Kevin and Mike - From Correctional Officers to Entrepreneurs: Navigating Challenges and Embracing Change - Hector Bravo UNHINGED

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hector Bravo unhinged chaos is now in session welcome
back to our channels, warriors.
We are still growing.
Different setup today, but samepodcast.
Today I have two special guests.
I have Kevin and Mike sittingbefore me.

(00:22):
What's up, fellas?
How you doing, how you doing.
Thank, thank you for having us.
Thanks, for sure, man.
Thank you for being here.
They are in the correctionalofficer world.
You guys asked where we have it.
Man, I may or may not haveworked with this guy in a past
life.
Yes, you have.
Yeah, I met you, definitely.
So how was your guys here?
We did, how was that Reallyquick.

(00:42):
It's not that long of a flight45 minutes an hour.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Yeah, it was about an hour.
Fly got delayed a couple hoursbecause of the fog.
You guys get random fog, cool,cool, but it's all right, so are
you guys co-workers?

Speaker 1 (00:53):
We are.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Yes, we are.
We used to work together for acouple years.
Yeah, work in the same buildingtogether Really, yeah, work
together.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
So what year did you join the department?
I joined in 2015.
2015, you 2016.
2016,.
Man Young, but oh, you're stillyoung.
Both of you guys are young, man38.
Nah, it's a pleasure having youguys here and we chopped it up
a little bit beforehand and Ilike you guys, where your head
is at, you know your aspirations, your dreams.
Man, because it's I mean, I'msure you guys can agree people

(01:24):
get bogged down in that careerfield, true, yeah, right, yeah,
absolutely, man.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
There's a lot of pressure on us where do you
think that pressure derives?
From oh boy, this uh defund thepolice was the biggest.
Now I could feel it in thedepartment.
Um, just everywhere you go,it's almost I want to tell
people that I work for the stateand nothing else.
I don't want to tell themexactly what I do.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yeah, when I started the academy, one of the
instructors was saying hey,don't tell anybody where you
work at Right, he's like.
He's like.
You know what?
I tell people where I work andthis is one of the instructors
from the academy he goes.
I thought about that for asecond.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
I goes.
I thought about that for asecond.
I said sounds uh, you know, apart of that is to um security
reasons.
Right, we don't want people toknow where we work or can come
back.
Speaking of security, you guysown your own business.
Now we do correct businesspartners and what's the name of
your guys business?
It's consulting so consulting.

Speaker 3 (02:21):
So it's Vigilant Home Consultants.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
Vigilant Home, because you guys have a website.
Yeah, what's the website?
Vigilanthomeconsultantscom,sweet man.
And what do you guys do?
What services do you guys offer?

Speaker 3 (02:39):
We have the unique ability all of us that we've
worked with a population thathave been convicted, and they
did crimes that everybody in theneighborhood doesn't want to be
a part of.
So how do you have the threatlandscape of your home?
How do you protect yourself andyour family inside of the home?
And when you're out in public,what should you be looking for
and who are the people that thecriminals are going after?
Do you look like you're payingattention or not?

(03:02):
And that's the biggest thing Ifyour head is in the game, then
you know what you're doing.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yeah, the reason I started, the reason why I
thought this would be a goodidea, is I have 10 years of
private security background andI feel like I have a lot to
offer as far as giving back tothe people, to the community,
and teaching, you know, theseprivate businesses owners, these
residential owners, rightwhatever how to protect your

(03:30):
home, right?
I've heard too many cases ofpeople having their homes broken
into.
My personal relatives had theirhomes broken into, my house was
broken into before and it allcomes down to that.
You know, coming from acorrectional background, that
correctional awareness rightplays a lot into it as well.
Right, so you know, teachingpeople, hey, don't leave your

(03:52):
car and, like, be aware of yoursurroundings.
You know, maybe you shouldinvest a little bit about
insecurity and that's kind ofwhere we come in and we want to
teach people and explain to them, hey, how important it is to
know your surroundings andconsult them and protecting
their home, their family andbusinesses.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
So how to be a hard target versus a soft target?
Exactly Getting into themindset of a criminal, looking
at easy entry points.
And you mentioned, you did,private security beforehand.
I have, yeah, before I joinedthe department.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
And you were prior army.
I was MP, that's right MP manPogue.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
Yeah, you showed me, dude, you showed me your tattoo
of your.
I got a blank fire Blankadapter bro, just show the
camera that man.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
That'd be kind of cool.
I have a blank fire adapter.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
I like it, I like it.
So you guys are no strangers.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
Criminals, criminality, danger, violence
and all of the above man no manwe worked around hardest
criminals in the whole state hasto offer, Definitely.
So you hear from theirperspective as well.
Right, You're around thesecriminals all day long.
You hear what they say, whatthey did, what they did.
You know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
How they ended up in prison Right, we hear it all day
long.
And how they ended up in prisonright we hear it all day long.
And how they choose theirvictims.
They choose their victims,right.
I mean, would you agree they'reprobably not going to go after
the biggest, baddest dude right?
Attempt to victimize them?

Speaker 3 (05:12):
and the underlining is the manipulation.
Who's going to get takenadvantage of easy.
It's almost like you can pickthem out of a crowd.
Anybody who's on their phone,not paying attention.
They have their, theirvaluables just right in their
hand, just ready for somebody totake it and run off yeah,
speaking about the phone.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
Right, I don't want to jump around too much, but it
almost seems like we are broughtup the phone.
I know we were talking aboutgenerational, uh, generational,
you know ages.
Right, it almost seems likethese younger kids now are on
their cell phone all day long.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
Right, oblivious, oblivious and you try to talk to
these youngsters.
Yeah, explain to them.
Hey, pay attention in youropinion?

Speaker 1 (05:52):
do you think people are oblivious because they
haven't um experienced or beenvictim of?

Speaker 3 (05:57):
violence.
I think it's also um mass media, that the legacy media they
haven't been telling what washappening.
In the 80s we used to knowabout the cocaine cowboys, how
many arrests there are.
It seems like you have toalmost dig to find what's in the
news and really happening.
You have to have the apps thatare telling you daily hey, there

(06:19):
was a shooting in your city.
It's just you have to take thetime to look for it, If not, you
have blinders on and you justdon't see it I never really put
that much thought into it, butyou're absolutely correct, man.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
If you listen to mainstream media, you would
think you know whatever they putout, and it's propaganda, it's
the news right before commercial.

Speaker 3 (06:36):
That's fisa and then goes on from there damn man as
um in your employment?

Speaker 1 (06:44):
how difficult is it to work with individuals that do
not have the proper mindset fortheir environment?

Speaker 3 (06:50):
It's quite complex, but when you take as an
authority or an expert in yourposition I like to take it by
the numbers, each step, and tellthese youngsters what's going
on.
If you know what buildingyou're in, then hey, you can
make a proper radio call.
If your radio is on the rightchannel, then you are still in

(07:10):
the fight.
If you can effectivelycommunicate, not with saying
control this is Kevin and I havebe advised, under advisement.
It's a five-minute process toget it out when it should be you
this is me, I need help.
And's a five minute process toget it out when it should be you
this is me, I need help, yeah,and then everybody's already run
into you.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yeah, now I teach alarm response for you.
Yeah, I do.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
Alarm response instructor.
Yes, that's what's up, man, Ididn't even know that.
No, I love that.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
I was too but it was man it was good learn a lot,
learn a lot.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
Great group of guys.
So what you were saying ispreparation, man, preparation.
Know what building you're inbeforehand, know what channel
you are on your radio, knowwhere you're working, what your
post number is.
Uh, that way, when, when shithits the fan, you're just
reciting what you've alreadybeen rehearsing in your brain.

Speaker 3 (08:04):
Right, and it's just someone to take them under the
wing, under the guns man, andtell them hey, if you listen to
what's happening, if you'reaware, you're 10 times more
effective than playing catch up.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
If you're watching it happen in front of you, then
you're able to see what's goingto happen let's go more into
detail about that, dude, becauseI hear what you're saying and I
know what you're saying.
But for these youngsters, man,you probably think some guys are
more seasonal or experienced orsolid and have that's because
they have rehearsed everythingthat's about to happen, right.
So you're right, you're notplaying catch catch up.

(08:37):
It's like back in the day whenthe ogs used to be like hey man,
uh, there's a two-on-onestabbing right there.
Let me hear the radio call.
You're going to make Runningscenarios.
We used to run scenarios back inthe day.

Speaker 2 (08:46):
It doesn't happen anymore man it doesn't happen
anymore.
Those are the old days, I guess.

Speaker 3 (08:51):
Oh yeah, Were you in when we had the shadow program.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (08:54):
I think they've made the right decision with hey,
give me a shadow for one monthand let me train.
I explained to him hey, putyour hand where the radio is,
because it's Lieutenant ColonelGrossman.
He's got two books, one's oncombat, one's on killing.
He says some really great thingsthat are so simple.
You just can't put it intowords.

(09:16):
You're never going to rise tothe occasion.
You just always fall back onyour lowest level of training,
the what-if game.
If I walk into a building, I'mthinking this is building seven,
this is building seven, this isbuilding seven.

Speaker 1 (09:32):
If I'm on bravo yard, I'm going to change my radio to
be right bravo yards channel,so I can hear what's going on.
So, basically, if you're an snion delta yard and you have to
go run some paperwork to adsecon b yard, you're right, you're
going to be pre uh, proactiveand change your radio to bravo,
just in case you see a staffassault.
I mean, fuck, that's reallywhat matters, staff assaults,
yeah, um, and you're able to geton that radio and even though
it broadcast over centralcontrol, you want everybody else

(09:52):
to be able to hear you on thatyard immediately I just want my
partner to be the most importantperson that's next to me,
because they're the ones thatare going to help me out
absolutely we got a long way togo, man, but it's a's a work in
progress.
I have hope.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
As do I.
I agree, man.
I think this is where trainingand teaching people.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
Unfortunately, this is yeah, this is the.
This is what it's going to taketo bring people to light.
Yeah, or get them trained up orexposed to the knowledge Right.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
Absolutely One day at a time.
One day at a time and doingthis type of work, you know,
podcasting and talking to people.

Speaker 3 (10:29):
That's a new age, bro 2025, man yeah, and you got a
big following on the kids whoare coming in, yeah, that
they've heard from you.
Seasoned officers are listeningand what we just want to
promote mostly is that it's usthat are handling it.
I want, I want to beresponsible for my partner.
If my partner isn't trainedenough, I don't want to blame

(10:50):
anybody else.
I just want to say, hey, thisis this is me that's failing.
I don't play the what if gameall day long.
I had a partner recently with isasking me how are you so
patient with these kids whenthey're just not paying
attention?
Well, I'm a, I'm a position ofauthority.
When I first grab them, I'mgoing to ask you know, cadets
come through my building all thetime and I tell them I'm like
hey, where are you, when are youright now?

(11:12):
How many of you are in thisgroup with you right now?
And they got to think and lookaround and start counting.
You should have known that.
But when you walk through thegate, it it's just not something
that's promoted.
We have too much involved withum and teaching that in the in
the academy, so now, when theyget to us, it's my job there's,

(11:32):
there's a lot going on, a lot.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
There's a lot going on, man, so much right.
But I do have the experience,as you stated, uh, seeing these
younger and I call them youngerkids and I don't mean any
disrespect by that, but theyounger guys or girls and the
ogs getting frustrated.
You know, I was.
I was a lieutenant, so theyused to tell me the staff would
talk to me like alt, these,these youngsters, they don't,

(11:55):
they don't listen, they don'tlisten.
And I would tell them just justkeep telling them, just keep
telling them, do your part ifthey listen, or they don't, just
keep doing it, man, you don'tbecome discouraged.
Um, and I think that's whatit's going to take, bro, like,
just keep offering or soliciting, soliciting that advice, and
whether they take it or not,that's ultimately on them if
they get fucked up and or killedyou did your part, yeah, and I

(12:18):
don't see many of them thataren't paying attention right I
just need someone to be patientand walk right through, because
there's so much that I don'tremember why I do something.

Speaker 3 (12:26):
Why do I walk by and drag my knuckles on the door?
I don't even remember why Istarted doing that.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
Yeah, it's just something that I do every day
yeah, changing the mentality ofof these young individuals
coming into the department.
You know they're 21 years old,they're got to do 35 plus years
that's fucking painful, man.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
Hold on, bro.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
You gave me eating, just saying that, um yeah, so
they got a long way to go, right, I mean, as do I got about 20
more years to do with 20 moreyears, bro.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
Yeah, you guys are doing the right thing.
I can tell you guys got a goodhead on your shoulders.
Clearly, man, you guys want thebest you didn't I get.
This is how change is going tohappen yeah, this is it.
This is it so when, uh, I mean,and let's talk about the younger
generation and teaching them.
You know I was t for t as welland they wanted they teach us
the.
Whiff them what's in it for me.

(13:18):
So you know when, when yourchild says, well, but why, dad,
but why?
But why?
You got to tell them the why,right?

Speaker 2 (13:23):
right.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
You know beforehand.
This is why we're about to dowhat we're going to do, and it's
just communicating.

Speaker 3 (13:30):
The important of what's in it for me is that it
was.
It was lockup.
I think it was a while ago Iwent through a transitional
Academy from the youth authorityto the adult side and we saw
one of the guys that was onlockup and way back in the day
he was stabbed in the head andso you could see the blood

(13:50):
running down his face and mypartner wanted to go up and meet
that guy.
Real bad because of what hesaid in lockup.
I'm never going to visit mypartner in the hospital with
flowers.
I'm going to be in that room inthe bed next to him, because
what happens to me happens to mypartner.
I know where my partner is allthe time and that what if game?
Just back at it.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
Facts no, I was going to say until something happens.
You know what, what you we see,what we see in alarm response
and everything else.
You could probably attest tothat until something really
happens to one of us, you knowone of our partners, then people
start really paying attention.
But why do we have to waituntil something happens?

Speaker 1 (14:29):
Let's, let's be a little more proactive in this
you know, and I observed that alot, dude Um, every time there
would be a stabbing Donovan orstaff assault a staff was a real
bad staff assault or a stabbingon staff.
I used to observe the staff andreal bad staff assault or
stabbing on staff.
I used to observe the staff andyou know, see their emotions.
Oh, they're angry.
Oh, they want to go to cellsearches, oh, let's be on point,

(14:51):
and I used to watch it.
And then complacency.
A couple days pass by and backto square one.
They just get complacent allover again, and I used to watch
that routine over and over.
But if you always have it inyour forefront, hey, we can get
fucked up at any time.

Speaker 3 (15:04):
it kind of keeps you alive, no, I have to ask how
long was it that you you wereout of the infantry, out of
active service, that you startedin cdcr?

Speaker 1 (15:14):
one year, okay, because there was a two-year
hiring freeze back in 05.

Speaker 2 (15:18):
Yeah, um, initially, when I applied to the department
really yeah, and then they,they said no, not right now.
Um you know, it was a big.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
It was a two-year hiring freeze dude.
It was fucking two years beforeanybody can get in.
Um, and was I mentally prepared?
I was not in the right state ofmind, bro.
Uh, I had the right heart.
Like I had the right heart, butas far, I had a lot of
unresolved issues when I firstbecame a ceo.
Right, untreated ptsd,untreated alcoholism, young 22,

(15:50):
yeah, yeah, yeah what do we?

Speaker 2 (15:53):
what do we know?
What?
That is right, no you're right.

Speaker 1 (15:55):
Anyways, we even dive into this topic.
These young kids, I mean, theygot their own issues right
anxiety, freaking, fucking,probably fear of public speaking
.
The communication skills arenon-existent.
You're put in one of the worst,to me, the most toxic
environment in the world.
I agree, if you like, I agree,not 100.

Speaker 3 (16:13):
I agree, man, I feel like I've been prepared because,
um, in 08, I started in thearmy correction system and I was
training 18 year old kids howto how to be prison guards
alongside of how to buy a car,how to do your own laundry, how
to tie your shoes.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
It seems like I'm just falling in the same let me,
let me ask you guys this howmuch outside influence do you
think is um affecting theseyoung kids?
I'm talking about agendas,propaganda, fear.
How much of that do you thinkis affecting their decision

(16:51):
making?

Speaker 2 (16:52):
a lot, I think a lot they're they're, and I think it
all comes down from inability toreally understand their job,
what their duties are and, likethe training, they don't take it
as serious.
So then, when they and thenthey get, they're they're afraid
of getting scrutinized by thedepartment.
Right, and they're they'reafraid of losing their job.
So, hey, let me just do thebare minimum, let me just do

(17:15):
what my post orders say, andI'll get paid the same as the
other cop and I don't need to doanything extra.
That's the kind of mentalitythat I've been seeing with the
young generation.
Now, hey, why do I got to doanything extra?
Why do I got to do these patdowns?
Why do I got to go do this?
Why do I got to go do that?
I get paid the same as theregular cops, as the OGs or
whatever.
So that's the kind of mentality.

(17:40):
I think that they're afraid oflosing their job and if I just
do the bare minimum, I'm goingto keep my job, keep my paycheck
, keep my retirement.

Speaker 1 (17:44):
That's not necessarily true though.
Hey, youngsters, listen up.
That's not necessarily true.
If you think you're going to dothe bare minimum and survive
your career and survive life,that is not.
I mean, look at the escape.
That dude did the bare minimum,but we had a level four run out
, Is this?

Speaker 2 (18:00):
still on the loose yeah, 35 days.

Speaker 1 (18:02):
I saw your little calendar you have 35 days, right
yeah, what I'm trying to get atis, you know, trust me, this
whole episode is not going to beabout bashing youngsters, no
Whatsoever and we willeventually give some freaking
knowledge and some hope.
However, you got to understand,you're creating this
environment for yourself.
You know, by being passive, theinmates are observing that.

(18:25):
They're capitalizing all overit.

Speaker 3 (18:28):
Right, you got an experience, expert, expert,
manipulators, and they see sheepthat are coming through.

Speaker 2 (18:33):
Sheep, yeah, yeah, we're trying to teach the new
people coming in not to be sheepand be more aware, more you
know vigilant.

Speaker 1 (18:43):
So let me ask you guys, this man what can a CEO
youngster do to work on theircommunication skills?
Or how can they communicate ina building and develop a rapport
with an inmate without crossingany lines?

Speaker 3 (18:58):
I think, the more that they come to people who've
been around a little bit andhave a little humility and start
asking questions.
Ask every single question thatyou can.
Why do you have that key set?
Why does your belt lookdifferent than his?
What do you have set up?
How long did it take you to getto there?
Because I know personally I gotso many weird things that I do

(19:20):
that I don't remember why Istarted doing them, but I
accomplished that task and it'sa part of my day.

Speaker 1 (19:25):
So you're talking about the officers asking?

Speaker 3 (19:28):
experienced officers, questions, of course, begging
for information, and I know Ilearned from one of the greatest
, greatest partners that I had,ernie.
He taught me by the numbers,each step, and I had already
been a prison guard before.
I went in Washington withmilitary personnel and then I
went to Guantanamo.
And those guys are just sostrong.

(19:49):
It's unbelievable Strong willand coming here, I had to
relearn everything that I knew,because this is a different
mentality, with gangs and allthe influence that they have
from the people that are home Imean it's parents that were
bringing in drugs.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
Oh, it's definitely not Norway, bro.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
They have.
So if I'm coming across a newofficer coming in, right, if
they asking questions, I'mwilling to give them 100% of my
training, my experience,everything right With the CRT
background, with range and alarmresponse, all that stuff.
Man, I'll give you 100% of me,but you have to ask questions.

Speaker 1 (20:26):
What advice do you have for a young cop that goes
up to an OG and says hey man,tell me about this.
And that OG looks at them andjust scoffs at them?

Speaker 2 (20:34):
I got a lot of that when I started the department.
You know there's a lot of OGslike, hey, don't talk to me
until you get some time underyour belt, but that's.
The mentality has changed a lot, especially where I work.
Where we work, it's changed andpeople want to help.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
Right, but would you advise that youngster today
don't get discouraged?

Speaker 2 (20:51):
and just keep asking, keep asking, move on ask
somebody else.

Speaker 3 (20:54):
And now you know, don't talk.
Email me yes, I'd love to helpout.

Speaker 1 (21:05):
Hey, that's another Bro.
We're in 2025 now.
Nothing is this limited right.
You have resources everywherethey can reach out to you.
You know what?

Speaker 3 (21:08):
I mean, I've had kids that caught me up.
I went to and day one man, wewere hit.
It was bad times.
Wardens were dishing out foodand our first day when I hit the
strike team, this one kid kepton telling me he knows me and
I'm like man, I don't know you.
I've been with you, you've got10 months in the department,

(21:29):
we've never crossed paths.
And then we get in a vehicleand we're going to go do a
transport.
He says oh well, when I was acadet, I came to you when we
were at D so I remember youbecause I started yelling at him
.
No one knew what the count wasin the group.
I know how many partners I have.
I know where they are at alltimes.
If I hear the key shaking orsomething, I'm going to pay

(21:52):
attention to where they arebecause that's the most
important person.
And he told me it was like ayear or two later that I was the
difference that made them thinkand go back on the bus and say,
hey, we felt like real cops.
This is the first time thateverybody's put us in the
position of we're not in Kansas.
I need to pay attention.

(22:13):
It's really a small departmentand I just got through reading
to the kids.
I went to a school and read tothe kids on my own.
I mean, I just wanted to dosomething for the community and
people hit me up on emailthroughout the whole state.
I forget where everybody goes.
You forget who you've workedwith.

Speaker 1 (22:31):
How dangerous is that environment?
Putting aside all the shit thatI yell on my YouTube channel?
Putting aside what they publishon their website?
Putting aside how actual thereality?
How dangerous is it to work ina correctional setting?

Speaker 3 (22:46):
it could be dangerous at levels to where, if you're
going to pay attention, there'sno reason for them to look to
attack you if you're just out inyour own world a thinking about
something else.
That's what eap was for so thatwe can channel our work time at

(23:07):
work.
There's other things to help us.
A financial EAP will help youwith that.
I did peer support because it'smy partner that matters.
With the necessity to be onpoint at all times, it seems
like you're going to mitigateyour danger.
If you're just out of bounds,not paying attention, it doesn't

(23:28):
matter where your partner is.
Well, yeah, it's much easierfor them to take that advantage.
At any point.
If you're going to give themadvantage, then that's on you.
You give them advantage,they'll take a mile.
Yeah, true.

Speaker 2 (23:40):
Yeah, and participate in you know we preach that all
the all the time and alarmresponse.
Participate in alarm response,take it serious.
And that applies to your homeas well, right?
So whatever tools you're goingto get from this department
where we're giving to theseyoung cops and, you know,
seasoned officers, whatever youcould use that in your personal

(24:00):
home as well, right?
This is why we, while we'redoing this as well, we started
this company and to give back tothe community as well.
Right, because it applies tobusinesses, homes, everything,
our families, our relatives,neighbors, everything.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
So and you guys brought up a good point eap
families.
You know, now have the beautyof hindsight.
Now, dude, and I can see you'reright, the stressors of being a
correctional officer.
Dude, you have to worry aboutthe stresses while you're at
work.
Your home stresses.
What's your wife doing?
Is she upset?
Is she going to leave you?

(24:35):
What about the kids?
How are the kids doing?
Your supervisors are they goingto burn me?
The inmates are they going tofucking kill me?
Right, right.
So if you do not identify, Ithink identify would be most
important, true, right, becauseyou wouldn't even know where to
fucking start.

Speaker 3 (24:51):
And you have the memory of what it was like when
your team leader was there, thatyou started out what 18 in the
infantry, 17.
17.
And then you had someone thatwas responsible for you.
You went from your home to theteam leader and they knew your
spiritual, your, yourfundamental, your finances,
everything.
And you've got to do acounseling once a month.

(25:12):
That's what I remember aboutthe soldiers that I train and
led.
That was the honor for me tohave the people that.
Hey, they're the ones who aremost important to me and I
wanted to take it into this job.
The same thing who are?
most important to me and Iwanted to take it into this job.
The same thing yeah, I don't.
I don't think that us as OGsare picking up that problem.
Hey, I want to know everythingabout your life.
Let me know.

(25:32):
If in the parking lot, we don'tlike each other, that's totally
cool, but at work, I want youto be trained and efficient in
your job.

Speaker 1 (25:40):
Well, realistically, it's not the job of a
correctional officer to do thatto their partner.
Realistically, it's not the jobof a correctional officer to do
that to their partner.
That's the job of a supervisor.
Right, right and um, that'swhat also lacks in in many law
enforcement agencies the shorttenure tenure that they have in
the department.
Being sergeants, lieutenants,captains, they're definitely the
fucking asking the ceos hey,man, how's your family, how's

(26:02):
your finance?
Right, right.
It's more like hey, why thefuck did you take those
handcuffs home?
Why, the fuck, why didn't youdo this, why didn't you do that?
And just adding fuel to thatfire.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
But it falls on us, as you know, just as officers as
well.
Man, we're both officers.
So putting too much pressure onthe supervisors to do all that,
I think it takes a collective.
It takes all that.
I think it takes a collective,it takes everyone to bring each
other up, and we do that.
You see that amongst the peers,right, we all, we all bring
each other up I don't need thepotlucks, potlucks right, we're

(26:32):
doing that.
Now we got bullshitting, right,you know, shooting the shit.
Exactly, our union, our unionhas been really good.
They provided us some blackstones, so now we have black
stones on the yard so now we getto do this, the food sharing
events and yeah, and we get to.
You know, we get to better,have better camaraderie amongst
each other and bring each otherup when you promote it up.

Speaker 3 (26:50):
Did you feel like that was?

Speaker 1 (26:52):
I was gonna take it from what I learned in the
military well, a couple rightbefore I promoted, a good
sergeant told me uh a, yourstaff will make you or break you
.
They either make you shine orlook like shit.
Right, it all how you treatthem, and and I held on to that.
But other than that, Isubconsciously brought in

(27:13):
everything that my, my formerarmy leaders.
I just copied their fuckingstyle, right exactly, and their
style is just embedded in me.
You know what I mean ultimately, just being a good person, no,
right, um, oh yeah.
And you know, one thing Inoticed as a supervisor is to
not burn out your all-stars, notburn out your mvps, and with

(27:34):
and going back to theseyoungsters that are just not
giving a fuck and doing the bareminimum, they're not realizing
that they're burning out the ogsright there.
I resigned because I couldn'tfucking stomach it anymore.
You know a lot of people areretiring because they can't take
in another damn day in thedepartment joining different
departments laterally ladderingover going to different
departments.

(27:54):
It's in some crazy times rightnow it is.

Speaker 3 (27:57):
I've heard that the department's 80 percent under 10
years and that the 20 thatmakes it up is wardens cc3, cc2,
cc1, sergeants, lieutenants,captains, associate wardens all
that position is in the top 20that's ready to retire.
It's everyone with almost 10years and under that's going to

(28:18):
run it here pretty quick.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
Oh, it's been like that.
It's been like that, but you'reright.
We're at that point now, yeah,but it's been.

Speaker 3 (28:24):
This has been in the making because you came in right
after the hiring freeze.
In what did you say?
2006?

Speaker 2 (28:29):
yeah, it's a big department, you don't have to
get burned out.
It's so much you can do like,right, we talked about it, right
, join, right, you want to dosomething else?
Go do something else.
Right, join, crt join, be alarmresponse, do a range, do
whatever you want.
Just do something that isoutside of you know, sometimes,
your comfort zone.
You got to get out your comfortzone.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
But I'll tell you where the department went wrong
from my perspective is thefavoritism and hiring
non-qualified individuals forcertain positions, nepotism, et
cetera, et cetera.
Yeah, that happens in everyworkforce.
However, it almost kind ofplagued the department.

Speaker 3 (29:09):
Yeah, and I always saw it in the Army as the fast
pace, that A.
If you can run a 13-minutetwo-mile, guess what?
You're a sergeant now Icouldn't run a 13-minute
two-mile, specifically.

Speaker 1 (29:24):
So you mentioned other avenues and you're right.
There's so many opportunities,you can do right, and you were
part of the tactical team foryour agency?
I was, yeah, how was that?

Speaker 2 (29:35):
academy for you.
It was great.
It was challenging, hardestthing I've ever done in my life.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
How was the shooting, I mean you know you went
through it how was the shootingaspect.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
It was good, man, how challenging was it.
It was good, it's challenging.
You show up first day, boom,you qualify.
You don't qualify?
Hey, go home.

Speaker 1 (29:52):
It's a lonely ride.

Speaker 2 (29:52):
back home it's a lonely ride back home, but it
was extremely challenging.
It's probably the hardest thingand the most rewarding thing
that I've ever done is join, crtjoin.

Speaker 3 (30:02):
Is it higher standards to immediately qualify
on your first day?
Is it a higher standard thanthat?
It's different in thedepartment.

Speaker 1 (30:09):
It's a damn near impossible standard, bro.
I'm not even kidding you andformer army legitimately that,
that's that.
Uh, qualification course is nofreaking joke, dude no joke.

Speaker 2 (30:19):
and this is and, and they and they designed CRT
Academy to parallel military, soit's a lot of what we did in
the academy.
A lot of those guys used to beformer drill instructors, former
Marines or whatever, so theypushed that training style of
paramilitary.

(30:39):
And I was never in the military, uh.

Speaker 1 (30:43):
but well, I got to see on that team crt it's uh,
that shooting is way moreprecise than the military.
In the military you just gottahit the dude center mass right.
Hit him, set to hit the mobileanywhere center mask, drop him
in crt, you're hitting the dude.
I mean they tape off the target.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
They tape off the target right here and right here
, yeah, scoring zone you'resmaller, you're hitting them
right in a little thoraciccavity.

Speaker 1 (31:07):
Yeah, yep, yep, yep, and they fucking shot groups on
these individuals.

Speaker 3 (31:11):
Well, it's almost.
They want their partners to bethe best of the best.
You were talking about thatearlier with uh triple canopy.
Yeah, when you went in, that'swhere I first wanted to find you
.
When I saw that that you weregoing through, I've applied for
academy I don't know how manytimes and they just over and
over, they'll get you.

Speaker 1 (31:29):
Yeah, especially with what's happening now.
Ukraine, all fucking rusheverywhere.
It's popping off right now.
They're gonna need it.
North korea is soldier,soldiers over there in russia,
oh that's crazy man yeah, beingrussian descent oh, descent.
Oh, you're Russian, aren't you?
I am Russian.

Speaker 2 (31:46):
You did mention that bro, you did mention that it's
crazy to hear what's going onout there.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
It's not just Russia, though.
You've got the war on drugs inMexico and coming in from China,
and the drones everywhere.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
I've got relatives that live in Ukraine, do you?
Yeah, it's not what the mediais portraying it to be.
Man, you know and all that youknow.
All that money's going outthere, all the money we're
sending out there.
The people aren't seeing any ofthat money, man, it's going in
somebody's pocket.

Speaker 1 (32:09):
Huh, the higher up the higher oligarchs.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
You know they take all that money and then they
funnel it.

Speaker 1 (32:15):
Oh, I have a clear view on propaganda not
propaganda, but on corruption.
Now I have a clear view on howgovernment works, dude, and it's
disgusting.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
Not that I hate my government or anything.
I just observe how everythingplays out now, oh yeah, alarm
response right.

Speaker 1 (32:34):
Do you enjoy instructing in that capacity,
absolutely Formal capacity,where you're in front?

Speaker 2 (32:40):
Oh, yeah, I love teaching man, I love giving back
, I love what I learn and thengive it back to the, to the, to
the rest of the, uh, to thepeople.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
What can some officers do?
Maybe ask to gain moreknowledge or get the help.
What are some things.
You see, we're like man, ifthis person would just do this
or this person would just askthis, or this person is not
getting this it goes back towhat barry was saying, what
Kevin was saying about hey,learn the basics.

Speaker 2 (33:09):
Learn how to use the radio, learn about your
surroundings, learn yourequipment that you're issued
right.
Just learn how to use all thatproperly.
And just, you know, we give youguys all the tools when we
teach right and just follow thatbasic format and you'll be safe
and your partners will be safeand everybody gets to go home at

(33:29):
the end of the day.
That's the ultimate goal, right, that we all get to go home
safe.
That's, that's what.
That's why I do what I do andthat's why I love doing it.

Speaker 1 (33:38):
The ultimate goal is make sure everybody goes home
safe and that the inmates stayincarcerated.
That's it.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
it right, don't take off don't, don't take it as a
source of your brain.
Well, I mean, it's just it'sfucking corrections 101.

Speaker 1 (33:51):
Like, uh, that's it, and I usedto break this down on my staff.
I mean, I, when I see you guysI see you guys, you guys carry
yourself like supervisors I sayyou only care about three things
in this order your safety, makesure you don't get fired and
make sure you don't get me firedin the process.
Other than that, I don't carewhat comes down the pipeline,
whatever, but I only care aboutthese three things.

Speaker 3 (34:10):
Right, right, absolutely, and if you can break
it down to the necessity, thenmitigating the danger it's, it's
an easy process from that.
If those are the questions thatyou're putting through your
head, hey, can I release rightnow.
Can I do this, no matter whatthe radio is telling you.

Speaker 1 (34:28):
Let me ask you this, and do not give any details at
all, but have you guys ever seenor been in a position where
you're asked to do somethingthat violates policy from a
superior?

Speaker 3 (34:40):
I've been in a position where they're not
properly reading the documentsthat keep our safety and, when
they don't know what it is,they're just moving as quickly
as they can what they've seenhappen before.
They don't have the experienceto say why am I creating this

(35:01):
problem?
What do I need to do to makesure that everybody's safe?
Without that knowledge thefoundation of what am I doing
why am I doing it?
What's going to be the outcomeis not a straight path.
If you're clearing a codebefore you know where all your
staff is, you're the problem.

(35:22):
And why does it have to go soquickly?
We're we're just responding towhat happened.
We don't need to quickly pushit forward and and move back
into what regular program is howmuch does rushing back to
resume program?

Speaker 1 (35:38):
how much issues can that cause?

Speaker 3 (35:40):
that that gives everyone the opportunity for
that little crack in theconcrete.
That that's where the weedsgrow up at.
If you see that on a constantbasis, to where you've learned,
hey, once everything's done,it's done.
We got this guy over to TTA, noproblem.
Hey, he's up off the yard.

(36:02):
Now it's a resume.
Well, you got 15 dudes who alldon't have chemicals.
Now, just what's on my belt isnot useful to me.
They're like yep, it's methat's fucked up.
I'm the one that's making themistake.

(36:27):
At that point, yep, I betterturn and look.
I better make sure thateverything's going good and I
want the assistance fromeveryone around.
I just don't see, like that'sthe path that everybody's going
on.
It's almost you've learned itone way and there's no reason to
deviate from what thatdirection is.

Speaker 1 (36:48):
I'm glad you said that for the future supervisors,
for the future supervisors thatwill eventually promote.
But you're right, though, it'skind of scary that they don't
have a proper baseline.
They don't have a good exampleof what a normal code is
supposed to look like.
As far as resuming program, uh,freaking.
Securing the area, evidencepreservation, medical aid

(37:11):
equipment, accountability a lotof supervisors are really young
too.

Speaker 2 (37:16):
As soon as they hit their two years, they want to
promote.
They've only worked oneposition, right, so experience
comes a long way as well,correct?
So when somebody asks me shouldI promote, I said, well, get a
little bit experience, work allthe jobs, learn the department
first before you decide topromote.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
That's just my personal opinion on on promoting
so I actually used to tell theyoungsters they say, alt, should
I promote?
I only got two years.
I used to tell them this yeah,go ahead, man, you should.
I said if you should, becauseif you don't, that other fucking
lame will and you don't wantthat dude in charge of you.
I said but understand this, youdon't know it all.
Clearly, evidently you don'tknow it all.
So you better ask.
You better ask your seasonedfucking cops and you better ask.

(37:54):
And they'll be walking aroundlike you fucking think you're
better than everybody else,because you're not nice to tell
them that.
Because they do need to promote.
Regardless, there's a problem.
There's positions that need tobe filled right.
So it's better if you fill themwith the proper, the good
people, for sure.

Speaker 2 (38:07):
No for sure, we need good supervisors.

Speaker 3 (38:08):
So much In the army.
I was an American CorrectionsAssociation.
I was the clerk and the policywas laid out in front of you.
These are the things that youcan do.
There's 61 folders that aremandatory in ACA, those you
cannot move around.
But there's other things thatare guidance to show you.
If you haven't read it clearlyover and over and over again,

(38:32):
you might not understand whyit's in that place.
I just see so many people thatI'll tell them what the policy
is and it's just shaken off Likeno, this is the way we've done
it all the time.

Speaker 1 (38:43):
Well, I don't want to go to prison, so I'm not going
to do that Correct, that's fineand dandy, until something goes
wrong, right.
And then what they're going tosay is oh well, we didn't know,
or he should have known better.
Or what does policy say?
You're right, dude, you can getfucked off if you do not follow
policy.

Speaker 3 (39:00):
I remember you just had somebody on that was
training about Pobar and he was.
He was the investigative LAPD.
Yeah, my goodness, he has somuch information.
Because you have to.
You have to clearly understandwhy you're doing it.
And the one, the one majorpoint that he brought up to me
is a de-escalation.

(39:21):
De-escalation could be forcedto.
That's a part of it, correct.
That's not being taught to,that's a part of it, correct.
That's not being taught to.
Hey, brand new kids, I wouldnever even taught about it.
I always say mitigating thedanger, but I can't go any
further into that If I don'tunderstand what the deescalation
of force could be.
I've deescalated it because meand my partner are safe.
I had to use force.

(39:42):
I blinded him with oc right,he's not able to see for a
couple hours and hey, that's agood thing.
Now his violence has beenstopped, I lowered it.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
So you're right, man.
Uh, pole bar rights, dom title15, penal code.
All of these are black andwhite of what a peace officer
can and cannot do.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
That's true.
Now, mind you, even if theyjerk you around in that entire
process, at the end of the daythey're still black and white,
and you know what do they say?
The truth, I mean the truthwill come out.
In the end, it'll set you free.
Well, that too, man yeah, comeout, in the end it'll set you
free.
Well, that too, man yeah.
Um, so how important is it forstaff members to know policy?

Speaker 3 (40:31):
extremely.
It's the bible.
That's everything that you dothroughout the day is designed.
It was written in blood.
We don't, we don't know whatwas going to happen in prisons.
Look how they made san quentinand old fsom.
You got five tiers.
You look up, you can't even seeyour partner unless they're
flying off the tier for theground.
I see now in a 270, I've workedin six different prisons in

(40:56):
four different departments andI've seen the change and what
could be different.
It opened my eyes to seeing.
This is why this policy hasbeen written.
If you haven't ever seen sanquentin, you wouldn't know.
Well, why do we do somethingthat we do?
It is insane to go on thoseyards.
It's just crazy that that's howthey started.

(41:16):
Five tiers, 700 people can findin one unit.
That's just insane.

Speaker 1 (41:25):
We're talking about policy and you, being an
instructor, Um I you ever seeinstructors that kind of just
tell war stories all day longand veer off of policy?

Speaker 2 (41:37):
Sometimes people do veer off and talk about other
things, but hey, you know it'spart of their way of you know
how they came up and maybethat's how they learned it and
then maybe that's their way ofexpressing themselves and maybe
that's their teaching styleright.
Every instructor, as you know,has their own teaching style,
how they do things right.
So you know, has their ownteaching style how they do

(42:00):
things right, so you know umwhat's your teaching style, man.

Speaker 3 (42:02):
I I'll tell you right now, mike is by the book.
He can.
He can teach, and that's whyI'm glad I give too much.

Speaker 2 (42:09):
I'm known to give too much information, so my, my,
there's no such thing as toomuch information.
There's not my, my, you knowthey're probably going to watch
this, but they're going to beover the shit no, they're not,
it's fine they're.
They're going to be like damn,mike teaches way too much, he
gives way too much.
Hey, stay.
You know, can't give.
Teach them like a five-year-old.
That's kind of how they.

(42:30):
They want me to teach.
I said I can't.

Speaker 3 (42:32):
You know, I can't teach like the check on
understanding, and I've beenwith you when you're teaching
the range, the check onunderstanding.
15 people out of that classmight be fine.
There's five of us that arelooking like why do I do that?
Why don't I put my hand infront of the muzzle and and open
up to see it?
Why not in front of the, theejection port?

(42:52):
Why am I doing an action andthen being able to be brought up
to say, hey, this is, this isfor danger?
That's why you do it.
Your teaching style is veryclear, to the point Um, and very
refined it it's it's somethingthat you've done and you cared
about.
I can see that in your training.

Speaker 2 (43:12):
I always want to give everybody, as, like I said, as
much as I can and if, if, onepercent sticks, I feel like I've
done my job properly.
You know I stay within policy.
100 within policy, hey, I'llgive you.
But I'll give you my personalexperience and, like you said,
some supervisors do like to veeroff and talk about their worst
stories and stuff like that.
You know, once in a while I'llthrow in, hey this is what

(43:33):
happened to me.
This is my experience.
Don't do it.
I made a mistake doing this.
I don't want you to make thesame mistake.

Speaker 1 (43:41):
So technically, as a lieutenant, I was not authorized
to show correctional officersAVSS, body-worn camera video
footage, but I would do that onthe regular as a training tool,
something.
I mean, you would see somethingfar out and I would pull them
in like, look at this shit,don't fucking do this.

(44:02):
You guys see this like, oh shit, cool, right, don't talk about
this and fucking.
But I felt that that wasnecessary because it was fat.
Like you said, it's a fast,dynamic environment and I didn't
want them to repeat the samemistake.
Yeah, because it can cost youyour fucking life.
Some of the shit that I wasseeing was like whoa.

Speaker 3 (44:16):
Why?
Why did you do this?
Come here into my office, whydid you do this?
Please tell me why.
Give me a reason why you didthis.

Speaker 1 (44:23):
Oh, I'm just talking about inmates aggressively in a
fighting stance in front of youand fucking, cocking back and
the CO just standing therelooking at him cocking back and
then bam finally.

Speaker 3 (44:36):
And the CO just standing there looking at him
cocking back.
And then bam, finally made itthrough Not understanding
de-escalation that you have thatability to.
You're a peace officer in myplace.
I think of myself as an80-year-old woman because if she
feels in danger, I represent.
When I'm at work, when myuniform is on, I'm not a bigger
and stronger this guy, I'mrepresenting someone who isn't

(44:59):
as strong.
You can't be violent to them,you can't be violent to me.
I might be able to take one ofthose punches, but and what you
just said, hector, about.

Speaker 2 (45:07):
You know, people just standing there and watching and
they freeze up, right, theyfreeze up, and you know it was
beat down into me when I was aptm, back to crt.
Real quick, um, do something,right, do something.
That's, that's what wasingrained into us, right when we
were going make a decision,make a decision within policy.
Make a decision, do something.

(45:28):
Don't just stand there, youknow if, if somebody's already
doing something, go findsomething else to do, you know,
go find work, find work period,just find work, and that's, and
that's kind of how my you knowmy.
Back to the teaching style andand what we want to, you know,
help people at work as well,right, and and at homes as well,
people, you know, within theirhomes as well, and finding out,

(45:48):
hey, if there's something thatneeds to be done, corrected, we
want to make sure that people dohave that, you know, those
options available to them so,now that we've beat the shit
down of the uh youngsters man,let's talk about some proactive
ways that they can get better.

Speaker 1 (46:05):
What about physical fitness?
You're fit as fuck, bro.
Physical fitness and maybe somemartial arts you too, by the
way, physical fitness and ormartial arts you think that'd be
beneficial for correctionalofficers?

Speaker 2 (46:17):
Absolutely, man.

Speaker 3 (46:18):
That's everything You've got to start Jiu-jitsu
especially Jiu-jitsu, when youhave the ability to be calm in
the fight and not overpower theperson, but put yourself in a
position to effectively takethem out of the fight, that your
positioning is better than them, faster than them, and you know

(46:40):
what you're doing.
There's not a lot of inmatesthat know Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

Speaker 2 (46:46):
And me.
I don't have any martial artsbackground, but I like to lift
some weights once in a while.

Speaker 1 (46:51):
You've never boxed or did anything.

Speaker 2 (46:53):
No, nothing like that , nothing, dude.
You've got to get in on that.
On that, bro, step up your gamea little bit.
I do, I do it's fun.

Speaker 1 (46:58):
It just mixes up the the monotony you know for sure
for sure, I think that's theword.
Yeah, the boredom correct.
Yeah, no, so so you just left.
I just left some weights andjust stay in shape, stay in
shape.

Speaker 2 (47:10):
That's that's so important these days, man.
This job will beat you down,man, it will.
You know, working 16, know workin 16-hour shifts,
back-to-backs-to-backs, doingovertime, 10-plus overtimes a
month.
It's going to take a toll onyour health, man, as you guys
know.

Speaker 1 (47:25):
Let's talk about the cortisol levels, and you asked
me about TRT earlier.
You asked me about testosterone.
My first levels were 200 twoyears ago when I got tested.
Bro, that's extremely fuckinglow and I didn't.
I felt it right.
I just didn't realize put twoand two together that I had low
fucking testosterone.
That is a result of over a20-year span in the Army and

(47:47):
CDCR, of the fight or flightsyndrome just skyrocketing
flight syndrome justskyrocketing.

Speaker 3 (48:00):
That's really.
That's really lined out in umon combat, on combat with uh
lieutenant colonel grossman.
He says when we're up here allday long that you go under norms
to where nothing matters in thehouse.
If somebody steps in front ofthe tv he used as an example you
just look around them, right,not even.

Speaker 1 (48:14):
You're not even aware of your surroundings at that
point it's all the dopamine uhflooding the adrenaline and like
about raising the cortisollevels like that will fuck your
world up.
If you're a ceo, I don't give afuck where you work or in law
enforcement.
All that, uh fight or flightsimulation will fuck your world

(48:34):
up after a prolonged period oftime.

Speaker 3 (48:36):
For sure.
And just the awareness, theawareness all day long.
Watching, watching, watching.
It seems like you fall into apath to where, hey, either I'm
going to get better or I'm goingto escape from what's happening
.
And I know in the military thathappens a lot.
I know you quit drinking quitehappens a lot.

(48:56):
I know, um, you quit drinkingquite a while ago, 14 years ago,
yeah.
I stopped about 20 something.
Even before I joined themilitary, I was watching people
at a bar and their lives justfast crashing.

Speaker 1 (49:10):
Well, let's talk.
I mean, we've we've covered amultitude of topics, but let's
talk about not only is physicalfitness good for being able to
run up a flight of stairs andsave your partner from getting
their ass beat, but also formental health purposes.

Speaker 2 (49:24):
Absolutely.
Mental health is everything,man.
That's why I work out torelease that stress, at work or
wherever at home.
The gym is my escape, right.
So when I talk to everybody atwork as well, I'm like hey, this
is what works for me right, soit might not work for you, maybe
video games, whatever avenueyou want to pick, but drinking's

(49:47):
not definitely, definitely nota good escape.

Speaker 1 (49:50):
That's the worst thing you can do that is
self-medication, whether theyrealize it or not.

Speaker 2 (49:54):
Right and with these new laws coming around, right,
the marijuana.
The marijuana is coming intoplay.

Speaker 3 (49:59):
soon it's a horrible rumor, because I don't want my
partners to leave for somethingso simple.
Yeah, just don't use drugs.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
Yeah, that's a terrible escape yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:12):
And let's keep it real, you're not escaping your
problems by putting the alcoholdown the hatch or smoking
marijuana or snorting a line ofCoke, because the fucking
problem is still going to bethere when you sober up and it
matters are going to be worse,and I know this from speaking
from experience.
You truly have to identify theproblem and address the problem

(50:36):
in order for it to resolve it.
What do you do to keep yourmental health Family?

Speaker 3 (50:41):
is so important.
Yeah, I keep involved in myfamily as much as I can.
I read an article when I firststarted that your children are
80% less likely to have teenpregnancy if you have dinner
around the table every day.
How much 80% less likely tohave teen pregnancy boys and

(51:02):
girls.
And it's important just to havethat stability, to be able to
listen to them and what they'regoing through, to hear what
their days are like.
We get into a path of justovertime and overtime and
overtime.
I made the commitment to sayI'll live within my means, I'll
sit back and I'll watcheverything that happens at
family.
I'm almost an empty nester now.

(51:23):
So two more years and thenmaybe I'll hit a whole bunch of
overtime and try and get a planeor something I don't know take
over the world.

Speaker 1 (51:30):
No, you did it right.

Speaker 3 (51:31):
What about you?

Speaker 1 (51:33):
Do you spend time with the family?
Do you focus?

Speaker 2 (51:36):
too much I have.
The one of my biggest downfallswith the.
You know working for thedepartment was my personal
downfall was working too much.
I became a workaholic at onepoint.
You know work was my escape.
You know it went from the gymto work.
Work was everything to me and Istarted to see that my family
life declined progressively as,as I did, picked up more over

(51:59):
time, pick up more shifts.
So that went down a rabbit holeof but I'm sure you were working
to provide and support yourfamily exactly right, exactly
that was my thinking, correct my, but my family, oh well, you
know, I'm not at home anymoreFucking ungrateful people bro,
and I say that because you know,I was recently separated from

(52:19):
my wife and it's like, yeah, man, everything I did, I did for
the family.

Speaker 1 (52:24):
I don't want to go to fucking work.

Speaker 2 (52:26):
Yeah well, that cost my marriage as well, Did it?
I'm sorry to hear that, bro.
It's all right.
I'm sorry to hear that it's allright.

Speaker 1 (52:31):
I'm sorry to hear that, but I understand.
I never thought it would be astatistic man yeah, neither did
I, no.
But it is important to managefamily life with work life, for
sure Right, and ultimatelyprioritize the family, but also
understand that, hey, the billsgot to get paid, that's right,
it's a career.

Speaker 2 (52:50):
It's a great career man.
It's a good career.
I'm extremely happy.
Private security was nice too.
I learned a lot this.
I had some great experiences aswell, and I think that's what
paved the way for me to be hereand do this.

Speaker 1 (53:03):
What about individuals getting financially
in debt, banking on the overtime, buying the boat, buying the
car?
Living beyond their means.
In the department you ever seethat backfire.
Oh yeah, for sure, we or livingbeyond their means in the
department.

Speaker 3 (53:15):
You ever see that backfire?
Oh yeah for sure.
It would be dangerous.
We had one recently.
I mean, you can know someone sowell and then it's like a slap
in the face that, hey, thisperson used criminal behavior at
the job and they did somethingthat endangered me and my
partners.
When, boy, if somebody wouldhave came to me, man, I can help

(53:39):
, please let me know.
We have so many things in place.
I keep on saying EAP, but I'veused them a bunch.
If there's a problem with yourfinances, so many people would
come in and at least rallyaround you and help out.
But if you think you're goingto take it on yourself and do it
without anybody, that's one ofthe things that happens.

(54:02):
You decide that your financialsis more important and I'm going
to take the easy way.
I'm going to smuggle somethinginto the facility which just
hurts all of us.
We look like crap when thathappens and I do my five days, I
come in.
I do my five days, I come in, Ido my work.
If I'm held, hey, it's my turnand then move on.

(54:23):
But to be able to just say Idon't care about any of my
partners or what this departmentstands for.
At least to me it means a lotthat I walk in every day.
I know when I went throughAcademy I beat out a thousand
people to get there.
I'm not the smartest dude inthe world, but to get it to sit
in that chair it felt.
I felt like a lot of pride.
Same with the military.

(54:44):
I felt a lot of pride when Ijoined up.
It was, it was just hurtful tohear that someone close to me
made that big of a mistakewithout coming up and saying,
hey man, I'm hurting, I'm makingbad decisions, where do I go
from here?

Speaker 1 (55:00):
I'm glad you bring up the AP a lot, dude, because, uh
, the resources that are outthere, I mean they're there to
be utilized.
I don't know.
I think you get seven sessionsa year, from what I last
remember, and be able to speakto somebody on one specific
point.

Speaker 3 (55:16):
So on top of that, you can change the point like
hey, I got a problem with um, myfinances.
I got a problem specificallywith I'm trying to start a
business in my finances.
Next I can say hey, I got aproblem with my personal
finances and merging the two,they want you to be there and
ask for the assistance.

(55:36):
And in the military, too, wehad so many things that we could
go to.
I don't remember what theschool was that you could get
while you were active duty, butyou could do corresponding
courses and get credits fromthat.
I used every part of that, andthen I would tell my soldiers
there were a lot of kids thatjust sat in their barracks and
just didn't do nothing.
You've got to grab it when it'sthere.

(55:58):
I know they say that we make somuch money on the books.
When we start with, a lot ofthat is in hey, your retirement
funding, um calpers helping youout with a little bit extra
retirement eap.
Those are things that theygroup in to say that you're
making that much money.
If I'm not using it and I payfor my own therapist or own
financial advisor, why I get itfor free?

(56:19):
That's one of the biggestthings that I try to promote
when I'm talking with theseyoungsters.
There's so much that you canhave an opportunity to use.
Just you have to know about it.

Speaker 1 (56:29):
Power of attorneys.
Right Legal representation.
Mm-hmm Life insurance.
Divorce for right legalrepresentation.
Life insurance.
Divorce for 400 bucks.
Divorce for 400 bucks money toget that divorce for 400 bucks
just to do the paperwork if youguys can agree on something, and
you know this is.

Speaker 3 (56:49):
This is the same problem that I went down law
enforcement military and it's sohard for people to stick in.
When 2015 came around, I hadalready been away five of my 10
years marriage my previousmarriage and I can't hold it
against anybody to say, hey,you're supposed to be there with

(57:09):
me.
I was asking to uproot myfamily again, right, and that
was the straw that broke thecamel's back that I can't ask
for that anymore because I'vealready asked for it so many
times.

Speaker 1 (57:23):
Let's talk about the importance of asking for help.
We're all males, right, themachismo, the masculinity.
It may be perceived that it'sweak to ask for help.

Speaker 3 (57:38):
What's your take on that?
Oh, I'm weak.
Then I ask nonstop that's good,bro, I don't care, because
there's so many people that arethere to help me.
My biggest thing I startedtalking to Mike about the crazy
idea that I had for consultingand without him backing me on it

(58:00):
and saying I have some insightwith it, If we move it this
direction and we spent days justreally developing an idea of
what we wanted to go through,and that's where Vigilant Home
came from If, if we didn't havethe, the, the conversations, me
asking him for help, if Ithought that I could do it

(58:21):
myself without my partner there,I would have been.
I would have been on step one,just in my mind thinking I can't
do this, why would I even try?
It's, it's Mike's enthusiasmthat really showed me.

Speaker 2 (58:40):
Hey, it can be done.
There's, like it's okay to askfor help, man.
It's it's yeah, yeah, you knowwe're, you know, alpha male
whatever, whatever you want tocall it, man, that mentality,
but it's, at the end of the day,we, we all, we all could use a
little help from our, you know,from our brothers and sisters,
man.
So absolutely, it's okay to askfor help, you know, from our
brothers and sisters, man.

Speaker 1 (58:56):
So absolutely it's okay to ask for help.

Speaker 2 (58:57):
That's the way I look at it.
100 man, you don't have to ask.
You know supervisor, you can.
You can talk to whoever youwant.
Maybe you connected withsomebody at work you're like hey
, can I talk to you a little bitabout you know, I'm going
through some personal stuff andthat person can refer you to eap
or whatever, right?
So, um, there's still some helpout there, for sure.

Speaker 1 (59:12):
But it definitely saves lives.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
I'll tell you that oh yeah, for sure, man.
Mental health is big right now,man, and and they're so focused
on, they're putting so muchmoney and funding into mental
health, and the resources arethere.

Speaker 1 (59:24):
The resources are there available, so everybody
should take advantage if youthink you need it so one thing
that I realized right now I'mtalking to both of you is that
you guys are able to do thisentrepreneurship endeavor of
starting your own business Rightand launching it because,
because your foundation is sosolid, because you're physically
fit, because your finances werein order, because you

(59:46):
prioritize your family Right Alot of people think that
business people are rich people.
Oh, they were just born rich orthey fuck.
No, you're putting in thefucking hard work behind the
scenes.

Speaker 2 (59:56):
For sure it'll pay off.
It'll pay off for sure and it'snot right away, but process.
It's a process, years it'syears, decades.
But you gotta want it, yougotta want it, you gotta be
hungry for it.

Speaker 3 (01:00:06):
What is it?
90 of anything that's justshowing up?
All you gotta do is be there.

Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
We're just talking about that.
You know, like you said, wewould have never started this if
we just didn't show up and juststart doing it.
Right, you know?

Speaker 1 (01:00:18):
yeah, that's what it takes pulling that trigger and
fuck and just yeah, I'm the typeof dude that wants to, or that
uh whether it begs forpermission or uh begs for
forgiveness and ask forpermission type of guy.
Man, it's better to ask forforgiveness than it is to ask
for permission.
My wife hated that shit aboutme, but that was my fucking

(01:00:39):
style, man.

Speaker 3 (01:00:39):
But you as a type, a personality.
My fear is, hearing that youmade the decision to resign,
that I'm so scared I couldn'teven imagine Was there somebody
that helped you with thatdecision.

Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
So I'll say right here, for the first time there
was a uh.
Stewart scheller was a marine.
He was a marine.
I'm not sure if you're familiarwith stewart scheller, and when
the afghanistan kabul uhexplosion, the car or the
suicide bomber killed 13 servicemembers marines.
Stewart Scheller was an activeduty Marine and an instructor in

(01:01:19):
some base on the East Coast andhe went on record, you know,
denouncing the leadership,saying, hey, you're fucking
responsible for this.
And I thought to myself man, Itook a lot of fucking balls.
You know, in the military youcan't do that, you can't put
your higher ups on blast,especially on the media and in
uniform, no less.
So that planted a seed of likehey, there's dudes out there

(01:01:39):
that are, you know, kind ofdoing the right thing ethically,
ethically and morally, justbecause I feel that we had
gotten away for so long, right.
So when I made that decisionand, just like you guys, I'd
already been working outreligiously, eating healthy, uh,
uh, so that was just.
Everything was set up for thatdecision.

(01:02:00):
Now, was that a major fuckingdecision?
Oh, it was a risk, bro, it was.
But, as they say, I burned theboats.
You know, you burn the boats,meaning that you can't go back
on that decision no one can goback.

Speaker 3 (01:02:11):
You have to build a life where you've landed yeah,
dude, hustling, grinding, it'sbeen fun.

Speaker 1 (01:02:14):
um, you know, inspiration to a lot of people.
Man, no one can go back.
You have to build a life whereyou've landed.
Yeah, dude, hustling, grindingit's been fun.

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):
You're an inspiration to a lot of people, man.
You definitely are aninspiration to us as well, man.

Speaker 1 (01:02:22):
There's a lot of things that hold people back
from leaving the department orleaving health insurance.
You realize, I just got on mylaptop the other day and just
went to fucking Blue Shield andjust signed up for insurance on
my own Right.
I don fucking blue shield andjust signed up for insurance on
my own right.
I don't even think people know,I didn't know I could do that,
right, yeah, yeah, they, you canget insurance on your own
dental insurance, vision likeit's expensive, but yeah, I mean

(01:02:43):
, it's not even that expensive.
To be honest with you, bro, it'snot like I think.
Literally I'm paying 50 bucksfor fucking what I got going on,
right?

Speaker 3 (01:02:51):
well that's pretty cheap and if you're're healthy.
I know Tucker Carlson has hadCarrie Means on and she's really
big in explaining what the foodthat we eat has to do with our
body.
They're talking aboutAlzheimer's and dementia is
diabetes 3.

(01:03:12):
So if you don't have the rightdiet diet, then you're just
putting poison into your bodyand you're having those insulin
spikes all day long, up and downand up and down.
Yeah, to where you can't fixthat problem.
Later on they're giving you obso obsempic is for the weight
loss drug.
It's.

Speaker 1 (01:03:30):
It's just too much to go on your body's failing
diabetes, erectile dysfunctionthat's my running joke, in case
you guys haven't caught that.
Um, resigning from thedepartment.
Man, you know that was a majordecision.
And when I would ask of peopleyou know my viewers I don't ask
you guys to do major decisions.
You don't have to do life, butI do preach.

(01:03:52):
Hey, just be fucking nice tothe next person, don't be a
fucking asshole, don't be apiece of shit, don't be a
scumbag.
You know it's kind of simple Inmy mind.
It's simple, man.
I don't know I'm getting thepoint across.

Speaker 3 (01:04:03):
No, no, it is, it is.
Oh, we've had a lot ofconversations about your podcast
and what it means to us that ifyou do air your dirty laundry,
at least everybody knows what'shappening.
It's really helpful to all ofus to start the conversation.
Hey, this is a problem that wehave, but I can't turn and not

(01:04:27):
see the problem.

Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
I have to be a part of it the transparency.
Even inmates have podcasts.

Speaker 1 (01:04:32):
I mean so I learned that from two separate reasons.
One, the military.
You know the military doesafter action reports Exactly and
you got to pick apart why,where shit went wrong, so that
doesn't fucking happen again.
And then I took a crisisresponse.
I took a SWAT team commandercourse here in San Diego.
Swat team commanders fromfucking everywhere dude, oakland
, pd, phoenix, la SheriffsSounds like fun.

(01:04:54):
It was that.
And it was a tactical liabilitycourse as well, where they had
a lawyer that deals withtactical teams, law enforcement
team.
So they're dealing with a bunchof bullshit.
You know, yeah, yeah, murder,not murders, but shootings in on
the job and stuff like that.
And they're like hey, man, onething that the police agencies,
police departments, learned wasyou have to get in front of the

(01:05:16):
media.
You have to go out there andgive a press conference.
As fucking painfully as it isor embarrassing, you have to say
, yeah, hey, we fucked up onthis one, we dropped the ball
right here, and that is thatmakes all the difference.
Man, people are not stupid,right?
People get insulted when youattempt to lie to them or cover
shit up right.

Speaker 3 (01:05:36):
People get insulted when you attempt to lie to them
or cover shit up.
And knowing the graham versusconnor, yeah, that's.
That's so important too.
You have to know that.
Hey, I didn't.
I didn't have time to think itwas an action that I did right.
And case law yeah, I have todeal with the ois now.
There's nothing that I can do.
When did you take that thatcourse?
How old were you when you tookit?

Speaker 1 (01:05:58):
when I was like the pio, that had to have been in
2019, 2020, fucking five yearsago.
It was a great course, man.
Bunch of uh after actionreports, debriefings of major
incidents, man, where swat teammembers were killed in the line
of duty, right it was.
It was pretty surreal, dudegreat training a bit oh bro man

(01:06:21):
yeah, a lot of, a lot ofphysical.

Speaker 3 (01:06:22):
Talk about it.
No, no, not physical classroompowerpoint presentation speeches
.

Speaker 1 (01:06:27):
Uh, for people that were actually involved in some
crazy fucking incidents, becausethat's how I learned.
I learned by, like you know,hearing stories and like fucking
learning what not to do throughother people's mistakes or yeah
, that's pretty much my teachingstyle.
Is it yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:06:42):
of course man Don't do what I did.
Here's what not to do.

Speaker 1 (01:06:49):
You guys plan on promoting at all, or you guys
want to stay where you're at, orit's a little bit.

Speaker 3 (01:06:55):
It's a little bit different.
In the institution that I cameto, I was a guy and it shut down
, oh yeah.
And once I moved to thisinstitution, it's it's a little
bit different.
I haven't really navigatedwhere to go yet.
I let my.
I had my sergeant's test.
I ranked pretty good and andtest I ranked pretty good and

(01:07:18):
now I'm just kind of three.

Speaker 1 (01:07:20):
That is pretty good man.

Speaker 3 (01:07:20):
For me it was awesome , yeah, and now I just step back
.
I want to see where I can beuseful in my position, because I
can't break through.
I can't break through in thisplace.
It seems like as a wholedepartment.
Hopefully the pendulum has goneall the way to here and it's
going to start coming back,kevin.

(01:07:42):
The pendulum has broken off andflown into the fucking pacific
ocean well, luckily, I saw whatthe army corrections was, where
I didn't have a choice to go tothe union or anything.
There was specifically you dowhat you're told and it's going
to happen this way.
I didn't have any choices andthey were really political.
There in guantanamo it was.

(01:08:03):
It was policy, like you'resaying, you get out in front of
it first.
Whatever happened when I wasthere, you get out in front of
it first and you get into thenews, and it was reactionary.
So here at least I can see youknow if you're going to make a
mistake on policy, you do havethe checks and balances.
I wish that we used the afteraction report more to show this

(01:08:28):
is this is what we should havedone.
This is what we did.
Well, it's just not somethingthat's used in this, even at the
co level.
Man at the correctional officer.

Speaker 1 (01:08:33):
if you fuck up, admit that you fucked up, tell on
yourself.
They always say tell onyourself, man.
Oh, it's just not somethingthat's used in this, even at the
CO level, man, at thecorrectional officer level.
If you fuck up, admit that youfucked up, tell on yourself.
They always say tell onyourself, man.
I remember he doesn't work forthe department, no more.
He's a good kid, real good kid.
He put an inmate in handcuffs onthe upper tier and the inmate
was straight fuck your mom.
Literally told him fuck yourmom and and fuck your mom.

(01:08:57):
And his mom had passed away.
So he took off the handcuffs,inmates spun around on him and
well, the inmate then ratted onto the lieutenant.
I wasn't the lieutenant, hejust told me about this that hey
, yeah, your officer took offthe handcuffs on the upper tier
when he wasn't supposed to.
So you know, he called him outto fight and I and he's like,
what do I do?
I was like hey, write amemorand, write a memorandum,
write a memorandum.
What happened?
Lost your cool, fuck it, ithappens, fuck it Put it on.

Speaker 2 (01:09:20):
We're human beings.

Speaker 1 (01:09:20):
man, Submit it to your lieutenant Shoot it up to
the captain.
All right, literally you gotnothing.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:09:30):
Yeah, nothing and truthful oh yeah, that's it,
that's that's how you're gonnalose your job at the end of the
day, start being less thantruthful and start covering up
lies and I told don't do thatshit again, though, bro.

Speaker 1 (01:09:40):
He's like oh no, dude , I'm fucking scared that's the
last time I'm gonna do that.

Speaker 3 (01:09:45):
I don't know what to do, but I mean I mean, I'm human
.

Speaker 2 (01:09:48):
I'll admit I lost my cool couple times too.
You know, guys, some, some mms,really know how to push your
buttons and they want to get areaction out of you.
They want that lawsuit, theywant all that man.

Speaker 1 (01:09:58):
Both of you guys seem extremely seasoned and
extremely experienced, right andlevel-headed.
What is some advice to officers?
To not bite.
To not bite when an inmate isjust fucking getting under their
skin.

Speaker 3 (01:10:11):
How do I deal with it that, hey, somebody's making a
mistake and they're challengingme specifically Correct.
I can as loud as I can be.
I can rattle off what thedepartment wants what's in title
15.
Right, what I have to do as ano-transcript.
Now everybody hears what'shappening.
Right, most people in a unit,most of the population, the

(01:10:34):
incarcerated they want to bringeverything to the lowest level.
They want it to be real calm.
A the co is not looking at whatwe're doing.
It's all in the shadows.
If you bring it out into theopen, yeah, oh, that's all bad
news.
Now he's looking bad at settingme off to do crazy things I
mean psychological warfare bro.
And I don't.
I don't mind getting as loud asI have to.

Speaker 2 (01:10:56):
Yeah, just stop and think, man, just be, take a
breather.
Sometimes, maybe your partnerhopefully your partners next to
you shouldn't be, you shouldn'tbe doing this job alone.
You should always have apartner next to you.
So if you have a good partnernext next to you partner will
pull you back.
But like, hey man, not worth it, not, not, not worth losing

(01:11:17):
your money over this, not, thisis not.
Just take take a step back,think about, think about your
actions and we're held to ahigher standard too.

Speaker 3 (01:11:24):
If you're playing the what if game non-stop and you
won't get into that situation,sure?
If he's talking about onefamily member, how does he know
who my family members are?
If I'm not putting that on thetier, if I'm telling everyone oh
well, I got you know thisproblem with my, with my spouse,
right, and that's just onecrack in the concrete.

Speaker 2 (01:11:45):
That's bizarre to me.
Now they know what hurts me.
Everybody's just sitting theretalking about you know inmates
in the day room and they're justtalking about their personal
life, their kids, their, theiryou know financial problems or
gambling problems.
Oh, I just lost $5,000 in acasino this weekend.

Speaker 1 (01:12:00):
I'm like and you got the poor right there sweeping
around, they're listening,You're hustling oh hey, I can
help you with that financialproblem.
You know and I was raisedcorrectly in the department
Centinella by the OGs they don'tever talk bad about your
partners in front of inmates.
You don't ever talk bad aboutyour partner to an inmate.

(01:12:20):
You don't say personal businesswhen you've got a reporter
around or a yard crew worker,for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:12:27):
That's a big no-no.

Speaker 3 (01:12:28):
Divide and conquer, that's what they're looking for
In manipulation.
They want two partners to be atodds, not doing the same thing,
not on the same path.

Speaker 2 (01:12:37):
Yeah, just like praise in public what they say,
praise in public, counsel inprivate, right.
So just if you have an issuewith a partner, hey, pull them
aside, hey, away from everyone.

Speaker 1 (01:12:48):
Talk it out, what's going on if you have to bring a
supervisor line, though now, man, a lot of people get butt
hurting but that's maybe bring asupervisor in as well, maybe
bring them into a sergeant'soffice, have a supervisor
present that way.

Speaker 2 (01:12:59):
Hey, you're right.
That way you don't lose yourjob that is the correct way,
because people will file on you.
You know, like you said peoplefuck dude.

Speaker 1 (01:13:05):
You got seat staff members wanting looking to file
on other people right to get aticket out of there, just as you
have the inmates looking for apayday.

Speaker 3 (01:13:13):
I know recently they've implemented care for
cops.
I can't remember what thetraining is called, but it's
kind of like the tap-out method.
Hey man, you got a phone callin the office.
This is really new that they'reactually addressing the fact
that we're in a high stress.
Before it was like oh you're,you're a babysitter and why are

(01:13:35):
you mad about these kids?
Now we do have training in IST,which rolled out last year.
I think it was to where um it'sit's looked on.
The supervisors are supposed tocheck in a little bit more.
Um, your partner is supposed totap you out if they see you got
yourself caught up and there'sa lot of young kids that they

(01:13:56):
don't have the fundamentals ofbeing able to have a
conversation with someone.
It's not in a text message andyou got to tap them out.
Hey man, go into the office.
You got to go do some paperwork.
It's your turn for the phone.
The phone's bringing off thehook, it's for you and then move
in.

Speaker 1 (01:14:11):
You know, I'm really, I'm really disappointed in the
supervisor ranks man, and Idon't ever talk about this much.
But, like you're right, it'slike the military dude.
I know it's not the military,but it's paramilitary dude.
You have to.
It doesn't even matter whatcareer field you're in your
employees.
You got to look at them not aslike fucking objects.

(01:14:32):
You got to get to know who thefuck they are.
Man, it goes back to thespartan days.
Why do you think they were sofucking successful man?
They slept, ate, fucking fought, made jokes all together.
It's like a fucking brotherhood.
No, uh, trooping the line inthe military they call it
trooping the line.
Your commander goes around andchecks on everybody, how
everybody doing.

Speaker 3 (01:14:52):
I know my soldiers and I'll always place their
needs above my own.
It's it's the the motto that wetook.
Now it's it's almost likethat's missing in the uh
supervisor sergeant ranks, whereyou're not going out to go see
the soldiers, you're not yourofficers, you're not going out
in investing in what they'redoing no, because you're getting

(01:15:15):
trained at the sergeant academy.

Speaker 1 (01:15:17):
Uh, transgender pronouns you're getting trained.
Uh, staff disciplinary, uh,union bullshit.
Uh, you're getting trained andeverything other, and I get it
to a certain degree right, but'smissing that.
It's missing the human elementto it.
That fucking system will chewyou up and spit you out, man.

Speaker 3 (01:15:38):
I think I was really blessed by being in the military
before this.
Right, Because it's soimportant what your job duties
are morality, Like hey, I'mresponsible for these guys that
are with me.
That was really.
My honor was to train and leadsoldiers.
I was so lucky to be able to dothat.

Speaker 1 (01:15:56):
Well, how bad would you feel if your mistake or your
downfall caused somebody elseto get hurt or killed?

Speaker 3 (01:16:01):
That's crazy, I don't know.
I always say to my partners youknow, we'll be sharing a
hospital room, I can't justbring flowers to them People
have retired because of that,because they, they, their
actions led someone to getinjured.

Speaker 2 (01:16:16):
And then they said, man, I can't take this.
This is, this is too much forme.
And they resigned,Unfortunately they're hopefully
none of us will ever be in thatposition that somebody gets hurt
because of our actions.
But that's why we fall back ontraining, that's why we, that's
why we do what we do and weteach safety, safety, safety

(01:16:36):
from day one, so that neverhappens.

Speaker 1 (01:16:40):
Let's talk about the training, the training that's
allotted.
What do you get?
You get one week out of a year,Monday through Friday.

Speaker 2 (01:16:47):
How many hours is it?

Speaker 1 (01:16:48):
I changed it now Monday through Thursday, 10-hour
days now 40-hour training,40-hour block training oh yeah,
for a correctional peace officerto get to go over.
And then again, man, from 06 tonow, what was being taught then
?
As to what is being taught now,right, because that's all you
get.
You get 40 hours, man, you get40 hours.
Whether we're going to teachyou how to pat inmates down or

(01:17:10):
how to push them in a wheelchair, but we're giving you 40 hours
of some type of training, right?
Um, do you think 40 hours isenough?

Speaker 2 (01:17:19):
I think it's enough.
I think it's enough as long asthey take whatever they give
them and and they actuallylisten and apply, right?
I mean it also falls back oninstructors as well, right?
How serious are we going totake this lesson plan that the
state approved through theirlawyers, through whatever they
you know?
However, they do this throughthe union and everything.

(01:17:40):
So I think it's again that'sjust my biased opinion I think
it's great and I think it givesofficers a lot of tools to be
safe on the job and to do thisjob effectively and accomplish
the department's mission, right?
No, would it?

Speaker 1 (01:17:58):
benefit?
Would it benefit them to dotraining on their own or gain
knowledge and insight or dostuff that'll benefit them in
the job on their own time?
Absolutely, I mean such asmaybe going to a fucking gun
range and going with buying aninstructor.

Speaker 2 (01:18:11):
You know what I mean?
shit like that for sure, dryfiring in the pad for sure, man,
you know I, I teach this allthe time too.
I say, hey, you, how long youhave to do in this department.
One of the questions I asked oh, you got 30 years to do.
Okay, do you want to come backhere and quarterly qualify and
and fail and and have those?
You know that worry.
You know.
I know from speaking fromexperience.

(01:18:32):
I used to show up to the rangebarely qualified.
I taught myself how to shoot,like you just said, took that
personal time to go to the range.
Hi, talk to some cert guys.
Right, talk to talk to crtmembers like, hey, man, if you
have time, can you teach me howto shoot right on your off time?
You know, so I put in that time.
I forced myself to learnbecause I didn't want to come

(01:18:54):
back and get those.
You know those.

Speaker 1 (01:18:56):
But that's the sick feeling to your stomach.
Like man am I gonna?

Speaker 2 (01:18:58):
qualify today or not?
Am I gonna do this or not?
Yeah to get away from that.
That's.
All the people have to do isjust put in that extra time on
your own time and or maybe justlisten to instructions that
people have given you.

Speaker 3 (01:19:12):
And I see that this, what you've designed here, is
almost another ability for allof us to hey stop and think, to
learn from the other people thatyou're bringing up and it's a
lot of law enforcement now thatare teaching such great things.
Right, In the Army, we had hippocket training to where A if I
had soldiers that are on adowntime.

(01:19:33):
You're not going to sleep,you're going to listen to what I
have to say.
React to fire.
What are we going to do in thissituation?
And there's always a book forit, there's an FM for every
single thing that you're doing,right?
Hmm?

Speaker 1 (01:19:48):
You're David.

Speaker 3 (01:19:56):
You're definitely hip pocket training.
I haven't heard that shit in awhile, bro.
Hey, you know what I still gotin my calendar book?
I still got something that Ican pull out and refer to that
whenever these kids come around.
You just give them five, 10minutes, give them some
inspiration to think about.
I know that this podcast,specifically though is is in the
format of hey.
What can we do to make itbetter?
What can we do to train andlead?
It's important that we havethese people that are going to

(01:20:20):
join up and and completeselfless service right to say
even though this is a rough job,even though we die early, right
, even though, hey, I got achance to be assaulted every day
, every minute, I have to be onthe best of my abilities still
people sign up for it, and theseare the partners that I want to

(01:20:41):
be with.
Definitely, they made thatdecision.
I remember when I went throughAcademy, I beat out 1,000 people
to sit in that chair and itfelt really powerful for me that
I was the one who was doing itright?

Speaker 1 (01:20:54):
no, I appreciate that and you know this podcast is a
work in progress.
It's fairly new getting theguests on board and, you know,
having these conversations, butyou're.
I believe this is the start.
This is the start of change forsure not to sound cliche, no,
no, no.
But we're giving individuals aplace to come and gain knowledge
or at least listen to fuckingstories at the bare minimum.

(01:21:16):
Yeah, they got to takesomething from it.

Speaker 3 (01:21:18):
Yeah, because you, you also have a lot you're
you're uh involved in thedocumentary coming up pretty
quick also.

Speaker 1 (01:21:23):
Grunt, yeah, february 1st, looking forward to it,
can't wait yeah, um, butultimately the goal dude, the
goal has always been to giveback and I I mean, fuck, I quit.
Right, I resigned so that I canhelp.
I mean, I was at Donovan.
Now I have the world lookingSomebody's Spain, new Zealand,
australia, the UK so basically,just giving a bigger platform to

(01:21:44):
speak and have the opportunityto bring guests like you guys on
man.

Speaker 3 (01:21:49):
Yeah, because no one would know.
It's so weird when you sitaround and you're speaking, I
know I I take enough vacationsbecause I can pay for him, right
, and it'll be me and my wifeand we're sitting around and
everybody goes through hey, whatdo you?
What do you do?
I'm a teacher, I'm in, I'm inthis.
And then I try to say, oh, I'mpart of the state.

(01:22:09):
And then when it comes up, well, what department do you work in
the state?
Well, I work in a prison.
Now everybody the spotlight'son me.
They're so curious becausethere's no time that anybody has
really broke it down.
This is what I do on a dailybasis.
This is what it looks like.
Lockup was a big one that thatwas one of the first ones that
you got to come in and see inthe 90s, early 2000s.

Speaker 2 (01:22:31):
Lockup msnbc lockup, yeah, and any like just
piggyback, where you say anytimeI bring up firearms,
everybody's like oh man, teachme how to shoot, teach me how to
shoot I want, I want to know,you know everybody comes out of
the like you say.
Everybody just comes out likehey, you're a firearm instructor
, can you?

Speaker 1 (01:22:45):
can you teach me a little?

Speaker 2 (01:22:46):
bit.
I like the glock.

Speaker 1 (01:22:48):
I like the glock I love the glo, bro, and I did not
prior to the department.

Speaker 2 (01:22:51):
Which Glock do you In general?
Do you prefer just any Glock?

Speaker 1 (01:22:54):
Yeah, yeah, just the whole platform, and I wasn't
really a fan of them prior, butonce I got in, especially on CRT
, it's like, oh my God, dude,this fucking thing.
It's like an AK-47 of handguns.

Speaker 2 (01:23:06):
My first gun was a.

Speaker 3 (01:23:08):
Glock, pull the fucking trigger.
See, I like the Ferrari, I likethe sig sour you do.
Oh, love that thing, the, the,it's what the new m9.
So I have mine chambered in a45.

Speaker 1 (01:23:21):
Yeah, you have newer, sig sours p3 20.
Oh, you do.

Speaker 3 (01:23:25):
Fucking drop and it shoots on his own is no, that
was in the beginning and I don'tthink.
I think they really made it Biglike Tesla.

Speaker 1 (01:23:31):
They say, oh well, you know it blows up whenever
they were just what did justblow up in front of the trump
tower, or have you?
Have you?

Speaker 3 (01:23:38):
read into that.
I was watching the sean ryanshow and, yeah, that's the one
that hit me when he said that hewas going to go into hiding.
Yeah, I was afraid too, but sigsauer just feels like it's a
ferrari of of the oh, I thoughtthe staccato my.

Speaker 1 (01:23:53):
My first gun was a sig p220 and I unfortunately
sold that to a co-worker of mine.
I regret it.

Speaker 2 (01:23:59):
You know I will eventually would like to buy
another sick people yeah, that'swhat I carry off, dude, I carry
p3 20s compact.
Love that guy man.

Speaker 1 (01:24:06):
No, I carry the 220, the 220 240 45 okay, okay, big
size.

Speaker 3 (01:24:12):
and now with the 320, I mean, they're interchangeable
.
You can go up in caliber, downin caliber, that's the funnest
part, With what?

Speaker 1 (01:24:18):
with the barrel change.

Speaker 3 (01:24:21):
The barrel, the grip, the slide, everything is
interchangeable.
I do like the Glock, I do likeit, but I want to pull out
something that was a little bitbetter.
When I'm showing that off toeveryone, they call it the
barbecue gun.

Speaker 1 (01:24:38):
look at this, look at this one mine is a north
american arms 22, the small onethat fits in your palm whatever,
that's my little conversationpiece it's funny.
When I put it out on the tableI was like what the fuck is that
?
That's awesome good stuff sohow important are hobbies?
I mean, we're talking aboutguns, now we're letting loose.

(01:25:01):
How important is it?

Speaker 3 (01:25:02):
you have a life outside of the department it
gets me to think about somethingelse than dwelling on the job
that I'm in.
I like to ask my partnersreally weird questions when I'm
there, like um, what can't youput peanut butter on?
Would you have peanut butter onpizza?
But if I'm not talking about mylife, I can talk about
woodworking.
I was a carpenter before I everjoined the military in

(01:25:25):
construction and I get theopportunity to bring up things
that I didn't know that a lot ofpeople else were interested in.
I can't draw, I'm not artistic,but yeah I can run a saw.
That's one or two things thatare time consuming to get me out
of the place yeah, and hobbiesis everything, man.

Speaker 2 (01:25:46):
Like you said, even just you could pick up shooting
as a hobby.
You could pick up right hobbyit's.
You could pick up running hobbyit's expensive.

Speaker 1 (01:25:53):
It's an expensive hobby, but it's a damn good
hobby bro.

Speaker 2 (01:25:55):
It is, it is for sure .
I mean you could you know mybuddy's building cars?
You know there's, there's somuch you can do out there.
Man, just do something.
Just get your mind off,whatever you know, this negative
environment that we're in, thiscorrections, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:26:10):
Do something else as a hobby that will get your mind
off and refresh your brain and Ifeel like when we started this,
this venture, it's almost justsomething to fill the time, to
be able to acknowledge that wehave a unique opportunity to see
what manipulation is like inits purest form and then be able

(01:26:32):
to move into entrepreneurship.
I listened to a lot of podcasts.
One of them is how to, how topurchase homes and every money,
how to make money.
It's it's so nice to think thatwe have the opportunity to to
jump in with both feet and dosomething.

Speaker 1 (01:26:50):
That's so crazy with both feet and do something
that's so crazy.
So part of the problem isgrowing up.
I think, well for myself.
You're taught by your parentshey, you're gonna shut up,
you're gonna listen to your boss, you're gonna go to work for
eight hours, you're not gonnafucking question anybody and
you're gonna punch in, punch outand go home and be miserable.
But that's kind of what we'rein bit.
That's kind of what we'reembedded like to think outside

(01:27:13):
of the box.
Or, hey, I want to fuckinglaunch this idea or I want to
fucking embark on this.
It's always the ones closest toyou that kind of put you down,
um, and not because they dislikeyou, it's because it's fear of
you failing.
They don't want to see you fail.

Speaker 3 (01:27:30):
They don't want to see you get hurt um, to become
an entrepreneur is a huge jump.
I've I've really been listeningto richard kiyosaki and his uh
rich dad, poor dad, right, Imean that model.
Yeah, you gotta jump in and dosomething, you gotta, you gotta
be the the one that takescontrol of your own future.

Speaker 1 (01:27:53):
And you know, it's not just necessarily creating a
product like a Tesla car.
Now, it's services likeservices like consulting, like
you guys do.
If you are skilled in aparticular skill set, you can
sell that service to otherindividuals that are willing to
learn.
That's right.

Speaker 2 (01:28:10):
That's right, and I have a good time doing it too.
I mean, just what we love to do, right?
This is our passion, right?
There's something like you said.
Back to the hobby, this is ourhobby in a way yeah, among other
hobbies but this is one of thethings that we both like to do
and both like to help people outthere.

Speaker 3 (01:28:27):
I really don't want any of this experience to go to
waste, because I have so much inmy mind from the military that
the hip pocket training that wedid so much, the NCO creed.
Sometimes I'll catch myselfsaying it on the way to work.
I'll never need that again, I'mnever going to go to a board
again.
Why do I keep on thinking aboutit?

(01:28:49):
I feel like when you jump intothat position you live that job
completely and I don't find anyother jobs that are like that,
where people completely surroundthemselves in that position,
other than law enforcement,military.
I know doctors.
They're just kind of at workall the time, but I don't see

(01:29:11):
anybody else that.
Oh well, I sell homes.
You're a realtor even when yougo home.
You're not looking for the saleevery minute of every day how
do you guys feel about failure,failing?
I think I have more anxiety forsuccess than anything else
failing.

Speaker 2 (01:29:29):
I don't mind, I'm not even scared.

Speaker 1 (01:29:31):
No, my failing I kind of knew you guys were going to
answer that way bro, because Imean I can read you guys and
that's how I feel, man, Ifucking love it.

Speaker 2 (01:29:37):
Yeah, because you gotta fall in love with the
process they say that mostbusinesses fail and but then you
just got to keep pushing and,pushing, and pushing until they
succeed.
You can open up five companies.
Four will fail, one willsucceed, will work right, so
it's okay.
If it fails it's all right andyou know we'll pick up again.
We'll change the name, remodel,restructure and get, get right

(01:29:59):
back into the beauty of it, man.

Speaker 1 (01:30:00):
Yeah, I love, I love that whole process, dude yeah,
right.

Speaker 3 (01:30:03):
Um, how many things do you have your fingers in?
A lot, quite a few.
A lot.
That's good, then it keeps mebusy.

Speaker 1 (01:30:07):
No, I think that that's good, but it keeps me
busy.
No, I think that that's like.
My hyper mindset is, you know,um, and on top of that I'm a dad
, you know.
So that softball coach, that'sbeen a blessing, right, that's
been a freaking blessing, dude,I never thought I'd be a
softball coach.
Um, that's good.
But yeah and yeah, I try not tospread myself too thin, though

(01:30:29):
it's like, uh, I'll work on theproject until I can not master
it, but get comfortable andbeing able to operate it, and
then I'll start another onethat's good, staying involved
doing everything.

Speaker 2 (01:30:41):
You're not bored man, you're doing it, you're not,
but you have no time to be bored.
I like that.
That's and it's positive.

Speaker 1 (01:30:47):
You know it's positive.
I'm very selfless these dayswhere I want to help other
individuals.

Speaker 2 (01:30:53):
Nice.

Speaker 1 (01:30:54):
Right on, good deal, bro.
Do you guys plan on stayinglocal or branching out with your
company?
What do you guys see in that we?

Speaker 3 (01:31:02):
talked about that it seems like this model is
untapped yet.
Right, I really looked into itto think, boy, somebody's got a
thought of this before, somebodyhad this on their mind to be
able to teach people.
But I see it's a path that noone has taken yet.
There's one or two, but not onthe same idea.

(01:31:25):
If I have the unique ability tosee in into the, into the realm
of what we're in, into our joband and daily interaction every
single day, there's so muchknowledge that we get from that.
Just to tell a few, a fewpeople at at at their point in

(01:31:46):
life, when they're discoveringlike, hey, I might want to have
safety for myself.
I watched on the news, it wasbad, but there's a lot of people
that aren't going to be reallypoint in life when they're
discovering like, hey, I mightwant to have safety for myself.
I watched on the news, it wasbad, but there's a lot of people
that aren't going to be reallyinvested in weapons.
So how are, how am I going toteach them with maybe non-lethal
something, something that's apath away from just I'm going to

(01:32:09):
shoot and pray, because now inCalifornia, I don't even think
the new castle doctrine, thecastle doctrine, is in precedent
.
You still have to have more thanfear, no matter if they're in
your home or not.
What do you do?
Do I retreat out of my house?
Is that the best idea?

Speaker 1 (01:32:27):
Well, there's so much you can do to prevent, even up
to that point Surveillancecameras, right reinforced
security doors safe rooms right.

Speaker 3 (01:32:36):
Your threat landscape is so important because we get
a dog that get a you know signs.

Speaker 2 (01:32:42):
What kind of dog, what kind of dog.

Speaker 1 (01:32:43):
Do you recommend that these viewers get for home
security?

Speaker 2 (01:32:47):
dog.
That's a dog, that's aware dog,that's a you know not.
Don't get a small little puppydog yeah I just get something.
I mean me personally.
I had a rottweiler before.
That's a big dog.
You don't have to get a big dog, big, scary, mean dog, just
just have a dog, that will be.
At least you know if there'sthreat or there's, you know,
danger, it'll bark, it'll alertyou, something like that.

(01:33:10):
That would.
That would help out as well.
But it say you, you don't, youcan't have pets.
Most, most of these homes,apartments, whatever people live
in, no pets allowed.
Okay, fine, get some lighting,get you know, make sure your
lighting is set up, your signsposted.
Hey, you know.
Um, it's locks.
Are you got good locks on yourdoors, your fences, whatever

(01:33:32):
right.

Speaker 3 (01:33:37):
There's a lot of barricade tools too, which has
opened my eyes recently.
I was looking for other optionsand there's products like it
used to be on a steering wheelyou could put a lock on it.
The club the club yeah, Iforget what it was called, but
they have that to where it's anadded barricade against the door
.
Right that, once you getdiscouraged from, from something

(01:34:01):
that's a lot stronger than youthought, right, you got to move
out.
You don't have much time toassault the, the objective.
You have to.
You have to read.

Speaker 1 (01:34:11):
Yeah.
Because, I'm not going to saycriminals are lazy, but you're
right, they look for a weaktarget they're not going to
fucking sit there and be bangingon the door and draw attention
to themselves, unless they youknow, consciously made that
decision that they are going togo inside your home.

Speaker 2 (01:34:26):
That's where maybe a firearm will come in great handy
what are some other weaponsshotgun?
100 a shotgun shot for homedefense.
That would be my personalrecommendation to get a shotgun.
I mean easy to use, veryeffective right probably not
slugs keep a couple slugs in theback, I would probably put a
couple bird shots, you knowbirdshot.

Speaker 3 (01:34:50):
You ain't never leaving.
What about uh?

Speaker 1 (01:34:52):
taking a step further and thinking about.
You know, the drywall and thebackdrop.

Speaker 2 (01:34:56):
Of course.

Speaker 1 (01:34:57):
Absolutely Kids rooms , right Spare bedrooms.

Speaker 2 (01:35:01):
That's why I wouldn't recommend, you know, full metal
jackets.

Speaker 3 (01:35:03):
I'd probably recommend getting some hollow
points, but you know, and thereare products that are coming out
right now.
There's non-lethal, like apepper ball launchers that are
handheld.
I guess can you call it apistol, but it's a pepper ball,
so maybe that's the distractionI need to get my family out.

Speaker 2 (01:35:22):
But also have a plan.
Sorry to interrupt, but alsohave a plan.
Have an alarm response plan foryour home.
Right, we have one at work.
Have one for your house.
What if?
What if?
Right?
Play, right, just, we have oneat work.
Have one for your house.
What if?
What if right?
Play some scenarios out.
What if, you know, get a crazy,crazy vagrant trying to break
into your house?
What are you gonna do?
What is, what are your options?
Right, you know what is yourgo-to have a talked with your

(01:35:46):
kids.
Right, I have a son, you gotkids, you have kids.
Talk to your, talk to yourchildren.
Hey, if daddy, you know, isdoing this, you do this.
Right, you go hide, go dowhatever.

Speaker 1 (01:35:56):
right, call 9-1-1, do something and I've told my wife
that at the mall, hey, wherethere's like an active shooter
or whatever, just fuck.
I tell them, get away from me.
I'm about to start drawing fire, like you know, returning fire
and the clearly themotherfucker's gonna come.
I don't need you standing righthere.
It'll depend on the situationright of course if I can get the
fuck out of there.
I'm getting the fuck out right.

Speaker 2 (01:36:17):
I mean that gun.
That gun is to protect you andyour family out of there, right?

Speaker 3 (01:36:20):
you're not, you're not superman, you're correct,
right, that was big in, uh in oncombat with the lieutenant
colonel crows and he was talkingabout if you're armed, you're
the one that's bringing a weaponinto it.
Any conversation that you have,there's a weapon involved.
When I'm out with my family,they're usually walking a little
bit ahead of me and they knowmy word is get away.

(01:36:42):
If I'm going to say get away,there's no question, there's no
nothing.
They might even go to go make aphone call.
Hey, this is what Kevin'swearing.
Make a phone call.
Hey, this is what.
Uh, this is what kevin'swearing.
He's an off-duty peace officerwho is armed and he needed to
get away from the family.
I don't know why yet.
Because if somebody's going tosee me and I notice them, they

(01:37:03):
have no idea who my family is.
All they're going to see is me.
I'm the threat, I'm the danger.
If I leave them, then I bringthe danger towards me.
I never thought about thatbefore when I was reading his
books.

Speaker 1 (01:37:15):
I never even considered that, dude, we're so
much alike, bro, because priorto having our daughter, my wife
and I used to travel Europe allover the freaking place.
And it's sketchy.
Being out in the world isfucking sketchy man, it's
sketchy characters, and it wasmy PTSD and my anxiety and my
ability to perceive threats.
We made up a code word as well.

(01:37:35):
I can't really remember it now,but it was.
When I say it, it's a get upand go.
Same shit right.

Speaker 3 (01:37:41):
And I just don't want them to address me to say, hey,
where are you going, why areyou leaving?
Hey, hey, what's going on?
Now you're attaching yourselfto me.

Speaker 1 (01:37:53):
So the reason we came up with this code word is
because we were in new york onetime fucking can't remember 2012
ball dropping in 2012, and wewere on a with a trolley subway.
We're on the subway, thefucking homeless guy and I'm
watching him.
He's, he's, he's a eop manabout you.
He's fucking having a meltdown.
And I tell my wife, get up andwalk over there.
She's like what?
Why, why, why?

(01:38:14):
This motherfucker is becomingmore irate.
Hey, get up now and walk over.
What what?
Oh dude, this motherfucker gotup, got up in my face.
Oh dude, I was pissed.
I took out my anger on my wife.
I said the next time I tell youto get the fuck up, you get the

(01:38:35):
fuck up, like I literallyforesaw that happening.
But you know, and that's notfair to my wife because she's a
civilian and right, they don'tthink.

Speaker 3 (01:38:38):
They don't think like that.
It's not.
I've addressed this so manytimes to where I'm talking with
people and they have no ideawhat reality is like that.
Yeah, you're, you're a victimjust walking around, you have
your head in your phone, noattention whatsoever about your
surroundings.
It feels like almost it was anecessity for me to scan.

(01:38:59):
I started as a bouncer before Iwas ever in the military and I
could almost see what washappening in a large crowd of
people.
Right, you can watch thosefights happen in between two
guys.
Once they get and look at eachother.
It's almost like I know thefuture.
Now they're gonna be the onesthat are fighting.
It's the often the the reactionthat we have to what is

(01:39:22):
possibly going to happen.
And if it doesn't, hey cool, noproblem, I can go on without my
day, but if it does, I'm out ofthere.
I don't need to be a part of it.

Speaker 1 (01:39:30):
Hyper vigilance now, everything we're talking about
is good, but too much of it,like I said, it's bad.
Right, you see adverse effectsthat it can have, such as me
flipping out on my wife.
You know, right, probably, whyI'm divorced now or separated,
but you know it's good to letthe public know, or and or cops
like, hey, what you're goingthrough is fucking check that
shit out.

Speaker 3 (01:39:50):
Yeah, understand what is transpiring that's never
happened before throughout theyears.
You know they called it shellshock in world war ii.
Right, they had no idea how todeal with it with the uh g-bot
soldiers.
Now, not the understanding thatI have.
I have a friend of mine.
He was what?
Five years uh overseas in seven.
So he got his seven and sevenand he, he really was overseas

(01:40:15):
non-stop.
He never had the time to takeback and and take a break.
Right, he was going full forcethe whole time.
He's, he's really solid guy.
But I don't think I could havedone that with the effects.
I was I was overseas one yearand not in combat, it was in in
a um in guantanamo, so it hadnothing to do with somebody

(01:40:38):
shooting at me.
I don't know how I would havedealt with that.

Speaker 2 (01:40:41):
Yeah, but back to, you know, talking about our exes
, same same thing happened, man,it's used constantly.
I keep hearing hey, stoptalking to your son like he's an
inmate, stop talking to yourson like he's not an inmate.
You know, he constantly tell melock it up, go do this, go do
that.
And that's just how we'reconditioned.
You know, we're constantlydoing this type of work and we

(01:41:01):
take it home.
We take it home, but there's no, there's no off switch.
Sometimes they're the ones thathave to suffer through all that
law enforcement and military.

Speaker 3 (01:41:11):
Those are the highest percentage of divorce rates.

Speaker 1 (01:41:14):
I feel you it almost feels uncomfortable to talk
about this, bro, but we need totalk about this to let it know
like, hey, it's a real fuckingthing, dude, and yeah, I
experienced it.

Speaker 3 (01:41:23):
You just said you experienced it.
I know in the last couple ofmonths, not even towards the job
, just being so focused onmaking this, um, this work, I've
pushed everyone away by justnot thinking oh, I got to be
involved in this situation,right, I'm on timelines to make
sure to get to even this podcastright here.

(01:41:43):
Right, I pushed everything tothe side.
I'm on my computer non-stop,yeah, and if anybody's talking,
I'm not a part of thatconversation, so I'm just
sitting there typing as much asI can do.
We get into the alpha male.
One point is going to there,right, and everything else I can
pick up later on.
It's a hard subject.

Speaker 1 (01:42:04):
No, it is, but it needs to be talked about, I
think.

Speaker 2 (01:42:06):
Cause there's a lot of people that are going through
it as well.
I mean, we're not the onlythree sitting in the room going
through something like that orhave experienced that.

Speaker 1 (01:42:19):
Everybody I think everybody's going through some,
some form of what we talkedabout.

Speaker 2 (01:42:21):
Oh yeah, dude, you know definitely, and maybe,
hopefully, maybe they canbenefit.
By just hearing, I'll be like,oh man, I'm not the only ones
going through this, right, theseguys are also went through some
these three squared away dudesfucking have issues.

Speaker 1 (01:42:32):
Yeah, we're fucking human.

Speaker 2 (01:42:33):
Yeah, it happens it happens.

Speaker 1 (01:42:35):
We're human man.
We're human man, but we try toput our best foot fucking
forward and help out the nextguy.
That's right.
So I want to thank you guys forcoming on the show.
Thank you, brother Is there anylast things you guys want to
say.
The floor is yours, man.

Speaker 2 (01:42:53):
I appreciate me down.
Thank you, thank you, no, no,like I said, you've been a big
inspiration to us, man.
This is, and you know weappreciate you giving us the
time to come out here and talkabout our business.

Speaker 3 (01:42:58):
And where you're saying take it seriously.
I think a lot of people youhaven't seen yet how much you're
influencing a lot of what we'redoing.
Uh, the, the change that you'remaking is really profound.
Well, I'm really proud to be onyour podcast and have the
ability to be a part of this.
Thanks, dude, because whatyou're doing is just we don't

(01:43:20):
see that anywhere.
I mean, this was an awesomeopportunity and really
appreciate it, appreciate youguys?

Speaker 1 (01:43:26):
Yeah, man, thank you Cool.
If you guys ever want to comeback, we'll set that up for sure
.

Speaker 3 (01:43:30):
I know you love San.

Speaker 1 (01:43:31):
Diegogo, yeah come out sacramento.

Speaker 2 (01:43:33):
Once we hopefully get our setup going too, we'll have
a podcast maybe come visit usin sec.
Absolutely yeah, for sure.
Well, there you guys have it.

Speaker 1 (01:43:41):
Folks.
Another banger man.
You guys have been asking forit.
We're all about helping otherpeople here by sharing our
experience, strength and hope.
If you like what you saw, makesure you hit that subscribe
button.
Love you guys.
Keep pushing forward you, thankyou.

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Kevin and Mike - From Correctional Officers to Entrepreneurs: Navigating Challenges and Embracing Change

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Kevin and Mike - From Correctional Officers to Entrepreneurs: Navigating Challenges and Embracing Change