America's Criminologist 10 14 25 Guest Det Brent Cartwright

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Col steals. Wait, just trusting shadows, a secret line. Doctor
Curry squamologist sees a loosy cales, a crime break in,

(00:30):
Jay brut the frame.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
And here's America's Criminologists, Doctor Curry Myers.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
All right, all right, all right, Welcome to America's Criminologists,
where we look past the surface of criminal behavior and
examine the deeper causes moral erosion, family breakdown, failed formation.
I'm doctor Curry Myers, former sheriff, professor and long lifelong
student of justice and learning. Today episode doesn't just peel

(01:02):
back the curtain, it tears it off. We're diving headfirst
into a real cost of working the streets from inside
out and how a good man almost lost it all
chasing justice. I have some exciting news to share. My
second edition of my last book is now available only
at doctor Currymeyers dot substack dot com. That's an online version.

(01:23):
This is a twelve thousand word criminological trust called Culture
Virtue in the Roots of Crime. It is a continuation
of my book they ev An and faeriral Man at
at least last year. In this expanded edition, I deepen
the analysis of cultural and moral decay as the root
cause of modern criminality. As I write in this volume,

(01:43):
crime is the public manifestation of private moral collapse. This
principle remains the cornerstone in my opinion of crimeogenic philosophy,
one that asserts that faith, family, and formation are not
just peripheral influences on crime, but it's most fundamental deterrence.
So check it out on my substack page. That's doctor
Currymeyers dot substack dot com. I know what it's like

(02:09):
to live under a false name, deep inside the criminal underworld.
I did it for many, many years as a Kansas
Bureau of Investigation special agent and a DEA Task Force agent.
I saw a firsthand how easy it is to blur
the line between enforcement and even personal life. From time
to time, you start playing a role, and before you

(02:30):
know it, the role starts to play you a little bit.
Today's guests didn't just play the role. He nearly drowned
in it, and we're lucky to see him today as
a result. Our guest is retired Detective Brent to Cartwright,
a man who's stared into the abyss and led to
tail the tale. In his new book, Undercover Junkie, Brent

(02:51):
shares his harrowing descent and the chaos and the moral
collapse while working in one of the most lethal pockets
of Kansas City. And I can guarantee you every year
when I do the Top twenty five most Dangerous Cities
in America, unfortunately, Kansas City is always in the top
twenty five. You may think that's unusual, but there's two cities,

(03:12):
especially in the Midwest, Kansas City and Saint Louis, that
make that top twenty five most Dangerous Cities in America
every year. Luckily, Kansasity, Missouri Police Department is an excellent
department and they've been very successful despite being having a
continued high crime. Brent dedicated over twenty five years to

(03:34):
serving as a US Army veteran, so thanks for your service.
We're coming up on Veterans Day here next month and
police officers. Spending more than a decade as an undercover detective.
Brent retired after suffering multiple gunshot wounds during an undercover
operation while assigned to the ATF Task Force, which focused

(03:55):
on illegal firearms crimes. It's a very they're still active
to this day. It's a very impressive group and they
do hard work. He is the recipient of numerous awards
and decorations, as one might imagine, including the Purple Heart
and Accommendation for valor. Detective Cartwright is recognized by the
US criminal courts as an expert witness in narcotics, trafficking,

(04:17):
and illegal firearms crimes. Undercover Junkie is his first book. Brent,
Welcome to America's Criminologists. Glad to have you on.

Speaker 4 (04:26):
Hey, Curry, I really appreciate you having me, man, Yeah,
thank you. It's kind of surreal to hear, you know,
hear the words about my career and the kind of
that stuff, and it just, you know, sometimes you look
back you're like, man, I can't believe that was really me.
I really did that stuff.

Speaker 3 (04:39):
Yeah. Yeah, that's the first thing. But it's also the
thing that I remember most about my career. I mean,
I did in my career. I was a state trooper.
I started out as a state trooper and here I was,
you know, this mighty Mouse character, you know, here I
come to save the day in a State troopers uniform
and the campaign hat and get out that car. Good afternoon, man,

(05:02):
you know, good afternoon, sir. How are you and doing
all that kind of stuff? It was fun. I mean
I enjoyed it. It was hard work, and I was
stationed in Troop A and Kansas City, which was an
active area as well, but it wasn't enough for me,
so I went I wanted to be a detective and
an investigator, so I went to the KBI and it
seemed like a natural fit for me to work undercover.

(05:23):
I loved it. I enjoyed it in all humility. I
felt like I was good at it, and people asked
me to do a lot of work, and I worked
a lot with federal agencies because it's a calling. Not
everybody has the talent to work undercover. And I think
that's one thing that you and I have in common,
is it takes a certain person. Not everybody can. There's
different types of you know, like swat. Different people have

(05:45):
different capabilities that they can go do. What is it
do you think that that makes a person like yourself
desire and really enjoy the the undercover work?

Speaker 4 (05:59):
You know? It's kind of funny. And like even when
my parents asked me, They're like, if you're gonna go undercover?
And they knew I was a pretty straight shooter. I
mean I never even smoked a cigarette. In my life,
I've never experimented with, you know, any illicit drugs. You know,
maybe back in college drank a little too much and
gotten a lot of fights, but uh, you know, their
their impression was we had to know the drug world

(06:20):
in and out if you're gonna go out there and
start busting them. So and for me that was odd
because I didn't I mean again, I didn't even know
how to hold a cigarette when I was out on
the streets hitting people up at first because I'm looking
at people like, you know, I'm carrying it all kinds
of stupid like. But uh I the ultra competitive side
of you is and I think there there's a hyper

(06:40):
you know. Sent part of that is that it's your
hyper competitive and always wanting to win at it kind
of at all costs. And you look at that as
that's a really high bar to hit in that realm.
And kind of what goes along with that is just
as I call it a little bit of crazy, right,
call it adrenaline junkies or whatever you will, I'll always

(07:03):
kind of, you know, love sought for the thrill, and
that becomes the dangerous part, is you know you're looking
for that thrill while also winning on the battlefield that is,
you know, the bad guy's turf. You're completely outnumbered, out
gunned almost every single minute of every day, and to
come out of there with a win. I mean that's

(07:24):
I mean, that's the ultimate sure and task. I mean
it just in it. Once you start getting a couple
of the wins, man, it just starts feeding your ego
and put you in you know, overdrive on that. And
you know that's again that's where the dangerous parts of
If you don't keep yourself in check, you can absolutely
get lost in this work. And that's you know, you
hear my story, you'll see that that's exactly what led

(07:46):
to some of the downfall of mine.

Speaker 3 (07:48):
And I think that again, it's one of those where
we play. We start out playing role, and I think
we you're able to rese just like if you're an actor,
you research a role, you try to understand it. You
have enough informance that you can kind of get into
that world pretty quickly to understand how things work. But

(08:10):
it does. It's a little bit of performance art, is
it not. I mean, I that's how I viewed it
because I always like to perform personally. I mean I
was always in a little bit of a you know,
a ham and you know, a kind of an actor
and theater type person. Even though I was a jock
at the same time, I liked doing both those. So
here I was a jock that liked to like to win,

(08:31):
but I also like the performance, you know side of things.
Did you have kind of that person personality as well?

Speaker 4 (08:38):
Yeah, full of sports guy. Uh And so that's where
I think where the competitive stuff comes in, you know,
really fed into my personality. But I was a class
clown for sure. Uh And one of those risk takers
that you know, it's one of those like don't dare
or Brent to do something, because dang it, he's gonna
do it.

Speaker 3 (08:57):
Uh So uh.

Speaker 4 (08:59):
And it was kind of of funny because right when
we would start out as undercover, when I was new,
I mean, we couldn't even work with informants. So the
way I started learning how to act and behave was
going out cold on the streets of Kansas City. So
all the most violent parts of our town and the
most CD and you know, the biggest underbelly of our city.
I would just go out and walk and talk to people.

(09:21):
It wasn't about nicely buying dope. Obviously we tried to,
but it was that's how you learn to lose being
a police officer, and you learn it. I mean, it's
just like feal training as a police officer man, but
you're doing it flip side. On the other side, you're
learning how to be a bad guy from the real
people and just hanging out, drinking beers with them, smoking
cigarettes with them, going in their apartments, hanging out in hotels,

(09:44):
watching how they act. And then it's like a chameleon,
you start behaving like them. And that's where it is,
where it becomes where when you really get good at it,
you're no longer playing the part. You're absolutely that person.
And my persona was Ricky. So you know, even in
the office or anywhere else, if you yell Ricky, you
know I'll perk up and hey, somebody's But if you

(10:07):
ever said Brent or Cartwright after a while, I wouldn't
even even my kids like, Dad, why do you always
put Ricky down on your order? Like at Starbucks or whatever.
To this day, I've been out of it for a
little bit and they're like, what's your name? What's the
name for this order? Like, yeah, well, what's up. It's tricky.

Speaker 3 (10:23):
Yeah, I was Sam, So it's a you know, Sam
Elliott was a big, big star you know in the eighties,
still is, but that's you know, that's when I was
working undercover. So I you know, like everything, you just
kind of pick something. But the Bureau did a good job.
Gave us all the you know, the the personal identification
that matched, the names and all that kind of stuff.

(10:44):
The cars, the license plates, all those things kind of matched,
and set you out. Gave me a motorcycle, you know,
and then you set out and start doing your thing.
I remember one of my first informants, remember the Burdellic case,
the serial killer. One of my one of my first
informants was the was the guy who escaped. Oh uh so,

(11:07):
I mean and man, that dude, uh the the things
that he knew in Kansas City, Oh man, it was
eye opening, eye opening. So it just it just you
open your word hitting you know. Again. Here I was
a former state trooper. I was one of those you

(11:27):
know guys in school that was, you know, always doing
the right thing, never getting into trouble, you know, And
here I am now putting on this persona and I
look like you know, I'm a I'm in a gang,
and yet I'm I had just I had gotten married
when my wife when I was a state trooper, and
of course she knew me as this clean cut you

(11:48):
know again, state trooper that looks a certain way, and
I'd come home in the evenings and you know it's
not even the same guy basically that that she married.
Did you have that kind of deal in your relationships?
Did you kind of have that? You know, here you
are at one time work the road Kansall in Missouri
patrol officer, and you've kind of completely switched. How did

(12:08):
that go over with family? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (12:11):
Man, it was so. I did six years in patrol,
all on the overnight dog watch shift, you know, most
violent part of Kansas City, down in the inner city,
all eight at night till six in the morning. So
I would see the vast majority of a lot of that.
But yeah, same deal. Even for my military time, right,
I was always you know, high and tight, you know,
high fade, haircut, always clean shaved. I didn't even know

(12:33):
if I could grow a beard, and then next thing
I know, I'm growing a beard and they tell me, hey,
six months, you can't cut your hair. Your beard, and yeah,
I'm taking my kids. My kid to her first day
kindergarten with you know, hair down halfway down my back
tied up in a bun. I dressed in mindercover stuff
because I had to hurry up, and I was like, oh,

(12:53):
this is an important day, so I'll come in late
take my kid to school. So I've got my baggy shorts,
you know, my best meth tweaker shirt, and out the door.
I walked my kid to school. The kindergartens looking at you. Okay,
so this is an abusive house. This poor kid had
no chance. And then you know all the other kids,
you know, their parents are walking them into school and

(13:15):
they're I'm sure they're looking at me like, okay, don't
hang out with that kid. So my poor daughter, you know,
she didn't know any better.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
It's dad.

Speaker 4 (13:24):
Uh you know, even that she saw the transformation from
when I was clean cut guy to this man. She
was just like, it's my dad. But man, there there
is a certain stigma you get when you start walking
around in public and your gear, and I'd see it
all all over the place.

Speaker 3 (13:39):
So God, we have so much. We have so much
in common. Because I remember one time I was on
a T three investigation. I was doing the UC work,
but it was a Title three and it's wiretaps for
those that aren't familiar. And I was gone for like
probably three weeks and got back home and I needed
to take my daughter to I needed to pick up

(13:59):
my her from school. And I went and picked her up,
and we had just moved and they really didn't know
who I was. So the principal came out and said, now,
is this a divorce situation or my wife? My wife
forgot to give to clarify who was who was picking

(14:20):
my daughter up, and it was, you know, my oldest
daughter at the time, and and luckily got everything worked out.
But the thing is we were active, you know. I'd
start I would go to church every weekend, and here
I am set with the rest of my family and
people are like looking over their shoulder, like, you know,
what's what the heck's going on here? You know? Is

(14:40):
how how?

Speaker 4 (14:41):
It kind of like, yeah, I took it as a
sign that I was doing things right. You know, if
you keep side eyeing me like that guy is creepy, Okay, cool,
I'm in it and my look is right, you know,
as well as I do. The look is only one
part of it. We all partake in it because it
throws some questions out the window that bad guys and

(15:02):
bad girls will ask us right off the bat or
people would judge you when you're in the streets. But
your ultimate goal is can you talk and you know,
bs with people? That's you know, if you can carry
on a conversation, you could be dressed up high and
tight with a tuxedo driving around in Alexis and you
can buy just as much dope if you know how
to talk to people, which is why it became important

(15:23):
when we when we got trained. You know, initially that
first six months man with no cis boom. I mean
it is you learn how to talk, and boy, I
mean they pick up on it quick like yes, their officer,
what are you doing detective? And they and they would
think that just to mess with you, but then they
would pick up like okay, dude, we can tell you
a cop, could you please just leave us alone. We're

(15:44):
not doing anything wrong and we're not going to a
drugs you and you take that as a big ego hit.
So that feeds into okay, I need to try harder,
and then it's learning and how do I learn language,
talk mannerisms. You know, Initially I was again, I've got
some friends that you know, experimented with some drugs, and
so I'd like trying to like mimic off of them,

(16:05):
and it totally wouldn't work. And like, if I'm trying
to be a meth head, man, you got to walk
around like there's twenty dollars burning a hole in your pocket.
I need to find the dope, man quick. So when
I was kind of walking around with apathy, They're like,
that doesn't look like any tweak er I've ever seen. So,
you know, a week later, I'm picking up anything shiny
on the ground and I'm, you know, all twitchy, and

(16:26):
you're walking around all excited, and they're like, okay, that
guy's jones in I mean some. And at that point,
you know, the dealers come to you if you put
on a good enough show man. I mean, it's it's
it becomes really funny looking back at it, like, Okay,
how much I changed on just those little things.

Speaker 3 (16:43):
Yeah, I think for me too, it depends on the person.
And I tried to play the heavy where I I
was really into it for a business. I wasn't really, Hey,
I didn't want to get into the prod, didn't want
to get into my own product. I'm here to just
do business with you, that kind of thing, and I
kind of of try to bring that kind of toughness
about it that it's about, you know, our group is

(17:06):
selling this. Do you want to be a part of
this or not? If not, I'm out, you know, And
I don't need your money. I'm out.

Speaker 5 (17:12):
You know.

Speaker 3 (17:12):
That kind of thing is is how I took it?
Did you kind of at some point? You know? And
it depends on how much you bought. I mean when
we started out, we hardly it was at least an
eight ball, which is three point five grams to the audience.
I mean, that's at least the lowest that we're buying.
And then we get into the ounces pretty quick. Was
that similar things that you were going through or did
you go down to a little bit lower level?

Speaker 4 (17:34):
Yeah, so my first four years was all street level,
so hat grams, grams, teeners, eight balls, and we'd go
up to an ounce, but generally we were on the
street level stuff, which.

Speaker 3 (17:48):
Yeah, so you really had to play the true tweaker then.

Speaker 4 (17:51):
Yeah, sometimes you buy an eight ball and you're pretending
that you're breaking up half of it to use another
half to sell, so which is common, but I mean
that's becomes even a misconception I had, which I don't
think a lot of people even when I tell them,
like those are the dangerous ones, like, oh man, a
forty dollars meth deal. That forty dollars means that life
to that dealer, that low level dummy, Right, they'll kill

(18:15):
and shoot and rob over forty dollars. Where Like when
I would go and buy like a kilo with somebody
connected to the cartel, man, that was business. Like those
are fun and easy, Like we usually meet somewhere, you know,
if hottel was pretty rare, but sometimes we did. But
a lot of times we were even at a restaurant.
We'd down, we'd have dinner. I'm like, we're sharing food.
I'm like, we're double dipping in the chips dip.

Speaker 3 (18:37):
Oh yeah, that was my world. That's the kind of
stuff that happens.

Speaker 4 (18:43):
Yeah, man, those are easy. I wish I could do
this all the time. You know. Then I turn around
like after doing that, bye, and I would be down
off thirty fifth in prospect buying PCP from some guy who's,
you know, got a bottle hidden next to his radiator
cap with his car hood up like he's broke down.
So man, it's you know, and if you know, thirty
fifteen prospects in Kansas City, there's not very many. I'm

(19:05):
a white dude. There are many of white dudes running
around that part of the city. And you go around
there eleven o'clock and you're a white guy, pretty good
chances you're going to get a gunshev in your face
and get robbed nothing else but for your cell phone.
So that's the stuff that I look at it like, man,
risk versus reward was really askewed. But the reward wasn't

(19:26):
the criminal cases we prosecuted on those low level ones, man,
it was it was all my adrenaline dumps. I mean,
I became addicted to those wins and the adrenaline dumps
and the dopamine that that provided. And that's where first
responders really get in trouble is when that addiction takes over.
It is not unlike any other drug out there, illegal

(19:51):
prescription pills, alcohol, sex, I mean, all the things that
people do really stupid stuff for adrenaline. Dopamine is in
that same boat.

Speaker 3 (20:00):
So yeah, and I still have it. I mean, it's
it's it hasn't gone away. I mean it's you still
think it's. It's almost like it's those events and things
are just part of your brain and it pops up
every once in a while, you know that, And you
can't find anything. You can't find anything good enough to
replace it. No.

Speaker 4 (20:20):
Oh, I make a joke.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
Just the other day.

Speaker 4 (20:22):
I made a joke with my wife. We were going
to some museum and I hung a twenty dollars bill
out of my pocket and she's like, what do you do?
And I'm like, I'm just waiting for somebody to come
rob me. This person has no clue what it is
about to come upon them.

Speaker 3 (20:36):
She's like, oh please please, It's like, stop it.

Speaker 4 (20:41):
You can't be doing these kind of things. I'm like,
I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. Yeah, But if you were it,
so what do you? What drew you?

Speaker 3 (20:50):
You ended up being part of the atf UH Task Force,
which they have incredible task forces. Atf was always one
of my favorite federal agencies to work with. And I'll
tell you why is that they were always willing to
go out and work with you. Yeah, if the drop
of the hat, ATF agents would drop what they're doing
and say, I'll be there. Yeah, but he's doing to

(21:11):
the other federal agencies, man, any of the other federal agencies,
you had to you know, you had to get double
secret probation permission, you had to do all kinds of
stuff at ATF. If you had a relationship with those
guys and gals, they drop what they were doing and
they would go help you and vice versa.

Speaker 4 (21:28):
Did you feel the same, Yeah, so this so after
my it was twenty seventeen when they pulled me over there.
From twenty twelve when I started UC work, so I
got recruited to go over to their gun squad. It's
one of their largest task force that they had in
the country. And my old boss, Eric Emisberger, he was

(21:52):
He's an absolute go getter and demanded that of everybody.
And they were like, Hey, we need to replace a
new with a body, with a body who do we
know and who's a hard worker. And man, they were
like Cartwright, Man, go get that dude. That dude number one.
He'll do anything we asked him to because he's just
kind of a little bit of crazy. But he's not
afraid to work. And that's what I mean. We went

(22:13):
from our UC time that initially when I started, we
were doing no overtime, like hey, we're budget cuts or
you know, coming out of the whole recession, out of
twenty eight, twenty ten, and oh, watch your overtime. So
then we came into hey, we just need to go
out and try to you know, dopen guns results in
violent crime. Let's knock the violent crime down. You guys

(22:34):
go and working ninety hours a week. So they're like,
hey man, this guy's not even batan and I with
two small babies at home and a wife at home,
working ninety hours a week. Dude loves to work and
he's does great work. Bring him over. So and that's
why I saw the stuff that they were doing just
I mean, they had storefronts and all kinds of you know,

(22:55):
all the all the stuff that I thought was cool.
And they're looking at me like, hey man, you're running
around the street like a cowboy, Like we think what
you're doing is cool, but uh, why don't we combine forces.
You come over here and do our stuff. And so
one of the problems in Kansas City, obviously is homicides,
and like you said, generally we're in the top ten
most violent cities per capita, especially with homicides. For a

(23:19):
town that has four hundred thousand people, you're reaching one
hundred and eighty homicides a year. I mean, that's that Honestly,
Chicago is not even touching that, you know, per capitalized
per capita.

Speaker 3 (23:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (23:30):
Yeah, So, and our former chief said, hey, we have
to do something to go after these homicide guys, because
these guys are killing multiple people, you know, and if
we can't solve these crimes and get them in custody,
then they're just going to keep killing people. So we
got tasked with going after On top of our normal

(23:50):
buys of buying guns and buying guns from felons and
buying bull atto weapons you know, in undercover roles and
dope go along with it, We're now out tracking every
homicide suspect in Kansas City and chasing them down. It
was our responsibility to work with homicide and get him
in custody. So I was like, we're going after the

(24:11):
worst of the worst in society. Okay, that's a lot
better than you know, buying a couple of grams off
of somebody and letting them get drug court and then
seeing them back out on the street and they're diming
you out. Hey, Ricky the police man with with a
t O mini van. So I was like, man, I'm
going after and making a full on difference. Not that
I wasn't, you know, doing some bigger cases and really

(24:32):
putting some people away on my dope buying time, because
I absolutely was, but like this one, like, hey, you're
taking a murderer off the street. Yeah, bingo. And that's
what drew me to it. Man. I was like, you
couldn't like my my wife couldn't even slow me down
to thinking about it because she was I was like,
I know, I got to ask her permission, right, has

(24:53):
any good husband, Hey babe, can I do this? And
I'm already like out the door, okay, I guess yeah, fine, babe,
go out and do this. And that's what eventually led to,
you know, me getting shot. Was working one of those cases.

Speaker 3 (25:08):
You know you mentioned your family now a couple of times.
I definitely kicked my coverage and was able to marry
a wonderful wife and we just celebrated our thirty eighth
wedding anniversary. But tell us. How all this kind of
impacted the family side of it.

Speaker 4 (25:25):
If it wasn't for her being such a strong, amazing
wife and woman, it would never we wouldn't be together.
It was her holding the glue together. And for all
the things that I lost in this job, you know
who I was, and I kept always kept that thought
of I'm doing this for my family and family first.
So I've got two daughters and my wife. And when

(25:50):
I looked at it, I was like, this is who
I'm really doing all this for now. There was some
skewed versions in there, for sure. I mean I was
much like an alcoholic hiding my bottles. That was my
you know, I was hiding all the risk and the
and the adrenaline dumps that I was doing from her,
so I would I wouldn't tell her all the bad
stories about you know, getting in the middle of guns

(26:11):
and knife fights and all the things that I was
doing that almost got.

Speaker 3 (26:16):
So I was.

Speaker 4 (26:19):
I was keeping that from her like an alcoholic wood.
But she absolutely was the glue. And she worked so
hard and she deserves all the credit for keeping us,
you know fully together, uh and always being way more
patient than I think anybody else would.

Speaker 3 (26:35):
Have been well, and especially in an occupation where the
divorce rate, as you know, just for any law enforcement
that's extremely high, and you get into these specialized units,
it gets even higher. Yea, you have an interesting tale.
We want to continue. Would you would you mind stand
for the second segment?

Speaker 4 (26:53):
Brother absolutely man love to all right.

Speaker 3 (26:56):
Stay tuned for more with retired Detective Brent Cartwright. Will
be right back after this commercial break.

Speaker 2 (27:18):
Check us out online at k MET fourteen ninety am
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(27:45):
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Speaker 7 (28:52):
Hello listeners, this is Christopher from the Christopher Show. Hey,
if you missed one of our shows you're at KMT,
don't worry about it. You can go to our web
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Go to the homepage, click on the SoundCloud tab and
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Speaker 5 (29:13):
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Speaker 3 (29:43):
Hi, folks, doctor Curry Myers here to let you know
that my new show, it's called America's Criminologist with doctor
Curry Myers, every Tuesday at one pm between the Dave
Ramsey Show and the Kevin mccolla Show. Is a former
State Trooper special agent share for a major county. I
will offer sharp insights into the press an issue shaping
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(30:04):
as an applied criminologist throughout the one hour show. So
criminals and the progressive politicians that allow them to fester
beware because this show is directed at you. America's Criminologist
every Tuesday at one pm on k m E T.
All right, welcome back, and don't forget to take a

(30:25):
look at my updated version of the Advent of ferial Man.
It's an addition twelve thousand word criminological traute called culture
Virtue and the Roots of Crime. You can view that
on my substack page. Doctor Curry Meiers dot substack dot com.
That's doctor Curry Meyers dot substack dot com. We have
Detective Brent Cartwright, a man who lived undercover, survived gunfire,

(30:50):
and calaughed his way back from the brink. His book,
Undercover Junkie is a must read for anyone who wants
to understand what really happens behind the badge. Get back
to it. So you're at ATF Brent, and let's get
into the day that you were shot.

Speaker 4 (31:08):
Yeah, man, it was. Uh so it kind of led
up as a weird just like a perfect storm of
what I call it a series of unfortunate events. We
had been working for six weeks with no days off,
just a homicide suspect after suspect, and we had a
couple of wire tabs that were getting ready to come up,
and so we're just running ragged. And then our swat

(31:30):
team that we had covered us on our deals and
do our takeoffs. A lot of times we would be
jumping out on them, but our swat team was always
there because this is you know, they're usually murder people
who have nothing to lose, so they're going to either
shoot it out or run fight. It's always going to end,
you know, not easy going. So those guys even got

(31:51):
drawn in like ten more directions than we did. So
we finally had a Sunday off and we decided, hey,
a couple of us will come in and go try
to find this homicide suspect who had in cold blood,
I mean he went and did a robbery. He had
a chicken and fish shop. It was a Middle Eastern
student who was working his way through UMKC, the University
Missouri in Kansas City. He was a grad student, just

(32:14):
working trying to earn money, so going through college, and
this guy, Marlon matt came in robbed the place. The
guy did everything right, opened the drawer, put his hands up,
stepped away, gave the guy all the money, and he
got a little nervous so he tried to run and
Marlon Mack ended up shooting killing him and stood over
top of him. Executed this poor kid for nothing. And

(32:37):
so we'd been out looking for him all week hadn't
been able to find him. So we said, hey, we're
going to come in on Sunday and let's go see
if we can at least find where he's at. And
our swat guy said, hey, we haven't had a day
off and even longer than you. So we're only going
to take volunteers. And so two guys volunteered to help,
just in case something bad happened. And uh so they said, well,

(33:01):
being that that's the case, normally, we're going to flood
you with six eight guys, you know, dressed in tactical gear,
plus our squad of you know, five six to eight
dudes and overpower suspect, so that their only option is
to give up. So they said, hey, being that we
don't have those kind of numbers, let's just do surveillance only.
Let's find this guy and we lay him down at

(33:23):
a hotel, a house or whatever. We'll come back on
Monday morning right and early and come, you know, take
him off. And so that was the goal. So I
kissed my wife goodbye that morning and she was reading
a book on the on the couch is you know,
pretty early, and I said, hey, you know, our policy
was if you go into work on a day off,
you're going to get paid four hours minimum. So I thought, hey, babe,

(33:46):
we're probably not going to find this guy in like
two hours. We'll probably just call it and you know,
go home, and I'll get paid for four and only
have to work too, you know, just kind of laughed
about it, so a little I know, I was completely
way off and wrong. We found him pretty quick off.
He came by his girlfriend's house, but he wouldn't get
out of the car, so we could not fully identify

(34:08):
this guy. And he started driving a ratic and we're
tailing him and following him. Okay, pretty sure he's shake,
you know, shaking his tail. So we stayed off of him,
and he went to this little Rundown hotel, a little
motel next to it's right next to the Arrowhead Stadium
where the Chiefs play. But the problem is there's a
picket fence and it's six foot tall. You can't see

(34:30):
in there. You can't see what room he's going to
or if he's in the manager's office where he's at.
And so I was like, well, man, this is like
I'm the undercover guy. Like that's me. It's my turn
to work and do my thing. So I dressed down
in my undercover gear and my best tweaker stuff and
you know, metallic skulls all over the place and really

(34:50):
baggy shorts and my airwalks that had like my toes
hanging out of the shoes. You know, Miles and miles,
I've put on these things, and I got on foot
my whole I was going to go in. I was
going to rent a room at this hotel and see
if I could hang out in there and watch where
Marlon comes and goes, and know what hotel room he's in?

(35:10):
Easy enough?

Speaker 3 (35:11):
Yeah, an intel mission basically super doing.

Speaker 4 (35:15):
A buy nothing crazy and uh man. I walked into
the manager's office and it was like boom, hit me.
It's small. It's like ten foot by ten foot. You know,
there's like seven incense candles burning in this this hole
just to cover up the stink. And Marlon Mack our
bad guy, is like right there. His feet are hanging out,

(35:38):
so I was like I had to step over them
to step into this manager's office and there's bulletproof glass
all around, and it hit me. I was like, man,
if ever, there was a good time to arrest a
homicide suspect that's not in his car, And I mean,
what do you do? You pull up with the swat guy,
the two swat guys and a couple of us jumping
with them, and you could wake that dude out of that.

(36:00):
He couldn't go anywhere. He was trapped, bulletproof glass all around.
It's like, oh perfect, I called the audible. So I
get my phone, which we didn't use. I didn't grab
a listening device that day, so I just use a
phone on an open line so detectives could hear me,
but you know, they muted their in so I didn't
hear anything. And man, it was one of those just

(36:22):
perfect storms of bad things happening. We didn't have a
whole lot of people bad thing happening. My cell phone
dropped coverage there, so we had Sprint phones back in
this day, and it was a known spot for the
calls to always drop. So as I'm trying to let
it out like come in, come in, come in, I'm

(36:42):
looking down and my phone had dropped, so nobody can
hear me. So I start trying to text and the
text won't go through, so I step away, and then
the manager finally comes up and he's like, are you
the one ringing the bell? So I'm acting like a tweaker,
like all sketchy, and I'm trying to get my phone
to go through, and all this time is wasting. I'm like,
what do I have to do to get the swat guys?

(37:03):
In here to come, like, just get him. So he
barricades himself in. We'll deal with a barricaded subject. If
it lasts three days. It lasts three days, who cares.
He eventually has to come out. So by the time
I get a hold of my backup and say, hey,
tell the SWAT guys to come in, it's you know,
been over a minute, and now the guy's been watching

(37:23):
me and he's all nervous. So I go out to
the street and I can hear the police car come
roaring down. It's one of those explore SUVs. And I'm
telling them, like, hey, tell them as soon as they
see me. I'm right on the edge of this fence,
just to make that hard right turn blue accurate straight
in front of me. And as soon as they get
almost to the lot, he steps out of the office

(37:45):
and starts walking across the park a lot. I'm like, oh, dang,
he's not He's not trapped anymore, right, But at this point,
like the plans in motion, I'm like, well, it's just
let's go with it. So they come screaming in and
come to a halt right at his back bumper. Right
as he gets to the driver's door, and he kind
of just calmly looks at him, looks around, opens his door,

(38:09):
sits down, leaves his door open for a couple of seconds,
and then shuts it like nope, he has got no hustle. No,
like he knows the police are after him. His face
has been on billboards. He should be like frantic, Oh crap, the.

Speaker 3 (38:24):
Police are here.

Speaker 4 (38:26):
Well, clearly he had a different plan. And so I
saw this on thinking, Man, something is screwy, something's weird.
We can't I've got to change something, and I got
to do something. So nobody else is screaming in the
park lit it's just these two got two swat guys.
Well you know how it is. We want numbers. There's
a passenger in his car who gets out and starts walking,

(38:48):
just ignoring police commands, just walking away, just hands up
and walking away. Stop where you're at. Nope, he keeps
walking like okay, that's diverting the passenger of this car
and police car. Mike the partner, the partner, he's watching
over here. I'm like, okay, well I'm going to run up.
Surely do these guys have like because right, swat guys

(39:09):
have guns on guns that are you know everywhere, you know,
tucked in. So I run up. I'm like, hey man,
it's Ricky, what's up. I need a gun? And they're like, dude,
get out of here. It's like because they're used to,
you know, tweakers and meth heads coming up on their
back all the time, but it was shocking for me
to be on their back because I'd never been a
part of a takedown ever.

Speaker 3 (39:26):
You know.

Speaker 4 (39:27):
At that point, you know, we're dealing with almost seven
years of undercover work and I've never once been a
part of the actual takeoff.

Speaker 3 (39:33):
So they did they even know who you were?

Speaker 4 (39:36):
Yeah? They did. Mike Coup was at the driver's door.
He's he was part of this art we call them
our snow tax Street Narcotics Unit, taxical unit.

Speaker 3 (39:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (39:46):
He'd been a part of that unit since my first day.
So he knew me really really well. Patrick was his partner,
and he he knew who I was, knew what I
looked like. But when I first came up, they were confused,
like why are you even here? Like you've done your part,
go away again, okay. So but I was like, and
then I'm asking for a gun, you know, because I didn't.
I never carried a gun at this point, right, I'd

(40:08):
already proven I couldn't be killed and nothing is too
dangerous for me to do over all my years of
doing this undercover stuff. So I quit carrying a gun,
and so I had no gun, no vest, no badge,
and I was like, dude, just give me a gun.
They're like, get out of here. I'm like, okay, well,
I'm taking Mike. I'm going to take your handcuffs and
I'll go get the kid. As soon as I reached

(40:29):
for his handcuff case on the back of his belt,
because right, they're doing a felony car check as we speak, right,
doors cop doors are open, gun's drawn. I'm like, dude,
I'm gonna take your handcuffs, and as soon as I
reach for it, like things start exploding, loud bang, it's
just going off. Well, Marlin, our bad guy had upgraded

(40:52):
the Kimber ten millimeter gun that he had killed this
Middle Eastern student with, and he had sold it and
bought a AK forty seven pistol, and that's what he
was shooting us with that day. So he jumps out
of the car and just opens fire on us, and
more than just normal bad guys being really bad. Shooting

(41:14):
at the cops. That's pretty darn bad. But he chased it.
He charged right at us. So he's shooting at us
and charging towards us. You know, Rounds are skipping everywhere,
glass in the windows, the police car breaking, the metal
is flying everywhere. And Mike, the driver of the police car,
he goes down flat on his stomach, and I'm looking

(41:36):
at him like Mike's dead, and Marlin's running rad at us,
and so I was like, well, I need to get down.
I don't have a gun, so I need to get
down and get Mike's gun, and then I'm gonna sit
on top of him and then just shoot it out
with Marlon when he rounds the door of the police car,
because surely he's just gonna come over and just pump
Mike full of rounds. So as soon as I start making,
you know, to get ready to get on top of Mike,

(41:58):
he pops up. What I didn't know was Mike got
shot right off the bat in the shoulder and the
hip and then the foot, and the foot knocked him
down and he was returning fire underneath the door of
his police car. Well, he put his gun too far
out and the rail hit the bottom of the police
car caused a stovepipe O. Mike was down there trying

(42:22):
to return fire, and when he realized my gun's not firing,
he got up and like, okay, because you know, that's
a malfunction that takes more than a second to fix, right,
So he gets up and diverts around the back of
the police car. And as soon as he hops up,
I follow him and go to the back of this
behind this police car, and my I mean, Marlin, he's

(42:44):
still chasing. He's chasing right after us, and he gets
a pretty clear shot and he shoots me in the
back of my left knee. You know, he's maybe ten
twelve yards away, Max and it So I've got the
video and I've watched the video. It's pretty unnerving to watch.
But you see me do like this bare role. And
it's because I just got shot with an AK forty

(43:05):
seven round, which is a big powerful round, in the
back of my left knee, and it almost took my leg,
you know, off, Yeah, and it tumbled me and I
get up. I look over and I see Mike and
Patrick are They're redirecting and trying to work around and
get a better angle at Marlin, and Marlon's chase sorts
chasing me to you know, pass the police car in

(43:26):
the park a lot, so like my only option is
get up and run, and it's pure adrenaline. Man, you've
ever seen you know, bad hunting shows where somebody gets
a bad shot on a deer and it runs off
and its leg is flailing, but it's fighting for its life. Man,
that was me. Uh So, as I'm running, I'm seeing
rounds skip past me left and right, and I'm like,

(43:48):
got my head ducked. I'm I started running in a
zig zag pattern. I mean, it is almost like a cartoon.
And my memory is weird because it's all in the
third person. I'm looking down at myself and my whole
memory even to this day, Like the only thing way
I can see this is like I'm in a surveillance
watching myself run in a zigzag pattern. But he ends
up shooting me twice in my right leg, twice on

(44:12):
my left knee, and one went my wrist and it
blew out my elbow and the other one hit me
in the back of my humorous on the tricep and
ended up breaking my arm. So lucky right. The zigzag worked.
He didn't get me anywhere vital. That would have been bad,
So I made it. Did he go through twenty six?

Speaker 3 (44:34):
Do you have thirty round mag?

Speaker 4 (44:37):
So on that one he had a thirty five round mag.
But then he gets away from there and he loads
up with an eighty round drum bag. After that, Oh
my goodness, Wow, it ends up right. So I get
around this this picket fence and I checked myself over
and I'm like, dude, I checked my stomach, my chest,
I've checked my crotch. I'm like, all the important things

(44:59):
are good to go. And I take a step in
my leg crumbles. I didn't I had zero clue, no felt,
no pain, no nothing. And then my leg's backwards and
I'm looking at it. I'm like, well that's weird.

Speaker 3 (45:12):
You know.

Speaker 4 (45:12):
Now there's no shots going. I didn't know Marlon to
run back to his car, and he was getting ready
to get in and leave the park a lot and
I'm like, lift up my shorts and I'm like, that's
a lot of blood. All right, Well this is sending good.
So the guy that dropped me off I way, I'm like, dude, Brian,
I'm shot. He's like, yeah, Ricky, get in the car.
So I jump, I hopple, hobble over and get in

(45:34):
the car and we take off to the hospital. And
Marlon ends up pulling out right in front of us,
like we're driving like right behind him. I'm like, Brian,
give me your gun. Pull up next to this dude.
I'm just going to execute him, like I'll let me
just kill this guy right quick. And he's like, Ricky, no,
we're not We're not doing that. So we diverted and

(45:55):
went to the hospital, Truman Medical Center. Because if you're
in Kansas City and you get shot, I mean those guys,
you know, save they deal with it a lot, probably
five to eight gunshots a day. So as I'm going there,
I'm hearing everything else, I realize Mike's been shot. And
then it's becomes a man hunt because he ditches his car,

(46:16):
runs across all of I seventy and is hiding in
the vast wilderness that is the area you know, thirtieth
and topping all the way down to twenty third and
times he's like huge mess of abandoned houses and overgrown bushes.
So eventually a neighbor says, some dude with no shirt
on with a rifle just ran into that house, and

(46:37):
so they surrounded the house, and as soon as they
were getting set up to go to sweep that house,
he started raining shots down on officers there. So about
an hour worth of gunfight back and forth, he kicked
the back door open and ran towards the gun the
tree line where the police were hiding, just firing at
him at random. And of course they you know, exchanged

(46:57):
gunfire with him and you know, shot him. But in
the in that melee, another officer, a third guy that day,
got shot, which I mean obviously there's somebody from above
watching him for sure, because he was exchanging gunfire with
our bad guy, and the bullet hit his front sight
post of his ar and ricochet and hit him in

(47:18):
his right bicep and blew his bicep off. Had that
had he had one of those polymer front sights and
not the big steel you know, a two style, that
bullet was coming right for his neck, I mean, Buck
would be dead for sure. But it hit that ricochet
and blew his arm, you know, blew his bicep off
his arm. So and that's how that incident, that part

(47:42):
of the incident happened. But that was like just the
beginning for me. I was I went to a pretty
big struggle. You know, my for me, running was my
like stress relief. That's what I needed to be able to,
you know, blow off steam a little guy. I'm a
little dude. You know. I made the perfect tweaker, you know,
if I put ten one hundred and forty pounds, you know,

(48:05):
primo tweaker, stature heroin junkie fitted in perfectly. But I
was a distance runner. And so now they're telling me, hey,
you're your kneecap got blown off, and now you can't run, man,
so settle up. And then you know, the things that
I had done in my whole career started coming back,

(48:25):
and I realized, like, man, I'm not as bulletproof as
I thought. And man, the things I've been doing are
going to get me killed or almost and almost did
get me killed. And it maybe it was a big
eye opening point for me. But then I couldn't shake
a lot, like nightmares and flashbacks and all these things
were going really bad. And then our department didn't know

(48:45):
how to handle with you know the severity of my injury,
which uh, you know medically and physical and mentally was
just I was confused, and then they were confused. So
people were just making decisions on the whim, which is
I travel around the country and give leadership talk like, hey, now,
it's not the time to make the plan for what
if this happens. It should be this is gonna happen,

(49:06):
God help us, it doesn't, but if it does, this
is the plan. Let's have a plan. Unfortunately, even for
as dangerous as Kansas City is, they didn't have a
plan in place for a situation as bad as mine.
So they were winging it. And when you're winging those things, man,
you're gonna make some mistakes. So and unfortunately for me,
it made life altering mistakes. You know, they end up
retiring me medically because I was not able to come

(49:27):
back to work and I deal with some extreme nerve
damage in my leg that probably could have been staved
off had I gotten some proper medical treatment early on.
You know, you go to TMC, They're going to make
sure that you're breathing and you're you're not losing blood anymore. Right,
it comes time to doing the surgeries there, It's okay

(49:51):
if you're a bad guy coming in dope dealer. They
get shot and you walk with a limp. But that
should not be the standard for police officers and first
response if they come in and get treated. And that's
changed now to my situation, they di did it wrong.
I got a surgeon that just said I'm gonna wing it,
and they wung it and made it bad for me.

(50:12):
I walk with the limb. Now, we just had three
officers shot a year and a half ago, and they
all got top nuts. Serve surgeons. Let's treat them like
they're professional athletes, because they deserve that, Like every first
responder that ever gets hurt in the line of duty
deserved to be treated that way. And honestly, it was
probably cheaper for those guys. In mind me, I'm on

(50:34):
the medical role for hopefully fifty more years, right, and
I get a lot of expensive treatments every year just
so I can walk and maintain life. So, uh, you
know by once cry wants type thing.

Speaker 3 (50:47):
So yeah, So how's over time? How has it changed
your life, not only physically but psychologically.

Speaker 4 (50:58):
Man, Initially, I was in a really bad spot. I
took to drinking, and the way we a lot of
us deal with a lot of the stressors man is
inappropriately and I went down a really dark path and
it took a really really good therapist, doctor, doctor Jennifer Prohaska.

Speaker 3 (51:19):
Didn't she didn't, she hot not. So I want to
get on get her on my show one of these days.
But I just hear nothing but wonderful things.

Speaker 4 (51:26):
About her, top notch man, her her new side thing
that she's doing as tactical longevity, super awesome, trying to
get to people before they get to their incident, and
had the right mindset for when the incident happens that
they're in a good place, similar to how I want
leadership to think about, you know, treatment for people. So
but yeah, she was my doctor and she absolutely changed

(51:47):
how I thought about things and got me back mentally.
And you know, i'd lost a purpose when all said
my crew was over and done.

Speaker 3 (51:54):
And you even do that when you attire, You lose
a sense of purpose even you're you're okay, not going
out and working, but it's that sense, that great sense
of purpose that gives that makes you feel abandoned.

Speaker 4 (52:12):
Yeah, well and right, you're a cog on a wheel
and you find out that I mean, and it has
to be that way, but that cog you you can
find another purpose. We have so much. I get so
frustrated with police officers that retire and then they go
be security guard somewhere. I'm like, man, you know you're
but you have so many skill sets that are so much.
If that's what you want to do, that's awesome. But

(52:34):
that's what a lot of them feel that's all they
can do. I'm like, no, dude, you're more than a
protection force. Do you have so much skills and knowledge
and things you can partake? Which is where I started
with my book. That's the reason I wrote my book
was to tell my story, to show how you can
lose yourself in your environment. Now, if I wanted to
write all in one book, it would have been like

(52:55):
eight hundred pages. Because there's a second book coming. I'm
already more way through that way, you can see, okay,
once you once you get into this really dark space,
how the heck do you get out of it? Because
that's what people when I hear I talk to them
all over the country, They're like, Hey, this is awesome.
I love hearing your story of survival and how you
can lose yourself. I see myself in you. But then

(53:16):
the next question they ask is how how did you
get back to you? And so if I see you
then I can talk to you about it. But that's
why I wrote the book. I can't see everybody so
they can hear my story. So now I got to
write the second book, the follow.

Speaker 3 (53:32):
So tell us how tell us how we can find
your book?

Speaker 4 (53:35):
Easiest place is like a lot of books Amazon, Amazon
dot com. Right, it's Undercover Junkie. It looks like I mean,
there's if you're on the video here, you see it
just says junkie, but there's an undercover hidden in there.
It spent like the first two months as the number
one best seller in law enforcement. So it did really well.

(53:56):
And people the feedback I gets just awesome. And it's
Barnes and Noble has been awesome here. They've they've had
me in a couple of times. I've done my Challenge
Coin giveaway for them. Yeah. I just I just love
talking about, you know, my story and helping other people.
So it's my new purpose.

Speaker 3 (54:13):
Yeah. Well, Brent, I love you brother, thanks so much
for coming on the show. Your courage and writing Undercover
Junkie and sharing your scars is really something that this
profession needs and you're in my prayers and your prayer
for your families as family as well. So thanks so
much for coming on the show.

Speaker 4 (54:31):
Absolutely love being here, man, I love having I love
being here. So thank you for your time. Appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (54:37):
That's a wrap for the episode of America's Chronologists. Brent
Cartwright's journey is a warning and a witness. It reminds
us that even those called to serve can fall when
left unformed and unsupported. Remember, crime doesn't just fix itself
from the outside. It can be born from institutional neglect
and moral drift. Fix the soul, restore order until next time.
Stay vigilant, stay virtuous, and stay rooted and true, Stay safe, col.

Speaker 1 (55:07):
Steal shots, the camel's wage, shut up just using men
as a fate. America's Shadows a secrets light, Doctor Curry
las cots through the Scott American Squirrel, anologist.

Speaker 3 (55:22):
Calling to the hill.

Speaker 1 (55:25):
Sails of the law in the atmosphere, candles and cries,
breaking the change through FI to start through the fain