On Being a Police Officer

Ep. 74 – Join me on this re-airing of a wild ride of an interview from 2023 with Eric Tansey, co-creator and host of Failure to Stop (FTS) and former Raleigh Police Department officer from 2012 to 2019. If you follow Eric on FTS, then you know he is a high-energy, highly-engaging storyteller. And nowhere is that more evident than in his soon-to-be released book, “Pig Latin: a Seriously Funny True Story of a Former Police Offic...

Ep. 73 – Switching Mics: Kent PD Police Commander Eric Tung of Blue Grit Wellness Interviews Me on My 15-Year Mission to Support Law Enforcement and the Story Behind This Podcast. This episode is a crossover with my friend and fellow podcaster Eric Tung of Blue Grit Wellness and Blue Grit Radio. I am honored to have been a guest on his show and to be able to share it here. 

Here is how Eric described this episode on “Blue ...

Ep. 72 Tessa Melville has been with the Kent Police Department for eight years, though her introduction to law enforcement began much earlier through her stepfather, a police officer, and her mother, a dispatcher. The realities of the job were made very clear before she even started. At just 16 years old, Tessa joined her parents in attending the memorial service for the devastating ambush murders of four Lakewood Police Department...

Ep. 71 – Officer Tevon Davis on Losing His Gang Member Brother in a Police Shootout

In this powerful crossover episode, I co-host alongside former Raleigh Police Officer Cameron Santana on the Santana True Crime podcast.

We sit down with Officer Tevon Davis, who shares the deeply personal and emotional story of his older brother Tyre—a Piru Bloods gang member who was killed in a shootout with Norfolk Police after murdering a fellow g...

Ep. 70 - From Raleigh PD to True Crime Author: Cameron Santana on his law enforcement career and the Virginia Olson Cold Case. Cameron has 20 years in law enforcement. He started with Raleigh PD in 2005. In our conversation, we jump right in with his first call straight out of the academy – a violent murder scene. Cameron talks about what it’s like hitting the streets with no real world LE experience, being surrounded by chaos...

Ep. 69 - LAPD Lt. Jeff Wenninger (ret) – Rodney King Riots; Rampart Scandal and rebuilding the Gang CRASH Unit through leadership and teamwork. Jeff Wenninger is a retired LAPD lieutenant with more than 30 years in law enforcement. He started with L.A. County Sheriff in 1991 and was on patrol during the Rodney King riots.

He later lateralled to LAPD in 1993 and went on to work with some of the most highly-trained units, including th...

Ep. 68 Talking Prison and Street Gangs with returning guest and gang culture expert retired Lt. Brian “BC” Sanders. In his 20+ years with a large agency in the southeastern U.S., Brian served on various proactive units including Gang Suppression, homicide, drug unit, aggravated assault and more. He is known for developing sources, actionable gang intelligence, motivating others to learn and work gangs and pushing disruption initiat...

Ep. 67 – In Part Two of my interview with NYPD Det. Tom Smith (Ret.) we discuss 9/11 and how the day unfolded for him; what it was like working rescue and recovery at Ground Zero and later at the landfill to identify belongings and remains and the unique emotional toll of trying to identify those we lost.

After 9/11, Tom was assigned to the elite FBI/NYPD Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) for which he held a Top Secret/SCI clearance...

Ep. 66 - Rescuing an American journalist kidnapped in Afghanistan, thwarting a school shooter, responding to Ground Zero on 9/11 - NYPD Det. Tom Smith (Ret.) did all of it in his 30 years with NYPD. Following in his NYPD Detective father’s footsteps, Tom joined NYPD in 1990 and started in patrol in Harlem. Within a few years he joined the anti-crime team and later Narcotics where he became a detective. He then moved into Gang ...

Ep. 65 To mark the four-year anniversary of the podcast, I’m revisiting earlier episodes with content and issues that remain relevant today. This episode is about the impact of a deadly force encounter on the officer, something that is rarely discussed. I review the powerful documentary “Officer Involved” with the filmmaker Patrick Shaver, a former police officer. Over several years Patrick interviewed law enforcement fro...

Ep. 64 Imagine policing without a gun or not being approved to drive lights and sirens until three years on the job. I’m talking policing in the UK with Constable Ross who is a response officer with the Hertfordshire Police Department which is about an hour outside of London. Ross has three years on and serves in a patrol capacity.  We are using only his first name for his privacy. He tells me: “The vast majority of offi...

Ep. 63 National Law Enforcement Suicide Awareness Day 9/26 – revisiting my interview from Sept. 2021 with Inspector Steve Hough co-creator of Blue H.E.L.P.

To mark the four-year anniversary of my podcast I’m taking a look back and reposting a few episodes from the early days with content and issues that remain relevant today. This is about the tragedy of officer suicide, not just the loss of life, but how that loss of life is regard...

Why I do this podcast – Four Year Anniversary! It was September 2020 – the height of the riots and civil unrest.  I had to find a way to stand up for all of you in law enforcement. The attacks – physical and emotional – and the toll they took were too much. I could not sit idly by. I could not be silent.  And so "On Being a Police Officer" began.

By then, I had already been working with law enforcement in my area for ...

Ep. 62 Justified or not? The Airman and the Deputy – Fatal Officer Involved Shooting – Breakdown with Daniel Carr of Police Law News. Once again, I am turning to Daniel Carr of Police Law News to break down a controversial, tragic incident. This is the incident involving an Okaloosa County Sheriff's Deputy and his response to a domestic disturbance that led to the use of deadly force that took the life of US Air Forc...

Ep. 61  Lawful but awful? Unjustified? The Deputy Sean Grayson – Sonya Massey incident: a breakdown with Drew Breasy, host of The Comm Center and Daniel Carr of Police Law News. We are covering this together because this is a tough one and it requires thoughtful and thorough analysis. Both Drew and Daniel are returning guests. As many of you know, Drew retired as a lieutenant after serving 29 years with the Hillsboro...

Ep. 60 In Part Two with Pete Forcelli, we discuss his promotion in 2007 to ATF Deputy Assistant Director of the Phoenix Division and the series of events that led him to turn whistleblower on the scandal known as Operation Fast and Furious. Pete documents it all in his new book “The Deadly Path: How Operation Fast and Furious and Bad lawyers Armed Mexican Cartels.”

It’s a page turning account of his shocking discovery that ATF agent...

Ep. 59 ATF Deputy Assistant Director (Ret) and NYPD Homicide Detective (Ret) Pete Forcelli joins me to talk about testifying before Congress as a whistleblower in the Operation Fast and Furious scandal. Pete documents it all in his new book “The Deadly Path: How Operation Fast and Furious and Bad lawyers Armed Mexican Cartels.”

In this episode, Part One of my conversation with Pete, we begin with his career with NYPD. Pete...

Ep. 58 - Breakdown with Daniel Carr of Police Law News. This is a special episode to discuss an incident that took place in March 2024 involving Dexter Reed, a 26-year-old black male who was fatally shot while engaged in a gun battle with officers in Chicago following a traffic stop. He did not follow commands to roll down his window and exit the vehicle. He then shot a police officer, wounding him. Officers returned fire to s...

Ep. 57 In Part 2 of my interview with Officer Dexter Pitts, we pick up with Dexter's departure from the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) after 12 years to become a US Border Patrol agent. It's a fascinating conversation about what the job really is, what he sees as the issues at the border, and why the job was not for him.

Then we get to 2020. Dexter talks about how sure he was that Louisville would not fall into the chaos ...