Life Beyond the Cyber Tips: Detective Pete Deates

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hi, I'm Alicia Kozak, and this is the Alicia Kozak Podcast.
Thank you so much for being here. When I was 13,
I was lured from my home by an online predator.
I was kidnapped and held captive while the world searched
for me. The man who kidnapped me, he livestreamed himself
abusing me, and someone who was watching that recognized the
little girl who was on their screen as the girl

(00:26):
on the missing poster, and they called law enforcement. They
were able to track down the house where I was
being held, cut the chain from around my neck, and
set me free. They saved me. And that's why I'm
sitting here today. Well, that's why I'm alive. The reason
I'm sitting here on this podcast is because that wasn't

(00:47):
where my story ended. I started speaking out about what
happened to me when I was 14. I didn't have
a choice about what he did to me, but I
did have a choice about what I did afterwards, what
I did with this. And I have spent the last
two decades doing this work on purpose with intention and
with one goal to save lives and to prevent what

(01:09):
happened to me from happening to anyone else. Now, if
you Google me, that is what you will see. And
in many ways you might say it is who I am,
but do you remember that awful little grade school insult?
If you looked up stupid in the dictionary, your picture
would be next to it or whatever mean thing you chose. Well,

(01:31):
for me, If you look up kidnapping survivor or abducted
by an online predator, my name and my face would
be right there. My story is attached to me everywhere.
It even literally auto finishes on Google. In fact, I
can remember this one time during a CNN interview where
I was commenting on a case of a kidnapped child.

(01:52):
A reporter stopped and they asked me, how do you
not let what happened to you define you? And I
remember taking a beat. Because I knew exactly what I
was supposed to say and what they expected me to say.
And I thought about it. And instead I said, it
doesn't define me. I define it. Like I said, I

(02:12):
didn't choose what he did to me. I didn't choose
to be a high-profile news story afterwards. But I have
chosen every single day since to use my platform of
voice to turn it into something that protects others and
fights predatory crime. I also really believe what I tell
other survivors all the time. What happened to you is
something that happened to you, but it is not who

(02:33):
you are. And I think that's true about work too
and what we do. Yeah, what you do for a living,
it's really important, but it's not the only thing that
you are. I live in this weird in-between space where
my story and my work are a huge part of
my identity. And I'm actually okay with that. But I
am still so much more than any of those labels.

(02:56):
A lot more. One of the gifts of this podcast
has been getting to show that side of me a
little bit more. I'm here with my little stuffed animals
behind me, lots of pink and pastel. Sometimes I'm a
little bit just utterly ridiculous. I make downright silly references.
I'm like, oh my gosh, why did I say that? Nope,
leaving it in there.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
It's me.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
And it's all while I'm talking about incredibly dark, awful,
terrifying things. And it's not to make those things any less.
But it's topics like child sexual abuse, child sexual exploitation, murder,
missing people, missing kids. And all of that is so awful.
And it's so much darkness. And we have to leave

(03:41):
room for light and joy and hope. I think a
lot about the people whose jobs are built around the.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Worst things that humans do. I know a lot of them.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
Survivors often get told not to be defined by what
happened to them. I remember being told that all the time.
So when that question was asked to me, how do
you not let it be defined? It kind of took
me back because this is something that you're told. Don't
let this define you. And detectives and ICAC officers get
praised for never shutting it off. Advocates get celebrated for

(04:14):
burning themselves out. But underneath all of that is always
an actual human being. And that person, they are allowed.
They are allowed to have boundaries and to have a life.
It is okay to care deeply about what you do
and say, I need to take a breath. I need
to take a moment. Or I am so much more

(04:36):
than this role. It is okay to step away for
a moment, to protect your mental health, to be a
parent or a grandparent or a wife or a husband
or a friend, to go skydiving, to sit on the beach,
to be in a race car, or to sit in
a rocking chair and to watch your grandbaby and let
yourself just be a person. That doesn't make the work

(04:57):
less meaningful. It's what lets you keep going. Or when
the time is right, it lets you move on to
your next chapter. My guest today is someone who really
embodies that in a quiet, powerful way.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
His name is Pete Dietz. He's a retired.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
Detective from Kenosha, Wisconsin, who worked at Cat Cases for years.
And he has the sweetest electronic storage detection canine named Iris.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
Seriously, she's adorable. And she was his partner.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
I met Pete years ago when I was on a
search warrant in Wisconsin, and I got to see him
work a case in real time. What struck me wasn't
just the technical side of what he was doing. It
was the way he was moving through it. He was
so focused and excellent at his job. He was absolutely
there for the victims. He was gathering evidence to bring
justice to the offender, but he was also really grounded.

(05:47):
You could tell this.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
Was his work, but it wasn't his entire existence.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
And today? Congratulations to him. He is retired and he
is in that rocking chair. His job description now is
basically granddad. And he has given himself permission to be
in that chapter without erasing what he did before. So
as you listen to this conversation, I want you to
think a little bit about identity, about the stories you carry,

(06:15):
the work you do, and the parts of you that
exist outside of all of that. What have you lived
through that you refuse to let to find you? And
what are you choosing to build from it instead? And
what would it look like to give yourself permission when
the time comes to say, I did my job and
I did it well. And now it's time to move
on to the next chapter. Before we get into this conversation,

(06:37):
speaking of identity, if you want to connect with me,
be a part of this work and join the mission,
you can follow me at Alicia Kozak Pod on social
media and on YouTube. Please share the show with a friend,
leave a rating or review wherever you're listening. It helps
more people find these conversations and it helps us keep
building a world where we can protect kids and one another.

(06:59):
A world where survivors, families, and the people who do
this work feel less alone. Really, thank you so much
for being here. Alrighty, now let's introduce you to retired
detective Pete Dietz.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
Pete, thank you so much for joining me.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
I'm so excited to have you here and to have
our conversation. So I've shared your official title, And your,
I guess, lack thereof title since you're retired. But what
in one sentence, what did you actually do in your work?

Speaker 3 (07:33):
One sentence.

Speaker 4 (07:34):
I worked child sexual abuse material cases and, you know,
tried to work as many cases as we could and.

Speaker 3 (07:46):
Arrest as many bad guys or women that we could
in the process.

Speaker 1 (07:50):
And what does that work look like day to day?
You say that you, I heard the word tried, right?
You tried to arrest as many men. And I really
like that you mentioned women. A lot of people don't
include that. So, but what does your work, what did
it look like day to day? You get up in
the morning, you go do what?

Speaker 3 (08:13):
It's not very glorious. I'll tell you that.

Speaker 4 (08:16):
These, I guess the thing that, it's hard for people
to understand is that the, the time and effort that
goes into these cases with a lot of it's sitting
at the desk and, and writing search warrants for, you know,
different ESPs, different, different emails, different, you know, IP, whatever,

(08:43):
like just search warrant after search warrant after search warrant. And,
waiting for that information to come back to you, doing
a lot of surveillance to try to determine.

Speaker 3 (08:53):
Who our possible suspect could be.

Speaker 4 (08:56):
And not just that, but to make it, you know,
whenever we're going to do a search warrant on the house,
the ideal scenario is you know who's in there to
make it safer for us and for the people that
are there. But even past all that, looking through, you know,

(09:18):
when we go into a house, we take anything and
everything that can store images or data, you know? So
how many things you think are in a normal house,
you know, how many cell phones people typically they throw
their old phone in a drawer, you know, and we
don't know what's a good phone and what's a bad phone.
So the safe thing is you take all of them.
So there's just so much time that goes into these cases.

(09:41):
And then the even more, um, depressing thing is that
the amount of cases that we get is I haven't
talked to one investigator in all of my years of
doing it that said, Oh, we're caught up with our cases.

Speaker 3 (09:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:01):
That's actually so interesting.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
I'm going to start asking that when I speak at
conferences to law enforcement. I really want to see that reaction.
Are you caught up? Okay, you caught up. Are you
just waiting for more to come in now?

Speaker 3 (10:14):
Is it? Yeah.

Speaker 4 (10:16):
So when we talk, we ask how many, it's like,
this is the standard question. How many cases are you behind?
How many cases do you have sitting there? That's the question.
And I've heard from, you know, 30 to 60 to
thousands from different places. It just all depends on the agency,

(10:40):
how much manpower and, and money they want to, put
towards the cases because it's not a normal case. It
takes a long time and it takes a lot of
time and a lot of resources. Right.

Speaker 1 (10:56):
I think that's something that's really unclear to people. They
think that maybe a tip comes in, maybe somebody calls
you on the phone and it's like 911 emergency services
and you go and you just immediately arrest this person.
You have the evidence, ta-da, it's done. So easy. And
it's not at all. You have to do investigations and

(11:17):
plan and they take time. And I've been behind the
scenes on some of that. And it's not just getting
the officers and the manpower together. It's the mental health
person who sometime is there. It's certainly the medical team,
not just for your team, but for, like you said,
the people who are inside, but also for the person
that you're investigating who is, you're going in and exposing

(11:44):
something and their, their life has come to an end
as it was. So.

Speaker 3 (11:49):
Everybody in that house.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
Yeah. There's a bit of a crisis. Yep.

Speaker 4 (11:54):
Everybody in that house is life changes. And that's how,
when I talked to our team, you know, when we,
when we get our team together to do search warrants,
I'm like, listen, we're not sure who the suspect is
or we know who the suspect is. That makes it
obviously much easier. I said, but everybody else that you're
talking to treat them as a victim because they are

(12:14):
in a different way than we normally think of as
a victim, but they are.

Speaker 3 (12:17):
That's the truth.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
That's, that's very different than most search warrants.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
I would say, right.

Speaker 1 (12:29):
Like a drug bust, you would go in and you
would know who you're going after and, the people in
the house, you would separate them and they would be
made safe. But the, the victim aspect, I don't know
if that would really be a part of that conversation, right?

Speaker 3 (12:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (12:45):
And I believe a big reason for that is if
somebody's selling drugs out of their house, doesn't everybody in
the house.

Speaker 3 (12:53):
Probably know it? You know, I mean, it's not a secret.
They know what's going on.

Speaker 4 (12:57):
There's people come, you know, they probably are, are, you know,
whatever set, you know, uh, at their kitchen table or
their coffee table, you know, dividing it all up when
they get it so that they can sell it. And
people are coming over at all hours of the day
or the night, like everybody in that house, unless they're.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
Water white.

Speaker 3 (13:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
Like water white and breaking bad. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (13:20):
Right.

Speaker 3 (13:20):
I mean, I'm not saying that's the case every time.
I mean, sure.

Speaker 4 (13:23):
I'm sure there's some times that it's not, but. Not
only does their family, like nobody knows. And there's a
reason for that. You know, they don't, they know it's wrong.
They know it's sick. They know that, um, it's the,
it's taboo. Like if they get, I mean, that the
whole reason why, um, they say that doing a search
warrant for, for the ICAT cases are the most deadly because, um,

(13:49):
people don't want to be shamed. They don't want to
have that, that stigma or cloud over their head and
they either try to take a few cops out and
then take themselves out or just take themselves out.

Speaker 1 (14:00):
So. I was going to say, like, let's talk about that.
You say the most deadly, and I was going to
ask that if it's most deadly to law enforcement, most
deadly to the offender, most deadly or the alleged offender,
most dangerous to the people who are inside, but altogether
we're looking at something that's, that's incredibly dangerous to walk

(14:20):
into the most deadly.

Speaker 3 (14:22):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (14:24):
And, and again, I can't, you know, unfortunately, um, I
can't remember the, the year, but it was somewhere in Florida.
I think it was two FBI agents got killed or
shot going, you know, serving an ICAC warrant.

Speaker 3 (14:36):
And then when something like that happens.

Speaker 4 (14:38):
For good reasons, just like school shootings, you know, there's
all of this training now and there's, there's so much
of it. And it's the same thing with these, something,
you know, one of the things that law enforcement gets
right is when.

Speaker 3 (14:52):
Something horrible happens. we learn from it. Well, they learn
from it. You know, like you, you put different.

Speaker 4 (15:00):
In the Academy, you watch cops getting shot on traffic
stops and it's not to traumatize you. It's to, Hey,
what did they do wrong? You know, and to learn
from their, unfortunately, sometimes bad tactics. Sometimes it was perfect
tactics and things can still go wrong, but yeah, we

(15:20):
try to learn from anything that happens like that. And, and,
you know, what my world was, it's, we're going to
use the SWAT team to do these now, which, um,
sometimes I think that's like a hundred percent the way
it should go. I just thought, Hey, I don't think
we need them this time because it's, it's an older
man and an older woman, you know, like, let me

(15:42):
handle it. Let me knock on the door and talk
to them, you know, rather than, you know, the whole
house surrounded and four guys on the porch with their,
you know, said like their Ninja turtle suit stuff on
and rifles, you know, like.

Speaker 2 (15:58):
The door breaking things.

Speaker 4 (15:59):
Right.

Speaker 3 (16:00):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (16:01):
You're going to give these, these people a heart attack,
you know, like let's not use them this time. So yeah, it's,
it's not a, anytime you do a search warrant, it's
not safe. You know, you never know what you're getting into,
but yeah, these cases definitely have a different aspect to them.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
I've read along on a few search warrants and One
of the things that they had done in New Hampshire
is that they try to go in the very early
morning so that the neighbors aren't awake, that it doesn't
disrupt the neighborhood, that it happens kind of while everybody

(16:39):
is asleep, that the person who is kind of groggy,
I guess, that they're investigating and isn't so awake and
is less of a threat with that. But I found
that to be a really interesting thing that it isn't
just showing up because again, people think about what they
see on TV and what they've seen in criminal minds
and we're going to go and we're going to knock

(17:00):
on the store and then there's going to, the guy's
going to answer and we're going to chase him down
and all these things. And of course that, that has
happened and it does happen, but that's not, it's not
the goal.

Speaker 4 (17:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:12):
It's not typical.

Speaker 4 (17:13):
Yeah. And I, you know, the reason for doing early
mornings is at least from my perspective, is for the
safety reasons. You don't want the person to anticipate that
we're there. So if they're sleeping, perfect. And the other
thing that we tried doing more towards the end of
my career was let's see if we can get them

(17:34):
when they're mobile somewhere. Going to work, coming home from work,
whatever it is, let's just try to get them out
of the house. It's a lot safer. Not 100% safe,
but it's safer.

Speaker 1 (17:49):
Right. And then they're away from their family and all
of that. It does seem to alleviate some of the risk. Also,
they likely do have their phone with them. It would
be harder to hide those devices. They can't go and
hide things as easily and have access to the evidence potentially.
So I've seen that too. But the early morning, I'm

(18:11):
just like, what an alarm clock that would be. And
thing is too, these people it's yes, they may have
done it yesterday, but this is a case that you've
been investigating in a building maybe for weeks or a
month or more. And so they're not necessarily expecting this
when that happens. I feel like a lot of them like, oh,
I got away with it. I did this and this

(18:32):
and this and nobody is here. So nobody knows I
got away with it. Lucky me. And then knock, knock,
knock at four o'clock in the morning.

Speaker 4 (18:41):
Yeah, there was one guy one time I remember when
I knocked on the door, he said, what took you
guys so long? I was expecting you. And everything went
really well that day with what we, you know, he

(19:02):
was a single guy living by himself. But when you said,
you know, weeks or months, it's typically... multiple months. When
we get the cyber tip from NECMEC, a lot of
times that's very delayed, you know, and it could, it
could have happened weeks ago, but it could have happened months.

Speaker 3 (19:23):
Or a year ago.

Speaker 4 (19:25):
So the whole, the whole thing with these cases is,
is like, nothing's quick, you know, even if it happened
two weeks ago and we immediately, when we get the
cyber tip, send out warrants, emails and some get back
very quickly. Like I've gotten things back the same day,
but that sure as hell isn't the norm. You know,
sometimes you're waiting for, for weeks, if not months to

(19:48):
get that stuff back and you've, you can't do anything
until you get it back so you know in the
meantime he had 10 more cases came in it's.

Speaker 1 (19:57):
It's not open shut as people people think it is
I hear that like why I if this is so
bad and law enforcement cares so much, why don't they
just go rescue these kids? Why don't they just go
break down the doors and arrest these people? They think
of like the vigilante mentality of just like, okay, we're
going to go do this, whatever we want and surprise

(20:17):
this person.

Speaker 2 (20:19):
And it doesn't work like that.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
There's, there's rules and regulations and reasons for those things.

Speaker 4 (20:25):
Right. Well, the one thing I would say though, if,
if we knew or, or suspected, I guess we'd know
if we knew that, there was a victim, um, there,
you know, your case is a perfect example. Yeah, we would,
we would do it right. You know, those things are,
they're immediate. You're not waiting for anything. Um, but most

(20:49):
of the cases that we have, you know, we don't,
we don't know, but we have no knowledge of knowing
that somebody is being physically assaulted there at the time.

Speaker 3 (20:57):
Um, and yeah, it's just the timing.

Speaker 4 (20:59):
Most of the time we establish probable cause for a
search warrant. But then a lot of times you don't
have probable cause until you get the person and find
the CSAM on a device that we can say for
certain was that person's. So different states, I think, do
things differently. And the way that we do the cyber

(21:21):
tips now, I had some officers that were helping me
at the end when we formed a unit, and they
were a hell of a lot smarter than I am
when it comes to you know, technology. So, you know,
they would tell me, oh, this, the cyber tip was
generated from, you know, an Android phone. So we're looking

(21:41):
for that, or we're looking for a iPhone 15. And
I'm like, where did you see that? Oh, it's right
here in the, I'm like, oh, you know, I just
things that I was never taught. And I don't know
if they had that technology when I started it or not,
but yeah. So there's just a lot that goes into this.

Speaker 3 (21:56):
There's so much in it. They're just so different.

Speaker 1 (21:59):
Yeah. It's not, it's not so simple. I think the
public really tries to just put a predator label. This
is a predator. This is a pedophile. And it really
is just, okay, this is somebody who wants to have
sex with kids. And that may be the case, but
that's not the whole story by any means. Every case

(22:19):
is so different. Everything is so different. You may get
one cyber tip on one image and it leads to
real life victims, but you couldn't have known that going in.
And that's when I think the scariest things is you
don't know what you're going to find and that there's
a backlog of these cases. And like you said, sometimes thousands,

(22:41):
which is potentially real kids who are being harmed, but
you can't get to them because the funding and the
resources aren't there. And we will talk about Alicia's law
in a little bit and how it's benefited Wisconsin, but it's,
it's so heartbreaking. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (22:57):
And we, I remember a particular case. It was, um, the,
the cyber tip that I got was from, from Bing.
I went by the house a few times, like things
that I'd normally do right when I get the tip and,
and try to just see if I could identify who's
living there. But it got put on the back burner
working with one of our neighboring jurisdictions with a guy

(23:20):
that I met there. And he did a lot of
the peer to peer stuff too, along with, with getting
cyber tips. And he said, Hey, I got a case
for you if you want it. And I said, yeah,
I don't have enough, send it my way. And, uh,
he sent it as a joke, you know, he sent
me the case and the address is the same address.

Speaker 3 (23:39):
That my Bing tip is from. I'm like, wow, shit.

Speaker 4 (23:43):
Like, like, so like if it's a peer to peer
case that, that takes priority. So we did it, you know,
we set up the search warrant in a matter of
weeks or days. I don't remember exactly, but the guy
had a, a NAS, I think it's called NAS.

Speaker 3 (23:59):
It's a storage device.

Speaker 4 (24:01):
I never heard it before, but, like when our forensic
guys got it, they go, Oh my God. I'm like, what,
what's the big deal? And they're like trying to explain
to me how they do this process. And they're like,
you know, like when we do phones, it's like, it's
like filling up five gallon buckets and then having to
dump them back out, which again, that doesn't mean anything

(24:22):
to me. But he goes, this is like having dump trucks.
And I went, Oh, so there's a lot of stuff
on there. And they go, they go, Yeah, the amount
of storage is crazy. So anyways, my point of this
whole topic was maybe two weeks or three weeks after

(24:42):
we ended up arresting the guy, talking to his wife,
she's like, my niece said that he sexually assaulted her.

Speaker 3 (24:50):
So I'm like, oh boy.

Speaker 4 (24:51):
So she came in, we interviewed her, and thank God
it wasn't currently happening. And that would be like every
investigator's worst nightmare is I'd kind of thought this case
wasn't much. So it put it on the back burner
and then, you know, somebody's being victimized in there. So
luckily it was prior, but he got charged with that

(25:13):
as well.

Speaker 1 (25:15):
Wow. But it's tricky on a podcast like this because
for you to talk about how much it is, it
would be too dark for most people to handle. And
we do go into those things, but the reality of
it there's no words for it. You really can't even
explain it. The only people who can really understand it

(25:38):
are people like you who've had to, who've had to
see it. And those have had to live it.

Speaker 4 (25:45):
It's just, I guess, honestly, it doesn't seem like, and
I think any investigator would feel this way.

Speaker 3 (25:53):
Like we're not making a difference.

Speaker 4 (25:55):
You know, when I left, we still had, you know,
50 cyber tips, you know, I mean, we did, we
did very well when we formed a unit and cleared
them out, but there's just so much and it just,
there's no stopping.

Speaker 1 (26:07):
They just keep coming in. Let's go back to Pete
before all of this, Pete before retirement, let's go back
to kiddo Pete. What did you, did you want to
do this? Was this something that you knew about this
going into law enforcement, but also this particular area?

Speaker 2 (26:25):
How did you get here?

Speaker 4 (26:27):
Well, first of all, uh, I had no intentions whatsoever
of ever going into law enforcement. Um, my bachelor's degree,
I went to college to play football and I got
a degree out of it called health promotion and wellness
from UW Stevens point. So, you know, wellness in the
mid nineties, wasn't a real popular thing, you know? So

(26:51):
it was like a lot of corporate fitness and things
like that. So, um, I ended up running a health
club when I graduated college. And ultimately, a bunch of
the cops came in to the health club, and I
got to know them. And they're like, yeah, you should
be a police officer. And I'm like, I have no
interest in doing that. I was probably making more money

(27:12):
than they were at the time. And we had our
first child, and I went, ooh. I should think like
health insurance, things like that. I'm like, what's your benefits
as a cop? So ultimately I applied, they offered me
the job and it wasn't the easiest decision in the world.
We had our second child at this point. And I thought,

(27:35):
you know, I just have to make a smart decision and,
and take this job. And funny at jump ahead at
my retirement ceremony, I said, that was the smartest decision.

Speaker 3 (27:47):
I ever made.

Speaker 4 (27:48):
You know, who knows when I would have been able to,
you know, what would have happened to me career wise. And, um,
but just being able to retire at, at, you know,
an early age is that never would have happened if
I was in the private sector. So like most, most cops,
you know, when you become a police officer or when
you get hired, you, you start as a police officer,

(28:09):
you're in a, you're in a squad car. Um, I
think my, after being there a year and a half, I,
was a motorcycle cop. I got to ride a Harley.
It was fun for a while, but after a while,
it gets kind of, either it seems to be freezing
or nothing in the middle. And then I got promoted
to detective, you know, and you don't really get a choice.

(28:31):
They just put you where they put you. And I
was in our just general assignments, which is anything but
sex crimes, crimes against children or financial crimes at the time.

Speaker 3 (28:42):
And I did that for, four years.

Speaker 4 (28:47):
And then, uh, my captain asked if I wanted to
go to sensitive crimes and nobody wants to go to
sensitive crimes. But I said, is that a Monday through
Friday spot? And he said, day shift Monday through Friday.
And I said, I'll take it. You know, in primarily,
I just wanted to try to have as much of
a normal life as possible.

Speaker 3 (29:03):
And, uh, my kids were in sports and I wanted
to coach them. So that's what I did.

Speaker 4 (29:08):
And, uh, I didn't, I didn't care what cases I
was working, but that led to, um, 2019. So before 2019,
the Kenosha Police Department in Kenosha, Wisconsin, which is, I believe,
the third largest city.

Speaker 3 (29:23):
Milwaukee, Madison, and then Kenosha.

Speaker 4 (29:26):
We didn't investigate child sexual abuse material cases. And the
reason that we didn't was because of the money. We
didn't have to do them. The Wisconsin Department of Justice,
they had special agents and they were coming to the
city of Kenosha and doing our cases for us. And
my captain said, you know, I'm thinking about doing this.

(29:47):
Would you be the detective that does them? And I'm like, yeah,
somebody has got to do it, I guess.

Speaker 3 (29:52):
So sure. I'll do it.

Speaker 4 (29:54):
When, when they came down and I'm, I shit you not.
He goes, the commander goes, we, we give you these
cases with a, with a bow on top. All you
do is a search warrant and arrest the guy and you're,
and that's it.

Speaker 3 (30:07):
So you got to do.

Speaker 1 (30:09):
Oh, easy peasy. Nothing to it. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 (30:11):
I'm looking at my captain.

Speaker 1 (30:13):
They did not.

Speaker 3 (30:14):
I'll take these cases.

Speaker 4 (30:16):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (30:16):
And the other thing you get one to two a
month and yeah, they're easy. You know, they're easy.

Speaker 1 (30:21):
You were bamboozled my friend bamboozled.

Speaker 3 (30:24):
You think.

Speaker 4 (30:26):
So some of it, not his fault because the amount
of cyber tips has, has kept increasing. And I don't
think anybody could have, you know, expected the way that
they they've gone up. And from 2019 to maybe, maybe
the end of 2023, I did them all by myself.
I had, um, one of my fellow, one of my
buddies that's a detective would, would do the surveillance with,

(30:49):
you know, or, or help out on search warrants. But
as far as, um, you know, writing the reports and
building the cases.

Speaker 3 (30:57):
It was, it was me. I went to my captain
and I'm like, I can't keep up. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (31:02):
No, I need some friends, please. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (31:04):
Like this is not, this is ridiculous.

Speaker 4 (31:07):
And, um, you know, one of my captains at the
time was like, just, you know, just do what you can,
you know, I'm, but I would, my hours at work
were seven to three. Um, when I got a canine, they,
it was seven to two. And, uh, when I started
doing all these cases, you know, I usually came in
at five every day just to make sure that I

(31:28):
could get some of the, get some of my work done.
But ultimately our captains changed and the one said, well, let's,
what do you think about forming a unit?

Speaker 3 (31:38):
He thought he could. And ultimately he did. And we.

Speaker 4 (31:43):
Formed a internet crimes against children unit, which was long overdue.
It's pretty remarkable that we were able to, show the
need for it and get a four-person unit, two detectives
and two officers. Let's just say it was the end
of 2023.

Speaker 1 (32:02):
That's amazing. And what an undertaking to think that you
were the only person. I know when I first started
working on Alicia's Law, there were a lot of states
where I would say there's one person.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
I can't imagine that feeling.

Speaker 1 (32:23):
of having that weight on your shoulders all the time.
And you being like, I kind of want to have
an easy job. I just want to spend time with
my family. I want to retire early. This is great.
I just want to sit back and relax. And now
you have to be.

Speaker 2 (32:39):
The person who's taking down the.

Speaker 1 (32:43):
Worst of the worst and saving, saving kids. So you
start this, let's go to when you are an ICAC
officer and you're working on this, whether it was before
you had the team, you tell me when it was,
but I want to know what that first case rest rescue,
like what was that first win where you were like,

(33:05):
this is why I do this. And I'm really curious
with you because you kind of stepped into this. It
wasn't like, Oh, I want to do this. It was like, Oh,
here I am. What can I do? So when was
it where you were like, wow, this is amazing. And
I can make a difference. It's hard, but this is
why I'm here.

Speaker 4 (33:25):
I think you're, well, at least my opinion of what
a win was kind of changed over, over time. Um,
you know, anytime you can, you can close out a case,
you know, and ultimately you hope that they get, they
get convicted and, and, and get their, their punishment, whatever
that means. As I went along, it was, it was

(33:45):
more about, you know, and I'm embarrassed to admit it,
but you just wanted to close out your cases because
you're guaranteed to get at least five more next month.

Speaker 3 (33:58):
Um, and, but what really, what, when you.

Speaker 4 (34:03):
Spoke at our canine conference and after that, and it's like,
if you're working these cases, you know, you have to,
your heart has to be in it. And I thought,
Oh man, like that, it really affected me. And I thought,
not only do I need to change my attitude, I
just need to be better.

Speaker 3 (34:21):
I just need to do better. And it was from
my attitude.

Speaker 4 (34:26):
Towards working the cases to my attitude towards, you know,
training my dog.

Speaker 3 (34:31):
And it was everything. I'm like, I just, I got
to do better.

Speaker 4 (34:33):
This is, you know, I'm, I'm not going to do
this forever, but when I'm here, I want to, I
want to be able to retire and say, I put
my heart into it.

Speaker 3 (34:41):
I did what I could.

Speaker 4 (34:42):
So that, that made me look at things a little differently.
But I think when, um, when you go into it,
cause I, let's just say you get a hundred cyber.

Speaker 3 (34:53):
Tips in a year, almost always.

Speaker 4 (34:56):
You're arresting somebody for possession of child pornography or maybe
distribution or whatever. And you move about your day and
you go on to your next case. And then occasionally
you get a victim, like a true victim, you know,
and not that the people that we're seeing in these
pictures aren't true victims, but I mean like a hands-on

(35:19):
offense victim that, The.

Speaker 1 (35:20):
Victim that is in front of you because the victim
in the videos that somebody is defending them hands-on, but
they're not the ones that you can save right now.
You're saying that there is the real life victim who
you can speak to, who you're going to take to

(35:41):
the hospital, who you're going to sit with, who you're
going to question, who you're going to hand tissues to,
whose parents you're going.

Speaker 2 (35:47):
To talk to.

Speaker 3 (35:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (35:51):
I wish I would have said it like that. I
wouldn't sound like a old heartless cop.

Speaker 1 (35:56):
By saying it. You don't at all. You don't at all.
It's just, I get what you're saying. And I love
how honest you're being. Not everybody has to come on here.
Not everybody goes into work and says, you know, I
went into this because when I was younger, I wanted
to make a difference. And you wanted to make a

(36:19):
difference for your family. You wanted to be a person.
You didn't want your job to take over your entire life.
And that's okay. But then you were also courageous enough
to realize, like, maybe I should put more of my
heart into it and realize that I really can make
a difference.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
And you have.

Speaker 1 (36:41):
You just maybe don't realize it.

Speaker 3 (36:44):
I hope you're right.

Speaker 1 (36:47):
I saw firsthand, and we'll get into that story, when
I first met you. I didn't see you as just
like some dude over in the corridor who was like
eating a sandwich and being like, oh, here I am.

Speaker 2 (36:58):
What'd you do? Oh, I'm just working today.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
Can't wait for the day to be over. Oh, it's 4.30,
almost time to go. Let's get out of here. No,
I would have never looked at you and said, that's
somebody who doesn't mean to be here.

Speaker 2 (37:13):
I feel like you meant to be meant to be there.
You were there on purpose.

Speaker 3 (37:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (37:18):
You know, in whatever case you're working, you put your,
you put everything you got into it. You know, it
wasn't like I wouldn't, but there's so many cyber tips
that you get that you spend so much time going
over and like, can I develop probable cause here? You know,
there's so many different IP addresses from, from different places
in the country.

Speaker 3 (37:39):
And it was like.

Speaker 4 (37:41):
That, you know, like just put an amen to these
and move on, you know, and, I guess I just
felt a little guilty. I'm like, could there have been
something that we could have done that I don't know about?
But anytime you talk to any other person in ICAC,
they're like, nope, just.

Speaker 3 (37:58):
Close it out, move on.

Speaker 1 (37:59):
I mean, there is more that could have been done
if you knew, right? It's not that you knew and
you turned away from it. It's that you did what
you could. Also, when you started this, cyber tips weren't
really the thing. It was proactive stings.

Speaker 4 (38:15):
It was.

Speaker 1 (38:16):
if I'm right, undercover operations. It was more hands-on and
tactile and the bad guy was there. It wasn't all
of these numbers coming in. It's just so different when
it's this influx of cases. You went from having a
folder to having files on a computer that are just

(38:40):
constantly coming at you and you can't get through them all.
And that's the saddest part about it. And I talked
to one of my friends who's an FBI agent, and
he said, I could work 24 hours a day, every
day for a year, and I wouldn't make a dent

(39:01):
in these.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
And that's the truth.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
And that just speaks to how much there really is.
It doesn't speak to people not doing the job. It
doesn't speak to not having passion or not caring or
being ineffective law enforcement. It is that the bad people,
there's just so many and they're doing so much and

(39:25):
they have terabytes of this stuff. and it's they can
so easily access it when I was kidnapped yes it
was out there but so much of it was like
on cd-roms that you were all like mailing to each
other it was it was just a different world. And

(39:47):
now with tech, there's so much. And how can you,
how can you get through it? It's, it's doing the
best that you can and saving who you can and
knowing that you are making the difference that you can.
You're only human. In a minute, we'll talk about your
partner who is not, but not because they're, they're like

(40:09):
not human because they're evil, but because they have four
legs and they're adorable. But, uh, Yeah. We'll talk about that.

Speaker 4 (40:14):
What I was going to say with that is when
you said like the terabytes, you know, that that's where
the hard decision comes in because you want to go
through everything they have because you know, what if the
last picture you saw was like a hands on a
fence or you can identify somebody and that last image

(40:37):
might take you six months to go through all that stuff.

Speaker 3 (40:41):
And that's not practical.

Speaker 4 (40:43):
So that's where, you know, the other unfortunate part of
it is RDA's office in Kenosha County. They said, you know,
the most we want you to charge is 10 counts. So,
you know, there's times you find, you know, 100,000 counts

(41:04):
and you just charge a 10, which is awesome for
us in law enforcement because every image that you want
to charge, you have to describe it.

Speaker 3 (41:16):
You have to write it out, look at it and
put it in words.

Speaker 1 (41:19):
Um, and descriptively like incredibly descriptively, you can't just say
a child is being raped. It is painting the image.

Speaker 3 (41:28):
It's awful.

Speaker 4 (41:28):
I mean, and that's, that's the whole, you know, looking
at it is one thing. Um, but describing it, you know,
I wouldn't wish anybody had to do it.

Speaker 3 (41:38):
It's, you know, part of the gig, but, um, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (41:43):
I had a, I had a, one of the assistant
district attorneys one time said, Hey, uh, the, the guy
won't take our plea deal. So can you, you said
there was 30 to 50 more. Can you please describe
them just in case we need them? And I responded,
not a chance in hell.

Speaker 3 (41:57):
Like yeah.

Speaker 4 (42:00):
You know, and I thought it's probably, you know, it
was a newer ADA, you know, inexperienced, immature, not realizing
like what, what this means.

Speaker 3 (42:12):
Um, But they never asked again. Well, at least they
never asked me again.

Speaker 1 (42:17):
Don't ask that guy. I can't imagine having to do that.
And you're not doing it just for the record. You're
doing it to build a case. So what you say is.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
Important.

Speaker 1 (42:29):
What you write is important. And you can't miss anything.
And what's happening to these children is brutal.

Speaker 3 (42:37):
Yeah, but this is what's hard for people to understand is.

Speaker 4 (42:42):
We send over a description of what it is. We
don't send over what it is because we don't, you can't,
you can't, they can come to our desk and look
at it on our laptop or, you know, wherever we
have it, but we, we don't, we can't send it
to them. Um, one time there was a, an assistant

(43:06):
district attorney, again, a newer guy, um, you know, thought
he knew everything. And, uh, The day before the trial,
we picked the jury that night. One of our, our
second shift at the time, forensic officers, um, was going
through one of the accounts again. He called me that

(43:26):
night and the night before the trial is supposed to
begin now. And he said, I can prove that he
was selling images on Snapchat. And I go like through PayPal,
whatever it was. And I go, uh, get ahold of,
of the, the, the, you know.

Speaker 3 (43:44):
The ADA and let him know that. So he did.
The next morning I go to see the ADA and
he goes, well, the guy.

Speaker 4 (43:54):
The defense attorney is going to talk to his client.
He said he would, he would talk to him right
away in the morning. Cause I sent him the stuff and,
you know, he goes on and on. And I said,
hold on a second. What did you do?

Speaker 3 (44:04):
He goes, what.

Speaker 4 (44:06):
Are you talking about? I said, you said you sent
him the stuff. He goes, well, I had to show him.
And I go, please tell me you did that in person.
And he goes, no, I emailed it to him. I said,
where were you? He goes, from my, from my work
email address, just being a dick. And I said, where
physically were you when you sent this dipshit? Because when

(44:28):
I get a cyber tip that says that somebody is
distributing child porn through the district attorney's office email, I
want to be able to know.

Speaker 3 (44:37):
That it's you.

Speaker 4 (44:39):
So, but again, you know, just the mistakes that you
make without experience and people don't know. Right.

Speaker 3 (44:47):
Right.

Speaker 4 (44:47):
But you know, we don't share it with anybody. And
so when we go to trial and that was the
best one time in a, in a jury trial, the
prosecutor presented the, you know, we have to print them
out on colored on a colored piece of paper, you know,
colored printer, the actual image. And she talks to the

(45:09):
judge and says, you know, okay to show to the jury.
And one of the jurors raises his hand. He was like,
your honor, do we have to look at that? And
he said, unfortunately, yes. So at least I knew that
we were going to win the trial after that. That's
why we have to describe everything is because very, very

(45:30):
rarely do they go to trial because they know they're screwed.
And nobody really gets to see them except the prosecuting
attorney and the defense attorney. And the only way they
see them is when they set up an appointment with
me and come to my desk.

Speaker 1 (45:45):
Does that happen often? Do they ask to see it?

Speaker 3 (45:48):
Oh yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (45:50):
Well, certain defense attorneys, some, you know, I know who
I would never call because they don't even come look
at this stuff, but, um, most do.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
What is their experience of it?

Speaker 4 (46:02):
Like, how do they, um, it's funny that you say
it because sometimes there'll be a video. And, you know,
let's just say it's an hour long video that I
had to describe parts of. And I tell him I
didn't describe this whole thing because it would literally it
would be a book that fat. If you're trying to
describe an hour long video of with all of the

(46:26):
descriptors that we have to use. So I said I
just covered a few things. So anyways, he was looking
at I said, just I always say, tell me when
you're good and I'll shut it off.

Speaker 3 (46:37):
Tell me when.

Speaker 4 (46:39):
And it took longer than I thought. And I thought, man,
why does this guy want to look at this stuff?
So I stopped it.

Speaker 3 (46:43):
I'm like, what else do you want to see, dude?
And he goes, well, it's looking.

Speaker 4 (46:48):
At, you know, you said there was a silver dildo
and all I seen was a pink one. And I go,
you're kidding, right? You know, and I'm like, that's enough.
You know, like, give me a break. Or I'd fast
forward and I'm like, now are you good? Like, most
of them, especially after they had it, have had experience

(47:09):
of doing these cases.

Speaker 3 (47:10):
If I start a video, they go, okay, good. Oh,
you know, it was on for a second.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
Like, Oh, they know it exists and that's enough.

Speaker 3 (47:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (47:19):
But that one, he, that's, I like that you were like, yeah,
I don't feel comfortable. And it's so sad that this,
this child in this video is in that moment being
abused on the screen and you're there to help them.
And this person is there to do, um, their side
of the job, but it's just so heartbreaking what people

(47:43):
go through and how, how this doesn't just end with
you going and knocking on the door and putting handcuffs
on somebody and it's over. And we will talk so
much more about that, but it's just not, it's just
not that.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
And that's frustrating.

Speaker 1 (48:02):
It's really frustrating because, like I said, I have people
who say to me while I'm working on Alicia's Law, well,
why do they need the funding? They could just go
do it. Like, if it was me, I would just
go do it. Yeah?

Speaker 3 (48:13):
Sure.

Speaker 2 (48:14):
You don't know what you're talking about.

Speaker 1 (48:16):
You know nothing. But people feel like they have an answer.

Speaker 4 (48:21):
The Kenosha Police Department, again, it's the third largest city
in Wisconsin. It doesn't mean it's a huge city with
100,000 people, but just for the point of that, the
third largest city in Wisconsin wouldn't be doing internet crimes
against children cases if it wasn't for Alicia's law. And
that's not me speculating. We weren't, we didn't.

Speaker 2 (48:42):
I mean, this happened to me in 2002.

Speaker 1 (48:44):
I started speaking out in 2004, sort of working on
Alicia's law. And I think like 2011, I was right
in the middle of all of this, which is really
interesting because I had no idea at the time. And
I'm just like existing and like, In the middle of
all of it, like, oh, wow, this is crazy. And
all of this is going on in the background. But

(49:05):
you're saying that really it didn't happen before Alicia's Law.
Alicia's Law, it passed in 2016.

Speaker 4 (49:12):
One of the reasons, you know, one of my captains
before just said, you know, the cases are too involved.

Speaker 3 (49:18):
You know, we don't have the manpower. for that.

Speaker 4 (49:20):
And I go, well, homicides are really involved, right? We
have everybody hands, all hands on deck, right? He's like, yeah,
I'll make sure that's okay. But these cases aren't worth that,
you know, so just fighting an uphill battle. But even
when our captain that wanted to do this, made the

(49:41):
decision that we were going to do it, wouldn't have
done it if we weren't getting money through Alicia's Law.

Speaker 3 (49:48):
There's just no way.

Speaker 1 (49:51):
I remember when it passed in Wisconsin, it really feeling like, wow,
this really works. But I had been invited to a
conference and it was being put on. The educational aspect
of the whole thing was law enforcement was being educated
and learning all the things that you're saying that weren't

(50:12):
known because of Alicia's Law funding.

Speaker 2 (50:15):
It's incredible.

Speaker 1 (50:17):
And it's amazing to have something because my goal ever
since I was 14 years old was like, I don't
want to just talk. I really want to do something
because this is real. If we just talk about it,
that's yay.

Speaker 2 (50:29):
That's great.

Speaker 1 (50:30):
Conversation is obviously very important. But what's missing? Where are
the cracks and how do we really make a difference.
And it is always going to be giving resources and
funding the people who can investigate and actually do something

(50:50):
about this because you're the only one who can. When
it comes down to it, Pete, you were the guy.
You were the one that could help and save. It
wasn't the parents can't do it. The legislators can't do it.
Nobody else can do that. but you. And if we

(51:11):
don't give those resources to the people who are the
only people who can do something, then it's hard to say,
oh my gosh, all these horrible things are happening. This
is so terrible. If you're not going to actually work
towards the solution when it's possible. When I first started
working on Alicia's Law, it was really frustrating because I
think I was like 18 or 19 and I would

(51:34):
go into these meetings with legislators and I'd be like,
guess what guys? I mean, not literally, I wouldn't say
it like that. that'd be very inappropriate, but I have,
here's what's happening. And it's really, really awful. Let me
tell you some terrible, terrible stories, but here's the great thing.
We can do something about it. And I thought they
would be like, oh my gosh, this is the best
thing ever. Where do we sign? I had that like
misillusioned kid view. And I found out that's not the case.

(51:58):
And especially back then, even in like 2019, people didn't,
still understand the dangers of the internet. They think they
know what they know now and they apply it to
what they think they knew then, but they did not.
People now are finally starting to learn, but it's also
causing people to take these really big actions and kind

(52:21):
of start pointing the fingers in places they don't, instead.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
Of thinking, what can we actually do?

Speaker 1 (52:28):
Let's just be angry. Let's just be rageful. Let's just
be mad at somebody who's not us. And what can we, what, like,
look at what we actually can do. And Alicia's Law
is definitely one of, one of those solutions. We have to,
we have to give the resources. How awful it would
be to wake up every day, you know this, and

(52:51):
go to your job and to see these videos, to
have to describe these videos.

Speaker 4 (52:56):
When we, we had our office, we needed, you know,
a lot, like, we all need monitors, we Again, through
Alicia's Law, DOJ provided us with, I think, two or
three laptops for us. And I already had one, so
that would make four. But our department invested a lot

(53:23):
to make this happen. I was going to say refreshing,
but it was just kind of a good feeling that
at least now, they recognize the need and.

Speaker 3 (53:37):
Back to what, like that's probably the biggest win.

Speaker 1 (53:39):
That's, that's, I'm a little speechless, which isn't good when
there's a microphone in front of my face. Yeah, that's,
that's amazing. Wisconsin's always been really special to me when
working on Alicia's law. I I'd seen the impact it,
it did make in other States, but it was just

(54:00):
different in Wisconsin. I got more information. I, it felt
so real and it was such a push of, Oh, this,
this needs to keep happening. I need to keep doing
this because it's not easy. It's really hard to pass
a law. The it's just a bill. It's only a
bill song from schoolhouse rock. Yeah. No, it's a whole

(54:22):
lot harder. And you have to have people try to
explain to people things that they don't know or don't
care about and that's a really hard thing too when
you sit down with a legislator and they're just like
I don't know tell tell my people or they come
up with something obnoxious I I don't remember where it
was and I don't remember who it was but there

(54:43):
was a woman who I explained that so often this
yes it could be an internet predator in my case
where somebody was groomed lord and it was an outside
person but so often it is it's somebody within the
home It's a family member who's abusing the child. And
this woman looked at me and she just, I just,

(55:07):
I remember being so shocked by this. And she was like, okay,
so if it's possibly the dad and you take the
breadwinner out of the home, now you're causing more trouble.
And I just, I don't even know what I said.
I probably said nothing. I know what I wanted to say,
but I didn't. But we're moving away from that. Like

(55:27):
I said, people are finally starting to open the door,
open their eyes and see what's happening here. And lucky
for you, it's after you're all retired. You just get
to go relax.

Speaker 3 (55:39):
So I just I.

Speaker 4 (55:41):
It's I can't even fathom the fact that states. Aren't
on board with having Alicia's law. What's their what's what's
their reasoning for that? Like that, that's just the most,
that's the most screwed up thing around.

Speaker 3 (56:01):
Why not?

Speaker 4 (56:03):
You know, I, it's just, you know, like the other
thing that you said before too, like, you know, we
have our comp, we have a Wisconsin ICAC conference every
year and, and, um, actually people from other states come
to it too, but like to put something like that
on and granted they do so much work and there's
so many vendors and, um, you know, you can't have
it in a shit hole or nobody will want to come. So,

(56:27):
you know, it takes money to put that on. You know,
it's just the whole process is somebody, you know, there's
something that you can sign up for that will help
pay for the stuff.

Speaker 3 (56:42):
You don't want to do it? Why not? It makes
zero sense to me.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
It's difficult. It's really difficult. It's been, like I said,
I've become, I was disillusioned in the beginning of it all,
but I'm seeing the conversations be different now.

Speaker 2 (57:04):
Like, yes, this is great. How do we get started?
So that's so powerful.

Speaker 1 (57:09):
And hearing that from you, having that feedback from you,
having these soundbites from you is amazing. is really helpful.
I like, I just start playing that at all the
press conference. What the, like, like it just got you off. Like,
that's great. Yes. Here is this person who worked to
these cases day in and day out. And the problem too,
is that you can't say that you, that really shocked

(57:31):
me that you can't go and say, Hey, guess what? Hey,
we need money. Like you can't ask for it. I
had to go do that and you could stand next
to me, but that was about it. the system has
a lot of.

Speaker 2 (57:44):
Things that need to change and we need to talk
about it.

Speaker 1 (57:48):
And that's where things like this podcast and conversations and
just having real conversations about what's going on is just
really important because you can't know if you don't know.
And I don't want to get mad at people because
they don't know. I don't want to feel like the
system's broken. It's just that things need a little bit
of a makeover and we need to, we need to

(58:10):
catch up.

Speaker 3 (58:11):
It's time.

Speaker 2 (58:12):
And we're getting there, I think, I hope.

Speaker 4 (58:15):
Well, even on the cases, we bring a lot of
times one of the assistant district attorneys with, victim services
that's provided by the Wisconsin Department of Justice. You know,
anytime there was kids in the house, and we had
a really great relationship with one of the ladies in particular,
and she would come down for us early in the mornings.

(58:36):
And it's all about the wellness part, the victim services. services,
you know, because, um, and I said, let me get
this straight. So you're going to talk to the family
while we do all of the stuff.

Speaker 3 (58:50):
She goes, yeah.

Speaker 4 (58:51):
Cause that's, that was like the hardest part for me.
For one, there's so much work that needs to be
done right now to make sure that we get everything. Um,
and then I'd also have to run Iris through, so
I would break away, but I'd always be sitting there
talking with the family and, you know, it's almost always,
not always we've arrested a couple women but it's almost
always men and you know like this the one and

(59:15):
it ironically is the same one where um she called
me and said her her niece was was assaulted by.

Speaker 3 (59:21):
Him with a day that we we i.

Speaker 4 (59:24):
Never i never saw the guy leave the house ever
so we were kind of like baffled that we didn't
does he work from home so anyways she was walking
the dogs before work one morning and we stopped we
stopped out to talk to her and basically said hey
we got to search one for your house and um
did everything we needed to do that day and again
i'm you know i i think well cops should always

(59:50):
be nice to people you know that's how you always
should start out and then you know see where we
take it from there depending on you know the reaction
of the person but especially in this scenario you know
i'm super cordial with her and uh she was very
cooperative with us that's you know part of the game
right you know if i'm an asshole to her she

(01:00:10):
probably doesn't want to cooperate um but it's just about
being a decent person too but you know it helps
us i can't remember if we ever i don't think
we arrested him right then because we didn't have we
didn't find any images they're probably all in that big
nasty thing i was telling you about but when we
ultimately were able to charge him, when we came back there,
we did the same thing. I stopped out with her

(01:00:30):
again and, you know, basically broke the news to her
what was going to happen. And she goes, my whole
world has just been flipped upside down. What the hell
am I supposed to do? And I, like, I started
tearing up and I'm like, I don't, at least, you know,
I don't. And ultimately, you know, she's like, I said, we're,

(01:00:52):
I'm assuming you were planning on going to work today.
She's like, well, I was, but not now. And I go,
you should go. I said, cause nobody else has. I said,
anything can happen. And I'm not telling you this as
a matter of fact, but I'm telling you, and I
wouldn't tell you this if I wasn't pretty certain he's
going to get a significant cash bond.

Speaker 3 (01:01:13):
I said, can you come up with 50 to a
hundred grand? And she goes, no. And I said, and
I'm very certain that he will get charged.

Speaker 4 (01:01:21):
And he'll get at least three years, probably anywhere from
five to 10. This is before the sexual assault part.
And her jaw just dropped. And I said, nobody else
is here to look out for you.

Speaker 3 (01:01:32):
I said, go to work. It's a do what you want,
but like, that's the reality of it, you know? And
what did she do wrong?

Speaker 4 (01:01:41):
Right. You know, and that's what, you know, the other
people in the house have to deal with because of,
you know, some dipshit that, you know, at the time
we didn't know about the sexual assault, but you know.

Speaker 3 (01:01:55):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
They victimize the people around them.

Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
In, in just various ways.

Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
It's awful.

Speaker 4 (01:02:08):
But when, when they bring the people or when somebody from,
from victim services comes down now, I'm.

Speaker 3 (01:02:13):
Like, okay, good.

Speaker 4 (01:02:16):
You know, because that's, that's, not that the other stuff
is super easy, but it's, you know, that's, that's, that's hard.
That's hard, you know, hard conversations they have with people.
And if somebody is willing to do that for me,
then sign me up.

Speaker 1 (01:02:31):
It makes me think of the conversations where you have
to knock on the door and, and tell somebody that we,
you know, your, your son died in a car accident
or something like that. It's, it's grieving and a death.
And now you're, you're part of that. And, having to
switch energies would be, I feel like really difficult maybe
to go from being comforting to this person and then

(01:02:55):
having to go over here and put on the investigator hat.
So yes, having that victim services person who's trained and
you can't be trained in everything. The law enforcement conferences,
they cover a lot, but you can't do it all. Right.
And it sounds like you have had to do it all.
So I'm, I'm glad that, Like I said, things are changing.

(01:03:17):
We're starting to look at this a little bit differently.
You did a lot on your own, of course, but
you also for a few years had a pretty great
partner by your side. You may have had a human
partner too, and they may be great, but you also
have your canine partner who is an electronic storage detection canine,

(01:03:38):
and her name is Iris.

Speaker 2 (01:03:41):
Let's talk about her for a little bit.

Speaker 1 (01:03:42):
She is so incredible and just loving and sweet and
just gentle black lab. So for people who are listening
and have never heard of an ESD canine, can you
very quickly tell me what Iris is trained to find?

Speaker 3 (01:03:59):
Sure. It's electronic storage detection.

Speaker 4 (01:04:01):
So it's, believe it or not, you know, again, when
I first heard about them and, you know, saw the labs,
I'm like, come on. Um, they can find any electronic
device that can store memory.

Speaker 3 (01:04:14):
So from a.

Speaker 4 (01:04:16):
Desktop, laptop, tablet, phone, to a thumb drive, SD card,
down to a micro SD card, air tags, you know,
like GPS, all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:04:28):
So it.

Speaker 4 (01:04:31):
Really is a game changer when it comes to work
in these cases, because when you, you don't think you
need a dog until you see a dog work. And
then you think, oh, my God, if we could have
a dog, that would be great. There was two handlers
in Wisconsin at the time that had ESD canines.

Speaker 3 (01:04:49):
One was.

Speaker 4 (01:04:51):
The Racine County Sheriff's Department, which is adjacent to us.
And then the other one was the Wisconsin Department of Justice.
And she was up in Milwaukee. So when we would
have a case, you know, the one time Tammy brought
Kozak down and I'm like, what the hell is this?
And she explained it, and I'm like, I'm sorry, they

(01:05:12):
find what? But you watch them work, and I'm like, man,
this is the coolest thing ever. And at the time,
we went to one of the national ICAC conferences in Atlanta.
And Tammy brought Kozak with on a plane, and I'm
a lab guy, you know. I thought about getting a

(01:05:36):
canine or putting in for the canine with the police
department when I was in patrol with their shepherds. And
I'm like, I like labs. So this worked out perfect.
And at the time, Kozak's a yellow lab. Our yellow lab,
who was a male, just died like two months ago
or before this trip. And I'm like, oh, man, if
I could get one of these dogs, like this would
be awesome. Take her to work, take them to work,

(01:05:57):
you know, and at home. And at the conferences when
I met Todd Jordan, who is the trainer of, of
all of these ESD canines and, uh, got in contact
with them.

Speaker 3 (01:06:11):
And he basically like told me what I needed to do.

Speaker 4 (01:06:13):
So I think it was shortly after, um, I completed the,
the application process a year later after I submitted the
application a year later.

Speaker 3 (01:06:25):
So it was, um, at the end of 2020, um, Yep,
the end of 2020. He said, I.

Speaker 4 (01:06:39):
Have a place that will donate a dog. And it
happened to be our rescue. But he's like, you know,
this is your dog. It was the last day in
February of 2021. So we go down to Indianapolis and

(01:07:01):
I get my canine and you go through the whole
two week training and all of this stuff. And you,
you leave there hopefully with a bond with your dog.
That was my goal from the start. He said, don't
be surprised if while you're training them, they look back
at me because I've been the one that's been feeding
them for the last few months. And I thought, Hmm,

(01:07:22):
I'm going to break that right away. So, you know,
I was just have her in bed with me. She didn't,
she's never been in a kennel in, like unless she
wants to go in her kennel, I don't put her
in a kennel ever.

Speaker 3 (01:07:32):
She just crawls right in there.

Speaker 4 (01:07:33):
She likes to sleep in there, but you know, I
had her in bed with me. I, you know, and
I always kiss.

Speaker 3 (01:07:38):
My dog's face.

Speaker 4 (01:07:40):
And he even said, man, you really have a bond
with her.

Speaker 3 (01:07:43):
And I'm like, good. That's what I was going for.

Speaker 1 (01:07:46):
Mission accomplished.

Speaker 3 (01:07:48):
Yep.

Speaker 4 (01:07:50):
But you leave there with like a lot of uncertainty
because everything that you've been doing is, is it has
been in a controlled environment. Now you got to, you know,
implement her into your daily routine of having to feed
her a couple of times a day and hide devices
every time you feed her. And it was a lot,
you know, and it's kind of overwhelming at first because,

(01:08:11):
you know, we already, we've already talked about the number
of cases, you know, I remember going, shoot, I got
to get up and feed my dog, you know, and
it's nine 30 in the morning. I'm like, I'm sorry, girl.
But once you get in that routine of doing things,
then it, it was, Um, that wasn't really a struggle anymore.

(01:08:32):
I think most canine handlers probably feel like what I'm
going to say, but like, unless you've had a canine
as a partner, you can have a dog in your
house and, you know, love them.

Speaker 3 (01:08:45):
And that's, that's fine.

Speaker 4 (01:08:46):
But when you have a, when you have a dog
as your partner, um.

Speaker 3 (01:08:52):
It's just a completely different bond. Come here, girl. Come here, mama.

Speaker 1 (01:08:58):
What about your car, Mama?

Speaker 2 (01:09:00):
It's so precious.

Speaker 1 (01:09:04):
I love that the ESDK dines get like this really
special life as where like a lot of police dogs
are made to sit outside and they have to wear
the do not pet thing. And it's a whole different thing.
And these ones, it's like, please let me, please love me.
Please let me be a dog. And then there's these superheroes,
like they're superheroes, the work that they do. And they're

(01:09:26):
also just kind of dumb, fluffy dogs. I love that.

Speaker 2 (01:09:30):
I think it's great.

Speaker 3 (01:09:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:09:32):
We've always said that about our, like our dogs are
so dumb, you know, and you know, it's not, not
trying to be degrading to dogs by any stretch.

Speaker 3 (01:09:42):
We do dumb stuff too.

Speaker 1 (01:09:43):
But they're doofy.

Speaker 3 (01:09:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:09:45):
They're very doofy.

Speaker 3 (01:09:46):
For sure. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:09:48):
Like, especially with the, with the work that, you know,
the stuff that we have to see, these dogs are, are,
you know, I think it costs like, I don't know what, 15,000.

Speaker 3 (01:10:01):
I mean, they're probably worth 15 million.

Speaker 1 (01:10:04):
They find devices, but they also work and comfort the
victims and are there with the families.

Speaker 3 (01:10:11):
Can we see you on there? Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:10:13):
Precious. You are.

Speaker 3 (01:10:17):
So precious. She's like, let me lay down. It was
just curled up.

Speaker 1 (01:10:22):
I'm retired now. Stop it, dad. Yeah, we'll talk about that.

Speaker 2 (01:10:25):
I think it's really cute.

Speaker 1 (01:10:26):
But talking about Iris, you mentioned Kozak. I've said Kozak
a few times, and I just want to explain who
Kozak is. Because Kozak, if you were to say, what
are you most proud of? Kozak is something I'm really
proud of. So in Wisconsin and we will interview her shortly.

(01:10:47):
There is an officer named Tammy and she long story
short ends up getting an ESD canine and she named
him Kozak after me. And it was just the greatest
honor to know that this crime fighting little buddy is

(01:11:09):
out there using his magical sniffer, bringing down the bad
people and, and saving kids and doing it so effectively.
And when I first heard of ESD canines, I kind
of like you, I was like, okay, yeah, sure. That sounds,
that sounds pretty ridiculous. Right.

Speaker 2 (01:11:23):
And it works.

Speaker 1 (01:11:25):
And I met you actually, cause I didn't realize it
was you when I saw you later on, I was like,
why does he look familiar? And, uh, I met you
when I got to go on a search warrant with
COSAC and, uh, learned a little bit more recently about
that story, but I won't talk about that for a

(01:11:47):
moment because it was really fascinating. So going into this house,
seeing Kozak, seeing Kozak work, I remember seeing that there
were items that you all missed, but not because you
weren't looking, but because you don't have the ability. You're human, right?

Speaker 2 (01:12:10):
You don't have the ability to spit that out.

Speaker 1 (01:12:12):
And I always like to say a case is only
as strong as its evidence. But I just remember that
day and seeing him work.

Speaker 2 (01:12:19):
And that was one of those moments.

Speaker 1 (01:12:22):
That pulled together just so much in my life and
the work that I do and gave me this different perspective.
And it was really, I do, I remember you standing
there and going through all this and you handed me
gloves and just how passionate everybody was and how, how

(01:12:48):
determined and how, how real, like how real and that
these consequences are real and that these walls are real
and this neighborhood is real. And it always hits you as, Oh,
I'm really in the middle of this, even though it's
something that I'm used to still that day, it just
hit differently. And yeah, I was just, but that story,

(01:13:15):
if I remember correctly, that was, that was somebody that
was close.

Speaker 2 (01:13:22):
To your family in a way, right? The person that
you were investigating.

Speaker 3 (01:13:25):
Yeah. Um, not, uh, not a family member.

Speaker 4 (01:13:30):
Um, again, I didn't, I wasn't even sure if he
knew who I was, um, but I knew who he
was and, uh, Yeah, he coaches a sports team.

Speaker 3 (01:13:40):
So I guess we'll leave it at that. But yeah,
that was in 2020.

Speaker 4 (01:13:45):
And it was, I remember that day, it was kind
of like a little bit, there's always twists, right? Like
he wasn't home. I don't think anybody was home and
like the father-in-law or something came over because he probably
saw us there.

Speaker 3 (01:14:01):
I don't know. I don't remember what the scenario was, but.

Speaker 1 (01:14:05):
I remember that. then there was somebody else and they
were asking the questions and seeing the confusion and terror
on their face and trying to put this all together.
I remember that.

Speaker 4 (01:14:19):
But that was in 2020 and that case still has
not been.

Speaker 3 (01:14:28):
Concluded.

Speaker 4 (01:14:29):
So hopefully things will, again, just not done yet. So
I guess we'll see.

Speaker 1 (01:14:39):
And that case shows a couple of things, just how
close this is to everybody, that there's this personal connection
to you with this person that you're investigating, that this
is that far reaching and that also how long these
cases take and that this person is just out there.

Speaker 3 (01:14:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:14:59):
I mean, um, sometimes, I mean, unfortunately, like a lot
of times it comes down to, um, like the county that, or,
you know, the state or the county that you live
in and what type of bond that they get. And
Kenosha County has typically been very, I guess, ahead of

(01:15:24):
the game, I think, when it comes to that, because
they understand what this, you know, if somebody is being
charged with possession of child pornography, I think some people,
I can only assume some people look at it like
it's not a big deal because they get it.

Speaker 3 (01:15:39):
A signature bond.

Speaker 4 (01:15:40):
You know, our guys typically anywhere from 25 to, I
think the highest we had was 150. And for most
of us, we can't afford it. We're going to have
to sit. We're going to have to, you know. And
the good thing about that is then they're not, they
don't have the possibility of offending when they get out

(01:16:03):
of there. But you have that mindset now, like, okay,
if this person's out, There's a, and again, it doesn't
mean he's doing it every day, but he either has,
or he will, or, you know, or is doing it. Um,
but there's, there's an incentive to keep these people locked
up until they finish their prison sentence, you know, get

(01:16:25):
out on a, you know, a signature bond. Like part
of the bond is to protect the public as a commissioner,
which a lot of them are here for our preliminary
or initial appearances, but as a judge, If you're, if
you're setting up one of these suspects, like it could

(01:16:45):
be a $ 17 billion signature bond. It doesn't matter. You're
signing your name. You might as well just let them out. Um,
what do they, what do they think? Like, how are
you protecting the public? I just think they're there, you know,
like you need to talk to some of these judges,
you know, the, the, the faster we can get somebody
behind bars, the safer it is for everybody in the community.

Speaker 1 (01:17:09):
I'm thinking, you know, we've identified this person, we've investigated
this person, we see the threat, we know it's a threat. Okay, well,
maybe they just, it's enough to just for them to
note that.

Speaker 2 (01:17:23):
And that's not the case at all.

Speaker 1 (01:17:25):
I have done presentations with judges and I definitely need
to do more. because it's always really disheartening when that happens.
And that was something that surprised me in this work
is that these people, there's a lot of people who
are walking among you who have an upcoming, a pending
trial date because they did something really heinous.

Speaker 3 (01:17:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:17:50):
Again, we've been very fortunate here in Kenosha and, but
that one particular case, I don't remember what the bond was,
but he bonded out and, You know, again, the whole
court system, like how can a case like this, I
know COVID was there, you know, whatever. So let's just say,

(01:18:14):
let's just say we did this in 2022 instead of 2020.
It's still four years. Like how, how can a case
like this go on that long? Again, I, you can
look in the, in the record every time they go
to court and, but it just shouldn't be allowed.

Speaker 3 (01:18:30):
That's insane.

Speaker 5 (01:18:32):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:18:32):
It's something that needs to change. And I think if
the public knew, there would be outrage over that. People
talk about these people getting a slap on the wrist,
and they don't even get to the point of the
slap on the wrist for a very long time. Again,
these cases take time. And in that time, the crime,
the crime can continue. So this case, it sticks with

(01:18:57):
you and it sticks with me. It was a, it
was a big moment in, in, in both of our lives,
you doing your job and me being a part of
it that day. The next time I see you, we
are at the advanced canine trading in Indiana and I

(01:19:18):
got to see you again and you're there with Iris
and you're going through this very intense trading where Iris
has to go into tunnels and she's being lowered on
like on a pulley system and everything is. Yeah, it was,
it was fun.

Speaker 2 (01:19:34):
But one of the things that was really fun.

Speaker 5 (01:19:36):
And one of my favorite moments of you is when Chaz,
who was on a couple episodes before you, he ran
that training with the Bombs Away song.

Speaker 1 (01:19:48):
And Chaz and I talked about that in his episode.
But the thing was that he had like a fake
bomb and you had to come over and identify the bomb,
find the bomb, all of that.

Speaker 2 (01:20:00):
But it wasn't a bomb.

Speaker 1 (01:20:01):
It was just a note. But he didn't. expressly say
that and i remember you grab him and you say
if i'm blowing up you're coming with me or something
like that and it was just yeah it was just
very funny it was just very funny it was it
was great if it was.

Speaker 4 (01:20:14):
Somebody else maybe i wouldn't have been like that but
it's chavs for god's sake you know he's.

Speaker 1 (01:20:18):
Well it's chavs for god's sake duh no i i
love that it was yeah everybody just kind of messed
with him it was it was it was good but
it was also a moment of of lightness because the
training isn't easy. It's frustrating, but I saw you tear
up in one of the searches because you, it looked

(01:20:41):
like you missed something and you took that really personally
and you were like, I'm going to do better. And
I'm going to make sure because missing something isn't your dog.

Speaker 2 (01:20:51):
Doesn't get a treat. It's it could be pretty serious.
The consequences here.

Speaker 3 (01:20:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:20:56):
The consequences are here real, but not even. You failed
this test, but in the real world, this could have.

Speaker 2 (01:21:06):
Told pain and suffering attached to it.

Speaker 3 (01:21:09):
Yeah. You failed at your job and, you know, maybe
saving somebody that's.

Speaker 4 (01:21:15):
But so what you're talking about, it was, uh, um,
you probably couldn't tell by, by looking at Iris when
you just saw her face in the camera, but, um,
she's an English lab.

Speaker 3 (01:21:28):
So she's a little shorter, a little stockier, um, a
little chunkier.

Speaker 1 (01:21:34):
She is chunky.

Speaker 4 (01:21:35):
She's chunky, but you know, like 73 pounds and she's
not very athletic. So some of the dogs, you know, they're,
they jump up and they are climbing up on things
like that's just not her. She's just, uh, like a,
a sweet girl. She takes her time. Um, got a
very good nose. The first scenario that we did was, um,

(01:21:59):
some bathroom scenarios. And, and part of it, I'll blame on,
it was the first time that they had the class.
So nobody was, it wasn't like people were really on
the same page because somebody, I talked to one, the
first one and like, we're looking for a hidden camera,
I think is what it was. And I said, well, well,
I don't need to look under the carpet then, you know,
because we look on the carpet because people might hide an.

Speaker 3 (01:22:21):
SD card under there.

Speaker 4 (01:22:23):
But if I'm looking for a hidden camera and they're like, well,
you got to check everything. And I go, oh, Okay. Well,
it was blazing hot when we were down there that day.
And a little chunky girl ran out of steam. And
it's very frustrating because when your dog gets tired, you

(01:22:44):
have to give him a rest.

Speaker 3 (01:22:45):
That's just how it is. Well, these scenarios are timed.

Speaker 4 (01:22:48):
So you can't, you know, I guess you could give
her a two-minute rest, but giving her a little bit
of water might help her a little. But when they're
that hot, They need to set an air condition for
at least a half hour to an hour or so.
But the first scenario I thought was really hard, especially
for her, because like you would expect, the camera was

(01:23:10):
hidden up higher, I believe. And I can't get her
to elevate at all. She doesn't even want to put
her feet.

Speaker 3 (01:23:16):
Up on the wall.

Speaker 1 (01:23:18):
It was hidden at a clock, if I remember.

Speaker 3 (01:23:20):
I can't remember, but it was.

Speaker 1 (01:23:22):
Yeah, there was a clock. It was hidden in like this...
in like the six at the bottom.

Speaker 3 (01:23:27):
Is that what it was?

Speaker 1 (01:23:29):
Well, I do. It was hard to find.

Speaker 3 (01:23:32):
The odor will drop. So she doesn't have to get
her nose up there.

Speaker 4 (01:23:37):
But, and we've, we worked on that a lot after that,
because I realized that we need to do better at
finding high hides and try to see if you can
detect any type of like a little twitch or a
look up or, you know, like a different breathing when
she gets into odor there.

Speaker 3 (01:23:55):
But, At the time, she wasn't.

Speaker 4 (01:23:57):
That was the first scenario when she's cashed out and
it's time to go to another scenario. And I'm like,
what am I going to do? Like, she's just not working.
And then we did a vehicle. We had car searches.
And again, I thought she can do that because she
works really good on cars. And she wouldn't alert. And
I looked at the guy and he goes, go give

(01:24:18):
her a rest. He goes, this is winnable. And I said,
all right. And When I was walking away, I started
crying because I was so frustrated. Like, you're letting me down, girl.
You know, here we are at this training.

Speaker 2 (01:24:36):
You can't tell her. You can't explain it to her.

Speaker 1 (01:24:38):
She's just a dog.

Speaker 4 (01:24:40):
And just like a human being, you know, we have
good days and we have bad days, right? There was
nothing about this day because it was so hot in
those rooms that was going on. You had to bring
that up, didn't you?

Speaker 1 (01:24:52):
I did. It was... It was something that really moved
me that, that it meant that much, that it's as
much as earlier, like it's just a job.

Speaker 2 (01:25:05):
It wasn't right.

Speaker 1 (01:25:07):
It's, it's not. And you know that, and, and you
were frustrated and you wanted to do better. And it
sounds like this particular ESD canine training was kind of
life-changing for you.

Speaker 4 (01:25:22):
Yeah, I mean, that coupled with hearing your story, because
that's the first time that I, you know, I've heard
it a couple of times or at least one more
time since then. But yeah, I mean, that's like, what,
how much, how much, I mean, what else can you
do that would be that impactful? There's nothing else that
you can come up with, you know, hard as hell

(01:25:43):
training that, you know, and when we were there, I thought, um,
not only am I probably the oldest guy here, but
me and my dog have been partners longer than anybody
that's here. So I'm like, we got this, these new
guys that got out of the, got out of training
a few months ago or a year ago.

Speaker 3 (01:26:00):
I'm like, we got this Iris.

Speaker 4 (01:26:02):
And I think it's the exact opposite because, um, they
were working on all these really difficult hives in training. And,
you know, at this point I had her for maybe
close to four years, I think, when we were there.
And a lot of times, like, oh, man, you know,

(01:26:27):
I got to do this. I'll hide something here. I'll
hide something here. All right, come here, girl. You know,
when she has to find it, they're not difficult hides.
And that's the unfortunate habit that I fell into. And
I would strongly encourage other guys, you know, other handlers
not to get into that habit. Because you are going
to affect, you know, your dog. It's easier for you,

(01:26:50):
but it's not good for your dog. So, yeah, going
through this training down there to make me realize that
I need to pick up my game a little bit.
And then hearing you and it's just like, there's nothing
more I think that could impact somebody that does this
work than going through that and then.

Speaker 3 (01:27:10):
Listening to you.

Speaker 1 (01:27:13):
I'm really moved by that. And it's, you speak to
an audience and kind of, I think with your work,
sometimes you really don't know. You put it out there
and you just hope that the right thing, the next
right thing happens. And to know that, like that, I
didn't know that, that, that, that shifted your, your trajectory

(01:27:40):
a little bit is amazing. I'm going to carry that
with me. Thank you for sharing that with me. The
funny thing is, I don't think I was presenting to you.
I was presenting to Iris. If you remember, I had
all the dogs come in and sit down and the
presentation was literally to the dogs because I wanted the
dogs to know the important work that they did.

Speaker 3 (01:27:59):
She talks about it to this day.

Speaker 1 (01:28:03):
Good. Maybe it changed her trajectory as well. That's really cute.
I love that. Thank you for sharing that with me.
You're welcome. you and Iris have worked together for a
lot of years. What, what if you have something that
can come to mind where she really made a difference
in a case that she maybe found something that would

(01:28:25):
have been missed or whatever it would be?

Speaker 4 (01:28:30):
Well, we could be on a case or, you know,
it doesn't have to be anything like extravagant, but just
being able to I had a, you know, a four
door truck. I had this back seat up. So on
the floor is her dog bed. And I, a lot

(01:28:51):
of times she would jump up and ride in the
passenger seat with me. So I'm always kissing her and
loving her up. And, you know, especially after some of the,
more difficult things that, you know, it's not necessarily the
difficult things that you have to do that affect you.
It's the difficult things that you have to see that,
that affects us and has a more long, longer lasting effect. But, um,

(01:29:15):
being able to just turn around or, and give her
a smooch or she's sitting next to me and just
pet her and then she lays her head down, you know,
it's just, it's, that's priceless. But, um, one time when
we were, uh, in Indianapolis for a training one day.
It was a one day thing I went down there
for and I was leaving. And one of the detectives

(01:29:37):
from Indianapolis Metro that, um, I went to school with
called me. I wasn't even, I think it was just
on the interstate to leave. And he goes, Hey, where
are you at? I'm like, I don't know, leaving, you know,
he goes, um, there's, uh, some detectives that are looking,
they're working on a homicide case and supposedly, you know,

(01:29:59):
they're looking for a phone. Do you want to turn
around and help? And I'm like, absolutely. So he sends,
gives me an address.

Speaker 3 (01:30:04):
I go there.

Speaker 4 (01:30:07):
I meet the two detectives and the one says we
had a homicide six days ago.

Speaker 3 (01:30:13):
There was a car chase. So we know the route
that they took.

Speaker 4 (01:30:17):
But we just got information that he threw a cell
phone out somewhere along the chase.

Speaker 3 (01:30:21):
I think it was like two miles or something.

Speaker 4 (01:30:23):
And they said, And we're in a very rural, well,
not very rural, but a pretty rural part of Indianapolis.
So there weren't sidewalks. It was just a road and
then like taller grass and then woods. And usually a
fence in between the grass and the woods. I said,
I suppose you have nothing in there.

Speaker 3 (01:30:40):
I went down. She goes, nope.

Speaker 4 (01:30:41):
It's somewhere where there's grass trees, you know, grass fence
and woods. And I'm looking around.

Speaker 1 (01:30:47):
That's helpful.

Speaker 4 (01:30:48):
It literally was every direction was like that. So I'm like,
all right. Well, we were at an intersection. So I'm like,
makes sense to start here, right? So we start walking
down and we didn't walk. I say like around 20 feet,
but I really, it wasn't far at all. And there
was a tree there and Iris starts sniffing. She sits
down and looks back over her shoulder at me. And

(01:31:09):
that's her indication. And I went, show me, because that's
what we're supposed to do. And then she taps her
nose on where the device is. And she's like, wouldn't
tap her nose she's like getting excited so I'm like
what's around here there's something around here somewhere um so

(01:31:31):
the it was like a six foot high cyclone fence
so I'm like we're not getting over this so I
took her down about I don't know 75 to 100
yards and I seen that the the fence was tipped
over so the other detectives go I'll wait here by
the tree and I get her over the fence and
we're walking through the brush and it's really like thorny
thick brush and I'm having a heck of a time

(01:31:52):
getting through it. But anyways, you know, he's like over here,
you know, so I go to that direction fighting through
the brush and I get there and I went, shit,
where's my dog? Cause I didn't have her on a
leash because it was so thick in there. Um, and I,
I looked to my right and she's just sitting there

(01:32:12):
bouncing her head up and down on a cell phone
that's between her front feet. And it was like, I
measured it. I can't 11 feet, 12 feet. I can't
remember exactly what I, what it was. So the tree
was on the other side of the fence and then
the fence and then the woods for whatever reason. So

(01:32:33):
if the fence wasn't there, she would have walked right
to the phone that fast into it.

Speaker 3 (01:32:37):
And like, and again, that's incredible. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:32:41):
And if you don't know me now, you know, I
start tearing up because I'm like, Oh my little girl,
I can't, you know, like so proud of her.

Speaker 3 (01:32:48):
It was such a cool moment.

Speaker 4 (01:32:50):
That was one of the real cool things because literally
I thought we were looking at a needle in a haystack.
And by the grace of God, we started in the
right place. And there's been other cases where when she
finds things that other investigators missed, that's always a really

(01:33:10):
cool feeling. And it's not a knock on anybody because, again,
we're humans. But when she finds something that somebody's somebody's
somebody misses and, you know, she gets so happy bouncing
her face off of it. And I'm like, I'm just
as happy as you are right now, honey. You know,
we just, that's pretty cool. That's awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:33:33):
You guys really are bonded. Has she ever found anything?
Cause I know that these people, they hide the devices
and very interesting places. and maybe you can't say exactly
where those interesting places are, but if you could, has
she ever found anything like that where you're like, wow, that,

(01:33:53):
that definitely would have been missed.

Speaker 3 (01:33:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:33:56):
There was, and again, I don't know if the case,
I'm assuming the case is still going. So I'll just
give you a generalities, but I was out of town
one weekend and I got a call from my captain
and said, Hey, they have a, a guy that had
a hidden camera in his duffel bag. They're going to
go do a search one at the house. Can you,
You and Iris come, and I'm like, I can't do it.

Speaker 3 (01:34:16):
I'm out of town.

Speaker 4 (01:34:17):
I said, if you want, I can try making some
phone calls to get another canine for you. And he
was like, ah, we'll just do it. So when they
did the search warrant without a dog, they found micro
SD cards taped to the back of the inside of
a closet, like where the trim would be going up

(01:34:37):
on the side. So because they found, again, that's impressive
that they found Noah's. Because why would you look there
unless you do these cases that I do all the time?
And then you look for those things and would have
a dog that would find them for us. So on
Monday when I got to work, he said, hey, can
you do me a favor? Write another search warrant and

(01:34:57):
go back there with the dog and search it again.
Just because we found these things in such obscure places.
So I do that. And I had my friend from
another town. local jurisdiction that has an ESD canine. She
came down and Iris was, there was a dresser that

(01:35:18):
was there that was pretty much empty, but there was
just a few things in the drawers, like a really
tall dresser and Iris kept hitting on it. And I'm like,
you know, now you start questioning, like, well, why did she,
what is she hitting on? But when you start having
the mentality is she's not wrong. There either was something
here or there is something here. It doesn't have to

(01:35:41):
be anything that was going to be of evidentiary value
to us, but there's something here that's giving her the
order and she's doing what she's supposed to do. So
I looked in one of the drawers and I found
a micro SD card reader. And I'm like, I suppose,
you know, people put their micro SD cards in there
so that could have order on it.

Speaker 3 (01:36:02):
I'm like, oh, good girl.

Speaker 4 (01:36:03):
So I give her some food. My partner, she comes over.
And her dog alerts the same thing. She either jiggled
or pushed it really hard. And all of a sudden
you hear ting, ting, ting, ting, ting. And we're like,
what's that? There's five micro SD cards that were somehow

(01:36:27):
underneath the drawer that we never would have found. So
when she shook it, they fell down to the next drawer.
So we opened up that drawer and we're like, we
didn't just miss these in here, did we? And she's like, no,
that's what we heard fall. You know, things like that
happened too, because it wasn't my case. It was a different,
it wasn't a child or, you know, an internet crimes
against children case. So another detective handled it, but I

(01:36:49):
don't remember what was on there.

Speaker 3 (01:36:52):
But the fact that they found those things was unreal.

Speaker 1 (01:36:56):
I doubt they were there just because they didn't want
to lose them. I would have to say that there
were some secrets on them at the very least.

Speaker 2 (01:37:03):
That's incredible.

Speaker 1 (01:37:05):
And that's the thing that a human really could miss.
People kind of think, again, because of television, that law
enforcement goes in, they rip open couches, they look in
the light sockets, they do all these things. And you
can't do that. You can't just really go break somebody's house.
And you're going to miss it.

Speaker 3 (01:37:26):
Well, think of it this way.

Speaker 4 (01:37:29):
I got fat fingers, but your pinky nail. That's how
big a micro SD card is. Where could you hide
something like that?

Speaker 1 (01:37:39):
Anywhere.

Speaker 3 (01:37:41):
Where couldn't you? Right.

Speaker 4 (01:37:42):
You know, so you're not going to rip up the carpet.
You're not going to, you know, shut off the electricity
and dismantle all the outlets. You're not going to take
every light fixture. Like you're not doing those things.

Speaker 2 (01:37:56):
You're not going to rip open every stuffed animal.

Speaker 1 (01:37:59):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:38:00):
But the dogs will find those.

Speaker 4 (01:38:02):
And like when you, I guess, work these cases and
realize what it is you're looking for and where they
could possibly be. You walk in a house without a
dog and you're like, this is, let's just do our best, right?
You're going to lift up couch cushions. You're going to
open drawers, you know, but you're not probably checking underneath
the rugs or, you know, just so many little crevices

(01:38:26):
and little crooks and crannies that you would miss as
a human anywhere.

Speaker 1 (01:38:32):
Anywhere.

Speaker 3 (01:38:32):
The dogs find them.

Speaker 1 (01:38:36):
I lose my remote control and my cell phone on
a daily basis and that thing's big. And sometimes it's just,
it's really just gone or gone. Heaven forbid you have
AirPods and the case falls and those things, they travel.
I don't know why, but AirPods, they want to be free.
And you lose them.

Speaker 2 (01:38:57):
I can't, when I speak to audiences, I'll say that.

Speaker 1 (01:39:01):
I'll be like, if I told you all right now,
if I gave you right here, the person in the
front row, and I said, hide this, everybody close their eyes.

Speaker 2 (01:39:07):
You go hide it.

Speaker 1 (01:39:08):
And we're going to all look for it. It would
take forever if we could even find it, if somebody
really wanted to hide it. And this person is hiding
their life. Like this is what puts them away. This
is the thing that without it, they're innocent maybe.

Speaker 2 (01:39:28):
Of course they're going to hide it.

Speaker 3 (01:39:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:39:33):
And a lot of times, I mean, think of it,
they're probably not expecting law enforcement to find it. They're
hiding it from whoever else is in that house.

Speaker 2 (01:39:41):
Oh, I don't like that.

Speaker 1 (01:39:43):
But you're right.

Speaker 2 (01:39:43):
That's, I mean, they didn't know law enforcement was coming.
So that's so true.

Speaker 4 (01:39:48):
And again, out of all of these cases, there's one
time a guy said, ah, what took you so long?
But other than that, you know, I guess I've never
asked them, you know, did you think you're, you know,
but it's the, you know, the secrecy of doing things online.

Speaker 3 (01:40:02):
I have a fake name. So how are they ever
going to track it to me?

Speaker 4 (01:40:06):
You know, so I really think people, you know, they
know it's illegal, but how, how am I going to
get caught? unless my wife turns in or my kids
find it, you know, and that's what I think they're
really hiding it from. But like this guy that we
found those five micro SD cards, he lived alone, but

(01:40:26):
he had a girlfriend that came over all the time.
And I'm thinking, why would he be taping SD cards
in the back of his closet if he lives alone?

Speaker 3 (01:40:34):
Right. I don't.

Speaker 4 (01:40:38):
Know.

Speaker 3 (01:40:38):
Maybe, maybe my theory's wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:40:41):
No, I, I think it's all of the above. This
is what makes or breaks the case. So they're going
to hide it and they're going to hide it from
the person who can find it and turn them in
or who would see it and know who they are.

Speaker 3 (01:41:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:41:01):
To do it without these dogs. You know, I guess
I wouldn't say a hundred percent, but it's, it's probably
pretty damn close to a hundred percent that you're going
to miss something. Not that saying having a dog go
through there, you're a hundred percent guaranteed either.

Speaker 3 (01:41:20):
Right.

Speaker 4 (01:41:21):
It's just, it's such a security blanket to be like,
and I always wanted her cause I never wanted to
slow people up. So I'm like, as long as you're
cool with dogs, she'll work right next to you. Don't
worry about it. But a lot of places they wanted
the investigators to go through first and then the dogs
go through second. Which, you know, we've done that, you know,

(01:41:43):
countless number of times as well. But now you need
to know, okay, what did you take out of this
room and where was it?

Speaker 3 (01:41:51):
Because she's going to alert where that was.

Speaker 2 (01:41:54):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:41:55):
And I want to feed her because she's right.

Speaker 4 (01:41:58):
So it makes it a little bit more challenging, but
that's how a lot of people do it. But the
people go in first and then the dogs can hopefully
save the day if they miss something.

Speaker 2 (01:42:10):
You just made a memory pop into my head.

Speaker 1 (01:42:12):
There was one warrant that I got to go on
and they were going in and they were looking through
the guy's house and they weren't doing it alongside the
dog yet. And he was standing outside and he seemed
kind of calm about it. Like, but then the dog
walked in and you could see the confusion at first.
Cause he was like, Oh, look, a cute, Oh, this

(01:42:32):
is not just a cute dog. This is a problem
for me. Right. This is a problem for me. And
he went in and yeah, the dog found. Found a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:42:40):
This was, again, in New Hampshire. This guy.

Speaker 1 (01:42:44):
Yeah, what he did. He was a much older man,
and he had found a bit of CSAM, and then
he did a Google reverse image search to find more,
and that came up with a cyber tip.

Speaker 3 (01:43:00):
Of course.

Speaker 2 (01:43:01):
And that trial....

Speaker 1 (01:43:06):
The investigator on that just messaged me like last month
to tell me how that turned out. And it was
a pretty minimal sentence. And I'm sure they looked at
his age and this and that. But it was interesting
to see the dog come in and this guy just
be like, oh, shit.

Speaker 4 (01:43:26):
Yeah, he thought he had a dick and then the
dog came in.

Speaker 1 (01:43:29):
But yeah, you could definitely still miss things. Do you
feel like when you leave the home after you do
a search with the dog that you just feel like Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:43:38):
Everything was done.

Speaker 1 (01:43:38):
That could be.

Speaker 4 (01:43:40):
Well, that's what it ultimately comes down to is it's
not practical to destroy somebody's house. If, I mean, if we,
if we have reason to believe there's something behind that wall,
we will destroy it.

Speaker 3 (01:43:55):
But you have, you know, you don't get to do that.

Speaker 4 (01:43:59):
So having the dog is it's so much.

Speaker 3 (01:44:05):
And I've, I've done them.

Speaker 4 (01:44:08):
Even with when I had her as my partner and
you go into the house, I'm not bringing her in here.
It's just an absolute disaster in here. You know, like
crap all over the floor. Like you don't even know
what it, I mean, like some of it is crap
and some of it, you don't know what it is.
You're like, there's no way I'm bringing my dog in here.

(01:44:28):
And all right, let's get our hands dirty, you know?
And it's just a completely different feeling of just like,
security of knowing that my, my girl's not able to
help me now.

Speaker 3 (01:44:40):
This sucks.

Speaker 4 (01:44:41):
You know, again, there's no guarantee she's going to find everything,
but you walk out of there going, I'm pretty confident.

Speaker 3 (01:44:48):
And what else can we do? So it makes a
big difference.

Speaker 1 (01:44:54):
The work that you do is, is so stressful. There's
so much pain and suffering and responsibility that is now
placed on you.

Speaker 2 (01:45:05):
And that can be relieved.

Speaker 1 (01:45:07):
A little bit by, by having that sidekick for you
and that they are so effective. They are so effective
and look how much you love her. Uh, do you feel,
so one of the things that with Todd Jordan, do
you feel the, the trainer of the dogs, the trainer
of the dogs, this is very official, uh, I know

(01:45:31):
he has like, you had talked about the questionnaire and
basically he sets up the dogs. Like it's almost like
dating where they try to set them up with like
people that are similar to them or would be a
good fit. And listening to you earlier and talk about
kind of your approach to all of this and her
approach to all of this kind of felt like maybe
you guys are similar. Do you feel that way?

Speaker 4 (01:45:53):
So I, I look at that trying to match a
dog up with a person. And again, I'm not, I
could be completely wrong, but, Just how I feel is
that it's like reading your horoscope every day. Oh, that
is what happened to me. You know, or like, you know,
if you're born in this month, this is these are
your traits.

Speaker 3 (01:46:11):
Yep.

Speaker 4 (01:46:11):
I'm like, that could be anybody, you know. So I
don't know. I've seen, you know, I guess I can't
really deny that he hit it off. He hit it
with me and her. Um, but you see other dogs
where like that, that's not that person's personality.

Speaker 3 (01:46:28):
You know, this person is just like really calm.

Speaker 4 (01:46:30):
This dog won't stop barking and yiping.

Speaker 1 (01:46:32):
And, um, maybe it's what he, that person needed. Maybe
it's not that it matches.

Speaker 3 (01:46:37):
Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I'm not sure.

Speaker 1 (01:46:40):
You are Mr. Practical. Mr. Practical.

Speaker 4 (01:46:42):
Todd is awesome. Um, I love the guy and, and
if he says he can do it and I have,
he's always been, you know, spot on with everything else
that he's told me. So, um, I just find that
kind of hard.

Speaker 1 (01:46:57):
And Iris was a good fit for you. You went
in there wanting a dog with a bond and, and
look at you, you call her mama and she's such
a comfort for you. So I want to switch gears.
I want to switch gears for a little bit here.
And we talked a lot about how hard this work
is and you've talked about having to see it and

(01:47:18):
how that's harder than doing the work, but having to,
review it and then examine it and write it out
and describe it. What coping mechanisms do you have? Is
there something that you do that helps you to get
through it? Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:47:40):
You know, I don't, um, my wife always said, you know,
I don't want you to do this any longer. Um,
you know, I don't want it to, you don't know
how it affects you. And I'm like, I don't, I
think I'm just fine.

Speaker 3 (01:47:52):
She's like, are you?

Speaker 4 (01:47:52):
And I'm like, are you telling me I'm not? You know, I, um,
but I feel like, um, I have everything that everybody
would tell you that you need. Um, you know, we,
we pray together. We go to church together. You know, we,

(01:48:15):
have our faith. My wife is the person that I
want to be around with more than anybody else. You know,
she's my best friend. You know, I'll have a drink
here or there, but I really don't drink. And I thought,
you know, you think of all the things that bring
police officers down, and it usually has something to do

(01:48:37):
with a couple of those in there.

Speaker 3 (01:48:39):
That they're missing.

Speaker 4 (01:48:40):
And so I feel like I have the support system
and I work out all the time, working out, having
my dogs, you know, I hunt, I.

Speaker 3 (01:48:48):
Fish, I coach football.

Speaker 4 (01:48:50):
You know, I believe in God and I love my
wife and I'm not an alcohol, not an alcoholic.

Speaker 3 (01:48:57):
So I'll make, I got it all together.

Speaker 1 (01:48:58):
It's like a good life. You started out, you said,
I wanted to have this good life and that was
kind of the priority. And hearing this, it sounds like that, that,
that happened. That was your goal. And that was the focus.
And I really like that. You're just like, I got it.

Speaker 4 (01:49:20):
You know, it hasn't been sunshine and rainbows our whole life.
Primarily because of me, but you know, like we're at
a point in our life now where I just appreciate,
try to appreciate what, what I have, you know, becoming a, a, Uh,
a grandpa this past year makes you, or if you,

(01:49:42):
if you don't, you're, you're, you know, you're missing out,
but at least for me, it just makes you appreciate,
you know, when you're growing up and if you have kids,
you're trying to survive, you're trying to discipline your kids.
You don't want them to turn into be, you know,
you know, little shitheads running around. You're trying to make
sure they're good people. When you you're working your ass off,
you got to pay bills and it's so stressful and

(01:50:03):
so chaotic. And we don't have any kids in the house.

Speaker 3 (01:50:07):
We got animals. I'm retired.

Speaker 4 (01:50:09):
I get to see my beautiful granddaughter every day.

Speaker 3 (01:50:13):
I'm like, what more could I want? Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:50:15):
When we were setting up the podcast, you were saying, okay,
I'm going to Pilates today, which I adore because I
am a Pilates fan. And we talked a little bit
about that. But then we talked about doing a pre-interview
and I was like, oh, we need to be careful.
If your granddaughter's around, you have to be careful what
we say. We'll have to censor it and just watch
out and use code words and do that. Well, she's

(01:50:36):
She's 11 months old. She'll be fine.

Speaker 3 (01:50:38):
Yeah, we're good.

Speaker 1 (01:50:39):
Yeah. And seeing her in your arms, it's just, it's beautiful.
And she's beautiful.

Speaker 4 (01:50:44):
She kicked the button two different times.

Speaker 3 (01:50:47):
Yes.

Speaker 4 (01:50:48):
When she kicked, like it got disconnected two different times.
I'm like, this is harder than I thought it would
be without.

Speaker 1 (01:50:52):
She's not invited to the interview. She's, she's not invited,
but she's very cute. So your coping mechanisms are, are
you build a good life? Like that's what you can
lean on and, is, would it be true to say
that your work was your work and then your life
was your life and it didn't bleed in that much? Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:51:14):
You know, I guess me and a few guys, or
probably more than a few guys, you know, when you,
when you first become a police officer, I think more people,
if it's that becomes kind of their identity or I
don't know if they want it to be, or, um,
you know, and I was guilty of that too. And
I don't know what, if you're just proud of it,
I don't, I don't know, but as time goes on,

(01:51:37):
And I see a 20-year veteran at the police department
that has a big blue line across the back of his...
The cab of his truck.

Speaker 3 (01:51:48):
I'm like....

Speaker 4 (01:51:51):
I don't... That's not... That sure is how... I don't
want that to be my identity. I don't wear anything usually.
Even when I was at work, I'd wear a flannel
and jeans and a cowboy boot. Cowboy boots in the winter.

Speaker 3 (01:52:03):
I just... Uh, it was a job, you know, it
was a job for you.

Speaker 1 (01:52:10):
This is something you did, not something that you are.

Speaker 2 (01:52:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:52:14):
Um, but you know, my mom and dad raised me,
you know, when you do something, you do it the
best you can.

Speaker 3 (01:52:22):
I remember, uh, in college, I worked for the parks department.

Speaker 4 (01:52:26):
Um, and I was the newest guy there. So, you know,
at all the different parks, the bathrooms, I had to
clean all the bathrooms. And one of the guys said, uh, man,
we've never seen the class, the bathrooms this clean before.

Speaker 3 (01:52:42):
And I'm like, I.

Speaker 4 (01:52:44):
Don't give a, you know, whatever you're doing, just do
it the best you can. So, um, and I believe that's,
you know, for most police officers, it's, it's even if,
even if that is their identity, um, you know, people are,
are still doing their, their, their hearts are in it because, um,
you know, frustrations, uh, you know, stress out, not, you know,

(01:53:08):
there's a lot of different factors that can play into it, but, um,
you know, when you're at work, you give it everything
you got. And when you're not at work, you give
work zero because.

Speaker 3 (01:53:19):
I'm at home. The last thing I want to talk
about is anything that happened at work.

Speaker 4 (01:53:25):
It's not, you know, like I always thought it's not
worth the, my breath of wasting the time that I
had with my wife to talk about.

Speaker 3 (01:53:36):
Bad you know I mean we had little conversations about
stuff how's.

Speaker 4 (01:53:39):
Your day good you know whatever but primarily I'm like
you don't want to know and especially when I started
working these cases and we've gotten you know thankfully closer
and closer the longer we're married and you know working
these cases I you know when she'd ask me how

(01:54:00):
it's going and I just be like kind of a
kind of a rough one she's like you know very supportive.

Speaker 3 (01:54:05):
Do you need anything or anything I can do? I'm like, no, good.

Speaker 4 (01:54:09):
But, um, I think that's really important in a relationship
is to, um, you know, not shut them out completely,
but let them know when you are mentally affected by it.
So they don't think it's them. That's, you know, the reason,
or there's something else going on, you know, it's just,
just a rough day at work.

Speaker 1 (01:54:30):
And your partner wants to be able to help you too.
And if your partner doesn't know what's wrong, they can't.
And it sounds like you have the ability to leave
it at work, which I don't get to talk to
many people who do. You're right. It does become a
big part of their identity. And I wonder if I
met you on just, not now, but years ago. And

(01:54:53):
I was just like, Alicia, whoever I was. And I said, hi,
it's nice to meet you. What do you do?

Speaker 2 (01:55:01):
What would you say?

Speaker 4 (01:55:05):
Well, I guess it depends on the scenario because, like,
when me and my buddies would go out, if we'd ever,
you know, meet other guys and they're not cops, they're like, oh,
what do you do?

Speaker 3 (01:55:16):
And we'd usually make something up. Oh, we just lie. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:55:22):
You know, I work for the city. Oh, what do
you do? You know, the waste department, you know, or
something like this. But a lot of times you don't.

Speaker 1 (01:55:32):
Want to tell people anything. they come up with something mysterious.
Did you ever come up with anything really fun?

Speaker 3 (01:55:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:55:40):
We, uh, um, one time my buddy was, uh, a
motocross racer.

Speaker 3 (01:55:46):
Another one was, uh, his promoter.

Speaker 4 (01:55:50):
And then we were like the crew, like the traveling
crew or something like that. It was, um, yeah, it's, it's,
we try to have fun with things like that. I
was at a conference one time. I was the president
of our police association for, uh, 15 or 16 years
or so. Um, and we would go to like the continuing,

(01:56:11):
continuing education. We'd go to seminars and stuff. And, um,
one of the ones that was at a lady that
was a, I believe a therapist was there talking to us.

Speaker 3 (01:56:24):
And like, there's.

Speaker 4 (01:56:25):
Certain things are, I'm leaving your work at work and
your homes at home. Don't bring your work home with you.
And she was saying something about like, she was, you know,
I catch myself, um, You know, I'm taking a shower
and I'm thinking about what this client told me.

Speaker 3 (01:56:41):
And she goes, I.

Speaker 4 (01:56:43):
Don't think it's appropriate for me to be thinking about
another man. She's like, I know my husband wouldn't appreciate it.
She goes, and why would I be bringing my work
home with me anyways? This isn't the place. This is
my safe space. And that was in 2022, I think.

Speaker 3 (01:56:56):
And I'm like, hmm.

Speaker 4 (01:57:02):
And nights, like everybody, you know, laying in bed thinking
of all the crap I got to do the next
day and.

Speaker 3 (01:57:07):
All my cases and all this stuff. And I'm like,
what are you doing? You're at home in bed with
your wife, like stop thinking about work. And usually I'd
be able to do it. Not always, but usually.

Speaker 1 (01:57:19):
That's helpful. Because what can you do in that moment
to help anybody? However, you, sir, do bring your work
home because Iris is with you. So how does that work?

Speaker 4 (01:57:29):
I kind of look at it as like, She went,
she went through it today too. She knows, you know,
she knows what, what I did. I know what she did. Um,
you know, so it's, there's some, some comfort or solidarity
in that. I don't, I don't know what the right word,
like what, what, like there's a connection there with that.
I'm pointing this way cause she's over there snoring on

(01:57:51):
the couch.

Speaker 1 (01:57:52):
Do you sometimes feel like you didn't need to talk
about it because Iris was there and you're, Your wife
is your best friend, but your other best friend was
there with you through it.

Speaker 3 (01:58:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:58:04):
Kind of like having a, the best built-in therapist ever,
you know, she listens to everything you say and she
doesn't tell you one damn thing what to do.

Speaker 1 (01:58:16):
And how beautiful is it that she, that, cause we're
gonna talk about your retirement here in a moment, but
how beautiful is it that she got to go with
you and they didn't just hand her off to somebody else.

Speaker 2 (01:58:25):
That's your dog.

Speaker 4 (01:58:27):
Having, having having her like still today, you know, like,
as you can probably tell, like I try not to
think about work about what I did, you know, but
like looking in her eyes and looking at her face,
I'm like, she knows, I don't need to say anything.

Speaker 3 (01:58:48):
Cause you know, she was right there with me.

Speaker 4 (01:58:54):
And then when I got her, I signed a five-year
commitment and I retired when I did so.

Speaker 3 (01:59:02):
That I could watch my granddaughter.

Speaker 4 (01:59:04):
But that meant I retired two months short of my
five-year commitment with them. And when I reached out to
Nicole at our rescue and, and again, she's the sweetest woman,
like super complimentary. And she's like, are you kidding me? Like,
just made it, you know, like that was one of

(01:59:25):
the things I was worried about because I'm like, how
do I do this? I can't, you know, who can
leave a dog after being with them for that long, especially. So, um, yeah,
everything worked out great. You know, in the department at
one point I even said to my chief, I'm like, Hey,
we never talked about this, but, uh, I get to
keep her right.

Speaker 3 (01:59:43):
And he's like, of course.

Speaker 4 (01:59:45):
So everybody's been great. If, if somebody, you know, if
I would have said, Hey, I'm leaving to go to
another department, can I take the dog? They'd probably say no,
but you know, when you're retiring, it's just a different
set of circumstances.

Speaker 2 (01:59:58):
And now you're both retired.

Speaker 1 (01:59:59):
So a lot of, yeah, a lot of law enforcement
that I speak to, they still, they just get another
gig in law enforcement, typically somewhere, but it seems like
you are done. You're in your rocking chair with your granddaughter,
your dogs at your feet, hunting, fishing, living your life is,

(02:00:22):
do you think you'll ever go back to it anyway?
Or is, is that part of your life over?

Speaker 4 (02:00:26):
Well, I always said when I retired, the last thing
I want to do is, is have anything to do
with law enforcement or security. Like, I don't, I just
don't want to do that anymore. I was talking to
Tammy about a, uh, a job that I could do
at home. Cause I said, I'm watching my granddaughter. That's
my priority. But there was some like, uh, like the possibility.

(02:00:47):
I don't think there was any funding for it, but
they were looking for an, um, like somebody to, I
don't know if it was review cyber tips or I
don't know what the gig would entail, but, you know,
it would be part-time from home.

Speaker 3 (02:01:00):
And I'm like, yeah, I'd do that.

Speaker 4 (02:01:01):
I'm not so sure now if I would do that.
It would really depend on what it is because I
really don't, you know, I don't need to look at
any of that stuff anymore.

Speaker 3 (02:01:14):
I don't know if that would be part of that
or not. I'll cross that bridge if it ever comes up.

Speaker 1 (02:01:21):
I just really think it's fantastic to talk to somebody
who knows what they want, prioritizes their happiness, has boundaries
when they know when to step in, when to quit.
And I'm really happy for you that you're done, that

(02:01:42):
you can actually retire young like you get to in
law enforcement. And and live without all those horrors hanging
over you and all that, all that other people's pain.
And you've got this incredible dog out of it. Who's
also retired. How is she doing with retirement?

Speaker 4 (02:02:04):
Um, the first, well, it was a transition for both
of us. Um, for her, it really seemed like she
was depressed. Like if I would, I'd go work out
in the morning still. So when I leave, she's at
the door and I'm like, Oh, sorry, honey, not today.
You know, that stopped, you know, now she doesn't come
to the door anymore, but I think she was like,
what are you doing?

Speaker 3 (02:02:23):
That's our routine. What do you mean you're not taking
me with you?

Speaker 2 (02:02:26):
Her life changed so much.

Speaker 3 (02:02:31):
Yeah, it really did.

Speaker 4 (02:02:32):
And I think it's primarily because when we were at work,
I let her roam the hallways. Morgan, who is our
detective bureau administrative assistant, was her favorite person at work.
And like even now, if I say, Hey, we're going
to go see Mo, you know, she gets all jacked
up and I still bring her by there at least

(02:02:53):
once a month, or I try to go more often.
And if I don't, I get a text and I'm like, okay,
I'll be there. So like, I'm still, I still go there.
It's like, for me, it's just a chapter of my life. And,
and you know, I'm into the next chapter and Fortunately

(02:03:14):
or unfortunately, my chapter of that one was to end
at the end of 2027. That's when I was going
to retire. But there's a therapist that me and my
wife were seeing together. And she said, just make sure
as a police officer, you have a plan when you retire.
Because most, I don't know, she said most people, a
lot of cops die within like five to six years

(02:03:36):
if they don't have a plan.

Speaker 3 (02:03:38):
And I was scared shitless. I'm like, I don't know.
I don't know what my plan's going to be. I don't,
I'm like, man, you.

Speaker 4 (02:03:46):
Know, does working out every day, does that count as
a plan?

Speaker 3 (02:03:49):
Like, what's my plan?

Speaker 4 (02:03:51):
So in January of last year, our daughter told us
she was pregnant and I'm like, there's my plan.

Speaker 3 (02:03:59):
I'm set.

Speaker 4 (02:04:00):
So I'm like, I'm going to stay, I'm going to
retire at the end of the year. I'll stay home
and I'll, you know, it's her first grandchild. Not only
does she not have to be in daycare, but they
don't have to pay for it. I'm like, this is
a no brainer.

Speaker 1 (02:04:13):
You all won the lottery. Yeah. That's, that's nice. So
your new job is, it's being grandpa. So if I
came up to you now and said, what do you do?
If I started it off and I said, whenever your
official title, what do you do today? Your answer might
be I grandpa.

Speaker 3 (02:04:31):
Yep. That's it.

Speaker 1 (02:04:32):
That's perfect.

Speaker 4 (02:04:33):
I go to my Pilates class and they, you know,
call me the man, the Manny.

Speaker 3 (02:04:38):
Um, but whatever it's, it's.

Speaker 4 (02:04:40):
Uh, You know, and it wasn't, I thought, I can
do this. You know, my wife watched our kids and
she watched other kids when we were younger. And I'm like,
I can do this. Like just adjusting to a different,
you know, the next chapter. And, you know, it wasn't
a walking apart for me to start with. But once
you get the routine down and I'm like, I wouldn't

(02:05:02):
change it for anything.

Speaker 1 (02:05:04):
Sounds like life is pretty good. It really does.

Speaker 3 (02:05:07):
Very blessed.

Speaker 2 (02:05:08):
So I want to go back.

Speaker 1 (02:05:10):
To you before you put on the uniform, before you
really started this job, actually, no, let's go to where
you were a cop. And they ask you, do you
want to do this particular work and go into the
special victims area? What would you tell you back then

(02:05:34):
of what you know now? What advice would you have? What,
what would you say?

Speaker 4 (02:05:39):
I've said this to the guys at work because to
this day, um, there's like some really good detectives that are, um,
will not go to sensitive crimes or will.

Speaker 3 (02:05:52):
Not do ICAC.

Speaker 4 (02:05:54):
And I'm like, I don't blame you for that thought,
but I'm telling you, these are the most rewarding cases
that you could ever possibly work in your life. You know,
is solving a homicide, you know, a huge accomplishment.

Speaker 1 (02:06:08):
Yes.

Speaker 4 (02:06:11):
But it just doesn't affect you in the same way.
I mean, I was going to say mentally or emotionally.
I think it's everything. It's just the way that you
know that you're helping to protect the most innocent people that.

Speaker 3 (02:06:25):
Are on this earth. And I'm glad that.

Speaker 4 (02:06:30):
They want to work these homicides because after working some
of them, I'm like, I don't want to do that anymore.
I would much prefer doing this because... Who else, you know,
like if we don't do it, who's going to do it?
Like it has to be done. And you just, I
don't know. Like I'm just so happy that I did
these as messed up as that may sound. Like I'm

(02:06:52):
so glad that I got to experience working these types
of cases because when you are able to really have
an impact on somebody's, like positively on somebody's future for
one of these victims or, you somebody that you come
across in this whole type of investigation, it just, it's
so much more meaningful.

Speaker 1 (02:07:13):
It's interesting. You said this sounds messed up. That doesn't
sound messed up at all. It's, it sounds beautiful that
you found what you did to be so rewarding and
that you saved lives. That was your, that was your

(02:07:34):
job and that you wouldn't change it. and that you're
working to inspire other people to go down that path.
So thank you for that. And thank you for all
that you've done. And go relax. Go have fun. Go
live your life. Job well done.

Speaker 3 (02:07:54):
I'm on it.

Speaker 1 (02:07:55):
Raise that grandbaby. Yeah, that's your task. Ready?

Speaker 4 (02:07:59):
Go.

Speaker 1 (02:07:59):
Just go. You live all your life, and I don't
know if you ever really get to hear that. You
did it. You did it.

Speaker 2 (02:08:09):
Now go enjoy it.

Speaker 1 (02:08:10):
Go be. You don't have to do. Just go be.

Speaker 2 (02:08:15):
So thank you for all that you've done.

Speaker 1 (02:08:16):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (02:08:20):
It's an honor to know you.

Speaker 3 (02:08:20):
I feel the same way about you.

Speaker 1 (02:08:24):
Thank you for joining me and for sharing all of that.

Speaker 3 (02:08:27):
Thanks for having me on here.

Speaker 2 (02:08:32):
Thank you so much for tuning in. We really appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (02:08:36):
We'll be releasing new episodes every Thursday. Make sure you
check out our YouTube channel and hit us up on
our social media on at Alicia Kozak pod for extra content.

Speaker 2 (02:08:45):
Around each episode.

Speaker 1 (02:08:46):
And please remember to subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever
you get your podcasts.

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