Jest Out of Jurisdiction
Law Enforcement / First Responder stories and experiences with a focus on comedic blunders, events, and the lighter side of stressful jobs. Stories are firsthand accounts told by the hosts Flash and T-Dot with accompanying guest interviews.
Jest Out of Jurisdiction
Explosive Pranks and Alligator Antics
Get ready for a rollercoaster ride through the world of law enforcement as we welcome Jesse Williams, a man who knows a thing or two about the badge. Kicking off from his early days in the sheriff's ride-along program, Jesse takes us through an adventurous journey up the ranks, sharing gripping tales from his career. Jesse spills the beans on the fun, the fear, and the frenzy that define life on the force. His stories reveal the stark differences between county and city policing, all while highlighting the crucial support from dispatch teams and how election cycles can shake things up.
But it’s not all sirens and seriousness; there’s a lighter side to wearing the badge, and we dig into the antics that kept spirits high. Who knew firecrackers and alligators could be part of police pranks? Jesse fondly recalls the hilariously unexpected scenarios he and his colleagues faced, from tossing firecrackers into each other's cars to dealing with legendary creatures and rogue pigs. These tales capture the essence of friendship and fun that underpins the demanding work of law enforcement, reminding us that a good laugh is often the best stress relief.
Blue lights from the dead of the night, lying on a run of dim street light, laughing through the written reports. Truth stranger than the wildest courts, tales from the force gone astray, caught up in the games they play. High speed chases gone awry, serious turns into pie in the sky, just out of jurisdiction, left during the conviction. All right, welcome back.
Speaker 2:We've got another episode for you, just out of jurisdiction, and we've got a treat for you tonight. We've got me and T-Dot are back, of course which we're always here. You'll get tired of hearing us. I'm sure you heard about the Mill Street Monster. It was talked about by Doug Thomas. We've got the man who encountered it here. He's dreamed about Bigfoot and you've heard a lot about him if you've listened to Willie Boards and Baloney Skins already.
Speaker 3:So, without further ado, we've got jesse williams with us yeah, just so, jesse, and I'll go back from, I'm going to say when did you start actually policing, like you know, start like I guess you started with the sheriff's office at laurel and went to the caddy with them, ended up at the police department.
Speaker 4:I started, I started in, so I I come up the hard way, that's what I call it. I guess it's the right way. But I started riding. You know they had a ride-along program kind of a deal. If you knew somebody and the sheriff signed off on it, you could jump in the seat. I started doing that in 2003 for laurel. So yep.
Speaker 4:And then because I remember you riding with, like, uh, mikey or tommy or somebody, then coming here, daryl, and coming into the pd sometimes and meeting you, yep, and then, um, I started transporting, which is uh, where you would take prisoners to the penitentiary or you'd take them to medical visits or you'd have to go. You know, if another county picked up one of your guys that was wanted in your county, you'd go pick them up from that jail and bring them back to the local jail. I started doing that and then I worked my way into courtroom security as a bailiff and then finally got an academy date.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's the way that is going, the hard way, because you're going from making zero money just being a basically see if I like this, a freebie, yeah To going in the bailiff route and barely able to survive, and then, I guess, getting an academy date and going I was lucky to do that because I worked the road a whole lot sooner than guys that didn't work the road.
Speaker 4:So like I only bailed for like a couple months and then we lost a guy to state police and I replaced him on the road and at the time we had two other guys in the police academy so I literally had to work the road until those two guys graduated the academy and then I got to go to the academy.
Speaker 3:Trial by fire again, it's still similar to that now I think.
Speaker 2:I still think they make you go CSO. For the most part, I think so.
Speaker 3:You know, everywhere's different.
Speaker 1:Some people make you go to the academy first Depends on who your daddy is.
Speaker 2:There is a lot of that.
Speaker 4:My dad was nobody.
Speaker 3:So I knew you from the sheriff's office and we answered plenty of calls and the good thing about night shift at the police department we discussed that was we all came together and ate over at the Berkley Boy or something like that and just had a ball and got to know each other a lot and that was fun. That was some fun time policing.
Speaker 4:Oh man. So I worked Laurel, so until 2007. And then, you know, like me, and I mean there was like a mass exodus, yeah, it was an election turnaround, so they was I don't know like four or five of us went to the PD, yeah, Right, that's when you and Doug came about the same day. Yeah, so I think it was Buddy Blair, jerry Holland, doug and me. Yeah, we all come to the pd. Doug come in january and I come in february, and um went.
Speaker 3:I had to do the shift orientation thing for a while yeah and then after that they didn't put him on a full 13 week back then, because like that you, you've placed more than me.
Speaker 4:You know, god, that was torture, yeah you.
Speaker 3:You've answered way more calls and had a whole lot more murder calls than I ever.
Speaker 4:It's all right, craziness. That's the thing about. You know, county police versus city police is the county police. I mean, most of the time you might be one, two men out. You know that's it and you take care of the vast majority of things and you didn't have the luxury of having like a two or three-man detective office.
Speaker 2:And that never made sense around here to me is that those guys made so much less than we did at the city. They worked way harder. I mean, they worked their balls off.
Speaker 4:I remember you know you'd have a $20,000 theft and you know there wasn't a detective to call up and say hey, you want to work this because of this amount of money. You know, if I called a detective over or something like that, yeah, it would have been south, yeah it would have.
Speaker 3:I remember it was Patrick dispatching one night. It was one of them guys. You know we had a good dispatch shift too. That worked with us, that worked the county worked the sheriff's office, you know everything. They'd fire all that amulet services. And one night I remember jesse, he was in pursuit up in his burnstead and on the county radio they just kept on on the. I don't know, I'm gonna blame patrick, I don't know, he's not here to tell we'll blame him.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I remember he got on the radio and was just giving this big long ball and, Jesse, I could hear him breaking in Break, break, break, break, break, break, break, break, break, break break.
Speaker 4:I gave it right back to him.
Speaker 3:And I think he gets on the other side on the city radio. I'm in pursuit down here. He's bursting. Come on, patrick, won't shut up. No never would shut up. We'll blame Patrick. Yeah, because yeah it was obviously Patrick Long-winded dispatchers. Yeah, so give that long dispatcher. He just woke up, that's what it was. Yeah, he just got there.
Speaker 4:But I remember I come to in 2007,. Come to the PD, worked shift orientation and then pretty much went to night shift and I was on night shift for 13 years.
Speaker 3:Ah, man, until you went to D units.
Speaker 4:No, I went to, I went to. I ended up building some seniority up then, so I went to day shift, senior sergeant, yeah, and then that was terrible.
Speaker 2:I was going to say when I came on. I think I got to work with you like one year maybe. On, nights On nights, and then you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he was kind of a staple. He's like screw you guys, I'm leaving. He was kind of the night shift guy. You always knew I was night shift at the sheriff's department too, when I remember like I knew his detective skills and you kind of know what you know and I was me and Gary were probably super sergeants then before I so I got shafted? No, he did if I didn't want to call, if gary, or I didn't want to call out a detective, I was like hey, jesse, we got a stabbing right here and hey made a good detective.
Speaker 3:I remember. Do you remember when you got detective, I was also made detective yeah, for a day, for a day one day I solved one crime. One, one big caper, a stolen vehicle, walked back in there, said this ain't for me I said I'm out well, derek, derek, he talked me right out of that one. He's like if you, if you, uh, mess up. And he didn't say mess up. If you mess up the evidence, you didn't say mess up if you mess up the evidence you're going to prison.
Speaker 4:I was like huh, what? Here's the keys to the federal penitentiary. And that's what I was told whenever they gave me the evidence lockers.
Speaker 3:And I think you were going to be over that evidence side. But he made it a point because I would have been partnered with him and I was like, so I went home and I talked to Lisa. I was like, hey, um, I'm reconsidering this take this move here. I think I'm gonna go back to schools. I went right back in, told Darryl I was like, uh, I think I made a mistake.
Speaker 1:We'll go tell Derek it's like okay before they started.
Speaker 3:you know signing all the, you know all the accounts over that you can buy, dope, open all that stuff. I was like, oh my gosh. I was like, derek, I made a mistake, I'm going to, I don't want this. I don't want this, which which I'm one for one as a detective on case solves.
Speaker 4:I think, when you come along, I was a senior supervisor on Natchez, yeah, and, man, we had an awesome crew. I mean back in the day it was me, you, doug Thomas, travis Couch yeah, eric Staller would come for a hot minute.
Speaker 3:For a hot minute, we had to kick him out.
Speaker 4:And you and Gary was our supervisors.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and me and Gary would usually.
Speaker 4:Man, we just had a ball. We had a ball around each other. We took care of business. If there was something coming out, you had seasoned guys.
Speaker 3:I remember my biggest thing was like Gary, it's Jesse, it's Doug, it's Travis. Why are we going to this call, unless they holler for needing something? And I remember I'm like Gary, let's not go to that. He's like I'm just bored.
Speaker 4:I was like leave him alone. I'm glad you hit on that because I've got Dylan here too and it kind of reiterates into my leadership style, which later on, whenever I got a fresh crew of young guys and I was senior sergeant on that they had a hard time with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:They had a hard time with that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they had a hard time with a supervisor not coming around. And yeah, yeah, it was. It was a different generational thing, but we'll. We'll touch on that, yeah, because it's hard. It's like, okay, I've got guys that's police way more than me, even though I've been on just a little longer than jesse doug's been on for 10 years, longer than I ever had. Me and and Travis were about the same and whoever else Eric, of course he'd been. You know, he was two classes ahead of me in the police academy. How do you tell these guys how to, just because I've got Sergeant all of a sudden, because I've been there just a little longer, how do you tell them I know more than you, which was I didn't. Yeah, you don't. I'm there solely to make sure they had the tools that they need to do the job and then back people up.
Speaker 2:Right, exactly, that's it. Right paperwork. Call me if you need to hide a body or we need to fix something Other than that. You know what to do. Do I need to?
Speaker 4:start a use of force because I we played a prank on Gary one night over. That one too. That was great. But going back a little bit talking about FTO and seasoned officers, whenever me and Doug Thomas come to the PD it was torture. I mean, we had, you know, our grading skills, for the FTO program at the PD wasn't set up, I guess, for seasoned officers, because it's like how's his verbal communication and how's his officer?
Speaker 3:safety skills. He swears the best.
Speaker 4:How's his officer safety?
Speaker 3:skills Lacking. And, yeah, I got hit for not using my spotlight one night. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4:And I was sitting here thinking like man, how long does this last? And you're not supposed to take vacation during that period, but I ended up swindling the major.
Speaker 3:I need some time off from that idiot, I'm going to kill somebody.
Speaker 4:It's so hard.
Speaker 3:It is. You know, and I've never and I've changed agencies a couple times since I've retired I've been to, you know, Mount Vernon. I went to Danville for a little bit. Not one time did I have to sit in a car with any of them. They're like, dude, you retired, You're a 20-year guy and ours was 15 weeks.
Speaker 4:We survived the FTO program and then we got out on our own and we had a supervisor like Gary and T-Dot, which was just a blast.
Speaker 2:That's the best type of supervisor somebody who lets you do your job Trust you and trusts you and lets you. It's not Not micromanaging you over it.
Speaker 4:We would. I mean, we took care of business and we had fun and we knew when to cut up, we knew when to be serious and I, just looking back, that was some of the funnest.
Speaker 3:I was thinking about that today when I knew, you know, when I was thinking about what I was going to talk to you about today, I was sitting over at the parking lot and I was like you know, me and Jesse, our career are pretty lined up. You know, I think, besides the, you know, night shift for a long time, me supervising you, you becoming a lieutenant and actually being my supervisor, it didn't matter, because I was like, I mean, when you got it and I did and I was like dude, congrats, you know.
Speaker 4:I've got your back.
Speaker 3:You know I'm going to give you absolute crap because that's who I am.
Speaker 4:You went to, I think you went. Did you go to where? I went to Mount Vernon, I think you went. Did you go where?
Speaker 3:I went to Mount Vernon you went to Mount Vernon for just a hot second as assistant chief, and then that's whenever they promoted you, I got promoted sergeant.
Speaker 4:Well, we'll tell you how that went so we all test and I know I know they'll love for me to tell you I was the only one to pass the test.
Speaker 3:That's a hard test, man.
Speaker 4:Doug Thomas was beside himself. Oh, that's right.
Speaker 3:You promoted over him.
Speaker 4:I whooped all of them in that room. It was Randy and Doug oh my gosh, I forgot about that. I don't remember who else, but I was the only one to pass the test.
Speaker 2:I could see him now. I got my stripes. How did he pass that? How did Jesse?
Speaker 4:pass the written test. Oh, he's cheated, he's cheated. There's no way that fool did it but I did, I forgot about that. And I remember you know the chief at the time he come in the. Let me ask you all something in this room Would it be fair if just one of you guys passed this test and I promote that person and you know he didn't tell us who it was or nothing, and everybody starts looking at each other like I wonder if it was you, or I bet it was you, it was me.
Speaker 3:And then they was like well, yeah, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 4:And then Stuart was like well, yeah, yeah, go ahead. And then Stuart named me and everybody just dropped.
Speaker 1:We're like not that guy.
Speaker 3:This was rigged.
Speaker 4:I forgot about it. A couple weeks later I pull up beside Doug. You know we're still night shift and I wasn't sure I was going to get night shift. I think I had an inclination.
Speaker 3:Well, I was night shift and lift, so that was the open spot. And then there was Daryl. Yeah, daryl came down right?
Speaker 4:Yeah, because Gary went to the detective's office. Yeah, that's right. And so I pulled up beside Doug and he said well, congratulations you know how it goes. Don't think you're going to tell me what to do.
Speaker 3:I love it.
Speaker 4:Because Doug was my supervisor at the sheriff's department and I was like my how the tables have turned.
Speaker 3:I have never seen that, but I knew better than the mess. I've never seen a place more competitive and get mad at each other for a promotion.
Speaker 4:We still love each other. Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean every time, you know, I was like I'm a three-year cop and I tested and passed it and I can't believe they're taking this 10-year cop over me. Yeah, I can't believe it. I was like oh my gosh, I don't even know how to please.
Speaker 4:The audacity of a rookie putting in for something.
Speaker 1:I know right.
Speaker 4:It's so funny. I got promoted and ended up going to night shift and it was still fun, but there was a whole lot more. It wasn't as fun whenever they put the responsibility on you your guys got to do this. Your guys got to do that. It took all the fun out of it.
Speaker 3:It does, and it's not that it's just like I've got to grow up here and be a I've got responsibilities. Now. This is terrible. Bill's the pain.
Speaker 4:But going back, man, you know, when it was me, you and Doug and Travis and all of us on that crew, we'd pull pranks on each other. We would you know know. If it was, we couldn't get out because it was snowing or whatever. It's movie night it was foot patrolling.
Speaker 3:I bet we watched dexter they would make me climb we learned how to be zero at night.
Speaker 4:I mean why why are we foot patrolling up 16th street head ball forward?
Speaker 3:and you know well, I remember speaking of pranks. I'm gonna let you tell the tell on me on the incident down while we was cleaning.
Speaker 4:I think you know I got to thinking on my way here. I'm like well, I wonder what they're going to say. You know what was my legacy at this PD? I said it would have to be firecrackers. I mean without a doubt, it was explosives.
Speaker 3:Because we're breaching. He's a breach guy. I mean absolutely, without a doubt, it was explosives. Because breaching he's a breach guy.
Speaker 4:Yeah, oh, my gosh. Uh, I would carry firecrackers with me, like I'd have them in my shirt pocket.
Speaker 2:It was nothing for Jesse to drive by you and throw a firecracker in your window.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah.
Speaker 4:I know you didn't Eric Stallard's living proof to this day that you can survive a blast inside of a small space. I mean, I pulled up beside that guy one night, lit the fuse as he was rolling down his window and tossed it in there and drove off. All I seen in my rear view was a flash. Yeah, wait. So one night I had a pocket full and it was a night that it was slow and we have a. It's like a detached garage from our city police department and inside there it's a pretty good-sized building yeah, great building. In there we put some free weights where we could lift, there's treadmills and there's like this, this big homemade work table and we'd work on things and at night time we would go down there and we'd clean our guns. You know, and I think we'd been to the range recently and we was down there, me and doug thomas got there yeah, y'all were cleaning first and I saw y'all disassembling the pistols and all that stuff, had everything laid out.
Speaker 4:We was cleaning it. Well, t-dot comes be bopping in there and he's like, hey, what y'all doing? I'm cleaning our guns, sarge, what's up? Was you a supervisor? I'm sure I think you were. We're cleaning our guns. He goes yeah, that sounds like a good idea. So he bellies up to the table and he gets his pistol out and he unchambers it, takes the mag and he's laying it there. I elbowed Doug, who was standing right beside him, and I reach in my shirt pocket and I get one of them, blackjack firecrackers out Doug.
Speaker 4:Just I mean, you could just see the joy come over his face. I lit that fuse and I dropped it between my legs and kicked it under the table and we're sitting there and I go back to cleaning my pistol and Doug's cleaning his and I'm like you know there's at least two second delay. I'm like what? Oh man, there's a dud. All of a sudden bow T-Dot was in the middle of taking the slide off the frame of his pistol and he slings that and he backs up about 20 feet and gets in a Krav Maga stance and his eyeballs are as big as saucers and me and Doug Thomas was on the floor.
Speaker 3:I was, I don't know. I thought I'd shot him, I thought I thought the gun, I thought my, I was like I don't know how I mean the slides. The slide's coming off and I'm getting ready to take the barrel. I think I was taking the barrel out of the Glock. I think we was on Glocks by then, I can't remember. Is it that, sig? Either way, the barrel was coming out and this thing explodes underneath my feet. And man I've never been. I think I had to go home and change my drawers.
Speaker 4:I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 3:And I didn't know what to say. I was like I think I just walked out at one point. I was like what If he was?
Speaker 4:a cat with nine lives. I took two.
Speaker 3:That scared me to death. It was hilarious. Afterwards you know you're seeing them, guys like. Well, the reaction is they're starting to laugh, but I'm like I've shot him.
Speaker 4:I was crying, doug was crying, my ribs hurt.
Speaker 3:The other thought was somebody's shooting at us from behind or something I didn't know. I'd lost all faculty. I was not, I was in that condition.
Speaker 2:You just knew you'd been ambushed.
Speaker 3:I went from white at a safe space.
Speaker 4:I jumped all the way to the black and I blacked out. What these guys don't understand, though, is I was conditioning them, you know, yeah.
Speaker 3:We on alert all the time and I was not.
Speaker 4:I would pull up beside.
Speaker 3:Because that was the first time you got me with one.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, I got beside Richard Reynolds one night. Same thing Pulled up to him, like I did to Eric Stallard. You know we'd pull up, you know facing opposite directions, and we'd roll down our windows at the top at night.
Speaker 3:Two and up is what we call it, two and up.
Speaker 4:And I two'd up beside Richie one night and I think he had that gut feeling. I was up to no good because he seen the spark of the cigarette lighter and heard the fuse and I went to toss it. By the time I tossed it he had already climbed out of his driver's seat and was up between the two cars outside of the car by the time that thing went off in his cruiser. So he was conditioned red already.
Speaker 3:He was ready. He was ready to move.
Speaker 2:He was on alert, so he just pulled up.
Speaker 4:So a couple years later they come out with the snap pops the same size of the black jacks, but you throw them down like a snap pop, and it's as loud as a. Oh my gosh, oh man, I had so much fun with them, my wife banned me from them.
Speaker 3:Man, I remember the days where it'd snow a little bit. We'd do that, but then all of a sudden you walk outside and get drilled with snowballs. Hey, you remember Snowball thot? Oh my gosh, and I think they put rocks in them. I was like, oh my gosh. I remember now, just while we're sitting here you remember the time you threw the alligator.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, I got the video. That's awesome. Oh yeah, I got the video. That's awesome. So we're riding around one night. So is busy. We're bored out of our mind. The dispatch tries to give SO a complaint. You know SO. Units North End, Go ahead. London, we're swamped. Complaint of an alligator in the middle of the road at Walmart.
Speaker 3:No, it was an industrial park, industrial park, and I, before you say that, I'm thinking gators, like they used to call that the wheels, the tires that blew off the retread.
Speaker 4:So I'm like, yeah, I'm going to run up there and get that. I'm close, I'm West 80. I'm going to run up there and get that. So I'm headed, and it's out of the city limits, but I'm headed up there. I pull into Industrial Park. Sure enough, there is a four-foot alligator, a real alligator, in the middle of the road. It's dead, though I didn't know, I didn't know.
Speaker 3:So we do find alligators up here. Patrick is not the only one.
Speaker 4:So I get out of my cruiser and I walk back to the trunk of my car and I get the Mossberg 590 out, just in case this thing wants to get wild on me. Walk up to it, it's dead, it's deader than a doorknob and I'm like well, what am I going?
Speaker 2:to do with this thing.
Speaker 4:First concern was does it stink?
Speaker 4:And if it, doesn't stink, I'm going to have some fun with it, exactly. And so I throw it in the back seat of my cruiser and I'm like what am I going to do with this thing? Oh man, this is once in a lifetime chance. What am I going to do with this thing? So I take it to the PD and I prop it up by the back door. So as you open our booking door, you walk in, you just about step on it and I get my little. I had a cell phone then and I put it on record and I'm sitting there at the booking desk and I'm recording guys as they come in, just to catch their reaction to it. One of the first one ends was Travis Couch, and I think the second one in was you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because he'd sit down there at the other desk and was Travis Couch, and I think the second one in was you. Yeah, because he'd sit down at the other desk and was waiting.
Speaker 4:And you walked into it. So there's a four-foot alligator waiting on these guys to walk into the back door, and their reactions were priceless.
Speaker 3:About another time about how to go change. But I think that one scared me as bad as the, because I remember the call, but I swear I was thinking it was a retread. Blew off a tire and I don't even remember the radio. Traffic we might have got busy, but to see an alligator, a real alligator sitting there looking at you.
Speaker 2:We don't have alligators, no.
Speaker 3:So, it could have been a dragon.
Speaker 4:I think it was After we had our fun with it. I'm like now what?
Speaker 4:Now what do I do with this thing? You know, if I throw it in the dumpster behind the parking lot, that's a memo. Yeah, absolutely, who threw this in the dumpster? So I'm contemplating on what to do with this thing. So I'm like, hey, we've got some woods in the city limits, so I'll just go chuck it in the woods. Well, unbeknownst to me, those woods was turned into like they was trying to do whatever out here on this little area. We got it's a 229.
Speaker 4:They was trying to make like a little kayak oh my god, like a little um had a creek wetlands, they widened the creek in there and there's supposed to be like kayakers and people can do a little walking nature trail thing. So I pulled down in there without getting stuck in my cruiser, grabbed that gator and tossed it out in the woods, you know, mother Nature returned back to the dirt. Well, I think some hikers happened upon it again and fish and wildlife come out there.
Speaker 4:This was told second hand to me. But fish and wildlife come out there, and big and big. How did a gator get?
Speaker 1:we don't know how it got up really, how did?
Speaker 3:it get up to here, anyways it's.
Speaker 4:I think it probably hitched a ride on like a truck 18 truck. Yeah, an 18-wheeler got up into the bed or you know, like a flatbed or something, got lodged in there or something, yeah, and then, whenever it made that sharp curve into the industrial park, slung it out. That's where it went. Yeah, that's hilarious.
Speaker 3:It's like a present from above so we have Gators cut off at about what Georgia, some in North Carolina I know I've seen them do, which they all swear that we've got them in the lake, maybe out west, but I've never seen.
Speaker 1:No, I've never seen it, it's too cold up here.
Speaker 3:It's cold today. That's crazy, though I've never.
Speaker 4:I still show the video.
Speaker 3:Oh my God, I need to see it, we'll have to post that one on there. Yeah, that's awesome. I think my eye. I was just like I froze. It's another one of those things.
Speaker 4:What makes it even better.
Speaker 3:It'd be better if he had a firecracker under there. I would have went on to see the Lord.
Speaker 4:We had an officer that had a very distinctive laugh and in the video you can hear him when T-Dot comes into the back door. He's that loud, cackling laugh that he had. That's what makes it good too.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, it scared me to death. Speaking of wild critters and monsters we mentioned, on the last one with Doug about the I think he called it the Mill Street monster. It was definitely a Bigfoot.
Speaker 4:No, no, that wasn't Bigfoot.
Speaker 3:What was it? What was this? This mythical creature that lives close to my house?
Speaker 4:I don't know. I was too chicken to go find it.
Speaker 3:How would that call come out though?
Speaker 1:What was that?
Speaker 4:Doug Thomas got so mad at me. He would say you know what You'd fight a buzzsaw, but you're scared of a haint.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I said absolutely Absolutely. I've heard him say that a hundred times.
Speaker 4:But we get a call one night. A female calls dispatch and dispatcher relays it to us about a female driver turning down Dixie Street. Sees a not sure what it is, other than it's. It's a white with a black dress on and long black stringy hair over its face. It's a female and it's standing in the creek. Right there as you go down over the hill and to a curve, we have like a little creek that runs through. It's not I wouldn't even call it a creek, it's's more like a drainage ditch, yeah, kind of Whenever it floods out, sure you can call it a creek.
Speaker 3:It gets going, then I got a story about that too.
Speaker 4:But it's supposed to be standing there. But what made it worse was I think he was assistant chief of the rescue squad or something like that at the time. He's in the area and he comes by and shines a spotlight on it and it takes off running back up the creek and he's advising dispatch of this traffic while it's going on and I'm en route to it. So whenever I heard that, I was like I'm signaling I'm not going to do that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm not going to do that. So you never laid eyes on it? No, but.
Speaker 4:Doug me and Doug was working and Doug's like a, you know he's headed to me and I knew he was coming to me because in the city you were talking about backup the other night.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we was only two minutes away from each other.
Speaker 4:Yeah, two minutes away from each other and a call like that.
Speaker 2:Everybody's coming to you.
Speaker 4:Yeah, everybody's coming to it, so I knew.
Speaker 2:Most everybody.
Speaker 4:So I stayed just in the outskirts of that area until we call him Bubba, until Bubba Doug Thomas got there and then he pulls up. So there's like what is that store there, travis? It's like a drug rehab now, yeah, it is.
Speaker 3:It used to be Ken Smith, the old mayor, used to own it or run it.
Speaker 4:It used to be like a little five and dime, an old brick building, a storefront kind of a thing, and the backside of that it drops off pretty sharp and that's what makes that drainage ditch. Well, I see Doug pull up to the storefront part of it and I pull up and I don't even get out of my car. I pull up beside Doug and I'm like, hey, what are you doing? He goes I'm going to go see what this is. I said you're crazy. So I said, okay, dude, you know. More power to you there, bud. And so I back out and I go the road. I stay on the road in my cruiser.
Speaker 3:So if I do see it, was it heading back up or like heading down towards the new park?
Speaker 4:It was headed towards up the creek, like towards.
Speaker 3:Hill Street. Okay, okay, I got you.
Speaker 4:Man. So that's what kind of gave me the eebie-jeebies was, whenever a rescue dude says, yeah, I shined my spotlight on it and it took off running up the creek, and so the image that come to my mind was that thing on ring, yes, that possessed thing that comes creeping down the stairs. Backwards up, that's what she described to me, except for the black dress.
Speaker 3:I'm good on that.
Speaker 4:The black dress, and that's what she described to me, except for the black dress. I'm good on that, the black dress and I'm sitting here and, of course, we listen to. Coast to Coast, oh yeah, and you hear all them demonic man we were our own worst enemy on the night shift. Listen, if someone wanted to fight and drunk and tearing up property, we was all there, yeah. But if it was hey, I hear voices in my bedroom we ain't going.
Speaker 2:We're not going, it's hard to fight a ghost.
Speaker 3:You can't. They've already won. They've already whooped me all over the place. We would do the same thing.
Speaker 2:You'd get yourself all worked up. You'd be listening to all those stories from coast to coast. We had nothing.
Speaker 3:You've heard every song on the radio. You've heard talk. Radio became our thing. It was something that everybody would be like hey, coast to coast came on it. The rerun came on at like 11, the new show came on at 12 and we listened to the two hour, whatever it was, and then talk about it.
Speaker 4:That was yeah, and then we go in about you listen out.
Speaker 3:What do you think about that? You know, some of them are dumb. Some of them are really good, very good yeah. And it just depends if you had the UFOs or the Bigfoots.
Speaker 4:A couple weeks later. You know, we never did find it, doug never found it. And listen, doug was down there right on the creek. I mean I think he was turning over bushes trying to find this thing.
Speaker 2:He was determined, yeah.
Speaker 4:If he probably would have caught somebody down there, he would have tried to put them in my cruiser. No, yeah, ah. But I think like a week later we had a woman call and she just got off work at the hospital and she comes home and she finds I don't remember if it was her husband or fiance, or, and she couldn't wake him. So she's calling for an ambulance and there's alcohol over. You know, alcohol poisoning. And so second shift guys get there and they say, hey, we found your thing. Yeah. And so the fiancee, whatever she says yeah, he gets drunk, he wears my dresses and he walks around at night. Yeah, true story.
Speaker 3:He was possessed by something.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and so this cat gets drunk, puts on a black dress and goes and stands in that little creek and scares the living daylights out yeah, oh my gosh there's usually an explanation that's classic
Speaker 3:yeah wow, we've seen. But you know that's the weird cause that we get. And then some of them some of them were like unexplainable stuff smoke coming out of chimneys.
Speaker 4:Uh, faces, that you're like a little girl oh yeah, there's some things that we little girl talking to you kind of a deal, yeah, we're good, yeah, yeah, I gotta go home right now.
Speaker 3:I'm getting scared. Now I gotta have Derek on for some of those.
Speaker 4:Haunted ones on there, the Sasquatch deal. Was another, I guess.
Speaker 3:I touched on it, but I wanted you to, I guess it was a coast to coast episode or something.
Speaker 4:Anyway, I think that's when Finding Bigfoot Got real popular, the Discovery show or whatever. But I think I was up late one morning when I got off work and watching one of them Finding Bigfoot shows or something. But me and T-Dot lived close to each other and we lived in the prettiest area, I think in the city limits.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, it's a lot of.
Speaker 4:It's wooded but it's right in the middle of the city and I lived up there at the Sub Bennett College and the old president of the college's house beautiful house and there was like a what's that thing in the back, my backyard called.
Speaker 3:They build a nature, preserve like a walk. What?
Speaker 4:was the building. Oh yeah, what do they call that?
Speaker 3:Oh gosh, they have them. Shelter houses back there.
Speaker 4:There's like a picnic shelter house there.
Speaker 3:There used to be tennis courts for the Sue Bennett College and he built a nice.
Speaker 2:Like a gazebo.
Speaker 3:No, his shelter house, a big one, a fireplace.
Speaker 4:Yeah, a rock fire pit, real nice. But that was probably about maybe 50, 60 yards from the back of my house and in between it was just yard, know yard, and it goes over. Both sides are surrounded by woods. Yeah, and I, I mean, I felt this dream felt real. I remember standing in my son's bedroom, for whatever reason. I was looking out his bedroom window which looks at the shelter house, and you know I'm just enjoying the view out my that bedroom window well, how the edge of the woods from the left walks out a bigfoot and he's doing that classic patty walk. That's right was he blurry no, he wasn't.
Speaker 3:He wasn't blurry, he was in clear focus and I'm sitting there like, oh my god, what is that?
Speaker 4:that's bigfoot. So the only thing that come to my mind was finding a gun. And I'm looking around, whatever reason. I'm going through my son's dresser like he's got, like it's like it's an arsenal in there or something. Well, I find a gun. I don't remember I had, but by the time I took my eyes off to look for a gun. And whenever I look back up through the window, bigfoot is swinging about a six-and-a-half-inch stainless steel shiny .44 mag. He's just swinging it and he looks at me like uh-uh, no sir.
Speaker 3:So you don't want none of this. Muggs, you don't want none of this.
Speaker 4:And so. I laid the gun back down on the dresser and I watched him go into the other side of the woods and he was gone and I woke up like a nervous wreck.
Speaker 3:So I guess we'd work shift. He said you ain't going to believe this dream. And he told me that and, man, to this day, it's one of the greatest dreams. I love to interpret that.
Speaker 4:Yes, I don't know why I said T-Dod. You won't believe this, but that thing was swinging a .44 mag.
Speaker 3:I could have believed it until the .44 mag and I was like, oh, that's that thing that lives down below us.
Speaker 2:That's one of those night shift not enough sleep dreams, oh man, because, who knows, that's one of those night shift not enough sleep dreams, oh man.
Speaker 4:What about the pig that you finally killed? That was on the run for like 10 years.
Speaker 3:Now that one freaked some people out and that pig, my neighbor. I just got off shift, I come in.
Speaker 4:How did it get there?
Speaker 3:Listen, I have no idea.
Speaker 1:I guess it escaped from the stock sales.
Speaker 3:Yeah, stock sales was right, real close to our house.
Speaker 2:And that's a common occurrence. They get loose Animals getting loose.
Speaker 4:We are some animal-killing fools in this.
Speaker 3:We have to because you've got to keep them off the big roads we ever get Andrew Lawson on here. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I've got a good video of him trying to lasso a pig over in the cemetery.
Speaker 3:So back in Sue Bennett's property. I would say Sue Bennett's got 80 to 100 acres itself. Then you've got First Baptist. They've got 50, 60 acres. I mean you're talking about hundreds of acres. Most of it's wooded, that's there and grown up. Deer, I hear coyote, I mean we're dead center of town and and, uh, deer, I mean it's beautiful. We got everything and all of a sudden my neighbor comes over and he's like, hey, there's a, there's a giant pig just attack my dog. I'm like what? And then I was like, oh yeah, they get loose. Well, this one's been loose for a while and she'd kind of gone feral. I mean, she was a sow, big, big.
Speaker 1:I didn't believe them at first, when I looked over there.
Speaker 4:Like not a pot-bellied pig but one of the big ones. No, no, this was Like a farm pig. This was probably domesticated, but it had been in the woods so long and we chased this.
Speaker 3:I remember seeing piglets back in the day. Yeah, like, oh my gosh, they're going to grow up, so this pig goes over. And I just changed over, like I had on sweatpants and like threw a jacket on and I see it. I'm like, oh yeah, so I run, hit my trunk, release on my car. I'm like shotgun or rifle. I'm like I look and I see it I said rifle. So I grab my rifle out of my trunk, of my cruiser, and I start chasing it. It gets up in the field, like where the baseball field is, and I'm like I got a shot. And this is like February, it's cold outside, yeah, and I'm like you know, I take aim and there's some people out there.
Speaker 3:I was like what are they doing with a dog? And the pig's attacking their dog. I'm like, this pig hates dogs. So we get chasing the pig all the way up. I'm in full-blown foot pursuit. I'm on the phone calling dispatch, like, hey, I got a big old pig. So we run up to the soup in it and they are having swim practice. Uh, they use the pool there for the both the high school uh teams were using, so this soup in it and I think the crossfit gym was going on.
Speaker 3:So you have, I don't know, there's probably 50 cars in the circle, plus there's some other businesses up there and it's circled and I'm like, oh, my gosh. So I chase the pig, I corner it and I'm like, oh, I'm like too close, too close. So I back out and I chase it a little bit farther. By this time Matt and I think Justin Hopkins get up there and we get down there close to your house, to the shelter house, and it turns sideways and and pees and I just bust it. You know, dropped it. I was like mountain, you know. I just I had there's a picture of me posed over top of it like I got the pig. You know I was uh, but uh, you know I was like, oh my gosh. So it took, it took four of us to load it on the back of this guy's truck. I wish I'd have kept it, but Rick was like, hey man, there's this guy that takes all our deer, all this stuff, and he's feeding family, so I was like yeah give it to him.
Speaker 1:So we gave it to him.
Speaker 3:But it took four of us to load this sow.
Speaker 4:She was a monster and throughout the years we'd get complaints. You know sightings, you know here it's attacking my dog, or hey, this is in my yard, yeah. I took it down Years and years and finally he sees the notorious PIG.
Speaker 3:Worst part, the owner of the property, our good friend Jim. He comes to me later. He said man, there was some wild pig farmer up there chasing his pigs around and shot it right up there in front of everybody. You know that they put those kids in lockdown when they saw me running around which I wasn't in uniform. And here I am, slung chasing a pig around and I freaked all them parents out.
Speaker 2:I was like I could see that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that was me, I was a sailor one time. After a pig, some crazy farm pig farmer chases, wildlife period, uh, but I I got. I mean we've blessed their hearts. It's just not safe to have. I mean it's not our fault, you know, but things just happen because we have major roads, yeah, and I couldn't imagine At one time we had two running stockyards. Yeah.
Speaker 4:And I mean you're talking about 1,500-pound bulls getting out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and cars just.
Speaker 4:T-boning them. We've had it. We had a fatal one time from a horse. Yeah, you know just things like that.
Speaker 3:That was the yeah.
Speaker 4:CSX. One time I think I was on the phone with every uh big wheel of CSX from Pennsylvania or something like that for one night. Uh cow got loose and it was already on 4th street. Come off 4th Street, went up Roosevelt Street, cars missing and all that good stuff. Well, it gets on the train tracks.
Speaker 2:So, now you're having to stop trains and try to get them.
Speaker 4:yeah, Anyway, dispatch is on the phone with CSX trying to get the train stopped, and I'm in the area. So I pull up on the overpass Hal Rogers and the railroad tracks and this train stops right on the overpass Hal Rogers and the railroad tracks. And this train stops right underneath the overpass and it's got that big floodlight and it's lighting up all the way down the tracks back towards 4th Street. Well, in the middle of the tracks I see this calf coming I'm talking it's probably about a two-year-old big black as midnight and it's walking up the tracks. At the time we didn't have rifles, I had a Mossberg 590, and it had rifle sights on it. So I lean up on the overpass and I wait for this calf to come off the tracks and step. You know what are you going to do if I drop it right in the middle of the tracks.
Speaker 3:How are we going?
Speaker 4:to move that. So I wait for it to get off the tracks and as soon as it starts going up the hill back onto the roadway, I drop it. And about that time I look down and the engineer of the train is looking back up at me and I wave at him, I put my shotgun back in the trunk, I give a disposition to dispatch. You know, hey, it's there on the side of train tracks. If someone wants to get it, let the stock sales know and I leave.
Speaker 4:About an hour later they're calling for a city supervisor, which I supervisor that night. They're like, uh, I think I think my unit number was like 8, 15 at the time or 815 called dispatch, all right. And they're like uh, we've got senior engineer, we've got the director of such and such with csx and somebody else on the phone wanting to talk to a supervisor. And I'm like, yeah, okay, so this big wig from pennsylvania, like we want to know why the officer put my engineer's life in danger for shooting from an overpass. And I was like, oh no, you mean to tell me this guy's sitting in a 100-ton train and he's working.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God.
Speaker 4:He said you scared my engineer to death.
Speaker 3:Man, those guys go through stuff. It's on telling what they say and they're going to be afraid of that.
Speaker 4:But I had to convince them at no time was there engineering danger of me shooting from the overpass that public safety was more at risk if that thing got back on Hal Rogers Parkway. And it dark and that thing midnight black. It would have been a 46 for sure, oh yeah, but you know, know, you just never you had to do what you had to do whenever they got loose like that.
Speaker 3:So yeah, I've chased, bull me and me and eric wilkerson and ryan jackson chased one and it got over to. I mean it ran all over and we got up in South Laurel High School's press box on top and was ready to from a high elevated position To go to work.
Speaker 3:Yeah, going to work up there, but luckily, I think, a ground. Somebody on the ground was able to take it out, but it's scary. It's a traffic hazard and it's not our fault. We don't want to do that. It's just part of the job sometimes, because I've seen what they've done when a horse got flipped over and landed inside the back of a car. It's just dangerous, it's scary. So it's really, really scary stuff. What else you got for us so?
Speaker 4:it's really, really scary stuff. What else you got for us? Uh, you'll have to. What's some things that you've heard? Maybe the statute of limitations out of it.
Speaker 3:I'm scared so you're working. You work with me now again doing school stuff, and then also also you do a little part-time stuff up in the big rock where Doug was at Rock cast.
Speaker 4:And you know, that's kind of funny because it seems like throughout my whole career I never could get away from Doug Thomas.
Speaker 3:He's just following it goes where it goes. I love him to death.
Speaker 4:I love Bubba but yeah, I got out of law enforcement for about two years and I was managing a gun store local gun shop here and we have an indoor range where law enforcement come and shoot. They qualify, you know. They can be indoors where they're not laying in the mud or spitting snow and all that stuff Perfect.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's nice Great great range and Rock Castle come in one time and we knew the chief deputy that works up there. He used to work at London PD and he's like, hey, what are you doing? I'm working here, he goes. Well, if you ever want part-time or whatever, come up and talk to the sheriff. Well, we could use you. You know part-time or whatever, come up and talk to the sheriff, well, we could use you. I'm like I'll think about it and um, ended up piquing my curiosity and I missed it. You know, you missed your camaraderie, law enforcement and all that stuff.
Speaker 1:So I was like yeah, okay, I'll go back.
Speaker 4:I'll work, you know, one or two days a week, nothing. Get my certification back up and in service and all that and ended up. I think maybe may this coming may will be two years I've been there, so it's a good place.
Speaker 3:It's a rock yeah it's laid back.
Speaker 4:Sometimes I'm the only you know I'm back in the summer. I'd I'd be the only unit out, you know sometimes yeah, they were struggling for guys for a little while.
Speaker 2:The people up there are so good.
Speaker 3:They really like law enforcement. Still up there, they're really good people.
Speaker 4:So I say it's 20 years behind. And it's not really 20 years behind, it's just their tax base is not what london is. So it's it's different for like me and t-dot to go up there and work, because we come from an agency that had like a three million dollar operating budget and I go to an agency that has like a five hundred thousand dollar operating budget. So things are a little different, you learn to do with that.
Speaker 2:Some stuff in london, I mean going to in-service.
Speaker 3:We never lacked for nothing.
Speaker 2:Going to in-service or going to? The academy with some of those other agencies. They're like it must be nice.
Speaker 4:But you go to another agency that doesn't have that tax base to afford the luxuries and it's an eye-opener.
Speaker 2:It would be like us going up to Boone County or something like that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's a but the people are so good.
Speaker 3:Danville shocked me how much more their tax base, their budget, was so much higher than London's. I was like, wow, I thought I came from a rich department. You got that.
Speaker 4:But the people are great, you know. They sit on the front porch and wave at you. They stop, they speak to you.
Speaker 2:They don't flip you the bird they wave. Still one of those good old countries. Yeah, they're good.
Speaker 4:I like policing up there. That's good. I remember hearing stories Doug would tell us at night about Pongo and places like that Is he from a little area called Pongo. It's the Pongo Mongrel right there he is. But I would drive through these areas and I would reminisce about stories Doug would tell me about, like Copper Creek and places like that, and I'd go see them firsthand and be like you know what Doug was right this place is wild yeah.
Speaker 1:The Little World's Fair up in.
Speaker 3:The police in the fair is great.
Speaker 4:The people are great.
Speaker 3:Broadhead's got the Little World's Fair Little World and some of the best little restaurants.
Speaker 4:Marcella's oh man, Marcella's is great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I enjoyed working up there until you pee your pants. Well, you know, I'm seeing a pattern of you having to change underwear and pants. A lot you may be giving.
Speaker 4:Daryl Zanet a run for your money. Daryl Zanet's a number two man. He's a two man, I'm a one man. I mean Daryl Zanet is known for stopping on the side, finding a cooler on the side of the road and using it as a throne and leaving it lay. I mean that's a good story.
Speaker 3:We're going to have to have him on and tell some Army stories with him as well.
Speaker 2:He's the only man I know that carries a pocket knife strictly so that he can cut his underwear off, so you wedded yourself in.
Speaker 3:Rock Castle. All right, so I've debated we even talked about this story whether I should tell it this early or wait until we had people. But here I am.
Speaker 1:We may cut it, we may not.
Speaker 3:So I had just finished a shift at schools as a school resource officer up there for the rock castle county work for mount vernon. They were shorthanded, needing um, so I so I volunteered. I was like hey, it's getting ready to be thanksgiving. So this is like one year ago. This ain't like early in my career, I'm saying. So. I'm like okay, I'll stay over four hours in between the night shift guy getting in, so I go.
Speaker 3:It was a juvenile call. I was like, oh how, how convenient the school police dealing with juvenile. So they're honey, it's so cold. It was a cold day, it was like right before Thanksgiving or right after Thanksgiving and so this little girl had run off mad at her mommy Typical stuff. She ran out barefooted or sock-footed, it was cold, and she ran about a mile away and social service you know, I called for social services come up there. It's mommy didn't want. She didn't want to talk to mom, all the whole thing, what it takes. Well, when I left the school to that call, I was like I need to run to the bathroom, I had to go pee, but I was was like I better go get this. Everybody's kind of looking as this progresses from a simple should take about 15 minutes to about a two hour call.
Speaker 1:I'm floating man. My eyeballs are floating.
Speaker 4:We've been there.
Speaker 3:So I take off as soon as I clear the call. I'm like I gotta go. I don't say bye to nobody. I'm dead hammered, going down towards the PD from we was on Richmond Street and heading back.
Speaker 4:Did you have cold chills yet?
Speaker 3:Listen, I was in a bad spot. Oh yeah. So if you know the PD, and I told the chief and assistant chief so they know why the police department is so clean the next day I keep making down my car man, I start peeing on myself and I'm trying to get in the back door. I can't remember the code at this point and I'm still going. I'm peeing all over. I mean, I had to throw my boots away. I ruined them, Socks, everything. I go in there. Was there a?
Speaker 4:point where you was maybe just turning that door handle and you're like I'm just going to let it go.
Speaker 2:Yeah At this point.
Speaker 4:I was in a pure panic Flow baby flow.
Speaker 3:I had to reach down like I was trying to cap stuff off man. I had to reach down like I was trying to cap stuff off man. I'm like this is not good. I peed all over the walls in that bathroom, in that shower. That they got in there, that's awesome. So I mopped for like 30 minutes. So then I'm trying to dry myself and then you know, I smelled like a dang nursing home afterwards. I was like oh my God. I called my wife. I'm like where you at, I'm not home. What'd you do?
Speaker 4:I peed all on myself again, but I was like, oh my gosh, what is wrong with me.
Speaker 1:I'm like I'm retiring.
Speaker 3:I've got you trained finally. That's another story of our other days. But I had, I had, you know I, that was the worst like embarrassing. Luckily I had on black pants and you know I, I was just like, but I did, I smelled like a nurse and it's cold.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was like you know you're trying to. You know I cleaned up great. You know everything was squared away and I told, I told uh, brian, I was like, dear chief, yeah, I was like if you notice that the uh, if you notice the bathroom's extra clean, it's for a reason. Sorry about that smell, what's this?
Speaker 2:pee stained memo on my door so well, you gotta go you gotta go.
Speaker 4:We've all been there. How many times the belt keepers start at the door and it's always that you've got to pee or something You've got to use the bathroom.
Speaker 2:That call comes in. This won't take 10 minutes.
Speaker 3:I'm retired at this point. Imagine this I didn't have to even be there, I'm peeing myself.
Speaker 4:Now I work in a building where there's like 600-something kids in there and 40, 50 teachers, adults, all that stuff. There's not a private bathroom, nowhere.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 4:And it takes a good 15 minutes to put our garb back together, and so you try going in a public school. It's terrible. As soon as you get it off, you hear oh yeah. And then it's like oh my God. I'm going to be at least another 10 minutes getting this uniform back on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not only that, it's trying to find somewhere to hang everything up or throw it on the floor.
Speaker 3:I'll tell you another funny story about bathrooms. It's just we were painting, so we were early in our career. We was home from Thanksgiving break or Christmas break Academy, Academy.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, you were doing the dirty work, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Me, danny Robinson and Eric Staller.
Speaker 4:So we're getting busy. What he's talking about is like if you're in the academy and there's a break, say like Christmas Thanksgiving, something like that where they close down the academy, like Christmas Thanksgiving, something like that where they close down the academy, they send recruits back home and the department can't really use you. You're worthless, but they have to make up their hours so the only thing the PD can do with these guys is maintenance or janitor work or washing cars. You're doing everything that nobody else has time to do Cleaning teddy bears.
Speaker 4:That's weird stuff.
Speaker 3:So you guys were painting, so we're painting and a lieutenant walks in and me and Danny and Eric were sitting back there. He said you boys know what marijuana smells. Like you boys like. Mexico. We's nodding. You can hear our little pea brains, little marbles in our head rattling. Oh yeah, we know what marijuana smells. Like he said, I think somebody smoked marijuana in that bathroom right up there. What we didn't know is he just exploded and so we go in there.
Speaker 3:This sounds like hump we go in there and open, rip, open that door and take the biggest you know inhale sniff that you could.
Speaker 1:And it's like death in there man that was rotted. Oh yeah, I was like what Back in those days, it had to have been smaller.
Speaker 3:He didn't even stick around for the he did not stick around for the punchline man. He'd already gotten his car and left. Here we go out on the back and we was like gagging. I was like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 4:What are we doing? He was before my time.
Speaker 2:He was notorious he was known for peeling paint.
Speaker 3:He got us good. You boys know how to you know what marijuana smells like. But I couldn't believe he didn't stick around just to see it.
Speaker 2:Oh, he knew. He probably done that so many times. He knew what the reaction was going to be.
Speaker 4:Oh, he got it. I'll tell you one more story, if we got time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we got it.
Speaker 4:And this is me and Doug Thomas. We went from the funny to kind of the spooky. This was the flat-out weird, the weirdest complaint, and I think you might have been on it too.
Speaker 3:I'm sure I was, if it was something weird.
Speaker 4:We get a complaint one night. Rebecca Lane, nice house, older couple just talking out of their head. I don't remember what they said to dispatch but I remember it was weird enough to where dispatch is hollering at city units to go check on the. You know it was a suspicious not really a suspicious person complaint.
Speaker 2:Kind of like a welfare check.
Speaker 4:Welfare check. Yeah, exactly. And me and Doug get there and we start talking to this female. She's probably maybe in her 60s. I mean, you wouldn't not like when I think of old dementia like 80s, 90s, no, not like that. She's in her 60s, so she should be a sound mind, is what I'm thinking to myself as an officer there.
Speaker 2:Early onset maybe.
Speaker 4:Right, yeah, and we start talking to her and she's making absolutely no sense, like her sentences are not just not coherent. I mean she orange fudgesicle in the refrigerator, you're like what? You know, that kind of stuff. So we make our way into the house and the husband's there and he's busy looking for something and we're like, hey, sir, can you care to talk to us? What's going on? Well, he's talking the same way she is.
Speaker 3:What? Yeah, that's weird going I don't know, gas leak.
Speaker 4:So we don't know yet. This is the first initial like introduction to him and we have two people here. None of them is making any sense. You can't smell alcohol, the house smells like bleach and it's spotless. I mean like real nice house, nice furniture, that kind of situation.
Speaker 2:No indicators or anything.
Speaker 4:Nothing, no paraphernalia, I mean. There's not like a crackpot laying on the end table kind of thing. There's nothing like that. And they're clean. They've got good hygiene, because most time we see we go into these houses and you've got somebody's on meth or something and poor hygiene. Yeah, nothing like that. But they're not making no sense whatsoever and they can't help us. They can't tell like, uh, do you have any family that lives next next door to you, or do you have any family in london that we? Or do you have any family in London that?
Speaker 4:we can call, we can't get nothing. So we start rifling through like paperwork to find numbers on it, and we've called four or five people. We've even done like we've had dispatch run priors to see if anybody's called from this residence, and all that stuff. Finally, I think we find a distant relative that says they don't normally act that way. So that made it even worse and we start looking for gas leaks, we start looking for medication. I mean, what do we do with these two people? This is the first time I'd ever been to that house, the first time Doug Thomas had ever been to that house, according to him, and these people are just it was the weirdest thing ever. So the only thing that we could do was call for an ambulance. Ambulance gets there. Blood pressure's fine, Heart rate's fine.
Speaker 2:Sugar's fine.
Speaker 4:Sugar's fine, don't have no clue.
Speaker 3:But you got both of them are acting yeah.
Speaker 4:That's weird, like out of this world weird, okay, like they tried talking to each other and me and doug can't understand them and it was just the weirdest complaint, one of the weirdest complaints I think I'd ever been on. They ended up getting transported to the hospital, um, and by this time it was it was early, so the first shift was fixing to come on. I mean, I think we dealt with them for a couple hours and they never got no better.
Speaker 2:No resolution.
Speaker 4:They never got worse, they just that was the weirdest complaint. I mean, they look physically healthy.
Speaker 3:I watched a movie like that about like sundowners type stuff or something it was similar, but usually with people with Alzheimer's.
Speaker 4:They could make complete sentences that made sense this was like gibberish to one another, and whenever they did talk it was like a person thinking out loud. If that made sense Both of them were thinking out loud, but it didn't make sense to me and doug huh and they would talk to each other and we'd ask you know hey, have you mixed bleach and ammonia together?
Speaker 4:hey, have you mixed this cleaning component to this cleaning? And they couldn't, I mean they couldn't make heads or tails, I guess what me and doug was asking them did I never forget that some of the most unexplained, weirdest stuff that you could ever, but that's, I've never heard that story.
Speaker 3:That's. That's kind of freaky man. We deal with so many things and we've seen so many things and, um, it affects your mental health. You're trying, I mean that that bothers you. I mean I've seen things that I still close my eyes, yeah, and you're like and I'm sure you do too, dylan, but you know we obviously we've all dealt with PTS, for if you do this job, you're going to deal Cops. Don't get that. What do you mean?
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm happily yeah.
Speaker 3:I happily admit that I've. You know, when I got into some counseling and started doing some therapy through the academy and things and doing some of the EMDR stuff, that they put the paddles, that stuff helps.
Speaker 1:That was shock therapy. Yeah, shock therapy. I think I had a lobotomy.
Speaker 4:You had some beers. I had some bad stuff.
Speaker 3:But I really all of us need to make sure that our mental health is because that stuff is going to. You're going to always wonder what the heck happened there and we've been to these calls and everything and you're like man, what's the outcome of this? And you'll never know. You'll never know while you're talking to somebody one second and then they die.
Speaker 4:I would have to ask Doug. I mean, maybe Doug remembers what had come about him, but I know he remembers the complaint because it was. I mean, we were baffled, we was like Jesus and we couldn't put it together. We was like what is wrong with these people? It was like there was something in the house that made them go crazy together at the same time. And she said that she had what. What we could make out of. It was she had been cleaning all day because I mean, the house was the only thing that would make sense is the combination of house cleaners and chemicals that's what we was thinking, but we couldn't decipher that from her, we couldn't decipher that from him.
Speaker 4:And there was there was no way to get a hold of anybody that knew their norm until later, like an hour or so later, we get a hold of somebody. It's like no, they're normal people, they talk normal, they have no, no medical issues that we know of. But yeah, we'd have to follow up with doug see, see what come of that, because it's great.
Speaker 3:I mean, it's just scary.
Speaker 4:But you're right, we do see some sad stuff and some bad stuff.
Speaker 3:Always with kids, always tormenting me. And then, anytime you deal with, you know, the elderly, I remember getting calls of like guys driving down from Michigan, yeah, you know, and sitting with them all night. They just got in a car. I remember me and Joe dealt with a guy that drove all the way from New Mexico or Arizona. Yeah, and they were like no, he's fine. And then an hour later, because we called we were wanting to report him missing, well, he's southbound, I don't know, you know.
Speaker 2:I feel bad. We had no reason to hold him. Yeah, he seemed fine and that's the kind of thing that would happen a lot with Alzheimer's.
Speaker 4:Yeah and it's sad, and then you run into pure evil too. We've seen some absolute evil.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's it's the evilness you kind of. You know you're doing a job. That evilness can happen, but man, you know it still affects you, oh yeah.
Speaker 4:And I was listening to one of job at. Evilness can happen, but man, you know it still don't? It still affects you, oh yeah. And I was listening to the one of the last episodes and he was talking about how you'd go home and talk to lisa. I never did do that like my wife would ask me like hey, how was your day at work? This, and that I'm like man, it's work, people are. If so, I think you have to talk to someone that can relate to it it is.
Speaker 2:It is much easier.
Speaker 4:Yeah, because if I told her about stuff she would think, for one I'd be crazy, yeah. Or two it would. She'd be afraid of me, yeah. Or it would be kind of a situation where it's like, uh, you need to go see some real help, kind of stuff. So I never did. I was afraid she wouldn't understand it. And if I spoke about it at the time that you know it was fresh, I didn't want to relive it, I didn't want to talk about it. So you'd compartmentalize it, you'd put it away, and it never did.
Speaker 3:Sometimes it will resurface one day, yeah if you don't, there's only so much that we can hold in there. So what I taught to Lisa, which she knew me before I became an officer, so she kind of knew I was like we're going into this as a partnership and I told her. I said not only did you retire or I retire, you also retired with me. So I made sure you know. I said you put in 20-plus years with me, you've seen the ups and downs of my emotions and I don't have that poker face. So I would come home and be like you know not everything, there's some things that we just couldn't talk about. But there was things that if I was bothered I would be like, ah, this is going on. Now. She would probably say you didn't talk to me enough, but she didn't need to know some of the things and I did. I compartmentalized way too much and that spilled out when I started doing some therapy, yeah, and I was able to get some stuff off.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I was able to get some stuff off. My family would find out about it, like on the news or something. Yeah, like, oh, you did that.
Speaker 1:Wait, you did that what?
Speaker 3:Yeah, but I recommend I think every one of us should make sure that Absolutely After I mean hot washes and talking about it after but this podcast to me is the most therapeutic thing that I've done, um in a long time and it wasn't because I wanted to tell my story all the time. Who cares about? There's only so much I can do, but to bring you on and other guests to you know, just talk about things and just have some fun and feel that and feel like we're, we're back you, we're getting along in the tooth and we're back For retired guys, that camaraderie gets lost.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if you ever notice.
Speaker 2:People keep in touch with you for a little bit.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you've got about 30 days, honestly Maybe, and then there's, like we've seen it whenever we work there, If you noticed, about every three to five years there's a big turnover yeah, I don't know anybody in supervisor structures and administration about three to five years. There's a rollover internally. Yeah, when you're outside looking in, it seems like every two years like we don't know anybody at the pd.
Speaker 3:It's been two years since I retired it's like who are these cats?
Speaker 4:I mean, you kind of know them, or they might have come from a county close to us or something like that.
Speaker 1:Heard of them.
Speaker 4:I don't know and they don't know. You no, and you want to talk about an ego killer whenever you get pulled over? Yeah.
Speaker 3:They're like who are you? Yeah, You're nobody. Why are you speeding? I remember, you know, I think back I was in the Marines and the Army and stuff. The veterans have a really good you know, either with the Legion or DAVs or the veterans, just VA in general, All these little groups that they can go and hang out and talk about their stories.
Speaker 3:Man police just don't do that enough. And it would be. It's like even though and it was described to me, you know, when I was in the military if you got deployed and you went and did a mission or you went to war or whatever, you would come back back to your home base, start the you know vacations and then start the training cycle again. Every time we put on our vest, our gun belt, we were deployed that day. Oh yeah, so we had 20-plus years of deployment, even though it was right here at our home, but we were putting on that and wearing that and taking on that stress and that mindset all the time.
Speaker 4:You can't take away from the Warriors, but you got to look. Most soldiers do four six-year stint. You got police officers that they might not see firefights all the time, but they see guts gore. Trauma like emotional trauma, nothing like seeing a dead child.
Speaker 3:You'll never forget that, and soldiers will experience a lot oh that was not to take away I'm just saying they have great, they have really good groups that they can come back when they get out. Police don't have nothing like that. They take care of their people afterwards.
Speaker 4:Police go through, not the combat trauma that soldiers come through, but just the day-to-day hypervigilance and the things, that kind of emotional trauma, that psychological trauma that puts on you and there's nothing out there for that. As a matter of fact, it's a stigma for a cop, because the first thing that they worry about oh, they're going to take my gun.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's the first thing, Turn your badge and your gun in Me saying this and I still wear a badge and gun Me openly saying it. I go to counseling in PTSD. I can walk out, I'm retired if they come and take it, but it does me openly admitting that I have some issues that I've went through. It's tough for me but I think every cop needs to deal with it. Absolutely, Absolutely.
Speaker 4:And we was trained you could say that's kind of me and T-Dot. We was trained that that comes from the leadership down kind of a deal to where now we're starting to see DLCJT offering these stress and wellness classes and it's starting to get recognized that, hey, our cops need some help here too with mental struggles and stuff.
Speaker 2:I'd like to get Barry on here at some point in time and let him talk about that program.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because he's got some great stories too.
Speaker 4:We'll have to have yeah, so it's starting to get momentum, like the veterans get with their PTSD and their struggles. It's starting to get some momentum in the law enforcement community, not just law enforcement.
Speaker 3:Fire. Yeah, first responders, any kind of first responders.
Speaker 4:There's some ambulance and dispatchers that have just not –'s went because you gotta think if there's guts and gore, there's, there's ambulance and fire right there with you and ambulance services a whole lot more yeah patients lost. I mean, you know, I mean we, we'll see it on the scene, but as soon as it's loaded up into that buggy on the way to the hospital I have literally handed a neom s worker a foot before and said hey, you might need this, need this, you know, from a car wreck.
Speaker 3:Sure have, it's just some. It's tough and they've seen worse and we've seen some crazy stuff. I think our big thing the difference is, you know, we also have to. We are we're going in first to clear for amulet stuff. So we've had the fights and the craziness that goes with that and it's just a tough. Just first responders in general is one of the. It's just so hard.
Speaker 2:And recruiting and getting good folks now man, and because you're the one that's to try and put it this way you're the one that's there to help the people who are in crisis. You're not allowed to be in crisis. So you can't be vulnerable while somebody else is being vulnerable.
Speaker 4:So when do you get to be vulnerable and deal with these things and another downfall to it becoming so public about issues with first responders and mental health and all that is. There's a lot of people not willing to do the job no more. And like old guys, like us, we can go about anywhere and work. I mean because the certifications that we have, the experience and all that these younger generation guys are like, why would I put myself?
Speaker 3:through that. Yeah, if you want to go back into it right now, dylan, you could go, they're throwing money.
Speaker 3:It's not hard for I don't blame you, I get it and I'm saying keep an open mind with it. But I mean, I get where you're at and you've served your time and done your thing. I just, I would like to see just something for the because you don't want to see. And I saw this firsthand and I've experienced it firsthand and I know all of us have. It's like that door, when it closes, you're like ah, and there was a void. I don't know.
Speaker 4:It felt like 1,000 pounds lifted off of me.
Speaker 3:It took a hot minute.
Speaker 2:People ask me all the time do you miss it?
Speaker 4:I said no, you miss the guys, I miss the guys, I miss the camaraderie.
Speaker 2:The job was fun at one time, until it wasn't.
Speaker 4:I got to a point in my career where, well, I was administration by then, but if I heard a pursuit used to, I mean you'd get the adrenaline dump, you'd get the excitement. You'd be like woo-hoo. I got to the point in my career where that didn't sound fun, that sounded horrible. That sounded like, oh my God, there's lawyers chasing the pursuit.
Speaker 2:I mean it got terrible when you start going to calls and hearing calls and the first thing you think of is how much paperwork that's going to be. It's time to do something.
Speaker 4:You're not doing a service. No, you're not doing what you're supposed to.
Speaker 2:You're clinging on at that point. You're burnt out and it's time for a change and not only for guys that's retired or out of it.
Speaker 4:I mean these guys once you get about 10 years on. I think you need Some kind of transition. Some kind of so like we went to the Sergeant's Academy to make better leaders. There needs to be some kind of program that DOCJT does or state police or somebody does about that burnout mark about 10 years, not stress and wellness, but there should be some kind of mandatory, maybe a two-week course.
Speaker 3:Almost like a sabbatical too.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and it's not like hardcore training stuff. It's let these guys get together, let them bond, let them work some stuff out and then teach them some kind of coping skills for about two weeks.
Speaker 3:Worst thing in the world is not knowing what to do with your emotions sometimes and following them away because they will.
Speaker 4:Guys, get burned out doing stuff the same thing. There's no such thing as a routine traffic stop, but there is. In a way, you make 500 million traffic stops, so to say, in your career. You pull the car over the same way, you get out of the car the same way, you approach the same way. That gets monotonous and boring after a while.
Speaker 2:Same spiel. For the most part Same spiel.
Speaker 4:It's the reactions that's not routine of the driver. That's not routine.
Speaker 2:I would say any call you go to it's all the same calls all the same thing. How you handle it is different, Same people sometimes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's who we're dealing with. That dictates the call. You know, little changes here and there, because I don't want to change my if I feel, until you maybe get complacent and stuff, but if I know, okay, this works for me. I'm going to do that because I can see this. Blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 4:But the person we're dealing with is what dictates what happens next and we try to be problem solvers, so there's nothing worse than going back to the same house for the same complaint, dealing with the same people. Yeah, you feel like you're on a. Hey, listen, I thought the first time I was here I'd done really good. You two ain't going to fight and squabble, no more.
Speaker 1:And then a week later, I thought we worked this out.
Speaker 3:Yeah a week later back same problem Hamster wheel of just.
Speaker 4:And that just gets so frustrating, it does.
Speaker 3:It's frustrating. I've never had a job that has given me more satisfaction and frustrated me at the same time. But well, we'll stop it right here. I've had an absolute blast. We want you to come back as many times and often as you want.
Speaker 4:I know you've got a lot more stories to tell, but we'll get after it. You'll have to get me and Doug on here squabbling. I think we do.
Speaker 3:We need to get Doug talking about some UK basketball games near fights at the PDs.
Speaker 2:See if we can get him to start going gah gah, so you know, what he says Jesse's call sign.
Speaker 4:Give the mouse a cookie.
Speaker 3:Everybody had call signs, jesse's. You know he was Hesco, hesco, he was the Hesco. So we really enjoyed having you on here tonight, jesse, and you're always welcome.
Speaker 1:Always welcome to come back anytime. Thank you, appreciate it. Catch you on the next one. We'll see you next time.