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
Swift Water, Sweet Mullets, and a Leap of Faith
Join us for an entertaining episode of "Just Out of Jurisdiction" as we reconnect with our old friend Gary Proffitt, fondly known as Little G. Our friendship dates back to the first grade, and we share a treasure trove of childhood memories, including sports antics and, yes, those unforgettable mullets from our school days. Little G opens up about his intriguing path to law enforcement, starting with ride-alongs that ignited his passion for policing. With plenty of laughs and nostalgia, we revisit the carefree days and hairstyles of our youth, blending humor with heartfelt reflections.
Our night shift antics and unexpected animal encounters are sure to keep you entertained, as we recount quirky stories of runaway goats, stubborn deer, and midnight pranks. These anecdotes underscore the strong bonds formed during those long shifts, where humor and unpredictability are part of the job. Through tales of camaraderie, leadership dynamics, and even a dramatic DUI incident, we illustrate the thrilling and often amusing reality of life in law enforcement. So, buckle up for a wild ride through our shared experiences and the friendships that make it all worthwhile.
Blue lights from the dead of the night, lying low to run a 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.
Speaker 2:Left during the conviction that will kick it off on it.
Speaker 3:That's too much.
Speaker 4:That's sensitivity.
Speaker 3:Yep, Well, it's that setting that if anything like if you were to sneeze or something, it cuts your bike out.
Speaker 2:Oh, that noise. Cancellation bill.
Speaker 3:I kind of like that so we, we should be good if I rip one right here, it's, we're good I'll catch every bit of it, not enough decibels.
Speaker 4:You've not heard what's going on. And then my nether regions the kind that comes out and
Speaker 2:crawls around the backside and leaks out. That's the worst.
Speaker 4:It just you ever felt those ones like roll up your?
Speaker 2:butt the bubbles, roll up your butt cheek. How did this happen? I can't hear.
Speaker 3:It doesn't matter how old you are. Farts will never not be funny.
Speaker 4:It's like how's that still just you can feel it. It's like rolling around like a marble, it kind of tickles. I like it, oh Lord.
Speaker 3:All right, welcome back to another episode of Just Out of Jurisdiction. Hope everybody's had a Merry Christmas. We're back from the holidays here. We still got New Year's coming up, so hope everybody is geared up for that and ready for a good New Year's. New you all your weight loss resolutions and all that good stuff We've got. Our guest today is Gary Proffitt stuff we've got. Uh, our guest today is gary prophet. He's, uh, he's, he's a special, a special man in our lives he is the little g.
Speaker 3:Call the little g. I've known little g since he was actually taller than me.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you were still single digit, I think in age yeah uh going back further than that, me and gary's known each other since first grade, kindergarten first grade first grade is when we moved to laurel county.
Speaker 2:So like 42 years now, or something we've known each other.
Speaker 3:Yeah to the swiss and just like everybody else, you abandoned me for the east burnston.
Speaker 4:Yeah, traitor wasn't my fault. Well, yeah, but so yeah, me and g's know each other since first grade.
Speaker 2:So hey, 41, 42 years right at 42 years.
Speaker 4:Golly god, y'all are old, almost double it's slash's existence so we played, you know, ball together, football and stuff in middle school and high school.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Not to give a rage, but it was junior high then. It wasn't middle school.
Speaker 3:That's back when G had hair. G did have hair.
Speaker 2:You should have seen it and it was luscious, I've got pictures.
Speaker 4:Luscious I had a mullet, that's for sure. His dog grew down his back and on his luscious, very nice goatee.
Speaker 3:He's got going on right now Dog the bounty hunter would be jealous of his mullet back then it was. It was a good one.
Speaker 4:Listen. I went back in our yearbook, our graduating year. It was 50-50, mullets to not mullets.
Speaker 3:I had a mullet when I was in elementary school, but now the mullets are back In the 90s.
Speaker 4:They do the shaved off side stuff.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, and it still looks just as terrible now as it did, I agree.
Speaker 2:It does, but you know.
Speaker 3:It's the truth. Transitional speaking.
Speaker 2:It blends in wherever you happen to be. It's a party.
Speaker 4:It's a business up front, a party in the background.
Speaker 3:Is that what they said? Absolutely.
Speaker 2:If I let my hair grow out now, it would kind of be the reverse, kind of like Gallagher the comedian you would do the skull. It would all grow out on the side. Yeah, yeah, yours would be the skull.
Speaker 4:Look like those other clowns. It'll grow on the sides but not the top. I like that.
Speaker 2:That'd be good, you know, one of these days you can perm that out.
Speaker 2:Some girl going on be a bird's nest, it's like it wasn't giant eggs sitting right in the middle, oh my gosh. So so tell us when you started policing and how that all started. When I was uh going to eastern uh, they had a uh which you know. It kind of worked out, but they had a class that you could take. That was a co-op class and you could get up to 15 hours of college credit and all I had to do was do a ride-along with an agency. So I started, they did uh. I started riding uh at the on lake detail with abby.
Speaker 4:Hell, no more gosh, I'd love to have abby we gotta, we gotta reach out, I'm sure.
Speaker 2:So, Abby, if you're listening, I appreciate the interesting things we happened upon and I think we've mentioned he and she in several episodes.
Speaker 3:I'm pretty sure that Abby Hale is the master of catching people. He and she, there was a lot of that that went on down there.
Speaker 2:So between that and the cooler full of beverages and a sack full of nabs he kept in the trunk of his cruiser, uh we, we had a pretty good time. So when I turned uh 21, I was super stoked. I walked into gene holland's office and said sheriff, I'm 21. And he filled out the little card, said go see the county judge. He swore an in and it went from there.
Speaker 3:So you know that's a lot easier back then.
Speaker 4:So you started off card carrying and riding around.
Speaker 2:I was pre-POPS, so when I first got hired I had my POP certificate, because that wasn't required. What's POP? Police Officer Professional Standards? So?
Speaker 3:that's what Kentucky is PT tests and all that Psychological, psychological.
Speaker 2:But now when I quit the sheriff's office and got hired at the PD, then I was no longer grandfathered, so I had to pass all that stuff, but I was a 100-pound lighter back then I'm not sure how he passed that question that says does fire arouse you?
Speaker 4:Well, you know, know, as long as you're consistent, they're looking for consistency yeah every time, if you say, if you answer it the same way every time.
Speaker 2:I didn't, yeah, okay, yeah it was yeah yeah so I actually got sworn in and uh on, actually on halloween day of uh 1997, now were you you were at the rescue squad Actually on Halloween Day of 1997.
Speaker 3:Now you were at the rescue squad, I was. You were doing that too, yes.
Speaker 2:Because I started on the rescue squad and fire department, probably in 95, I guess, is when I started on the fire department and a year or two later I started doing rescue squad squad stuff a lot of people in this area, in this community.
Speaker 3:That's how I mean. Once you try one first responder thing, you do end up going to all of them.
Speaker 4:No, I didn't either, but I was. But I had. There was reasons.
Speaker 2:I Blood and death grossed me out, so I didn't want to be on rescue squad Drownings Right and fire is hot and I was like, ooh, I'll say it, and I lived that too and I lived my whole life. My first bicycle that I got when I was five had a shield that went between the handlebars and said police on it. That went between the handlebars and said police on it. So when it was that age of okay, I need to pick a career and I need to do something, I chose to do law enforcement for the career side and for the longest time I continued to do the firefighting stuff on the volunteer side, because I liked all of it, but you could only pick one.
Speaker 3:You could only get paid for one of them.
Speaker 2:Well and then, and had I known me and you know, airport Police or something like that, you kind of get to do all of it and you know, maybe if I would have had to do well, had it to do over, maybe I would have kind of yeah, that's a good point, because when you start looking into law enforcement for anybody that's listening out there that has you know maybe they're thinking about going into it.
Speaker 3:It's a great profession. I would vet your agency that you want to go to heavily before you commit, though, but also don't get tunnel vision on just patrol. There's way more things out there and there's higher ceilings for you than that, like airport police, or. I had a buddy that he worked at louisville metro. He now works in indiana at some agency, I'm not sure, but in between his transition from louisville metro to the agency he's with now, he worked as a bomb canine handler for one of the Amazon hubs up there. It was a contract job but he loved it.
Speaker 2:I always wanted to do bomb technician stuff and I just really wanted to wear one of them T-shirts that says I'm a bomb technician. If you see me running, try to keep up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. When you see the bomb guy go pale, pale, you know it's time to go?
Speaker 4:yeah, I was. You know, when I was in the marines I was in the engineer battalion and or we had an eod assigned to our you know, they lived in over the hill like like trolls, I mean, they were, they were something, and um, I was man. How do you all operate with just those two fingers that's left on your hands?
Speaker 4:No kidding them stitched on top, but I mean, what a tough thing, especially when the war started. I was in the Marines before 9-11 happened. But their training and the things they were doing down there, they were proficient.
Speaker 4:now, and if you've seen that movie, the Hurt Locker- from what I've heard, it's a great movie but it's absolutely as inaccurate as you can get, as far as what those ELD guys say they wouldn't do some of the no, no, they've got other things they can do from a distance than walk up on all that stuff. Hey, they was making a movie. I liked the movie, though it was a good movie, oh, absolutely.
Speaker 3:Let's get back to your rescue squad stuff, because there's a story that I heard about and I want you to tell it. Oh no, how do you feel about swift water rescue? Well, it depends.
Speaker 2:So I guess you have to understand the fact that I have never been formally taught how to swim, so it's my. My swimming is if I get knocked off a boat, I can stay afloat long enough for the boat to come back and get me uh, so they, they, uh.
Speaker 2:Eric stallard had actually talked me into doing diving, and diving for the rescue squad, which is not fun diving, because you're, you know you're looking for bodies, bodies when you do that. But so when you, when you become a diver, part of the certification for basic open water diving is you have to tread water for 10 minutes and swim 200 yards. I don't do that. So treading water, when you figure it out, you know, you see the, you know professional people do it. They're standing upright and kicking their feet, and just you know looks like it's easy, I floated did you have to like have hands out of the?
Speaker 2:water, or was it just your head had to be above water, so all I had to do was float I did it for an hour in a pool last year I was that you're probably spent yeah about that I was but it was the swaying
Speaker 2:air and he said you can't do it and I was like yeah, I tried to do the best breaststroke I could do for about 10 yards, but I'm pretty much doggy paddled. Uh, for the other 190 yards. It was awful but I got through it. I'm like strap an air tank to my high end. I can breathe underwater, we're okay.
Speaker 2:We're good, so, but anyway. So we, we decided we were going to do swift water training, and what they wanted you to do was swim across to the other side. Now, I don't know if anybody's ever been at the bottom of Laurel Lake Dam, at the spillway, but when that water comes out it's like 40 degrees and it's moving. So you had to swim sideways across the lake. I made it and may he rest in soul about five foot from jason van hook, who had swam across first to take the rope apart, and I made it about five foot from him and I'm like nope, I'm out straight down the river.
Speaker 2:Straight down the river I went and you know they tried to teach you to roll over in a seated position and you know, and I was doing okay, but I had uh swallowed about 90 gallons of water at that point. Uh, they were trying to throw uh rescue ropes to me, but I missed every one of them. He's going too fast. I was, I was humming, so, needless to say, uh, the instructor, uh, who was trying to teach us, jumped in and it's like like a jet with the wind pushing you. He was swimming with the current pushing him and he swam down. We got out and I laid over on the bank and I'm like y'all go ahead, I'll uh, I'll throw a rope to you, but my happy butt probably don't need to be in fast-moving cold water. It does not work out for me, but I made it, I guess your dad was there and probably watched me.
Speaker 3:That's where the story came from. Yeah, that was.
Speaker 2:So we went back a few more times, but I'm reasonably sure I never got back in the swift water side of it again. Yeah, I never wanted to. You need a dry land guy always.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I looked at doing like fishing, wildlife and stuff like that, but they do that. They've got like 13 weeks of that type of training.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I was like yeah I'm not they. They basically do krav maga in the pool.
Speaker 2:I mean god love the navy seals and the coast guard and everybody that has to do all that, because I just I I'm out, yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm out on the water, my swimming is survival swimming.
Speaker 2:I said I can stay floating long enough for the boat to come back and get me, but that's about it.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 4:One time when I was in the Marines well, I was in boot camp and everybody's got to do swim qual in the Marines and they pushed it. You know you got up on the 10 meter I think it's 10 meter platform oh, the big island. And they give you a pack and that pack's waterlogged. You know it was a rucksack, basically Alice pack and you're in full gear with a rubber rifle and they're like jump and you hit the bottom of like 15 feet. Yeah, it's gonna say you straight to the bottom like a rock. You know, if you, if you're calm, you can pop out like right at the, you know just kind of swim underwater, right at the ladder.
Speaker 3:But I saw so many people panic and you got a drop pack and all that under there. Is that what? Now you swim with it you keep it, you got to keep it.
Speaker 4:You gotta learn how to've got to learn how to use it. Roll over, swim with that pack on. It is some hard work.
Speaker 3:That would be tough.
Speaker 4:So I was dumb. That basically qualified you. However, they were like keep going to the next phase. So I got my basically lifeguard training, but it was the SQ1. So I never had to take swim tests again, but it was the SQ1. So I never had to take swim tests again, but you had to pull somebody fully across the pool, which was probably 25 meters, and I went second, which was a mistake. The guy held me under the water for just about the whole time over and I was like you know you about drowned me. Then you switch immediately. I've never been more tired than having to pull that guy across the pool.
Speaker 4:Toughest training I ever did was in water.
Speaker 3:Yeah, water intimidates me.
Speaker 4:It's crazy. It's scary If you're not ready for it it will get you. So what else we got. So, gary and I, I gosh, we came in. You started then, but when did you come to? You know, when did we start?
Speaker 2:you switched over to the. I switched over to the pd in march of 2000 when I got hired, and I guess you were just a couple years after that. I was, I got hired in 2002.
Speaker 4:yeah, yeah, went to the academy, so you worked. We worked a lot of shifts together. I think you might have what shift were you mostly on at the beginning? Night shift, right?
Speaker 3:Night shift was probably the biggest portion of the 20 years I had there and you came out of the detective's office and came back to night shift and came back to night shift.
Speaker 2:When was that?
Speaker 3:Was that 2018?
Speaker 2:Right right around 17 18 that's what my last three years was you came to us pretty quick.
Speaker 3:I did after yeah, we we worked.
Speaker 4:He had hair up until that point, a little bit, until you came with you, and Patrick, he can.
Speaker 2:He can probably tell you how many times, while we were working, he was the cause of me dropping my head and just shaking it. Well, it's fun, it was.
Speaker 4:Gary and I worked a lot of a lot of night shift together from the beginning. When I came out of the academy he was on night shift, him and goob, and uh, yeah, there was a bunch, and I I came on and as a you know training under, yeah, somebody, and then wrote, you know, got to know these guys, one of the funniest things ever, I believe. I was still in academy and you was out and, um, I was like, hey, I called. I don't know if I called you or called the police department. Hey, can you at least you know my wife's has, uh, she's hearing noises around the house. I can't get there. I'm in richmond. So I think they went and checked and you know it's after that after that, we uh, we did him dirty yeah, well, lisa.
Speaker 4:Well, lisa and I were trying to have kids a child and there was countdowns of, yeah, that's about right. Yeah, I was like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:We hooked him up one morning. I don't know if we were coming on shift or going home. I was on day shift.
Speaker 4:No, I was coming home from second shift maybe I, you know, I was transferred, you know, rotated all over and worked and I think I was pulling in my house he was.
Speaker 2:We set it up where. We went over there and pulled in his driveway and as soon as he rounded the corner off of whitley street onto his street, we pulled out of the driveway and went the other way.
Speaker 3:Hey you might need some milk. Thanks guys. Yeah, just by the way if your kid comes out looking like G, don't worry about it.
Speaker 2:We used to play tricks like that all the time.
Speaker 4:Oh we yeah man the old days.
Speaker 3:No joke, I sent a picture of Maddie when she was probably six months old, something like that then. I sent it to Dad and Dad said he said you might want to start questioning in G.
Speaker 4:We had a lot of fun. Gary and I spent a lot of time on night shift together the most fun policing.
Speaker 2:I ever had. Who did we have? We had Jesse Spanky, oh gosh. And who?
Speaker 4:I can't remember who else, Doug, maybe Doug. We had TC some. Doug was in that swing shift then I think yeah mostly Spanky, you know, doug, yeah, he would be out for a little while, but our night shift was fun.
Speaker 2:We had a hoot. Of course in the wintertime, you know, of course night shift, if you had a complaint, it was a busy night. I'm just talking about one. Oh yeah, you know, especially in the wintertime it slowed way down, so we would sometimes watch a movie. You had to one. So yeah, you know, especially in the wintertime it slowed way down, so we would, we would, sometimes we'd watch a movie you have to and we would train made the mistake one night of watching a paranormal.
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, I forgot about that excellent movie well it was, and, and I had a partner for the rest of the night because Travis couldn't be by himself. I mean, we've covered this.
Speaker 3:You can't fight ghosts, you just can't.
Speaker 2:No, and I'll just tell you, of all the haunted places, it seems like there's one place I always had to check the alarm by myself because nobody else would go when On top of the hill, the Star Robins.
Speaker 4:Nobody would check that alarm.
Speaker 2:But me.
Speaker 4:Well, if you had, what would happen? You would never, and I'm going to save that story for Derek House and Josh Gaylor.
Speaker 2:Were they up there with you.
Speaker 4:I can't remember Josh and I had some experience. I remember one time I got up there and I was like Josh, what are you doing here by yourself? He's like what are you talking about? He's like it's haunted up here. His jaw about hit the ground. Oh yeah, I forgot it was funny. So we've had it and me and Derek up there. It's one of the funniest, scariest things I've ever been a part of. So I'm going to hold off on that with Derek, because me and Derek, for whatever reason and I'm scared of ghosts, obviously apparently because you know Gary had to clean out the seed every night.
Speaker 3:I tell you what when we had to those homeless people, that was kept breaking into the cabin yeah, an AR doc yeah. I hated clearing that thing. It was so creepy you had to drive all the way back through the cemetery. And then here's the cabin in the woods looking cabin, and then it had an upstairs that you couldn't see. It's almost like going up into an attic, like a loft yeah, and you're just hoping that when you pop those steps you don't see a couple of eyes looking back.
Speaker 2:Some of those are like checking alarms at funeral homes yeah, when you had an open door. You never knew which room, but you knew there was going to be a room that you were going to walk in. Yes, something was going to be there looking at you. That's kind of weird.
Speaker 4:It's so scary, I hate it.
Speaker 3:No we've had we've talked about a lot of animals so far in some of these episodes and having to dispatch animals and that was a common occurrence deer and all that.
Speaker 2:I guess we tried as much as we could to get somebody to come and catch it, so we didn't have to do that but we had, uh, we had one and they still won't.
Speaker 3:Let me live this down. We had one deer get hit in front of ar dock and normally you know they die, they're just laying in that. Well, this one was. It just got maimed, its back legs was messed up. G shaking his head right now laughing about it already and uh, it was crawling like through the, through the ditch and like bellowing that you know that doe bleat or whatever. So you know it's. It's 4, 30 in the morning, five o'clock. All the old old timers have started gathering at hardee's.
Speaker 2:Because we were right there between a yard back, because we ended up having an audience.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I was like, well, I'll get my rifle out. G shows up at that time and he's like what are you going to do? I was like, well, I'm just going to shoot it in the head and be done with it. Well, I don't know if you've ever shot a deer in the head. They've got a very small brain. So I hit it once and it flopped.
Speaker 4:Then it came back up, so I was like well, I'll hit it again.
Speaker 3:And then it's jaws hanging off, oh my gosh. And then g's like kill it, kill it. So I'm just begging you, just kill it so.
Speaker 2:So what do I?
Speaker 3:do? I give it the old you know the old mazem beat and it still didn't kill it. Gee had to finally walk up to it and shoot it at the top of the head with a pistol, but all those old-timers and hardies were out looking at it. It sounded like Fallujah.
Speaker 2:I'm like I've got to go get into the closet and get another case of ammo for flash. I just felt so bad. I'm like just please please.
Speaker 3:I was like. I know I'm hitting this deer, it would not die. Well, we've seen your shooting at rabid groundhogs. I don't think I ever fired a shot on that one.
Speaker 4:That was all Pat.
Speaker 2:I don't think you were there for that one. I think that was Roby and Troy, but we had a calf over behind the health department.
Speaker 5:Huggy it might have been Hug, but we had a calf over behind the health department. Huggy it might have been, huggy it was huggy, this was me.
Speaker 2:So we had it hemmed up in a corner and we was trying to get somebody to come and get it. It was a fence row on both sides of it and we were out in the middle, so we kind of had it hemmed in. Well, this calf at the time me and the calf was roughly about the same size oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So this this calf takes off running up the up the fence line to escape, and I don't know what I was thinking, but I just took off running and and we were, we were gonna, we were hit. I'm not sure what was going to happen had I hit this cow, but he was about to find out.
Speaker 3:But I was about to find out.
Speaker 2:And just at the last minute, I guess this poor little calf got just an extra little burn to speed and I missed it. But to this day I wonder what would have happened had I shoulder tackled that calf. We were both probably going to be injured out of it. I think you would have won, but something was going to happen. Yeah, Carol laid you out.
Speaker 4:Ran into the end zone and did like a dance.
Speaker 2:I wished we would have had that on camera, that would have been great.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of stuff I wish we had on camera, but it's probably a good thing we don't. Well, that's true.
Speaker 4:I've seen the pictures of the goat being caught midair, things like that. It's funny.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we had good times.
Speaker 4:And we say all this. You know it sounds like we've killed every animal. No, that's not true, because the goat that got loose up in one of the subdivisions, yeah back behind the donut shop. Yeah, I got there and this goat would almost come up to you and it had a pink collar on it.
Speaker 3:It was a pet.
Speaker 4:yeah, it had a pink collar on it and I just put a leash on it. I had a leash, or somebody brought me one, I just put a leash on it. I had a leash, or somebody brought me one. I put it in the back of my cruiser and took it home with me and then put it out on Facebook, but there's pictures of that.
Speaker 3:That made it to one of the Christmas parties.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it wouldn't return that goat, but that was great.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we talk about having to dispatch these animals, and you would sometimes if there was no other options.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we did, we, we tried, we sound like and you know, quite often you know we were able to get somebody to come and, yeah, and and and get it. And you know, most of the time nobody would, especially if it was a cow that got loose. Nobody ever really claimed it. So if you got somebody to come and get it, they just ended up with an extra cow, right, absolutely what?
Speaker 4:uh, let's go back to our night shift days back in the back in the days. Me and gary would, we would ride together a lot one I was afraid of ghosts or we'd listen. Something scared me.
Speaker 2:But you know, we just had, we just had a great time we did, and of course you know back then I guess you know we sometimes, when had a great time together, we did, and of course you know back then. I guess you know we sometimes, when there wasn't a whole lot going on, we would get bored and I don't remember who was working with us that night. It might have been Spanky, but I called Travis on the phone. I was like hey, you want something from Subway? He's like where are you at?
Speaker 2:I said Subway down here, pilot north corbin. It was doug. Yeah, I'll tell you why. Because travis was like uh, dude, I mean he's first who's in the city. No, I don't know.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I had followed a car and um, so doug was working and he was notorious to end up in towards rock castle county. I think he was at the 49 or something. He was north. I had followed a car and went down to the, missed my turn at the way, at the scales, then got add, of course I ended up at the 25, turned around. When you called and gary's, like I'm in, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm way in Whitley County. You're in Corbin or Lily, I don't know where you were. And then Doug, I was like oh my gosh, who is left in the city? He's covering that. Like nobody.
Speaker 4:Nobody, because you know Doug was north. He can't help it. He's heading towards Pungo. Yeah, he tried to. Oh man, we had we night shift was. It was just so much fun it was.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we had we talk about a lot on here, but it was just well, I mean, my entire career, as short-lived as it was was, was night shift and I preferred it even. I mean, my wife would always say, when are you going to go to Days? And my response was always never.
Speaker 2:Not if I can keep from it. I slept better when I was on Days.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the schedule was better on Days, but the job, the lifestyle the environment.
Speaker 2:everything was just the camaraderie.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's better on nights.
Speaker 2:And I always used to tell my bunch we'd try to figure out something going on, we'd try to figure out what to do and I'm like, listen, we'll make our decision and tonight we're right. Yeah, now I may get a call from the chief in the morning telling me how wrong I was.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but tonight we're gosh gary, me and gary'd walk out of the pd or we'd ride around with our heads out the window sniffing out meth labs. We'd we'd end up in some kind of some kind of weird stuff all the time. Foot patrols together, like me and Doug and him we had a ball, one of the best times ever, and Gary was good as a supervisor, keeping you from stepping on your own meat.
Speaker 3:Why try? Because I remember one night and it's a good thing now. I mean, I was aggravated about it at the time, but we was both young officers, me and Bobby and there was a turd that we had to deal with all the time and he would always run from us and we knew he jumped in the back window of the house. He lived in his grandma's house, all that, yeah, yeah, and we was like we're going in after him, we're crawling through this one and g's like no towards armistice.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it was like he's like he's talking to children any kind of.
Speaker 2:I mean, in a way, he kind of was well, but yeah you know the funny thing we can kick this door because he's like no when, when me, and when me and robie ended up being uh, being on night shift supervisors. If you took the three patrolmen that we had and added their years of service together, it didn't equal five.
Speaker 3:And we were full of piss and vinegar too.
Speaker 4:And it's good that you got aggravated because you were wanting to get into things and you were eager. It is our job to harness and there is a hard and they did a good thing.
Speaker 3:Get that bottle. We had a lot of good supervisors that were like that for the most part. That gave you just enough rope and then didn't let you hang yourself.
Speaker 2:as far as I'll never forget poor Flash trying to get involved in a pursuit and never could. They were always over, or yeah, I don pursuit and never could.
Speaker 3:They were always over, or yeah, no, I don't know who got me for forever. So this is a. This is a longer story. It's got multiple points, multiple parts, so let's start at walmart, okay because that's yeah, so we had.
Speaker 3:Uh, it was a slow night and it was during the winter, and uh, they had a milk truck. And this is g came from the detective's office. So this, this is pretty funny too, but they had a milk truck and it had. When it made the turn into walmart, its back doors was open and like 100 gallons of milk spills out on 192, so they give it out on the radio.
Speaker 3:We all go 97 area and 97 means that we're on scene in the area. Um, and they're there first. It's him and another officer, they get there first. Well, neither one of them can find it, or well you can?
Speaker 2:you went to the parking lot he found the truck that had, uh, the doors open, but didn't that's where the guy was like that wasn't me, and I'm like he says it wasn't him yeah, so that that was, was he over? There crying over the spilt milk or not no, he had no idea he was inside walmart.
Speaker 3:I don't think he knew, and then, uh, one of the other officers he's still working, so I won't name him, but he came through the area and how he missed this. I mean it was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3:It covered the entire intersection of 192 and right there in front of the post office and all that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a big spill but he said he's like I'm 98, I can't find it. So I drive up, I'll find it, because it's a huge spill in the middle. So I park my car there and turn the lights on and everything. Well, we get the road department to come out, I guess, and they come and clean it up. Well, they park their dump truck on the other side of my car and and instead of just picking all this stuff up, they're chucking these gallons of milk over top of my car into the dump truck. Oh, my gosh.
Speaker 3:And it's like 12 degrees outside, so I have frozen milk Like 90 gallons of frozen milk all over his car All over my car.
Speaker 3:And I've been trying to get into a pursuit, for it just never worked out. Like crap. What happened where I'd be on the third floor of a hotel and the guy runs down the stairs and ends up jumping in a car and it gets in foot pursuit and by the time I and somebody else gets in it would be always be something. So they bugged me for forever about washing that off my car. I was like, well, I can see, it's all right, it's not going to come off in the car wash. It's starting to smell. Yeah, at this point it's starting. So I was like, all right, it's slow, it's dead, nothing's happening. I'm gonna go get in the car wash. I run through one of those automated car washes and it, you know it locks you in.
Speaker 3:You've got that crossbar in front of you can't go any farther, and as soon as I do, one of the other officers on our shift at that time calls out in pursuit. And I'm right there, but I can't get out. He's stuck in I'm stuck in the car wash. So it's like, and it was at the point to where the brush was coming around swinging. So every time the brush would come around swinging I go an inch forward just as much as I could. Then it's swing around again. It is, I mean it is, it was like.
Speaker 2:Austin. Powers trying to turn around so here I make it six miles out 472. We've got the guy in custody and I guess it was Roby was sitting right at 472 in the parkway.
Speaker 3:Richie, was it Richie, richie, sitting right at 472 in the parkway?
Speaker 2:richie. Was it richie, richie, sitting right at 472 in the parkway I'm still running signal.
Speaker 3:I'm coming. This is one of those things for richie to tell this story.
Speaker 2:It needs to be on video. Yes, you just have to see him tell this story. Yeah, he's just one of them people, you really need to watch him we may have to do that, he's supposed to be here tomorrow.
Speaker 2:Uh, but you, you've got to watch this. So he's like I'm just sitting here, y'all are out there doing your thing, and I hear this siren coming in the distance. And I look down the parkway and here comes a cruiser with blue lights on. He's like I'm wanting to work. And here comes Flash around the corner. He's like they're in pursuit. He's like no, no, they're not, it's over. Just quit.
Speaker 2:You over, just quit, you're good man, you'll get one. Maybe robie gets in pursuit on the interstate going south and flashes on like the. That was the fourth floor, that was the one where I was like he's up on the third floor is where they said he's at.
Speaker 3:I said I'll go up, you all stay on the bottom, so if he runs down you grab him. Well, he runs down and runs out the back, so nobody grabs him until he gets in his car. And then I mean and that was at that point in time we had just started that new pursuit policy too, where it had to be a felony- and he couldn't drive the wrong side of the road and I was listening to it.
Speaker 2:But I was one of them nights when broby cussed at me because I had taken off work. Well, it was one of those. It was one of those things, it's like I was.
Speaker 3:I was in, you know, wanted to be in the pursuit, but then as it progressed I was like, hey, I'm kind of glad I'm not yeah, he was.
Speaker 2:He was the only one left in town. It ended up in corbin.
Speaker 3:I mean I'm pretty sure it didn't. It didn't it was way down south somewhere, because I ended up.
Speaker 2:I was sitting at the house listening to it and I ended up having to make all the notifications, calling the chief and everybody to tell them what was going on.
Speaker 4:Because you couldn't sleep at night.
Speaker 2:No, that's it.
Speaker 4:I don't know how many times I'd be like I'd call Gary, because we only worked what two nights together, the way it worked out.
Speaker 2:Maybe three. You were, let's see, three nights together, Because I had two RDOs, you had two RDOs and then we were together the other three.
Speaker 4:So we would work, you know, and those RDOs, if he was working and I was off, I'd be down in my basement like a.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can't switch the day shift on your two days off, no, so you just found something to do.
Speaker 4:You'd be miserable, you know everybody sleeps, so I'd call Gary, what are you doing? And then, hey, come pick me up, I'll ride around with you for an hour or so until I get sleepy. It'd be four hours into it and we'd be into something. I'd be like, oh my gosh, I just want to go home now. But it would happen. It's funny. Now, I'm sure you've got some other good stories here, but your detective time?
Speaker 2:I'm sure there's some great funny stuff that happened to you there. Well, I've actually got a picture of joe smith. We went to somebody's house one day and nobody answered the door.
Speaker 2:Then joe holds up a sign that the guy had on his front porch that said come back with a warrant so you did so we well, probably I don't remember but I think we did, me and joe one time we was looking for stolen copper. So we were going to all the junkyards that we could find see if anybody been bringing right. I don't remember what it got stolen, one of the radio towers or something, uh, but we're, we're somewhere down in whitley county trying to find this place in the middle of nowhere. And we finally looked at the GPS trying to figure out where we were, that we was at. I'm like, oh, dude, we're in Tennessee down here, but I when I was working interdiction it was.
Speaker 4:We were working a detail down down at the Welcome Center in Whitley County. What's that like a two-mile marker, maybe One-mile marker? Yeah, probably, yeah, probably, but we were stopping some cars down there because we had you know at the time, I had jurisdiction in every county that was in that task force, but not Tennessee.
Speaker 4:And I remember stopping somebody past the Tennessee Welcome Center just because I couldn't get to them. I was trying, you know. I was like, oh, I think I've blown it, because when I lit them up I was still in Kentucky but that Tennessee sign came in quick. I was like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:You started in Kentucky, so I mean, I think that's fair.
Speaker 4:But so I have stopped somebody in another state. It was pretty fun. Well, you know and I remember I was like, oh my gosh, I got to hurry up because I'm about to pee on myself again. I always end up in a bad spot.
Speaker 3:It happens a lot. I mean, that happens a lot. I can't tell you how many situations I've been in where you just go, you're going to take this easy call and you've got to pee or something.
Speaker 4:anyways, You're this easy call and you've got a p or something. Anyways, you're like well, this podcast always ends up with the p story.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's like you're going to end up 30 minutes getting to the call if you go to back to the pd and use the bathroom that's right. So I mean I just go to the call and then it ends up. Two hours later you still ain't peed and you're dealing with a mess I think you've.
Speaker 2:You've told a story and uh on this podcast already and of course nobody ever called me and told me they had a video. But I was checking the alarm at a place one night and I had to pee and I found a dark corner. So I went in and was doing my business. I was sitting there looking around, I looked up and there was a surveillance camera in the corner pointed right at me. I'm too late now. Here I am, you can't stop too late.
Speaker 3:Now here I am. You can't, you can't, you can't stop. I was uh, I would always go up. London mountain view would be a was a good spot, because there's nobody up there and a great view and a great view.
Speaker 2:P with a view everybody over at lico was was always on top of the hill was a good spot but it was like three in the morning.
Speaker 4:There there is some gorgeous spots, just overlooks here that you, that people that don't work night shift, have no idea about. Oh, that's right, mountain view has one of the prettiest, prettiest views, oh yeah, around. And so does so does over there at the somerset communities and different places.
Speaker 2:Man we had some fun, me and me and travis harley. Uh, the rest is all. I love that guy. But uh, it was snowing one night, a raining one, and I don't know if you you've noticed, but at the time it the parkway in 192, the dead end that the road going all the way across didn't exist, so there was just a big bank there right. Well, there was a slot banking in the roadway and we figured out if, if you turn and left onto the parkway from 192, you could trumpet and just cut the most beautiful massive donut there ever was. So me and me and Travis went out there one night for like two hours and one would stand guard while the other would go up there and cut it. I bet we went through a tank of game.
Speaker 2:I could just hear his laugh, right now, oh my gosh, greatest, most infectious laugh ever. We had a ball that night.
Speaker 4:Gosh, he was funny.
Speaker 3:It's not always professionalism. Sometimes you're just as much a delinquent as you're trying to prevent.
Speaker 4:Oh I know I remember one night me, you and somebody else riding, and Darryl, maybe Darryl, kilburn there was three of us riding in one vehicle because it snowed and somebody had the only four-wheel drive out and we decided to go out and patrol, you know, check our buildings, whatever. Nothing else going on, I guess. So Darrell stops the vehicle for doing donuts, gary gets out and talks to the guy, brings the paperwork back to me and I hand-filled a ticket, so it was like, and then I went and delivered it. So it was like we, we uh, triple teamed this guy on one ticket he didn't know his heart I bet he freaked out like well who.
Speaker 2:I used to go over there all the time. But you know, truthfully speaking, when there's a good snow on it, you've got 16, 17, 18 year olds that don't have a lot of driving experience. The best way to learn how to drive in the snow is take them to an empty, empty parking lot.
Speaker 3:Just let them have it yeah, well, I mean, they do that in the academy. For us they just had to fight a skid and had a jay car.
Speaker 2:You know I used to take them unmarked four-wheel drives and go hide in the parking lot and we had good snows on because they didn't know you were the police and people start cutting donuts and I just roll over to them and turn the blue lights on and you can just see the color drain out of their face. I'm like you know.
Speaker 2:I stopped a guy one night and he's like man, I know he said, but my niece is here from Texas and God love her. She ain't never seen snow, so I'm like I do that.
Speaker 3:For the most part it's harmless fun. I mean, you don't want property damage, you don't want those things trying to prevent, but it's kind of a all right, you had your fun, I'm here, get out of here, just go on, go on, yeah, and I think the reason we wrote that one, the ticket, and it's probably a warning ticket, but the snow had probably gone away and he was in the middle of like 15 cars at a hotel parking lot. So we were like, eh, that's a little too dangerous as far as that goes.
Speaker 2:So yeah he got out of control. You know, and when you start policing, you really don't think about what's going on. You know, you just do your thing and that's the end of it. And then you get promoted, and then you all of a sudden have to worry about everything that's going on.
Speaker 2:So I remember when I first got promoted to sergeant, I was going up fifth street and the dispatch hollered at us and said there was, somebody, had started a pursuit and it was headed towards london. So I'm like, all right, I'm on fifth street, so I'd turn on my license irons and I'm screaming down fifth street. Well, all these officers started hollering at me. Like, you know, I'm here, you want me to go here. I'm here. I'm like why?
Speaker 3:are you all hollering at me?
Speaker 2:And then I was like, oh crap, I'm the boss, what do I do? What do I do?
Speaker 3:Which, if you've got a good crew, I mean, and that was what I liked about our crew, me and jake and I didn't know that I didn't.
Speaker 3:I didn't have to worry about nothing, I just, if they needed me, I was available we got to where we clicked and a good night shift that's what we talked about with doug is how much closer the night shifts were with each other. But you work with those guys so long you don't even I mean you get out on a call, you know what they're, they're going to do, you don't even have to conversate about it. You've each got cover on each other. I mean, it's just it meshes well.
Speaker 4:It does. But just like a brotherhood, you're going to have beef, you're going to check, you're going to get in shouting matches and do fist fights with each other.
Speaker 3:But see, that's the thing. That's what it is, but that's part of it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, when you throw a bunch of type A personalities together and everybody's opinionated, everybody's something, you know, morale's low or something's going on that you don't want to do there's going to be that little strife, and that was the thing with us.
Speaker 2:You know, sometimes we got told we needed to do things that, even as the supervisors, we didn't think was necessary. But sometimes those decisions come from people higher up so you've got no choice.
Speaker 4:What I learned is some of those decisions don't come from inside the department. Some of that stuff comes from next door, from higher up, higher than the police chief. We would always. You all don't know that, because there's got to be a filter.
Speaker 3:Well and that's what I always said is there needs to be more transparency. Like you tell me something and I'm like, well, that sounds stupid. Why are we doing it? But you tell me why we're doing it, I mean I'm going to do it.
Speaker 4:no matter what, because it was an order and it was lawful but learning the generation, learning the generational how to lead where you were born, what time period? You can't supervise everybody. The same.
Speaker 2:That doesn't mean that you're given to one and not given to the other. You just have to lead to that type of personality and and still get, still, get. Done what?
Speaker 4:if you tell gen x or what? What are gen x or x? So if you tell us to go do this, you know we're the original latch key kids, of course. Okay, we're to go do that. Okay, when the millennial stuff started coming around, and that's fine.
Speaker 3:That is perfectly fine to explain why. I want to know why is this all of a sudden changing, and what's our target here? What are we trying to accomplish with this?
Speaker 4:And that is fine to ask.
Speaker 3:Now, sometimes I don't know that was not always greeted with I don't know is not a good enough answer.
Speaker 3:No, sometimes you can say, hey, I don't know, let me get back to you and that might get, and then you have to actually get back for example, there was one night that we had to count semis coming down main street and I was like this is the dumbest thing that we have ever been told to do. So here I am counting semis and I mean. And then when we finally learned that I was like, okay, it makes sense. I mean it's still kind of stupid, but it makes sense, I understand.
Speaker 4:Right, they were having some of us feeding through there, so they wanted to know what the county is to see, to see if they could change some kind of.
Speaker 3:Right and it made sense.
Speaker 2:Ordinance or something that they could do we would always let them, you know. If you don't like it, tell us. I don't like doing that. We would, because I think when you intimidate officers to the point where they're afraid to speak up or give their opinion, I think you need to even. You know. You know it's like, wasn't? I know you don't like it, I know you don't appreciate it, but it is what it is. You're still going to have to do it.
Speaker 3:But if you, if you make them afraid to voice their opinion, I think you hurt morale you doale is a top-down problem it is, and I would say that administration is one of your biggest faults in a lot of agencies right now, and I understand. Once you get collar brass and those stripes, things change.
Speaker 4:You've got different obligations, different things you've got to do, but the goal is not to forget where you come from Exactly.
Speaker 4:And remember, I don't understand something that's going on here. It's just like every private in the Army or the Marines thinks they're a general Right. There's a reason there, because they can't sometimes see past what's surrounding them and where they're at Up, more higher to the top, you're seeing the big picture. You're getting the pressure from maybe the mayor's office or the council or just private citizens, but if you don't translate that down to them in an effective way, you will lose those people and that's the worst thing to lose the trust of your lowest jobs.
Speaker 3:And I'm sure it's the same with military. If you've lost respect of your subordinates, then they're not. I mean it's hard to work for somebody you don't respect.
Speaker 4:And that's when people leave. So leadership is so important and it's not about leading because I say it's leading because I need to know individually how to lead each person.
Speaker 3:And you've got to find that fine line of criticism and correction that breeds confidence rather than creating hesitation. Because you get an officer out there that's he's like, well, should I do this or not? And then you get people that end up calling, asking for permission to do everything Right. And then you know because we worked with guys like that, what. And then you've got guys that you know they're afraid to do their job the way they know how and the way that's correct, because they're afraid that, not for fear of, you know, death or bodily harm, but fear of catching that heat from above. Yeah, it's a fine line.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I mean, it's what it is.
Speaker 2:We had a domestic one, that I mean, and the lady was already out of the house, but the guy was going to go to jail. Yeah Well, the apartment was locked when we got there and we couldn't get in, and it was one of those that was up on the second level and you just walk out in front of it. Well, the window next to the door was unlocked. So we got that and it.
Speaker 2:You know, a little short pudgy me, I like to never, but I finally ended up meandering my way through this open window. Well, the first thing I did, instead of running after the guys, I unlocked the door so the other officers could get in. As soon as I opened that door, eric Stallard just blew past me like I wasn't even in there, went straight back to the bedroom, found this guy in the bedroom and commenced a fight with him. So I go around the corner. I'm like, after all, I just went through to get through this window. I go around the corner and some other officers come in and they started to try to run to help him and I just put my arm out, held him back.
Speaker 2:I said try to run to help him and I just put my arm out, held him back. I said, nope, let him fight. He wanted in here this bad. You know, I don't know I wasn't gonna let him get hurt, but I'm like, nope, let him have at it. So we just stood there and watched for like five minutes before eric and I'm like that's what you have, and stowell is all of about four foot tall and 120 pounds.
Speaker 3:He can fight a bunch of stuff.
Speaker 2:He's stattered. But yeah, I was just like, after all, I went through and you had fun, you had a good show, oh man.
Speaker 4:The times have changed from them. Days, though it's funny.
Speaker 2:Funny stuff you know we used to deal with. I won't talk about her because she passed away, but if you've never fought a naked, red-headed, mentally challenged female, you've not lived.
Speaker 3:Things change when the clothes come off on any call.
Speaker 2:I made her so mad one night. Of course we would have to deal with her until she'd get evicted, and then she'd move to an apartment out in the county and the sheriff's office would have to deal with her until she got evicted out there and then she would end up back in the city. But I made her so mad one night she wrote my name and like 12 inch letters on her wall and a black permanent marker is to one of the individuals that she did not like. I made her so mad that I got a call from a dispatcher at the state police asking me what I had done to her and I'm like nothing. I guess that's the problem he's like, because she's called down here trying to get us to come put you in jail nothing like getting a police call, oh yeah, gee uh gee.
Speaker 3:Has a habit of running into naked women on I do.
Speaker 2:It's weird. I guess it's about like you finding us, yeah, finding all the toys sex toys.
Speaker 3:I don't know what it was with. I mean there was. If I searched a car, I would find two or three of them, it didn't matter I mean how many times I've drove by, it doesn't matter whose car.
Speaker 2:many times I've drove by him, it didn't matter whose car?
Speaker 3:I could search your car and probably find five of them. You wouldn't ever have them.
Speaker 4:You're just sitting outside the store down here yeah.
Speaker 2:That's hilarious.
Speaker 3:The old Purple Palace. Yeah, I've come by.
Speaker 2:I don't know how many times you could go by him on a traffic stop and and there would just be some sex toy suction cup to the side of the vehicle because he had found it.
Speaker 3:I'm like I bet, yeah, I'll tell that story because bobby wanted me to and I'll refer to him as bobby.
Speaker 3:So you, if you know, you know, but he's, he's still working, doing his thing. But we uh is a regular, regular turd that we dealt with over and over again. He was dope head, dope dealer and we got him pulled over and was searching the vehicle and everything and found this I mean, it was like as big as my arm, uh, a prosthetic, if you will, and had a suction cup on the on the base of it. So we really didn't have anything on him that time for anything other than you know speed, you know his ticket, seat belt ticket, all this. You know what we stopped him for in the beginning. And then, uh, but he, he wanted so bad out of that ticket and he's like, listen, we'll cut your break. And uh, I said, but here's the deal before you leave, you've got a suction cup, that thing, to the hood of your car like a hood ornament and we're like he'll never do that well, he called our bluff on it.
Speaker 3:He stuck it right to the hood, drove off of it like a rhinoceros that is, but it gets worse. So you know how, when you start talking to these druggies and junkies and stuff like that, they'll tell you a life story and tell you all kinds of stuff. So that was a replica not of his but his cousin's, so he Don't know why. I guess he was using it for Little League T-ball, For something I don't know why. I guess he was using it for. Little.
Speaker 2:League T-Ball For something I don't know why. Of course, you know, being a supervisor, I guess you don't always have to get involved, especially if you've got a good crew, like I, you know, tended to have. So you know, not like you know, Travis Travis, who was notorious for going through many cans of OC spray haha, me I hated that stuff I'd rather.
Speaker 2:But I you know, I guess mine hadn't been used in so long, there might have been a little dust gather up around the, around the the nozzle. So we'd went down to the hangar or a restaurant down by the airport at the time because we used to go down there every weekend because of drunks and fights and whatnot. But we'd got this guy cuffed up and got him in the back of the car. Well, he started kicking the doors and windows of the car. So we went over and I opened one door and god love his heart spanky opened the other door and we both went in at the same time. Well, I went to a pepper spring.
Speaker 2:Well, I guess that big dirt ball broke loose when I hit the trigger and you know we me and spanky were both within a foot from him, so that big dirt ball come out and hit that dude right between the eyes and splattered and I ended up pepper spraying me, him, spanky well, and that's the thing with oc.
Speaker 3:It doesn't matter. Nobody wins when you oc somebody, because, especially if you have to go hands-on afterwards, it's everybody's getting a dose.
Speaker 4:I became very okay with it. I've developed a, an immunity. Immunity, uh. Pepper sprayed a couple it killed me.
Speaker 4:I mean it bothered me, don't get me wrong, when I was in the academy and they sprayed us. We did some kind of night driving that evening and it snowed so we was doing skid stuff on the track at night or nighttime driving qualifications after we pepper sprayed and it was back when they cotton balled it and covered your dominant eye if you've never, you don't realize that you can absorb a massive amount of old sea spray in a car and it reactivates yeah, at any time.
Speaker 4:It didn't matter if you sweat a little bit, if the wind hit you right, we did ours ended up getting, uh, getting postponed for a couple days.
Speaker 2:So we ended up getting pepper sprayed at like eight o'clock in the morning, yeah, and then we had to set through intoxilizer class the whole rest of the day. So everybody had went to walmart the day before and bought them little 99 cent battery operated fans yeah, there was a lot of that every time the instructor would say, all right, you know, because every hour you'd take a break like, all right, we're going gonna take a break.
Speaker 3:All you could hear through the classroom was those little fans starting up we, we got hit with it and then we had, we had a break, and then that that was the day that we had, so we got O seed in the morning and went through our course with that, and then we had a break and then had PT DT no that's way, so we had. Crossfit. That there at end and it all reactivated. But we learned.
Speaker 3:As bad as you think that pouring Dawn, dishwashing liquid into your eyeball would feel, that's what everybody ended up doing. Just to get everything out of it, they washed their eyes out with Dawn.
Speaker 4:It was like pour milk Milk would help.
Speaker 3:Know it was like poor milk or uh, milk would help, just temporary. Now my, you know my roommate, um, he took a shower like right after and everybody was like be careful when you take a shower because it you know, it'll all run down and I got lean over, I got shannon morgan as good as I got anybody.
Speaker 4:Guy jumped up trying to fight, kick you know, carry on, and I just just a quick little stop. It hits the guy like right in the nose, bridge of the nose, and went straight off, Hit Shannon Morgan directly in the eyeball and Shannon's like oh yeah, oh, my God.
Speaker 3:I was sitting there, we was on that break and he was taking a shower and, uh, all of a sudden I just hear screaming.
Speaker 4:he hadn't leaned into the, into the showerhead, and he let it all ran down got down to his nethers I'll tell you one while we were talking about O'Shannon Good friend, great guy. He's still in law enforcement in a different capacity. I work with his wife now at a school, with Ashley, I found out the other day. I thought she got mad at me one time and she was. She was legit mad. You remember when the college kids would come out and ride with us and they you know, female, male, whatever, she was extremely pregnant and you know we've all had pregnant wives, right, and she apparently I'd put one of these college females, girls, with Shannon, just his turn, and I didn't know she was mad about that. I had zero idea that she was upset about that. So she comes to the PD because she's concerned and the female had already left. But she's there. She's highly, highly mad at me and Shannon, but mostly me because I made my mistake.
Speaker 3:You set that dynamic up.
Speaker 4:No See, I'm still not aware of why Shannon gets out of his car in the summertime and his vest reaped. I mean, it stunk, he was canine, then wasn't he?
Speaker 4:Yeah, he was canine. So you had the car, you had his vest and he came out of that car and I smelled him from while I was walking up the back steps. I'm like, shannon, your ass stinks. I didn't say Shannon, I said God, your ass stinks, that's all I said. But she was on the steps going up behind me or in front of me, so she's like, excuse me, I was talking about your stinky husband, not you. And oh my gosh, I thought fire was going to shoot out of her eyes. So until like two weeks ago, because I told the secretary at her school and the principal I was like Ashley's mad, she didn't like me because of this incident. Because I said, you know, her husband stunk when she thought I was talking to her. She's like, so she starts telling the story that she was mad over the college kid and I was like, oh, all these years I thought it was because I said your ass stuff.
Speaker 3:I was like oh, I feel better about this now, man, she was mad at me, Like held that grudge until I was like.
Speaker 4:Later I was like well, you know, that was my chance to like apologize. I was like that was nothing personal about that, that was just his turn in the rotation to have a ride-along. And I was like, oh my gosh. But I thought she was mad at me because I said she stopped.
Speaker 2:I used to get fussed at over those.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the ride-alongs yeah.
Speaker 2:Officer hollered at me one night and said hey, I'm going to go home and eat lunch, I don't care if she gets with you.
Speaker 3:And I won't say who she was, but I was like, uh, no, yeah, you got to be careful with some of that stuff and he was, and he remembered telling me later.
Speaker 2:He said you said no, he said I got to thinking uh-oh yeah exactly so it was.
Speaker 4:It was interesting times when the college kids I mean you, but you were one of those college ride-alongs I mean it's just it's part of the college class, especially, especially around here, somerset Community, eastern or whatever you know, with the big criminal justice degrees that they got credits for, yeah, basically riding around Anybody that ever picks my brain or asks me about you know, should I go into it?
Speaker 3:I was like go do a ride-along. I was like go see exactly what it is, because you can't go off of what you see on TV. You can't go watch it.
Speaker 2:Go ride with these agencies that you're interested in and make sure that's what you know and you know. I guess sometimes it's on the agency too, because you know some agencies won't let them out of the car, won't let them do anything, so it's really hard for them, yeah but you know, and I get it to a certain extent, because some situations you get in you don't want well, and that's what I always told my ride alongs was uh, I was like.
Speaker 3:You know you're not supposed to get out of the car, don't I mean? If it's something, I'll tell you. I'll tell you when I said also, my off duty is in that door and if you see me getting my ass whipped, grab it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I've had several. It's like what am I supposed to do? This happened. I'm like listen, don't let me get hurt yeah, just don't let me get hurt.
Speaker 4:So so yeah, that man, we had some good times. What else stories you got?
Speaker 3:I know you got something else, we're getting close to our hour mark but there is one more story that I want him to, if he can talk about it. That, uh, it involves the interstate and a guardrail oh my gosh.
Speaker 4:Yes, let me, I'm gonna pause cuz I I gotta pee again. Okay, y'all keep going.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just just hurry up yeah so you know which one I'm talking about. Yes, that one, yeah, no that that should be fine, yeah, I think the lesson in gravity? Yeah, that was that was bad yeah uh, fortunately he lived so so to set the stage which, what was it? A traffic stop, or what was?
Speaker 2:no, it was a a hit and run on the interstate.
Speaker 3:The guy was and he was the run, he was the run.
Speaker 2:It was southbound on the interstate. He had clipped a car and kept going. How he made it as far as he did I'll never know, because his car was absolutely not drivable. So I guess it was just sheer speed right that he was going. It was the only way he made it as far as he did.
Speaker 2:So I showed up and checked on the people. They're like we're fine, yeah, he's on down. So I went on down and and pulled in and and there was a gap in between me and him because when I first got there there was a volunteer fireman or somebody, because it was in like the middle lane of the interstate so there was a volunteer fireman or somebody had pulled up behind him and was keeping traffic from hitting him. So when I pulled up there was probably a 20 yard gap between me and where the car was. So as soon as I walked up to the guy, the guy was just walking around his car in a very slurred speech. It was just kept repeating this is bad, this is bad. I'm like well, he's drunk his car's tore all the pieces. So yeah, you're right this is bad.
Speaker 2:So, uh, I had got him trying to get him to to stay over, away from the middle of the interstate because I didn't want him to get run over because he was just staggering around anyway. So I said let me get your driver's license. I went back to my car. I was going to run his driver's license and get my PBT to see how drunk he was. Well, this turns out. I think it was like DUI 5th.
Speaker 2:Which is a felony 4th is a felony, so this would be another felony I'm sitting here getting my stuff and I look and he runs over and gets over to where the guardrail is and just jumps over. Well, I think his intentions were I don't want to go to jail, so I'm going to run.
Speaker 3:He just didn't realize where he was at.
Speaker 2:He didn't realize we were on top of an overpass, yeah, and the ground underneath him was 30 feet, yeah, and not two.
Speaker 3:So as soon as he goes over, I'm just like oh, no, oh, there's video, and the look on gary's face is priceless I mean it's just like oh, it's terror and there's a good thing there was video and that's that's why I'm saying about the body cam.
Speaker 2:When he landed there, good when he landed on the on the road, he landed on the white line and you know just shoulder length away, miss the guard. Yeah, so how do you hit that guard rail? I did what. It would have been bad, though, but I see him obviously not moving, unconscious, so I'm calling for help and they're like how do we get go to Parker Road? You can't get there from here. He jumped over the bridge. So, jesse, I didn't know that car could go that fast were we in Crown Vicks?
Speaker 4:we were in Crown Vicks. It may not have been going fast, but it sounded like it, so yeah.
Speaker 2:Jesse, come by me trying to get off the interstate and get down there to him. Some guy had was coming down the interstate and me and Travis couch was sitting there looking and I'm like, oh no, no, no, this guy finally sees him and hits the brakes and squalls and he gets out. He's like what do I do? And I'm like nothing, leave him be, you know, turn your flashers on, so but and of course they ended up, you know, lamblitz comes in and gets him and hauls him off and he ends up living. I was like, but his uh, somebody in his family was, was kind of coming around the pd, because at the time they thought, you know that I may have actually thrown him off the bridge. I'm like, I promise I didn't throw him off the bridge. Well, you know, we didn't have body cameras then, but we had the dash cameras in the car and not to date myself, but they had, uh, they were vcrs in the trunks of our car, right?
Speaker 2:so you had vhs tapes that were recorded it was recording, uh, the events, but they finally, uh, whoever the the family member was had, came by and and they finally let him sit down and see the video. To you know, I was 30 yards from him. He was all by himself when, when he went overboard, freaky well, it probably didn't help Jesse coming over there going what'd you do throw him off Well yeah, I don't know if he really said that, but I could assume he did.
Speaker 2:Travis Couches who came to me. Jesse, actually drove past me and went down to the, but yeah, there was a few jokes about me throwing him off. I'm like no, no, no, no, up until then. But yeah, there was a few jokes about me throwing him off. I'm like no, no, no, no, no, Because up until then you know, if you said something like that, it wasn't no big deal. I'm like well you know, I actually had somebody go over the bridge on me.
Speaker 3:Well, and that right there just goes to show you how quickly things can escalate to worst-case scenarios.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely, you know because?
Speaker 3:I mean to me it was going gonna be a hit and run DUI Simple.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that was it man. That guy he like did an army roll like a ranger roll off that thing too it was not, it was impressive. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 3:He just really honestly thought Like he was clearing a log off the course he was so pissed, that's what it looked like he was like I'm hitting the field running.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was just too drunk to realize.
Speaker 4:I've seen Looney Tunes, you know it's like a Wile E Coyote type moment, like here he goes.
Speaker 3:He went over to the bridge and went meep, meep.
Speaker 4:Pretty much gone, isn't it? Oh my gosh, it was one of those where you're glad it's recorded for sure, and just kind of like the Willieie board incident there, but it's better seeing it. Yeah, but this in this case it was just nice to have to clear any wrong, of course absolutely those dash cameras were. You know the robotic hands as much resistance as we had to them that you just become.
Speaker 3:I hate them. I didn't want them, but then, then I was gonna say but you know, at the end of the day I don't know any different I don't think so, because most of the time I forgot the stupid thing was even there, I know.
Speaker 2:So you know I did what I did yeah I never, never had to quit.
Speaker 4:You know, I use the same tone of voice with everybody. If I had to get, if I had to get loud with somebody, I did. If I had to fly, blow them real bad and give them a little language.
Speaker 3:The only time that you ever had any issue with them is when we talked about this before Accidental activations, or you left it on, on accident or it caught a side conversation that was dark humor and all that.
Speaker 4:That's hard to explain and you should be mindful of what you say. Cops deal with things different All first responders, do it's just a part of compartmentalizing at that time.
Speaker 2:You've got to be able to deal with it.
Speaker 4:What else you got another good one.
Speaker 3:That's the only ones that I had on tap to ask you about.
Speaker 2:We always used to tease that we needed to write down stories and then just come out with volumes and volumes of books.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's what I said. I wanted to write a poop book. Every story was exactly one poop long. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Would have been perfect one poop long. Yeah, would have been perfect, but you know the things that we could turn this podcast into, like a table top, a poop yeah, because the things that, the things that that went on, you know, sometimes I've I have forgotten way more than I remember.
Speaker 2:So sometimes people will start talking about something and I'm like oh yeah I remember, you know they used to talk about going up to, to P and, and I remember when, when Doug Gregory found out he was a diabetic, I'd went up to the top. I was, you know, to the top of the hill because I was going to go pee and his car was sitting there when I pulled up next to him and rolled my window down and I sat there for like five minutes and he never would roll his window down. So I thought, well, fine, you're hateful. So I pulled up and, you know, did my business.
Speaker 2:I got back in the car and I pulled back up and I sat there and I looked through the window, for you know, of course he was a canine, so his window was like tinted black, you couldn't see inside the car. So I finally, after another five minutes I just find some that way. So I we're in, drive and I'm driving on that get a mile down the road and then it hits me, don't just found out, he's diabetic. Oh god, what if he's sugared out? He's laid up there, passed out. I just left him sitting there so I thought he was back and no, I think he just. God love his heart, he just dozed off he was just asleep.
Speaker 3:Hey, that happens on work and night shift. I remember Derek would tell us he'd be like listen, if you get sleepy? He said come to the PD, take a nap. He said don't risk it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I'd done that. One night, me and goob was pulled up beside each other and I had dozed off and I remember waking up like three hours later and I looked over at goob. I'm like dude, did I miss anything?
Speaker 3:he said I don't know I fell asleep. I mean I've still got videos on my phone of back there in the sergeant's office of people sleeping, sitting up and and darryl kilburn still may pay me back one of these days, uh.
Speaker 2:And then that's another video that I wished I had. Uh, but I pulled into the back lot at like 6, 30 and darryl was.
Speaker 4:That was a tough time to stay awake. That was horrible. That was the wall, that was. There was a tough time to stay awake, that was horrible.
Speaker 2:That was the wall. That was a wall, and you know, Darrell was sitting in his car.
Speaker 4:Mine was five to six.
Speaker 2:And he was on the phone. So I'm like, okay, so I get up, and I get up and park, then I walk around to his window to talk to him. But when I get over to his window he down. So I went back, got back, my cruiser drove around and I put my bumper up against his driver door and I hit that level three switch on that thing and every light and siren I had came on, you know, three foot from his ear and he woke up and thank god it was in park because both hands gripped on the steering wheel and he mashed the pedal to the floor and he was just standing there and then a blank stare, shaking, with the pedal to the metal, the rpms of that cruiser, wound up as tight as it would go and he finally came to and stopped and all you can see is him doing that on video and then you hear the door open and my cackle as I'm rolling out of the car.
Speaker 2:I'm laughing so hard at him. That's awesome. I asked him later. He said man. He said I don't know why. He said I just just had a dream that I was running a red light and there was an ambulance coming through the intersection and it was about to T-ball me and I was trying to get out of it. He always swore he would pay me back for it and he hasn't yet it's coming. That don't mean it's not coming, but I laughed so hard man.
Speaker 4:I remember being so tired. I was on the north end of town like checking alarms and I came. I was headed to the PD because I was on the north end of town like checking alarms and I came. I was headed to the PD because I was like I'm tired, I got to go up here and chill out. It was like 2, 3 in the morning. I was like, hmm, I didn't sleep good that day. I remember it. And when I figured out when I came to I was five miles south of the city in ferriston, I was, I was at that. You know, I was there before.
Speaker 4:I was like I mean I was obviously driving you was in, I was, I was not in that black I saw the black dog or something like an old movie, but I was. I was like uh, and I woke up then. But I remember going to the p and going I need to wake up here. That's a scary feeling to realize you've driven like eight miles and don't know where you're at.
Speaker 2:Because I was like, where am I and believe it or not when we switched to the 6P to 6A shifts. That helped me, I don't know why. I guess because when we were 11 to 7, you know, at six o'clock you eat supper and then you're just sitting around the house and by 11 o'clock you're already worn out, versus going to work at six and you're up and about, you know, and of course we'd always go, uh, to walmart at two o'clock in the morning and and go through and grocery shop and get us all a late meal. Yeah, and then you know flash, and I heard you tell the introduction of of where flash comes from, and I guess richie probably was the primary richie was the primary one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I'll let him tell his, because he'll tell it every time, anytime he gets a chance.
Speaker 2:But I just, I never did understand, because at midnight every night, midnight-ish we all knew it was coffee time at Speedway, and if you don't know much about London, speedway is a mile straight shot from the PD. We all left at the same time and we were halfway through a cup of coffee before flash ever got there speedy, but I'm like we left at the same time worded you strike.
Speaker 3:I'd see a car and follow it, and you went to Corbin.
Speaker 4:Yeah Lord, knowing us, it could have went south.
Speaker 2:I mean, course, the only time. Course you know as a supervisor not you know, the, the patrolman generally don't, but as a supervisor that the, the daytime bunch, doesn't care, that it's three o'clock in the morning to you, right, you know they'll call you at nine, ten o'clock in the morning, but which is three am to me. But when they wanted to know something they wanted to know is that the only time I ever got called and actually had to get up and go somewhere was beat on his door and make him go do a report.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't know what their deal was on that. They were awful for that for a while. They'd call you at 9 o'clock in the morning you just got off at six to come. It can't wait, even though knowing that you worked at 6 pm that night couldn't wait. You had to get up and go sign a paper or something I mean it's just something silly that could wait, till it just but it had to be done then, ridiculous yeah there's I remember some of the one of our last little thing.
Speaker 4:I was like get a knock or a phone call. I probably didn't answer a phone when I was in school or didn't hear it. Yeah, I'm deaf. So get the knock on the door at midnight, 1 o'clock. Hey Gary, I was like I guess you're not here just to hang out at midnight when I'm asleep, so nope, you gotta come in. You got something crazy going on, so, uh, it was never, never, never. Good now I gotta.
Speaker 3:I gotta call one night when we lived at that in the trailer still yet, and, uh, the house. So we lived down a couple of houses down from my grandmother and down a couple of houses down from my grandmother, and then a couple of houses down from that was a house that was on fire. Well, g calls me and he said I think your grandma's house is on fire. And I was like, and it was late, it was like 12, 30 at night, something like that. So I'm in my underwear. I mean I I'd got out. I don't think I was asleep yet, but I was just sitting there in the bed. But I just remember they're all on scene and I would love to see what everybody's reaction was to it, because I grabbed a flashlight and my flip-flops and just took off running down the road to the—.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it turns out it wasn't—.
Speaker 3:It wasn't my grandma's house, so I just showed up. All the firefighters had just seen my fat butt was you in boxers?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's just. Yeah. I you know, I knew it was, you know that she lived in there somewhere.
Speaker 3:I just it was close, it was a house down, so oh my gosh, but yeah great the craziest that we've seen is it's.
Speaker 4:You never forget it. You never forget some of the jump scares or the scares. Oh yeah. I've never been more afraid than riding around and listening to Ghost. I'm not afraid of not one man, I don't think. No, I've had to fight some bigger than me people that had there's legends of like, oh man, if you go against that guy, oh you know, I'm like, whatever, yeah, um, but you could, you, you put me in a car, you, you watch it go something scary.
Speaker 4:Something unexplained is just exactly so we've had a ball. Yeah, um, gary's me and gary are best friends, I mean we've. We've grew up together just from the same area down there.
Speaker 2:Definitely consider T-Dot more of a brother than yeah we've.
Speaker 3:I think that goes for most of our guys that we had got closer.
Speaker 2:I agree, you know, because that's the thing you know. You, all you know, kept up with me. But it's, I don't know, it's weird. It's like when you retire, they, you know, your with me, uh, but it's, it's, I don't know, it's weird. It's like when you retire, they, they, you know your name gets mentioned occasionally, but you know you kind of get forgotten. So it's you, you know, you've got a good set of friends when you know, several years after you've retired, you still have a good close relationship.
Speaker 4:Well, that's that night shift crew that comes. You know that's close and me and we I have that same thing with, of course, you guys, of course, but you know there's a few. You know me and when I worked at schools, of course me and Hopkins stayed really you know, and still are very close and I'm 10 years older but we worked so many calls and did a lot of things together. You know there's always that phone call man, what are you doing? What's up?
Speaker 4:and that's the way we are yeah and you know we me and gary not only went to school together, we still we're. We go to church together. We're right, we were partners here at church doing things. And he runs the sounds and I play around on drums.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, and you, you really know how close of friends you are when you know it may be weeks or months or something. But that once a month call and the first thing you hear is what are you doing, douchebag? Or you know it's not. Hey, how are you?
Speaker 2:You will absolutely pick up right where you left off, exactly.
Speaker 4:And that's the cool thing about it. I've got friends like that. Years can go by and then it's like we picked up on the same conversation and that's what's so important to keep that friendship and keep that alive. Policing's weird. We've talked about it. There's been too much. You know we don't have that.
Speaker 3:That damn blue line is bull. Sometimes it is. It's not. There's a brotherhood there, but it's.
Speaker 4:That thin blue line is bull. Sometimes it is, it's not.
Speaker 3:There's a brotherhood there, but it's not like everybody says. It's not like the Marines.
Speaker 4:No, it's not like, but this podcast is to make that better and do better yeah.
Speaker 3:Hopefully from listening those of you out there that actually have kept up with us and have tolerated us for this long Thank you guys. Are seeing the human side of this, and that's the goal. We're just idiots trying to figure life out too. But, gee, thanks for coming out. I've enjoyed it.
Speaker 4:It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 3:Anytime you want to come back, just holler at us.
Speaker 2:We'll keep up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, start thinking again, because every time we do one of these podcasts, I think of more stuff. Oh yeah, yeah. This one was pretty impromptu, so we didn't have a whole lot of yeah.
Speaker 2:But it was fun. We've been here for over an hour and not really pre-gaming for anything, so yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we got a lot more stories to tell. Stay tuned everybody.
Speaker 3:We'll see you on the next one. Yep, everybody, have a happy new year. We'll catch you on the next one. Outro Music.