he said they were talking about murdering their Source they're actually going to go through with it man he was really ad of me he goes they they were hollowing out potatoes to use a silencer and I said well I guess yeah maybe I've seen that on TV once before but we made some control phone calls and confirmed this guy's telling the truth we end up hitting the house and uh found the potatoes they still had them this is 56 a penel County Sheriff's Office podcast I'm riie Butler with Laura Sullivan and Ashley last episode we chatted with Corporal Matt Akin about his career here at the Sheriff's Office and and got into how he got here and all those good things that we do here on 56 but we did spend some time talking about the incident uh March of 2023 where he and his Canan partner were uh ambushed and um on a routine track Matt was hit three times but is still with us today for a whole lot of reasons but two main reasons one being K9 Taco who refused to come on the podcast with us and the other being uh Sergeant Jake Viano who um just by chance uh decided to track with them and um Jake was with them and returned fire and took care of business and we can't really talk to Matt and then not talk to Jake too so we're happy to have Jake on uh this episode 56 with us and it should be noted that um he he's got some awards recently uh he got the Ruth just a couple uh he got the Ruth and Tim Johnson Deputy of the Year award for the sheriff's office for us here at penel County Sheriff's Office the uh major County Sheriff's Office major County Sheriffs of America which represent presents literally all the major County Sheriff's offices across the US and fsa's Deputy of the year so Florida sheriff's Association so he's cleaning up I think all we've got left now is National Sheriff Association then we'll uh we'll have all of them there got to be some kind of a ring for that or something so um thanks a lot for coming on um looking forward to we don't want to we didn't want to Define Matt by what happened and we don't want to Define you that way either we want to get into some other good stuff and maybe touch on a little bit at the end so um just thanks a lot for getting some more attention drawn to yourself and coming on the podcast yeah so before we get into all that Ashley has a question for us to get things started and it's the scariest part of the whole thing so if you're nervous you don't have to be after this all right if you could be best friends with any animated character so it could be a 2d cartoon 3D cartoon just an animated character who would you choose and why all right mhm that's pretty good um yeah I have to go way back in the day I'd say uh Yogi bear okay why yeah Yogi Bear well he eats well he likes to picking in baskets you know Bo doesn't he steal from people though yeah yeah a little devious a little devious he's steal food though that I don't have to I I'll always be the good-looking one in the group see you always pick you click your close friends like that there you go all right yeah here you go yeah I like it well well for that reason I should not pick what I was going to pick which is um sheira in the reboot so I I will definitely not be the good-looking one in that group but it'll be fun and I'll I'll learn how to sword fight um I even get magical powers what you guys encourage honesty I don't know 100% well so what I should have said and and you're my contemporary I should have said HR puff and stuff does that ring a bell I know the name I'm not ringing what it's to though horrifying character yeah it is just visually it is it's this guy grew up with Bloods and Crips and you're asking about puffing stuff I remember a referring to it in one of his movies put two degrees of separation all right yeah it's this really terrifying character um I don't know I I can't think that fast than the fly so I'll go by the default like I I just think um I think Stewie from Family Guy is hilarious okay and he would it would just be fun to hang out with him because he drinks and stuff even though he's a baby he'd be in trouble all the time I would I already am so it might as well just go all the way like I I think in Family Guy cutaway scenes we just talked about that I thought of another answer too when you said that oh yeah Rick Sanchez from Rick and Morty that's a lot of chaos yeah might Bea I'm getting more into chaos lately yeah I I like it he would bring it all right what about you I was thinking Remy from Ratatouille because which I I don't know if you've seen the movie or that's that's the rat right yes but he would cook all my meals yeah that that would be an ideal best friend for me like if I ever get really really rich first prerogative Chef personal chef I don't want to cook ever again getting the idea from last episode in this episode really don't like cooking you can see how strong the desire is it's just going to be like a chicken nugget Chef though no no no he'll learn okay he'll learn all right that was a good one and I'm going to think of something better at some point either during this podcast future one I'm just going to blurt it out because I know I could do better than that I just go for it that one was I didn't want to I think in this whole episode that should be our stick we should just blurt out other cartoon characters we think of that we really like we could be yeah all right um all right I'll get you I'll get you back at some point at the worst Poss Time end up being the title you know if it's good enough and random enough all right Jake so um you grew up in Long Beach California yeah uh one sibling you got a sister yep and everything was kind of normal about growing up right except growing up in gang infested neighborhoods yeah yeah talk about that yeah the the community wasn't the best um the family nucleus was really strong my parents were involved in everything I did they kept me out of trouble kept made sure that they governed my upbringing everything out of the house though was uh I don't know if they were fully aware of the community and how it was but like your parents weren't even aware yeah know they're they had their own little they they weren't really part of a lot of things outside the home they were they they stayed inside our walls for the most part did thing and came home and that was it made sure that we were taken care of but uh you know no matter how much I would explain hey you're not really understanding what the what we're dealing with in schools and and Community um they kind of wrote that off but yeah it was uh unique time I'm just envisioning like Elementary age Jake coming home like there's gang members outside and they're like no it's fine don't worry about like what are we talking about here when you like kids they always exaggerate kid what like what year around well it was all in the ' 80s is when I grew up um so that was a you know crack pandemic that was going on and everybody got you know their breakdown of the family dealing with all that so the kids especially they would block together and create clicks and next thing you know you got a new gang on that street new gang on that street and everybody had to identify with something so you had to wear certain clothes and to get to school I had to walk to school and through Elementary School junior high and high school I had to go through all these neighborhoods and if you weren't wearing the right clothes or took the right path so my routes to school were catered to avoiding that street avoiding that corner that liquor store that corner store so uh it it made it it was a unique Dynamic it's a lot of Street smarts for a kid yeah yeah yeah you grow up uh recognizing where threats are bad that's good that's good yeah yeah any any notable stories related to that I mean it got to be interesting to have to deal with it kind of without your parents like hey don't go that way well the you know for like Elementary School um a lot of uh guys I would associate their older brothers were involved with with gangs and uh so I kind of got started getting exposed to it then probably about 10 years old started recognizing okay this is a thing that you got to try to avoid and not get a part of but then I got involved with break dancing and then that kind of married itself into gangs too so I I got I had we had our own little break dance group that we wore a certain color uh outfit but not red or not blue I hope you had to be careful about that that you you to be the pinks and that was maybe even too close to Red just to avoid any confrontation yeah you had to really be careful about the color so um we'd find little not real bright blue or blight bright red kind of faded out little thing Mar marrying them up but uh yeah so I got involved with that a little bit and then the gang the breaking groups break dance groups ended up getting clicky and violent and yeah that only lasted about I think my sixth grade year or whatever and we broke that down break dancing yeah yeah not have that on my card that was when the movie break in in be uh uh beat street street be Street 2 Electric Baloo yeah that's when that was out there yeah yeah yeah those are the big ones back then I can't that's fantastic you can Ricky I can were you any good yeah yeah I did I was pretty good not you know I didn't pop dance as much as I broke dance but yeah I was pretty good I was good enough to somebody to want me to be part of their group all right espe we had we used to go after school we'd have our uh have like recital we have our cardboard boxes that are all laid out tape those down and we' big big put out our big radios yeah we had our big radio out there and play our double cassette tapes in there and bump them yeah hell yeah that's awesome can we see a demonstration no oh man probably break something nowadays maybe later maybe that'll be some bonus content for we'll get some cardboard boxes and go out back and turn on the electric Baloo or whatever the hell you said you got it was there any other things that you had to avoid doing that maybe many people growing up in different areas didn't have to think about like or think twice about other than your route to school well uh the colors yeah so we talked about before that uh my mom what not being aware of the Dynamics with color in the neighborhoods um would buy me at that time 501 jeans was real big and we have uh there was multiple colors that you could get and she one time for Christmas uh or for some occasion she got me multiple color jeans where she got me the black ones the regular Levi color white and red well I could wear the white I could wear the black ones and the blue ones and those could work around any neighborhood but what she was unaware is red you don't wear in my neighborhood now there was you grew up in a neighborhood I grew up in a neighborhood yeah so uh you don't wear red you know now there's other pockets of neighborhood on my way to school that you might be able to get away with that but not in my particular section and uh so I would only wear those red jeans at home if I was mowing the lawn or something that nobody would see me so Mom knew at least you were wearing them you know yeah and then that get some use of them well there was one day that I was wearing them and my mom asked me to go mail a letter two blocks away I had to go mail this letter so I walk up being cautious knowing that I'm wearing red jeans but I didn't want to change I figured I could get away with it you know everyone in the area knew I grew up here and I'm not a gangbanger so thought I'd get away with it well I go up to mail the letter I'm at the mailbox and there's a comes up the street that was much older than me at this time I'm probably 14 13 14 years old and he looked like he was probably 20 and he come pimp walking up on me and and asked me what I'm wearing that dread for and damn it I I I ain't supporting no he's asked me what why you supporting that dread and I'm and he was up in my face and I'm like dude this is not good and I'm like I ain't supporting nothing my mom bought me these jeans buddy I'm I ain't supporting nothing right and he kind of circles me a couple times you I like that dread man take take that off so uh that that time I took those pants off and I would wear them again that's right yeah probably and there was another time my mom would always give me $100 for school clothes that I could I was able to um buy whatever mostly whatever I wanted for school clothes and uh that had to last me for the year Well British knights was a brand then that was pretty popular they sold outfits at the Foot Locker in the Mall and I thought I really like this outfit in British kns and at that time I didn't recognize British Knights as blood Killers that's the what they went by and so I and there was no major color it was all white it had a little bit of red and green in it but it was blood killer uh on it and and so I bought this outfit to use my whole $100 for this outfit shoes and the whole I thought I look great I was ready the first day of school and unfortunately I wore it to school and here I am walking into school thinking I'm really fancy you know good and then all my buddies kept walking up to me going why you wearing it dude did you join a gang or something over the summer and I'm like no don't I look good no no dude you're you're going to get jumped you keep wearing that so then I realized what it meant and I had to keep my head down throughout school and then I ran myself home all the way from school and I I my school was it was probably over a couple miles away I huffed it home in every single block that I thought I could get away with did you leave early no but so uh I didn't take my exit my normal exit I would exit out to the main street normally through a gate and this time I kind of took a separate gate and hid my way around back home took the long way yeah blew that $100 I blew that $100 I never could wear the outfit it's probably still sitting in my closet should have worn it brand new yeah sounds like a side mission on GTA San Andreas or something uh all right um so were you a decent student at school were you focused on other things what uh oh yeah no uh had some other things on your mind academics wasn't uh wasn't my strong point the girls were were the thing uh yeah I was grow crazy yeah yeah I think Matt said that he did that's why I was like you were girl crazy but were you successful well I know you're were driving then I know what you were driving so yeah I think in that part of my academics I was successful but not with the uh that social studies social stud there you go there you go Anatomy physiology but I never really took school all that important I knew I had to get a c to play sports and that's all I really didn't I just wanted to get by so Sports then Sports was Sports was the other interest baseball yeah baseball B baseball kind of it took its shape and uh I wanted to do the other things too but when I got into the high school level uh uh it kind of just kind of pigeon hold me and coaches wouldn't let me play other things cuz so when did you start playing baseball at 8 eight years old yeah my uh mom came home one day and said that uh you know would you be interested in joining a team at the park and I had grew up playing with the kids in the neighborhood we threw tennis balls and we we played baseball and uh football and all that stuff in the street and I was thought I was pretty good I was playing with the older kids and uh so I said yeah I'll go and was nervous about it and really stunk it wasn't good not so good at it huh no they uh and a lot of it was nerves um but they they played me two innings because they had to that was a League rule and it was they stuck me in right field where they could hide me as much as possible and then I fortunately there was one game toward the very end of the season we were short on pitchers and a CO the coach stuck me in there just a play catch with the catcher and next thing you know the guys weren't hitting me and and I thought man I kind of boosted my confidence a little you got something maybe I can do this game and I and my dad ended up stepping up and coaching me the next year and he made sure I got more playing time and next thing you know I started getting better so nice so you still like eight or nine 10 range yeah I was eight uh nine that was eight years old um and first organized type of uh Sport and uh yeah fortunately after that I started to build more confidence started getting better and better um again the culture of the gangs and all that stuff was part of the part of the leagues um oh so that was a bad another bad thing that we had to deal with just uh you know the kids on the team were kind of starting to get Affiliated because they were getting in that age but their older brothers and cousins and all that stuff were all part of it so uh the parks that we played at weren't all that secure there was there's times where if you hit a a ball past an outfielder it would roll past into the maybe the public area at the one I grew up at and where there's a bathroom well that's there's a little Courtyard where the bathroom was and the gangs would hang out there sometimes you wouldn't want to go get the ball CU they up the ball sometimes they'd be nice and give it back to you other times they'd try to play keep away or throw it further down the playground or something but yeah and there was a time your team was winning and the other team wasn't too happy about that yeah and that was a uh we were we it was an All-Star uh tournament we were playing in San Pedro MH and uh we were beating this team by like 12 runs by the second inning or something and um they called one of the guys on the the opposing team had a uncle or a cousin or brother whatever who was a gang member so he calls them up and they come down to the field and there must have been 30 of them around the chain link fences and started harassing us and and uh threatening like gentle teasing or actual no like hanging on the fence and saying they were going to kill us if we caught the ball if you were a pitcher a strike yeah if you a pitcher you're going to threw a strike you're going to get killed and all this stuff I mean there was just threat after threat and these guys at that time I was probably 13 14 and they were you know it was intimidating you these guys were older and uh there was a lot of them and we weren't home we weren't in Long Beach we were in San Pedro so it's a whole different set of set of uh rules over there and uh fortunately the cop showed up but we our 12 run lead went down to down by about four or five within a couple Innings cuz they were they they got in our head it was effective yeah little off topic but how did he call up his cousin it was probably somebody in the stands but you know that they talked to and brought over okay I'm like was there a payone on the side it was probably another another family member that said hey come down we need we need some help over here get in these kids I see that yeah so there was a lot of int idation in that time I can't tell if you're like trying to point out just that cell phones weren't there or just point out how old he is oh yeah no I'm just saying without a cell phone I how how you go there used to be payones everywhere yeah you had to put money in mean gu like that we don't know these Parks were always in neighborhoods so you could be you could live right across the street okay okay that makes sense yeah the parks are always amongst other houses and stuff so yeah I'm just imagine this 8-year-old like saying timeout guys and then running over well you see the difference back then and I it's a shame that the sports young Youth Sports have gone the way they were they are um back then you would play to your area Coda your neighborhood you never played outside of that so we didn't have travel ball or anything if you wanted to travel you needed to be good enough to be on an All-Star team or something like that you know so if you wanted to play you played within your area code and you were within five or six blocks of the park that had your you know your team so yeah that makes sense yeah so at what point um when did you start getting real serious about baseball um at a at a junior high and at that time my junior high was seventh eth and ninth grade um and then high school started in 10th Grade uh coming at of ninth grade I was invited onto the high school team M coach got with me and or offered me to play Connie Mack and Legion ball with the high schoolers and um that was a big opportunity where I I I started playing with Kids that actually knew how to play the game and they were a little bit more uh refined and kind of had an idea of how to bunt and take infield and you know do all your warmup and prep that we didn't do before you just show up and start throwing with something whatever equipment you pulled out of the bag you know now it was like man this is big this is this is legit yeah and uh the coach basically said you know you're going to come on and you got you got a good chance of making varsity but you can't play other when you come into High School you I wanted to wrestle when I came in and um he said no you can't wrestle you're going to you have a chance you're going to hurt your arm and all that stuff um that's when I started having to kind of dial down everything I wanted to do um before that I got into martial arts I got into karate and that really got me better at playing I was kind of wild um physically just I didn't have any control in Emotion I didn't have any control with my pitching or um yeah I was all about just power power power strength strength um but when I got into martial arts once I got into junior high I started learning a lot about my developed a lot of confidence for one and then two just the balance that I I got out of that um I started developing more control and uh it helped me all around with Athletics and then was there like how did you get in how did your I mean cuz you know people take basic seriously and not everybody always wants to go pro or things like that like how did that come together for you that potential going pro yeah like going that direction um so I ended up uh always having I was always kind of behind the eight ball because of my height I I'm 5'10 and it was understood that to go pro they're not even going to look at you unless you're six feet tall as a pitcher and I couldn't play Pro in other positions I didn't have the leg speed or um I didn't hit well enough you know to to make any teams like that at that level but as far as being a pitcher I had uh I had a strong arm and I had a great curveball that was that was what I was known for more than anything else um so when I started to uh get into high school and we started talking about what's next I was getting scholarship interests and I didn't have the grades to go to a four-year but uh I thought I'll just go if I got a chance I'm gonna go pro out of high school and uh I started understanding that I'm not getting a whole lot of interest from the pro teams and my coach was explaining you're not that tall you're you know you're going to you got the arm strength and the pitches but they're looking for guys that are much bigger and Link year than you are did you try to look taller I tried oh yeah I that that was a whole thing so my whole baseball career even when I went pro I still played the game um I would wear on days where I knew the scouts were showing up I'd wear brand new spikes that that were extra long spikes I would stand next to the shortest guys on the team I'd wear my hat as high on my head as possible and I'd find the most unlevel piece of ground on the field when they're in the stands and they're looking or around around the field I would be in the highest point I don't care if it was a half inch higher than anything else or standing on a pebble I was going to look as tall as possible you think they knew what you were doing I don't think so but I I was pretty good at hiding all that but yeah yeah I I everything was about lengthening me and being tall and then my parents told me that if I uh drank coffee or had any caffeine or something it stump my grow so I did I had stay away from all that all the time I did everything I could to be as tall as I could so you you didn't you didn't get drafted out of high school no uh and then you were kind of you didn't what was your backup plan did you have one at that point yeah I was going to the two interests I had I always was big at when the cops would roll through the neighborhood and stuff I always thought cool to be in there and jump out at these fools on the corner and you know and have some authority to do something about this stuff and I always thought that would be cool and I was and I grew up on westerns and watching the sheriffs and on the cowboy shows so that was always my second thing I'm I'm going to go pro and I'm going to take that as far as I can if I can and if I uh can't then I'll go into law enforcement so I ended up uh when I didn't get drafted out of high school I was real disappointed I'm like I I'm not going to if it's my height that's going to stop me from taking it to the next level then I need to look at other things and I'm not going to get any taller so um I went down to the Sheriff's office at Los Angeles County um Sheriff's Office and started inquiring about their Explorer program and how to get involved in that and I was going to stop playing baseball I figured if there a no fruit in it I'm going to go ahead and uh move on with my life MH and uh the college coach um LOM Beach City College he ended up uh contacting me and really motivated me to keep going with it and with baseball so I ended up uh going to lomby City College and played for the college team and from then on it didn't uh the success I had in college ended up changing they couldn't Overlook me anymore so then I ended up going okay well I know I'm going to go pro at some point just I'll stick with this and law enforcing will be on the back shelf on the back door so how long until you went pro after that how did that play out two years I I played for two years and then was drafted by the Rockies in '93 okay and then how and I know that's I'm not a baseball person so I mean I know there's beer at the games and I understand the basic things watching the games but that's about it um what are the different levels of when you say GoPro what does that mean exactly uh means that you're one you're going to start getting paid to play um and you're going with a Professional Organization right at that time there was 28 teams um there was an expansion uh teams at uh Miami Marlins and Colorado Rockies were the two expansion teams that year um or actually they came in in ' 92 and then I was drafted in 93 uh by them in the 11th round so the the big thing with the when you go into when you get signed by them you have uh several levels before you're at the major league level you have rookie ball a ball double a AAA and then the big league level okay I heard you have to work your way up the system okay so that's where we ended up uh uh you end up being at the bottom of a pyramid so it's basically a big pyramid um and then when I came in to play rookie Ball I came to mini camp and when I got to mini camp here I am now I'm seeing some guys the coaches that i' had seen on TV I've uh and I'm looking at all the other players from all over the nation and some International but I came in and I saw other guys warming up on the field and they were older and it looked like they were around 30 years old and I'm thinking why is that guy I don't recognize him from seeing him on TV and he's out here with us so we're all new to the league I'm like I'm not going to be that guy I'm not going to be if you're not going to make it go all the way why why keep going there's other things I can do so I made a pack with myself at that time that I'm not going to uh I'm not going to continue playing if I'm not going to make the big money I need to be able to retire out of this game because there's nothing else I can do what some I get trained for here you know I'm either going to play or I'm going to coach or I got to do something else they don't transfer anywhere else so uh I made a pack with myself then that if I don't get to a point where if I once I realize in my career that I'm not going to be able to retire out of this I'm I'll move on so how how long did I mean how far did you make it how you know how I was on the big league roster in 96 with the Rockies um but I was I I ended up getting up to the um tripa level when I and I was piter of the year in the organization year before they made a trade Jo gerardi was the catcher at that time and he was traded to the Yankees um Joe gerardi is play would manage the Yankees for a long time in 2000s um but at that time he was traded over for two minor league guys while I was coming up and I was slotted to be the closer my understanding was I was slotted according to Baseball America which was a magazine that I was going to be the closer in 97 um but they made a trade for two other pitchers that were short relievers like me because I was a closer and uh that kind of changed my career trajectory um I came into spring training the next year with those two guys now being uh prospects for the big league club breaking with the big league club that year and they told me they were going to move me to being a starter um because I had developed a third pitch I developed a change up early on and when they moved me to be a starter they put me with a pitching coach that came over from San Diego um didn't know me didn't didn't see me beforehand and uh knew what I could do just only you know their player meetings and all that stuff he had an idea but um he started changed my mechanics and in doing that I lost the FI for my change up my arm slot got a little bit different so I wasn't throwing as hard and uh started struggling so that kind of put me where I back down to the the minor leagues started bouncing around I'd always throw well enough to keep getting jobs but I started on a year-to-year contract deal and started being a free agent year to year instead of being that top prospect like I was right so that's kind of when you start saying okay this is going the other direction yeah that's when you started going all right now you know it created an arm injury in me so and you hadn't been injured before until they they started training you to probably prevent injuries go from throwing a small number to large number to start it right idea was It was supposed to lengthen my career allow me to throw 100 pitches a game instead of the 10 to 15 or 20 I was throwing before and uh and ended up creating inflammation in my shoulder never had shoulder injuries before but it put me on the DL for a couple months and and I'd come back they'd throw me three or four or five innings six Innings sometimes and the length of that along with not having my change up I just never had the dominant success I was having before and you can't say no to a coach in that position no you're at that time I'm 22 years old and you know you don't want to be considered uncoachable right so you know if you're considered uncoachable you better never have a bad year you're done somebody else is going to take your job so uh I did everything he asked me to do and it ended up uh turning me uh to where I lost the feel for what was making me as successful but uh and ended up making me go International eventually I played I kept I was always good enough to continue to get jobs um MH and contined to be a prospect I came over here with the Devil Rays in '97 and um Prospect with them enough to send me out to Hawaii for the winter ball program and then did really well out there that got me a job in Venezuela right when I finished that and then come spring training they sent me I didn't make the big Le Club here um out of spring training but they wanted to keep me and they had to pay me a certain amount of money because I was a free agent M so they sent me to Mexico uh and I played over in Mexico do you have the old devil race like uniform do you have anything Devil Ray still uh I only have the one that they gave us for throwing out the first pitch I don't have that one no no I just have I have baseball gloves that have my name on it and stuff they don't let you keep the uniforms or anything no no souven I was like oh man you probably have like OG double ray like symbol on stuff I did forget about that I did want to ask you about that you you and Matt did get recognized by the Rays and you did get to throw out the first pitch yeah and I was there and it was a pretty damn good pitch no it wasn't well I was saying I was getting a lot of grief about beforehand I was in the stands okay and I had had a couple beers but where I was sitting it looked okay it could have been a lot worse but what I everybody kept calling me and said you ain't got a hair if you don't throw it hard you got to throw it hard like the old days yeah yeah and I thought okay well I don't know if I got it in me to throw it hard I ain't picked up a ball in you know 10 10 years whatever and uh so I went out when I was working the night before I went out and threw a little bit on in a park just threw him into the fence picked up some balls that were sitting in a batting cage and like let me see if I can get it out of my hand and it wasn't going good so when I threw it through the pitch I was like I just want something he can catch because my arms not loose or extending the way it used to right so yeah at least at least it was something that didn't get anybody hurt it looked okay to me I didn't look at it on the Jumbotron so but that was cool the Cleveland Indians end up picking me up eventually and uh finished a year with them but then I at that time I finished the year hurt and I thought man I'm this whole waking up every day wondering if I'm hurt or if I'm injured and my arm going to last and I'm playing year to year and I'm not getting that big three-year cont cuz that's what you're waiting for at that time three-year contract and then you're you're good you can retire out of that cuz it's going to be at least a couple million probably my agent told me that let's go ahead and uh there's a camp that uh the Korean baseball league is holding here bunch of guys from all over the world are going to come here and try out for these spots in Korea and they're going to have a draft at the end of it so I ended up taking part in that camp and got drafted out of the first round out of that camp for a team in Korea and I was hoping that would springboard me to Japan cuz that's where the big money was I made six figures in Korea but I could get half a million a year in Japan so there's an opportunity to retire out of the game there MH so when I I didn't throw well enough in Korea so uh when I came back I was really worried that you know I don't know if I'm going to continue to keep playing living have a suitcase going overseas now this is getting a little bits L I got to start yeah now I'm like 27 28 years old and I'm thinking might need to do something else so you decide it's time to try something new and and you kind of go back to law enforcement well yeah I um when I was here um I had a contract to go to Taiwan the next year and so in 90 or in 2000 uh we me and my agent negotiated this contract in Taiwan and I really was reluctant to go but the money was going to be really good so I was like I'll do one more year overseas and if that don't spring board me to a multi-year deal somewhere I'll I might consider closing it up and uh I ended up uh I waited for this contract to come in my backs were packed my agent said be ready you got to get on a plane once we get it faxed to us and he didn't call and I waited and didn't call and then I called him and he didn't answer and I'm like oh what's going on my bags are packed I'm supposed to leave tomorrow and finally he calls me back and he says we got a problem the team got popped for gambling they have a big gambling problem in Taiwan and uh he goes team's been suspended we don't have a contract now so I'm like well what am I going to do now you know spring training was already full up here they you know this was February or yeah about February and I thought you know call around here to see if somebody's going to take me in for camp and uh nobody everybody's full so I thought there's some writing on the wall there if you don't make a spot for me then I must not be in demand and at this time I'm short right-handed pitcher right that has been okay enough for the last three or four years you know I wasn't the top prospect anymore so the uh I go you know what while I'm waiting for to hear some team's going to call at some point pitcher going to get hurt somewhere they're going to need a gap field in Triple A somewhere and I might get my projection is best case scenario I'll play three or four years in the big leagues and now I'll be aged out somebody's got mult millions of dollars being invested in them right now they're going to take my spot so 3 or 4 years is best case scenario and that's going to be hard to retire off of so uh I go you know what I'm going to go down while I'm waiting I'm going to go down to Police Academy and uh I went down to the Past program and said just what does it take and I still planned on going to play baseball you know I figured agent's going to call any day I'll I'll the pass office down at spbc and I'll say okay yeah so I went down there and uh next thing you know they're like well you can just fill out this paper and take this test and do this and do that and I like I'm still going away to play baseball but while I'm here I a't doing nothing right now I started just halfly just doing it and filling everything out and next thing you know I'm passing this and I'm passing that and they're like hey you want to do this you can go that we got an academy starting and I'm like man I still haven't got a phone call so Rocky the rocky contract that I had still was paying for my schooling so it was being paid for hell yeah guess I guess I'll do it until the till my agent calls and says we got a contract somewhere so I ended up starting the academy and then next thing you know I was all in I was like yeah I'm done with baseball this is fun so did you have any um any standouts with the academy where because I mean and I guess we should touch on a little bit uh you mentioned you know growing up seeing cops you know coming through the neighborhood taking care of business um obviously because you you talk about it very like matter of fact it's just the way it was but I mean it was it was it was made it made it hard uh to live in the neighborhood and all those things so it it is a it is a problem um that we fortunately don't have any of at that level in M County um so that that was really it it was just the ability to go in and and and address this and stand up to these folks to kind of get your neighborhood back that Prospect of doing that is is what it was all about absolutely so what was fun in the academy what was I mean it's just it's quite a strange trajectory really because you have the interest but kind of aren't I mean I'm sure when you're driving around or you're you know you're looking at paying extra attention to Cops and things like that but beyond that you go from playing baseball to you could only do it in that order you can't do it in the other order so he made the right choice true years law enforcement and then go play professional sports so yeah it felt you know it it was just s it was so exciting having having the power that you you know you have or having the decision making of how things are going to turn out because growing up where I did being white and a prominantly non-white area you couldn't you didn't have decisions that you could make a whole lot of you to make decisions to stay out of trouble and stay out of environments not necessarily change anything and in law enforcement we have the ability to change a scenario you know in a positive way in a positive way and say okay well this this is all bad we're going to fix this and that was that was fun you know that was fun and then the just the whole you know getting to drive cars fast yeah that's pretty cool and shoot you like shooting I love shooting and that was that was good too so when did you did you grow up shooting I did yeah U my dad would I was fortunate that he's into hunting and fishing so I grew up um bird hunting we had a that was a pheasant Club far out of the city that sounds very ritzy no it wasn't it wasn't but it was a lot of empty land it was a lot of empty land that uh they planted Birds on and we were able to go out there and I ran around on the weekends with my dad and shot shotguns with that and then I was able to shoot handguns out there too and um so I grew up hunting and fishing and and uh being exposed to all that yeah so it was natural when you were at the range here and yeah yeah it was uh I was comfortable with all that and it was fun any issues in the academy how how were you academically oh in the Academy I excelled yeah because I was interested there's a drive there it is I was interested you know I i' we'd spend eight hours at the Academy I'd come home and I'd study and I'd practice drawing out of the holster and I did it all because I you know one I had already established in myself that I wanted to be polished and proficient and everything and that's that's where back to baseball helps is that at the level of triaa Big League the only difference it's not your talent level it's how much polish is on your game so it's very important to have attention to detail in what you do if you want to Excel and everything about excelling in professional sports is being just a little hair better than the next person and then you get your spot um that's the same thing in the Academy I wanted to make sure that I was polished and I wasn't that guy that you don't want to be you know or had the focus on that it would be like all right he's squared away we won't have to worry about him was there a point where you kind of just forgot about baseball CU you were so into yeah I I I didn't think about it for probably mean I've always I still think about it but I was so interested in learning and and being involved in the things in law enforcement world for good five years m in in this game um that I never really regretted it the decision I made I think that uh you know there's still times where I'll have dreams in the middle of the night or think that maybe I should have gave it a little extra time or whatever but for the most part I if I was a betting man I made the right decision MH so uh obviously you put yourself through the academ well the Rockies paid for your Academy um and you didn't you know when did you get hired by the Sheriff's Office was it after you completed the academy yeah at that time the sheriff wasn't hiring out of the academy okay he wasn't sponsoring anybody through and maybe if you were in corrections but I don't think so I think you had to get all the way through yourself yeah and did you always have your eye on the sheriff's office or no at that time I had to really weigh out a burden of hand or two in the bush cuz I knew in the academy it seemed like yeah I like the uniform the sheriff had better than all the other uniforms and that's important to look sharp you like polish yeah I was to say were they white back then they were white yeah but the the instructor that were around there were uh I thought their uniforms they look the sharpest and uh they seem to be more Sheriff's Office people there than other agency so I thought well they probably pretty Shar they're probably most knowledgeable they're over here teaching all the time yeah and I also heard about you know uh budget wise and being taken care of and the training here and the opportunities for a large Department um I had panel's Park uh invite me in on a ride along uh early on in the academy and fortunately you know no disrespect for penis Park but they they're a smaller department and fortunately they they dropped the ball and they never called me to start the hiring process and uh Clearwater and the Sheriff's Office were going to interview on the same day when the academy was ending and uh there was a conflict and I had to kind of pick which time I I was going to only had one time slot which am I going to go to and the Sheriff's Office uh I picked the sheriff's office and I don't regret that at all this has been a great choice what what year was that so that would have been 2000 okay yeah so how I mean how'd it go it's just it's just such an interesting path to talk about because other people that we've talked to is like you know oh well you know grandparents this or you know grew up around it you know whatever but you're just like I I I watched westerns I saw them in the neighborhood like let's go so so how did it go I mean what was what were some of the things that was there anything that you were kind of like well I didn't I didn't expect that or I didn't see that coming or how was fto uh fto well fto was interesting on the F the my first phase my first phase was uh so you go through all your your training and you're ready to you're ready to go and I could not wait to to get out and put the cuffs on somebody for real I thought that was just going to be the you know that's how much better is to hear that Clank and grab somebody and put them in cuffs and I couldn't wait for my first foot pursuit you know I just just couldn't wait for that cuz that's the that's the yummy stuff the yummy stuff but when I got out of fto I got put on dayshift at Madera Beach and you know too sleep yeah well was that for fto or when you were on your own that was in fto phase one yeah phase one and and that was just I got to learn how to walk around in public in uniform I got some lunches then how to order lunch while you're in uniform and uh I got to learn how to worked the MDT at that time we had the mdts which is basically an ET a sketch yeah yeah and but it had a whole little network of stuff how to log into that that takes some time to worry about that so phase one basically was that maybe it was by design that way so maybe maybe so I learned how to drive and look at the MDT and look like a cop out there did you ever get your fo foot pursuit in M Beach yeah that was a good one so I did get that and the thrill that came out of me when this happened so we stopped out with a uh uh suspicious vehicle behind the Public's there um as you go on to the causeway and uh it was a guy and a girl in the car they're sitting there uh we pull up on them we get them out of the car and we're talking with them and I'm tasked with running the the mail driver's license so I go back into the car and left my door open so that I could hear and see everything that's going on and I'm trying to figure out how to run this 1029 on the on the m DT and as I'm trying to remember how I'm supposed to do this I hear my fto grab I see my fto grab something out of his mouth and and hold it up and goes you got crack he had a plastic bag of crack underneath his tongue and immediately when he identified what the guy had he took off running so I mean like the thrill of that was just like Now's the Time I went through the Academy I went through all this training and I get to run this is it so I feel like this is what a canine thinks oh yeah yeah yeah oh yeah it was a foot pursuit and this guy was was quick but you I just come out of playing playing ball and running myself and I knew I knew you know he's quick but he ain't going to run that's for me that was that is my forte is that yeah you may run faster than me but you ain't going to run faster longer I'm going to catch you eventually you're just going to keep on at this pace until yeah while you get gassed out I'm coming yeah eventually you're going to drop yeah um so uh that I was able to jump over a hedge cross the do Road there and ended up yeah I ended up tackling him by the storage unit and Wallgreens over there and um it was absolutely everything I wanted to be fto was way back there somewhere and then the other Deputy ended up grabbing his car and uh getting over there but when he jumped out of his car he rolled his ankle he broke his ankle on that so we had a hurt Deputy uh and and I got to uh do a tackle and a foot beautiful so I'm like yeah this now this is where I belong this is a good job it was that's when it kind of clicked for you this is this is good and then I had to start thinking about the paperwork afterwards what all that is then then I realized at that time you especially in K9 later in my career you realize just how important that part of the job is doation that's huge yeah so how did the rest of it I mean that was all in Phase One how did the rest of it go well forun I had Jeff priceing in phase two okay and he put me into everything uh we were down in liman and he put me we got out talk with everybody he took we took every single call there was it was a long long nights a lot of reports but by time I got done with him and I went up North for my third phase uh the fto could just sit back and relax from there on I felt real comfortable in making decisions and operating the vehicle and bottom line is I realized nothing nothing has to be perfect just use common sense right and be decisive was there anything that you didn't expect or that kind of caught you off guard anything you're like did you ever have a moment you're like this isn't for me at any of that time period no I don't think so yeah no no I I've I can't recall a moment where I felt like this wasn't for me um maybe just the report all the not fun paperwork side of it is that stuff that stuff is yeah there'd be times like uh when I moved on to narcotics uh the reports had to be extremely detailed and they wanted them a certain way and that that's where I was like I'm struggling with this part could I just go get bad guys right whole paperwork thing is not that fun and that's all to to help make sure like the convictions oh yeah just as important as the other side of it yeah it and it's a skill in of itself but it does take time to develop and to understand what it's going to take to make a case and that's what makes a good cop you got to be able to make a case don't waste a bunch of paper and people's time by not making a good charge right so what was first uh first specialty and it was a SWAT for you swat yeah so I went through uh probation and uh just as I was still one year back then one year yeah um and uh there was a SWAT team try out that was posted and I thought about it I'm like I don't know if they would ever take anybody it's only been here a year but and I talk with another guy in my squad that was uh had many years in law enforcement and I asked him do you do you what do you think about me trying out for for SWAT do you think he'll take me or I have an opportunity to to go on that team he's like pelis County's got a really good team man usually you need about five years but doesn't hurt to try out so my my thought when trying out was I'm going to get get the experience understand what it's going to require for the next time they have a try out I'll be ready and they'll take me MH and fortunately though when I tried out I ended up getting T you got the team yeah yeah so how was that SWAT was uh was a real good fit for me especially at that time I didn't have children or anything so I had the time to take in all everything that they had went to swat school um ended up being voted SWAT top SWAT cop out of the SWAT school um and really boosted my confidence that you know hey this is for me and then plus the this is what what really helped me with the transition from baseball to law enforcement getting into those specialty units um was something that you're back to being on a team you know that that part was what I was used to so I didn't miss baseball because I had another team the team environment yeah so when I got on SWAT you know the first year you're learning learning learning and then once you start getting a little comfortable you're part of a team again and it's like you this is a fit heard there was you guys had a SWAT scenario that you did like a training deal and uh Tropicana Field yes that must have been different that was different so so here I was used to playing on the field and I had to go through one of the doors and uh the stadium and all that stuff in a totally different scenario and I hadn't been there you know for year and a half or whatever and uh I ended up getting picked to lead the element that we're uh dealing with we had a hostage sniper scenario in there m and uh I got picked to lead the teams going through and uh yeah going in there and then uh being in that environment when I was on the field looking up and then that looking down it was a different it was a different way looking at things but that must have been interesting like it's like looking at your old career from the new one like it t it takes some used to yeah yeah but it was still all positive thing so yeah no hurt there so you were a sniper yeah eventually uh uh I think I was on the team for probably a year year and a half and then uh got on the sniper team and then uh eventually was a ATL on that team ATL alternate team leader oh yeah so what does it take to be on the because obviously within SWAT there's different areas if you so it's just basically we have the interest in that area you can try to pursue that or yeah um one I you know I was I was proficient with shooting um so that helped uh but if you wanted the other stuff if you wanted to you know work with the some Munitions and you know all the other Specialties uh that took availability and we had availability on the sniper team we didn't need anybody else in those other other things so we needed a body over there so I took the spot ni was there any like notable SWAT call outs during your time uh the Solomon case that's debolts debacle he got us into oh oh his fault H he seems to get into a lot he is a magnet yeah yeah that one that one uh we had uh we had charges he had a case narcotics case that he had charges on this guy and uh we had hit the house before so we knew the Intel we knew he had it barricaded home and all that um so we briefed on this we we were in a parking lot nearby we had surveillance on the house 24/7 we were trying to get the guy when he left the house but somehow he he was on to us um and never left the house for several several weeks I think cuz we had to refresh the warrant a couple times I believe and all this time the entry team we were we were rehearsing the in the parking lot for weeks and uh finally it comes the time where we're going to do a ruse at the door and we're going to um we had two of our members go up with Terminex shirts or whatever and try to we're going to grab him real quick if he opened up the door and then the team was going to make entry well he he had cameras and all that stuff and we were staged on the corner corner of the house and when the RS didn't work team decided to go ahead and move in anyway and we're going to breach the door so we move up to breach the door we start knocking announcing and shots start ringing out at us um and he come to find out he went to a lower level in the back of the house and he had an automatic rifle that he started firing at us everybody fell down at the front door um which is not part of the plan which not part of the plan we had we had rehearsed time and time again to back up as a team here we're going to back up out of here as a team use the shields use cover and all that soon as those shots start firing everybody rolled onto the ground and and started hight tailing it out of there and I jump over a hedge I was at the end I was on the tail end because I'm throwing flashbangs right and left off the the side of the house and uh when I saw everybody's going down I jump over the hedge and soon as I hit the ground I the only first thing that you we've been training on is you don't leave anybody behind so as soon as I hit the ground I realized uh Randy corlett's right in front of me and he was right in front of me in the stack or I saw him go down so I'm jumping back Over the Hedge to get him and he's long gone and now I and I hit the ground and came right back up to go get him and moving whatever however he motivated his body to get out out of there he moved fast cuz he was long gone I looked left and right he was just yeah yeah so fortunately nobody got hit on that one we were good so SWAT uh you you end up leaving SWAT eventually um and then what was next well during my that time narcotics okay yeah so you were in Narcotics and swat at the same time that's right yeah so I I I went into narcotics about a year and a half here I was I was on the team for about six months and then uh went into narcotics again the same thing with narcotics interview came up I thought yeah there going to take somebody they ain't been here 5 years you know but why not try out or why not interview and then just see what they're uh you know what it's about and then if they I'll be ready for next time and I got the job so lucky there what was there was that just because it was an opportunity you had an interest in again another one of those things that uh I always wanted to do just I do not like being on the outskirts of this I want to be in the ring I don't want to be on on the yeah this is not fun to be sitting on the outside of this I want to be in the game The Game's in there you know so uh that was one moment where I realized I want to be part of law enforcement I don't want to be on the sidelines so narcotics is is a world in which everything revolves around narcotics if you want to if you want to fight crime and you want to be a part of things narcotics is is the place you know so that's an interesting you know uh thing to to say that you know Nar I really is the center of everything and if you really want to address crime because there is of course the notion that it's a waste of law enforcement's time to be chasing down drug dealers and and you know those there's just that that narrative out there and it's been out there a long time since the 80s with the war on drugs and all that stuff but it really is I mean it's the Nexus I mean everything goes back to it when you're in that world you're in everything you know that especially if you if you're going to deal it you're not just dealing drugs you're doing other crimes along with it right and the people you're associating with them with with are suspects and other crimes so the world is is really uh interesting world the world and I I I felt comfortable with that you know and I I used my uh the way I dressed when I was there I I got the big uh baggy Dicky pants and Dick and Dicky um two sizes too big I wore my California boys out here in Florida the ones you couldn't wear I couldn't wear out there I wore out here they can see me now oh my God yeah so I got to be the boy on the corner like I I didn't like finally what what was the rest of look did you have the long hair did you have piercing I tried the long hair and that didn't I did not like that I don't like the feeling of that on my neck so I shaved it down I ended up uh bicking it and yeah I took it down bald for the most part I tried the long hair for a while but I that's too for you too icky for me too much work did you have any big notable cases in Narcotics um I think my best one that I'm proud of is the um conspiracy to commit murder case um I had a informant that called me on a weekend and uh told me that they were hanging out doing some drugs and with a guy and his girlfriend and he said they were talking about murdering their source and they're actually going to go through with it man he was really adamant he goes they they were hollowing out potatoes to use as silencers and I said well I guess yeah maybe I've seen that on TV once before but from what you're telling me we can't ignore this so that's I'm going to come in and we're going to make some phone calls so we made some control phone calls and confirmed this guy's telling the truth that these this this is an actionable thing so we get with supervision we start working the case um I end up getting some buys into the house using the CI and uh in the mean time does somebody warn the other guy not yet not yet cuz we ended up we ended up getting charges on him because he delivered one time uh during our surveillance and we ended up getting charges on him and uh got PC for the apartment they were living in over in High Point we end up hitting the house um arresting them and uh found the potatoes they still had them they had two potatoes out potato supressors in evidence and then admitted it and they both they're both in prison right now for oh wow yeah it was a good case what what if they were like I was just going to make some fries no they I think I think the girlfriend ended up being the best source on that cuz she pled first and uh I think she wanted to dry up and and sober up so she ended up pleading and putting the boyfriend in so because his case took a long time to come through um I would have had to test the potato suppressor that's what I like would that work curious now would that work have to search YouTube I'm sure I'm sure it's on YouTube somewhere they found around and apparently like anything that sort of can contain the gases can can dampen the sound I mean it's not it's not going to be a silencer it's going to be a suppressor but you know yeah like you can make a contra paper I think I'm sure it can still be a Leal shot you're just not going to be able to be accurate very far right wow but yeah that was a that was a good case that's weird what uh and K9 was next for you K9 was next so how where did cuz that's it is a specialty but it's a big commitment yeah a really big uh commitment so how did you what Drew your interest to Canine well I had moved I had been working in the Tactical Unit which is our evening at that time narcotics was evenings and day shift day shift which is our strategic was dayshift so I moved over about a year before I went to K9 to strategic um and was learning about that working with some of the uh the old-timers that had I was trying to absorb as much as I can from them but when the opening came up so I was still growing in the narcotics world but when canine came up uh it was one of those things where I recognized that when you get older you're not may not be able to do as well or or have the longevity in that career so and it was another thing I grew up again with my dad hunting pheasants and all that stuff so I grew up with dogs and uh really enjoyed that part of uh the relationship between between Handler and dog and so I was like you know even though I'm happy here in Narcotics these positions don't come up that much and I am now I'm in my 30s I better jump on this while I can and uh so I ended up trying out and I got the spot nice um and it fit me like a glove that was that was more of my forte than anything else that uh I have done that that world is was uh love love it what was the I what was the thing about it that the adrenaline the adrenaline that that you get on a track the the rush you get out of that there's just nothing compares to it you're really paralleling with the things that Matt said same thing yeah I mean and you know you're you're like the closer finally yeah exactly right and that's that's exactly the way I approached my K9 career is I related it a lot of times to my baseball career if you hand the ball over to me you know the ball you I got to close this stuff out and Coach even though even though and you know even though that in law enforcement once K9 gets called in you may have already kind of you're losing the game we've already lost our bad guy you we can't find him so you're saving the game in that respect cuz you would if without the dog we ain't find them you know until the eagle got all their equipment right now now got share the glory a lot of times but back then when they didn't have their fancy camera we had to deuce the dogs now they're able to they're able to find them themselves a lot of times right yeah did you have any notable catches I mean I'm sure you had a lot of notable catches but any any stand out yeah I I mean I think the biggest one um as far as that's the thing about notable if you talk to a can9 Handler who you could have a minor misdemeanor and it be a fabulous track where everything just works out you track for miles and you've really worked it really good and and you really feel real proud about that but the charge is battery or something like that petty theft right and that could be your best catch you know but then you get a murder suspect that you know you may not have used all your tools in your bag but that's the big one you know and that one was rewarding I did get the uh from what I understand it was a long Manhunt that penel county has had um homicide suspect that uh stabbed his Source a drug Source in Ridgemore oh that's right the um the Publix's parking lot yeah okay yeah um that one uh he ended up uh we ended up sitting on him I think one our tack unit was on his mother's house um and they ended up spotting him his mom trying to get him out of the neighbor out of the area and he took off running through the uh John Chestnut Park um unfortunately for everybody else in the unit I happened to be off that day and I was in a movie and uh my sergeant at the time Randy corlette uh was calling me because he was calling everybody out because we're we got the whole uh John Chestnut locked down now in the whole area around multiple units on it and everybody's been out there for hours and they're searching everything and uh you're sitting comfortably in the air conditioning AC movie theater what movie my it was it was I think it was sniper wasn't yeah American Sniper American Sniper yeah American Sniper that was a good one so uh yeah so it got got my juices once I the movie ended and I had it on on silent and in my pocket and I didn't realize I was getting a phone call so the movie ended and I turn my check my phone and I see uh oh sge called me several times um so he I get he I get him on the phone he goes I need you to go home get your dog come out to John Chestnut B we've been out here for 12 hours looking for this guy and uh come on out here everybody's coming in okay so I get there and I link up with uh another Handler we take a little section of the park and I'm with him as backup and uh we basically said now Park's clear we definitely isn't in here he's got to be in the neighbor neighborhood neighboring it m so put together a game plan and we decide to everybody gets a little piece with their dog and we're going to break this down to section by section and clear everything and I my section I ended up working my dog and I fortunately got a track um where the guy was trying to break perimeter but we had a perimeter car out there uh that kept him from jumping a wall and getting out um and we track him to a uh a screened in inclosure um and I did at this time I didn't see him but my dog's alerting to the enclosure and we I I I jump in I peer through the doggy door there's a doggy door there and I can see him now he the guy's inside there um trying to pull on the glider to get in the house and so I send the dog in and I'm already on my knees so I go through the doggy door with him instead of trying to bust the door cuz it was locked how do you get through with your gear on I don't know I just pushed right through adrenaline yeah I don't know how we got through it but we got through it and then uh uh we ended up taking him down what was your dog's name chief chief that's so I had I had two do I work uh Valor and chief but Chief was the one I had on that one yeah was was the house occupied when the guy was breaking in actually was had a single elderly fing uh female in there oh that would have been bad that would have been bad if we if we could pinpoint that house or had had he been able to make access that would have been a tough one to to deal with and who knows what he would have been capable of doing so D bam that was rewarding but it was unfortunate for everybody else they're out there sweating you're all fresh you come in save the day yeah I think I might have been out there for a half hour damn just lucky on that slept through most of it and then show up and save the day yeah so your first your first dog was Balor you said how long did you work I work him for seven years was he straight German or yeah pure German Shepherd yeah um very very very good dog uh won field trials with him uh in the novice competition um he was he was a he was a great dog great dog um the um my second dog chief he he had a little he had some quirks to him uh wasn't at he's extremely driven just as high drive and when he was focused he very very good but he kind of quirky kind of weird dog he's still at home he loves he's been enjoying the retirement in life for a long time about 13 now wow still going that's great still going yeah yeah any other notable canine calls or so we we had a call where uh the guy had ran deputy had already got hurt I think he pulled his ACL or something he was on the front yard when I got there uh in pain and I started tracking the suspect and I get a couple houses in and is jumping a fence while I'm at the very peak of a wooden stock a fence and it busts totally out from under me well somehow the dog was on the other side Chief was on the other side and spun me to a way where I came down straight vertical and landed flat on my head and uh when I hit the ground I knew I I was like I I just was very confident I my necks broke and I kind of just supported my forehead into the dirt there and uh got on radio to let them know that I broke I think I said an explicit on radio broke my neck understandable yeah and uh dog was out running around in the backyard fortunately the fence was closed so um ended up getting secured and uh fortunately it was a really really bad D's brain but not broken but that that must been terrifying that moment line that moment that moment line being as physical of a careers and life that I had to lay there that moment and think my life has changed and I I was convinced that I'll never be able to live life like I have and it was a it was an eye opener that one was an eye opener and uh I was very very blessed in that one too very fortunate that it did not break the doctors thought that it was broke the when I had a follow-up appointment so the hospital cleared me and said no break I went to The Specialist the next day and uh they got the images and sent me home then they as soon as I got home they called me and said come back we think your next's broke so I come back and they take a deeper look and by that time they realize okay no it don't look like it's broke so they put me through totally like I'm good no just kidding yeah but the whole time you know I'm moving my toes and all that stuff I'm walking I mean in a lot of pain but right it's broke maybe it'll heal it's almost like we needed you here for another reason somay right something maybe yeah um with your dogs they they're Patrol certified and then they're usually bomb or narcotics certified what about Valor and chief both mine were narcotics that's that would would guess I was curious both mine were narcotics yeah did you get to do any good busts with them or I'm not sure what that I had one that was one fun one in a search warrant that actually our marine unit did on a house um there was dope hidden in a uh foosball table in the house and they had already served the search warrant they went through everything they I mean they had the VHS tapes pulled out and I mean they really did a detailed search but this guy had his Coke hit up in the Foosball container and you know they'd never found that but fortunately even after all the contamination of of people in there uh Chief ended up going in and we ended up alerting to that foosball table and uh I don't know how they got if they busted the Foosball table or what or if they just searched it a little more with detail but we ended up getting a good quantity of of dope out of that for a guy that was getting away with it he this guy lived on the water and that's I was like Marine unit like was it on an island I think it started how what I understood how it started is they they responded to a report of marijuana odor around this property and uh when they showed up they could smell it that's the way I understand the PC and then uh from the boat dock or whatever they had and then they couldn't find any dope so un fortunately again the use of a canine they're indispensable they they're a wonderful tool for law enforcement mhm so did you say it was cocaine though that was in there yeah even though it was Marana smell cocaine is what we found cuz generally they they alert to marijuana cocaine and oh I think there's heroin methampetamine yeah now we've we've erased marijuana yeah I remember Matt telling me that before and for our studio audience um the dogs don't talk so they can't tell us exactly what they're smelling so with with the amount of marijuana and stuff that's out there uh they don't train them on um on those anymore that a lot of people didn't think about and probably still don't think about until just now uh is that you know dogs don't talk take no they don't they I'm sorry Laura to disappoint you Santa's not real either but um well that goes back to I probably should have picked a dog animal character for my favorite friend oh we've totally forgot to do that oh yeah no not yet okay you may have forgotten so far you say you're saving up a good one no I don't know I forgot to um so then you um at some point you make the S you take the Sergeant's test cuz you are interested in well stressing yourself out more no you know like I say uh K9 was home for me I really was comfortable I had a good position being a Corporal in the unit but um I thought it was time for me to step up and it was I'm a senior guy now you know and it was like you know you somebody needs to feel these roles and you better it's time for you to step up so even though it wasn't my first uh it wasn't a career goal to be promoted um because I was enjoying the job itself but we do need supervisors in the right spot so uh there comes a time where you think big picture and then new challenges so went that route and took the test and got promoted do you and the sheriff called you sheriff called me you weren't watching a movie or anything no no you answer the phone I answered the phone and uh yeah that's always risky with all these spam calls that going on that you never know what not because I try not to answer something that the name don't pop up you know but got to have Sheriff's number save yeah you got to put them in there yeah that's smart yeah I don't so I don't do the accidental butt dials plus he's not going to call me exactly he's not call I have butt dialed him a couple times like in the middle of doing like a text or whatever and then something happens and yeah and then I hang up immediately yeah and then throw my phone you know what that didn't happen what do you mean um so you didn't you didn't become sergeant of K9 though correct no no uh I knew that there was a risk that you know um there's a chance I was going to have to leave and the I know the rule of thought is you know you don't want to supervise your peers you you want to break a time there I understood that and I was always hoping that I would go back within a couple years I didn't want it to be a lot of years I just figured I'd go go back eventually um but for some reason Mike Killian don't want to leave the job I don't know if it's because it's that fun I'm not sure what I but he's uh he's stuck around and uh so I'm finding other avenues yeah so where'd you start as sergeant uh Patrol so I I uh left I went to Dun Eden first okay uh did a dayshift run in dun Eden and it's got to be a little exciting it's different because I had I had worked midnights for 18 years you know or for for a long time at that time probably 14 work on your tan again yeah yeah yeah so big difference being around all the cars on the road and uh dealing with traffic crashes things you don't have to deal with in canine you know so yeah that was different kind of a different not really the team aspect right you're more like the coach and that's yeah that's that's where you're now you're starting to evaluate people more as who who needs the coaching and who doesn't and uh so it's a different different perspective and you know that that's another again another part of the learning experience that uh I was looking for new challenges because I never had to I do it within my unit different guys you know and get a perspective and see how you can help them but now I'm going into Patrol setting that and I ain't been to patrol right my whole career a lot not just about you know they you know here I don't know how to feel out a CRA a traffic crash which I would say is pretty unique cuz even when you were talking about you know being a basically brand new Deputy being able to jump into SW that doesn't happen today right you know so it's just a different time um but that had to be some culture shock because you also I mean you had some pretty fun assignments yeah so you probably felt like you were never and and what's hard about until then you're wondering what exactly is my job I hope I'm I'm hope I'm getting this all done because there is no there is no book that says this is your job you know really there's uh all common sense and uh agency need what what is this unit need right now you try to handle that hopefully the sheriff's not calling you and you're trying to just make sure did that Deputy check all the boxes and do what he was supposed to do on that call and right uh yeah so that was interesting to to go back into Patrol because there was a lot to and then everything had changed we had laptops now we you know even though I had that stuff in K9 we didn't use any of those softwares you know I was just learning a bunch of stuff yeah yeah and then I didn't know nobody really you know dayshift especially mhm we didn't we had at that time we had some rotations of dayshift that would go through but I didn't see many of the day shift employees around here so yeah you're not yeah I'm on nights and I'm with the dog so it was getting to know a whole lot of new people too but that made a lot of years go by fast you know because you're it's all brand new I would imagine so um so you that was so you I think you made Sergeant 18 yeah I think so then now you're at the airport yeah which is a um a whole different people I I mean I imagine you'll say this too but everybody I know that's ever gone to the airport is like I have no idea what they do at the airport like there there's a lot to it yeah um so how did you how did you land out there that's that was an opening that was posted right it was posted I didn't mean to do that by the way but well I was looking for I I was working uh the fto an fto squad on midnights and uh just being in the car is for a 12-hour shift and my eyes I'm getting older so my eyes I'm starting to wear glasses and trying to to see things at night and look at the computer and be able to see the computer and then tick your eye up from that and see around Vision was starting to be a little bit of a issue and struggle so I'm like you know what I need to change and I always enjoyed that team aspect I I enjoy special ops I enjoy those uh those units so I wanted something different um and I was looking for anything different really I just I just wanted to change and when this job came up it sat in the queue for a while and I'm like oh that's not not I'm not interested in that I've never even thought about airport um but as I'm thinking about it I'm like I don't know when anything else is ever going to come up and there's only for a sergeant there's only so many options you know and like I really want to change let me just call the sergeant out there uh Lieutenant Kendon now and uh see what the job's about and learn about it a little bit see if it's something and uh he sold me on it said yeah you're going to love it and it's a good job and there's this and that and I said you know what why not he goes but the posting has to be in tonight you got to put your memo in tonight because they're looking at everything tomorrow I'm like that's a rough one so I talked to my wife and I said you what do you think it's going to be a change because I'm going for midnights I've been on midnights for 18 years now what do we you know am I going to go to day shift and let's see what this is MHM well if you're you want to change go for it so yeah fortunately I got it you've been having fun out there yeah I mean it I tell you what I'm used to being bit by bugs and sweating all the time out and outside and in the car and I'm in the AC now I got a desk I've never had a desk before that's kind of cool yeah so um so the airport unit obviously is out at St Pete clearer International and um the unit is kind of it's responsible for security you guys work hand inand with TSA but you're responsible for you're the police force on the airport property so any law enforcement matters that come up there that's right um anything else outside of that really CU you don't have um the jail perimeter anymore right they split that off yeah it's just the airport and what's interesting about it is for my position uh and even the deputies that are assigned out there um you have to work with in conjunction with TSA with the legent with the airport operation staff and you're working as a uh the public relations Deputy as well so there's so much There community policing aspect to it yeah um and we look at it as a contract city um it's just own little small contract City and it there's a lot of variables that go into service in it right and um I don't know if a lot of our other jobs have that you know you're a cop all the time it's definitely unique it is yeah and the AC's on all the time which what are are some of the things that y'all deal with out there what are what's the routine things we'll deal with a lot of uh uh unruly passengers uh they get on a plane legent don't like if they're intoxicated or if they're causing a problem on aircraft we'll have to go on and remove them um we deal with a lot of the transients from Safe Harbor will try to make that their Safe Harbor at times so they'll come over and try to spend the night in the terminal or around the property and we have to locate them and deal with them them MH um we dealt with I dealt with one in Patrol that was an interesting deal that they called the the patrol supervisor I had Squad 2 so I ended up being asked to come over there they we had a guy that was going through a mental episode and he was in crisis he had his six-month old baby that he had been from Plant City or Lakeland he had driven all around town all day he hadn't slept for two or three days his wife was calling saying that he's got the baby and there's big bolo out for him he went to Tampa Airport first somehow decided to come over to Clear Water St Pete and he was holding his child but had thought that everybody was out to get him that there was snipers over here and we were all conspiring to get him and hurt him and uh that was one that again on that type of property somehow everybody that that's having an issue is drawn to an airport it's seems like and this is one of them that fortunately we were able to work with his family to get people to us and get some trust and remove the baby but there was a fine line there where we were putting together a game plan to try to remove that baby physically if we had to without trying to hurt anybody but a very last case scenario but to have to plan plan for all that stuff in an environment like that fortunately the air airport was closed at the time but yeah we'll do with we'll deal with those those type of issues people at the checkpoints that forget their guns and they just it's amazing to me how many people don't know where their guns are and they find it in their left pocket and they didn't know it was there that's a that's a whole phenomenon that I just can't wrap my head around I don't I don't get that one but that happens quite often too and now technically you can be arrested for that right yeah but do I mean you know we again every scenario is different every scenario is different if we do an interview and we see that this was just a a lapse in judgment and uh a mistake and they're legitimately idiots then they might not get charged then we don't you know we'll we'll deal with that on a case-by Case basis again I don't the airport doesn't want us to uh go out there and try to seek law enforcement action on everybody we try we try to make sure that people can move in in a safe way and uh get their trips in and out and keep it safe were were you you haven't been out there about a year that's over since uh I think October November okay last year so six months the last real bit of excitement out there it's been a minute was when that uh the guy crashed the gates and ended up on the C130 somehow yeah that was just before I came out I was just impressed I just thought it was impressive like wild yeah yeah slow clap I mean it's amazing yeah the airport's got plans to fix all that out there they got plans for their Gates and all that stuff to be reinforced that's one thing that they have done TSA has mandated a lot uh but airport operations out there they they take their security seriously they're really uh on top of that and uh yeah it's it's a good place to be so you your security for everything that's on the airport ground like the Coast Guard Station the flight school the private hangers anything that happens out anywhere on the property yeah and it's amazing I didn't realize just how much property they actually have a lot the street as well and those parking lots and different areas over there in the uh Industrial Area um and then everything out by The Landings their hanger and everything around there how many deputies do you have I got 12 okay two corporals and 10 deputies and then any given time how many are on two we need two on site at all times for our contract but I'll have you know there's six work in each shift and uh you know I may I may have four or five on at a time certain times of the day right but we got 24hour coverage and uh we work three shifts 12 hours I work uh eight hour shifts five days a week yeah because my my main thing is to stay in contact with the administration and and be their go-to if they need anything and then we pass it down line now imagine the Coast Guard they have some security folks as well or they got they got their they got security I don't they don't have like any kind of law enforcement that's you guys dis us yeah yeah we handle anything they need up there um which since I've been out there they haven't had much right well they're they're like we also have J out there we're not you know not messing around got grew up with gangs not playing oh it's good stuff all right well let's um let's talk about the incident last year um yeah and and kind of head to towards wrapping it up cuz I know you're you're tired of talking about but we got to talk about it because we talked about it with Matt and we definitely want to hear uh your version of it that we can pull out of you compared to what you what's already out there so you uh have obviously Kine background so you hear the call come out you're working Squad 2 right yeah you hear the call come out and like why not Yeah well yeah the uh I was listening to the call develop and it got to a point where uh it seemed like we're getting a little thin on Personnel because the guy kept getting seen place after place and I'm like all right this perimeter is getting wider and wider um and we need we might need some more bodies down there so I decided to go down there just to make sure that uh you know if I can plug a hole somewhere then I'll come and help with perimeter and then by time I got down that direction we had a fresh sighting and he went into the woods so on being that fact that he went into the woods and it was still daylight there's a good chance he's going to stay in the woods and when Matt gets deployed get gets there and gets on uh scene he's going to find him in the woods he's going to need another pair of hands to go 1015 so um I asked Matt if I if he wanted me to run with him and uh he said yeah fortunately yeah best decision he ever made yeah yeah that was that worked out good there was divine intervention in on this all the way down the line you know so very blessed that day had you worked with Matt and taco before oh yeah yeah when he came into the unit I think I was in there for five or six years before he came in and uh when he came in he was assigned to my squad and I worked with him a lot um getting him used to working a dog and uh gave him as much advice as I could and he took to it like you he took to it like a duck to water so so you had worked with him in bosow though right had you ever tracked with Taco before never tracked with Taco before so that was a new dog for him I was already out of Patrol they were totally different yeah that was a that was a hardship on this one cuz I I had talked to him about some of the struggles he was having in developing taco and he had to change his leash size he had to work him a little different because bosow was a Tracker he NOS down and would run hard and he'd stick to tracks true very good tracking dog um but Matt had to let him work at his pace and he had to go at his Pace you know and and and work him with Taco being that he had a lot Mal in him he head up lot more Visual and uh to because he was more Visual and his head was up he would cast more and if he was casting more he had to use a longer line yeah instead of the 9 foot lead she went to a 12 or or 15 foot lead cast yeah casting meaning he would bracket odor uh left and right instead of head down working ground OD grabbing like a waft or something so he would go how the dogs Trail basically they're going to go to the outside of the odor realize it's not there and then turn back into the inside of the so there's a lot more serpentining than straight tracking so being that this was the first call I had ever been on with him and I knew that this was some of who we've had the conversations I knew why he was working with a long lead I knew some of the you know what he was doing with taco and we let him work at his pace and as he's tracking through the woods my job is to basically make sure he stays alive I'm looking left and right back and forth anywhere he's not now I'm not trying to watch his dog or what he what he's doing I'm trying to look for danger areas cuz he's watching his dog right so we get through the woods and as we're at the back of the houses I'm thinking darn it he's not in the woods he was supposed to be here now we guess we're going into the neighborhood and anytime that we track out of neighborhoods percentage of success kind of goes down a little bit because who knows now they hit hard pavement they can go a long way real fast contamination yeah so there's a whole lot of other stuff that goes into play but I can tell by check in Taco that we're going into these houses now I look at the Treetops and the wind is swirling all over the place so there is no way of telling when he's going to alert to a hide I know he's in odor but if the guy's nearby and we can get downwind of them we'll be able to identify that pretty quick if we're downwind if we're up wind then we're going to have a harder issue identifying a hide the guy's going to have us all day long before we find him so we had no hint in to which direction we're going to be looking for our danger area um so we work around the houses and we get to this fence and uh thank God this happened uh being that it was Daylight Savings time I'm looking through the fence when Matt's in Taco is indicating that he's going to jump the fence and I'm looking at it and I'm going all right we're we're not we're on the track no doubt we're on the track but do we have to jump here cuz there is open it's open right around the other side of the fence and you don't like jumping fences if we can avoid it let's just avoid it and then but you know I'm looking at it and he's he's going to go over with the dog I'm like okay so we're going to go over but then Matt starts pulling on the ears on top of the fence MH and I'm hearing the rattling and the sharp barbs up top and I'm wearing a patrol uniform and I've been stuck in the groin many times by these sharp barbs at the top of these sounds bad and it hurts do not recommend no so as he's pulling down the ears I'm like they must be sharp cuz he's pulling them down and I'm still looking through the fence and I'm going it's open over there and I'm like his dog's already over so he's going to go over but I don't have honestly I don't think I want to have to go over this we're not that close you know cuz the dog was not indicating we're right here right I'm going to go around so as he goes over I start I start I'm going to go around and I realized as I'm cutting over I go ah darn it there is a fence there and I couldn't see it from the angle I had so now we're going to catch up so I jumped the fence and next thing you know now he's on a hard on a track MH and uh we end up running across that idiot and and that was a huge thing too that there was that distance and that pause because otherwise you'd have been ran in the corner together yeah yeah there was uh that there was just enough distance that one I had something to try to get behind otherwise if I had one more foot forward I would have and he would have known you were there heily when you the fir you had Matt already been shot when you came around the corner no no he hadn't been shot yet uh so I the first thing when he identifies and challenges the subject um I see an extended arm I from elbow out uh from the corner of the building and he shoots right right right when I identified uh the gun it's right there he he shoots three times I'm trying to unholster at a full Sprint and he turns to me before I'm able to break leather and I'm like okay I got to get off the tracks here cuz I'm he's he's got me I'm behind the you already running just to get to assist Matt W with the challenge and then said oh that's a gun and like that's all happens happening simultaneously right right so I'm Matt I'm running running to Matt and I hear him challenged I see him challenged toward the corner of the house so my eyes go to the corner of the house and that's when I see the arm extended with the gun immediately shots Barrel at me I can't break leather fast enough the only thing I can do is get off the track so I bail left fortunately I didn't land on anything I got got behind something but um again as soon as I hit the ground that was one you you've had all the decisions you're going to make the fight's coming mhm so fortunately for us we didn't know it at time I didn't know at the time but Taco did everything that he so I'm assuming that the bad guy Zion thought that he uh had not had shot me that's my guess that I was he actually did get some shots off your he got three up off at me yeah um but I'm assuming that he CU when I came back up his eyes weren't trained on me he was F focused on taco and when Matt and I played back that the video to watch it together we noticed that he's digging in his right pocket and that's what we realized later that that's where that other 380 was so he was getting that second gun out to shoot taco and uh thought that I was out of the picture and uh fortunately I think my body camera didn't catch it it would have been cool if it did but I think Taco knocked that gun out of his hand at the same time not only did he bite him but I think Taco knocked a gun out of his hand okay so the gun was on the the the second gun was on the ground well first gun the first gun the gun he shot Matt with was right where he shot Matt oh and then there was the other gun where Taco engaged yeah that's what we when we replayed it to to look at it together that's it was cuz when officers started getting into the backyard um I pointed to it and said secure that and and pointed to where the gun was and that's where the gun was I didn't notice the 380 but I did notice that he was out of the out of the game so I didn't have to worry about that 380 at that you so you get uh so you get up and you see that he's distracted he's distracted by so you had gotten your gun out that point yeah when you jump to the side yeah so then you just took care as soon as I hit the ground I was able to break leather and and come back up and my thought at the time was I knew I had to take High shots so I the first couple two shots I to I took five shots total hit him three times the first two were upper Mass shots but I'm still at a distance now and I wanted to make sure I continued to pressure him I didn't want to give him a chance to think he's up and I from what I can tell from the post uh photos in autopsy at least one of the two that I shot hit him Center hit her upper mass and then the other ones were head shots um and but I had to close the gap to create the accuracy that I needed uh and to keep the pressure I wanted to just load him full of pressure so that he couldn't turn toward me that's a nice way to say bullets I like it very PR of you yeah well that that was the thought process just just apply all the pressure he's done he's done thinking he's done deciding he's done acting and we're going to just overload him and uh and finish this and you said you needed to keep the shots high was that because you were thinking taco or yeah yeah definitely cuz I mean he's on a bite he could he could jump he can do all kind the dog the the guy can move him you know so so even in that adrenaline even in that that crazy moment you're thinking I'm going to try my best to not shoot taco and just take the guy out yes that's incredible yeah that's uh that I mean the site picture is what it is and you know that I have a Target it it don't you know as long as I got again back to the fundamentals and training is long as I got a good foundation and and my structure is good my my shots should be accurate so um and the bottom line is pressure pressure pressure I wanted it to be on him I didn't want him to have to make a be able to think so successful yeah mission accomplished and I just you know the job that taco did and the training that this agency does for uh working with these dogs under gunfire that was huge that I don't know if a lot of people appreciate Taco had three six shots fired over top of his head and and the initial contact with the bad guy and then he has five shots over top his head from me mhm and the fact that he was was able to that bite and to do his thing he could easily come off of that bite and come after me if he was gun aggressive if if the gunshots told him sight picture-wise that's my bad guy now and this guy's no longer so much fun because like that's a threat so but fortunately he stayed on him and allowed he stayed on him for a while yeah he didn't he that was a that was another thing that Matt told me later cuz I we used to when I was in the unit every dog in the unit was switched to English oh and we used the command out to get him to release mhm so I didn't know Matt had kept him in German and uh so he didn't understand a word I was saying not that he would have done it anyway mhm underneath all those all the gunfire and bad guys in Blood and all that stuff he wasn't going to release that bite the Dogs release easy in training right yeah really easy training different in the real world it's a little different yeah so and I think I think that's just it I mean with a training piece everything just went absolutely perfectly and you know had you ever pulled your gun have you ever you ever shot anybody before no never had to go through those motions and it just happened no had a lot of had a lot of possibilities a lot of people that checked the box over the years there's the people that check the boxes but there's never been that time where I had to make that final judgment there was one in Patrol that uh I went to then assisted I was in canine at the time but I help Patrol uh guy was barricaded in a house on a domestic and the girlfriend was out out of the house but we had to go in and get him and we went in to get him I found him in the bedroom he was holding a fake gun at that we didn't know at the time but he was laying in his bed and I started challenging from the doorway and he's yelling at me to kill him yelling at me to shoot him and uh and came up with the gun to his chin and with his demeanor and his threats and with what I'm looking to be a gun and right there it was so close but in that particular situation it's something about just told me I got a little bit more time one I had a decent position to cover I was in a door jam but it was decent position and I thought I still have a second and I was able to downgrade the situation talk it down and uh ended up getting him to give up but I at that situation I was waiting for my back up behind me to engage him because he a different call done everything but for me it seemed like I still had a half a second to handled this a little bit different and fortunately it went went safe so that's that's a thing that happens unfortunately kind of regularly know like where suop by cop people just and you know they'll try to do whatever to make it situation but we we avoid that and sometimes yeah sometimes you can't you know you it's you or me and sometimes it's an unavoidable situation and if but I love the fact that we do the CIT training um which crisis training that just understanding mental health in that sometimes people in crisis if you may be able if you can recognize it you may be able to not have a bad situation cuz you know some people you you're going to have to have that situation and deal with it in in a lethal way it's nothing we hope for you don't want to ever have to live with you know live with that I got no problem with this situation this was a situation that was just unavoidable but I would never I wouldn't want to have a to have to live with a situation I had a second guess you know that that's hard there's no second guess on this one I think no this one's new this one's brand new I think there's a perception sometimes especially when we're talking about things like oh man I want that foot pursuit like I want that I want that adrenaline that sometimes people think that law enforcement really wants to have to take somebody out like they're just waiting for that day and that's just not that's not the case nobody want to go home that's exactly Last Resort like don't please don't make me have to do it but I will have to do it if it comes to it which was this situation and there there's a whole lot of fun in this job but the bottom line is the the reward comes from being able to do good we don't there don't people they come into this job with ill will there there so many other avenues to go in life if you have that motivation this is a profession that has its rewards because it you it's fun but the big picture is you're doing right you're doing good for people you know that's the hope is that and fortunately for me that's what I tried to preach in the fto program is the sheriff allows us a level of discretion and we're out there making decisions on the street firsthand we have the information deputies need to utilize the discretion in certain IND in certain cases so that you can do a good job for these people and that's what the reward is you know and there's nothing better go home and go made a difference in that person's life and it could have went differently with a different decision maker you know so well you got to put it all together with life experience and things and which is something that we we talk about frequently with you know the new generation of deputies and things coming in like it's just important and it's not their fault they don't have it right it's just you're going to get a different outcome sometimes we have so many standards to get the job that sometimes it only allows us to hire people with no life experience when if we hired people that maybe have had some trouble in the past they got a better life TR as a good teacher trouble as a good teacher for sure I like there's always alternate ways of handling things like even in in little situations like the guy that you couldn't get to fold his legs to put in the back of the car right yeah that was a good one yeah so that that particular one it just it's just different ways of uh thinking outside the box of how to handle things uh I had a guy was a really aggravating guy he was drunk and a angry at the world and he wouldn't get in the car wouldn't get in the back of the car and there was ways to handle it we can force him in we could strike him we could tase him we can do all kinds of things that you're well within regulation yeah you he checked all the boxes we can make this decision and be okay with it or this particular situation I I thought the guy was uh so adver he just so ridiculous he wouldn't get in the car I just kind of I gave him a little Gucci Gucci goo in the ribs like I was like get get in the car buddy he's yelling at me yelling at me I'm like and he folded no he folded just enough that I was able to just pulled him into the car because he had to he had to give me that little Kink what what level use of force is that oh yeah you have to do a blue team on tickling oh my goodness gent for that afterwards like are you you serious man or anything like that are you serious I just tickled you in the compliance I can't remember him responded to it but it it was definitely a different tact that we don't teach in the academy yeah got think I love it got just about tickling distraction dist tick tickle T tickle tactics tickle tactic say that five yeah yeah it was uh well Jake we really appreciate you uh coming talking to us and you know what you did was unbelievable on many FRS not only leading up to it but uh afterwards coordinate everything I mean just and it is truly like you're nobody's going to ever argue to me that things don't happen for a reason because you can we listen to Matt's story and and uh how he came to how how we ended up here we listen to your story how you ended up here and there's a reason you guys both ended up there at the same time and uh yeah I I I don't even want to know what's next but you guys are you're at for a reason and and you're going to do great things so um we appreciate you coming on I know you and Matt are going around and debriefing on the situation kind of doing these like trainings and other areas um and this may be something that we start to include in the podcast if we want but do you have any words of advice for people that are in law enforcement is there not it could be a brand new Deputy it could be a seasoned deputy just is there some type of Word of Wisdom that you would pass on um yeah make it make it personal make sure that everybody you're dealing with um that you say that if you're if this was a family member of mine what how would I deal with this what would I say to them um and understand that uh you have discretion and the scenario the people make the laws and they pass this stuff down and they try to cover everything but it doesn't pertain to every different scenario and the just because it says something in black and white and just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do something and that's the big thing that I tried to preach in the fto thing in anybody that have kind just because you can don't mean you should look at the scenario make it you're a human being just like everybody else you're dealing with them in their worse days their bad days and uh how can we best serve this sometimes it means we got to use physical force and make something happen because you know that's just what the job calls for and sometimes we can talk with an individual and rationalize with them and apply the law effectively that way so uh if I would say the biggest advice is just because you can do something doesn't mean you should I like that the last thing we kind of always give everybody an opportunity to do is you know what is something that you can share with the public to make your job easier generally your current assignment but if it's a general law enforcement thing that's fine too um but just don't say you know leave your guns at home and don't bring them to the airport uh cuz we we already covered that and don't leave your guns at unlock cars or in your car ever at all at all and and maybe and maybe not um don't come out to see what's going on with the helicopters right over there's lots of things you can't say I'm so sorry you can say anything but those things but is there anything that we can that that you want to share with the public that would help make your job easier I would I would say and it's probably already been said too but I mean if you see something say something that's a big one just give us we only can see so much and we can only respond with what we know and um if you don't speculate as to what you think and all that stuff tell us what you've seen and we can we can respond to it that way but if you don't pick up the phone or if you don't stop somebody and let them know and you don't be afraid to approach a cop and give them give them information what's going on in your neighborhood you know if you can just casually a lot of people say thank you for your you know your day whatever yeah and if you get a right setting and you can say hey just so you know this house I'm seeing this or this person that goes a long way for someone that's working in an area that may not have had that information so again I I would just say and it's probably been said but it's important if you see something say something perfect thanks a lot Jake we appreciate you coming on thank you thank you Laura if someone wants to stay in touch with us or give us feedback about the podcast how could they possibly do that we really hope they do because we love feedback we we also um would like to have some insight into who other other people we should invite on the show yeah yeah so definitely tell us that too but anyway you can contact us at let's 56 PCS onet.com that's LS 56 PCS onet.com and and for you youngsters out there that are on the Instagram 56 podcast with 56 spelled out 56 podcast on Instagram and uh you can stay in touch with us there as well exclusive content sometimes so thanks everybody for listening [Music]