one of the guys went out for a fireworks complaint we go out there they're like hey let's not light fireworks up whatever reasonable people now they start lighting fireworks off in front of him next thing you know there's a bunch of yelling and now there's 150 people in the street and so I was like the last one in and I just I pull down the street this is something I'll never forget the rest of my life I pull on the street everyone is fighting somebody it's one of those things you'll never forget you're just like wow there are eight of us fighting a 100 people you're less than to 50 six a penel County Sheriff's Office podcast I'm Ricky Butler back with Laura Sullivan and Ashley Coy and we are really glad to be back it has been a wild couple months down here uh in penel County back-to-back hurricanes Helen and Milton leaving uh devastating damage and impacts uh in their wake uh unprecedented for our beach communities in particular with with hurricane Helen so of course leading up to that we put on our PR hats for crisis Communications before during and after the storm uh support our members with what they doing and then kind of get back on track with our projects and and programs and events that were disrupted for for over a month so when that kind of stuff happens unfortunately the fun stuff like the podcast uh takes a back seat so a couple things and we'll get right back to business um first of all I want to say thank you to everyone um for reaching out to our agency to our community to see ways they can provide assistance we had a tremendous amount of support rolling in for folks that wanted to just use us as a conduit to get support out there to the community that need it so we appreciate that and the other piece of it is uh that you know those our listeners that are local we all have a favorite spot on the beach uh whether it's a beach bar a great restaurant or maybe a little hotel you want to do a station stay in touch with them check in with them see when they're back open and when they get back open get out there and support those businesses because they need us more than ever so that's it we're going to move forward into the fun stuff now but again appreciate everybody's support and thoughts during that time but on to our regularly scheduled programming detective J Plum with the mass casualty planning unit is our guest today on 56 uh and we are going to learn all about him what he does and have a lot of fun along the way tell some stories all that stuff you've come to expect from this podcast but first Ashley has a question all right your life comes with a warning label what is it you can take a minute wow this product needs significant amounts of quiet time properly that's pretty good okay yeah so I feel like this is a really heart opening question uh warning label will travel uh all over the world in turn so I would say that uh even for a quick 48 hour weekend trip as it turns out you just came back from Ireland didn't you did I did a weekend trip to Ireland quick weekend trip 48 hours in country exting no big deal yeah very quick I've only heard 30 people in the office make fun of me for it so it's been good go to 33 here it's uh yeah so warning label definitely is Will Travel anytime any place anywhere without reason I mean that's that's that's kind of exciting now I think um I don't know um probably like high speed low drag hold on something like that I didn't want to say it in a way that would find Laura an opportunity to make it weird but would I ever make anything weird that's Laura's warning label like I thought of one for her like warning will make it awward make it weird I'm trying to get away from that a new Laura in 2025 and yours I was thinking would be like will might hurt your feelings but it'll be funny that that too that that actually that's pretty good true that's better than my answer yeah we'll hurt your feelings but it'll be funny that's pretty it reminds me it reminds me of like the you know like in the UK they like to use things that are phrased really weird like Slippery When Wet right that's what I was thinking High speeded low drag Slippery When Wet same thing you know yeah yeah Laura could have made that one weird too mind the gap there you go it's all G pair shape now and we're off the rails there you go Ashley did you say yours yet I didn't mine would be warning cusses at technology and bad drivers that's fair I feel like that's a lot of people you are so entertaining behind the wheel I love driving with you I do like riding with Ashley it's it's pretty good just people need to drive better and I tell them it's like yeah we could we could do a whole podcast on that alone maybe when we do that should when we do that wet Lab podcast we've been talking about is that really going to happen I hope probably not but we'll see I mean the sheriff might come to me after list that's a pretty good idea keep dangling it in front of me carrot and I keep jumping for it and it never happens it would I would come back for that just to be clear that would be pretty good we could have like a a drug recognition expert in here like Ashley was saying and that that would be we could really learn some things we could we could just uh have a nice fun social conversation with a couple beverages all in the interest of public education I feel like we would have to cut a lot of that we would absolutely have to cut we would have to cut a lot of it be like those Tik toks where it's like you see the trend where it's like um my name is such such this is my first drink and then they catch up with them at the end and it's like anyway well you'd have a you'd have a solid eight minutes in that so that would be good by the you cut it all down that would be great we recorded for 5 hours and got8 minutes got it that's about the cops right when the cops goes out to film with with with LA en yeah they're out for like three weeks and get an hour show so that' be great that would work for us all right that was a great question Ashley great job way to kick off the new year of podcast with that one thank you strong one all right detective Plum um I just keep thinking Professor Plum and I just can't I can't help it I know you never hear the Candlestick in the library I know I get it all the time time so um one of the reasons we really wanted to talk to you is well we want to talk to everybody we talk to for the different perspectives uh but you in particular kind of had an interesting background and you're a transplant from the north uh that came down here to pcso with actually as we'll find a whole gaggle of folks from your particular agency um like birds flying south for the for the winter I would imagine oh yeah quite the Gaggle actually that's probably the best way to put it actually is there like per terminology is there like a Northern or or Northeastern word for Gaggle uh no but there is this thing where everybody's like ah we're going to Florida for the winter and you're like when did Florida get an ER on the end but that's fine welcome to England Florida going to Florida I like it uh but yeah you know everybody wants to come South it's warmer and you know it's Des waiting room so come on you're selling it so well oh man yeah this is visit Florida is just going to cut this and be like that was it that was it it's death's waiting room heat and death all around come on why not Florida man you know he he's Florida man is so well known up there that I had to see him for myself yeah have I met him yes he lives in penel County that is actually a brilliant idea for marketing the agency come meet Florida man we could have fun with that true yeah Ryan is our resident Florida man but he is we could we could work on that I like that what's going on somewhere all right so back to you so it's New Hampshire right so you you grew up in New Hampshire yeah born in the capital and then grew up uh in a small suburb just outside the capital called pem okay you know one of those towns where everybody knows everybody and your parents grw up there and you know nothing ever changes type of thing typical small town yeah yeah and then so how long were you there then you cuz small town like when you say small town what are we talking oh man we're talking like 8,000 people okay which I guess around here is substantially small compared to what we have here but right you know one of those things were like my grandmother was a cop in the town that I used to live in okay you know that type of small town field where everybody you know everybody knows your last name so when my brother is getting pulled over for speeding again right again they're like oh your brother is Jason ah all right yeah but it's you know it's it's one of those things where that's all I knew growing up right so I'm just used to the small town feel and so to come down here where you know there's 8,000 people in three miles it's a little bit different quite different yeah so so you said mostly so did you did you move somewhere in your childhood it did yeah so freshman year of high school we relocated to California in a city called Chino Hills it's a BB of La basically oh wow that's quite an adjustment great that's completely different oh yeah quite the difference 8,000 people the In-N-Out Burger drive-thru out there literally yeah it's which in and out if you've never had it is fantastic by the way I haven't you know I I'm going to be that guy it's good you're about to call it overrated aren't you I am yeah think don't do not start with me I'll I'll walk out of here I think well let's go fighting words I think I think it's overrated I mean it's good I mean it's better than any fast food Burger we have around here I will give you that but the way people talk about it it's like oh my God and it's like ah but of course maybe I went to the wrong one at the wrong time it's it's the freshness you know everyone in high school if you got lucky work there okay it's a thing it's a thing it's the thing I still think about it all the time actually yeah so so how how uh how was that adjustment and was it I assume work for your parents or something or yeah yeah it was work um so my parents are divorced they divorced a long time ago so they both remarried both started families so it was a my stepdad got a promotion that transferred him out there so I opted to go with him and the majority of the family and it was a night and day difference I mean it was I'm a smalltown New England boy that's now in a BB of LA and you kind of feel like uh to me it was like baby days out you know like it's remember the movie it's like Baby's Day Out and I'm like I don't I am weighing over my head here I don't know what I'm doing but it was uh it the change was staggering for me and of course being in high school too yeah so and it's one of those things where everybody you know grew up together so they all went to elementary school middle school together and now everybody's coming to high school so they've known each other for 10 years at this point and I'm just some weird New England guy guy I mean I had people being like Oh New Hampshire isn't that in New England uh I mean yeah it's a region he Oh I thought it was another country like part of Canada well Canada is its own country but okay so so immediately uh LA's education system top not it's it was great yeah don't worry it uh proved itself all the time right but it was very it it was staggering you know and especially just little things you're you know you're like oh can I go to the bubble and people are like what what are you talking about I don't know what you're talking about yeah bub a bubbler is like a water fountain oh so but that's just apparently a New England term I didn't but you don't know is is your is your public water carbonated no no it's just it's the way it bubbles out I guess I don't but you don't if it's bubbling out you're putting your mouth right on that thing if it's bubbling out that's not I don't know who came up with it some somebody taught me that in school the teacher it really is I'm going to go to the I'm going to go to the bubbler bub all right we're all learning things I know well hey I'm here to educate as part of my job yeah ABS we are too this is perfect yeah thank but it's well so you don't know that you have these words or accents or whatever until somebody points them out you know so you know it little things like bubbler um what do you call soda soda we call soda okay thank God I'm not from the Midwest okay but uh it's like pop or or pop yeah in the midwest pop which oh always caught me off guard cuz I was like what what what same way we feel about bubbler it's all good yeah my favorite of course is like the uh the like what do you call the little alcohol bottles that you could buy in the store they have special names well like what would you call it alcohol bottle I have a have that little bottle of wild derky right there yeah so we in New England we call them nips nips yeah I don't know why but they've always been called nips forever I've heard I think I've heard that I just didn't have all the context but that makes sense yeah I mean it doesn't make sense but I get it I don't have context either where from it's like a nip of alcohol I guess yeah okay but so I've heard so many different like airplane bottle I've heard many alcohol bottles I've heard nips so it's little things like that when you're you say it so confidently you're like yeah I'll go grab some nips from the store and they're like what and somebody's like excuse me you're going to do what to who but of course you weren't you weren't grabbing nips in in high school cuz you're not a leg age of course not we would never that's horrible that's funny but uh so needless to say had quite the uh adaptation period uh in which I was learning all these things that I didn't know I didn't know so it I'd like to think though that you inoculated them and they are now grabbing nips in your absence you left and they grabbing nips perhaps right yeah perhaps but I'm not thinking airplane bottles but um I think that uh it was quite if the uh if the example I gave of people thinking New Hampshire was part of another country gave you any context clues to how the next four years of my life went right um I would say that what you're thinking is absolutely true yeah so you got four so you you finish out high school and stuff there and everything yeah yeah so went there you know I graduated there in 2008 so did my four years there and I immediately was like I am getting out of here I did my time left and uh immediately move back to New Hampshire okay back to the safe place yeah back to my safe place nips and bubblers where I can be normal and say weird stuff and nobody looks at me weird but might have found a title for this episode nips and bubblers nips and bubblers nips and bubblers I kind of like it um so uh did you have a College Plan career plan at that time like what yeah did that factor into going back or like no I got to hit reset first and then we'll figure it out yeah at the time I had this concept of all right you know I want to go for athletic training m and that was my thing I got into um Chapman University out there in Orange County and that was my plan and then I realized that I really hated California and I needed to get out of there so I actually as I went back North I changed my major and went the sport management Direction so really it was more of like you said I was like I just need to get out of here I'll just I'll find another major as long as I can get out of here I'll major in botany if I have to exactly basket weaving was a minor so I was like at least I can start there I'll go to Community College basket weaving back to your home country of New England exactly I'll learn how to make nips and brew beer yeah beer to put nice whatever that could be so where did the the whole um first responder thing come from because you actually started as a paramedic yeah I kind of fell into it by accident this is yeah a weird story I so when I moved back to my homet I moved back to my hometown went to college uh the college I went to was only two towns away from where I grew up so very close you can kind of say I was going back to the safe you know the safe place for me and up there volunteer fire departments are really big and it's you know just primarily because these are small communities and they don't have the funding for a full-time fire department so the thing to do is get on the volunteer fire department so and you said these are my people these are my people get me my chipa was and my car heart pants and me up for the fire department it I swear to it was the thing to do like that's what everybody did and uh if you do you guys know what Chipawa boots are very thing yeah there's these they're very specific type of boots that I feel like everyone um in Maine New Hampshire Vermont all owns a pair mhm and they're I find them funny because they look like um high heels for men mhm oh because they're these you know I like them already yeah well I just always laugh I'm like these boots I'm like why is the heel 6 in on these things what dudes are wearing these that they need the height but um what uh I'm trying to think now what the Florida equivalent or Regional equivalent of of a a shoe that everybody has is in Florida besides flipflops flip flops is there anything else well nowadays aren't there the hey dudes like that's a big thing everybody has he dudes are in I've got I've I've got a couple pairs of those I bet everyone at this table has a pair I do not I don't what mm I live in I adapted to Florida very quickly yeah so natur you moled and everything and it was very easy we're sticking with the Aven metaphors throughout the whole thing all right so um okay so uh we got off trap so uh so volunteer fire department you joined uh yes so I joined the fire department because that was the cool thing to do at the time so I got involved through the local volunteer fire department while I was going to college and what's unique about it is the ambulance was full-time so the ambulance was stationed in the firehouse and I just kind of I don't know took a liking to it thought it was was interesting maybe it was the driving fast and taking chances I don't know but something drew me to it so I went to the fire academy got my EMT and then in college I was like I really do not like the sport management thing I don't even know what I'm studying at this point MH so I switched roles and ended up going for paramedic emergency medicine instead and kind of fell into it that way just by being back and following what everybody else in that small town was doing so because of that I got to know you know people working on the ambulance and they were like hey come volunteer for us and you kind of you quickly fall into yeah I fell into it it's weird and this was in this was in your your hometown yep ex not not Rochester which is where you ended up correct in the hometown just a volunteer fir just volunteer firefighter and I think I think I don't remember if we talked about it with been staying but we were talking about how I think I mean a majority of fire departments in the country are volunteer yeah like that it's extremely common yeah which is a crazy thing for people that live in more populated areas but it's totally the norm out there yeah absolutely you would have no IDE I mean around here everything's full time but you know if you go up there everyone's a volunteer firefighter M everybody has a volunteer fire department you know everybody has you know these quintessential license plates that say I'm a fire for the pemg fire department and it's like a it's like a status symbol up there so it's uh that was a interesting concept cuz you would never see that D what kind of training do they even get as a volunteer do they get training or you you go to the regular fire academy um and you pay for that yourself no they'll pay for it okay okay yeah so they so you get all the same training you're just not you're just not full-time yeah so they sent me it's like a hobby then that's pretty cool actually quite literally is the perfect word it's a hobby and well it but it also like produces like really cap citizens like if it's if you're you know 20 something years old or whatever and uh you're like hey I'm going to go do this you help the community and you learn a very important skill yeah I would think absolutely yeah that's kind of it's a good way you said hobby because I feel like everyone had a full-time job sure and this was their thing you know on Tuesday nights we would go to the meetings and people just kind of they get caught up in a hobby and the meetings what's the plan this week fight fires fires next week more fires yeah we're going to so what we're going to do is going to put water on the fire all right all right we'll see you already next week all right good training all right we'll see you at Applebees I am so in honestly it's you learn different fire safy safety tips and things like that and when you're in this place that isn't that populated you know maybe those skills transfer to the home so there's less fires in general they're not doing some dumb stuff and if you're somewhere and something happens you're there yeah yeah and sometimes you're closer I mean I I was in it for the big fire trucks I want to drive the trucks so did they let me no so whatever they gave me a cruiser instead there that so so then what um volunteer fire department for a little bit and then you end up in Rochester working for a hospital yeah so I ended up liking it like I said went to college got my degree in uh paramedic emergency medicine and then I was offered a job at frisbee Memorial Hospital in Rochester New Hampshire which is the opposite side of the state um but it was a unique job offer so I decided I'm going to do it and uh went full-time over there different sort of town than your uh your hometown you know slightly different the socioeconomics were um staggeringly different I would say um but it you know it's known at the time it still probably to this day it's really known for an area of low socio economics um so they are police fire and EMS were all very busy there just based on the you know the makeup of the city so getting hired there and working there as a paramedic was was was pretty prestigious at the time so for me it was an amazing opportunity to really you know expand my knowledge and and and get a good amount of experience quick and how big of a town is Rochester it's about 30,000 people okay so not not not huge but not small by any means so at up to this point cuz like thing is always you know starting in things young getting into it where any like at that time was there any like eye openening situations I mean you know everybody remembers their first dead body or or whatever that traumatic experience was like how what was that like kind of transitioning into that career well I would say I think the biggest thing for me is again growing up in a small town and then going to a city where it's drugs it's losos economics I just never never grew up in anything like that so I had never seen anything like it in my life you know people living in squalor that's not something I'd ever seen so as a 21-year-old who's brand new out of college brand new out of college doesn't doesn't know anything you know you're walking into these houses and you're you know I guess you just it's just mindboggling because it's just something I had never experienced so you're learning how to be a paramedic you're learning a new area and then you're experiencing all of these like a culture shock kind of it it was wild to me everything like every aspect of every aspect of it yeah and it was very much a culture shock for me in that regard and so you kind of have to you really have to try to learn it and understand as dumb as it sounds well how do we get here and why is it like this uh so it was it was pretty eye opening you know we had a lot of a lot of like I said a a lot of homelessness a lot of drugs and it was it's just something I never experienced before so you're running a bunch of overdoses things like that all the time yeah and right when I got hired this was back in August of oh geez August of 2012 is when I started there and we were in the spice era so you had uh you just had we were we were just fighting these people that had superhuman strength that the the cops are calling us being like ah we don't really know what to do and you're like oh okay so what are we going to do and they're like don't you have drugs or something and you're like oh oh I guess we'll try to do something about this right you know as a 20-year-old you're like trying to fight this 30-year-old with superhuman strength and you're like what is this right so that was you know we're running through the woods chasing I'll never forget like a brand new working night shift it was like two in the morning and the cops called us out because some guy it was completely naked took spice and now he's running through the woods so they cops had gotten him and so they're calling it's like hey get out here get out we can't get him you know it's like six cops on top of this guy so we walk out and I'm with uh this other girl she was my paramedic partner at the time but she was also a full-time cop so we get out there and we're fighting this naked dude trying to get him sedated and uh he's really Slippery When Wet and nice call back so we're trying to get him sedated and so she has the the drug box and she goes open it and she's like oh my God like what do you mean oh my God this is not the time for that oh my God I I dropped a bunch of the drugs on the way out here we have no medications to sedate this guy and it's the middle of the woods we don't know where these drugs are and I'm like okay this is what what are we going to do now so uh it was stuff like that I'll never forget it and you know as a 21-year-old I'm just looking at this like this is this place is wild right this this this place is insane so needless to say I was uh baptized very quick uh baptism by fire yeah so we were very busy and you know at the time to as spice was ending fentanyl was coming in so we were doing a lot of um you know double triple overdoses and just the the world became unhinged at that point um you know you're doing in a 12-hour shift you're doing 16 17 911 calls wow which was insane for drug overdosis so it um it was just crazy yeah now you were working for the hospital so did did they run the ambulance service is that yeah so it's weird weird because we don't really have it down here but basically you know the hospital in the city they owned the ambulance and so when you weren't going to 911 calls you were working the ER as an nurse and then uh 911 call would come out you'd walk outside to the garage where the ambulances are and then take off in the ambulance and then bring them back okay it's kind of neat yeah so working working under the hospital you were sort of under the offices of of the ER doctor right did that did that give you more leeway as a medic there yeah it it was super unique because because we worked for the hospital MH you know we we worked for that ER doctor directly so if there was that personal connection interesting of if you were to you know call the doctor hey you know I remember this Doctor John F very Progressive was an FDNY um medical control doctor for years came up to us you'd call him be like John this is what I have blah blah blah and he's like yeah go ahead and do it I trust you hang up like okay and so you had that sense of you're a practitioner you know you got to do a lot of really Advanced medicine that other people don't do because you work directly under that ER doctor so it gave us a lot of freedom and it you know as a 21-year-old kid to have that much autonomy is kind of wild to think about um in that freedom yeah because it's you know it's different it's different everywhere depending on the system but I I know there are others that the hospital runs a service but that is interesting to think about because down here you've got you know you've got Sunstar you've got all the you know the fire departments have you know they're they're running medical and they all kind of have different protocols and then of course you have the protocol of the hospital when you get there so now that this Cuts all that stuff out so I thinking through that as you're saying I'm like holy crap like yeah that you probably did some really crazy things oh yeah I mean it was I'm almost like at a loss for words because it's the things you could do are just insane you don't see them down here but I think that system was built on a a need MH because we didn't have as much access to Emergency Medical Services so you know being a paramedic up there there was only 600 in the entire state where there's down here I mean there's 600 working today right so right you know it was crazy so yeah I got the ability to do a lot of really Advanced medicine which I thought was can you give some examples what kind of things did you did you do yeah so we could do something called uh rapid sequence Innovation which they can't do in penel County but if we had a patient who had severe Airway Burns or who had a a traumatic brain bleed or something like that in which we needed to control their Airway we could give them a paralytic and a sedative put them to sleep and intubate them oh so that way we could control their Airway uh uh more effectively out on the scene out on the scene in on the road so that was a big thing we could do you know CES so we could what's that what's that cryo thyrotomy so if you know you have some type of upper Airway obstruction that we couldn't get it you know a tube through like to inate you we could cut your cry thyroid membrane which is just below your atam Apple and insert a tube there the one that in the movies they do with a with a pocket yeah like an anaconda where they take that the big pen and they're like yeah no problem yeah so it doesn't work that way though uh not yeah did I try in some trainings yes I can assure you it doesn't work uh cuz we did we did Pig tra is all the time and I was like yo I got to try this and the instructor's like yeah whatever fine do it get it out of your system yeah did did the pig survive uh no we just had the tracheas from the slaughter house so yeah they were fine the pig was the pig was it was a quiet Pig yeah let's just say it wasn't bothered so it but so yeah it was it pretty cool so yeah I learned a lot of stuff like that that was neat and you could you know doctors taught me how to do chest tubes in the ER and if there was a situation collapse long sort of yeah so if you have a numo thorax and you you know we could obviously take a needle and decompress them but really the definitive treatment is a chest tube like you've probably all seen in the movies um and the doctors were like I'll teach you how to do it come in here and it it's wild and you're like okay yeah I'm 22 this sounds great I want to do cool stuff right and you know they were comfortable with you doing Advanced procedures if they knew you so that those were the things that we were taught that I've think are just invaluable that you don't really get to do anywhere else yeah um so it it was a very cool experience to work for somewhere like that that you know it's that is really cool maybe Dr Plum isn't that far of a stretch o that is true I'm ready for maybe another career change who knows how did you go from that to police oh A Series of Unfortunate Events no not really tell us all about them you probably saw a lot of traumatic things as as a medic though did that have any well I guess you're going to be seeing the same traumatic things just from the other side yeah I'm be H it's the same people police EMS saw the same thing I I think what drew me to it is what was unique about the city is police fire and EMS were all separate they were all their own departments but you know obviously we ended up going to calls with the police all the time I would say every other call we were going there with the police and at that point I had no desire to be a cop I never really even thought about it and you're going to all these calls and you you get really close with them you know you you become friends with the firefighters you become friends with the cops and you we had this very tight-knit like emergency services within the city everybody knew everybody and so I started obviously going to parties with them and going to things with them and so I got to know them super well and as time went on I became very close with the a group of of cops in the city and they were big bullies so they they were uh they bullied me a lot uh especially at parties just like oh when you're going to come over when you're going to come over and I was like oh never M and So eventually they wore me down enough that I was like ah you know what I'll apply and the reality is I mean the short answer to it is um they dared you they challenged it really it was more of a challenge and as dumb as that sounds you know at 25 old I was like oh I could use a new challenge uh maybe this is something I can do and you know I was lucky because I worked with what I consider still to this day some of the best cops I've ever met in my life you know the the people that I felt did the job right so I was like you know what if I'm going to do it I'm going to go work with you guys because you guys do it right right and that thinking and mentality is what I carried to the job when I went there and you know at the time you guys probably remember it but getting hired as a cop back then like 2015 2016 was competitive you know I tested with 250 people wow and now just for Rochester no you would take like a aptitude test first and then in Rochester I think I there was four openings and I think I I think I tested with 30 to 40 people um obviously they didn't know that I had a little uh knew some people y knew some people in there so that probably helped had a little Edge there uh may or may not knew kind of some of the questions on the or board that were maybe inbound um but back then it was tough you know tough to get hired so certainly I was a nervous wreck for like six months but yeah I just said one day I'm like you know what we're going to do it so do you apply get hired and then go to the academy or how does it how does it work up there yeah so they up there there's one Academy for the whole state oh okay you live there and you can only go to the academy if you are hired by a police department okay so you can't like here you can't go you can self sponsor yourself up there you can't you can interesting so yeah I got hired um had no idea what I was doing they were like y we're sending you to the academy so went to the academy lived there for four months and then still had no idea what I was doing tell us about the academy a little bit because that that was a very sort of paramilitary structure right which you were probably not really used to oh not at all I do not come from a paramilitarism I had to learn a lot very quickly uh marching you know things like that that like I've seen in the movies this it's not as easy as it looks apparently just watch Full Metal Jacket before you leave yeah exactly you know private pile style um they did not find me in the bathroom with my rifle so that's a bu good that is very good but it yeah it was a just a weird experience because you know you're trying to learn you co in with a bunch of guys that were in the military and they just they're like yelling these chants and marches and I'm like what are we doing here like this is not college right so apparently it was apparently it was uh but it was good experience but you know I just I felt so out of my element because I am just some dumb paramedic that is coming into the police world and all these guys seem to like come from the military so I had to uh spend some time learning how to square my corners and yell sir yes sir sir no sir a lot and uh get acclimated with push-ups and what we called frog leaps uh they could not what are what are frog leaps uh they're basically where you like bend down touch the ground with your hands and then jump up apparently they can't do push-ups anymore in the summer because it can burn your hands so they had to switch to frog leaps so that was a whole yeah on down to flor yeah yeah gets a little hot you can leave your entire handprint in skin on the ground that's how tough we are we do push-ups in all weather in Florida all weather in Florida absolutely yeah the harsh winners was it coed like or was there a separate Academy for women or it was coed um the women obviously had their own wing and then obviously the the Rowdy men we had our own our own two wings uh but it was coed okay and it was basically we would be up at 5:00 a.m. for PT we would change march to cow and man I'll tell you the first two weeks I cannot figure out marching I have two left feet I don't know what we're doing probably got yelled out about 15 times and like I don't don't don't they actually call out like left right left so you know which one to go to do that's not as easy as you think okay but when you don't have a right foot you just have to go two left so I'm like which one do I use all of them all of them man it was so such a foreign concept so obviously they always picked the military guys to like be the leaders so it was uh it was interesting yeah so then you know we had a lot of classroom time and uh unfortunately at the time you know you're up it's very very regimented very structured so I was tired all the time so they banned energy drinks and snacks so the only thing you could have is Black Coffee o well I've never drank coffee a day in my life never so no I never at that point I never had which is weird cuz I work nights as a paramedic yeah so you drinking energy drinks no I wasn't even drinking energy drinks at the time you doing nothing you just just I was raw dog in life just you know I didn't no caffeine it was crazy so of course one day we're not allowed to talk in the academy but in the bathrooms you could talk you're not allowed to talk that had to be hard oh yeah you're not allowed to talk so you go to Chow and you're eating dinner you literally stare at each other like like this and no talking was allowed so you just eat in silence three three meals a day you eat in silence oh it's building character right or something like that I don't know yeah if you're like an Eastern European orphanage or something it was like well and of course get a bunch of 22-year-old 25y old guys together staring at each other while they're eating what do you think happens dumbest [ __ ] somebody is like giggles and next thing you know everybody's laughing they all doing frog jumps or whatever they like all right we'll do 100 frog leaps when we get back and you're just like well me then I guess can eat this raw chicken and keep going wow so it yeah and that it's just weird it was so regimented right I now I just think it's bragging rights because why why did we even do that right but did they all have New England accents like because I would have a really I would have a really hard time if somebody was screaming at me like Mark Wahlberg like I would just really struggle oh God no surprisingly they did okay all right which that you know don't worry that will come later but uh no they didn't I don't know they just yelled and I just kind of toned it out and was like all right what are we eating for dinner tonight is really what I care about right I'm very food uh motivated like a dog so it works out well it would have been a good canine yeah it probably would have actually yeah like the actual dog yeah not quite a golden retriever though so wait you tried coffee yeah sorry how did we even what the hell just happened we digressed yeah I asked about ier you drink then we lost it well you know now I drink 100 of them a day so they uh so I we in the bathroom like guys I cannot stay awake this is the only time you can talk so I'm like what do you think and they're like we'll try some coffee I was like oh I don't drink coffee and they were like all right well then fall asleep in class again and get yelled at and we all get to go outside and do frog leaps cuz I used I was falling asleep in class every single day I'm like narcoleptic it was crazy you just be like looking over there's Plum sleeping again you know doing the head Bob so I'm like you know what all right I'm going to try it so I had four cups of coffee in one hour because I didn't know what else to do I'm like well this stuff tastes fine and I need to do something uh I probably had the world's worst anxiety I was panicking I was like I needed to run I didn't know where I needed to run too my skin was crawling and I'm like what do you think's going on am I dying and they're like uh no you've just never had coffee before and uh it was absolutely terrifying so I could just see you like in the space drinking the coffee in the they can't talk to you so they're like like what are you do I just have no idea I'm just like smoking these cups of coffee like guys it's fine why are you all being weird like what do you no it was and and you're just it's like black coffee too so it's just like yeah guys I'm fine F this is fine yeah F till I'm not fine and now I'm in the bathroom like guys does anyone know why I'm going crazy and they're like uh yeah you just had four cups of coffee do you know how much caffeine is in that like no I've never had caffeine before and uh it was horrible so instead where the hell did you come from I know yeah same thing everywhere you've gone like every time everyone's like how have you never had coffee and I'm like guy I don't know I don't know I just never I've never needed it I'm just I'm high on life why would I need caffeine while I learned very quickly holy cow that stuff I just anxiety just I I you're just like shaking instead of sleeping I'm shaking in my chair and they're just like are are you good do do you think think that I understand why they would have like a Livin Academy in a in a small state right because it doesn't make sense to have it you know in little versions of it or whatever but do you think that that is the right way to go like do you still look did you get a lot from that experience not not obviously the sleeping in class but the but the the structure of all that did that really help you at all or do you feel like that's kind of an old school way of doing business oh yeah I got nothing out of that yeah yeah that's Antiquated uh you know it's it's one of those things where I even look back now you know and I'm like I learned nothing out of this experience uh all I did was go there March around eat some food do a lot of frog leaps um and then I went back to the road and learned how to do the job so I felt it felt very Antiquated they actually got rid of it they don't do it anymore thank God now it's just bragging rights like oh God I went to a living Academy child you went to a college level one that's that's crazy that makes too much sense um but no I I feel like it's just such a there's not even many livingmy left Florida the only one they have is FHP MH um but no it was it was not great um so now the education piece obviously you get the Practical you know you learn the laws and everything but you know I think that obviously and well I'm interested to he of course we I'll just shut up we listen to more your stories and how it kind of went up there but I would imagine in that you know kind of it's kind of like the opposite of like a educational like experience for law enforcement like it's complicated like you learn the nuances of being a cop but feel like just them pounding it into you when you're half asleep right for kids now I guess but you spend more time anxious about squaring your corners and yelling sir no sir sir yes sir and worrying about being quiet than you actually are spending trying to intake the information because you're so you know you're so worked up all the time like I need to make sure I'm doing this all perfect and you have these million things going through your mind that you're like we are wasting valuable time right now yeah instead of we could be learning I don't know case law or something instead we're doing what we call motivationals which is where they just run us into the ground until we vomit it's like what what are we learning from this you know and what's motivational about that yeah I motivated to go home hey we're we're doing a fire drill at 2 a.m. so that way you can uh learn on exhaustion tomorrow right and you're like oh great that's how I retain things the best obviously it's on EX so it was it's just such an Antiquated theory that uh I'm sure that's why they get rid of it but I guess the only thing I probably get out of that as far as the uniqueness of a Liv in Academy is you get really tight with all the guys you're going with the girls even though you can't talk well so as you would get privileges spend a lot of time in bathroom yeah that was the only place you could go to talk to people right so you know in the first day you get there and you're like oh man you the food they served you there was horrible so of course you had to mitigate that very quickly after and you know you you tiptoe in like oh man I have you know I have to I have to poop but I like can't poop in in public and so you're in the bathroom with the stall they like open toilets or they no no they had stall doors but like there's no privacy anywhere there so you're like oh man I you know I've I've got to poop and the second day it's just like what every there's no rules people are just like yeah whatever man trying to have a conversation with while you're pooping and you just get comfortable and you're like okay whatever this is what it is yeah um or the like you know I always joke about the line of like showers so you had to shower 60 guys in 20 minutes and I'm like this is impossible so you're like you know you're shy and you're new same with the military and you're just kind of like oh man how's this going to work and then it becomes by the second week you're like nuts to butts lined up in a line like just let's go let's go what are you doing you know like let's go right and so you just you get this level of comfortness you know cuz initially you're like oh this is awkward and then it's like dude what are you doing in there let's go let's go you've been in that shower for 60 seconds come on right so it it definitely was a different concept but right yeah learning uh learning to poop and shower next to a bunch of dudes M was was definitely hard harder thing but doesn't actually prepare you for law enforcement though right no no definitely not actually yeah so what I learned out of the academy uh pooping in public uh showering in public I feel like there's an ordinance against that though and now he's super awkward to poop next to cuz he just starts a conversation now I just start talking wait a minute yeah it's not those days anymore hey Ricky how's the day going uh what let me watch my Tik Tok [Laughter] um all right so you get out of the academy back to back to actually learning now yes so there's there's fto obviously and yeah so we yeah head back to the road and then you're you know go right into fto and luckily for me I knew the whole city sure you know where most people struggle with geography I knew the whole city so they you know threw me into fto and you know at week number two that's when I realized I think I had made a terrible decision um why is that well the first week is observation so that was easy you just ride along with a gun and then the second week is like all right let's go it's all you man and you know the being a medic you interact with the same people but then you get out there and they're like yeah uh see that guy over there that's really high yeah go talk to him and you're like what do I say to him and they're like I don't know figure it out you're like okay uh so it you know you're again baptism by fire you just go out there and you're like figure it out and so that was the academy doesn't really prepare you for what it's like to actually work the road because the academy teaches you just this basic concept of policing right but it's different everywhere so then it's like go to Rochester where you know you walk into work and there's a hundred calls on the board and there's nine of you working and then another 100 calls will come in between 4:00 p.m. and midnight and you know it just like figure it out figure it out and you're like okay so I I was really overwhelmed I would say the first couple of weeks and that was me knowing all the geography and the radio traffic where other people didn't know those things yeah I'm trying to you know figure out I could talk to people luckily all those medic days brought that but like I don't what am I supposed to type in this report MH well how how do I do this so managing my time was the hardest part for me because being a medic you can only go to one call at a time MH so it is what it is well as a cop you know you're going to a lot of calls and you need to manage a case load and you need to you know figure out how to do that so I think that's where I struggled a lot and you know the the unintended things you forget is that now you carry a duty belt and you can't fit in places you used to fit uh cuz I remember fto was my second week of fto we got into this foot pursuit with this druggy who had a warrant and we chased this guy up to the top story of this house and my fto is like go go like don't don't lose him and I was like uh yeah you're right I don't want to look like an idiot so this guy just flies out this tiny window in an attic onto the roof I'm like well I guess I'm going too and as I go to jump through this window I now am completely stuck because my hips are much wider with a belt on right so she com up the stairs all you can see is just my feet like dangling out the inside of the window and she's like what are you doing I'm like uh I I'm stuck can you push or pull I it was so so embarrassing I'm just like I'm a [ __ ] and so you're just trying to like get through this and she's like uh if you could help out here and I'm like I'm trying so it was very it was like my second week and I'm like I am such an idiot but it you know so needless to say I had a lot of interesting learning experiences so but I'm going to back up a second you said you would come on and there'd be 100 calls holding oh that's crazy that's not an exaggeration oh no it's so what's unique about it is I still have PTSD about this so I'm kind of sweating uh you would not the interrogation light over you yeah it's not that light no well I could just see the calls in the board still and I'm just like my heart rate is up but you would just so we didn't have take-home cars so you would you know drive in and then you everyone would get changed in the locker room but the way the building is set up is you'd come in the back door with the locker room was and dispatch was in the middle of the building mhm so there was a window and you could look in and you could see the dispatch console you know the four different screens but you could see the calls pending so active calls calls that were what we call put to the left which means somebody already tried them but somebody needs to go back out there and then calls that haven't been dealt with and you'd walk in like oh man it's Monday like I'm coming in it's going to be a good day go briy tail yep you'd walk up the stairs and I you just naturally would peer into patch cuz it would tell you how your night's going to go and you'd look in and your soul would be crushed cuz you would just see red calls and red are priority just red calls listed and I was like oh my God so these aren like 100 Vin verifications something these are all serious calls yeah it'd be like it'd be like domestic stolen gun burglary burglary burglary stolen gun and you just be like oh my God these are going to be I'm G to have these cases forever so you know and then it's I worked most of my career on um evening shifts so 400 p.m. to midnight MH and obviously that's the busiest shift so you got 100 calls on the board and then you got another 100 calls are going to come in between 4 midnight because everybody's getting home from work and drinking and this is when the the awesome domestics start coming in so you know all I can think of my head is like oh man I I'm going to pick up 30 cases tonight in 8 hours this is going to be wild so you're immediately the GU guys were just demoralized you'd like walk into the locker room and everyone would be like yeah man did you see the board it's like yeah they'd be like okay and you would just be like in this somber mood trying to like maybe that was the not talking while you're eating thing that was preparing you for that probably yeah the immediate let down and demoralization as you walk in now did your friends who were so gung-ho for you to become a cop tell you this before oh you started absolutely not they're like well how did you not know this and I was like I don't know man like I totally un just left that part out completely unprepared for that part for us it's great yeah like God you're smart though but it you're smart though you'll figure it out but so how how did you figure it out how how do you deal with that kind of volume it feels impossible because you had what 10 12 people oh man on a great day uh if we were fully staffed I think it was at the time was supposed to be 14 plus a sergeant and a lieutenant so Lieutenant like here shift commander and then you'll have one Sergeant m but most days you know we would operate around six or seven and uh just Staffing you know we just never were fully staffed so yeah you would just uh wing it that's just you know you would wing it and there would be so many days where you'd be on calls and dispatch would be I'll never forget the rest of my life dispatch just being like uh we have a domestic in progress I need units to clear radio silence and they'd be like no really I need units to clear we have a physical domestic coming in radio silence and so big guys like can somebody clear i' be like uh are you good like can I go and they're like yeah go ahead like all right I'll go and they're like all right going by yourself figure it out because it's just nobody you know there was never you're just always so busy on a 4 to 12 shift so you kind of just baptism by fire you just figure it out and you learn and you really lean on your co-workers to hope they're going to be there to back back you up and you know there's so many days where you know you you're just like I need more people here and you're just hoping those guys are are coming and I Ed the example of you know couple years in some my buddy Alex sergeon and I we get dispatched to a call for a somebody pointed a gun at somebody and he gets there before me and as I pull up he's actively fighting this dude so I get out of my car and I'm like go get me more units like we got somebody fighting and so he Alex is yelling at me he's like no no no no the guy with the gun is over there and I'm like who are you fighting you know so I'm like oh so like I pull my gun and the guy's right there so now I have him a gunpoint and I'm like yo I've got Alex is fighting somebody I got one a gunpoint we need more units radio silence and you're like well this is kind of a sh Show and so you know you eventually the lieutenant showed up and was like oh oh no no we really actually need more people here you know and it's just was one of those things where you're like deal with what you have you which was not a lot so you you got desensitized very quickly and you dealt with every type of call very quickly do do you sorry go ahead and I was going to say did a lot of you get hurt because of that situation or no surprisingly not I mean gu I think we knew the infliction in people's voice when it was hey we need more people or like we really need more people here and you know that that kind of Brotherhood really would kick in in those cases where you would you would know if somebody's saying something on the radio and that their voice is different you're like drop whatever you're doing I don't care what you're doing let's Trav 100 miles an hour to get there and uh yeah many of us did that and and you had this sense of um trust in everybody you worked with because there is not a single guy I worked with there or girl that would ever leave me high and dry or anyone we were just such a tight there was only 65 cops at the time and everybody knew everybody everybody knew everybody's wife everybody knew everybody's husband everybody knew the family it was personal mhm so it was it was a different culture in that regardh it's very very um it very tight D MH did New Hampshire have a or your area did they have like a sheriff's office I know like up north the it's not quite the same as it is here but oh no it's uh wildly different yeah yeah so up there you know you have Municipal Police like towns then you have City police M then you have State Police which are like the big dogs which would be kind of like the sheriff's office here and then you would have the Sheriff's office there and really all they did was Prisoner transports like to and from court and civil process but they would I mean a sheriff's there were so few of them they would never come to a call for service ever or state police would they come oh yeah they were the big dogs they likeed to come and and our city was so busy that oftentimes we relied on State Police as our backup if nobody was available they would always come in and force and help us and there was a everyone was very tight-knit so we knew all the Troopers and they would just show up and if they needed people they would just be like I every Trooper you can get me come here now and there there were so many days where you'd see a trooper showing up and you're like oh thank God wasn't there a big Riot you were telling me about or yeah call everybody in what what was that that was uh and again I'm still new I think it was maybe it was July 4th 20 2018 and uh it was a cold morning it was it was a Brisk morning and it was uh it's always cold there it I remember it's July 4th and I it's one of the guys went out for a fireworks complaint and that was big deal up there just like it is here and uh we had an ordinance against it so you know a guy went out and there was a our worst street offet street it's the most crime most issues they go out there and there's like 50 people in the road setting off fireworks and again it's you know we don't get to choose what we enforce so it's very much a fireworks was what the city wanted in force so we go out there they're like hey you know let's not light fireworks off whatever reasonable people well now they start lighting fireworks off in front of him next thing you know there's a bunch of yelling and now there's 150 people in the street screaming and so I remember being on a call and I'm like hey man I'm going to I got to go and he's like yeah yeah go and so I was like the last one in and I just I pull down the street this is something I'll ever forget the rest of my life I pull on the street everyone is fighting somebody and I'm like oh my God there's like seven seven or eight guys that already there just fighting people and I'm like it was kind of like a like a prison yard brawl you just pull up and you're like Jesus like what what is going on and I'm like do I get out or just sit here so I I hop out and I get on the radio and I'm like we need more units here and dispatch is like uh you have you have everybody there and I was like no I know you need to start everybody and they were like who and we're like just send everybody So eventually we had some smart dispatchers and they just started calling everywhere and so I just jump in and I'm like oh what do you need they're like take that guy to jail like okay whatever so next thing you know we're all fighting people all fighting people and uh man nothing is nicer than when you see like tons of other cities and Troopers showing up but it's one of those things you'll never forget you're just like wow there are eight of us fighting a hundred people over over fireworks fireworks yeah yeah they weren't a big fan of the the police now did did any people that you not yeah did any of the people that you had dealt with as a paramedic then you saw again as law enforcement and were they like oh yeah I know you you saved my life three or four times when I ODed I'm going to be nice to you or or would you be just entirely different now that you were a cop yeah no they weren't fans of that yeah well because if you think about it you know as a paramedic you in a city like that you you had to be pretty type A and you had to be to the point with a lot of these people so it ended up being the same people I dealt with as a paramedic A lot and they were just as furious with me as a cop as they were as a paramedic so it uh is nope it was not was not great now I'm just the police so they hate me even more add that level of excitement you know they shot some good insults at you yeah exactly well and flip me the bird more often that was good so but it feels like home every time I go there and somebody's flipping me off so it's good but uh yeah it was but it's interesting seeing the same faces over and over again which I assume made my job easier or harder I'm not really sure which one but um yeah no it Rochester is a is a wild place and it's uh it's certainly not for the faint of heart to say the least so I really learned how to be a cop very quickly there um you didn't really have a choice how do you take control of a scene when you're going in and there's there's just chaos how do you do that you have any any tricks in Rochester or Florida Rochester Rochester uh you know because yeah you have to do the same thing as a medic right to go into the chaos but just in a different way yeah I I think the response is is different depending on you know what you're walking into you know one thing there is obviously you have four seasons so three of those Seasons you're going to want to go in their house because it's hot or cold or whatever that might be and so you you were going into people's houses way more than I do down here MH and it's one of those you're being very Vigilant but you're also trying to control the scene and you you kind of learn I hate this is kind of a bad way to look at it but you kind of learned by accident you know like oh that's it's kind of like you know when you're a kid and you stick your fork in the outlet for the first time cuz I feel like everybody does that and you're like wow that actually hurt I'm never going to do that again it was the same there where you're like oh that guy I'm a little guy so you know I don't like Captain Stang is a lot bigger than me like I'm not going to try to fight somebody that size cuz I will literally lose every time so you kind of you kind of learn and you just you kind of have to go in with this perspective of I'm go I have to own this scene because if I don't I'm I'm going to lose so you have to go in saying I'm going to win every every situation which is good and bad but I had a lot of training and a lot of uh a lot of chances to learn to say the least so have I lost a fight yes so it is what it is but you can out run Motorola just so you know there's that yeah yeah Motorola and helicopter yeah um I think going into going into people's houses would feel like so vulnerable because you you like officer safety is kind of what I'm thinking like you have no idea what's in there right just that's just mindblowing to me I didn't think about it with it you know the weather being that way that you would have to enter a lot of people's homes not knowing what what the inside situation is at all far more than here really um you know because here I I like to conduct business outside you know that's my safety that's my safe SP excuse me safe place we there you know a lot of times we're going into houses or you know in down here we have a lot of one story type houses there everything's a two-story or Triple Decker or something where I have to go to the third floor for that domestic where you know something's happening and from an officer safety Point yeah I mean you're my head's more on a swivel when I'm going to people's houses because that's that's your safe space it's not mine right so you never know kind of what you're dealing with and you know in a Rochester scenario sometimes there'd be eight people living in a one-bedroom apartment so it's like where do these people they're coming out of the bathroom coming out of the showers you're like where where are these people staying and so a lot of times you you would deal with stuff like that and again it's just a learn I think it's a learn Behavior as a cop you know you just get used to it somehow I don't know and there are basements there which you don't have to deal with here how do you how do you clear a basement how do you expose your whole self and then uh yeah I wonder if they teach that in the academy here in Florida but I probably not but yeah you don't you don't think about it because we didn't really teach it in the academy so you we have these you guys know what bulkheads are MH you know so bulkheads you know are kind of like at an angle into your basement and you would be like I remember going to a call and they're like uh yeah this guy broken my house he's in the basement and I was like oh down there and he's like yeah he's down there like okay we're just going to have to get down there somehow and you're like how do I properly clear this you really can't they're going to have the jump on you every time so you kind of just go down there and you're like H hope for the best you got my back uh and you just into the pit we go and it's just a different there's a lot of other things you don't have to deal with in Florida that you you know that's something we had to deal with all the time there and you go from being like wow I'm really scared to all right another basement here we go type of thing see what happens yeah exactly which usually ended up with like me tripping down a stair or something you know and then falling to the ground looking like an idiot hard harder to hit that way though unpredictable movement that's true yeah that's true part of the strategy knock him out of their udoo but but there was no cameras back then thank God because then they would have all these highlight reels of me falling down stairs and slipping on ice and you know that does have to make winter has to make everything more complicated oh 100 per. yeah crazy so you mentioned a lot of you know a couple you know calls you mentioned like big crowds of people and and you know and they didn't like the police and and whatever which is obviously common in in some of those areas but was that kind of I I mean I can't really think of anything around here where you know there are typically crowds of people heckling the police what what made that special and I know you got to have a good story of of people heckling you have to one of my favorite stories ever is back on Lafayette Street I just our trouble drug Street all the time we go there one night we're trying to serve a warrant I don't know it's still light out it's summertime so maybe 5 or six o'clock and you know we C we came out in four so it was probably you know seven or eight of us there trying to serve this warrant and there was this house five Lafayette Street and the way it was set up was you had uh four apartments on two different floors so there's this huge you know balcony overlooking the street and uh we're out there one day and the it's summertime so everybody's out in the street now and they're yelling at us or whatever and I we're just we're standing there the street and this girl she emerges from this from five Street she's on this balcony like a pope yeah just like you know oh God I'll just I'll never forget it so she just emerges out of nowhere and we're dealing with this crowd of you know I don't know 50 people in the street Jesus and she's like and really we haven't done anything yet we've just showed up been forced to go serve this warrant and people are just you know whatever being Rochester rights and uh so she's starts screaming and like this lady so I I look up and she's like yo she's like officer Plum yo officer Plum you need to get off this street with that F boy haircut that you bringing down here he's like you can you can get out of here just screaming and so of course I'm like what I looked at my buddy I was like what what's a boy haircut and she's like you know what a boy haircut is like she had great hearing too yeah apparently yeah you think and she's just yelling and I so of course I'm like do I engage this yes uh I did I arrested her probably like a month later and I was like H now that I got you here what is aat boy haircut she's like oh you really don't know what it is I'm like no I don't I don't know what it is and uh so she described it to me as uh that it's a short high and tight haircut that every cop every cop wears in the city so they could try to look like badasses and uh I was like okay great so so this accent how do how do you how do you not have this accent yeah and is it so there the Boston accent is in New Hampshire New Hampshire doesn't have its own accent is that the thing it's no it it doesn't which is weird so I mean I'm certainly can turn it on and off but you have like a Maine accent and then you have a Boston accent and then New Hampshire's like this neutral Switzerland with accents so but everybody would you know everyone would move there naturally they brought it with them which was awesome and you know you have the main accent which is more like it's slower it's more like ah he's like did you hear uh Bob got his di down here this weekend like we're going up to Camp again to hunt this weekend you know very like slow what ever then you get the the Boston accent which is like very like Jimmy what the [ __ ] are you doing here like get the [ __ ] out of here again like just you know like Jimmy get me my sigs get me my sigs over there I'm we're not going to put up with this today Jimmy Jimmy and it's just like very loud and so every domestic you'd go to would just be like yeah that's right jack you get out of here I saw you with that girl Britney down the street the other day like we know I know what you're doing down there and like yeah give me my cigarettes back and they she would actively have one in her mouth and you're like oh is that she's like no I want more give me the other ones you're like okay my Mal barrows they're they're in his pocket the Mal barrows you're like all right whatever it's fine so you know you would just go you just got used to this all the time just screaming but uh Good Times there so Dam who knew I I didn't know that they didn't have their own accent no no we're very un and like not all of Massachusetts has that accent obviously yeah not yeah not all so weird how that happened yep it's just like a specific area that's bled over I don't know why so you were you were there you were an officer in Rochester for how long uh four years okay and then how did you find your way down to Florida down to Florida Florida Florida Florida we're down to Florida I yeah so kind of weird I I liked my job and no complaints I never planned on really moving to be honest but I went to DC in 208 for police week so National Police we they do every year in DC and it basically honors you know officers that were killed in line of duty uh the year prior so it's kind of a big thing for cops to go and honor the Fallen you know officers from around the country so I went um with some of my buddies and ended up meeting you meet cops from all over I mean there's some from the UK irelands um you know all over so I just happened to meet some friends that work for the sheriff's office work for penel County and we just got to talking and and having a good time and they were like oh just come to Tampa like come visit and I was like oh I've never been there and at this point I had never heard of the penel County Sheriff's Office um I had heard clear waterer is like a big vacation destination for new englanders I don't know why everybody like oh Clear Water I hear clear what is it's great like d those nice beaches in the sand so I don't I you know didn't know anything about it so then built this friendship and I did come down and visit one time and then I was like oh this place is awesome and so I got to know them and we all became pretty close and then Co happens and I was like you know getting older I'm 30 I'm getting older if I'm going to make a move now I got I got to do it now otherwise you know it's going to affect my pension or it's going to you know as you get older you kind of like you got to make a move now yeah exactly right you know so I said you know what I'll put an app in we'll see what happens whatever and some for some reason they hired me so I don't know why and uh so I made the move uh February of 21 and I didn't really know anyone other than that group of friends that I had made down here so they they helped me move down here got settled and then you know went went through all the training which was very eye openening uh Florida is very different than New Hampshire to say the least so yeah I don't know I it's tough to answer the question I guess because I I think it was just a a I want to say it was made probably over some alcoholic beverages where it's like you know you should move here and you're like oh I mean I guess you think like yeah yeah you should do it okay oh yeah okay sounds great so we need to send recruiters to bars in DC is what they're saying I guess yeah so it's a hard question to answer because I it was just a lot of different things that were like yeah go lot of reasons yeah so what was when you said the training was was quite a bit like how what were kind of your immediate first impressions as far as this is different oh I made the wrong decision okay that was the first thing I was like I have made the wrong decision you know when you come here as like an experienced cop and then you are going to what our in-house academy uh which is 5 weeks and it's very regimented and you're getting screamed at by people who you know have been cops less than you and you're like I am in over my head what am I doing here why am I getting yelled at again like the academy um and you know getting treated like the new guy is certainly a hard thing being new is hard anywhere but going from an area where like you knew everybody you knew everything you were very experien big fish in a small pond yep like like detectives didn't just come and take things over when you were there people didn't write your warrant for you you did all that stuff yourself right you were you were it basically yeah I mean it was you know we had obviously detectives but they would just take robberies and homicides I mean they weren't taking Eco crimes they weren't taking burglaries unless they were substantial so you know I would hold cases my I would have my own felony level cases for I left a case that I had for two years uh you work your own warrants you write your own search warrants you write your own arrest warrants you do your own subpoenas so you really learned quickly how to how to be a cop and how to really be a detective also you know to coming to here back on the first rung again and yeah brand new and they're like oh no all your reports need to be done by the end your shift and then the specific detective unit will take that case for you to do your follow-up which is really the right way to do it uh and I was like what do you mean they like well if it's a theft or a burglary and you have ton of followup a burglary detective will come take that and I'm like what like I don't have to go write a search warrant I have to do all this followup so that was having resources and things that I've never had before I almost had to learn how to be a cop again to learn how to do it a totally different way which was very mindboggling and eye opening at the same time so I had a lot less stress when I came here because as I started learning we have so many resources I was way less stressed and I was free to do solely focus on my job and doing community based stuff and being proactive and those were those were important to me so yeah going through training was certainly uh certainly fun here but you know you come in like yeah I know how to do the job but I don't know where I am I don't know North from South I don't know how to talk on the radio here I don't know you had to learn signals and 10 codes that uh not a single 10 code is the same as New Hampshire not a single one not even 104 really so you had to you had to learn everything you know 104 for us was 105 there I don't know why I thought 104 was pretty Universal yeah yeah you'd think but not for me so it was uh so there's all these things that you have to learn and you know needless to say you know it's just a different uh it's different vibe but luckily for me my right after I got a of training they put me in squad one in lman that was perfect for me because something you could recognize something I could recognize you know and when you're new you're kind of you feel overwhelmed so you know when you're when I'm in lman I'm like I'm at home this is great I know how to do this you know and I was lucky because I had an amazing Sergeant an amazing Lieutenant at the time who understood like hey like you're new but you're not a new cop so they were really good about not treating you like a brand new guy they were like no you know what you're talking about I'm not going to talk to you like you're stupid um which was really nice so I was very lucky um I had Bill Bird as my first lieutenant who is an amazing amazing lieutenant and then uh Sergeant Green Todd Green was my first sergeant here so I had a I had a great first experience and it set me up for really enjoying where I am now no regrets I made the right decision hands down so how long now you eventually um I know there's something you wanted to try working the beaches right is that right oh yeah well yeah I never had a a beach other than you know we had we have that New Hampshire has that little tale of beaches but where I worked we didn't have it so I was like oh I really like to work the beaches at some point just something different you know like feel like I'm on vacation so I had mentioned it to to uh Lieutenant bird and he's like oh yeah man I got you so a a spot open up at Indian Rocks and he's like hey do you want to go to Indian Rock Beach and I was like yeah I think I could use a different pace from lman you know I've just been yelled at a few too many times this week so they were uh did they talk about your haircut they they never mentioned it yeah apparently I don't have it anymore I guess I don't know it's in the eye of the beholder okay but it yes I went to Indian Rocks and I I took him up on that offer and you know who could turn down work in the beach it's like the best gig in the world so yeah I worked over there and really got into the community there they are amazing the locals there City there is great everybody is fantastic and I you know did more community policing rather than what I had just you know lman is very reactive you know you're responding to really things that have already happened most of the time you know you're being proactive but you know they don't they don't really want to be engaged with you right uh whereas a place like Indian Rocks they love being engaged with the sheriff's office they love the Sheriff's Office and I've never done policing like that before you I spent most of my time just getting screamed at spit at no one's ever happy to see you no ever so that was like a you know a pivotal point in my career like a entirely new experience and again for the third time in my career learning how to be a cop again uh you know being more Community Based so it was a a great experience going there so zero op opportunity like that in Rochester oh yeah no no proactivity was purely reactive yeah like to the point where one time I remember the lieutenant calling me in and being like hey Plum yeah things are good you've got a lot of arrests a lot of cases um I need guy I need you to stop a car and I was like oh what do you mean he's like you have three car stops in nine months I was like ah I'm just busy and he's like yeah can can you just maybe like stop a car like once I was like okay you know is a a totally different concept to where here you have a lot of time to conduct traffic enforcement there it was like guy please just stop a car right all right LT I'll fit that in between my 30 other reports I'm taking tonight right type of thing um but yeah and I would never have an example like that you know in Rochester where do you go right you you're working Patrol or you're working detectives and that's it mhm um it's every aailable unit you know we weren't not really assigned to areas it was just who's available for this burglary and yes so it's just it's very different concept how do you do 25 years of that you know how do you do yeah I I don't know I look at the guys that are near in retirement I'm just you know there and they were they're just dead inside yeah just dead inside they look at you with this stare they're like are you good like do I look good like all right H have a good shift stay safe I'm going to I'm going to go coming you know they coming down here asking I'm sure there had to be that first time you asked for a backup and it was like boom and you're like oh that that was nice yeah you're like oh wow there's 25 people here in 30 seconds this is amazing like I'm not used to that right so it's having resources you know is a totally different concept MH and uh to be clear it's not Rochester's fault that we didn't have it's just the nature of the job right you just don't have people right so to come here and you call for another unit I mean anyone who's in the area you know we have hundreds of people on duty it could be a civil unit they're there and you never know who's there so having adequate backup here and resources you know the sheriff's theory of you know it it's a crime like we're we're going we're going to investigate this where in Rochester a lot of it was like yeah I they stole a poptart like do you really want to go through with this from the store like I we will it's a crime but like the we just have a lot of reports right you know we're here it's like uh no that's a crime right we have the resources we're no we're not putting up with this um so that was a different you know concept for me as well and that does obviously Drive I mean you know people come people do come here like wow you got a lot of a lot of cops a lot of this lot that it's like well that's what keeps the community in check we're not going to you know there's people that are new here that think they're going to go with stuff they don't um but that's why we have kind of the Safe Community as as we do that you know the fun part about the beach is you know everybody talks about like oh the beach is a little slower pace and things like that but yet I've been in a Pursuit on the beach which ended up on an HBO special which you guys should all see um you know I've ended up with some really crazy calls on the beach and people it's probably because I don't want the action and everybody's like oh my God can't believe you got another Pursuit out there and I'm like yeah it's cuz I'm a magnet not CU I wanted to do it it happens but uh but yeah no just weird things you know the pursuit that I had you know obviously years ago they that was my first like TV appearance uh but that wild carjacking was oh yeah was that yeah yeah we had we had Jill on when she was a marine she was talking about that one too yeah yeah exactly so yeah that that was that was wild so where were you at on that one so I was the lead car in the pursuit okay oh I going pull some of that footage yeah yeah it's a yeah it's a great uh great time the yeah we heard I oh God it's the most embarrassing story but obviously we have body cameras right so I'm you turn your body cameras off when you go into the bathroom so naturally yeah so I hear I thought you're so used to pooping in front of everybody at the a big deal probably put it on the wall facing you just to make sure yeah might as well like nothing that people haven't seen before just whatever add it for at the time yeah it would have been like uh you know just been normal but you know so I turn I turn my body camera off and I hear this incident unfolding in done Eden over the radio and I was like oh man that's weird and then you hear the helicopter calling it out and like they're headed to the beach and you're like oh no so you're like get up get everything back on and like run out to my car and I like running out to the car and now I'm like heading up and now you can hear the helicopter's calling everything out and I'm like oh oh no it's it's coming it's coming coming so I call my partner at the time and I'm like hey man you set up spikes here I'm going to go up and set spikes in the end of the B Causeway he's like okay I got you so I go up there and as I'm pulling up you know to the base the the Bell Causeway there's the car no one in Pursuit and you kind of do the Double Take of like what is that the is that the car are we sure it's that one like there's no there's nobody chasing it right so you have that quick second of like I guess I guess it's me I got to go chase it so you know get into Pursuit with this car and uh whatever leave out the the middle part you can watch the TV episode but you know we're making we're making this this show and they're like yeah we pulled your Cruiser camera we pulled everybody so you tried to you tried to pit him and that sent him yeah so okay that was you okay yeah that was me yeah so well since you brought it up I'll just bring it up yeah so we go down the you know the pursuit and you can't it's Gulf Boulevard in March right in during spring break so I've got two lanes the whole way this guy is just driving insane right so as driving obviously adrenaline's really high but you're also like I'm going I'm going to hit somebody right so you you know you're in the zone you're really focusing on I don't want to hit anybody this is spring break right so I was you know you have a conscience he doesn't yeah you know internally I'm like actually nervous about hitting somebody so you know you've got shift commanders over the radio like let's pit the car let's pit the car and I'm like yeah I want to but it's a two-lane road with if you've been to Indian Rocks Beach mhm half of it the sidewalks don't have curbs they're literally just building right and a lot of the beaches are like that so you know if I'm going to go in for a pit there's just so many other things I have to think about if you're yeah FHP can p a car on the highway like okay if I'm going to pit a car I've got to deal with hundreds of people walking up and down the roadway in the middle of spring break which if you've been to the beaches in spring break you know it's a disaster with traffic and people so you know as you're chasing him down he's able to carjack another person which is wild but you you know you're also dealing with the traffic so finally you know you you get down there and you kind of have to make the decision well it's now or never I get this opportunity and so I just the pit really turned into a ram because you know he moved he moved and it's out of control and you know I end up you know ramming him basically into this parking lot and he ends up crashing which is great and then you know because he was high on drugs he decided to jump in the inter Coastal after I had to Chas yeah chase him through these the mangroves in knee high mud um still better than snow yeah yeah a lot better so just it's one of those if you were to explain that to somebody they're they're like there's no way this happened this is the wildest thing I've ever heard well that's how that's how we watched it we were watching it going holy crap I mean it was it was wild I I forgot I knew that subconsciously but I forgot you were on that that was that was a good time yeah and it was it it's one of those you got to watch it like from the time you ram him you got to watch it like four or five times to catch everything happening right the baby stroller the guy falling I mean it's like just yeah pause replay pause replay yeah watch focus on this this time you know yeah it's just is what it is it's the nature of it but you know people you know one thing that that we get on our end obviously when we put that stuff out it's like oh you guys are just letting it go letting it go like why aren't you stopping it's like well first of all he didn't you know arrange with us and tell us exactly where he's going I'm not sure if you ever looked at a map before but it's you know there's a lot of options but then also like you were saying I mean you you want to go up and run this guy like right where's he going to go and that's the piece that that's the disadvantage that we have is we have conscience we have a conscience and we have to follow our policies and he can do whatever the hell he wants right he has no rules you know and it's and people I you know after that I certainly had a lot of people who hadn't seen the video or whatever even co-workers being like I would have pit that guy earlier and I was like well you've never been a so thank you for your opinion I don't care and B you've never been at a Pursuit on G Boulevard in spring break not not too many have right so I'm like it's probably good that I was in this Pursuit and not you then but you weren't there so I did get a lot of flak but then when people watch it they're like oh yeah that's that wasck and you're like yeah it was that was tricky thanks I know yeah you know especially seeing like uh the dash cam and how quick he was actually going and weaving through all that all that particularly when he comes like cranking through like by Crabby Bills and stuff and there's people standing there like I drive that all the time like that that's that's wild absolutely wild jawdropping really I mean it was crazy yeah and the funniest part about the whole thing you know at the end so that was the day I met Florida man um so that was fun yes indeed and you know obviously Jill and her podcast talked a bit about you know that whole piece but the funniest part is you know we're trying to you know make this and they're like yeah we're requesting video they're like yeah do you are you able to get me your body camera video and I was like uh yeah so you're probably not going to find it and they're like oh oh why and I was like well it was uh in sleep mode the whole time I had turned it off and so having this conversation with your Lieutenant like yeah no uh it was in sleep the whole time and they were like what huh so needless to say they did not get my body camera video unfortunately but that would have made for uh a better TV episode that for sure next level we would we would have definitely included it we that would have been awesome yeah exactly a day in life of Deputy it's crazy so you were there you you were like the pi Piper from Rochester because now the population there are more there are more migrating South I think there's I think there's like six total at this point six at the agency now including you yeah yeah yeah specifically from Rochester yeah yeah dang kind of crazy mhm that's like that's a whole shift now they have three officers left on his shift yeah yeah they don't uh they don't dare put us all together I don't think but they so yeah once I had moved down here shortly after about a year after um I had a couple of my buddies reach out to me being like Hey how do you like it and you know completely truthfully I'm like I love it here pelis is fantastic and they're like oh you know we're thinking about applying so um one of my buddies Jeff Moore he was a detective where we worked and then my old sergeant Tom Powers they both were like yeah we want to come down there we like that area you know do you like pelis and I was like up guys this place is the place to be I love it here so they applied and end up getting hired and now you know they work here and they love it and then it's that just opened the door to this Domino's effect of people so now there's three of us a year later my old he was a captain at the time when I left but he retired re as the deputy chief um young got retired Young At You Know 51 and he moved down here and now he works at the courthouse as a deputy and he loves it he is like this is great I'm retired I work at the courthouse I don't want to be in charge of people anymore this is perfect for me work Monday through Friday you know it's great so he came down and then our other buddy Coulson was like yeah we're doing it he came down now he works Safety Harbor at night and then then we have another one uh in fto right now so there's six of us from Rochester py specifically so I you know always thank the old chief his name is Gary budo nicest guy you'll ever meet and I remember being like hey chief thank you for training all the good ones and then sending them down to us we really appreciate that uh he was not as pleased with that comment but uh he's like yeah you guys need to stop but should we send him a few of ours since we have a lot just to you know see what it's like up yeah yeah foreign exchange program for I think what did I title it I said something the the penelas County Sheriff's Office training program we appreciate you providing us quality candidates down here damn but he's a he's a super good guy so he uh he he laughs but he's also secretly is probably like no really cut the TR or he'll he'll be here soon yeah probably honestly but oh man so yeah it's kind of a unique thing to have six people from an agency that small right all here Landing here all because you made some new friends in DC Yeah by accident so and I imagine that really you know coming from what the the environment in Rochester has to give you an interest interesting perspective because you know we have we have deputies that maybe have not known anything other than here uh or they've come from other agencies in the area or or they might be newer to law enforcement and they just they might you know you you proba you probably appreciate things more than they do would you say oh man I anytime I hear somebody complaining I'm like you need to shut your mouth you shut that mouth right now like you know you don't understand go do a shift in Rochester yeah exactly I always want to say as part of our fto process here at pelis we should be like and uh you know phase four you will go do a ride along in Rochester New Hampshire and if you survive you can be released your programy cow know it's a it's a totally different perspective so you know you go yeah I hate I hate the old you know I hate the old phrase of the grass isn't always greener because uh it's much Greener here and not just the uniforms but the grass is greener here for sure M it's not dead in the winter you know yeah it's it's not it's not brown it's not uh you know it it really is a totally different uh world so when I hear guys saying like ah you know this and that and I was like stop it right now I don't want to hear it like this is is amazing you have no idea how good you have it and The Testament to that is there are six of us from my old agency that work here we're doing something right uh so yeah you know obviously there's differences wherever you go I think we are a you know 2500 person agency I think naturally some things are going to be different in regards to you know the how close everybody is of course sure you know where I come from an area where you know you're all super tight everybody's super close uh you know after work every day we always went to grab a drink and grab dinner and that was just a thing we did every night and they would St up been late for us and that's where you really did your bonding cuz all you did was get your ass kicked all night and so you would go there grab dinner and just hang out with your friends and we didn't have take-home cars so then here obviously everybody's leaving they all live all over the place all of us lived 15 minutes from the station here everybody lives kind of all over and so you know that Brotherhood is a little different here I think we've heard that from quite a few people I think talking about how just it's a little bit different here yeah but for those reasons I mean it's just a different different environment culture-wise yeah and it's not because people are bad here just it's a different it's how you are raised in law enforcement I think um that has changed a bit over time so you know those those things I've I've really noticed that the Brotherhood really made me love the job even more so here that has been a hurdle admittedly that I've had to try to get over of like you know the shift did everything together all the time to here where it's like the shift changes every six months and you might be with people you've never met or I'll be on a detail with somebody I've never met um just because of how big we are right so that was something I had to get used to probably yeah probably tough for your your counterparts as well yeah um so your last assignment Patrol was in IND Rocks Beach yep IND and then now you have moved to the second floor into the world of investigative operations tell us about that yes yeah I'm very lucky uh back in this year in May there was an opening I had had my eye on the on the unit that I'm in now for a while um it's called the mass casualty planning unit uh very weird name uh people have no idea what we do right uh but it's in the threat management Division and uh I kind of had a concept of of what the unit did from some friends that were in the unit and uh so I had my eye out for it a bit and you know at this point in my career I'm going to be honest like if I'm running you should run too I'm not I'm not doing a whole lot of running at this point in my career because I remember the last call in Indian Rocks and it's it's a great body camera uh video but you know I'm like trying to run after this kid why I don't I don't know and I go to jump this fence and I'm like oh my God that's my back okay well I'm just okay get over it here okay yeah he's gone yeah he's gone just get a k9 out here and like you I'm like I cannot do this anymore and uh so to be completely honest I just I'm not old you know but I'm just at a point in my career where I'm like I think I need to maybe not throw my back out at this point so it was a good transition so you know I interviewed the funniest part about this is that at the time I set my memo off requesting a a transfer for an interview and I immediately went on vacation so I sent it to Lieutenant Killian Friday night I then left for a two we vacation in Europe and uh seems Seems great right yeah what could go wrong s it off and with like no access to like your email and stuff no I knew that it would probably come so I was I was looking at my email so naturally I get an email from the sergeant at the time with a uh invite to the interview and so he sends a like an Outlook meeting I don't know why I'm having a brain crap uh that like meeting invitation and so I see on it this is the date the time was 2 o'clock in the afternoon I'm like great yep done accept great so I'm like all right in my head I'm like I get back Monday the interview is Tuesday so I'm going to get back Monday I'm going to get a haircut get everything ready G to you know try to sell myself with this interview I'm walking out to get a haircut at 9:45 and I get a little chime on my phone and I'm like I wonder what this is and it's like you have an interview in 15 minutes and I was like oh the time zone thing screwed you up yeah I was like oh no if I could if anyone was looking at me I probably had zero blood in my face I'm surprised I didn't just pass out I was so stressed out I've look at this thing and I'm like how do I explain this like I might as well just quit right now like what what is happening but what I didn't know is Outlook it adjusts to the time zone you're in so really it was uh I think it might have been at 3: actually you know it was 5 hour time difference sure so immediately I panick and the sergeant of the unit he was my Corporal on the road so I call him real quick and I explain it and he's like what I'm like I triy to I'm like trying to explain it real quick and he's like okay all right he's like let me call you right back and I was like if you don't want me to come that's fine I I don't think I got this like I know I'm an idiot calls back he's like yep I got somebody swap with you you know come in this afternoon so naturally I come in very late looking like an idiot so I'm like you know what I already am not going to get this position so I'm just going to go be me mhm and I explained the whole thing and I my now detective partner Brian was like honestly man I wrote you off from the beginning cuz you were late so funny now but anyway interview end up getting getting the assignment and got transferred in July and uh it's fantastic I am very very happy so tell us a little bit about um what the unit does so as the name as the new guy too we we're giving you a break for that too but yeah no pressure the so we're called the Mas C planning unit and really what we do 75% of what we do um is private school safety so back in 2018 the sheriff so people that don't know the sheriff was um appointed by the governor to be the chairman of the Mary stowman Douglas commission so after the Parkland shooting um they were tasked with investigating what happened and they were tested with um coming up with school safety recommendations so at the end of this so subsequently some legislation came out from those recommendations which eventually became law and primarily talked about you know physical site security for schools talked about threat assessments threat training um response to active ass salant and um specifically you know school safety so whether that's going to be a guardian or whether that's going to be a deputy or an officer on uh you know on staff there was just a a Litany of different things that came out of that well the problem with it is that the state now requires all of these things to happen for public schools and they provided the funding for the public schools but they left out the private schools M so obviously the public schools had to do it and they got State funding to do it or the private schools for example people in penel County we have 123 private schools they were all left out of it and the sheriff was like that's problem not fair I mean that's that's you know unfortunate so he created the mass cedy planning unit to fill that Gap so provide the services that the public schools get from State funding they need a way an Avenue to get access to those services so he created this unit and we are tasked with doing you know vulnerability site assessments for private schools doing their active asent training running their active assal and drills um helping them really in any way they can with any type of security and believe it or not you know a lot of the private schools are so grateful MH that they have access to something like this that I get phone calls weekly from schools just checking in asking our opinion asking what we can you know what other schools are doing um they're very engaged and it's been such a change in what I'm used to doing you know you you're dealing with people who are so thankful MH that you're providing these services and when you see the sheriff's dedication to this unit and his dedication to school safety you can't help but be like oh man like yeah we need to be doing this this is awesome and you know interestingly enough we're the only unit of its type in the whole state and the sheriff has you know this unit has become really the model for the rest of the state and so he you know he is a big believer in what we do obviously and um because of that our unit is a big believer in what we do because you see the sheriff's dedication to it and you know you can't help but just be like what we're doing is really important so it's like the next level of proactivity right I mean we have and the sheriff does the sheriff has always been somebody and we talked we we we're going to have him on again soon and we're going to talk about this piece because when we had him on last time we just kind of talked about his history but he's somebody that is always wanting to actually address problems like he doesn't want to just be reactive if we can be proactive to be less reactive that that's what he wants to do so we kind of LED with the threat management piece you know and it's kind of it's it's definitely snowballed from there in a great way um but yeah I mean it's it's one of the things you hope that you hope that all your work is for nothing right right because when they're having to put what you're teaching them into practice it's a it's a bad situation which you know we've seen time and time again that private schools are still vulnerable and and you're providing the same you know it's not like they're getting something different than what public schools get it's just the same thing what are what are some of the things and just you know again we could talk about this for hours but what are what are some of the things when you are there assessing a school what are some of the things that you're looking for yeah and that and that's a good question you know in these these site assessments are very comprehensive most of the site assessments you know we're putting out are 110 pages I mean they're very um they're very thorough and they get to pick and choose what they can do obviously like nothing's like a mandate of course yeah it's absolutely unless there's a state law compliance thing exactly and generally the way the report is is this is what we saw in this category I like to include pictures you know to add to that you know this is what I saw at the time and then here's our recommendation on you know what you should do to fix that so know we're looking for things that include like the Outer Perimeter so are we fenced off um are these Gates staffed you know use the example of Barger stowman Douglas where you know the shooter was able to enter the school because a gate was left unlocked and he knew that and that allowed him easy access to the campus so we look for making sure you have lock Gates our staff Staffing them um and we go during school hours because we want to watch kind of the way things are done so you start with the Outer Perimeter you move towards um the building exterior so like your inner perimeter and we look for things like is there adequate lighting you know people are we going to have a salance hide in bushes are we you know are doors left unlocked on the exterior are um are the fences in you know disrepair or they you know secured move to the interior we're looking for things like are classroom doors locked are there door propping devices you know left out is there access to electrical phone internet that people could disable in an emergency or rather um you know an active ellant situation and then you know move into policy to look at their policy saying hey this is what we recommend you know you have for a policy do you have a policy that all your staff will be trained in active ass salent and so we go from really broad down to really narrow and again the the point really is to offer it's it's never critical it's always these are just things we saw because people don't know what they don't know so when you bring up you know vulnerability to a school schol they they're just like I've never I never would have thought of that mhm you know something as simple as hey lock your electrical panels they're like or were you found them unlocked I didn't realize they were unlocked you know those are things that you know asants can use to disable and make your school more vulnerable so that's really what we're looking for is trying to say Hey you know this isn't critical it's not designed to be critical it's designed to um open your eyes to open your eyes to different things you didn't know and again you don't know what you don't know so that's just what we do full-time so we we look at things that you're not used to looking at so you know as I go over it with schools and we sit down and and we'll go through different recommendations they I get a lot of positive response just being like wow this is eye opening I never thought of this and a lot of it you know the way we have come up with a lot of this is from you know prior school shootings margorie stow and Douglas plays a big factor into kind of what we're looking for what the failures were and identifying what those were to help schools build upon that and so when we do trainings like active asant trainings we really use marjor stowman Douglas as hey you know these are these are the failures that happen we don't ever want that to happen again these are the simple things we can do to help prevent that and it's really about mitigating harm right because you can never fully stop it but you're trying to mitigate it so that's you know something that comes out of this vulnerability sight assessment is hey how can we mitigate the harm in the most effective way and so they're very they're very thorough and they will take you know us being on site depending on the you know size of the campus we have schools like Calvary I mean they have 800 kids right um you've got a ton of private schools that are 5 600 kids large and we could be on campus for six or seven hours assessing their sites um and then you know if you put me at a desk and I don't get up and don't leave I mean it might take me 10 hours to write one of these they're very thorough so and then the sheriff signs off on all on every single of them every single one of them he he reads every single one so hey uh no pressure but don't fck it up cuz one of two things is going to happen he's going to be like wow uh Jason knows what he's doing or Jason's an idiot you know either way he definitely knows your name right exactly so you know they're very uh they're very thorough and it's good it shows his Testament to really wanting to be involved in all of this stuff that he's reading 110 page report yeah and I think it you know it it changes uh there's a lot of themes in this too because it you know we have the the national media in particular has kind of started to cover the idea of threat assessments and things of course in all schools but you know private schools and things included and it really kind of starts to change change the conversation on it because we all know I mean you you go back and you watch and and that was the the idea behind threat management and everything when you you watch any interview Ever After any sort of mass shooting or anything and it's like you know how long how many times is law enforcement contact the person and you know all that stuff so then the media kind of got to know got to understand the threat of assessment process and they're kind of making it that kind of conversation and then we had that shooting in Madison and they're asking about because it was a private school um they're asking about well you know what what kind of planning do they have what you know because these conversations are being elevated not saying specifically you know by the sheriff but in general you know with law enforcement trying to be more proactive so that's got to be pretty cool because you you know one of the things you really enjoyed about coming down here from Rochester was the ability to be less reactive more proactive and now it's like you know it's like the final right proactivity I am the most proactive you could possibly be right that's as good as I get so are there any other things you're interested in in doing eventually in your career here or or what's next or just kind of Riden it out to see what's interesting what pops up yeah you know that's that's tough to answer right now I mean I feel like I'm in the unit I was designed to be in uh which is really good you know because the other portion of what we do is you know uh active or rather excuse me we do um fullscale active as salent drills m and so which are huge huge undertaking mulen take like a whole year to plan right it's yeah we're in the mid of one right now and it's it's it's a lot people don't realize how much work goes into it you know and while that's only maybe 25% of my job it's it's a thick 25% there's a lot going on so you know I feel like my background is perfect for the unit that I'm in so I feel I feel like I'm I have a good am in a good spot M I think you know someday I've got another 21 years to go so I think you know I'd like to promote at some point um but as far as you know immediate I'm just kind of riding it out I'm really happy where I'm at and I have a an amazing chain of command that I you know to be the best you got to work with the best and right I work with the best yeah that's great and opportunities to do different things too which is another huge part about going from a smaller agency or even a police department to at least in Florida to a sheriff's office that has additional responsibilities and resources so absolutely all really good stuff yeah no and you think about it you know how how does somebody survive a 25y year career in law enforcement I think the answer is you move around and you do a lot of things and this Agency for me has a lot of opportunity know you can do anything you want here MH which I think helps looking you know 21 years ahead there's a lot of ability for me to move around to help survive the career so yeah it's good so all the any more career stuff we talk about fun stuff you got anything else I think we move to the fun stuff now okay so what do you what do you do for fun oh boy travel besides travel go on random vacations when you're applying for a transfer yes yeah that was great uh very Testament to who I am yeah uh very fitting now they figured it out and they're probably like w you really do travel a lot um yeah I really so I'm a big foodie I love you love trying new restaurants love trying new food um what are some of your favorite local places the latest oh man well don't tell everybody but I live in Tampa so have you been to Roa yet I'm going to go to my first Michel and Star Restaurant next month I'm really excited about that no I have not been there actually I'll tell you how it is yeah let me know wow I there's Tampa actually has a ton of great places um they're very the downtown St Pete has a lot of stuff coming up and coming which I like so I would say Tampa for foodie is is a great spot all Tampa Bay really y you know so just even like Flemings just opened their new restaurant and of course we had to go to check it out um you know so I like I like to just try anything you name it I'll go there and try it once um and then obviously I like the beach though I've not been a lot recently in the past few months yeah you always you talk a big game and you moved to Florida you're like oh man I'm going to the beach all the time never there and then you're never there so you're like well there wasn't a beach for a few months yeah yeah they're working on that so yeah so that foodie and then you know obviously um traveling just takes up a lot of my time sure which is a good thing so and do you is there anything in particular you like to where you like to travel you're just trying to hit everywhere like is there a goal yeah I have a goal I so I want to make it to every continent by 2028 okay um where you at I am at two no no I'm doing okay uh it's not great but but I've been in North America South America Europe I've covered a lot of grounded Europe we booked Asia next year so really I need to get to Africa Australia and Antarctica which I think at this point we're looking at Antarctica 2026 nice so I might even knock that out before I knock Africa out that's awesome my con my theory is this right is I don't want somebody being like all right I made it to 56 I'm reti now I'm going to go travel and then I die mhm mhm and I did nothing right I'm very much a proponent of hey do as much as you can now right and then do it all over again when you retire yeah anything else is a bonus y right exactly get it down while you can it's very much a you know I use the example of um you know of Hartwick um you know he the night of his death you know we were working a detail together and he I was actually oddly going to Ireland two days later and I remember us talking about it and he was getting really close to retirement and he was like my goal is to retire I'm working as much as I can right now I'm going to retire and I'm going to go travel and he was like I'm super envious of you being able to do that now you know he had kids and a career and he's like I just hadn't gotten to it yet and then you know literally hours later he was killed so it's I don't want to be the person that is like wow you know what what did Jason do in his life I'd rather be the person's like damn that kid lived yeah he lived 100% so you know I'm very much a chase chase the thrill chase the adventure uh and it you know makes me it gives me a more worldly view it's it's kind of interesting did that conversation with Hartwick were you already that way or did that really up the Annie for you I was I was already that way but now I use it as a hey do you do you want to go let's go do this and I will say to myself like ah it's kind of a pain or this or that when the reality is as long as I can financially do it we have you know ample time off I'm going to go do it um certainly that night you know changed a lot of things for me but that perspective of do it now or you may never do it really is burned into my mind you know from that mhm um so yeah certainly I don't turn down an experience if I can help it that's good I think that's I think you're doing it the right way absolutely the right way to do it um so the next trip you said is Asia Next Year oh I have a bunch before then but that would be any more any more weekend johs to Ireland o no I you know unfortunately because of work I have to stay here the month of January work does require me uh Dam to stay around so uh February we're we're going up to Whistler Canada for ski trip we do every year and do you have a group of friends that you're traveling with or I do all right good the ring the roving crew yeah the group of also crazy people that I somehow convinced to go to Ireland for 48 hours this past weekend awesome it's like hey um yeah so I we travel in a group that they're also down for an adventure anytime anywhere so it is easy to convince them I don't have enough to try that hard like hey guys I have this crazy idea and they're like yeah whatever put us down yeah let's go so yeah so we go together we did that you know we'll have Whistler in February I have two weeks of training and March so I'll be here again and then uh yeah pesky work son of a yeah and then may we're doing a cruise and then we're up to Bali in in August so that's awesome so where's your favorite place you've been so far like what's the place you let's let's just go back every year yeah Ireland I feel like I've been there so many times yeah from a Ireland is such a a cool welcoming beautiful country MH the most unique country though I've ever been to Iceland if you get a chance go it's just the most unique country people gone recently it's like be on another planet yeah it's the most unique everyone's super friendly the terrain is so so unique um the food is very different uh very cool that I would say of a the coolest place of arura Iceland it's pretty accessible too these days I mean there's a lot of flights and and travel and stuff that goes up there Boston it's five hours it's very easy yeah so that's awesome yes very lucky well Jason we really appreciate you taking the time and coming on with us this is certainly not the scariest thing that you've ever done because we've heard things that are a lot scarier um but we always try to give our guests an opportunity if there's anything that you could share with the public um and usually say it would make your job easier uh but just anything you think that you know in your professional capacity your your opportunity to give the public a quick PSA something to share with them anything come to mind yeah I mean I think it goes back to that Pursuit is uh there's so many things in our job that we have to think about um Monday morning quarterbacking is such a big thing in law enforcement and you know obviously we all read Facebook comments uh we just never comment right but I read them and I see a lot of people some of us do yeah some people do yeah the penel County Sheriff's Office Facebook page is great um but you know it you have to remember that there is so many a couple things happen my life experience comes into play my policies and procedures come into play and obviously at the time of any incident you have to make a split-second decision and that hindsight is always 2020 so there are always a lot of different things going on in your head when a decision is made trust that it comes from a bunch of different pieces you know uh my whole life career my policies versus what I'm used to there's just so many pieces that play fact lot of variables just know that when a decision is made we have a split second to do it based on a very finite amount of information MH that's good that's a good one we we've had a lot that's pretty similar to other things but that that was unique that was a good one because um it's very true uh you you know people have a ton of time days months years to look back at something where you're making a decision in a matter of seconds sometimes you know minutes in the case of a a Pursuit you're involved in so that was really good um thanks again detective Jason Plum uh before I let Laura do her thing that she always does at the end uh I should also add we have our new website Now panellos sheriff. go56 podcast there uh you can find all the all the uh episodes there information more information about the podcast uh and links to all the podcast platforms and our social media uh 56 podcast but I want Laura to do her thing so Laura if people wanted to reach out to us with feedback anything like that how might they do that uh they can email us at let 56pcs onet.com that's l56 PCS onet.com thanks for listening everybody