005 - Apple Original Podcasts, Remote Podcast Interviews, and Customer Support

This week we dive into some Apple Podcast rumors, talk in-depth about our favorite remote podcast interview solutions, and jump into the support mailbag with Priscilla.

Articles we talk about in this episode:

• Our new blog post "How to Record Long-Distance Podcast Interviews"
• "Apple Plans to Bankroll Original Podcasts to Fend Off Rivals" from Bloomberg

Our Top 3 remote interview solutions:

• Zoom
• Zencastr
• Squadcast

Customer Support Q&A Leader Board:

1. Kevin - 2 pts
2. Alban - 1 pt
3. Travis - 0 pts :(

Have an idea for something we should talk about? Post it in the Buzzsprout Podcast Community on Facebook and tag one of us to let us know!

Have a question? Shoot us an email at support@buzzsprout.com

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:03

Welcome to In the Line of Fire. I'm your host, Gary Dillon. This podcast will share insights into the lives of public safety professionals who play a crucial role in society, often putting their own lives on the line to ensure the safety and well-being of their communities. Throughout the series, I'm sure you'll discover unique stories and motivations from each guest who bring their perspective and experiences to showcase the various reasons why they commit their lives to protecting others. I look forward to hearing these inspiring stories and learning more about the incredible work these individuals do. In this episode, I'd like to introduce you to John Flood. A lifelong public servant, John takes you through his journey of service from growing up in New York City to his first law enforcement job with the Port Authority Police Department of New York. Hear how John provided over two decades of investigative expertise to the FBI and some of the notable cases he worked. John's commitment to serving doesn't stop in retirement, as you'll hear more from John and how he continues to give back to his community and mentor others. So, John, we're going to go ahead and get started. And right out of the gate, I want to ask you, what did you want to be when you grew up?

SPEAKER_01 1:36

It's an interesting question because uh I don't know what year you were born. I was born in 1957, literally three days before Sputnik went up. So I that you know, I grew up at the beginning of this the space race and all that. So my initial uh inclination was I wanted to be an astronaut, because that was like the big thing. But uh my math skills weren't that good. But and and my my father uh is a retired New York City firefighter. He was a captain there, and so of course he wanted to be a firefighter, you know. And I I kind of held on to that all over the years.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

But um Did he want you to be a firefighter or is that something you wanted?

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Yeah, no, he did not. He his and he he loved his job, he was on the job for 38 years, uh, and absolutely loved it. And uh but his I can remember him saying to me, he says, you know, you can do better, you know, it's a dirty, dangerous job. You know, I I want I I want you to do better, which I never could understand. But um

Apple Original Podcasts

SPEAKER_01 2:37

but uh at some point I I was still in elementary school. Uh there was a TV show on called the FBI. It was a very popular show at the time. And I said, Oh, this is pretty cool, et cetera. And then I remember a teacher in eighth grade, we had a civics class, and she was a big influence on my on my outlook toward things. And um I remember we had a civics class and we discussed the the executive branch and all that other kind of stuff in government. And I remember her asking, you know, uh, is anybody here, is there anybody here who would be interested in becoming an FBI agent? I remember saying, yeah, I I I that's something I think I'd like to do. And I just held on to that through high school and college, uh, et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, I that that became pretty much my focus of what I wanted to do. I wanted to be uh an FBI agent. So that's where that came from.

SPEAKER_02 3:27

So where did you go to college?

SPEAKER_01 3:29

I went to St. John's University in New York City. I got a bachelor's in criminal justice there. And then uh um after I went on the job with the police, I went back to school at night and got a uh a master's in government and politics at St. John's as well.

unknown 3:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:46

So when you lived in New York City, what what part did you live in? Various places or just one place?

SPEAKER_01 3:50

No, we live- I grew up and lived in Queens and in the suburbs of Queens, not too far from where Archie Bunker uh allegedly grew up. In fact, I I know exactly the block and the and the house that you know they showed in the opening credits. But yeah, no, we grew we grew up in Queens. Uh went to elementary, high school, and eventually college, all in Queens.

SPEAKER_02 4:11

Yeah. Okay. Is your is your dad still around?

SPEAKER_01 4:14

My dad is still alive. He lives on the Jersey Shore. He's 91. I'm going up to visit him next week for a couple of weeks. And yeah, my mother passed away a few years ago. But yeah, no, my my dad's still, he's still there, and my sister lives in uh Wilmington, uh, Delaware.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

Okay. So let's talk about your career a little bit. Yeah. Or we can go to we can go to family first. We can do that. We can do family, yeah, sure. Yeah, let's let's move on to family. Yeah, sure. So tell us a little bit about your family.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

So yeah, uh, as I mentioned, my you know, my mom and dad and my sister. Um you know, we grew up the typical Irish Catholic family in in New York City. You're either going to be a fireman, a cop, or a priest. Uh I became the cop. My father was the fireman, and my sister's uh uh a Franciscan nun. So it kind of we kind of hit all the uh we kind of hit all the bases with that. Um I got married in 1986. Uh uh my first wife was Angela. Uh we met on a blind date, and we had two two children, two daughters, twin daughters, Mary and Elizabeth. Um my wife uh had MS, multiple sclerosis, and she passed away uh uh a few years ago in uh 2018. Uh and that's what brought us down here. Uh was all her docs were at UVA. So uh when it came, and I'm kind of going ahead to come back, but I when I retired from the FBI, that's what that's what brought us down here, and we and we settled in Crozet. So uh Angela passed away in 2018, and I got married a little less than a year ago to uh uh Elaine. And Elaine and I went to that elementary school together in Queens. So uh we reconnected at the beginning of COVID and we just like I said recently got married down here, and she's settling down here in Crozet. She's uh she's escaping from Manhattan.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

Well, I have to ask how that connection was made. I mean, you went to school in elementary school together. Yeah. Was it Facebook?

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Yeah, that's an interesting question. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No way. We uh we went to elementary school together. Uh we didn't know, we we both looked and we said we couldn't remember, we didn't do any, we weren't date, we didn't know each other in high school. And then toward the end of college, somehow, it was either at the church in Queens or wherever, we reconnected and dated for a short time. I went on the Port Authority police, she went to law school, and that was it. Fast forward about 40 years, uh uh, like I said, Angela passed away. And I said, Hey, I wonder how so-and-so is doing it. And I don't do Facebook or any of that stuff, but I was on LinkedIn. So I did, you know, I did it through there, and she just happened to, because she said she very rarely went on there, and she just happened to check. Her husband had recently passed away, too. And I could uh I we just started uh emailing and then texting and then phone calls and uh because you know, COVID, it was a little hard. But that was we were in fact, we were talking about this last night that it was actually fortuitous because um it forced us to talk a lot, you know, and uh you know we got to really know reconnect and re-know each other um because we were on the we were on the phone quite a bit, so yeah, that's that's how that developed.

SPEAKER_02 7:28

So love and romance through COVID. Through COVID, yeah, it was covered. That's much easy.

unknown 7:33

Can I ask a question?

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Sure. So um going back to your childhood, yeah, and I might be stereotyping here, but you're but you're talking about 60s, New York. Yeah. Um you're talking your family has your cops, your firefighters, but there's the other side of the law too. Aren't there street tufts rolling through the neighborhood at all? Did was that a thing that's just in the movies? And this isn't a thing?

SPEAKER_01 7:57

Yeah, no, it's not so much that it was just in the movies because there were there were bad guys. I mean, let's face it, there were. It was different. It was a different time uh uh in New York, quite a bit different. Um but I mean, no, the neighborhood that we lived in uh, and it still is. I mean, we went back and visited not that long ago is still primarily blue-collar, primarily blue-collar. A lot of cops and firemen uh lived in the area, still do. Uh in fact, one of the things I noticed uh in our neighborhood, there was a lot of street signs that were that had names of primarily firefighters, but some police officers who were killed in 9-11, they renamed streets. Quite a few of them came from the neighborhood that where we grew up. So um, you know, no. So to answer your question, I mean, if if there was street crime in our neighborhood, it would have been big news. It just didn't happen. Were there car thefts, probably some burglaries, but that's primarily it. Go to the uh uh other boroughs, other sections of Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx. I mean, I was there when the Bronx was burning, you know, when it was really bad, you know, the times were times were bad there. But no, we no, the area we grew up in was was very blue blue collar.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

So it wasn't a Martin Scorsese movie.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

No. Not at all. Not at all.

SPEAKER_02 9:14

No. No. Well, interesting childhood, John. Let's let's move on to uh your career. So you said you started with the did you do anything prior to going into law enforcement? Did you do McDonald's like everybody did not?

SPEAKER_01 9:27

No, you know, I no, I it's I I it was uh, you know, it's like everything else, you get a job because you you know your your father or somebody knows somebody, and uh I I worked in a in a sheet metal shop where a bunch of a lot of a lot of firefighters moonlighted because it was a firehouse around the corner. So I worked there uh on weekends, odd jobs, you know, like sweeping floors, loading trucks, you know, running, getting lunches for guys, et cetera. And then when, and this is like through high school and into college, I did that. And um, you know, like on summer breaks, I worked my whole summer breaks, you know, when there was Easter and Christmas breaks, I'd work through them. You know, I and I saved up, and that's primarily how it, you know, I paid for my undergrad uh degree, was doing that. Um, so it it was just primarily doing that. Um and then as I was coming toward the end of c college or high school going into college and then toward the end of college, that's when they had all the financial and fiscal difficulties in New York City. So they were let they were laying off cops and firemen. There was a lot of that, and 75, 76 in there. So things were kind of bleak in the civil service world. You know, what I what I wanted to do, and I knew that I couldn't go right from college, right into the FBI. That just wasn't gonna happen. I was gonna have to do something. So I started taking police tests all over the place. And I remember the first ones that I took were in Fairfax, Fairfax County. I took Fairfax County Fire and Police on the same day. I took uh Prince George's County in Maryland uh fire and police on the same day, Virginia Beach. I went down there. Uh it was one classmate of mine from college, and we're still in touch. We went on the port together, but he left in the middle of college and took one of the jobs down at Virginia Beach and then and then came back. So yeah, I can remember, I can remember standing on the on the uh the campus or the grounds at St. John's. What the hell am I gonna do? They're laying guys off, etc. But then toward the end of college, things were starting to loosen up in the late 70s. And uh, you know, I took the NYPD exam, I took the New York City fire exam, uh, and then the Port Authority exam.

Remote Podcast Interviews

SPEAKER_01 11:43

I took that one, and um they they they called me, you know, uh um in uh at it was you know as I was going through the recruitment process, it was late 79. I graduated in in the summer of 79, and and I forgot to mention I did have military service. I for I did I missed that one. Very important, very important. Yeah, yeah, I was in the Coast Guard. I was in I w I was in the Coast Guard Reserve. And uh so that did fill gaps during the summer because I the it was between between my um it was between my sophomore and senior year. I went to boot camp in Cape May, New Jersey, and then got released to go back to college, and you know, I did my my weekend a month with the with the station. And then the second summer, which was the summer between uh um when I graduated from college and then started with the port, uh I had uh I had a uh f finish up my my six months active duty, so I did that down in Yorktown, Virginia for most of it. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

What compelled you to join the Coast Guard and why that over other branches?

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Yeah, well my father was a was an alum. He was he had been in the Coast Guard during Korea. Uh and and what I liked about it was there was a special program. I wish I had learned about it earlier. Uh essentially it was geared toward guys toward the end of high school where you, as I mentioned, you did one summer at boot camp, second summer your your specialty school. I didn't find out about it until I was in college. But at that time, there were there were no conflicts going on, thank God. And and I looked at it and I said, well, they've always got a mission. They're always doing something, and you know, with the search and rescue and and and you know, pollution and all that other stuff. So that's what compelled me toward the uh the Coast Guard. And I loved it. I I really enjoyed my time in the Coast Guard.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

So what was your job?

SPEAKER_01 13:38

I was a port security. They've changed the rate now. It's it's uh law enforcement specialist, but it was a port security man. So essentially, yeah, I was on a s still on a small boat crew, which was a blast. It was a lot of fun. I mean, everybody on my crew, there were four of us, there were two cops and two firemen. That was that we were all that's we're all it was a it was it was just a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Sunglasses tanned up.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

You got it. It was really, really good. And I learned a lot there. Um so I I got released from my active duty toward the end of the summer of 79. I was going through the process of with the Port, the Port Authority in New York, New Jersey, and with NYPD. And in February of 1980, I I was hired by the Port Authority, New York, New Jersey Police. So that was the beginning of my my law enforcement career.

SPEAKER_02 14:29

What kind of things did you do with the Port Authority? Did you have various associations? How long were you there? Yeah. What assignments did you have?

SPEAKER_01 14:35

I was there for six and a half years. Uh I started out at JFK Airport. What was nice about that agency was uh I mean the benefits were really good. They they they paid for most of my um my graduate degree, et cetera. But it was an it was a nice agency, uh smaller. It was only at that time, it was only about 1,200 uh uh men and women on the job. And what was nice or really nice about it, which I know you'll you'll appreciate, Gary, is uh we were uh a dual function agency. We did the police officers stuff, but we also did the crash crew uh at the airports. So we were dual trained. So that was a blast. I enjoyed that. I I really did enjoy that a lot. And it if you know, if I had not gone on with the Port of the FBI, I I was perfectly happy there. I would have been fine. Uh but yeah, but I did a year at Kennedy, and then you bounce for a couple of years. You go into a pool where you work all over the place. Uh I ended up at the uh the first World Trade Center. I was there for almost two years, which was good. I enjoyed that assignment quite a bit because it was a small city. It wasn't just the two buildings, it was a it was a vast complex. So it was like working in a small city. Uh there was a fire house right across the street, um, which was good because I, you know, I I knew a lot of the guys there. And one of the the captain with the captain of the truck company in there, he had been a fireman with my dad, so I knew him all the time. So we had a really good working relationship with them. So I enjoyed that. And then in my last year before I left, um, I I I got detailed to a special assignment where we did vulnerability studies of the of the different facilities uh at the Port Authority. So it was a pretty good mix of of assignments. And then during that time is when I was starting to test for the for the FBI. And uh my last captain with the port was very supportive of me uh going to that. He was very uh very vocal and and supportive of me uh making the change.

SPEAKER_02 16:35

So that never left you, even though you had started with the port authority and you're working there, your eye was still on the ball getting the FBI.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

Yeah, it was. Uh yeah, I and it was tough too because um the year I was hired in 1986, they only hired like 300 agents, and it was like twenty or fifteen thousand people who tested at that point. And um there was affirmative action issues, et cetera, et cetera. There's a lot of things going on. So it it was difficult to uh to to to keep your eye on the ball because you know the the the the chances of you getting higher were slim and none, so I I prevailed and I was able to get on.

SPEAKER_02 17:16

Alright, well let's uh let's roll through your FBI career. What was uh what was your first assignment? So you go through the FBI Academy.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

I went through Hoover Hives, we called Quantico, uh which I was there for the for the summer of uh the summer cruise in 1986 and that place is godforsaken and in in in the summertime. It's just hot and humid there. And you know, there'd be days when the Marines they they had like a color code system when they could when they didn't when they couldn't do outdoor activities, they called them black flag days. We were out running. So um but um yeah, that was that you know I had already been through the the p the police academy, had already been through boot camp. But so that was one of my classmates who who had a similar background, he'd said this is just a major inconvenience in my life was going through the academy again. But it wasn't a pushover, it was it was a lot of work. The firearms was tough because you basically had to unlearn everything you already knew and had to relearn again, that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

But it was a chat, yes. What's the what's the major difference having gone through boot camp? But what what did you have to unlearn that was incongruent with the new philosophies?

SPEAKER_01 18:24

It was you know, it was just the it was just the firearms style, you know, uh isosceles versus weaver style, and then I I know Gary understands what I'm saying. Uh you know, you've already made you've already got habits, you've already got how you do things, et cetera, et cetera. So you had to learn their way. And uh we were going, you know it was a transition period going from the the revolvers to the to the pistols, and it was just it was a it was a it was a transitory time in the firearms world. So it was a it was a lot to learn with that. So uh after I graduated from uh the academy, I was sent my first two years were in Little Rock, Arkansas. And I remember um we got our orders, and I and there's somebody captured the um the the look on my face was you know when I opened my orders. Yeah. And um I remember calling my fiance, Angela, who's my fiance at the time, and I told her where we're going. There was a long pause on the other side.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

We're going to say, No, that's where you're going.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Yeah. But no, it was it for us, it was good because we got married on uh uh Saturday and left for uh to drive to Arkansas on Monday. So that was our our first honeymoon.

SPEAKER_02 19:37

Did you have a preference on where you wanted to be? Oh yeah. Did you want to stay home or is it always do you always have to go somewhere else first?

SPEAKER_01 19:44

Generally speaking, you're gonna I don't know how it is today, but then you you could ask. I mean, I you know, we you put a list of 10. I put like New York, Newark, Philly, Boston, Little Rock, Arkansas. No. But you know, in retrospect, it was

New TItle

SPEAKER_01 20:00

it was it was good because it was a small office. I mean, for the whole state, there was 40 of us, I think. And the headquarters city, Little Rock, there were 25 agents. So it's good and bad. It was good. If you're you know, you it was a good place to learn the the the work, because you you got it, you really you literally got a chance to do everything, you know, bank robberies, cross burnings.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Yeah, I was I was just gonna ask what kind of cases do you take? Especially you're new to the FBI, so I'm guessing they're not gonna give you the biggest cases, right? You've got to earn that responsibility.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

Yes and no. No, they they they they throw you in the deep end of the pool fairly quickly because that's how you're gonna learn. Um the squad they assigned me to was uh was a white-collar slash uh terrorism squad. And I'm like, uh white collar, I don't know when you know. And it was good because I I the guys I broke in with were all except for one other guy, wasn't a baby agent like me, they were all senior seasoned,

Customer Support Q&A

SPEAKER_01 20:56

this is their retirement office agents. So they had been there a long time. So I mean they had to unlearn all my New Yorkisms, which uh we'll discuss in a minute. That was funny. And um, but no, they were a good bunch to break in with. And it was interesting because that they they'd send me out on bank fraud cases, bank teller fraud cases. I could barely balance my checkbook. So it was kind of cool. You'd sit down literal literally with the bank president in some little bank in the middle of nowhere, Arkansas, and he'd start, you know, this, that, and the other. And I'd always stop them and say, and I'd tell him right up front, look, I don't know anything about banking. You gotta explain this to me. And it kind of gave you, in a way, it gave you cred with them because you're not going in there like you know everything, you know. So, but yeah, I I did a lot of those cases, you know, just bank fraud cases, wire fraud, and those things. The other side of it, which I I did enjoy, was the uh the terrorism side. Because at that point, we did a lot of domestic terrorism cases. Uh there was one. One big one that it was one of those, it was one of the extremist groups. It was called the uh covenant sword, the arm of the Lord. It was a big, big case. Uh I mean I we did little, I did little ones like cross burnings and things like that. But this was a major, you know, weapons caches, and it was a really, really, yeah, it was a big case at that time. Um you see the um he uh he he was governor of

Can you have multiple podcast on one account?

SPEAKER_01 22:28

uh Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, you've seen his name. He was the U.S. attorney there at the time. So it at that point that was that was a pretty big case. And then we had a lot of um there was cells of um um um foreign terrorist groups there of all places, but there was a lot of colleges and universities, there were military bases there.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

So can I ask um Sure How I'm I'm not in the FBI, so how do you approach cases like this? So you get the big file dropped on your desk and they're saying crack it. How do you even start approaching things like that? Or are these things that you can talk about?

SPEAKER_01 23:09

No, some of them I can't. Um like with the white collar cases, you say it's like a file. I'd get it at the very beginning when it was nothing. It was one or two it was the title, how the initial complaint came in, um here's the facts as we have them, go do it. And um you know what I typically would do would be to sit down with one of the other agents in the in the squad, typically one of the accountants. Uh they were they were all of them were the guys who broke me in were all accountants, which was good because that they were very organized and and they were able to teach me how to organize my cases, which which lasted my entire career. But um, you look at what you've been provided with. Um typically you'd sit down with an assistant U.S. attorney and talk with he or she and say, what do you need for me to get to make your case? So a lot of it was was was predicated on that. Was what okay, what are the elements? What do you need? What are you looking for? It's nice to hear the cooperation.

What counts as a play?

SPEAKER_01 24:09

We did. We we worked well, and I gotta say, uh Brad, that in in my career, whether it was there and then later in New York, we worked very well with the U.S. attorney uh on cases. Ver I mean, very, very well. You know, we it it wasn't um it wasn't adversarial at all. It was, you know, tell me what you need to make the case. And you know, you'd you'd do your investigation, give it to them, and they'd look at it and say, okay, we need more of this or less of. And that that's how it worked. So yeah, yeah, I I have nothing bad to say about the U.S. attorneys. They were pretty good. They did the used the assistants we worked with, because they were like us, they were young, you know, just new in their careers and um learning the ropes too. So it was good. And they'd go out and party with us and the cops, so it was great. Um so yeah, that was that was uh Little Rock. Well, again, because it was a small office, and you know, a lot of our the uh the resident agencies, the small ones, like the Charlottesville office here is considered a resident agency out of Richmond. In Little Rock, they were like one or two agent offices. So if they get s if they got swamped with cases, particularly what we call um if you if if an agent in uh some another office, some other state needed like a one-shot lead. They needed you to go out, they needed an agent in Fayetteville, Arkansas, to go out and interview somebody, like a one-shot thing. Those those would get stacked on the side. What they typically would do would take would be to take the new agents and ship you out to those ones for a couple of weeks at a at a at a at a shot uh and go out and cover those one-shot leads. And and I, you know, I came to really love that because and and my my background as being a, as I always said, a real police officer, a real cop that paid off. Because what would happen early on in my career? I remember a senior agent had told me, and this is two things I remember. One was a senior agent who told me, he said, don't ever forget where you came from, don't ever forget that you were a police officer. And then one of our instructors in Quantico is one of our legal instructors, and I and I'll I'll never forget it, and I I used, I I say that that to this day is he said, you know, you could take all this this this all these alphabet agencies, FBI, CIA, DEA, Marshall, Sur, all that stuff, you could do away with them tomorrow, and you're still gonna need the cop on the beat. And I never forgot that. I mean that was always my approach to cases and how I how I interacted with police officers and all, you know, and it it that's the way it was supposed to be done. It should be done.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

So the relationships aren't always the best between local and local and state.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

It can be, you know, and I've seen it. I I've seen the uh I've seen I mean there's the Hollywood stereotype, it's never that bad. It was never ever that bad. But there were some um, you know, some some some guys were cocky. They were fresh out of the ones who were fresh out of college and never been worked at something before, they tended to be a little more cocky. But those of us who were particularly been in the military or who had been in in law enforcement before, we never had a problem because we knew how to talk to people and we had been in the trenches, we knew. So getting back to going to a small town, you know, you you'd get a I'd get a lead, interview Billy Bob Smith in Dog Patch, Arkansas. There is such a town.

SPEAKER_00 27:40

And probably such a person.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

Yeah, it was. And you knew you get it. And his brother. And you know, you had to interview him about whatever it was. And that's it. There was no address, no phone number, just Billy Bob Smith, Dog Patch, Arkansas. So you, you know, what do you do? See, you you find you go to the local sheriff's office, which is he's the he is the sheriff, the only guy, and you'd go in and you go in, yeah, really. It was, you know, and you'd go in and you'd sit down, you'd sit down, and I I I one of the senior agents in the office told me, bring some ammo with you. Bring a couple of boxes of ammo with you, because you know, we we just got it. You know, you went and got, they gave you the ammo. And um you take a couple of boxes and you set it down on the desk, and because he he had nothing. And you'd start to talking about New York and tell me about being a police officer and this, that, and the other. And what kind of gun do you carry? All

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SPEAKER_01 28:38

that kind of stuff. And finally, so what can I what can I do to help you? I need to find Billy Bob Smith. And he'd literally he'd pick up the phone and call Billy Bob to be told, get your ass in here. The FBI wants to talk to you. And and that I it was a lot of that. And you know, I look back and it was a lot of fun. That re I really enjoyed working with the uh the state and local uh police officers. And we had a really good relationship with the uh Arkansas State Police. We had to be, and we had that radio in our cars because some places like Dog Patch, Arkansas, you were in the middle of nowhere, and the only one you could you could hope to get if you got into a jam was the uh was the state police. No, there was no such thing as cell phone. We didn't have internet, we didn't have cell phones. There was one pager for all the agents in the office. I mean, that's you know, there was no laptops, that was all new. So um uh that was the uh there was one other one I was thinking of with the state and local police officers. Uh but yeah, we oh I remember. We we we did work, I worked one case up in uh up in the Ozarks, and we they sent a whole bunch of us up there, and it was a voter fraud case. And I remember we pulled into the um the town square, and I don't know if you guys have ever seen the movie Mississippi Burning.

unknown 29:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

It was a scene from that. We pulled into the town, and it was a little, small little town in northern Arkansas, and uh, you know, it was 1986, and uh, you know, the Confederate general statue in the town square with the cannon and all that other stuff and the the the colors and the the you know the American flag and the Confederate flag flying, etc. And everybody in the town square stopped and looked because we were all getting out of the cars in our little suits and all. But so I remember I remember at the time thinking this is Mississippi burning, that's what it looked like, the the appearance. So I did my first two years there. Uh our our squad secretary, uh Betty, she started a notebook, and every time when I came out with some little phrase or saying that was typically New York, she wrote them down. And when I wrote when I left it, when I got transferred, they um they gave me that and they they was all the and I talked about mopes and you know all all the all the skells and all the New York phrases and they're right.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

So what years was that?

SPEAKER_01 30:59

86 to 88, I was there. And then uh um I remember, you know, go ahead. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

Before you move on, Tom Cruise famously made this movie American Made uh through Little Rock, Arkansas. They were pushing a bunch of cocaine. I don't know if if this is all fictitious or not, but uh just wanted to bring it up because I think of pulp culture things like that where where uh Little Rockets, you know, how many movies are made about Little Rock.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

Yeah, you know, it was it it you know, I went back there a couple several many years later

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SPEAKER_01 31:30

after I went to Quantico, I went back to teach us a school there, and I I didn't recognize it. It built up the presidential library, it was there then, so it had changed a lot. When I went there, it was a sleepy it was the capital, and it was a sleepy city, it really was. So uh, but I yeah, it when it came time, you know, I you typically after two to four years, they you know, you were gonna get moved. And I remember them this the special agent in charge saying, Boy, if you want to go to New York, there's not gonna be a problem. Uh because at that point that we were hemorrhaging agents uh in the big offices because the pay disparities. So I I stuck my hand up and I got and I did get transferred to New York and then I went to the to the joint terrorist task force in New York, which was a blast because we were working with cops. You know, my partner was an NYPD detective, so it was it was that was a good, a good uh a good tour. It was uh was up in New York. So yeah, I went I was there from 88 till um 98 uh on the joint terrorist task force. I did spend some time detailed away from it to uh our our office at JFK Airport, which was a blast because I I went home. You know, I went back to where I started as a cop, right? Which was very good assignment, because guys I was on the job with as police officers were now bosses at the, you know, they were captains, et cetera, et cetera. So that was that was a a really enjoyable time.

SPEAKER_02 32:56

Uh so what specialties did you did you take up when you were with the FBI?

SPEAKER_01 33:03

While I was in the New York office, um I remember they were they were soliciting uh for the uh hostage or crisis negotiation team uh in the New York office. And I remember I had read the book uh by Frank Bowles, hostage cop, and I had seen Dog Day Afternoon, the movie, and all that other stuff. And I said, yeah, that might be kind of interesting to do that as a collateral duty. So uh I guess it was like 1980, 1999. It was somewhere around short, probably 89. I went back down to Quantico for the two-week negotiation course, and then uh that's when I first was introduced to it. And that became a collateral duty year when in when I was in New York. And um I learned a lot from that. Um, not so much from jobs that we would go out on as FBI negotiators, because really the only time we would deploy is if our SWAT team went out, we would go with them in case there was a barricade or something. But I I I I I got together with the the guys from NYPD's negotiation team and and then the guys out in on Long Island, the Nassau and Suffolk negotiator, hostage negotiation teams on from the PDs out there. And that's how I learned to become a negotiator was going out with the police officers because they did it every day. And I I learned so much

HOW TO GO VIRAL?

SPEAKER_01 34:24

from the guys from NYPD and from Nassau and Suffolk, and I I credit with them with where I went with my career as a negotiator.

unknown 34:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 34:32

Any other specialties besides that? No, that was pretty much it. That was enough. That was enough. Any um any notable saves or anything through your negotiations as we as we you know as we get closer to the end of your career?

SPEAKER_01 34:45

Yeah, I mean, in New York I had one notable job. It was uh uh a skyjacking, it was and to this day it was the last uh last uh skyjacking was an incident where a guy uh on a an aircraft flying

INterview question

SPEAKER_01 35:00

from he was going from Munich to somewhere else, and I don't recall where it was, but um it was in 1993, and it was right around the time of the first World Trade Center bombing. So I kind of got eclipsed by that. But anyway, it was a it was a guy who had uh had taken control of a plane and wanted wanted to fly it to New York. So that's what they ended up doing. They brought him to JFK. So I was involved in the negotiations with an NYPD detective and a Port Authority police detective detective sergeant. So we were the negotiation team for that and was successfully resolved. So uh yeah, that was that was around that time. Um before I went to Quantico, the other two major cases that I would would have that were notable that I was involved on was the uh the first World Trade Center bombing, uh flight uh flight 103 got blown up over Lockerby because that was inbound to JFK, so I was very involved in that. And then TWA 800 that got blown up out over the um over the Atlantic after leaving JFK. So those are some of the major investigations I was involved in there before uh before I went to Quantico.

SPEAKER_02 36:08

I can't imagine the amount of investigation and and work that that went into something as big as big as those.

SPEAKER_01 36:15

Yeah, it's just it was mind-boggling. And uh again, it you know, we talk about the stereotypes in all those cases. I mean, it was we were involved, ATF, MYPD, uh other states were involved. Uh, you know, uh with Lock with the Lockerbie one Flight 103, that was Scotland Yard, the Scott, these the Scots were involved. So it was there was a major, major cases. And uh I was uh it was the first time I got really exposed to work, you know, with la working with the lab and the resources there. So it was it it was pretty cool. That stuff was good, you know. And when you're in the heart of it, it's just you know it's overwhelming. It's overwhelming. I mean, I wasn't the case agent in any of them, but I you know I had I was involved and did a lot of a lot of pieces and uh like with the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, uh myself and another agent, we were responsible for working with the witnesses with with the U.S. Attorney's Office. That's what all we did. So it's a lot of work, but it was very gratifying. So working with foreign law enforcement agencies, what what was that like? It was you know, uh and doing it very in a very small part when I was in New York really helped me when I went to Quantico, because Quantico was a whole other different ball game with working with the overseas guys. They're no different than we are. You know, they really weren't. They had the same blue-collar guys trying to get a job done. Um so it yeah, I yeah, I enjoyed there for the most part.

SPEAKER_02 37:47

What's that again? Good cooperation there for those.

SPEAKER_01 37:49

Very much so. We worked very well. I mean, and again, we talk about the quantico part of it, but you know, I I worked with the Brits and Germans and Israelis and you know, literally all over the world. And it was it was good cooperation, it really was. Good.

SPEAKER_02 38:06

So uh recently I learned that you were involved in a pretty big case. Um if you're willing to talk about it a little bit, yeah, the uh the container ship that was uh that was hijacked off the coast.

SPEAKER_01 38:17

The Captain Phillips case. Um the unit that I uh when I went to Quantico in 1998 and to when I retired was a crisis negotiation unit up at Quantico, it was a newly stood up unit. And um I was a supervisor there, and then I eventually became the unit chief. And one of our fun unit because it had three major parts to it. We were operational, we we were we were the the primary uh negotiator, negotiators for the for the FBI and the federal government. Um anytime a U.S. citizen is uh kidnapped overseas, um the uh the FBI is responsible for providing the investigative part of it, the negotiation part of it, and uh some of the infrastructure part of it, the organizational part of it, and then other government agencies have other parts of it. But that that was our primary mission. So anytime a U.S. citizen got uh uh abducted overseas, our unit was responsible for finding for providing the negotiation assets to that. So the other parts to our unit, besides being oper, we were operational with that, and we provided the uh negotiation element for our for the hostage rescue team. We also did all the instructions for FBI negotiators nationwide, as well as state, local, and overseas people. We did a lot of instruction overseas, and we ran our negotiation program for our negotiators uh in the field. So that's kind of a background for that. Okay. Um the Captain Phillips case that you referred to. Um I was I I had I was unit chief by that time, and um we all know how the the thing unfolded. Uh pirates uh uh uh seized a uh uh the Maersk, Alabama. It was a container ship. And um I remember we were it was around Easter time, and I'm I'm I'm spacing what year it was. Um but I remember we were like everybody else, we were watching it on the news, et cetera, and the Navy was shadowing them and all this other stuff, and we kept saying, yeah, you know, we're not gonna get move all that. The Navy's got it. And later on that night, it was like midweek before it ended, um it was in the middle of the night, I got a phone call, which is when I got most of my phone calls because most of the stuff was happening overseas. Anyway, got a call from a captain so-and-so at the uh Pentagon Command Post or Command Center, and he tells me he's about to patch me through to the uh bridge, uh to the bridge of the USS Bainbridge. And I said, Oh, stop right there. I said, I'm you know, I'm I'm not gonna get in the middle of this. I'm I'm gonna assign one of our negotiators to it. And I I connected him with one of the negotiators on my unit. But the long and short of it was the uh the uh captain of the Bainbridge recognized that um um that they wanted to get start communication with the pirates. And what ended up happening was uh the negotiator, the supervisor in my unit, was sitting in his living room in Fredericksburg coaching a Navy chief who was coaching an interpreter talking to the pirates. So that's how that worked. Um so that's how that started. Um I knew we we were gonna be working with uh assets from the Navy uh that were depicted in the movie, and um we um I sent a negotiator down to Virginia Beach to be in their command post to sit with the Navy and uh basically find out what did they need from us. So without getting too into the uh the the who what when where's the the classified stuff, you know, the Navy uh the the Navy elements told us what they needed in terms of um gathering intel and what was going on in the boat, and they basically told us uh you know, they were not going to allow that um lifeboat that the Captain Phillips was in on board. They weren't going to allow that to get anywhere near Somalia because then they figured once he got on on the beach in Somalia, you'd never get him again. So um that's essentially what we did with the Navy is we facilitated how that played out toward the end of it. So we just we just had communications. We we we we had had a prior relationship with the Navy, with those elements in the Navy and in the Army. And because we would deploy overseas, we had always said we wanted them to understand what we could do to help them in terms of intelligence gathering and in terms of keeping hostages alive for longer periods of time. So if they needed to facilitate or to effect or a rescue overseas, we were able to uh gather the intelligence for them, uh uh make the uh actually elongate the situation, make the situation go longer because it gave them more time to gather intelligence from other sources and um you know it gave them an opportunity to develop rescue plans, et cetera, et cetera. So essentially that's how Captain Phillips unfolded. Um afterwards, when they were starting to make the movie, Hollywood came. To interview us about it. And it was funny because uh I don't know if they were writers or producers or whatever they are. We sat down with them and the the feeling that we got was that they wanted to play us off against the Navy, that the Navy just wanted to kill the pirates and we wanted to keep them alive. And we told them, well, that's not really how it happened. We just we, you know, we were there to assist the Navy. The Navy requested our assistance, and that's what we did. We assisted them. So our piece of it never made it to the movie. It was just what happened and you know the other parts of it. So that was the Captain Phillips caper.

SPEAKER_02 44:32

Okay. And we talked about this previously. You haven't seen the movie.

SPEAKER_01 44:37

Nope. I haven't seen it. I just maybe one day it just I lived it. I don't I don't need to see it.

SPEAKER_02 44:42

So at least to see if there's any inaccuracies in there, which I'm sure there put a Hollywood spin on it.

SPEAKER_01 44:47

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:48

Yeah. Pretty interesting. Yeah. Yeah, just recently heard that about you, which is one of the reasons I wanted to interview you for this. So uh so let's let's move on from uh so you retire from the FBI.

SPEAKER_01 44:59

Yeah, in 2012, um my wife Angela was getting uh her her illness was really taking hold of her uh um with the MS. It was getting progressively worse. Um my daughters were in school, both my twins were in school down at the University of Virginia. As I mentioned earlier, all her neurology and all those specialties for her were here. So I, you know, I was 55 at the time, and I didn't want to be told I had to retire at 57. Uh and I was told by I don't remember recall who, but they that that there was a position in emergency management opening up down at UVA. So I applied and um interviewed for the job and I I got it. So when I retired in July of 2012 from the from the FBI started the next month uh at UVA and the uh uh doing emergency management. So um we sold our house in northern Virginia and uh settled down here in uh Crozet. We found a house in Crozet.

SPEAKER_02 46:03

So that's where were you where'd you live in northern Virginia? Stafford.

SPEAKER_01 46:07

Stafford Stafford County, just just just outside of uh Quantico. Yep.

unknown 46:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 46:12

So John, I met you through emergency services also. Um I'm not sure how long ago I joined the fire department here in in 2012. Yeah after moving here in 2011. Yeah and uh sometime along the way I met you and uh I had heard that you were you know retired FBI agent, but we never really sat down and talked about it. Talked about it, yeah. And uh I've just found you know, my working with you through your your um what you do with the rescue squad is we just have a great relationship.

SPEAKER_01 46:42

Yeah, the the the the rescue squad uh you know I had always seen and I had seen it.

SPEAKER_02 46:47

Yeah, I want to get to how how did you how did you end up in the rescue squad after being in law enforcement? It's like maybe in a cop forever, and how'd you end up in the fire department? Supposed to hate each other, right?

SPEAKER_01 47:00

No, not not at all. Uh um yeah, it you know, I had seen it from afar, you know, the both the fire, the the Crozé Fire Fire Department and you know, Western Almar Rescue Squad. But of course, because I was so involved with, you know, had uh taking care of my wife, et cetera, and uh you know, the job at UVA kept me busy as well. But we we were unfortunately uh uh customers of of the Western Alemar Rescue Squad because of her her Angela's condition. And um so I you know I got a chance to see it. Uh you know, as I mentioned, um you know, the culture I grew up in, you know, I was still I still had an affinity for the fire service. Uh and I I I neglected to mention I'm not I'm an honorary battalion chief with New York City. Oh, great. Yeah, with the fire department up there. Um because of some work I had done with them. And um it, you know, it always stuck, you know, that that that that culture of service, et cetera, it it's in your blood, it's just there. Uh fast forward to 2018, um Angela passed away. Um she went she had she went to respiratory arrest, and uh Rescue 5 responded. They brought her back. And when I went to the the uh when I went to the uh emergency room, met her there, uh met them there, uh Costas, Albertus, the chief, met me at the door. And I had met him uh through my work in the emergency management thing. It was just like a high hello thing, and I knew he was very involved in Western Rescue. But anyway, he met me at the door and it told me what they had done, and you know, he he was very you know uh candid with me. He wasn't sure if she was gonna make it, how long Angela had been down, et cetera, et cetera. And that actually was good. It gave me some comfort. You know, I had some really good information and I knew what needed what I needed to do, et cetera. And one of the uh the priests from St. Thomas, Aquinas, was there and you know he had he anointed her and all that. So so I I knew what, you know, I knew where I was going with that. So shortly after Angela passed away, um Costas and um Melanie they reached out to me and said, Hey, you know, basically don't hang out alone. You know, you're you're home alone. Why don't you come down uh come down to the rescue, have uh come on you have a meal with us, et cetera, et cetera, and see, you know, if you like it, and the rest is history. So that's uh this just I'm coming up on my fifth anniversary there. So that's how I uh that's how I got involved in it. And I I found the culture there of service and it was kind of the firehouse culture a little bit, you know, the same feeling. Yes, the familiarity there. The familiarity, and uh I got a chance to, you know, to work with the guys at Crozet Fire and this is all right, I like it. So that that's that's it's it's part of that giving back to the community thing. And uh and it I I I retired from the university and at the end of 2019, I had had enough. And um it gave me more of an opportunity to get m more involved with the rescue. So here I am today.

SPEAKER_02 50:13

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 50:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:14

That's uh you know, we I know the the folks I work with in the fire department, they they're always happy to see you on a scene. Oh, that's good. We just love when you're there.

SPEAKER_01 50:23

Yeah, no, I I I I I uh I'm very much into and you've heard it from my career, into the into the collaborative part of it. And uh, you know, we all we we we all have to work together. It's it's it's we're there to support each other, and I I but I firmly believe that and I love that about it too.

SPEAKER_02 50:40

So uh it's hard to walk away from service after all those years uh you can't do it with your law enforcement and FBI and then and then with your wife passing, and then what do you what do you want to do with your time? And you you chose to do this to continue with the service, and that's it's fun. That's pretty admirable.

SPEAKER_01 50:56

It's admirable, but it it's fun. I I I enjoy it a lot.

SPEAKER_02 50:59

Well the relationships you build too. I mean and with with Western Almore Rescue Squad, you have a lot of young UVA students that they're constantly coming and going. So you're building all these relationships and friendships.

SPEAKER_01 51:12

Relationship, friendships, and and I'm I'm very uh aware of it and conscious of it that um you I might have a little bit of an impact on them. Because they're young. I mean, a lot of them are I mean, two of the young ladies on my crew are they're they're just going into the second year of college. I mean, I I could be their father. I mean, I'm old enough to be most of their fathers, you know, on my crew. And I I'm hoping I can influence them a little bit just in terms of, you know, not maybe not necessarily their career choices or anything like that, but just their outlook on life, the the this idea of service, the idea of responsibility and all. And that's just hope something I can uh impart on them.

SPEAKER_02 51:52

I I think that's changed a lot over the years, and and having somebody older like you in there to be able to give advice. Yeah. To give advice is really is really beneficial when they might not be able to get that advice elsewhere.

SPEAKER_01 52:04

Elsewhere, yeah, that's true, very true. And I enjoy that, I really do.

SPEAKER_02 52:08

So, John, we've covered everything, you know, from growing up to your career to your your second life now, um, married and with the rescue squad. Anything else you want to talk about before we close things out?

SPEAKER_01 52:19

No, I just appreciate the opportunity to sit and chat. And uh I hope you know I hope this influences or helps somebody else down the line to uh to do the right thing for the right reason. So that's about it.

SPEAKER_02 52:31

Sounds like you've been doing that for a long time. So yes, I try. Thank you. Thank you so much for for joining us today. This concludes this episode of In the Line of Fire with Gary Dillon. Special thanks to John Flood for sharing his life of experience and volunteerism with our listeners. If you're interested in volunteering with the Western Alamar Rescue Squad, please reach out to them through their website at www.westernrescue.org. In the line of fire is sponsored by Versa, Virginia's largest and most financially sounded group self-insurance pool, providing auto, property, liability, and workers' compensation coverage to local governments, schools, and authorities.