Whisper in the Shadows
Welcome to ‘Whispers in the Shadows’, your gateway into the nerve-wracking work of undercover policing. The true stories of a real-life undercover cop. I’m Michael Bates, an ex-undercover police officer, and this was my reality for over two years. If your fascinated by the truth that lies beneath crime shows, if you hunger for the real-life stories that leap beyond the boundaries of fiction, ‘Whispers in the Shadows’ is here to satisfy your curiosity. From infiltrating drug syndicates to living a double life, every episode uncovers a thrilling true story that pitted me against the face of danger. Don’t miss out on the chance to step into my shoes and experience what it takes to walk the thin line between law and crime. Subscribe to ‘Whispers in the Shadows’ and join me, as we delve into the gritty world of undercover policing.
Whisper in the Shadows
Behind the Thin Blue Line, a Conversation - Episode 3 with Paul Milone Part 2
Ever wondered what lingers in the shadows of undercover policing? Grasp the unvarnished truths as I guide you through the precarious dance of maintaining aliases and the waning allure for officers to delve into these high-risk roles. Amidst the backdrop of societal shifts and eroding prosecutorial vigor, we shine a light on the brave souls who navigate this dwindling frontier, revealing stories that underscore the steely dedication required to serve under the veil of secrecy. Listen as our guests, seasoned in the art of covert operations, recount the personal costs and the intricate ballet of living a life cloaked in another's identity.
Transitioning from the frontline to the sidelines carries its own set of heavy burdens. Step into the worn boots of a retired SWAT officer, sharing the weight of a career built on breaching doors and the poignant moment of hanging up the ram. Discover the journey from the adrenaline-fueled rush of special ops to the quieter, yet equally rich, practice of mentoring the next wave of law enforcers. Learn about the intricacies of police pensions and the subtle adjustments required when the uniform is set aside, and the badge is polished for the last time.
Peeling back the curtain further, we delve into the mental and emotional toll policing extracts—a currency of stress and trauma often paid in silence. Uncover the landscape of PTSD within the force, the critical need for support, and the courage it takes to confront the stigma surrounding vulnerability. The episode culminates with reflections on compassion's evolution in the beat, the grapple between personal identity and the roles officers are compelled to play, and the quiet relief that comes with shedding the responsibilities of constant control. Join us for candid disclosures that navigate the hidden corridors of life behind the thin blue line.
Paul's book Ram One can be found on Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/Ram-One-Stories-Undercover-Breaking/dp/B0CXZPBNM8
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Welcome to Behind the Thin Blue Line, a Whisper in the Shadows podcast. In each city, in every neighbourhood, on every street they stand tall, those in blue guardians of our community, our protectors. But who are they really? Behind the Thin Blue Line is the podcast that takes you behind the badge, beyond the headlines, and into the hearts of those who serve and protect. We're here to break down barriers and to tear down the walls of misunderstanding. We're here to listen to their stories, their triumphs, their fears.
Speaker 1:Ever wonder what it's like serving undercover, or what's the real-life impact of policing, or how they cope with trauma? Listen as we step into the shoes of those who walk the thin blue line. You have heard my true stories of what it's really like to be an undercover cop. I want to give a voice to all those living amongst us, unseen and unnoticed, who have put their life on the line being a police officer, hopefully to give you, the listener, a glimpse into something you will likely never get to experience Uncover the complex world of law enforcement and the raw human experiences behind the badge. Join me, jason Somerville, your host and a former police officer myself, as we navigate through these stories on Behind the Thin Blue Line. Let's go and meet our next guest.
Speaker 2:You don't like people in suits or uh, just all the criminals.
Speaker 2:I mean just there's hundreds and hundreds of criminals walking in and out and I have to go through the magnetometers, like they do, and I'm wearing a gun and the deputies that, the deputies that work the magnetometers know that I'm undercover cop and they'll try to wave me through. And all these criminals are watching me get waved through and I'm like, so I would scout it out and then try to look down the hallway and when there's nobody waiting in line, then I'd scout them out in the hallway to try to go through, so people wouldn't see me walk them through and not getting checked. It's not a great setup, to be brutally honest. I have another partner who was an ATf, who's a fed, and they did everything completely different. It was way better backstop than what we did, you know, but we're old with the punches, I guess has the over your time doing.
Speaker 1:It has the focus on I don't know if safety is the right word, but the security around it changed, or is it? It still the same way that you're talking now To me you're talking. It sounds like you're saying it's not taking as seriously as it should be.
Speaker 2:It is not. It still is not. But I also know this that the amount of guys or gals doing undercover within our department has really decreased. The week that I retired I did a presentation to a state agency. There was 500 cops and 500 supposed narcotics officers in attendance and I was polling the crowd to see how many guys are working undercover and in that group of 500 who were working direct undercover, and that group of 500 had three people raise their hand, which just was surprising to me.
Speaker 2:You know, and I got out at a time where the defund, the police was high and I think just a lot of motivation around the country, at least in the States. Motivation around the country was why would we want to risk our necks when prosecutors aren't prosecuting to the 10th degree and nobody seems to care what cops are doing as far as doing good? So I think a lot of the narcs are like why would I risk my neck to do the extra one? It really isn't going to make a difference anyways, and I think it's a shame because I think they do. They do do better um cases if it's undercover and I know they have stronger cases, but uh, you know it's not mine for me to tell them what to do.
Speaker 1:You know no, that's that's. That's the point of this. So you can say what people should do and they'll never listen to it. Why did you get out?
Speaker 2:You know I had a long career on the SWAT team and I was generally the ram guy and in my career I rammed over a thousand doors with a manual, just a manual breech ram.
Speaker 1:Talk just for those of us who aren't from America and who have never been in SWAT what a ram guy is and what you do and how you do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I'm holding a 60-pound tube of steel with handles on it and a faceplate. I'm the battering ram that's going to knock the door off the hinges. And up until the last couple of years we did mainly no-knock search warts. So that means every warrant we went on, we rammed the door. Now there's more of a push to do a knock and announce and a lot of those times people come to the door.
Speaker 2:But in my 18 years of special operations between gang unit and narcotics and on the SWAT team, I rammed over a thousand doors. I mean, I just destroyed my shoulders and I got terrible arthritis in my hands. And so I was. I was 51 and I was the oldest guy on the SWAT team and my body was breaking down. And I I really felt that I was. I was on the prefaces of being a detriment to the team as opposed to um on the good side, because if I couldn't physically do something, um, to help a teammate of mine, it was time to go. So as soon as I hit that moment of you know what I'm kind of broke physically. It's time to leave.
Speaker 2:So I left the SWAT team and then it was like six months later, nine months later, that my longtime supervisor. He was my boss 18 of my 23 years, dave Bianchi. He was being forced out at a 30 year mark and so I just retired the same time that he retired. So I left two years early. 25 is kind of when most people retire in the States, at least in Omaha.
Speaker 2:I left at 23 because I physically couldn't do the job. I physically couldn't do SWAT and I was kind of had run my course on the undercover world and I was like you know what, that's just time to go. Didn't want to get back to sit behind a desk in the uniform no, no, this guy, this guy doesn't wear a shirt and a tie. I couldn't operate in the. Even when I left I still wasn't physically I wouldn't have passed a physical exam to to get back to full duty. I had two rotator cuff surgeries back to back and that is just a debilitating surgery. So I was still writing a desk for my last five months just pushing paper and assisting on the backside and I'd had enough of that. It was time to go.
Speaker 1:When you left, did you have an idea of what you were going to do afterwards, or it was. I'm just going to leave and the rest will work itself out.
Speaker 2:You know, my wife and I have a small training company, a firearms training company, and I've done some motivational speaking on like situational awareness for for high school kids. Yep, um, I had no plans of going back to the department part-time. In fact I said I would never do it, um, but when they created this new position for retired guys to run the range, I thought, man, firearms is one of my loves. Anyways, I can do that two, three days a week. That's all. It is just two or three days a week and I was just kind of killing time until my wife retired and she retired three weeks ago after 30 years. So now we're both kind of looking at the future of some traveling and some things like that.
Speaker 1:You should come out to Australia. That's the place you should go Now as a police officer, you get a pension, Is that right? That's correct. So you effectively get paid to be retired.
Speaker 2:Yes, in the States we have for non-pension people, there's what's called social security. Yeah, but as police officers, because we have a pension, we don't get social security. So, yeah, my pension is based on my input in my career. Basically it's a livable wage, which is very nice. You know to do that for as long as you do and to be in the mix like that. It's nice that you can have a livable wage for that career.
Speaker 1:Is that forever or does it cut out after a certain number of years?
Speaker 2:No, it's until you die. You know, for cops it's usually not that long. It seems like yeah, unfortunately.
Speaker 1:Yes, that is very true, true, all right. So, so you're out, you're doing. You're doing this part-time work, um, doing you. You enjoy it because of the firearms. What about the training part, with the the new people coming through does? Does that float your boat? I probably enjoy that.
Speaker 2:I probably enjoy that more than anything. To be brutally honest, if I would have had enough guts, I would have left narcotics two years before I did and went to the academy to be an instructor. Yes, why? And it's because I just love. I love the job and I love, I love training and I've got a. I've got a motive of turning.
Speaker 2:Whatever the scenario, whatever the training modicum is that time is adding the realism of scenario-based training. You know that was one thing we did on SWAT. A lot is, instead of just doing door clearing, let's add a scenario to it that makes it more realistic. And I do the same things with the recruits. You know whether it's the firearms aspect of it or whether it's the tactics, or whether it's room clearing or how to do a traffic stop.
Speaker 2:I play the bad guy on the traffic stops and I know how to be a bad guy because I was a bad guy for a long time, and so the whole search, searching the car for drugs and all those things I get dressed up like I used to dress when I was undercover, looking like a biker type, and so these raw recruits are coming up to a door of this big dude with the beard and a cut-off sleeve shirt.
Speaker 2:He looks like a biker and I'm playing the part during their academy traffic stops and I think it just takes it to another level. And again, this isn't about me, this is just about how to train in a more realistic way. You know lots of guys do it, but I absolutely enjoy trying to train for the realism of what they're going to find on the streets, you know, and to see them be scared at the window in a training scenario, it's like okay, cool, because you're going to be scared on the streets your first couple of traffic stops. You know you need to understand how to work with that. As opposed to them going up to a window on a traffic stop of their standard academy instructor who's wearing their polo with their badge on their shirt, you know, they know that guy's not going to hurt them.
Speaker 2:So that's why I enjoy it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's very true. Training your background, or they know your background, that you've, you know, you've done, uh, you, what we call your general duties, your uniform stuff, what you call what you call patrol, um, the, the gang stuff, the narcotics, the SWAT, the undercover, they, you, they, they know all of that about you yeah, they come to know it.
Speaker 2:Um, the first couple times we do scenarios with them, we we've kind of left it blank so they don't really know who we are. We're just extra role players, um, but then we, as we're teaching them, we start telling here's why I know these things. You know, this is what I did for for this length of time what's the biggest question you get about the undercover work?
Speaker 2:you know, I think the biggest one is are we? Are you scared when you do it? You know, like you asked earlier and earlier, are you scared, and that wasn't really something that gave me fear necessarily, you know.
Speaker 1:What about? Do you have anyone come up to you and say, hey, I'd really like to be an undercover?
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely. Yeah, there's young cops who want to do it, but I've mentored a few guys along the way.
Speaker 1:What advice do you give them?
Speaker 2:A lot of what I was just telling you. You've got to tell mostly the truth and you have to have three steps ahead of them in your planning when they ask you something and you have to sell it. And I don't mean selling the fact that you've got this long backdrop story of something that's phony, but mostly what's true. You know, I had a truck that I drove that looked like it was a construction truck, right Pore and concrete kind of truck. That was my undercover vehicle for a long time and I didn't just use the truck, I had all the equipment in the truck and I would have bid sheets on my dashboard. And I had a guy come up to my window once who my informant was going to endorse me to. I found out later that he was a former informant for a different agency and his name was Phil. It's like hey, what do you do, paul? I said I'm in, I'm in concrete work. He's like bullshit, you don't do concrete.
Speaker 2:And so, because I had preplanned Jason up on my dash or above advisor yeah I pulled down a bid sheet, that I handed it to him and I wrote that bid sheet that day, had the date on it and the address and it was my old address. So I know the address and I could describe. I could describe the driveway I was going to pour and all the dimensions and I know a little bit about concrete. So I had all the, had the numbers under the measurements and the cost and the and the, the labor hours, and I handed him the. I handed him the, the bid sheet, and said F you, and he looks at it for about a minute. He's like, oh, I guess you do do concrete. And I'm like, yeah, don't get on my face, punk.
Speaker 2:And I ended up buying dope from him a couple days later because he believed my story. And I think that's where some guys fall short, is that you know, that was me the first couple times somebody asked me what I did. Oh, I'm a welder and I'm not. I don't know about welding, um, and I could tell there's times where they wouldn't believe me and so like I can't use that story anymore because I'm not a welder, but I know concrete and I know some construction. So I just I let them know they have to kind of be backstopped themselves, since our department doesn't do it. You know, have the, have some props to come with you, have some things they can see. Um, I used to put pictures of me and my buddies who aren't cops on the on the sun visor of my car, or especially if they were friends of mine that had passed away yeah um, because, like there's a picture of this guy and there's a picture of someone else, you know they're wearing construction outfits.
Speaker 2:You know it just sold it. You know that this is what I do. Um, and that's when I got better it's the little details.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I looked like this big, burly biker. I used to wear my Harley Davidson shirts cut off and the goatee was down to my belly button and I acted like a biker. And I'm not a biker and a lot of the deals that I had that failed. My boss would say later I think you scared the crap out of that dude. You know you look too mean. He thinks you're going to beat him up or you're going to rip him off. And when I finally went to that undercover school, the guy's like yeah, you look too mean, dude, you're scaring people. Change your look, you need to smile more. And so I went from the biker look to like a construction worker. Look.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And instead of being the tough guy, it was just a dude. You know, that was it. Okay and that's what I pass on to these guys. Is you got to just be the dude. You got to be an everyday nobody, you know.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep, what's the biggest?
Speaker 2:myth you think there is out there about undercover Shoot, that we drive Ferraris and eat lobster every day. I don't know. I mean, in our department they think that you work at the offsite, that it's, it's a, it's a gold, gold paved road and and you know, things are just awesome and they don't realize that you're that you're digging through trash with maggots in it to get to look for things. But as far as just the undercover itself, I don't know, probably that you're going to the barge and drinking all the time and and hanging out with with, you know, naked women, kind of like your story yep, well, no, and I could.
Speaker 2:I would like in some of the time, not all the time, but yeah anyway, um, I I think maybe the biggest myth is that it's maybe that it's easy and it's it's always glamorous and you know, what they don't know is that once you're into those people, into that world, man, my phone was on 24-7. Not that my phone was on my phone. I was working my phone 24-7. You know, if they're hitting you up about something, even if you're going to blow them off, you've got to somehow blow them off and you know so. It was a 24-7 job, and to be at dinner with your wife and your daughter and have to be dealing with stuff like that kind of sucks. But if I want that deal to go, then I still got to play the part, even when I'm not working.
Speaker 1:Well, was that probably the hardest part? Or the most difficult part was that you know when you're out and having to be on 24 7, but have a life as well yeah, you know.
Speaker 2:And then obviously my wife was a, was a cop, and she worked in narcotics for a couple years early in her career and did a little bit of undercover not very much at all, but a little bit but so she knew the role. Obviously, my daughter grew up me looking like this and generally wearing jeans and a hearty t-shirt, and so we had, we had code words that I've. You know, if we were out in public and I should happen to bump in or see someone that I had been dealing with or I'm currently dealing with, we had code words set up hey, listen, dad's got to go to work and you know, squeeze your hand and just walk away from them. Um, and she was. She was amazing, my daughter, when she rolled with the punches.
Speaker 2:You know she didn't tell other people what her dad did, but yeah, you know, so you had to kind of understand why dad looked like an idiot for for for so long. You know, yeah, like you know, I just look like a bum which is always the way to go undetected, I guess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, I guess. I want to go back to something you said when you were talking about writing your book. The fact that, um, you know, staying awake, um, not being able to sleep, is good for when you want to write a book, why do you think you, you, apart from the fact you were writing the book I won't assume that the reason that you couldn't sleep was because you wanted to write the book. I'm assuming that's something that happened gradually over time Do you think the job has affected you to that point to, you know, not sleep properly?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, a hundred percent. You know I've I've been in insomnia, have suffered from insomnia for numbers of years. You know you again, as you well know. You know it's a, it's a tough deal and you know I, I ran for so long, that entire 16 years when I was on the SWAT team I was undercover and, um, not only was I doing undercover work and doing narc warrants and doing SWAT hits, you know there was there was multiple days in a row of working 18 hours a day and there was times I would like I would sleep in my Suburban in the parking lot, cause it's three in the morning. I got to be there at six. I might as well just sleep here. Um, and constantly chasing your tail, you know it.
Speaker 2:Just that has an effect on the human body. You know that the adrenaline dumps which you don't even feel anymore. They're still there, you just don't feel them. You know all the extra cortisol in your body, you know changes your body chemistry and that you know insomnia is one of the root effects of that. And you know gaining weight around the midsection and yeah, we can all relate to that yeah, you know it.
Speaker 2:Uh, you know short temper, things like that.
Speaker 1:You know it's, it's, it's real have you spoken anyone to anyone about those sorts of things? As far as, like a counselor, yeah, well, well, anyone, it doesn't have to be a professional, but no, have you spoken to anyone about them?
Speaker 2:You know it's getting so much more open and it's so much more accepted for law enforcement and military guys and gals to openly talk about. Hey, you know they see someone. I haven't seen anybody personally. I've done a ton of talking with very close friends and whether they're a therapist or not, I think you're still getting something out of it.
Speaker 2:After my my officer in front of a shooting where I killed that guy, the department forces you to see a psychologist three or four times before you come back to make sure you're ready to come back. And I that was. You know those were good sessions and I went back voluntarily with him for three or four more sessions about six months later because you know I don't think I had really accepted the gravity of it. I was trying to be too bravado, you know, and it was beneficial. And, like I stated earlier that's a little bit of my background before I became a cop is the mental health field. Yeah, so there's no shame in anybody, you know, talking to a professional about that kind of stuff and maybe I should look into it. You know, for the sleep part of it.
Speaker 1:I don't know. It's more a question that in doing this I've been discovering more about PTSD and those sorts of things Generally. Yeah, I'm the type of person let's say I lose my job tomorrow, I'll get another job on Monday that I'm the type of person let's say I lose my job tomorrow, I'll get another job on Monday. That's just how it is. You know, my partner kicks me out, I'll be fine. My dog dies, I'll be upset, but you know she'll stop snoring. But the more you go through it, those things like those short bursts of anger, the not being able to sleep, the all those sorts of things, you you look at that and you go, okay, that's a common thing. And you talk to people and it's like well, maybe there is a bit of PTSD in there, maybe there's. There are things that are affecting me, that I don't realize are affecting me, because for so long they were just normal things yeah, you know you're, you're right.
Speaker 2:Um, I just, I just personally, and and this is just Paul, the PTSD part of it I have a hard time accepting that label only because I almost feel and it's not, but I almost feel like it's reserved for the military people who I was never in combat. You know I was involved in shootings, but I was never in combat. There weren't bombs dropping on me. You know, in combat there weren't bombs dropping on me. You know, and I I know that at least here in the states, sometimes that gets abused. Um, the ptsd angle, and obviously if someone has ptsd then I'll be your, I'll be your biggest supporter. But here I, here we see some phony cases, or lots of phony cases, and it's bothered me. Um, if you wanted to call it ptsb, well then, okay, tell me, that's mine, that's fine, but it's almost like to me in my heart. That's reserved for the military guys who who are in iraq and afghanistan and vietnam. And you know, it's just, I feel ashamed if I would accept that label and sorry, what would you call the stress?
Speaker 1:then you think the police deal with.
Speaker 2:Some type of longevity career stress disorder? I guess you know.
Speaker 1:We could start a new acronym.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, and again it goes back to like I mentioned. You know you're here at Thanksgiving dinner and maybe you're having a tiff with your family members, but yesterday you looked at a guy who put a 12 gauge in his mouth and pulled the trigger and his head's all over the wall yeah, and you're supposed to now go out thanksgiving dinner tomorrow and like it's no big deal, I don't even think it's dealing with the public.
Speaker 1:You can do that and then later in your shift you're gonna be doing a traffic strop with some young kid who's decided to get stroppy because they want to defund the police, and the natural response is dickhead. You've got no idea what I just did back in your box and that gets you in trouble 100%.
Speaker 2:And I used to go back to my old high school every spring and every fall and I would do a one class um with one of my old instructors, which was which was great, and I would, and they and it was basically just an hour long session of Q and a about about the job, and they always want to know about SWAT narcotics, obviously. But I would flat out tell them. The first things I would say is listen, I'll tell you everything I can tell you legally and something that's not case sensitive. I'm probably going to swear I said.
Speaker 2:But one thing I'll tell you, if you have the question is why was the cop who pulled me over an asshole? And you know why? Did you think that guy was a complete jerk when you got pulled over? And so somebody will ask and it's like hey, listen, you have no idea what that guy or gal just went through. They could have just left a suicide scene. They could have just left an infant death scene or fatal accident or a fire, or you name the hundreds of things they left in the last month that are building in their soul. And you're supposed to do it with a smile and you're supposed to do it right 100% of the time, every time, and not have any faults. And then you got the 16 year old punk who is who's talking smack and you snap at him and um, and whatever you do, and then you get in trouble because now it's on video yep yeah, so that just all adds up 100 and so, yeah, you know it's.
Speaker 2:Is that post-traumatic or is that just, like I said, the kind of a longevity thing that builds up? I believe that cops have it. Um, they just sound like it's a weird thing. Yeah, I don't have to label it, you know, because yeah to me it's all just a military thing, and I love the guys in green and um they're, they're my heroes, you know yep, no, that's fair enough, just in regards to going to schools.
Speaker 1:You've lived, I guess, the the whole defund, the police thing and you know I've been out of it. I've seen some of the stuff here. It's it's, you know, not really big in australia. We don't have that same, that same culture, I guess, of hating police to the extent that they have in in in the states. But I guess one of the things is do you think police are their own worst enemies in the fact that they don't do enough of explaining why something might have happened, why a response was the way it was? It's more nothing to see here. We're just going to put up the brick wall and you can yell and shout that the fact that someone abused you but we're not going to explain it, we're not going to do anything about it abused you, but we're not going to explain it, we're not going to do anything about it, and the community doesn't understand enough what police go through to get to that point.
Speaker 2:I think that the individual officers may not do a good job. I do believe that there's a movement amongst departments across the country to say just what you're saying. Hey, listen, it's a two-sided street here and there's lots of things that you just don't have a clue about. You know, and your perceived attention towards the cops as to what they're doing and why they're doing it, or your perceived you know, let's call it what it is. You know the perceived racism you think is out there is phony and the absolute lion's share of cops that I've ever met across the country. You know, but we don't do a good job individually. You know, but it's hard, you know, if you go on a call and the people are, you know, mfing you and I don't know how you're going to weave in. Hey, listen, let me get on my soapbox for a while and tell you the day that I had. You can do all the calm, go home.
Speaker 1:I don't think it's an individual's response to that. I personally believe and look part of this whole concept of talking to people like yourself, and hopefully more, is for people to be able to see and understand what police go through. So the next time they have an interaction with someone they might not say that smart ass comment, they might not be a dick yeah, I might not do that because they don't. They might have an understanding of what's going on or what they may have seen or been to in the last day, week, month, year, whatever.
Speaker 1:And I guess from where I sit, the police when I say in general the police department's marketing are their own worst enemies, in the sense that when something bad happens, it's usually there's nothing to see. Here there's no public education about what it's usually there's nothing to see. Here there's no public education about what it's really like to be a police officer. Now, the downside of that is, if you show people what it's really like to be a police officer, people won't join. But there has to be. I just think there needs to be more education about what police deal with so there can be empathy from the people we serve as well, and that's one of the things I'm hoping to try and do with this, but I think police forces in general and police departments in general probably lack the foresight to do that over a very long period of time.
Speaker 2:I agree, You're right and I applaud you for doing this and I hope it is just overwhelmingly successful and that more people do podcasts, because you can only serve X amount of people. But you're right, the stories need to be out there and it's interesting how even just this interview is evolving. You know, and the thought of you know the cool undercover stories, right, or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The everyday cop, the stuff they see, those things need to be told. You know, because literally my first call. I graduated the academy on July 20th 1999. I got an FTO. I'm sorry that's when I got an FTO, my very first call. That night I worked midnights that night. We're 30 minutes into being in the car, my trainer say drive here, drive there, go look around, we'll see where this precinct is like. First radio call we got was a was a body in a Burger King parking lot. And so we get there and this person had been run over in the parking lot like seven or eight times and of course, later we find out what the reason was.
Speaker 2:But the person was, you know, laying there and the head was swollen and it was disfigured and discolored because of the blood pooling the lividity. We found out later that this was a cross-dresser male in a car full of guys driving around drinking beer and doing what they were doing. And they found out that that she was a he. They threw him out of the car, ran him over, but they again they went, ran him over five or six more times to make sure that the job was done. That was my very first call as a police officer and you know I'm just one guy in one city on one shift. You know that that insanity happens all the time and that's the stuff that you know. They didn't teach me that in academy. You know that that insanity happens all the time and that's the stuff that you know. They didn't teach me that in academy. You know there's no like hey, you're going to see someone in a run over seven times because they're a cross dresser. You know, deal with it, kid, um, yeah, how much more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're right, you're supposed to go, you're supposed to go on with your job or you're supposed to go home. Now you were older, so you had seen a few things. What do you think the difference would have been if you were 20, 21? And that was your first call.
Speaker 2:Obviously the maturity helps. You know the maturity and what to do or how to do and how to react. You know, I've seen young guys who haven't done so. Well, you know, for things like that.
Speaker 1:Yep, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maturity obviously was big that night, but even being mature, right. So here I am, a kid who grows up in the suburbs of Omaha no real crime, no issues. I had seen three or four bodies in my life and it was all at a funeral. I had never seen a crime victim. I'd never seen someone murdered. Of course they show you pictures in the academy, but that's a picture and there's no smell with the picture yeah so yeah, you know it.
Speaker 2:So it's, it's hard, you know, bringing in the 21 year old, especially with no military training. You know they don't, they just don't have life training. But you know, if that's who our recruits are, then that's where recruits are. We have to train them the best we can. You, you know.
Speaker 1:No, very true. What's the most surprising thing you've learned about yourself over your journey as a police officer?
Speaker 2:I believe I realized that I'm a much more compassionate person than I ever thought I was, like I mentioned earlier about being the bleeding heart.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, I found real compassion for human beings and the human struggle and even the drug dealers that I arrested. You know they're most of them were addicts. You know, to be honest, and I firmly believe in my heart that there isn't a single person in the world who is an addict that is truly down and out at their worst and wants to be an addict again tomorrow yeah, they don't want to is an addict that is truly down and out at their at their worst and wants to be an addict again tomorrow?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they don't. They don't want to be an addict. They are from choices they've made, but they don't want to be addicted to methamphetamine or to heroin or to fentanyl or anything else. But, like I said, I found myself being being much more compassionate, especially about halfway through my career.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I was okay with it. It's like you know what. You're going to call me a pussy because I'm compassionate. You know, if you want to fight, let's go Bring it on. I can be compassionate as I want, at the same time, also be deadly.
Speaker 1:We used to call them care bears. Yeah, teddy bears yeah, but I mean it's a good point and I think you know you're right. The whole you get to, especially doing the undercover stuff. You get to see people probably more at their worst than at their worst because you see them over a longer period of time doing stuff and I always used to think there for the grace of God and a wrong decision by me or a wrong choice by me, that could be me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, and you say, you see them at their worst, but and you, you also see their true soul, because they have no idea, you're the cops. They're telling you their soul and you're like, oh my God, you are so lost. This is how you, this is how you truly think, oh man.
Speaker 1:That's a whole nother conversation when it comes to drug enforcement, and I'm not going to go there. What do you think? So there's two questions what's the most important or crucial trait for someone to first be a police officer and second, for someone who's going to work undercover?
Speaker 2:Well, to be a police officer in general, I think you just have to be a strong person, not necessarily physically, but you have to be a strong person in your soul and in your guiding light direction that you take in life. You have to be able to stand for things and stick to it, because it's going to be tough. You're going to get punched in the mouth physically and you're going to get punched in the mouth metaphorically and you have to be able to stand for what you believe.
Speaker 2:You know that's yep, law and order. As far as undercover, I think you just you, you better have a good base for who you are, not who, not who the character is that you're playing you know because it's. You're basically a character in a movie. You know you're, you're a role player and that's it, and you need to be able to turn that role player off as soon as it's over when you go home and a strong belief and identity in who you are and an understanding that it is just a role.
Speaker 1:Do you think?
Speaker 2:yes, it's just a role. You know, I caught myself early on um when I wasn't very good at a recover. I live in the state or I worked in the state of nebraska, which is the river between the next state and Iowa, so the next state over which.
Speaker 2:I have no authority in whatsoever is five miles from my police department and I lived in Iowa. I would drive home and I'd stop at a bar in Iowa and have two beers. I would always limit myself to two beers but I was trying to drum up other undercover cases that weren't even in my jurisdiction and I you know I was. I was so hell-bent on I got to be this badass undercover guy and have hundreds of cases a year that I was out of control, you know, thinking I needed to be in control doing these things and I wasn't based in reality. In my first couple years.
Speaker 2:You know and that's yeah, that's also a big tangent of a story that I wasn't in control of life at the time. I was doing too many things and trying to be too many people and, you know, working 18 hours a day, every day, and I was running. I was running downhill as fast as I could and luckily I didn't trip and wipe out too badly. But that was also in that timeframe of my first couple years of undercover and luckily I kind of landed softly after my wife and my favorite partner at work, edie, you know, told me I better wake the hell up because I was turning into quite the jerk, you know. So that's the other good thing, I guess. So I was going to thank you. I accepted that. I realized that was, and they told that, yeah, I realized it was true. Yeah, it was coming from two different angles two of the people I trusted most in my life and I took a step back and realized, yeah, this is a problem, you know. So that'd be the other second piece that an officer needs.
Speaker 1:It isn't them, they need a good support system, you know, to keep them in line, keep them in check, you know, yep, no, that's. That's uh a big definite, I know. I think one of the things is, you can have that.
Speaker 2:You also need to listen to it if somebody says that to you you know, I'm assuming you guys had some sort of handler, you know, and you'd since you did cases longer term, you know we didn't have a handler, we just had other guys on a job. You know, and if, if I would have had a true handler in that undercover handler sense, they would have probably been noticed sooner than it was noticed. That you know what I, what I was kind of becoming. You know I didn't do anything illegal, I wasn't. I wasn't using drugs, I mean nothing like that. I wasn't using drugs, I mean nothing like that. I wasn't stepping on my wife, it just was.
Speaker 2:I was such a, I turned into such a control freak because being on SWAT, you have to be in control. Yep, being in narcotics, you got to be in control and working undercover, you got to control everything. And there was no I mean there was no time where I wasn't trying to control every single aspect of the day and it just started melting down on me, and which included going to bars outside of my even legal jurisdiction and trying to drum up dope.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, just in regards to that, now that you've left and and you've you've changed that, are you happy to not have control, are you? Or does it still sometimes burn? Go you sort of go, it's a, it's a.
Speaker 2:Oh, I could lie to you and say it's easy, but my wife would come here and smack me and say you're full of it. I do much, much better, jason, much, much better. And even when I fail, I will catch myself and say okay, hang on, just stop this isn't yours. You don't have to run the whole thing. Yeah, so it's much better. But like anything else, I don't think it ever is going to be a hundred percent perfect, you know.
Speaker 1:But you're aware of it and you catch yourself.
Speaker 2:What would you say to someone who's going through that now? I suppose I guess I would try to relate to them. You know where I was at, you know, and how, how destructive it can be. You know you can push people away and hopefully they'll come back when you change, but maybe they won't. So you know, just to be, try to have some self-awareness as to, you know, are those some of your attributes as well, you know, fair enough.
Speaker 1:All right, look, we've been going for an hour and 20. So what I might do is I'll give you the last comment in regards to, firstly, if you can tell us where again your name of your book, where to get it, and a last comment in regards to your life as a police officer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the book is my Life as a Police Officer. That's why I wrote it. You can get it on Amazoncom. It's called RAM1ONE.
Speaker 2:That was my position on the SWAT team, but I basically wrote the book as to a memoir of my career and that's from being involved in shootings to having I've had two partners kill in the line of duty, to working undercover, to working on a SWAT team. You know explosives and craziness. I basically just told a story and I was very stark in that sense where a lot of these things that I just told you, that were self-deprecating, they're in the book book. You know I didn't make myself out to be this hero. I was like, hey, here's the things that I screwed up and screwed up royally and here's the, here's the life lessons I learned.
Speaker 2:And again, also about the book, because I'm bragging about the people that that I worked with. You know some of the great cases. Like I mentioned Edie earlier. I mentioned some of these awesome cases and it was just a little piece of, but I got to be there to see some excellent police work, whether that's on the narcotics side or whether that was in the SWAT world. I feel utterly blessed that I got to do two of the most prized jobs, I think, in law enforcement, and I did them for a long time, and so not a lot of people get that lucky to get to do exactly what they want for as long as I did. So it's like you know what. I'm going to share the stories because I was a lucky guy.
Speaker 1:And I think people should read them for no other reason, to say thank you for what you've done and for that service. All right, what we might do is we might end up there. I've been talking to Paul Maloney I got that right that time, didn't I? Yeah, who is a former police officer from the Omaha police in Nebraska? This is Behind the Thin Blue Line, the new name for the podcast where I'm going to have conversations with police officers about what they've done and how they have worked and then, if they're former, what they're doing after and how they've done it. So if you're a current or former police officer and you want to share your stories, then please drop me a line at whisperintheshadowspodcast at gmailcom. Paul, thank you very much for your time. I do appreciate it. Story's been fantastic and again, that's Ram1. You can get that at amazoncom. Have a great evening for a Tuesday night, I think it is there. And to everyone else, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2:Jason, thank you so much for having me have a good day.
Speaker 1:Bye now. Thank you for joining me on Behind the Thin Blue Line, where I have conversations with current and former police officers and they get to tell their stories. I hope you've enjoyed that episode. In the next episode, we'll again explore the human side of policing through more conversations with police officers from around the world. Please make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. Lastly, if you're a current or former police officer, I would love to chat to you about your experiences or, if you're feeling dangerous, tell your stories on my podcast. Please get in contact by my email, which is whisperintheshadowspodcast at gmailcom. I look forward to you joining me next week.
