BZ's Saloon, 11.11.25 RANDY SUTTON of The Wounded Blue

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
You're listening to Late nine Radio on the s h
R Media Network cushion. There will be mature themes explored
and potentially adult language used. If Conservatorian words, phrases, certain concepts,
or rhetoric offends you, tune out.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Now, Oho, guess what day it is? Guess what day
it is? Huh?

Speaker 3 (01:33):
Anybody, Julie, Hey, guess what day it is? Oh? Come on,
I know you can hear me. Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike,
what days of Mike bag? Never that I write your
book drink I call it bulltalk for a one eyed

(01:55):
fat nay.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Fail your hand, you son of a ch Chon Johnson
j jenty j cop to.

Speaker 3 (02:04):
Chelsea jumps upon j juts and juts and jutting Judson
Juny not it not it don't pass out to me yet.
Of course you realize this means walk.

Speaker 4 (02:18):
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.
We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream.
The only way they can inherit the freedom we have
known is if we fight for it, protect it, defend it,
and then handed to them with the well taught lessons
of how they in their lifetime must do the same
and if you and I don't do this, then you

(02:38):
and I may well spend our sun set years telling our.

Speaker 3 (02:40):
Children and our children's.

Speaker 4 (02:42):
Children what it once was like in America but never freed.

Speaker 3 (02:46):
I have come here to chew bubble gum and.

Speaker 5 (02:50):
Kick ass all.

Speaker 6 (02:55):
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages.
Welcome to be Z's orser Bob kats Loon Radio show,
where I'm broadcasting from North Idaho.

Speaker 5 (03:03):
In an actual free state. I am this guy. I
am your conservative Shirpa, making sure that.

Speaker 6 (03:14):
I guide you through the insidious mailstrom of demarrat, leftist
and globalist lies, chaos, deceit, tyranny, and betrayal.

Speaker 5 (03:23):
And have I got a great show for you. It's
also a tribute later on in the second hour to
our veterans.

Speaker 6 (03:38):
Happy Veterans Day to everybody. It is November the eleventh,
the year of our Lord, twenty twenty five. Please note
what you're about to hear for the next two hours
consists of my opinion and my opinion.

Speaker 5 (03:56):
Only, and of course those of my guests. I am
doing the job.

Speaker 6 (04:00):
The American media maggots well tim fundamentally changed in America.
One left this ty period of time. We don't water
our drinks, just like we don't water our conversations. We
are still serving stiff drinks in the saloon along with
let's see facts, history, logic, rationality, clarity, proportion, context, tradition

(04:24):
and common sense. Politics, religion, crime, culture, race, sex, science, economics, law.
We're talking about about it all right here in the
saloon where the speech is free but the booze is not.
And I'm streaming live on a whole host of places
to Spreaker, Apple Podcasts, Facebook, Live, KLRN Radio, Twitch, my ex.

Speaker 5 (04:51):
Channel, actually a whole bunch of X channels.

Speaker 6 (04:54):
And also I was going to be streaming to Rumble,
but Rumble over here has decided to give me the
high flipping fickle finger of fait tonight. So Rumble, I'm
looking at you, and I'm not really pleased with you
right now. So, folks, I have got a great guest

(05:15):
for tonight, And people who have been listening and watching
my show since twenty seventeen know that I was in
a law enforcement for quite some time, slightly over forty
one years, working for more than one agency in a
wide variety of variety of law enforcement areas. I retired
in twenty sixteen, and as far as I'm concerned, man,
that was prescient. Holy Moly. Timing is everything, because that

(05:39):
followed the year of Ferguson in twenty fifteen and all
of the rest of the subsequent contratempts and hands up,
don't shoot lies that followed because of a series of
false narratives from let's see then President Barack Hussein Obama,
he of the Beer Summit, and g Trayvon Martin could

(06:00):
have been my kid kind of stuff. Because timing is
everything in terms of I don't think that I could
have then much longer and certainly now have survived more
than a handful of calls in today's environment. So my
timing was great. So having said that, I would like

(06:25):
to introduce a gentleman to the show who spent a
number of years in law enforcement himself and following retirement,
ended up founding his organization, the Wounded Blue. You can
find his site. Let me put this up right now
at the Woundedblue dot org. It's right up here, the

(06:47):
Wounded Blue dot org. And it's not dot Com, as
I discovered any number of times, the Wounded Blue dot org,
so that is his site. This is a fascinating, dude,
I got to tell you right now, and in between
his time and service and his retirement, there's a whole

(07:08):
bunch of stuff that happened, and an even greater number
of things that occurred subsequently. So in order to go here,
and as we discussed earlier, because dude, am I super
over prepared?

Speaker 3 (07:23):
You know, I have.

Speaker 6 (07:26):
Never be under prepared bs, and so subsequently I am,
I am not. I'd like to introduce Randy Sutton and
thank you ever so kindly for being here tonight.

Speaker 3 (07:38):
It is my pleasures, thanks for having me. I cheated a.

Speaker 6 (07:42):
Little bit and I looked around for the on the
internet for stuff about you, so I'm a little bit
familiar with your story. But nobody tells their stories better
than the people themselves. And I learned long ago if
you possibly can just take a bit mug of shut
up and let the people talk for themselves, because actually

(08:06):
it's really boring when I did describe people and what's
been happening with them. So let's start with us. Start,
Randy Sutton, can you tell us a little bit about
your folks, your background, a little bit, where you're born,
your family, that kind of thing, and then you have
got a remarkable story to tell, and how that transforms
itself into the Wounded Blue Dot Org. It is fabulous overall,

(08:32):
It's an incredible story, sir.

Speaker 3 (08:35):
Well, I appreciate that, And you know, I consider myself
very fortunate that I had. I had a wonderful childhood.
Unlike many people, I was. I was born into a
family of love. I kind of refer to myself as like,
I had a beaver cleaver life. I had, you know,

(08:56):
great parents who cared. I grew up in a beautiful
little town Princeton, New Jersey, and had a great life.
And I was very fortunate in another regard in that
I always knew what I was going to do with
my life. I knew that I was going to be
a cop from the time I was an early early age.

(09:19):
My grandfather was a deputy sheriff who was shot in
a line of duty by a poacher of all things,
surviving a shotgun blast to the stomach, and I remember
being fascinated as a child looking at that nasty scar
he had. But he was a survivor and and he

(09:41):
was he was somebody that I always looked up to.
So from from the time I was a kid, I
knew where my future was going to be, so I
consider myself fortunate in that regard. And I how I
became a cop is kind of amusing. I was I.
I was always involved in what I believed to be

(10:07):
righting wrongs. You know, Bullies always offended me, and from
the time I was a kid, and so I was
defending others even when I was a child, and in
high school I was going I went to Princeton High School,
which is a very liberal community even back in the

(10:28):
days when I was going there, and it had its
share of bullies, and somehow I wound up getting thrown
out of school a number of times, and always for
the same reason for fighting. Yeah. What was interesting is

(10:48):
the principal they kept on suspending me from school, knew
that I was actually fighting for a reason. I wasn't
picking on people, but because it had a zero tolerance,
you know policy, I kept on getting tossed out. Well,
one day I was in the principal's office getting thrown

(11:12):
out of school again, waiting for my mother to pick
me up again, and the principal was on the phone
with who I could tell was the chief of police.
Because once a year the high school would provide a
cadet to the police department, and the cadet was basically

(11:33):
a gopher, make the coffee, you know, work at the
police department, like an intern kind of thing. And so
here I am waiting for my mother to pick me
up to get suspended from school again, and I can
tell that the principal is on the phone with the
chief to choose their yearly junior from the class to

(11:57):
be a cadet. So I'm pointing at myself mouthing the
word me, me, me, and the principal got this funny
look on his face. He started smiling, and he told
the chief, you know what, Chief, I think I have.
I think I have the guy for you. And that's
how I got to be a cadet with the police department,

(12:20):
with the Princeton Police Department. So I started at sixteen
years of age as a junior and developed my relationships
with the police officers. And then because the next year
I had racked up so many suspensions, the principal said, Randy,

(12:44):
you have to take a double course load because you're
going to get You're gonna you're gonna get thrown out
of school permanently. So I did. I took a double
courseload and I graduated at eighteen years of age early
from the high school. From high school. Now, why is
that significant to this story? Because I had out had
my high school graduation. I was eighteen. They just changed

(13:09):
the age of majority in New Jersey to eighteen years old,
so you could vote, and you could drink, and you
could become a police officer. So maintaining my relationship with
the police department working as even though I was now
going to college at night and I was working a
full time job, I was also still working as a

(13:29):
special officer for the police department. So I'm taking police tests,
and I took the police test in Princeton, but they
only hired a cop like once every four to five
years because it was a small town. Thirty cops. Well,
one evening, I tested high enough. They didn't want to

(13:51):
insult me, so they made me number two on the list,
and of course they had no intention of hiring me.
I was eighteen years old. Time a year goes by,
or six or seven months, and we have a hurricane
in Princeton, and I knew that they were gonna need

(14:12):
help because of the hurricane. So I go up and
I'm volunteering my time to work the desk and answer
the phones and dispatch cars, et cetera. Well, one of
the guys that I worked with as a cadet was
a guy named Johnny who was a very gruff Navy

(14:32):
veteran and he was a permanent desk officer and he
was he was the quintessential gruff guy with the heart
of gold. You know. He always pretended to be, you know,
upset with me, but he always liked me, and we
got along really really well. So it is it is
now a hurricane is happening. I am. I'm working as

(14:56):
a volunteer answering the phones and waiting for Johnny to
get there because he's working swing shift. But he doesn't
get there, and and all figured, you know, because he
couldn't get into town because of the of the hurricane. Well,
breaking the action, I run down in the locker room
to use the bathroom. And I walk into the into

(15:18):
the locker room and I find Johnny laying on the floor.
He had made it in but he had a heart attack.
Oh and so I yelled up to the I yell
up for help, and I started CPR. I was I
was trained in first aid. So I'm I'm doing CPR,

(15:39):
and the other guys come running down. They call the
ambulance and and I couldn't bring him back. And so
we're all there and the muddy floor, and and Johnny
is laying there in his uniform, and uh, you know,

(16:01):
it was like we couldn't believe it. It was surreal.
And his body's there and we're just all of us
are in shock. And the sergeant whispers in my ear,
grabs him by the by the arm and by the shoulder,
and I turned to face him, and he says, this

(16:23):
is one hell of a way to become a cop,
because I was number two on the list. I took
Johnny's place, and that's how I became a cop. Only, yeah,
that is.

Speaker 6 (16:44):
Fraught with dire circumstances and hope and all points in between.

Speaker 3 (16:50):
Yeah, you know, I never forgot. I never forgot that.
I never forgot that I took Johnny's place. And uh,
you know, with that was was was plenty of guilt.
I would expect I wasn't. Yeah, I wasn't able to

(17:11):
save him, and and then you know, and then I
take his place. It was it was it was a
it was a difficult time, and you know, at the
same time, it was what what began a career that

(17:34):
then spanned thirty five years. That tragedy, isn't it weird?

Speaker 6 (17:42):
That's somewhat similar to what got me into law enforcement
in the in the seventies. I began as a reserve
with Sacramento County and one of my first training officers
was a guy that was named Hugh McGraw. Hugh was
about six foot four six, worked constantly and died at

(18:05):
the age of thirty six oh and taught me essentially
everything good that I know about law enforcement today. He
worked probably eighteen hours a day, numerous jobs, wore gloves

(18:27):
all the time, and people thought he's wearing black gloves
because they think he's a bad ass.

Speaker 3 (18:34):
He wasn't a bad ass.

Speaker 6 (18:35):
He was wearing gloves because he was embarrassed that, as
a welder and a pipefitter, his hands were scarred and cracked.
And he taught me about those people that are weak
that need support. He taught me about domestic This is
tearing me up just to think about him. Damn, the

(18:57):
show is not about me. Move on, Besy, Okay, so
good lord, I didn't see that coming. So you were
in Princeton, New Jersey. Then you left for Las Vegas
Metro PD cause I'm guessing you thought that Princeton wasn't
the locust of evil in the entire world, and you

(19:19):
wanted to move on and see if you could grapple
with real criminals.

Speaker 3 (19:24):
That's about it. I was just, you know, I was
in a great little town. I did ten years. I
was six years as the patrolman, that's what we were
called then, patrol man. And then I was four years
as a detective, and I was at the top my
pay scale. I was almost half way to retirement, and

(19:47):
I knew that I just couldn't take it anymore. I
was too bored, and so I researched different agencies, and
I made the determination I was going to go to
Las Vegas, took the police test out here, started my
career all over again. I had to go back through
the academy, had to be a patrol officer again, and
I never looked back. It was the best decision I

(20:08):
ever could have made. But it because you know, we
all know that adage, be careful what you wish for,
and you're not in canvas anymore. Toto and I learned
that very quickly when I was in my first shooting
when I was still on vacation excuse me, when I
was still on probation and a fifteen year old tried

(20:31):
to ambush me and I was in foot pursuit with him.
He was just stolen a car and I was chasing
him at two o'clock in the morning, and I'm running
through a housing low income housing development, and I chasing
this guy. He goes around the corner and as I

(20:51):
go around the corner, I'm staring down the barrel of
his pistol. He was waiting for me to ambush me.
And as I recognize the threat, I had my weapon
in my hand and I fired around and the round
nicked his ear and hit they or hit the stucco

(21:12):
wall behind him in a piece of stucco broke off
and hit him in the head, and he thought he
was shot, so he couldn't throw that gun down fast enough,
and I was able to take him into custody. And
then I found out he was fifteen years old gangbanger.
And at that point I realized you were looking for action, Randy, Well,

(21:33):
guess what you just found it?

Speaker 6 (21:35):
You found it Buco one of the things just just
popped into my brain. I have an immediate question, but
this just popped into my brain. Now, there was a
gentleman that I had on the show probably two years ago,
right past COVID, and he was also from an East
coast department, got into a shooting. His department didn't support him.

(21:59):
He went through terrible, terrible time, had PTSD, had to
quit the department, and unfortunately, about a year and a
half ago, committed suicide from the stress that just was

(22:19):
unrelenting in his life. I had to find out from
the news. I tried to contact him to come back
to the show, and that and any number of things
in between were kind of the motivators for me to
want to.

Speaker 3 (22:35):
Speak to you tonight.

Speaker 6 (22:37):
The other question I wanted to ask you because our
career paths are kind of similar in terms of things
that we have seen and done. But when I left
the West Coast in califailure always spelled with a K,

(22:57):
and then I went to the Northeast. Uh, you had
to start out all over again in Las Vegas. Did
they give you crap for being from the northeast.

Speaker 3 (23:12):
It's funny you say that, So yeah, yeah, this is
actually kind of funny. So I make the decision that
I'm going to be leaving the Prince, and all of
the compatis there said, Randy, are you out of your mind?
You're gonna go to Las Vegas. You're gonna First of all,
you're gonna give up your retirement, excuse me. And secondly,

(23:37):
it's Las Vegas. It's the mafia. It's that's I mean
it's it's that's. The mob owns that town. And then
I go to test in Las Vegas and I they
have it. They have it tailored for out of town ers.
So I take the written test, I take the physical test.

(23:57):
I passed that, and then I go through the psychological
and they go and I and I go through everything flawlessly.
And then they have a polygraph test. And so I'm
taking the polygraph. I'm not concerned about it. And one
of the questions was, is there anything in your past

(24:18):
that you don't want us to know about you?

Speaker 7 (24:21):
Okay, quintessential question, right, And I and and they're asking
me this question, and I started laughing, and I said, well, yeah,
of course there's stuff I wouldn't want you to know
about me.

Speaker 3 (24:36):
And the polygraph examiner said, well, what what do you want?
What do you want to not just want us to
know about you? And I said, I can't think anything
in particular, but you know that question is is kind
of stupid. And uh and and so they failed me.
They failed me on the question. Actually, he and I

(25:02):
wound up being friends afterwards.

Speaker 8 (25:04):
Yeah, but so they so they failed me, and I
get I get I get a rejection notice that that
I was disqualified because of the polygraph, and I'm I'm
not happy because I know that this is bullshit.

Speaker 3 (25:22):
So I go to go see the head of personnel
and I get an audience with him, and I walk
into his office. And remember this is Vegas in the eighties.
It's like it's it's cowboys, right. I walk in. He's
sitting there with a newspaper in front of him. He's

(25:43):
got his paboy boots up on the up on his desk.
And I walk into his office, sit down, and he
doesn't even he doesn't even move the move the paper.
I'm looking at the newspaper and then he lowers it
just so as I can see his eyes and he says, yeah,

(26:04):
what And I said, well, you just qualified me on
a question on the polygraph and he said yeah, and
I said it was an illegitimate question. He says, really,
it was illegitimate. I said yes. I said, listen, that

(26:29):
question was is there anything in your past you don't
want us to know about you? That's not a legitimate question.
And he put the paper all the way down. He said, well,
you are a cop in New Jersey and I said yeah.
And it was like silence, and then he said it again,

(26:49):
you're a cop in New Jersey. And I said, oh,
wait a minute, hold on a second. You mean that
you think that question is about corruption? And he goes, yeah,
that's exactly what I think. And I said, well, then

(27:09):
why didn't you ask me that question? And he said
are you ready? Are you ready and willing to take
another polygraph on corruption? And I said sure, yeah. They
gave me a whole other polygraph only because I was
a cop in New Jersey. Did you ever take money
for not doing your job? Did you ever trade sex?

(27:30):
Did you ever plant evidence? Did you ever do this?
They asked me every possible question, and when I passed it,
he said, okay, you're hired. So so the cops in
Jersey thought I was I was about to join the mafia.
Invested Las Vegas Police, and then the Las Vegas Police

(27:54):
thought I was I was from New Jersey. You know
what that means? I was Guido you know what I mean?
RND is is it? Yes? So that so the answer
your question was, yeah.

Speaker 6 (28:06):
It's like, oh God, coming from Caliphialia. I I went
to the Northeast and caught crap for that and at Quantico,
then went down south and did some Martiall stuff, and
especially in the southeast, I caught crap for that. So
I was just curious about that.

Speaker 3 (28:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (28:25):
So other than other than that, any any highlights from
Las Vegas Metro that you you'd like, you'd like to
share besides the big one. Well we'll get to the
big one, so to speak. But any anything that any
particular highlight of Las Vegas Metro that kind of sticks.

Speaker 3 (28:44):
Out for you, give me career highlights. Is that what
you're talking about?

Speaker 6 (28:50):
Yeah, stuff, that stuff that you may have done with
Las Vegas that just really resonated. Major Proud did a
great job that kind of stuff.

Speaker 3 (29:01):
Oh yeah, you know, I I never looked back at
the decision, and being a Vegas cop afforded me opportunities
and in and challenges in policing. That that I that's
what I was looking for. That's why I came here,
and and I was. I was given some incredible opportunities.

(29:22):
One of them was the fact that I was wounded
up to be the most featured officer on the television
show Cops, and and that turned that was that wound
up being a life changing experience for me. Plus I
had a lot of fun, but that was one of
the career that was one of the life changing I'd

(29:43):
have to say, I'm looking to see if I haven't
my love I loved me wall but I don't. I had.
I had some life changing like just like you, you
did as a cop. And every cop I know has
has a life changing experience or two during their careers,

(30:04):
and I had several. One of them was saving the
life of a one month old baby who'd been shot
in the face in a dry by shooting.

Speaker 6 (30:15):
Holy crap, Okay, I read about that. This is a
perfect time to take a break, because boy, did I
have a question after I heard about that, And then
after that, I want to go to the part where
everything changed for you. One day after you're a lieutenant,
you're in a car, Folks, I'm busy. That's Randy Sutton.

(30:38):
You're in the saloon. I'll be right back after this.
It's time to take a break. So if you would
take a break, hit the electric winkle chamber, whatever you need.

Speaker 3 (30:48):
Conservative media done right. You were listening to the shr Media.

Speaker 9 (30:55):
Network mission log intrigue. I mean, let's face it, who's
even counting anymore? A lost wonder is, officially, of course,
chasing road rocket launches, fringe science and things that probably
highilate causality if it burns fuel, ends time, or make
scientists very uncomfortable. Yeah, I'm probably going to talk about

(31:17):
it every other Sunday when KLRN Radio A Lost Wonderer
because space doesn't come with a roadmap, and honestly, I
wouldn't follow if it did.

Speaker 10 (31:30):
Hello, I'm Matt, a student at Hillsdale College. Here's Hillsdale
President Larry Arne. I'm the continuing relevance of the Constitution.

Speaker 11 (31:37):
Many argue today that the Constitution is outdated because it
addresses problems peculiar to the eighteenth century. Some parts of
the Constitution do read rather quaintly. Consider the adjunction that
gives titles of nobility in Article one, Section nine of
the Constitution, But is that so outdated? The purpose of
the injunction is to prevent the government granting special privileges

(31:58):
to some for partisan reasons. This strikes at the heart
of the rule of law. Thecony capitalism so common today
is a place for the government bestows favors and tax
dollars on some businesses to give them a leg up
over others. This is exactly the kind of thing the
Constitution was meant to prohibit. The Constitution is not so
outdated after all.

Speaker 10 (32:17):
This Constitution Minute was brought to you by Hillsdale College.
To join the national conversation on the Constitution, go to
Constitutionminutes dot com.

Speaker 3 (32:28):
A Fellas, are you mission Ready?

Speaker 12 (32:31):
You need to check out Mission Ready Men via Earl
Biggie Jackson on Tuesdays and Thursdays nine am Pacific, eleven
am Central and noon Eastern. It's a show that equips
you to navigate our society's challenges from a Biblical perspective
with courage and conviction. Students of Mission Ready Men, as
we examine our culture through the prism of Biblical truths, teachings,

(32:54):
and how to apply them in our daily lives, prepare
to step out stand out and step into your role
as a man as ordained by God. That's Mission Ready
Men hosted by Earl Jackson on the shr Media Network
and get mission Ready.

Speaker 13 (33:14):
Want to make an immediate difference in the life of
a critically ill child.

Speaker 3 (33:18):
You have the ability to do.

Speaker 13 (33:19):
That right now. Make a donation to dream Makers for Life,
the organization that restores dreams to seriously ill children and
their families. You can sponsor a dream back for a
child which contains a clear PBC backpack, a dry erase board,
adventure coloring book, a journal and dry erase markers to

(33:40):
inspire a critically ill child to envision a future adventure
and hope. Want to become a dream maker for life yourself,
go to Dream for Life dot org. That's Dream for
Life dot org. Help a child, help a family. There
is always hope.

Speaker 5 (33:57):
You're listening to the shl Well.

Speaker 6 (34:01):
I'm busy and I'm back. I've got a great guest
on tonight, Randy Sutton from the Wounded Blue Let me
put the site up right now, The Woundedblue dot Org.
The Woundedblue dot Org. Enough of his fiddle fattle. Let
get let's get going. I've got tons of questions for

(34:22):
Randy Sutton. He made a remark about an event that
occurred with the baby, and so let's take this out.
Let's put Randy back on the stage. Randy, I said
that because I when I saw that in your background,

(34:42):
so I have to ask you, how do you save
the life of a one month old baby that was
shot in the face on a call? How is that possible?

Speaker 3 (34:57):
So? I was on patrol. It was a sergeant at
the time, and I was my beat was off the strip.
It was in a mixed business residential area and I
and I pull around the corner. I was not on
a call, I was. I was just on patrol and
I saw a car up on the sidewalk and people

(35:20):
running around screaming, and I radioed for a backup with
an unknown trouble and had no idea what was happening,
but jumped out of the car and I saw bullet
holes all over the car, and then I hear someone scream,
Oh my god, the baby's been shot. And I looked

(35:44):
down and there in an infant seat is a one
month old baby with half of her face gun And
what happened was mom and dad totally innocent of doing
anything other than going into the market. This is about,
you know, the dusk, the sun had just gone down,

(36:07):
and the baby is in an infancy and three gang
bangers pull up alongside of them in what we later
found to be a gang initiation and just opened fire
on the car for absolutely no reason. One of the
bullets hit the baby in the face, and I just
happened to pull up literally within minutes of this shooting.

(36:28):
Now you can imagine it's bedlam, right. There's people running
around screaming, there's bullet holes. I don't know if the
shooter's still there. I don't know. I'm looking around for
the possible suspect, and then I see the baby. Now,
the protocols are very clear. Your radio for medical, paramedics,

(36:49):
fire department, and then you turn the scene over to
them for the medical. But when I checked the baby,
she wasn't breathing, and I knew if I didn't get
to the hospital, she was going to die. So the
first patrol unit that got there, I just scooped her
up and jumped in the police car. I said, radio,
we're bringing in a baby that's not breathing. And when

(37:14):
I looked at her, the bullet hit her in the
face and her of course, her head is only the
size of a softball, so when the bullet hit her
did a tremendous amount of damage, and all the tissue
and stuff went into her throat and choked her. Well,
I was able to get that gunk out and then

(37:34):
give her mouth to mouth. And because I was there
literally within minutes when I gave her mouth to mouth,
I brought her back and no brain damage, which of
course is what we fear so much in situations like that,
got her to the hospital, handed her over, they worked
their magic, and that baby survived. Not only did she survive,

(37:58):
but she and I are stole my goddaughter.

Speaker 6 (38:04):
See that's an amazing story. And people don't realize that
we come across not just criminal scenes, but scenes of
people that need to be rescued, that are in extremis.
And that leads to another part of the story where
all of a sudden you were in management in Las
Vegas Metro PD one day as a lieutenant, and then

(38:27):
next day everything changed for you completely. Can you can
you tell us what happened with regard to that Randy Sinton?

Speaker 3 (38:37):
So I, as I said, I love being a cop.
I had my my life's plans. I was going to
do thirty years as a police officer and then you know,
go on and go on with my life from there.
And I didn't. I didn't promote after the rank of

(39:00):
lieutenant because in Vegas that's the last rank you can
still be a cop. In fact, I chose to be
on graveyard shift my entire lieutenant's career because that's where
the action is here in Vegas. Yeah, so I was
on patrol one night, and whenever I was, you know,
the watch commander, which is of course the highest ranking

(39:21):
officer on duty, I would always take a patrol officer
with me. That's how I got to know my people,
because it's a big department, you know, metro' is the
ninth largest department in the country. So I had this
young cop with me. It's two thirty in the morning.
We're driving down Las Vegas Boulevard, the famed Las Vegas Strip,

(39:43):
and I was talking to him like I'm talking to
you right now, and suddenly I started talking slower, and
I literally felt my brain slowing down, and I knew
what was happening. I was having a stroke. I stopped
in the car right in the middle of the Los
Angles Boulevard, and I said to this poor kid who'd

(40:04):
never ridden with me before, I said, get me medical.
I'm having a stroke. And the kids looking at me
like lieutenant screws with people. And he realized I wasn't
messing around, and I got out of the car to
go around to the pastor's side in case he needed
to get me to the hospital, and started speaking gibberish.

(40:28):
And I knew I was speaking gibberish, but I couldn't
control it. And then within seconds I lost the ability
to speak altogether, and lost the ability to move, and
I crumpled to the pavement, absolutely helpless. And I'm laying there,
completely conscious, completely cognizant of what is going on, but

(40:54):
completely unable to move or talk or communicate. And I
can tell you this that I was not afraid of dying.
I was afraid of living like that. And as I'm
laying there helpless, tourists are walking by me taking my
picture laying there helpless, of course, and I'll never forget

(41:17):
that night. That was, of course, a life changing night
for me. And they got me to the hospital once again,
that angel that's been on my shoulder my entire career
was with me again, and the blood clot went through
my brain did its damage, but certainly could have done

(41:39):
a whole lot more. But that night ended my police group,
and it was it was not what I It was
not the way I thought I was going to go out.
I should mention that three weeks before that, my mother
died my arms, and two months before that I was

(42:00):
in another fatal shooting. So there was a lot going
on with me, and you know, psychologically and emotionally. But
then the stroke happened, and within douple weeks I lost
everything in my world. I lost my mother, I lost
my career, I lost my identity. I've been caught my

(42:24):
entire adult life. And what happened next was what was
even more shocking, and that's that my own department turns
it's back on me and said, we're not paying your
medical bills, we're not giving you your benefits. Have a
nice life. See that.

Speaker 6 (42:45):
I went these places intentionally, and I asked you the
questions in this order on purpose because all of the
things that led to your creation of the wound blue
you went through. There's this article that I want to
put up from Police one. What you don't know about

(43:09):
being injured could leave you homeless. You know, you had
to fight with your department, the city workers, comp medical
paperwork forms, benefit problems. It's what you guys do and
offer by way of the wounded. Blue is a compendium

(43:34):
of all of the things that people could encounter as
cops in law enforcement.

Speaker 3 (43:41):
And I can only say that that.

Speaker 6 (43:47):
Pile after pile after pile informs you as to what
you're going to do, how you met these challenges, and
what you decide and what you decided that you were
going to do with all of that. And then I
want to I want to point you in another direction.
After all of that. You saw a guy on TV

(44:10):
and then you later met up with him.

Speaker 3 (44:13):
What was that? So the realization that my own department
would turn its back, would turn its back on me,
was devastating to me. It took me into very very
dark places. I even want to go see the sheriff

(44:36):
who I had served with for twenty four years, and
I said, how do you treat me like this? And
he said, Randy, this isn't personal, just business m And
I couldn't understand it, but he was telling me the truth.
You see, I was no longer an asset to the department.

(44:56):
I was now a liability. But it's hard to envision
yourself a liability after you've given twenty four years of
your life to a police agency. A very wise man
named doctor Kevin gil Martin, who wrote the book Emotional
Survival for Law Enforcement and which is truly the bible

(45:20):
for police officers that everyone should read, once said something
absolutely crucially important. You'll hear cops say I love my department. Well,
you can't give your love to something that will never
love you back. But we all feel we all feel

(45:42):
like like we do, and that the department will love
you back. It seemed capable of doing that.

Speaker 6 (45:48):
I used to talk so recruits that if it is
politically or fiscally expedient, you will be sacrificed. Never love
your department.

Speaker 3 (45:59):
It will not love you back. M h. It's exactly right.
So eventually I won. I I had to get a lawyer,
and I went through a year and a half of
fighting them, and it was it was it was terribly debilitating,

(46:22):
not just emotionally, but it was physically. You know I'm
going through you know when when? So when they released
me from the hospital, I spent a week in the
hospital and the doctor comes over to me and he says,
how you feeling, Randy, I said, quite honestly, I felt
pretty damn good. And he says, I'm happy to hear that,

(46:42):
but I don't want you to think that anything we
did is going to preclude you from walking out of
here and having another stroke or a heart attack, because
you have a serious heart problem. And by the way,
that's what killed my mother three weeks before this, and
it's what killed my father. So suddenly I am now
facing the harsh truth about my own physical issues, and

(47:10):
it's not what I expected to hear. So now I've
lost my job, I've lost my identity, my own department
has turned its back on me, and I don't know
what the future is going to bring. Now by this point,
I had already written four books. Three books. Excuse me,
I'd written three books. And so I'm thinking now now

(47:34):
that the doctor has got me thinking what's going to
be my legacy? And I knew it was going to
be a book, but I didn't know what it was
going to be. And then one day I'm watching television
and I'm watching an interview with a man named Frank Shankwitz,
and may that name probably doesn't ring a bell to

(47:56):
most folks, but what he did with ring a bell.
He is the man who created the Make a Wish Foundation.
And what very few people know is that the man
who created Make a Wish was a police officer. He
was an Arizona State trooper for more than forty years.

(48:19):
So I was listening to this interview with him about
why he created this incredible organization and it was like
a light bulb went off in my head and I said,
you know what, this is what I'm going to do.
I'm going to contact Frank Shanquitz and I'm going to
ask to interview him because I'm going to do a
book called The Power of Legacy about people who have

(48:44):
done incredible things of their lives and asked them about
those who gave them that impetus who inspired them to
give back in such amazing ways. So I reached out
to Frank Shanquitz and he lived in Prescott, Arizona, and
I told him who I was, and I said, I

(49:06):
want to interview you, and he knew I was a
cop and he said, come on, I'll meet you. So
I'm supposed to meet him in Prescott, Arizona, and he
calls me the night before and he says, Hey, I'm
going to save an hour off your time. I want
you to meet me at a diner in the town

(49:28):
of Seligman, and he gave me the name and I said, sure, okay,
And now I hang up from him and I said,
where the hell is Seligma in Arizona? And I look
it up and it's on old Root sixty six. Now
why is that even germane to this conversation, I have

(49:48):
to tell you because it is another piece of the
weirdness of So there was a television show you might
remember it called Route sixty six. Oh yeah, and that
television show with George ma Harris and Martin Milner with

(50:10):
two guys in an old corvette on the road to adventure.
And it was a brilliantly written and very much ahead
of its time theories and it was basically two modern
knights Errant doing good deeds along Route sixty six, which
was then the only highway across the country. And for

(50:33):
some reason I don't know why, I even as a child,
identified with that show to the point where I have
literally been driving corvettes my entire life, from the time
I was a child to right now. If you look
in my driveway, there's a corvette sitting there because of
that stupid television show. So I've been, real, I've been,

(50:57):
I've been. That show had a tremendous effect on my
life because it was it was such an incredible show.
And so I am on my way to meet Frank Shankwitz,
a hero, on Route sixty six, and I'm in my

(51:21):
corvette going there. Now here's where it gets weird.

Speaker 6 (51:25):
Oh I can't wait.

Speaker 3 (51:27):
I know. So my father had envisioned himself a photographer.
He wasn't, but he loved he loved to take photos
wherever he went. And so there was a wall of
photos along my childhood home and I would look at

(51:49):
these photos every single days I walked through the house
and one of those was three storefronts on an old
western storefront. So I get to Root sixty six. It's
a beautiful autumn day. I've got the top down in
my car. I'm listening to oldies as the wind is

(52:11):
rushing through my hair. I'm setting the scene for you, right,
I'm setting the scene for you. And I pull into
this diner where Frank told me to meet him. And
it's been a five hour drive. So I get out
and stiff, and I stretch a little bit and I
look across the street and there is the same three

(52:34):
storefronts that was the photograph my father took fifty years before.
I was standing where my father stood fifty years before,
and I got to tell you, it was so emotional
it literally it literally knocked me off my feet. I

(52:56):
had to grab onto my car for support. And I
realized that this is that I was standing where my
dad was standing fifty years later. And so it was
a pretty emotional moment. So I walk into the diner,
and you cannot miss Frank Shankwitz. He is a larger
than life, no bullshit cowboy wearing a black cowboy hat

(53:22):
and a big mustache. He can't miss him. I see
him in a corner booth that I go up there
and I shake his hand. I remember he's been a
cop for forty years. He doesn't miss anything. And he
looked at me, he says, are you okay? And I
told him the story that I just told you, and
he sat back and he looked at me. He goes,

(53:45):
you city cops sure are sensitive. And that's when that's
started a friendship and mentorship that lasted the rest of
his life to the day he died. He was my friend,
my mentor, and became the first member of the board
of directors.

Speaker 6 (54:03):
Of the Wounded Blue And that's where it started.

Speaker 3 (54:07):
That's where it started.

Speaker 6 (54:09):
Okay, so let's fast forward a little bit. You meet him,
you know what he's done, You are familiar with his
his own organization, which is fabulous, of course, and then
what out of that makes you say, Okay, I'm gonna

(54:30):
go here. Let me put this up again, the Wounded
Blue dot Org, the Woundedblue dot org. If you want
to find out what's going on at the Wounded Blue
dot org right there. So, what's the motivation for the
Wounded Blue dot Org. That translates how Randy Sutton.

Speaker 3 (54:52):
Till I wrote the book The Power of Legacy. And
then I'm still dealing with my own you know, my
own issues, my health issues, etc. And then because of
writing books and being in the movies and being a

(55:15):
police trainer for years and being on the show Cops,
suddenly police officers from around the country start reaching out
to me. The Facebook had just become was becoming a
big deal, and cop started reaching out to me. Randy,
I know you don't know me, but I don't know
who to turn to. I was injured in the line

(55:35):
of duty. In one case early on police officers, I
was shot in the line of duty. My chief never
even visited me in the hospital. They've thrown me away, Randy,
I was paralyzed when my police car was hit by
a drunk driver. They've abandoned me from different parts of

(55:56):
the country. I'm getting these heartbreaks making messages, not because
I could do anything, but only because I was visible
in the law enforcement world and they were desperate. They
didn't know who to turn to, and I can't do anything.
But I understand because I get it. It happened to me,

(56:19):
and I realized that this is a national issue. This
isn't just Randy. This was happening to cops across the country.
And every single one of these conversations ended with the
same phrase. Towards the end, I feel forgotten, I feel abandoned,
I feel alone. And then the worst ones were I

(56:43):
wish I never survived that night. At least I wouldn't
be a burden of my family. YEP, And these heartbreaking
messages are coming to me, and I'm going, wait a minute,
there's got to be a resource for these men and
women and discuss there was none. There is one if
you die in the line of duty, but if you

(57:06):
get severely injured in the line of duty, there's nothing
for you. And that's why I created the Wounded Blue
and the Wounded Blue is the national assistance and support
organization for Injured disabled Officers, a nationwide charity that held
more than sixteen thousand cops in the last six years.

(57:28):
And we are saving lives. We are saving careers, we
are saving marriages. We are getting people into treatment whether
those injuries are physical or emotional and psychological, and we
are changing lives.

Speaker 6 (57:44):
I'm going to your main page, the Wounded Blue dot org.
The Wounded Blue dot org. The Winded Blues mission is
to improve the lives of injured and disabled law enforcement
officers through support, education, assistance, and legislative advocacy. Everything that
you experienced as a law enforcement officer and more growing up,

(58:07):
never forgotten, never alone. So help me out here, Randy Sutton.
Was your primary concern that of the mental health of officers,
their physical health on the job post retirement, you know,
focus me in here a little bit.

Speaker 3 (58:25):
So it was it was all of the above. They're interchangeable,
they're they're they're part and parcel to one another. Physical
injury leads to emotional injury. Physical injury leads to psychological injury,
and vice versa. We have we have seen people who

(58:47):
wear the badge, who become severely depressed because of post
traumatic stress, and then they harm themselves. We have seen
officers who literally run their own cars off the road
because they can't deal with the pressures anymore. And I understood,

(59:11):
I understood. I understood the darkness of what it felt
like when you feel abandoned by You know, most police
officers are very idealistic when they begin their careers. Their
believers in right and wrong, their believers in in the
good guys and the bad guys. And that doesn't always

(59:32):
play out in reality. And those who are most idealistic
are most apt to be hurt when things don't go
the way they think or the way they should. They
become disillusioned. That disillusionment can lead to hopelessness. Hopelessness leads

(59:55):
to that feeling of helplessness, and those two that those
two factors in combination with one another, is why we
have the suicide rate that we do. And realizing that,
realizing that we need to create a community that cares.

(01:00:15):
We need to work together and in friendship, in loyalty.
We need to be the blue thin blue line that
we were promised as cops but never delivered. And that's
what the Wounded Blue is. We are that family, never forgotten,
never alone, is what we live by. And that's why

(01:00:37):
what we do is so critically important to the law
enforcement community. And why my entire team, who is made
up of cops who have been shot and stabbed and
beaten and run over or face serious trauma and come
out on the other side, why we become peer team
members and we provide peer support in disabled officers across

(01:01:01):
the country. They're the real heroes of the Wounded Blue.
Those men and women who serve as peer team members,
who who literally intersect with other officers' lives who are
facing struggles. Now, that's who those are the heroes of
the Wounded Blue, my team.

Speaker 6 (01:01:22):
Raddy Sutton, I have to ask another question. It's a
matter of time. I'm not going to do a break
right now. Basically, all I'm going to do is just
let everybody know what we are.

Speaker 3 (01:01:31):
Conservative media done right. You're listening to the shr Media network.

Speaker 6 (01:01:39):
But there are some other questions that I'd like to ask.
I will admit for the first time any place on
the in my show, been there, done that, thought about it,
all of the points in between. Have the Brain Theater
many nights a week to prove it. But there are
other specific things that I would like to address, sort

(01:02:02):
of a then and now. So I don't want to
win fringe on your time. If you gotta go, you
gotta go. I understand it.

Speaker 3 (01:02:09):
We're good, We're good. Glass.

Speaker 6 (01:02:11):
Okay, So your your website talks about you're talking about training,
you're talking about pure support, you're talking about legislative advocacy,
You're you're talking about referral services.

Speaker 3 (01:02:25):
So what.

Speaker 6 (01:02:27):
I guess I got to start here? What year did
you begin the Wounded Blue?

Speaker 3 (01:02:32):
And I'm going somewhere with this, sure, So I began
putting it together in twenty seventeen. It took me about
a year to get everything formed, all the corporate entities
to go, beg enough money to get things started, because
believe me, I'm very uncomfortable asking people for money, even

(01:02:54):
though it's not for me. Raising money to start this project.
Almost a year just to get enough going to really
to pay to get things moving. And by the way,
I don't pay. I don't take a salary. I live
on my pension, so all the money that comes in
goes to products, you know, as the services that we do.

(01:03:20):
There's no I have one paid, one paid person on
our staff who's our executive director. Everybody else is a volunteer,
including me. So it took about a year to get
things rolling. We really launched at the end of twenty
eighteen and really began our operations.

Speaker 6 (01:03:44):
Then, okay, the question, because I didn't know what year
you started, and you're saying twenty seventeen. That was post Ferguson.
I retired in twenty sixteen. As far as I was concerned,
like I said at the very beginning of the show,
timing was everything. But the question that I was going
to ask, and maybe you can even answer it now,
is since the beginning of your program the Wounded Blue

(01:04:07):
the Wounded Blue dot Org. Here are the people that
are also on the staff, the boarded directors. Betsy Brentner Smith.
I remember her from Wait wait. I don't know if
this is still true, but in the seventies I used
to be vastly entertained by J. D. Buck Savage, and

(01:04:29):
at one point she was I believe associated with J. D.
Buck Savage himself. I don't know if she's married to him, Okay,
I didn't know if I didn't know if they're a team,
but that's how I remember her. And then going down here,
you also have a gentleman named doctor Travis Bates, and

(01:04:52):
I was associated or Yates. I'm sorry, and I wasn't
really associated with him, but I would read lot of
his stuff because he and I were both doing EVOC
at the time. I designed our EVOC course, so I
was our EVOX sergeant and range master and blah blah blah.
But that's where I remember Travis Yates because he had

(01:05:14):
his own website with a ton of police related information.

Speaker 3 (01:05:20):
So it seems to me that you have he owns
law officer dot com.

Speaker 6 (01:05:25):
That's the one.

Speaker 3 (01:05:26):
Yes, Yes, that's him. That is the one I was
trying to brilliant a brilliant man, retired commander from the Tulsa,
Oklahoma Police Department. Travis is brilliant. He's a doctor, Travis Yates,
and he is one of the one of the best

(01:05:47):
speakers I've ever seen brilliant man doing incredible work.

Speaker 6 (01:05:54):
Well, let me ask you this, when you first started
in twenty seventeen, what were some of the greatest demands
for service when you first began the Wounded Blow.

Speaker 3 (01:06:04):
Well, I'd have to say the greatest demands were just
dealing with the with with the new the newness of
the responsibilities of this organization. You know, people are coming
to you out of a sense of desperation. People are

(01:06:24):
contacting us, sometimes literally when they're when when they the
darkness has surrounded them to the point where they're looking
for a way out. The loneliness that they feel is
is is all encompassing, So being able to be responsive

(01:06:46):
to that and then realizing that you're still limited as
as a peer, as a peer team member. Sometimes all
people need is is is an ear someone who has
been in their similar footstep. But others they're they're they're
beyond that. They need serious help. They need to be
in a in a a facility to help them deal

(01:07:11):
with their addictions. Addiction is a major factor in law
enforcement these days, and suicide is as well, and they're
very much intermingled. So developing relationships with with the proper
with the proper places that we could refer people dealing

(01:07:32):
with with culturally competent psychologists and and you know, having
people that we could turn to when when we couldn't
handle the situation, when somebody a professional was needed. So
the learning curve of the creation of this organization was deep,

(01:07:54):
and we're still learning every single day. But one of
the things that we that we really determined was that
there is a major need for this organization, but we
can't do it by ourselves. So we work with many

(01:08:15):
other charitable organizations and and and thank God that we do,
because what we can do, we can fill that role
for other organizations. What we can't do, I can go
to somebody that does something else and say, hey, look
we got somebody that needs your help. So by working

(01:08:37):
together synergistically, this is the only way that we can
really have a true impact, because there isn't one damn
organization out there that can do it all. The job
is too big, it's too encompassing. And luckily, there are
many many people in this world that that I now habit,

(01:09:01):
that are great people that care deeply, that are doing
amazing things with the resources that they have, and by
working together we can synergistically help more and more people.

Speaker 6 (01:09:16):
See everything has changed. When I began as a copy
in the nineteen seventies, things were completely different. I went
to a few agencies and departments in between. So I'd
like to kind of see if I can extract a
contrast and a comparison out of this. Like my generation,

(01:09:41):
we drank like fish. Okay, there was one of my problems,
wasn't it. Sure it was, But between now and then,
and let me ask, I think this is more pointedly
where I'm going since maybe twenty seventeen, and now have
you seen a greater, lesser or are a different demand

(01:10:02):
for services? And let me go a little bit further.
Politics were always and this is where I'm going. Politics
were always heavy in law enforcement. They were heavy and
in as a sergeant, I never made lieutenant. I was told,
no way, you're going to make lieutenant. Blah blah blah.
I'm sure you've seen more than your share of politics.
But the politics today are in some cases almost insurmountable.

(01:10:26):
I mean, at minimum, they're extremely challenging. You know, like
people are talking about defunding police, changing the entire purpose
in course of law enforcement, and the politics because of
the politics and the social pressures on cops which existed
to a degree, but it wasn't like this. Now, what

(01:10:51):
are the things that you're seeing in twenty twenty five,
soon to be twenty twenty six, that maybe you didn't
see in twenty seventeen.

Speaker 3 (01:11:00):
Yeah, that's a great question, and I have, I've been.
It's a very noticeable difference. Our police officers are more
scared of their own departments than ever before. We're watching
police officers die needlessly or become severely in your needlessly

(01:11:24):
because they're afraid to use the proper amount of force.
They're afraid that they're going to be the next one
on the prosecutor's list. They're afraid that the political heat
is going to destroy their careers if they if there's
if there's fourteen seconds of body cam that goes against policy.

(01:11:48):
They're more afraid of internal issues than they are of
external They're they're more afraid of facing discipline from their
own departments or from their own governments than they are
about people trying to kill them. When I see police

(01:12:09):
officers deploying a taser against a deadly forced situation, like
an edged weapon or even a gun, it makes me thick.

Speaker 6 (01:12:20):
I cringe when I see.

Speaker 3 (01:12:22):
That stuff and we're seeing it, we're seeing it more
and more.

Speaker 6 (01:12:26):
I submit to you, you maybe I maybe you Mostly
I mean I went to all the caliber press sessions
that I possibly could on my own dime. Blah blah
blah blah blah. We worried about officer safety. The things
that I see right the younger generations of law enforcement
worrying about now are yeah, officer safety, career safety, administrative safety,

(01:12:52):
community safety. As in, what the hell that that demand?
That course, that stream of demand must have just expanded
massively with you.

Speaker 3 (01:13:07):
Well, you know, because I've been a police trainer in
my entire career. One of the jobs I had with
Las Vegas Metro was I was I was in charge
of advanced training. So that training world has always been
part of who I am. I'm training officers right now,
we've created a training course. I work with a company

(01:13:31):
called Public Agency Training Council, which is a great company
that does a ton of police training and all kinds
of genres. And one of those is the training courses
that we do with the Wounded Blue and part of
that is leadership training about so many departments don't even

(01:13:55):
know how to deal with a severely injured cop, so
they've never dealt with it when when when it happens,
they let those officers down. So that's why we we
education UH is part of our goals. You have to
give people the training and the knowledge if you're if

(01:14:18):
you expect them to employ the proper uh uh techniques,
the proper put in place pop proper policies. Let me
give you an example, Okay, I gave up. I was
doing a training class along with my my training director,
Bob Bemis, who is a severely injured Pennsylvania State Trooper

(01:14:42):
sergeant who was in charge of their academy, an incredible trainer.
He and I we were doing a course with the
FBI National Academy. And these are leaders. These are leaders,
are chiefs or you know, commanders. It's and here's the

(01:15:02):
first thing that I said to them is this. I said,
if you take one thing away from this, I want
you to consider this. I asked for a show of hands.
I said, how many leaders in this room? When one
of your guys screws up, you place them on administrative leave?
And of course everybody's hand went up. Sure, I said, right,

(01:15:26):
how many people here when one of your officers gets
involved in a critical incident or shooting, you place your
officers on administrative leave. And virtually every hand went up,
and I said, think of what you think of this.
You're telling your officers when they get involved in a

(01:15:46):
critical incident or forced to take a life, that you
are equating them with someone who has committed misconduct. If
you take anything away from this when you get back
to your departments, change your policy and put it as
critical incident leave. Don't call it administrative leave. And that's

(01:16:13):
that is one of the that's part of the training
that we that we provide. They're not thinking about it.
It's not even a consideration to them until suddenly they
look at each other and they go, oh, yeah, that
makes sense. And then and it's just simply that that
little bit of semantics can change the way a police

(01:16:37):
officer feels about when they are forced to do the unthinkable,
take some of life.

Speaker 6 (01:16:45):
Well, and on the Sheriff's department, when I was range
master on a shooting, I'd go out and I'd recover
the gun from the officer. I'd have to give them
a new But but that's that's you know, more of
the piling on sort of thing. Plus the other aspect,
since I like you have always been in training is gosh, folks,

(01:17:10):
what's the first thing that gets cut in times of
budgetary tempest? Tell us Randy, what.

Speaker 5 (01:17:17):
Would that be?

Speaker 3 (01:17:19):
Yeah? Yeah, it's always training. And yet when you don't
train the officer and then they screw up because you
didn't train the officer, who gets the shaft. It's that officer.
And we've seen this time and time and time again

(01:17:45):
where that's where it beat the political expediency. Instead of
instead of the department taking taking responsibility for not training
their people properly, they blame it on the cop and
then they they excise that police officer from the agency

(01:18:07):
for political purposes. That's why cops are scared. Cops are
more afraid of their own of their own leadership, than
they are of the bad guys. Now that's been for
a while, but I don't think it's ever been as
exacerbated as it is now.

Speaker 6 (01:18:22):
Well, and law enforcement officers today not only have to
worry about that, but they have to worry about whether
or not they're going to get any kind of a
response from another agency. I've these are these are crazy times.
Crazy time when you you call for backup. We had
a situation in Sacramento, and I don't mind naming names,

(01:18:46):
uh CHP This was during the BLM and all that
kind of crap in downtown Sacral and sac PD was
at a particular event guarding the King's Arena. A basketball
teamp makes a vehicle stop, calls for cover, calls for
Code three cover and sack p D refuses to send
a unit. That was like five or six years ago.

(01:19:09):
Now we're having other agencies saying and seeing the quiet
part used to be the quite part out loud. Now
they're saying, no, we're not going We're not going to
cover you say.

Speaker 3 (01:19:22):
And and that. So ten years ago, if if if
if a police officer refused to go to the aid
of another cop, well you better go get a new job. Exactly,
you better your shoes, you right right. And if a
police leader did it, they better get a new job too.

(01:19:43):
Now you have an area that's so politicized that that
that this type of behavior has become acceptable and it
is not acceptable those that those that make that decision.
I mean, you saw it in Chicago where the where
the chief told their police officers not to assist ice

(01:20:06):
when they were when they were taking rounds. That's that
chief should be drawn and quartered, the mirror should be
put in prison. You're being kind yeah, well drawn, accorded,
it's drawn. Quarters are pretty pretty harsh. That's a pretty
hard that's a pretty harsh management. But see, I was

(01:20:26):
risk manager.

Speaker 6 (01:20:27):
We we know you and I both know that there
is you know, what are the exposures the exposures are
you know, I'm a devote you have Gordon Graham, for
God's sake. There's negligence in hiring, negligence in training, and
negligence in retention, and those are all exacerbated and amplified

(01:20:50):
today to an extent. I've never seen this, Randy Sutton,
I've never.

Speaker 3 (01:20:57):
Seen it like this before. Right, So that plays that
plays a major role in the mental health of our officers.
You know, when you're when you're telling police officers that
if they screw up, they're facing prison time, they're facing discipline,

(01:21:19):
that that is so incredibly harsh for political expediency, You're
you're you're you're putting their mental and emotional health and jeopardy,
and and that isn't even being considered by leadership.

Speaker 6 (01:21:37):
You're one bad call away from all of that right,
that's all. It takes one bad call. So your demands,
let me ask you this, and I know you got
to go. So I'll try to make this the last
daring question because you have been very, very kind with
your time. The demands are big. I'm guessing, where can

(01:22:00):
you guys see yourselves going in the future? Or it
will or or will it be? Mostly we just have
to focus on the core fundamentals, blocking and tackling the
four big things that we do.

Speaker 3 (01:22:18):
Well we have. It all depends on resources. Uh, We've
had some. We've had some pretty spectacular wins. I'm gonna
I'm going to tell you another crazy story. Okay, it's
gonna it's actually gonna fill your heart with something that

(01:22:38):
that we all need, and that's hope. There are people
that really care about our law enforcement community in a big,
big way. I fully believe that most Americans believe in
their cops, believe in and trust in their law enforcement community.
There's also people out there that are going above and beyond.

(01:23:00):
And I'll give you an example, and this is kind
of a crazy story. Four years ago. As you know,
I'm a commentator on a number of different news organizations
about law enforcement topics, and I was appearing on Fox
News and it was about injured officers, and so I

(01:23:21):
got to talk about the Wounded Blue Well. About twenty
minutes later after that show, I get a phone call
from a voice and he says, hey, I saw you
on Fox News and I support law enforcement. Tell me
more about your organization. And this is during the height
of the anti law enforcement lobby, so to speak. And

(01:23:47):
I told him about the Wounded Blue and you could
tell that this guy was very savvy about charity. And
at the end of our about an hour and a
half conversation, he asked to see my nine nineties tax forms,
which shows how charity spends its money. Send it to him.
He called me back and he said, I'm gonna make
it a happy New Year for you. This is Christmas time.

(01:24:09):
I'm gonna make it a happy New Year for you.
And he sent me one hundred thousand dollars check. Holy shit, yes,
holy shit is right to this day. It's the biggest
donation we've ever had. And I used a lot of
that money to literally fly to the bedside of police
officers who were severely injured, shot or whatever and give
him a couple thousand bucks for babysitting and food and

(01:24:32):
to make sure their relatives had a place to stay
near them. And I and boy, I'll tell you that
money went really really quick.

Speaker 6 (01:24:41):
Well, let me guess he didn't want his name put
out there.

Speaker 3 (01:24:46):
I didn't know his name really it was. It was
not completely anonymous. So about a year later, Christmas time,
U I get a phone call from the Fraternal Order
of Police in Utah and the Utah president says, hey, listen, Randy,

(01:25:07):
we've got a situation here. We got a police officer
that lost his leg in the line of duty, and
his prosthetic leg is They gave him the cheapest one
they could give him, and his leg is worn out.
He's literally walking around on a bloody stump. And we're
putting together a fundraiser. Do you think he could help?
And I said, well, you know, we're not a fundraising

(01:25:29):
we don't have money for that. But every now and
then I can pull a rabbit out of my hat.
How much does how much is the is the prosthetic leg?
And he says, we think it's twenty five thousand bucks.
I said, okay, let me see what I can do.
Well in the weird way of the world works. That day,
I get a phone call from the person I refer

(01:25:50):
to as the voice on the phone, same guy, and
he said, you know, Randy, I was just thinking about you.
How are things going? And I said, you know, it's
really weird that you call me today because I just
got a request about and I told him about this
cop lost his leg and you know, we're going to
try and put fundraiser together for him. He says, how

(01:26:12):
much is the leg? And I said, they told me
it's about twenty five thousand bucks. He said, Randy, no brainer,
make it happen. So Christmas Eve, I call this man
and his wife's in on so she's videotaping, and I
tell him that the Wound of Blue is going to
give him a new prosthetic leg. And it was like
the best Christmas present I could give to myself giving

(01:26:35):
it to him, right, So I tell his wife, I said,
get things started. They he lives in Salt Lake. They
have a big prosthetic manufacturer up there. So a week
later she calls me back and she says she's a
little sheepish. He said, it's a little more money than
we thought. I said, well, how much more money. She said, well,

(01:26:58):
it's one hundred and seventeen thousand dollars and I was, oh,
my god, what am I going to tell my donor?
Good luck? I called him. I said, look, I don't
even know how to approach this, and I just blurted
it out. And he said, well, first of all, the
wind that blue said we're doing it, so we're doing it. Secondly,

(01:27:20):
that officer deserves the best prosthetic leg that money can buy,
so we did. We gave him a brand new prosthetic leg.
But it didn't end there. I didn't know the whole
story until I went up there and met him, and
I meet him and his wife, and I find out

(01:27:40):
that he was a young cop and in the fate
of Texas, he always wanted to be a police officer.
He finally gets on the job. One day, he's directing
traffic in an intersection and a guy I had cocaine
driving a tractor trailer hits a car, kills that driver,
and then the tractic trailer falls over and crushes him

(01:28:02):
and drags him one hundred yards down the road, devastating injuries.
He's in a comba for three months. They have to
take his leg off above his knee. He's in a
coma for three months. He wakes up and what do
they do. They drape a metal around his neck and said,
you're fired. No benefits, no medical You're done. You're fired.

(01:28:30):
He goes home to live with his mom and dad.
His wife divorces him. He's alone but trying to rebuild
his life. He meets a new woman, remarries her. And
now I'm giving this whole story. And while I'm talking
to him, I'm in their home. And their home is

(01:28:53):
a little rough, not just a little rough, very rough.
And I come to find out after and for hearing
the story that this couple, despite all the challenges that
they have had, adopt to special needs children. And I'm
seeing this house and this house is full of love. Well,

(01:29:16):
the voice calls me and he says, how's it going there?
And I told him, I said, you know, now, I
know the whole story. And I just outlined the whole
story to him and I said, let me tell you something.
These people adopted two special needs kids, and he says, Randy,
let's do more. Well. At the end of the day,

(01:29:39):
we teamed up with the Gary Sonice Foundation and we
completely rebuilt their home from the ground up, and they're
living in a totally accessible home that's safe for the children.
He has a brand new prosthetic leg and their life
has been because of the wounded blue and the voice

(01:30:06):
on the phone. But it doesn't end there.

Speaker 6 (01:30:12):
Oh jeez, Okay, all right, but wait, there's more.

Speaker 3 (01:30:18):
But there's more. Recently, this is the most recent thing
I'm going to tell you, and I'm going to stop
after this story. A police officer down to Texas gets
severely injured in the line of duty fighting with a suspect.
During the fight, his back hits the curb. He loses

(01:30:38):
all sensation from the waist down. They take him to
the hospital. The hospital says, you need spinal surgery, but
we don't have a surgeon that can do it, So
instead of airlifting him there, they tell him to go home,
and that began his nightmare. Twenty one botched surgery. Years later,

(01:31:02):
he's told he'll never walk again. We meet, We enter
his life. He's married, he's got young children, he was
in the prime of his life. He's now gone through
seven years of absolute misery and aim because they refuse

(01:31:22):
to fix him. They wouldn't pay his medical bills. For
a year and a half. They refused to give him
the surgery that he needed. What could have been fixed
in one day became a debilitating, life changing injury because
of how they treated him. And he's told he'd never

(01:31:44):
walk again. We bought him a wheelchair. I'm having a
conversation with the voice and he tells me that he
knows the final spinal surgeon, one of the finest spinal
surgeons in the country. He's in Washington, DC. We send

(01:32:06):
this officer to him. He spends thirty days there in
the care of this incredible spinal surgeon and his team.
Three hundred thousand dollars we paid, and he danced with
his daughter at her wedding three weeks ago. That's the

(01:32:29):
wounded Blue.

Speaker 6 (01:32:32):
Can't top of that.

Speaker 3 (01:32:35):
So think of this. The voice on the phone now
has donated to me more than two million dollars to
take a role in lives. Like I just told you,
there's more, there's more than that. I'm just giving you

(01:32:58):
a couple of the highlights.

Speaker 6 (01:33:00):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:33:02):
I don't know who he is. He is literally a
voice from the ether, but he's a patriot. He tells me,
you just tell those officers that the people of America Care.

(01:33:23):
That's the kind of people that are still in this
United States, and those are the people that are changing lives,
and those are the people that are with the Wounded Blue.

Speaker 6 (01:33:37):
You know what, I pretty much guarantee the voice, the
voice has a big story.

Speaker 3 (01:33:47):
H No doubt, that's my guess, no doubt.

Speaker 6 (01:33:53):
Let me let me put this up on the on
the screen. If people want to help, they go here.

Speaker 3 (01:34:02):
This is I believe the.

Speaker 6 (01:34:05):
Support us page. Right, you can fill out the wolds
one time recurring specific amounts information and my guess would
be something similar to you got five bucks appreciated.

Speaker 3 (01:34:27):
We're really asking. We're right now we're doing our nine
to eleven campaign. Donate nine dollars and eleven cents a
month to the Wounded Blue and the first thousand people
that do that. We just announced this at our country
music concert just a couple of days ago. You'll get
a signed copy of my latest book, rescuing nine to

(01:34:49):
one one the Fight for America Safety. So go to
the website where it says nine dollars and eleven cents,
pledge to donate nine dollars and eleven cents for months
and uh and you'll get a you'll get one of
our one of my books signed by me. If you
want it there, it is right there. But believe me,

(01:35:11):
if you want to give ten thousand dollars, please.

Speaker 6 (01:35:13):
Do yeah, I or three hundred thousand.

Speaker 3 (01:35:18):
Yeah, that's right. I mean. So the other day, we
just we just had our first major country music event
in Nashville. I saw it, I had it was it
was unbelievable. I had Vince Gill was there, Mark Wills,
Darryl Worley, Mandy Barnett, John Conley. It was unbelievable, and

(01:35:43):
they all volunteered their time to help injured officers. The
country music people are the best, the best. And so
there's there's all these folks there in Nashville. I'm walking
through the crowd. I'm, you know, reeting people and saying
thank you, and this this woman walks up to me

(01:36:06):
and she hands me an envelope and she says, hey,
when you get a chance to open that, there's something
I want you to read. It was clearly a greeting card.
So when I got a couple of minutes, I opened
it up and she gave me fifty thousand dollars.

Speaker 6 (01:36:24):
Again, one of those holy crap.

Speaker 3 (01:36:29):
Yeah, holy crap, right, yeah, and so we are completely
funded by people that care. Charity. We're charity, that's it.
And so my entire it's twenty four to seven. I'm
out begging people for money. And by the way, I

(01:36:49):
hate asking people for money. I have to, that's part
of my duty. But I know this that most Americans
care about their cops. If I can just get them
to get that credit card out, go to our website
and take five minutes pledged eleven nine dollars and eleven

(01:37:09):
cents a month. If we get enough people to do that,
we can we can touch even more lives than we
are now. I just need the help of the people.

Speaker 6 (01:37:23):
Randy Sutton, any final words, sir?

Speaker 3 (01:37:27):
My only final words are that I appreciate you having
me on. Thank you for your service. You and I
are are We came on about the same time when
we were both carrying six guns. Oh God, and lived
a different lived in a different era, but we're both.

(01:37:52):
We're both of a certain age when we understand that
our role now is to is to spread information and
to play a role as if you will, kind of
stages that that we we share our wisdom, we share

(01:38:16):
our knowledge with others. You do so in in this format.
I do so on my own podcast, which is called
a Cops Life, as well as in the mediums that
I use. But we're still giving, We're still we're still
believers that we can, that we can change the world.

(01:38:36):
And that's something we you and I should never lose.
We can change the world.

Speaker 6 (01:38:42):
Well, the other thing, finally, i'd say, we're sheep dogs, right,
and guess who's oath never expires? Ours?

Speaker 13 (01:38:54):
Right?

Speaker 6 (01:38:56):
Thank you, sir, Thank you ever so kindly for your time.
I've only exceeded it by about forty minutes, almost another hour.

Speaker 3 (01:39:07):
That's okay, it's my pleasure, Thank.

Speaker 6 (01:39:09):
You, Randy Sutton. Let me put this up once again,
the Wounded Blue dot org. The Wounded Blue dot Org.
From that site, you can donate, you can go back,
you can partake of the nine.

Speaker 3 (01:39:29):
And you can ask for help campaign. You can ask
for help too. You can ask for help.

Speaker 6 (01:39:35):
Because especially with me and a lot of other things
have gone on bt DT, been there, done that in
all sorts of different ways, means locations, et cetera, Randy
Sutton things and one other thing.

Speaker 3 (01:39:51):
Yes, if somebody wants to contact me personally because they
want more information or they want a personal conversation. I'm
really easy. I'm Randy at the Wounded Blue dot orgus
Randy at the Wounded Blue dot org.

Speaker 6 (01:40:07):
And the funny thing is the reason I contacted you
is because about a week ago, on another program, either
Fox or Newsmax, I heard about the Wounded Blue and
there was Randy Sutton and somebody said like you said, oh,
here's my email or Randy at the Wounded Blue dot org.
And then you got an email by God, so I

(01:40:30):
know for a.

Speaker 3 (01:40:31):
Fact, Hey, let's hope the next one has dollars attached
to it. Okay, wouldn't that be nice?

Speaker 5 (01:40:40):
That will probably occur.

Speaker 6 (01:40:42):
Randy Sutton, take care, sir.

Speaker 3 (01:40:45):
God bless and be safe. Thank you thanks for having me, folks.

Speaker 6 (01:40:51):
Can you believe what an incredible show, what incredible dude
that is. There's so much I could have said. His
career path and mine and some of the things that
he's done are similar, and it made me realize, made

(01:41:15):
me go back in time a little bit, something's the
likes of which I don't particularly want to revisit. But
I had him on because if you find yourselves in extremis,
there's a resource for you folks right there, catering most specifically.

Speaker 3 (01:41:38):
The law enforcement.

Speaker 6 (01:41:40):
All is not lost, All was never meant to be lost.
And with that, I'm wrapping up the show, the politics
she know going tonight, probably Thursday night. So if you

(01:42:05):
come back to the saloon Thursday night, who knows what
kind of rambunctious foolishness and shenanigans will have occurred already
between tonight Tuesday night and Thursday night, And the answer
is almost anything. So thanks for being here tonight, ladies

(01:42:25):
and gentlemen, boys and girls. What an incredible interview, what
incredible stories. But of course you know I can't go
anywhere without saying promotional consideration by the Lockheed Martin Skunkworks
by sharing electro voice microphones, by the people at manufacture
my mixer Aracus, and also the people at Pratton Whitney Engines,

(01:42:50):
the likes of which produce thrust.

Speaker 3 (01:42:54):
You can trust.

Speaker 6 (01:42:55):
Tonight's tiaras are once more by Little Pony.

Speaker 5 (01:43:05):
So also.

Speaker 6 (01:43:07):
Thanks to my personal casey one thirty five kettle one
refueling team with whom I shall be concerning in less
than a half hour, most likely about fifteen minutes or so.
Everybody everybody, God bless take care.

Speaker 5 (01:43:24):
You re quiet down now, I'll get some sleep. Be safe,
everybody come back Thursday.

Speaker 12 (01:43:30):
Not man.

Speaker 4 (01:43:31):
Good everyone, Tonight, Daddy, good Night show.

Speaker 3 (01:43:34):
Then good night Daddy, good Night, Elizabeth.

Speaker 13 (01:43:37):
Nightgown Boys, good night, Jimbob, night him up.

Speaker 5 (01:43:41):
Good night, Jim.

Speaker 3 (01:43:44):
Push going on. I was a snipe.

Speaker 5 (01:43:46):
What's everybody doing?

Speaker 3 (01:43:48):
Good night, good night, and good luck. Four

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

Are You A Charlotte?

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}BZ's Saloon, 11.11.25 RANDY SUTTON of The Wounded Blue

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

Are You A Charlotte?

All Episodes

BZ's Saloon, 11.11.25 RANDY SUTTON of The Wounded Blue

Stuff You Should Know