Dark Nights of the Soul: From Tragedy to Post-Traumatic Growth

Hosts:

Dr. Ashlee Gethner, LCSW – Child of a Police Officer

Jennifer Woosley Saylor, LPCC S – Child of a Police Officer

Guests:

AJ DeAndrea - Retired Police Officer

Madalena DeAndrea - Senior Manager of Strategic Projects, Recovery, and Resiliency for Jeffco Public Schools, Child of a Police OfficerEpisode Overview

In this powerful episode, hosts Ashlee and Jennifer welcome father-daughter duo AJ DeAndrea and Madalena DeAndrea for a conversation that weaves together generational lessons on resiliency, mental health, and the impact of trauma both personally and professionally.

AJ DeAndrea, a retired deputy chief from Arvada, Colorado, shares his experience as a first responder involved in multiple high-profile incidents, including three school shootings. His career reflections highlight not only the professional complexities of law enforcement but the lasting effects these events have on families.

Madalena DeAndrea gives listeners a deeply personal account of surviving the Borderline Bar and Grill shooting in Thousand Oaks, California. She discusses how growing up as the daughter of a police officer shaped her own resiliency, practical safety skills, and approach toward post-traumatic growth. With openness, she details her healing journey—how agency, small actionable steps, and the support of her family and trusted professionals helped her move from trauma toward recovery and growth.

Together, the DeAndreas discuss the importance of age-appropriate openness with family about traumatic events, the evolution of mental health support within law enforcement, and their commitment to sharing these insights across the country.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You know, little tiny baby stepsover time, viewing this thing
that's popping up in my brain, this trigger, instead of it
being like, this is a terrifyingthing, why is it popping up?
I didn't realize this was going to bug me.
I established the mindset that my brain finally feels safe
enough for this thing to pop up,and that means it's time to heal
it. All right, well.
Welcome back to the podcast Whenthe Call Hits Home.

(00:20):
This is Jennifer. And I'm Ashley.
And as always, we're excited about an episode, but I think
we're specifically excited aboutthis episode today.
So I am just not going to waste anytime and go ahead and hit it
to our guest if you guys want toshare a little bit about
yourselves. My name is Madelena D'andrea,
and I grew up as a daughter of apolice officer who's on the

(00:41):
podcast with us here today. He'll tell you a little bit
about his career and about himself here in just a second.
I grew up with his experience inlaw enforcement really being the
backdrop of my childhood and influencing a lot of how I
viewed the world and how I viewed my own place in it.
It also influenced a lot of the skill sets and mindsets that I
really took with me into young adulthood where unfortunately, I

(01:02):
survived an active shooting, specifically the Borderline Bar
and Grill shooting in Thousand Oaks, CA, where 12 people were
killed, including a responding police officer.
And that experience really not only highlighted for me the
protective factors I've been gifted my whole life by being
the daughter of a police officer, but also really
launched me into this experienceof recovery and resiliency and

(01:23):
what it looks like to get to a space of post traumatic growth
following a big T trauma. That is some of the work I get
to do everyday. Now.
I work for a school district supporting recovery and
resiliency and school safety. And I also travel around the
country and tell my story, sometimes by myself and
sometimes with my dad. So without further do well, let
him introduce himself. Well, my name is Ajd Andrea and
I am a retired deputy chief fromArvada, Co which she's a suburb

(01:47):
of Denver. Did 30 years there, retired May
1st, 2023. Throughout my career and
honestly the reason why I'm hereis because I just carry
Madalena's bags as we travel across the country.
Some of my experiences when she talks about the backdrop of her
childhood. I had a very unique career
involved in a lot of high profile stuff, 3 school

(02:09):
shootings. I was the D team leader on the
first week through the center part of the building at
Columbine High School. Shortly after that, found myself
in the town of Granby Co where aman turned a bulldozer into a
tank and destroyed the town. They made a couple goofy movies
about that. Some of it breaks my heart
because they turn this guy into a martyr.
But it is what it is, right? You know, everybody has their

(02:29):
choice, I guess. But shortly after that, about a
year or so, my second school shooting on September 27th, 2006
at Platte Canyon High School, which started out as an active
shooting but then turned into a hostage situation.
I was a team leader of our blue team on our SWAT team there and
was third to make entry into theroom was about 3 feet from a
young girl named Emily Keys as she was shot and killed and the

(02:51):
suspect was subsequently killed.Almost three months.
The day after that, another raging gunfight which hit
headlines, rescuing a deputy waspinned down by gunfire down in
Willow Springs, Colorado. And then my third school
shooting, December 9th, 2007, atYouth with the Mission
Missionary School right here in Arvada, Co where four people
were shot, two were killed. Unfortunately, I personally

(03:12):
carried out a young girl named Tiffany who'd been shot 11
times. She was alive when I put her in
the ambulance, went back in the building and carried out a young
man named Philip Kraus who'd been shot one time in the liver.
He was alive when I put him intothe ambulance.
Unfortunately, they both passed on the operating table, but the
other two survived. You know, every one of these
stories is tragic. He got away from us that night.

(03:33):
He resurfaced about 12 hours later, the New Life Church in
Colorado Springs where he's going to kill two sisters before
he takes his own life inside thechurch.
And of course, a bunch of other crazy things.
Throughout my career, 30 years, 16 spent on SWAT, probably the
best time of my life was runningan impact team where we were
playing clothes, going after some really high dangerous folks

(03:53):
still don't like me and my last five years as deputy chief.
And I don't think you realize the wake that those things
create in the people that are around you in their lives.
And I did the best that I could to try to protect them from.
I was very open, very, very openand age appropriate, right?

(04:15):
Of course. But the wake that those things
create and I, I realized that and then I'm going to kick it
over to Madeleno. But or you guys, however you
want to go with this thing. You're fine.
But I realized that I'd always told my daughters that, you
know, I would share certain information because these
terrible things happen, right? And they're going to fill in the
blanks. They are going to fill in the
blanks. And so I would try to give them

(04:37):
enough information that they kind of had a good
understanding. But of course, I didn't go into
a ton of detail and not a ton ofdetail in my career because you
try to protect your loved ones. But I did tell them when they
were 18, when they were an adult, they could ask me
anything they wanted. And at 18, both daughters took
that, you know, opportunity to do that.
But Madelena, it was like a six hour conversation just going

(05:00):
back. And it wasn't me prompting her.
These were things that she remembered that she would bring
up and she would bring up. And it was at that moment when
you for me, who always tried to be introspective and but didn't
realize, like I said, the way the gravity of it all until we
actually sat down and had that conversation in her memory, you
know, asking me about things I'dforgotten.

(05:20):
Like what? Oh, yeah.
Wait, let's go back to that one.Right.
Yeah. So that's a little bit about me
and a little bit about my career.
But kick it back over to you guys or Madelina and kind of go
from there. Well, I already have so many
questions. I guess the first one I do want
to ask is just how did you have that wisdom to know hey I should
be age appropriately open? I was going to ask that too,

(05:44):
because we talk about that all the time on here.
I have to say that a lot of my presentations like it's OK, it's
refreshing to hear it from you. So that's a great question,
Jennifer. I'll tell you, I never, I don't
think I've ever created anythingmyself, right?
I don't necessarily have the wisdom to do that, but I I've
never been afraid to seek help and ask advice.

(06:05):
And sometimes you get advice andit's like, that's a little.
I'll keep asking. The man that truly got me
through my career is, is a man by the name of Doctor John
Nicoletti. And not only is he my
psychologist, but he is he's a dear friend of mine.
He's a family friend. He's become a family friend.
He did my pre evaluation psych test in, you know, 93 getting

(06:28):
hired on back at the agency and and never hesitated to ask him
question and seek help right throughout my entire career,
right, always had that understanding.
I guess that was one thing I wasblessed with is, you know, you
keep yourself in top physical conditions, especially on a
swat. If you want to stay on that, do
that to do the job. And so you preach the word, you
need to live it. And I always talk about being

(06:50):
prepared mind, body and soul. And so when the mind or the soul
was a little off, you know, you talk to John and, you know, you
bring these beautiful babies into the world.
And from a, you know, the cops perspective, because we get
jaded, you know, the world's a nasty place.
I'll tell you. It's a much more wonderful place
now that I've retired. I like people.
I like people a lot more, right?I highly suggest, right.

(07:12):
Although I failed in retirement because I I started a small
company in 2014. I trained in a consulting
company and I'm busier now than I ever been.
But it's my busy, right? Yeah, mind, body and soul being
prepared. And like I said, you bring these
two beautiful kids into the world and you want to protect
them. You know, you observe and you,
you see folks, families and how people are adjusting and you

(07:33):
want to try and do it right now.I didn't do it right all the
time by any means. And it's definitely, you know,
stepped on a few mines in the minefield along the way.
But his advice was and and you get this as well, when you get
prepped for an officer involved shooting, you talk to the the
psychologist or your take classes on that, right?
That people fill in the blanks unless you fill in them for

(07:54):
them. And in speaking with, you know,
Doctor Nicoletti, he's like, listen, you need to give them
enough information that they're because they always think it's
worse than it is. It might.
Be. Right.
It is terrible. I mean, some of the incidents I
was involved in are absolutely horrific, but they'll make it 10
times that. And so try to keep them balanced

(08:15):
with enough information, but notso much that it ruins her
childhood, right? And so it really was his advice
that I took on real early because I didn't get on SWAT
till 1996 and that's the year Madeline was born.
She was born in May and I, I shortly after that was when I
got on the team and I knew that,you know, my family was going to

(08:36):
walk the journey with me, an extended family, right?
And friends that aren't in the profession.
And so you share what you can. And again, that was really kind
of his advice. And I've taken that to heart and
always told the officers that were underneath me that that
wanted to have the conversation.Some don't, right?
But I gave them that same adviceof don't leave them out on an
island because again, they're going to make it 10 times worse.

(08:58):
So share what we can without stealing their innocence.
I think what that looked like inpractice, I remember being very
young and having I think the gift of those skill sets from a
young age. And so it was never presented in
a scary way. He would pull out his body armor
and we could see how tough it was, right?

(09:20):
Or the tools that he was using and, and for, I mean, I still in
some ways think this, but as a child, right?
I thought he was Superman. You know, good is always going
to conquer over evil. He has all these tools.
He's so well trained. Like a lot of the information I
got as a very young kid was justabout all of these like tools
and training and things. I mean an age appropriate level

(09:42):
that made him so equipped and soready to go protect the people
from the bad guys, right? And that was a lot of that
initial information. So the framing of it was always
this very empowered side. And then it was also about
giving. I think in some ways the initial
inclination is like we want to protect our loved ones by not
talking about the things that are going on.

(10:04):
But the best possible thing my parents did for me from a very
young age was giving me age appropriate dosing of scenarios
that might be less than ideal, right?
So we'd have small little 5 minute conversations at the
dinner table about hey, if this thing happens, what are you
going to do? And it would me and my little
sister competing over who would have the better answer.
And that's really it was building out these neural

(10:25):
pathways from a very young age of these little file folders,
right where if this some bad things happens, I've already
thought through how I'm going torespond to it.
But it was always from this veryempowered space and was never
this scary thing that the world's this evil place.
And as a result, many little tiny 5 minute conversations over
the course of my childhood got me to a spot as a young adult
where I was more, I don't want to say more equipped.

(10:47):
Everybody has their own experiences.
But I felt highly equipped to handle whatever was thrown in
front of me as a young adult. I felt very equipped to listen
to myself. They were very big on the
mindset that your safety is yourresponsibility.
And So what that meant is that Icould make decisions to keep
yourself safe. I didn't have to explain it to
other people. I was empowered to do the things

(11:07):
that were right for me. And really as a young woman,
that was teaching me to tune into my gut and my north.
And that became a crucial skill set, not even just for keeping
myself safe, but also for decision making and, you know,
just being true to myself in different environments that I
was in growing up. And so I think it's those three
different things combined, the framing of it's empowering.

(11:30):
Look at all these tools, these skill sets.
Oh, I failed to mention also, wegot to know the SWAT families.
That was also really important. I thought the SWAT team was
like, they were the coolest guysever, right?
I got to grow up around their kids.
I got to be around them. Some of those men are like
uncles to me still. And but the reality of that
growing up around his colleagues, like they've got it.

(11:50):
Look at these really incredible people who are protecting my dad
and he's protecting them and they're going to go take care of
the bad guys. It was all framing from that
lens. And then small pieces of those
scenarios to help me start to beable to make good decisions.
And really it's also teaching decision making.
And then also just small pieces of information about what he was

(12:11):
going through. Because when you're a SWAT kid
and you're being woken up by a pager because it's 19961990. 9 I
remember those Oh. Yes.
And you're being woken up by a pager and dad's around trying to
get his body armor and stuff to get out the door, and you're
trying to stay out of the way. That's scary.
That framing of like, this is what he's going to do.
And knowing that he was going togo protect people and that he

(12:31):
was one of the good guys, that made it less scary and more of
this thing that I was incrediblyproud of.
And so I think in practice, that's really what it looks like
for me as a young kiddo and growing up.
The other thing they were reallygood about is that when there
was a critical incident, my mom knew he was responding to her.
There was just something going on.
The TV went off. So I, there wasn't this chance
of like, I'm watching my cartoons and this news alert

(12:54):
pops up and suddenly dad's on the news and I see face, right,
TV went off. They were really intentional
about controlling information. So we got information, but it
wasn't the news telling me what's going on or.
From a trusted source in experiments, yeah.
How? Important.
I feel like the way you just articulated that was incredible.
Thank you. I'm like, that's what I've been

(13:14):
thinking this whole time. Like I talk about that and, you
know, being a child of a first responder and I given that
speech, but I'm like the way youjust said it blew me out the
water because it's hard to sometimes articulate, right?
Like that notion of even growingup, I don't know if you
experienced this where you had friends and you were like, why
do they think so differently? Like I would not do that.

(13:34):
Like my, that is not something Iwould do.
And even to this day I say sorryto my husband.
But like, there are things that he does when we're out in
public, like in Chicago or something where I'm like, no.
Like. This is not how the world works.
What are you doing? But I feel like you articulated
it so much better than me. I'm just like, why are you like
that? No, she's good.
No, it's true. Though, and it's, it's a

(13:54):
different perspective on the world.
And I, I think I really started to notice that around like
middle and high school, I had this one distinct memory.
We went downtown to go to dinnerfor my friend's birthday.
We'd all just turned 16 or we were the age where we were
allowed to drive with each otherin cars.
We went downtown, we had dinner for her birthday and we were
walking back and the parking lotwas really dark and it was

(14:17):
sketchy and I was and they were like walking towards the car and
I was like, hold on a second, like make sure there's nobody
under the car or around the car now.
Like what are you talking about Madelena?
Like they all freaked out. And then but they to this day
will sometimes reference out of like I always check to make sure
there's not something going on underneath my car or around my
car before I get in it when it'sa sketchy environment.
Like to this day, you know, almost.

(14:39):
I'm gonna date myself now, but it was a while ago.
We're still the youngest one on the.
You're good, yeah. High school was a little bit
ago, so. But I love that use of that
personal safety. I think that's incredible
language to use and that's exactly so empowering that
language. You know that that's your
responsibility in these ways in which we'll.

(15:01):
Realize that that was always important, right?
To let them know to empower them, right?
I mean, these are your kids and to let them know that they have
the right to make decisions in their life and not just kind of,
you know, walk around, you know,in the herd, but they get a
chance to break away if something isn't right.
Yeah. And, you know, just kind of a
funny story. And I don't know, was it was it

(15:22):
you or was it your sister with the MP5 bolt?
I think that was L, yeah. Well, just talk about chaos,
right? So when I clean my guns, because
I don't want the guns to be scary, right?
And of course, they learn gun safety growing up and they would
come and I'd give him a little part to scrub or whatever.
It must have been her sister. But putting an MP5 back together
and I get a page. And she was, I'd given her the

(15:42):
job just to kind of, yeah. It was her, yeah.
And here's this page. And it's, it's a bad deal,
right? I got to go.
And it's like, you know, where'sthe bolt?
She's like, I gave it back to you, daddy.
And I'm like, no, no, no, where's the bolt?
I don't have the bolt, right? And I'm looking everywhere.
Bop, bop, bop. And sure enough, it was in my
shirt pocket. Over here.
Yeah, just some of the chaos, right?
Some of those days, some of thatI miss, and some of it I'm so

(16:05):
glad it's gone. But I do think that from that
lens, like the greatest gifts they gave us when it comes to,
you know, intangible things is the ability to trust myself,
make decisions and really, like,I believe that I have agency
even in the most horrific situations.
And you try to, you know, just like yourself going through the

(16:28):
profession and sometimes it takes a while to there's so much
scrutiny, right? But ultimately teaching them
that really the one that they have to answer to is themselves.
Of course, the parents, you know, you're going to have to if
it's a bad thing, you got to answer.
But you know, in those critical when you're making those
decisions, they're not about anybody else really, but it's
about you. And, you know, as long as you
get up the next morning, look inthe mirror, know that you made

(16:49):
the right decision, that you canlive with right than that.
Yes. We're not here to please
everyone around us, especially when it comes to safety.
Yeah. So that's incredible.
That's incredible parenting, butespecially through that lens of
first responding when you are responding to things and you
never know what that page is going to be and there can be so
much unknown to say. We still have choices in our

(17:13):
lives. We still have some authority in
our own personal decisions. When we spoke before, you had
kind of mentioned mental health and we talked briefly about me,
and it's great to hear that in your career mental health was
being something that you talked about as well as, you know,
having 30 years of a career. Because obviously Ashley and I
talk a lot more about mental health today and my dad's

(17:36):
experience of mental health and,you know, he's been retired for
20 years. So tell me a little.
Bit about how mental health showed up for you in your
career, even early on. Yeah.
So it's an interesting story, I guess.
And you know, in the beginning we didn't talk about mental
health really. It was kind of that thing.

(17:57):
And now almost, I think in 20252026 we're in, we might be
talking about a little bit too much because I think the
officers feel like they've had enough over the last five years.
I do think we are making people drink through a fire hose of
mental health at this point. Yes, yeah.
So there has to be a way to bring some buoyancy to it.
Yeah, without pushing it aside, right.
And I'll get to that because I think that comes in the culture.

(18:17):
But we're involved. I got on a SWAT 96 and we were
involved in some pretty, pretty high profile things.
But really the turning point forme would have been Columbine.
And after Columbine, like immediately after I did
participated in the first two sweeps, they pulled us into
Leawood Elementary. And you know, you stood there in
one line if you shot your gun, if you didn't shoot your gun,

(18:39):
you stood in another line. And when it was your turn, you
step in prancing people, take your photos, you walk down the
hallway. You gave your statement to the
investigators and then they put us in A room where I've been in
these hot washes before with Doctor Nicoletti because like I
said, we've been through quite afew things prior to that.
But he gives you, you know, kindof the speech of, hey, you know,
there's a big one, might be bigger than some of the stuff

(19:01):
you guys been in before, you know, in the 1st 24 hours, for
72 hours. These are things you should be
experiencing, you know, blah, blah, blah.
Be good to have a follow up meeting in about two weeks, you
know, and then be on the schedule maybe a month, two
months, six months, your mark. And then if there's any other
needs in between, come to our office and, you know, we'll kind
of work through all that. And in my mind, I'm thinking,
OK, you know, that makes sense. I wasn't really struggling too

(19:24):
much at that point. But again, that's like right
after, right? You've got all that adrenaline
still and all those chemicals can buy all those hormones still
coursing through your veins. And then I was on an island
because our SWAT team is a regional team, so it was
Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, Arvada.
So I was the team was created in96.
I was an original member on the team.
Golden was authorized to be on there.

(19:46):
They did not have. It took them some time, a few
years to be able to get somebodyonto the team to meet the
physical fitness standards. And there were only two of us
left. Three guys got on the team in 96
by Columbine, there was only two.
One of those individuals was a sniper, so he never made entry
into the building. So I was really the only person
from Arvada that made entry and it's a collateral duty team.

(20:06):
We would get together every two weeks to train.
Or a call out. But really, so I'm kind of at
Arvada by myself on this island and I have a lot of my my peers
there to be able to kind of leanon and kind of work through some
of this stuff. Shortly after the hot wash with
Doctor Nicoletti, we were, it was pretty much made clear to us
that if we went and seek mental health support, it kind of

(20:27):
showed we were weak and we didn't want to show the
community that we were weak. And so there was this big taboo
kind of on it. Right now, I'm my own person.
I kind of do what I'm going to do.
And sometimes that's not the greatest thing in the world.
But I would see Doctor Nicolettibecause in my mind, it's like,
listen, you know, if I, I mean, I truly believe in the

(20:49):
profession. And again, I truly believe mind,
body and soul, right? You twist your ankle, you go see
a doctor. My head and heart weren't right
after Columbine. And so I would lean on him, but
I noticed a lot of the guys werereally suffering.
And factually, within about three years of Columbine, we
lost about 75% of our team. Guys left the team.
They just didn't want to deal with the ridicule.

(21:11):
Again, We were sued. I was sued 15 times.
I was on a, everything disappeared but one.
I was on a five year federal gagwhere those are, you know, just
miserable to live through. And I remember on the year mark
of Columbine, still lived in Nevada at the time.
I was sitting on my deck. Don't hold this against me, All
right? I'm drinking a glass of bourbon
and I'm smoking a cigar. I'm from Kentucky.
They've got. The good stuff.

(21:31):
Yeah, right. And I was crying, called the
guys that were I, I was on a small element that broke off
from the, the main element, called the guys that were on
that element with me just to check in on them.
And you could tell they were really upset.
And I'm like, this is jacked up.This isn't right.
And I told myself that day that if I ever got into a position of

(21:52):
influence, I was going to try tochange that because the attitude
at the time was, was wrong, right.
And the bravado and the, you know, all that crap.
And again, watching some of my dear friends, guys that I
admired, really, really struggling.
So Fast forward to Platte Canyonand a lot of things happened
between 1999 and 2006. But this would have been a very

(22:15):
probably the most high profile thing that took place during
that time. And then I was in a position of
influence. And I will tell you the attitude
about mental health, it kind of changed in the profession as
well. By then, at least a little bit.
We had a whole new program set up and some of this was the
agency and then some of this wasme pushing.
By then we kind of were listening to Doctor Nicoletti.

(22:37):
And so we had it set up that youwould do the hot wash, you would
have check insurance with him throughout the year, additional
ones if you needed them, and we opened the contract up to
families. So if you're directly involved
and you notice your child or your significant other is
starting to struggle, they couldsee Doctor Nicoletti's office as
well. It seemed to be, you know, you

(22:57):
saw that change, right? And we seem to be a little bit
healthier for me and I know for the guys on the team and guys
that I've worked with, not everybody, right, because
everybody's a little bit different.
But the year mark was those are always difficult, especially, I
mean, 3 feet from this girl. There was a lot of guys.
We were three feet from her whenshe shot and killed, you know,
listen to the negotiations, right, because they were yelling

(23:17):
through the wall. It wasn't done on any throw
phones or any of that stuff. So really, it was a devastating
event. I remember it was about seven
months after I'd gotten invited to go to LAPD to do the debrief
of Platte Canyon for the entire Metro Division.
And the invitation came from a man by Mike Odle, who was kind

(23:38):
of, he was Ala SWAT team leader for years.
He retired a couple years ago asa captain with LAPD.
But he really was kind of my tactical mentor, right?
A guy that you know, you can lean on and they're operating at
a much higher level than we were.
I mean, we're a major metropolitan SWAT team, but what
they're doing was tenfold. Yeah, yeah.
So he invited us out and at dinner that night, I remember
having a conversation with him. And I'm like, Mike, I'm worried

(23:59):
about the team. We've got mental health support.
But I'm starting to see some of the same things that, you know,
I saw back when Columbine happened.
And now I was a Sergeant, right?You know, Columbine, I was, I
was just a slick sleeve. Platt Canyon.
So as a Sergeant, you've got a little bit more sphere of
influence, not a lot, but you got a little bit, right.
I could see, like I said, some of those issues coming.

(24:21):
And I'm like, listen, I need to do something different.
We've got the mental health support, but there's still
issues out there. And I always worry about the
year mark because those weigh heavy on people.
And he's like, well, you need todo something.
He's like, why don't you do a run?
And I think he was thinking of 10K, right, in honor of this
little girl and you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I always think bigger than that.

(24:42):
And so I went back and I kind ofprocessed this and I'm like, you
know what we are going to do around.
So we're going to do a run from the Jefferson County Sheriff's
Office to Platte Canyon High School, which is 38 miles.
Wow. And in honor of her and you
know, you look at, I'm not saying that that's what
everybody needs to do, but when you're looking at if you know
your people, you are very physically fit, motivated, That

(25:04):
was a high part. You know, whenever we were
together, the first part of the day, we're working out.
You worked out harder on your days off so that when you showed
up for the team workout, you know, that was a big thing for
us. So I'm not saying that everybody
you find that thing that your people gravitate to.
Of course, I'd ask permission from the father of the little
girl because they were doing a motorcycle rally for her.
And I'm like, hey, can we, can we do this?

(25:25):
And he's like, yeah, go ahead. And I'm not going to bore you
with all the trials and tribulations.
But it took a lot of fighting toget the state of Colorado to
allow us to run on a Hwy. 38 miles.
But we ended up doing that and we ran the 1st 5 miles of
formation and then you ran for 10 minutes in tac order.
But it gave us time as a team that we switched our mentality.

(25:45):
The idea popped into my head in April.
And so it let us train together in a different way.
To be together, to stay focused,to be there for one another, to
be able to lean on one another all the way up till September
27th until this run. And so you really kind of saw a
change in everybody and it kind of gave us a focus.
I was a little bit stubborn to be able to do that run.

(26:08):
You had to be present that day, whether it was the SWAT team,
support negotiators, if you wereon the SWAT team and you were on
the beach in Cabo when this event happened, guess what?
You're not running right. And if you were a patrol officer
and you wanted to come run just to run, you weren't running,
right? And that's because you, I
understood the guys, right? If you, you put one person that

(26:31):
wasn't there that didn't have that experience and you get this
bravado from the SWAT guys, rough, tough, you know, SWAT guy
versus the guys that were just there that and gals that were
there that day. You could lean on one another,
you could cry, you could laugh, you could joke and it was a much
more healthier environment. The only thing that was
different to that, about two weeks before it happened, Emily
that was killed, if she had a brother, a twin brother, Casey,

(26:53):
her father, John Michael called me and, and said, hey, my son's
having a rough year. He heard about your run.
Can he run with you? So we allowed him.
To right. And so had full support from the
leaders at the time. And this is kind of the point
that I'm, I'm getting to here, I'm going to speed up because I
know that this isn't what the podcast is about, but full
support from the chief of policeof the time, Ron Sloan, the

(27:14):
sheriff, Ted Mink. And again, I had to fight a lot
of battles because, like I said,Department of Transportation
wasn't going to give me a permit.
But we figured that out. It was a much healthier.
And the guys will tell you it was probably one of the most
cathartic. Experiences.
It has to be yes. So then let's Fast forward to
why Wham again, the mental health support was there, but
kind of that more humanistic side, that other part, right?

(27:36):
And so this would have been a much shorter run, would have
been a run from Arvada P DS headquarter to where youth with
the mission was, which is about 5 miles.
So not bad. So I started to plan the same
thing. The dispatchers patrol anybody
that was there that night that responded.
But leadership had changed. And this is when we start to
talk about mental health and leading and understanding your

(27:58):
people. Leadership had changed.
And the leadership at that time was we're going to lead the run.
And I'm like, Sir, you weren't there.
This ain't about you. It's not about the command
staff. It's not about that if you're
there, it is going to be a totally different dynamic than
the one that we want to accomplish by the guys and gals
that were there that night to let them just be together.

(28:19):
There's going to be a vigil. You can speak.
You can be the face at the vigil.
Do your thing. And of course, he told me, well,
there's other people that want to run.
I said, hey, that's great, but not this night, right?
And this, this was not good for me in my career because I kind
of stuck to my guns. And believe it or not, I had to
go to anger management classes because I didn't like my
responses. But it went the way they wanted.

(28:40):
And it created so much dissent within the agency, created a lot
of problems that didn't manifestfor maybe, you know, a year or
two. And so that whole leadership
concept is huge, right? To understand that it's not
about there's times where you have to be in front as the
leader and there's times where you have to be there and ask,

(29:01):
you know, handle the tough questions and be visible.
But there's times where, hey man, you got to step back and
let your people do your thing, right?
Absolutely. And so it really kind of set us
back. But you still are always trying
to figure out how can we do it better, how can we do it better,
right? And, you know, we were going
through some tough times right about the time I made deputy
chief, we had two officers, not our personal officers, but in

(29:23):
the state of Colorado, we had two officers killed like within
two weeks of one another. And that's a different
generation that are all police officers.
Now. Their families are concerned.
We start to do things to try to,you know, help the family
members, kind of like what we did with the SWAT team, bring
them in, let them let the familysee our equipment, let them
understand our training, let them do all that type of stuff.
We were still suffering and I was going through, I think it

(29:47):
was Northwestern's ten week police staff and command course
or whatever. And I had to do a staff study on
something. And I wanted to look at our our
mental health, not our mental health program, but our
reintroduction into back to the agency after an incident
happened and looked at what someof the more progressive agencies
were doing across the country. Deep Denver Police Department

(30:08):
was one of them that I leaned ona couple of the different
programs and created a reintegration three prong
program that I'm very, very proud of.
And when I went to the FBI National Academy, I presented
it. The FBI is taking it now they're
going to they're changing a few things and that's a beast of an
organization, but they're adapting it.
And I've had a lot of agencies across the country adapt it, but
kind of changes. So we're talking about mental

(30:29):
health, but it changes the way that we bring someone back after
a critical incident. I can remember some of the ones
that I was involved in and, or my buddies that were involved in
where, you know, you're involvedin this incident.
They send you home and you're sitting there, you know, after
Platte Canyon, they told us it was a dirty shoot.
And so, you know, they think andwe were cleared.
It was just one of those deals in the very beginning.

(30:50):
But you're sitting there and you're wondering what's going to
happen and you're waiting for the phone to ring.
And, you know, sometimes it's six weeks to 8 weeks, you know,
you know how it goes, right? And when they're left to their
own devices and their minds racing, you know, you see guys
drinking more. You know, they're doing this.
There's these maladaptive thingsthat are taking place.
This program, what it does is it's 3 pronged. 1 is

(31:11):
administrative program. But my main part was I wanted to
bring the officers back to the agency as quickly as possible.
I wanted them to be re socialized after the event back
at home with their agency, not sitting on an island wondering
what's going on, what's going tohappen to my career, what's
actually taking place. So that program, the
administrative side, once we kind of, you know, to get the

(31:33):
thumbs up from the district attorney's office that this is a
good shoot, It's going to take us six weeks to get this thing
all cleaned up. But this is a good shoot.
And this actually blossomed intoother things, which I'll share
with you. We bring you back to the agency
and I'm not going to put you to work.
I'm not going to, you know, assign you a desk job taking
phone reports because that's my life punch.
So one of the precursors was youget it removed from your command

(31:55):
and you're responsible to the administrative commander is the
administrative commander. What they're concerned about is
your welfare. If you were still attached to a
patrol commander, hey, let's just put them on desk duty.
They can answer phones all nightlong and you can relieve, you
know, and that's not the experience I wanted, But so you
get the thumbs up. A couple other critical things
had to be taken care of. You had to make sure that you

(32:15):
were seeing, checking in with the mental health professionals,
had to have your gear back. And then at the end of this, you
had to ride with a partner before we'd let you go on your
own. But prong 2 is where it got
interesting. And we call this kind of
departmental development. So let's say you're an officer,
a young officer on patrol when this happened, we bring you
back. Then again, I don't want to put

(32:36):
you to work. I want to give you some
experiences. And so depending on how long the
investigation was going to go, but let's just say it's a four
week 1. So you get to pick for your
first two weeks back, a place that you're not assigned to,
where you get to go shadow that's part of the agency to
kind of see the reality, see therealities of what that is.
So maybe you're interested in our crime scene investigators,
maybe it's investigations, maybeit's the Academy, maybe it's

(32:58):
recruiting, maybe it's one of our task force.
But you get to come back, You'renot sitting at home wondering
what's going on. You're back, you're being re
socialized and you get to go experience that.
Now, if you know you're with oneof the task force and that they
have to do a tactical intervention, you can't go on
that, right, right, right. Sit that one out.
But you got to go experience this part of the agency that you
would never experience for abouttwo weeks and then you got to

(33:20):
pick another one, right? Because typically these things
are done in about 6 weeks and ittakes about two weeks to kind of
get you cleared back into the agency.
If it drug on longer, then you could go to another one.
The third prong, we kind of called it a tactical pause on
your life and it's more of a holistic thing.
And the list by the time I left the list was, you know, as long
as that back wall behind me. But things that you've never

(33:43):
done before or things that you think you might need in your
life again that you want some support on, we would open that
door for you. So maybe you wanted to see a
financial specialist because you're one of those guys getting
prepared for retirement, right? Maybe you want to see a
dietitian. Maybe you wanted a workout
program. Maybe you wanted equine therapy.
You heard about that and you thought that might be cool if
something just calm your life. Maybe you wanted cryotherapy,
fibro acoustic therapy. You wanted trauma informed

(34:04):
massage, let's say a new life experience.
You wanted to take your do a float trip down the Colorado
River fishing. We have groups that we in the
Golden Gate Canyon where you cantake your family for a house for
a week that's patrolled by a different agency and you get to
totally decompress, got to checkout a little bit.
You never shot pheasants before.Now, if you're an avid pheasant
hunter, I'm not going to send you to a pheasant farm.

(34:24):
But you've never done that. You want a new experience,
right? That guys wanted to learn how to
rock climb. All right.
And these were all kind of community partnerships were
either given to us at a discountthat the agency paid for or they
were free. And these aren't gratuities,
right? These are just partnerships that
we entered in with the community.
And again, the list is as long as it made sense and it wasn't
something crazy kooky, we would authorize it and say, let's let

(34:47):
you experience something new in your life, right?
While we're kind of walking through this.
Then we opened it up to maybe someone's just going through
some other type of trauma. We had two officers at our own
agency shot and killed in a 15 month period, had a couple of
other incidents at the agency that were very traumatic and you
could see people were struggling.
So all right, we'll bring you into the reintegration program,
help you kind of work through that.

(35:10):
And it was interesting for me because it's like any other
thing in this profession. You can bring a horse to water,
but you can't make him drink Those those those that.
Were open minded were. Really, you know, really
appreciated it. Those that were closed minded,
once they got into it, they seemed to appreciate it.
There's a few naysayers, right, that just wanted to sit at home.
I just want to sit at home. Leave me alone.

(35:31):
But the senior guys that had gone through that or that had a
little bit of time on the job would come into my office and
say thank you. I wish we'd have been doing this
through my entire career, right.And so I don't know what it
looks like now that I've left the agency.
I might, you know, these things change and they grow and they,
they do what they do. They get their own legs.
But so going from where it was taboo to get mental health,

(35:54):
yeah, to then pushing out this other program over here to say,
hey, you know, it is what it is and let's just work through it.
And let's take advantage of maybe some of this time and try
to make you whole the best way that we can.
So that's that's kind of. My journey on mental.
Health well, that's an incredible 1 and I just.
Have to say like I you know, those runs that were so
purposeful and right and so protected like and what you're

(36:19):
saying in terms of shift and change.
And I wanted to talk a little bit about shift and change.
Madelena, I know you had said when we talked before about some
shifts and change in terms of resiliency and then using the
language of post traumatic growth.
And so I don't know if you wouldbe interested in sharing a
little bit about that experiencefor you especially.
I mean, it was an incredible story about changing a whole

(36:42):
agency's look at mental health, but you know, specifically an
individualized experience of that.
Absolutely, I think to. Start as you just heard.
My dad really explained his experience with supporting an
agency's mental health. In the backdrop of all that, he
was supporting his home mental health.
Continue with those conversations with Doctor
Nicoletti, really making Doctor Nicoletti a part of our family's

(37:04):
life. He was someone who came over for
dinners or came to graduation parties.
He was a part of our community. And as a result of that, my dad
was modeling for me my whole life what it meant to go seek
that support, not realizing he was doing it for me, right?
He was doing it for the agency. He was doing it for his fellow
officers. He was doing it for himself so
he could continue on his career.All with me observing though

(37:25):
that he was taking that step, that it just became a norm.
So then when my experience happened, I during Borderline,
as everything kicked off, I ended up actually in the attic
above where the shooting was occurring.
So I was in the building for thetotality of the incident.
Throughout that experience, my dad and I were texting back and
forth as he was telling me what was happening over the radio and

(37:46):
what dispatch was telling him, and I was telling him what was
happening inside of the building.
And so we actually have this text string kind of documenting
the experience, which has been really powerful and what we do
much like that. Can't.
Yeah, Yeah. When we do much larger
presentations. Together, we actually play those
messages so people can really understand the full extent of my
experience to the degree that's possible through text messages.

(38:07):
Even just looking at those messages, you can see that my
mindset in that moment was that I had agency.
The most helpless situation I'veever been in and the most
helpless I felt I still had thisreality that my safety was my
responsibility. I had agency.
There was decisions I can make to help myself.
Being able to communicate gave me a sense of control and little
ways I could protect myself and get more information and make

(38:29):
better decisions. And as the aftermath started for
me, as I got out of the attic, as I got out, that first 24 hour
period was really a blur for me.I couldn't sleep.
I was having, you know, normal cortisol reactions.
I did not feel safe for a very long time.
Now mind you, as soon as I got out, I sent my dad a text that

(38:50):
said I'm outside safe with SWAT and he was immediately on a
flight from Denver to LAX. So really when he got to Los
Angeles and he was hugging me atmy apartment door, that's the
first time I really started to feel safe.
And that's where I mark when I transitioned from really
responding to what was happeningto when I started healing,
because that was the first moment I actually felt safe
after everything had occurred. And really what my mental health

(39:11):
journey has looked like from that point moving forward.
Because my dad had modeled for me my whole life what it meant
to seek that support. It wasn't a question for me
whether or not I was also going to go get that support now that
this thing had happened to me. And so actually within 48 hours
of the experience, a doctor fromDoctor Clody's office named
Doctor Katie Coleman. She was actually up at our

(39:32):
family home and I had my first session with her in our family
office and he was coordinating that in the backdrop.
They initially thought maybe I should meet with Doctor
Nicoletti. And they're like, hold on a
second, she's a 20 something girl.
Maybe we should have somebody a little bit closer to her age, a
little bit more relatable. They thought Katie would be a
better fit and she's great. But she came up to our family
home and I sat in our family office and told her everything

(39:53):
that had happened. And as she was leaving I walked
to the door and my dad was walking her down the steps to
her car. And to this day I don't know if
she knows I heard her say this to him.
But she looked at him and said she's going to be okay.
And in that moment, I sure did not feel like that.
I was. Really.

(40:14):
Mentally, the best way I can describe it is like being the
very bottom of a dark hole. And unlike in the bar where
there was a ladder for me to climb up into the attic to
safety, there was no ladder out of this mental space, which was
a really terrifying spot to be in.
And so I made a promise to myself once I kind of had that
realization that I didn't want to stay in that mental space, I
made a promise to myself that I was not only going to heal, but

(40:36):
I was going to be the best version of myself in spite of
what I'd gone through. And I actually journal entry
that I wrote when I made the promise to myself that day, it
was six days after the tragedy. And what that looks like for me
practically to get to a spot nowseven years later where I can
confidently say I've experiencedpost traumatic growth was taking
baby steps. I am not going to lie to you all

(40:57):
or to your listeners and said that was an easy process because
it was not. But once I made that decision, I
started to look for little ways to take back my sense of safety.
And I started with Maslow's hierarchy of needs and really
focusing on that bottom layer ofpyramid.
I got crazy good at getting enough sleep, eating foods that
made me feel good and helped reduce anxiety, taking little

(41:20):
opportunities to take back my sense of safety.
And one of the big ways I did that actually was really
handling one of my major triggers.
So one of the biggest triggers for me was up in the attic, it
was very dark. There were gunshots in the bar.
So every time I would be in a dark environment, I would hear
those gunshots over and over andover again.
And so it makes it really hard to go to sleep when you close
your eyes to go to bed and all you're hearing is gunshots in

(41:43):
your head, it's hard to go to bed.
And that meant I wasn't functioning like a normal adult
after a lot of time of sleep deprivation.
So I went to Katie and I was like, I think I want to go get
my CCWI need to take control of this sound like it is tormenting
me. I can't just be in this space
anymore where it's consuming my brain.
And I was kind of half expectinghere to go.
I don't know if that's such a great idea, but she actually

(42:04):
really encouraged it. And so I went with my dad and
one of the men I touched in who's like an uncle to me, who
was on the SWAT team with my dadand on the job with him for his
career. And they put me through the 40
hour post level law enforcement level firearms course and I got
my CCW. And the reason I share that
specific experience was because it was the first moment I really
realized that I had control overtaking back my sense of safety.

(42:29):
Because as soon as I took that step, I was able to sleep.
I wasn't being tormented by thatsound anymore.
And so that really sparked something in me where I got
tenacious about learning about what was going on with my brain,
about learning about my body, about learning about health,
about taking any of those triggers as an opportunity to
take back that sense of control and to reclaim that experience

(42:52):
for my own safety, my own agency.
And that, you know, little tiny baby steps over time, viewing
this thing that's popping up in my brain, this trigger, instead
of it being like, this is a terrifying thing, Why is it
popping up? I didn't realize this was going
to bug me. I established the mindset that
my brain finally feels safe enough for this thing to pop up,
and that means it's time to healit.

(43:13):
Oh my goodness. Wow.
And so it. It was a gift.
When a trigger would pop up, realized like, OK, a, go brain,
we're finally safe enough that we can heal this thing and B,
now I know it's there, so let's do what I can to heal it.
About two years into my experience, I found emotional
freedom technique and I worked with a practitioner named

(43:33):
Tiffany Jeffers. She's worked with Navy Seals.
She's incredible, been in the space for a long time.
But that particular modality wasreally helpful for me and taking
out the emotional charge of a lot of my triggers, the things
that just were activating for meand popping up in everyday life
and, and things I didn't realize.
I was kind of had adjusted to the ways I was operating as a
result of the tragedy. And from there, I just got

(43:54):
tenacious about learning and about giving back.
That's when I started, I worked in school safety about a year
later. That's my first started, my role
in school safety. And that experience, being able
to give the skill sets and mindsets that I had learned
growing up and that I'd been gifted to our most valuable
members of society, our children, right?
Our most valuable resource are kiddos.
Giving them those skill sets andmindsets to stay safe was an

(44:15):
incredibly healing part of my journey for me because it felt
like I was bringing purpose out of this incredible evil that had
been inflicted on me. And then I got to a spot where I
started to talk about it and that I took a lot of time
because I didn't want to talk about my experience until I
could do so from a space of healing and recovery and
resiliency. So I wanted to stored that
experience well. But once I got to that point,

(44:37):
being able to share with other people that even on that darkest
night, even that most horrible moment, even in the situations
you have no control over, there is a light on the other end of
that tunnel. And if I can be an example of,
you know, there is post traumatic growth, that can be a
reality even after the most horrific things.
I know everybody's story and I'mlucky to say that's been mine.

(44:58):
But it is an option that we often don't hear about.
Often times we think about trauma and the next thing we
hear is PTSD. And my experience has been one
where I was at this point, this bad thing happens, but I am now
have fulfilled that promise to myself and I am better than
where I was at prior to what happening.
And that can be other people's reality as well.
And so I mean, that's, that is alittle bit of what my journey

(45:20):
has looked like. But I've also been incredibly
intentional about when those triggers come up or when
something else, you know, on layers itself, I face it and I
brought this incredible team of people around me.
So Doctor Kitty Coleman was the first people I call my growth
team, but she was the first person on my girl.
I love that. But every time this new kind of
level comes up where it's something that I realized I

(45:40):
don't have the skills to navigate or I could use some
support to handle. I think as as children, we are
so apartment to take support from coaches and mentors and
teachers. And for whatever reason, as we
become adults, we start to believe that we aren't allowed
to have that kind of support. And I really reject that
mindset. I think if you can bring
somebody into your life to help you now navigate when things get
difficult or when you're reaching this next chapter that

(46:02):
you don't know how to navigate and somebody else has navigated
it before you, to have those people in your corner is a cheat
code. It's a hack.
I'm going to pull as many peoplein as I can to help me navigate
and give me that wisdom. And so I've developed this team
over time to also help me when there are moments that me just
choosing isn't enough, right? I need somebody else to come and
help me navigate. Absolutely.

(46:23):
Now. Now.
You know why all? I what I do is carry her bags.
Gosh, I mean. You're not wrong here.
She's. Pretty incredible, huh?
But also, that stems from you too.
And both of you guys have such an incredible, powerful story.
I'm honestly like I was sitting here and the funniest thing, I'm
sure you have a podcast. I want you to mention that.
I don't know if you've ever had that moment.

(46:44):
I just had that where I'm sitting here and I'm like, oh
hell, how do I respond to this? Like it's just so good.
There's there's nothing I can say like I'm inspired.
I'm in awe right now. There's you know, you guys are
both incredible. And I think from my point of
view with all of this, like to like, how do you guys with
traveling with sharing your story?
Like do you guys have anything that you guys do together that's
kind of just like off the table,like father daughter, like what

(47:07):
do you guys do for fun together?This is totally left field, but
my, my brain is like, how do youguys stay connected in different
ways? I mean, our family's very.
Ritualistic about Sunday dinner.So we've been doing that since I
was left for college. So my sister and I come up every
Sunday with our whole families together and we just have a meal
and dessert and we hang out. We talk about our week, and that

(47:28):
has been a norm since we became adults.
So I think we connect weekly no matter what, unless someone's
traveling, you know, But most ofthe time it's pretty consistent.
And I don't know, I think that we more than pretty how much
anybody else I know, my dad and I share very similar ethos about
the world and outlook on life. And so I think we just connect
naturally. It's not that we have like

(47:49):
hobbies per SE, but I just like,I'll see a video on Instagram
and I'm going to send it to him or something and stuff.
But I'm going to call him and talk to him about it because
he's one of the people I look upto the most in the world, right.
And so it's it's not that we have like fun things we do.
I just enjoy spending time with him.
I love that, Yeah. We have a tradition.
When we travel that, you know, the night before, try to just be
her and I and I know that, you know, the hosts always want you

(48:10):
to be with them. And we try to manage that the
best we can. But we will get a steak dinner.
Yeah. And love this.
Just spend time. Together and.
Those are I I travel a lot. I go all over.
And my favorite trip is when shegets to come with me.
It's a lot of fun, yeah. Pretty cool moments.
Well, that's. How I got to?
Invite you guys on the podcast is because of one of your trips

(48:31):
and I'll give my dad a shout out.
So he was at the FBI conference over the summer.
He got to sit through your guys incredible program and
immediately told me that I needed to reach out and I think,
you know, has harassed both of you on my behalf.
So I have to thank my dad for that.
But could you guys share a little bit about your program,

(48:54):
what you presented maybe at the FBI?
And I know when we had spoken before, I have to get this title
right, but The Dark Knight of the Soul, I believe AJ is what
you said some of this is based on.
I don't know. I think that would be good for
our listeners to know if that's a book that enjoys.
Yeah. Tell us a little bit about your
program. I'll start and then I'll let
kind of. Madelena kind of clean it up.

(49:14):
It is titled Dark Knights of theSoul and there is a book out
there written by Thomas Moore that I was actually working on a
project with the FBI. We did Echoes of Columbine and
then we did The aftermath. And these are things you can go
to the Department of Justice andyou can get, you know, the CD's
for free kind of for agencies orfor individuals.
But we were working on that and one of the producers there had

(49:37):
mentioned the book Dark Knights of the Soul and said, say it
might be something you you mightwant to read because that's the
life you're living. And I'm like, yeah, OK,
whatever, right. But I actually did go and then
get that book. And what it talks about just
kind of in a nutshell is on yourdarkest night, whatever it is,
you know, it's an officer involved shooting.
It's you're getting a divorce, you're getting sued, you lose a
loved 1, whatever that tragedy is in your life, right?

(50:01):
Which is, you know, different for all of us.
If you can find that kind of 1 ray of light to focus on and
move towards that, that you havethe end, the opportunity.
If you're true to yourself and keep moving forward, you have
the opportunity to move into post traumatic growth and you
have the opportunity to change kind of the outcome.
And literally in the presentation, when I'm talking

(50:22):
to law enforcement, you know, wetalk about our 8 pillars.
Pay attention to that. You focus on that.
You have the opportunity to change the world truly, right?
When we look at this thing in its full depth, reading the book
and then in Full disclosure, created a program, Dark Nights
of the Soul, with a dear friend of mine, a man by the name of
John McDonald, who used to be the executive director of school

(50:42):
safety for Jefferson County Public Schools.
He's the one that brought Columbine back together after
that event happened. He's now in Missouri for the
Center of School Safety and Leadership we created.
And he's responded not boots on the ground in the building like
I did to school shootings, but more school shootings than me on
the management of these events, you know, after the fact and

(51:04):
created this program. The first time we did it was in
the Jagger Hoover building in FBI in DC broadcasted across the
world to all the FBI agents. And it was kind of a powerful
thing, right? Well, then Madalena's event
happens and again, it took some time.
There was no pressure on me. I didn't give her, I didn't put

(51:24):
any pressure on her. The only thing that I told her
was, listen, we might be victimized, but we're not going
to be a victim. We're not going to live our
lives as a victim. You figure out how to navigate
that girl. But we've been victimized, but
we're not going to live our lives as a victim, right?
And so is she is growing and she's adapting.
And some of my tactical classes that I teach is when she first
started opening up talking abouther experiences to the

(51:46):
responders and the SWAT guys, she got to a point where she's
like, hey, I can do this with you.
So really dark Nights of the Soul is either me, myself or
with John McDonald or with her. And 99% of the time it's with
her because that's a much more powerful thing.
And John would agree with that and he pushes her that way as
well. The program that your father saw
was an it's a four hour presentation at the FBI National

(52:07):
Cab, that national conference. It was only 90 minutes.
What it is is we look at the events that I went through at
least the three school shootings, because there's not
enough time to go through all ofthem, right?
And typically what we talk aboutwhen you're in those events are
the bad things that happened, that type of stuff, right, which
we have to right, because you'retrying to prepare people to to
do things better. This program's 180° from that.

(52:30):
It's we look at the event and then what good came from it.
And typically I'll talk about inthe lines of decision making,
tactics and mental health. And so I kind of briefly talk
about Columbine, you know, the good that came from it and then
Platte Canyon, the good that came from it within that
parameter. And then why?
Wham. Which then opens the door for
Madelena to step in and then talk about her experience.

(52:52):
So I'll kind of take it from here.
Yeah. So the last hour of.
That 4 hour chunk is really me talking about the backdrop of my
childhood, What's the experiences?
He just goes through those first3 hours to talk about how they
impacted me, what protective factors I got growing up as a
result of that childhood experience, and how those
protective factors then preparedme for that day.

(53:14):
And I go through basically my experience surviving the
borderline bar and girl shooting.
I talk about what was going on with my body, what's going on
with my brain. We watch the text messages and
the radio traffic, the news coverage.
And then we talk about what healing and resiliency has
really looked like for me. So I give a very authentic, it's
not pretty, the reality of what that aftermath actually looks

(53:38):
like for me and how now, seven years later, I've gone to a
space of post traumatic growth and I walk through the things
that I prioritized, the things that were hard for me, the
things that actually helped. And really then we leave our
audience with these experiences that were the worst day of my
life, some of the worst days of his, but the good things that
have come from them. And really, that dark night of

(54:00):
the soul mentality that even on those worst days, even in those
worst experiences that that goodcan come from, it is incredible.
Thank you. It's incredible.
I don't want to, I know time wise, I don't want to make you
guys stay all night because I absolutely would.
I think Jennifer would too. I see both of our brains going.
So I'm like, uh oh, but can can you give us a little bit about
your podcast? So I don't want to miss the

(54:21):
opportunity to hype that up. Oh sure.
And I appreciate that. It's called the Centurions path.
And so one day I was just, I gota thought in my mind.
It's like I called my buddy John.
I said we need to do a podcast. He's like, what the Hell's a
podcast, right? And we started to navigate those
waters. And really what it is is kind of
talk about the trials and tribulations of first responders

(54:43):
depending on, you know, there's never a script.
The last year or so, we've really talked about mental
health and some of those challenges.
We're moving away from that justa little bit, but mental health
is always a part of everything, right?
So we kind of push into that andhere in the last six months we
brought, you know, Madelena mentioned Mike Touchstone, a
dear friend of mine. He's more of a brother than
anything who's still on the job back in Arvada.

(55:04):
We brought him on as a Co host as well.
And it's really just kind of talking about life, you know,
and and being able to do it froma position of tire deputy chief
or I don't got to answer to a mayor.
I don't got to answer to a City Council and can be a little
freer, but again, still respectful.
But it's been fun and we are going I'm going to here live
with you guys. I'm going to throw the

(55:25):
invitation on because we'd like to bring you guys on and and
have a conversation about what you guys are doing and about
your podcast as well. So when we're done, don't hang
up. So I want to look at some dates.
Awesome. Well, we're.
So excited like. Honored, honestly, to even be
invited on yours. Yeah, well, the honor's ours
for. Sure.
Yeah. But that's that's kind of what
it is. And it's we've been a little bit

(55:45):
lazy here this fall. I had surgery and on my shoulder
and so we're due to get one donehere pretty quick and we try to
do 1 every two weeks. But like this fall has been
really flat with when life gets in the way.
But would be honored to bring you guys on and you know, who
knows where the conversation is going to go?
Like I said, nothing scripted. It's just talking about life,
this profession and the and the bizarreness of it and the beauty

(56:06):
of it and the tragedy of it sometimes.
So yeah. And I don't want to.
Be, you know, too Pollyanna a little bit, but you know, just
to think that my dad was, I remember my dad saying, you
know, again, shout out to Lieutenant Woosley, but I don't
even need to go to this conference.
I don't know why I'm going, but I'm going to go.
And you know, here we are with this conversation and then, you

(56:29):
know, it feels very special and I have been and very moved by
both of your stories and appreciate just #1 giving us of
your time, but being just so open and sharing about those
experiences. And it's incredible program that
you have. And I'm happy to hear the FBI is
taking advantage of that. And I know others will want to
take advantage of it as well. I'll let Ashley go ahead and

(56:52):
take us away. But again, just thank you guys
so much. Yes, thank you guys for your
time This was. Incredible.
I know our listeners are going to want more.
So I'm so thrilled that we have all your guys information and
and I'm like, I'm like, when do you guys present next?
I'm coming front row. Thank you.
I really am. I'm not I'm.
Gonna be there. So thank you guys so, so much
and we always end ours the same way so when the call hits home

(57:12):
Jennifer and I are here for you and we cannot wait to share this
episode. Thank you, guys.
Thank you, absolute. Honor.