and get the help that you need and the only thing your coworkers and your supervisors and everybody that's gonna realize is that you've got now you've got some confidence that you didn't have before you're able to walk into a situation and remain in control. You're not you're not hyper vigilant because you've you've done the you've done the breath work ahead of time or you've done whatever you needed to do to get into that space knowing that it's gonna be not as bad as you thought it was because we hype ourselves tell me if I'm wrong we hype ourselves up on our way to the call thinking we're gonna see the bloodiest worst mess that we've ever seen and then somebody's got a a thorn in their finger or something. Exactly you because you really never know right what you're walking into you have to prepare for the worst every time and dispatchers I God bless them because they do the best they can to not be excitable and be excited when they're calling somebody like if there's a if there's a vehicle crash or if God forbid there's a burglary going on right right then somebody's strong arm robbery or something um they're trying their best not to get all excited um so that because that'll pump you up too you know all of a sudden adrenaline just like oh I'm getting out with my rifle let's go you know yeah so um but yeah that's uh that's that's the big thing about um what we're able to do is we're able to eliminate that part of what if my agency finds out that I'm getting help. Well now they don't because it's confidential. One of the reasons I became a chaplain and the reason I've got a chaplain program and other board members are chaplains is because we're protected by law that we can't give we can't tell your story to anybody we're protected by law. So a law says that if I tell your story to somebody you can you can sue me. And so that's one of the main reasons that I did the chaplaincy program is so that we're protected so that we can protect them.

SPEAKER_01 55:33

So that was that was one of the the key figures in that love that because that is confidentiality and cost are two of the biggest barriers to seeking help and you've eliminated both of those.

SPEAKER_00 55:46

Absolutely absolutely now the other thing uh so we have I I feel like there's three elements that are involved in mental health three major there's a lot of things involved in mental health obviously but three major things that are that the responder or the veteran has control over three elements that I believe that as long as you've got those straight that your mental health will be stronger. It'll be better than it was so the first one obviously for me is going to be faith. Well you get your faith right you understand that you're here for a purpose you can fight it all you want but there's a creator okay this isn't all this isn't all uh happened by accident I'm sorry I love I I love everybody that anyway I'm not gonna get into a thing I'm just saying your faith has got to be strong okay I'm not gonna say whoever you believe in Jesus said he's the only way okay he said he's the life the truth and the way I believe that with all my heart the second thing is your family um marriage kids all of those things have to be taken care of so we have a program where we've partnered with um an organization called the marriage hub and last year we sent five couples to this marriage hub weekend it's called a marriage intensive class and it teaches um communication it teaches uh how to work together you're two people who are one flesh now so you're a team you're not fighting against each other you're equal you're not one's not higher than the other one's not lower than the other no you're you're a team and also the the biblical standard on that is what the what the the husband's job is is to provide what exactly what we're what we're supposed to provide right the protection the safety all of those things that we bring to that and then the the women's uh side of it is I heard it explained like this the the man is the head but the woman is definitely the neck you can't do anything the man can't do anything unless the the neck is there to support it so that's so getting that getting that uh put together uh so the family part and then the finances um we help with emergency costs um last year we had a fire chief he was getting ready to have heart surgery um he was worried about his finances he reached out to us and I said well let me get in front of the board see what they say um the board unanimously agreed that we should help him out um so we helped him out we play we paid a couple of car payments for him uh so that while he was in recovery he didn't fall behind on on his stuff and now he's he's doing great um he's doing much better he's actually back to work which is awesome oh good yeah and then uh the last I say last one the the one that I think made the biggest impact we had an EMS uh retired ems lady um she had glaucoma in her eyes to the point where she couldn't drive at night anymore because her vision was just being so distorted by the glaucoma that she was losing her eyesight and she was losing to be honest her freedom because if she can't drive she can't she's got to rely on all this so she had a surgery and had it scheduled um after she got it scheduled a couple days before the surgery all of a sudden the the surgeon surgeon's office called and said hey I don't know if you knew this but you got a deductible that you got to hit before we do this and it was like seven grand or something. Oh wow so she called me because she's a she was a friend of ours she's been on our podcast before and she she called and she said um she goes I don't know what I'm gonna do and I'm like well you you dialed the right number so I said give me 24 hours and let me see what I can do and it I mean I knew that night I called her back I think it was within three hours the I texted everybody on the board I said listen here's the situation this is what we need to do this is how much money we've got in our account this is what we're trying to do I need a I need an up down up or down vote on this right now and every single person like let's do it so that was that was before February she had the surgery done in February she now has 2020 vision and a brand new lease on life she's not going to lose her eyesight she's her her her eyes are 2020 she doesn't need to wear glasses she doesn't need you know none of that so um I'm a lot of people you know wonder what the reward is of what we're trying to do and that's one of the rewards um so she had a podcast she was podcast no episode number four and then she came back after her surgery and did a follow-up and you can you can't see it because it's not um I don't have it videotaped I just did the audible but you can literally hear the life change you can see and hear well you can hear you can't you can't see it because it's audible you could you can hear the life change in in her demeanor I'm like how you doing and she would just start giggling she's like I'm doing great how you doing you know so it was really it was really awesome that's amazing keep up the incredible work truly you're doing God's work uh where can people find you and connect with you yeah so if you go to any uh you go to the website it's day the number one week the number one dot org um we have a very good interactive website where you can find a location to support our mission or if you need support from our mission so it says it real clear I need support or I want to support is right on the front. There's a little red button at the top it says capability statement. And what that is is it explains exactly the process that you go through if you if you get into our program it's the pathway to help um it starts with intake interview and then within 24 to 48 hours we'll get you in front of a counselor if that's what you need or if you're looking for financial assistance we get you in front of a financial counselor. If you're looking for marriage help we we uh kind of I don't want to say shove you off but we we refer you to those people that do that uh the best and we have somebody here in Myrtle beach now that is able to to do that without sending them to North Carolina or Atlanta um so they they have uh teachers here now um obviously all of the social medias Facebook Instagram X uh TikTok um I put some of my podcasts on Rumble and YouTube so we got some of those on there um yours in fact the one I did for yours was on was on YouTube um I put put the full uh unedited version um on YouTube and then um we also do uh the podcast is anywhere you get a podcast it's um you know Spotify Apple all of those so that goes through a different server and we put those out there um I'll link everything in the show notes so people can connect with you and when are you on the thinline rock station so Mondays from 4 to 6 p.m it's two hours off duty with Billy um and Monday Monday four to six and then Thursday four to six um the reason that the off duty was such a big thing for me I think because off duty is the most dangerous time for first responders and veterans it's because that's when the thoughts come that's when all the that's when all the self-talk that we do like oh man I should have done this or why didn't I do C Pr longer or what if I was there five seconds sooner or you know all the stuff so off duty is the most dangerous time so that's why I said yeah I'll do a show and I'll call it off duty so we'll keep people distracted or thinking about good good things so I try to bring stories and um some of my experiences to the show so that people can hear that.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:22

Love it. And because I always like to end on a high note one last question before I let you go what is your favorite karaoke song so I'm going back old school okay a little bit of George Jones.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:36

It's I he stopped loving her today is the name of the song and it was it um I don't know if you're familiar with the song I'm not okay I'm sorry no that's okay okay so I'm gonna look it up after we're done wait till you hear it it's amazing so uh it's a story about a a guy that basically he's laying in the coffin okay and because he said the beginning line is he said I'll love her till I die right so he had he had passed away and he stopped loving her today kind of thing. So today was the new they placed a wreath up on his on his door you know it's a it's an old uh it's an old tear in my beer song uh from you know the old country george jones and stuff the reason I like it so much is um I sing country music a lot um I've been doing it for years and I I I have my rendition of George Jones and I and I try to make it sound just like just like him because he's got that that southern draw when he's singing. So I try to make it sound like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:48

I'm sure you do because I can hear in your voice and um you have a good voice for country music too so I'm gonna have to look are you are you are your songs is that just something you do for fun or do you have anything

SPEAKER_00 1:06:00

I actually uh DJ karaoke two nights a week.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:04

Oh yeah, you said that too.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:06

Yeah, so I do that. So when nobody else signs up, I just I just hey just serenade everybody. Just come come listen to the upstate cowboy.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:15

Perfect. Billy, this is such a great conversation. Thank you so much for being here. And in case you guys haven't heard today, you are loved, you matter, and you are not alone. Thank you so much for stepping outside the line with me today. If you enjoyed this episode, consider sharing with a friend or to your social media network. And if you do, please tag me so I can reach out and thank you. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are personal opinions, not reflective of the host or guest's departments. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. If you're struggling with your mental health, please seek professional help. Resources are available. In case you haven't heard today, you are loved, you matter, and you are not alone.