Behind the Badge: George Opelt's Personal and Professional Odyssey

Step into the gripping world of law enforcement with George Opelt, as he shares a lifetime's worth of experiences. His personal and professional saga is a testament to growth, resilience, and the relentless search for understanding. Uncover how formative relationships shape us, the humor in George's early career challenges, and the profound impact of critical incidents on a police officer's life.

Embark on a narrative that traverses the highs and lows of police work and the fundamental human experiences they intertwine with. George opens up about the camaraderie among officers, the emotional complexities of handling traumatic events, and the evolution from a rookie to a mature, confident individual. His story isn't just one of a man in uniform; it's about the bonds, the emotional milestones, and the personal development that resonate with all of us.

This episode is not just a peek behind the badge but also a broader exploration of male vulnerability, communication struggles, and the pursuit of mastery in high-stakes professions. George's narrative illustrates the multifaceted nature of law enforcement, from the intense pressures to the communal bonds that sustain those who serve. Tune in for an episode that not only paints a vivid portrait of a life in uniform but also delves into the universal challenges and triumphs that connect us all

Transcript

00:13 - John (Host)
Hi and welcome to another episode of Unturned Stones. On today's episode I'm going to be interviewing George Opel. George is somebody I've known you now, I think, for maybe 10 years. 

00:22 - George (Guest)
Yes, that's right, because I think I met you right when I first started coming to Winner's. 

00:25 - John (Host)
Edge you were coming there with all the other high school guys at that time. 

00:29 - George (Guest)
Yeah, I've been there since 13. 

00:31 - John (Host)
Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, yeah, it has been 10 years, so it's been that long and we weren't necessarily super close through most of that time or anything. We've always kind of known each other through Winner's Edge. We haven't had much personal time, but we've always connected whenever we talk to Jim, and I think you're somebody who I've enjoyed seeing your own journey kind of going from a high school kid Not that I was much older than you at the time, even when I first started coming but I think you were still in high school when. 

00:58 - George (Guest)
I was my first year out of high school. 

01:00 - John (Host)
Okay, okay, yeah, so there was still just that like okay, you're like a little younger. I think I was fresh out of college and at that time that age difference feels big. That was. It was cool to like see you develop and like go through like your last 10 years. So you came up with that idea of talking to you, especially because I think your career choice and the mental health things that kind of revolve around your career choice being a police officer, something I'm very excited to talk to you about and hear your perspective on. So just to kick off the podcast, you know, tell people a little bit by yourself, like where you're from, you know what your childhood was like, you know just little details that we can go from there. 

01:36 - George (Guest)
All right, like John said, my name is George O'Pelt. I was born and raised in Milwaukee, tulsa, for the first five years of my life and then moved out to Milwaukee. All my cousins and family were out there so we made the move out there. We lived with mom and grandma for most of my life. Dad wasn't much in the picture, which I didn't know any different. So they're growing up. It was had its challenges. We can delve into those a little bit. But for the most part went to Milwaukee since first grade, graduated there During my time there football, baseball, typical normal guy growing up shit Enjoyed my time there. A lot of that who I became today is because of my friend grew up in coaches and whatnot through there and then moved on to WCTC where I found my dreams of being a cop, where I've been in law enforcement now for eight years, started in New Briland and finally made it to Tulsa, which was my dream, dream department. So fun time there. 

02:39 - John (Host)
So yeah, and currently your relationship status. 

02:43 - George (Guest)
So it's just married to a wonderful woman named Bryn. We met a couple years ago 21, if I fucked that up, sorry. She then fantastic brought me through a lot of journey emotional maturity as emotionally mature as I thought I was Speaking with her, not anywhere near where I thought I where I need to be, still obviously always growing, but she's brought me a long way. So I got lucky. How old are you now? 20, just turned 29 February. Okay, yeah, and we just got married in December. We is a kind of rush Graham's had one, has had lung cancer for the last 10 years, wasn't active and then finally turned active in November. One to three months to live was very important for especially me and Bryn to have her see that and very important for her to see us get married. So we came up with a quick courthouse wedding so she got to see it and then, unfortunately, she passed away a week later, in the week of Christmas, which is unfortunate, but it was her time to go, so she got to celebrate with you as a little bit though. 

03:48
Yep, so crazy turn. Cancer works in funny ways. So the day of our wedding you wouldn't ever guess she had cancer or anything like that and then dropped her doses of steroids and then kind of it took its course, yeah, so well, at least she was there. 

04:03 - John (Host)
Oh yeah, that's a very special day for your wife to like. Want her to, therefore, and this huge oh yeah. 

04:08 - George (Guest)
So I'm very, very grateful for Bryn because you know, most girls have their growing up, have their picture perfect wedding and whatnot, and for her to sacrifice that for me and my family, I can't yeah that's huge, yeah, yeah, I mean that type of support is not it's like it's not support you can take lightly, because it has such a profound, deep meaning. Oh yeah. So I mean I'll never be able to repay back to her, so I'm just always grateful for that. She knows that. 

04:35 - John (Host)
Yeah, Okay. So to kind of take back here a little bit so your dad wasn't around when you were young. Was he like around for any part of like? 

04:44 - George (Guest)
so oh, he, him and my mom met while working at a restaurant years ago back in the day. He immigrated from Mexico as a 14 year old the typical my uncle, his older brother, was already here and then his parents sent him over here when he was 14, didn't speak the language, jumped the border, came to work, send money back home to the family, and so they met, did the normal hooked up kind of stuff as people in restaurants do. Then along came me and he was. He did his best, right. I mean being 14 years old, sent over to a different country, not knowing English language, just working, and then have a kid at the age of 18. 

05:26
He only been in a different country for four years and then try to be a dad. He does best. He came around younger, went into. My younger days was about every like school break. I'd go up there for the week because he lived up in Stevens Point, and then down that when he got to high school, moved to New Mexico, signed in see him for three or four years, barely talked to him and then showed up randomly at one of my senior football games and then telling them, which was kind of cool to see. 

05:50 - John (Host)
But not. Not, it wasn't hard, it was. It was like you did appreciate it. Yeah, okay, and in hindsight you still appreciate it. 

05:56 - George (Guest)
Oh, yeah, yeah, okay. So I mean, sometimes it's a little difficult. Looking back in maybe my younger days, I wish you would have been there more. But now that I'm more older and realized obviously I don't have kids, I don't know how difficult it is yet, but, coming from a different country, I can't imagine being in his shoes having a kid four years after being 18, barely knowing language, and then try to be a father on top of it, right? So so do you guys still? 

06:22 - John (Host)
talk now. 

06:22 - George (Guest)
Yep, I wouldn't say we're very close. It's a birthday's, holidays kind of random text and calls and what not. There's been a lot of promises and empty promises that never been fulfilled. So it's kind of hard to see that and that was probably the most difficult part of it. But also it's something I always knew and always kind of expected so. But I'm on the other side of it. My mom and Graham's did a fantastic job raising me and overcoming that and they never passed judgment down on him or made it the fuck him or help me back. So do you? 

06:59 - John (Host)
feel like that's a big reason why. Maybe like do you think did you ever held resentment as a kid that he wasn't around? Was there any feeling of that or like anger? 

07:07 - George (Guest)
No, not resentment or anger. I think it's mainly because mom and Graham said he did, he does his best, he loves you, he just doesn't. It's part of the way he was raised is that way. So they did a good job, keeping me objective about it and not emotional. 

07:23 - John (Host)
So they communicated this at a young age where they were kind of very clear that, like, your dad being around has nothing to do with your self-worth or what love he might have for you. It has more to do with his own challenges. So do you like remember that? Like, do you remember this? 

07:37 - George (Guest)
conversation Like how old were you? Oh god, I think I've been told that since four or five or whatever. Whenever you start remembering what your parents tell you it's been as far as I remember it's your dad loves you. He'll be there for you if you need. It's just distance school life and just the way he was raised is unfortunately. 

08:00 - John (Host)
How do you think your mom was able to not hold resentment towards him and still be able to, you know, tell you that he loved you and speak it seemed like I don't know highly, but she's still. She spoke, obviously in a way that didn't make you think negatively of him. 

08:14 - George (Guest)
No, I think it's just a testament to my mom's will and her emotional maturity and just her maturity and love overall, because that's just the person she is. She's a saint. There's no ifs, ands or buts about it being a single mom raising me, no child support wasn't really there. Sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn't consistent. It would have been very easy for her to your dad doesn't do this, your dad doesn't do that, you don't get to see him. But the bigger person in her said no, he still loves you. He just doesn't know any better and it's not your fault. So I think that was a lot of the big thing and she still did. I always called her mad growing up mom and dad because she played the mother role and not only she'd go out in the back yard play football, baseball and all those things dad would do. She did too. So I just I didn't know any difference and she didn't let me feel any sort of way about it. 

09:11 - John (Host)
I mean she sounds like an incredible woman and a very resilient one. Do you have siblings? 

09:17 - George (Guest)
Two half brothers. My dad moved up to Stevens Point younger, younger aide and then he met his now ex-wife but mother of my two half brothers up there and their names are Rick and Carlos. Not as close with them as I probably should be, but part of that is just distance and life and whatnot. 

09:39 - John (Host)
So with your mom it is just you and your mom. As far as, like, there's no other siblings from your mom, then no. So for you and your mom, that relationship, really you were such a close relationship for her, she probably poured everything into you. Oh, yeah, so everything. 

09:54 - George (Guest)
Yeah, she poured everything in me, I poured everything into her. Weird, yeah, she's my mom, but growing up she was more of kind of a friend, more than anything. So normal, typical mother-son relationship it's not. I don't even consider it like that. It's like a true friendship, whether it was all the driving me to soccer tournaments, baseball tournaments, whatever a lot of time in the car. So we've grown to be very, very close. That's awesome, yeah. 

10:17 - John (Host)
You still, but do you in your adult life go see her often, as you know? 

10:21 - George (Guest)
Yeah, so I actually stopped before this. I had a little bit of time between my haircut and gym and then, coming here, I went over there and talked to her for 10, 15 minutes and then rolled out. So she lives, saw gems in Milwaukee. I grew up in Milwaukee. Her house is only five minutes from the gym, so I was like I got 20 minutes away, so I'll go say hi. And then came out, came out here. So yeah, it's still caller most days on my way to work to see what's up and how things are. So it's still a very cool relationship we have, I would say. 

10:53 - John (Host)
Yeah, Now she sounds like she was a wonderful influence on you from an emotional maturity point of view, without a doubt. Now did you, and as much as she could have, played a mom and dad role for you, did you still see masculine influence and a masculine like advice from somebody you know? Was anybody like that? And I mean it sounds like you played a lot of sports, like you had coaches always, so you kind of balled with head like male figure heads. 

11:20 - George (Guest)
Yep. So then, living with mom and grams, both did a very good job playing the motherly and fatherly. Oh, grams is awesome, she's the same thing as mom, but grams was more the strict, strict father figure of the household. My mom was the more kind of motherly. She was still strict too, but grams was the rock in the family and she kind of held that more fatherly role. 

11:41
But yeah, so I had to find my I guess you could say male influences outside of the in-home right, the nuclear family, just the way it was. So I had two great uncles, uncle Randy and then Uncle Michael, who were my role models growing up. And Uncle Randy is my godfather and he's always been the first one to take care of us and whatnot. So they were very good growing up. He's very religious in the church. 

12:07
So up until a high school, middle school, when sports started become 24, seven weekends I go to church and Bible studies with him and then his, his two daughters I see Maggie, my cousins and then Uncle Michael, and they were always there growing up telling me what to do or showing me certain ways Like this is what the man in the house does You're there to protect your mom and grandma if anything happened, that's on you or this is what a man should do or how it how he should act. And then, more so I would say high school. My high school football coach is probably the more setting factor of that, coach Iverson. He really is the one that instilled the harder work ethic and control what you can and don't let shit you can't control affect you. And that's probably what stuck with me the most. 

12:54 - John (Host)
Like him instilling those types of lessons on you, which is like you know, you get those lessons a lot in like the military and in the law enforcement, and it's because guys like that follow those lessons very well, they like those lessons, they objectively view them as something that's, you know, leaning into. 

13:12 - George (Guest)
Yep. So one of the things that always sticks with me we had it posted on our weight room is no excuses, no apologies. So you got put in the work, you got to love the work right. Your reward for being able to play on Fridays nights is the hard work and preparation you do Sunday through Thursday to go play those games on Friday and instead of looking at the sprints as oh fuck, these suck, think of it as this is going to make the game that much easier. Right, you go through hell that we can make the game just an easy kind of easy road, then. 

13:42 - John (Host)
Yeah Now. Did you feel like you have to play your uncle's hot to about playing this like man of the house role? Did you feel like you played that, like you started taking that role on in younger years at all, or? 

13:55 - George (Guest)
not, and it was more, more so because my mograms also emanated that right there. Very traditional, yeah, man is the protector of women, women, whatever else. And then started at a very young age too, because in first grade there would be out playing whatever else, and then some of the boys would be bullying and picking on the girls and I protected the girls and went against all my buddies in first grade for that and I think that's all started because of my uncle's mom and grandma. 

14:26
Protected because they protect women and children and protect from bullying and whatnot. 

14:33 - John (Host)
So Okay, and now you mentioned your friend group having a big influence on you. Is that like from like the boys and like having male friends, influence because of having more? Like no male influence in your life because of male friends because, like it's, you know you didn't have a brother, or like a dad where you got more that male influence, like in the younger years? Like, where do you feel like that big influence for you came with the big friend group? 

15:03 - George (Guest)
So Piwaki is a. I love their campus and I think it's a unique campus when you go to elementary school because all the elementary, middle school and high school are all on the same campus and you start on one side and it's a big U. So you start, if you walk, you're like elementary is on one side of the U and then you move your way over to horizon, which is 4th, through 6th, and then A's a Clark, which is middle school, 7th and 8th in high school. So you grow up playing sports and with all your classmates from first grade and you do that whole journey together in the same campus and same building. So just being able to be part of the same friend group from since first grade of 5, 6, 10 guys that are all still super close, we all still talk and hang out whenever we can. So I think that was a big influence in just being able to grow together and go through our journeys. 

15:49 - John (Host)
So kind of always having this social group, that was like a stability for you in your life that you always had these friends that, no matter what was happening, I always had something to do with them or some fun to be had with them. 

16:00 - George (Guest)
Yup there's always. We all grew up playing the same sports. We'd sleep over at each other's houses every time in the summers, especially 6th, through even high school, I wouldn't sleep in my own bed for a week. We'd all be at each other's different houses and whatnot. So that is also a cool experience and I know that's rare for people to go through and people lose friends as they grow out of high school. But we've all stayed super close and whatnot. So I think that's part of the way P-Walkies set up with their campus and you grow together all on the same campus. It's not, oh, I went to this middle school and then, or I went to this elementary school, this elementary school, and then you just join in high school. It's you're with the same people since kindergarten and first grade. 

16:40 - John (Host)
Yeah, and I think I might have had maybe I know at least one other guest I believe another guest who's talked about this where they had a group of friends that they've known from a young age and, like you said, it's not very common but the guys would have it. It seems like it's been such a massive difference maker for them and the ability to always have this group that they relied on. And for us men, we feel the need to be part of something and whether that's a sports team or that's part of even just like your job, you're part of a team and your department or your job, wherever it is. But being part of a social group is such a big desire for us. We want to be accepted by other men. 

17:17
So to have a group like that that you like felt you all accepted each other and you grew up together, I think that's like so massive. I think so many guys need that. They just don't get it because a lot of schools don't have a setup like that. Like you said, you feed in from so many different elementary into the middle schools, different middle schools fit into the high schools that it's disjointed where it sounds like P I walk, as a setup that kids really do. Oh yeah, so P walk could be as big as it is too. 

17:43 - George (Guest)
Yeah, so it's gotten bigger since I left there. I mean, my graduating class was 140, which was on the smaller end, but yeah, just that ability to grow up with the same people and, yeah, 140 is on the smaller end. 

17:55 - John (Host)
Yeah, yeah. 

17:56 - George (Guest)
Yeah. So I mean, everyone knew each other in a small town or living right, so everyone knew each other's bullshit and rumors and whatnot. There's not many secrets. So just be able to have that and go from there. And I know those guys be done, talk as often as we used to, obviously just because of life and kids and marriages and whatnot. But I know those core group of five guys I could throw in the group chat and be like, hey, I have this going on, any of you willing to have them? They take the shirt off their back. Or they be like, yeah, we'll be their first thing in the morning or they're even halfway across the country. They all be there fucking tomorrow or the next day. So just to have that support group is fantastic. It's and I know it's rare. 

18:34 - John (Host)
Yeah, yeah. That's the type of guys where you probably don't need to talk to them for two years and you could talk like that and they just pick right back up. Yeah. 

18:42 - George (Guest)
So it's cliche as it is. I know they're. We don't talk much, maybe as much as we used to, but as soon as I need something, or they need something, we're all there. 

18:51 - John (Host)
So post high school did a lot of guys like go off in different directions or no? 

18:57 - George (Guest)
So we had a couple went to Whitewater, went to Ashkash and then couple out of state schools, but for the most part even being separate in college it was, we were still super close and right so I stayed at home. I lived at home because I went to CTC to be a cop, right, and so that was an interesting challenge because you see all your good buddies go off to college living the dorm life, partying, drinking in the normal college shit, and I'm at home working whatever else, which is fine. That's what I wanted to do Partially. I had to mature a lot sooner in life because of just the cars that were dealt to me, which I'm very thankful for because it got me into my career a lot sooner. I learned some life lessons at a young age that catapulted me into being able to achieve my dream that much sooner, and I loved my college time. 

19:52
I wasn't really made for college dorms. I wasn't a very good student in high school. I graduated in 2007 in GPA, mainly because a lot of those classes in high school don't apply to what I do now right, geometry, trigonometry I'm not using sands, cosine whatever, tans, whatever. That is right, I knew that and shitty actions of use it as an excuse to be like I don't fucking need this class. But so normal college wouldn't have gone very well. I did homework. I may have even flunked out, so it was very good that I made that decision at a young age to go to CTC and go right into my career with teachers that work in the field, versus someone who just got their bachelor's in criminology and is teaching it from a textbook without that real life experience. 

20:39 - John (Host)
Yeah, yeah. Do you feel like a lot of your friends and just a lot of just people in general, who you saw kind of go off to college after high school? Do you feel like a lot of them got into college or got a degree that they utilized after college right away too, or no? 

20:51 - George (Guest)
For the most part I mean my friend group's also very tight knit and wear a bunch of type A, very motivated type people. So their whatever their degree was is what they're using right. So and I know that's that's also another rarity thing too is there's a lot of people that don't use her. They go to college for one thing they never use it again. So my friend group's were in that way where a couple of them went engineers or engineers at Milwaukee Tool Business. One guy's doing a trade show. He does trade show boosts at Catalyst down in Kenosha and that's what he went to school for business marketing, whatever else, and then finance stuff. So they've all lined up with it. So I'm very happy for them for that, because I can't imagine going to school for four years and then getting into whatever line of work you thought you were going into and be like, oh fuck, I hate this, what am I going to do next? Yeah, yeah for sure. 

21:39 - John (Host)
Yeah, Now I'm assuming like you, you probably have like a high opinion of like trade work as well and stuff like that and trade school and apprenticeships. So do you think like someday you probably want to have kids? 

21:53 - George (Guest)
Oh yeah. 

21:54 - John (Host)
So do you think you'd like, would you push your kids more towards college or trade school or you know because and I'm asking this question from the point of view of you to you it felt like not going to college, living in the dorms kind of, and I will agree, I mean I live in a dorm. In college the first couple of years were really just. I mean, I school stuff got done, I've got an internship stuff too, but like it was a lot of just. It was socialization, it was drinking, it was party and, with that being said, I still wasn't even a crazy party or some a lot of kids were worse than me. 

22:24
So sometimes I think to myself I want to push kids to go to college just because I think it's a standard that they should do, or it's college is the thing. Now we expect that of everybody and at the end of the day, like it's kind of you can't fuck off for a couple of years before you take it seriously and you know, get down to business and, like your two last two years, you take serious classes for your major. So you know, for you now, would you base off your experience and that opinion? Do you think you'd want to push your kids one way or the other. 

22:49 - George (Guest)
So I the answer right now would be I would push more towards tech school and trade. Just because you get into real life sooner, you can go to school for two years and have not $250,000 of fucking school loans for a job that's paying $50,000 a year, where you could go to CTC for two years and do a tool and die and make 100 grand after two years, or plumber or whatever else. And those are. Those are jobs that make America work, and make like work is plumbing, infrastructure stuff. Business has this role too. But I push more for kind of more probably realistic or hands on stuff. But college is also important. I don't think it should be free. I also don't think it should be quarter million dollars to fucking go to school for four years and never be able to pay that off. 

23:36 - John (Host)
Yeah right, the problem is not that America needs free college tuition. The problem is that college shouldn't be as expensive as it is. No, there's like there's all these statistics about the number of administrators per student has gone up substantially over the years, which is the reason that administration costs have gone so high for colleges, even though they're offering the same classes. Yeah, the books are being revved up over the years, but they're offering the same curriculums for the most part, you know. But nope, it's way more administrators. 

24:05 - George (Guest)
They're charging you this absurd number, but I mean it takes what? Probably four billion dollars a run on university. I mean they got to make up the money somehow and I don't. I don't know what the answer is, that's way above my head, yeah for a reason. It's not because I'm good at math or science or anything like that. 

24:19 - John (Host)
So yeah, so what made you decide cop? When? When did you know you want to be? 

24:26 - George (Guest)
okay, this is gonna be the probably corny story you've ever heard, but it it's what ignited my passion. So we were living on 94th in capital and we had it upper lower duplex and I think overall I was. There's some. There's some. Cops are just born to be cops. I believe I was one of that, just because that's what I've always wanted to do. 

24:50
But what really set it in was our landlord was kind of an asshole and so there was some argument between my mom and him and then it was hot as hell and it was summer or whatever else. He didn't. He must not like the way we were taking care of the cats or something along those lines. So one day he turned the heat up to like 90 degrees when I was already 90 degrees outside that cats were sweating. We were sweating like it's whatever. You see, I control the thermostat and it was the one of those thermostat old buildings, that thermostat in the common hallway. So only the landlord could change it right. And so he's being a dick about it. Obviously my mom confronts him about it because I'm four or five years old, she has two cats and fucking ridiculous to turn that up, whether or whatever argument is legal. 

25:36
Yeah, yeah, obviously legal. So he gets in her face. My uncle comes over, tries to do the same thing. He swings at my uncle and my mom and I'm out playing with my car and I see all this and at the same time she called the cops because he was escalating, whatever else. So two Milwaukee cops show up as he's swinging up mom and my uncle, and they take him away and arrest him, right. 

26:04
So I always say that day I became a cop because before that my superheroes were Batman, superman, stupid shit, right. And then it wasn't Batman or Superman that came to save the day. That day it was two cops and blue uniforms and black boots, as I always say, that came and saved the day. So that's the day I always say I became a cop, right, because mom was in trouble, uncle was in trouble and who came to save the day? It was two cops, two Milwaukee cops that were always in the neighborhood and whatever else. So they came and saved the day, arrested him, and I saw that as a four or five year old kid and that's what stuck with me and that's what's been my motivation ever since. 

26:42 - John (Host)
Is it crazy to think back and be like that's like one memory, like shape your decision on, like what you wanted to do in your career. 

26:49 - George (Guest)
Yeah, something 14, now 18 years old, going into WCTC for law enforcement. For something 14 years ago hasn't changed, wow just one memory like that. 

27:01 - John (Host)
You saw it in your brain, just clicked and that's it, that's the day. 

27:04 - George (Guest)
I always say that's the day, and before that too, those same two cops is back in the day when they used to hand out business cards. So I always had my big will. It was a police big will with lights and sirens on and they always had 100th in capital and lucky, which was like an ice cream burger shop, whatever else. They'd always be there and they'd give me baseball cards every day, whether I'd show up every fucking day and they'd give me different packet cards every day and the same kid, whatever else, and they were always very nice and whatever else, whatever, I remember. 

27:31 - John (Host)
So in high school, when, like the time started coming up that counselors would bring up college, did they pressure you into trying to apply to college? Or was it like you were so hard intent on it that they knew that there was? You know, wasn't like a, you should consider other choices, you should apply, just and you know it was. They left you alone. They knew you what your decision was. Yeah, so they. 

27:51 - George (Guest)
I didn't even really interact with our guidance counselors that much, Obviously junior. They were talking about colleges and what I want to do. I everyone knew, everyone knows, since first grade I've been saying I'm be a cop, I'm be a cop, I'm be a cop, and mostly SWAT. So which lucky to be part of the SWAT team on our department right now too. But yeah, growing up that was always the intent and they're like they're. 

28:17
They gave me options, right. They said you can go to a four year, get your bachelor's in criminal justice. You don't have to worry about it again. Or you can go to WCTC, do an associate's degree, and if you need your bachelor's in the future, you're gonna have to go back. So it's really up to you to decide do you want to go back, maybe in the future, or do you want to just get it over with in the beginning? And then another thing I had to contend with. I got I could have played football, either Carol or Concordia, which definitely wouldn't have been very good for me because I would. I always put sports ahead of school, Part of the reason why I struggled in high school and I'm somehow, at the age of 17, made a decision I'm not smart enough to do both, so I have to choose one of the other, and that's why I chose a tech school. 

28:55 - John (Host)
Okay. Yeah so how close was that decision to flipping the other way? 

29:02 - George (Guest)
I think it was a. I was leaning towards going to Carol or Concordia and then all of a sudden I just woke up one day and was like I can't fucking do that. I'm not going to go pay and be $100,000 in debt to fuck up school. 

29:16 - John (Host)
So you were just cared about football, very concentrated on football. 

29:20 - George (Guest)
Yeah, I would have been football, football girls drinking that's all it would have fucking been, was all of that, and then school would have been to the wayside and then probably wouldn't even made it two years in college, normal college. 

29:32 - John (Host)
Do you feel like you always had that level of awareness? 

29:35 - George (Guest)
Yeah, a little bit. I think it's because my parents raised me to always know yourself and make the right decisions, even when it's tough and when I've always been more self-aware than, I think, some of my peers just because of the way I was raised. So that was a big part of it was self-awareness and drove me to that. And then, knowing I wanted to be a cop for 14 years, at that point I didn't want to wait any longer. I'm not very patient. So I was like why prolong anything that I can do? I could be out in two years in the academy and then be a cop by the age of 21. And that way I can get to retire sooner and everything. Like obviously I'm not thinking about that when I'm 21. I was like I just want to badge on a gun and go arrest all the bad guys in the world. But it allowed me to get there sooner. 

30:27 - John (Host)
So, because I meet guys like you every so often and they're guys I enjoy having conversations with these guys who are always like they think of the future, they think about how their decisions impact the future, they're always very aware of them and they prioritize making smart decisions so that their future is set up better. And I find a lot of times, like those guys are like that because maybe their parents had those conversations with them at a younger age. For some reason, they got instilled some lessons that, like you, can't always just live in a moment. You got to think about how the consequences, the consequences to the actions that you're going to do, and I think it's such a stark difference between what I don't just want to even say man, I think people, people who look at their future and always think about it and plan for it, and the fact that, like as an 18 year old boy, you can make a very smart decision. 

31:20
If you were just at a younger age at some point told that, like your consequences, that you know there is consequences to everything, you decide whether those consequences are good or bad. And to be 18 years old and to choose, like I'm not going to do the fun thing to go play football at a college where there's going to be girls and drink. No, I'm going to follow this pursuit of like the long term plan I kind of always had and even though I could probably still go back to a cop after going to college, no like that. That takes a level of awareness that you don't usually expect out of high school kids and 18 year old boys. That it's. I think it's refreshing to hear guys had those experiences that I think there's value to like teach other men that so like help keep took the young generation that more Cause. I'm sure that's guided you through your life? 

32:03 - George (Guest)
Oh, yeah, it has. And then what really hit it too is so all my close buddies were going to Oshkosh. I really want to go to Oshkosh. And then makes me my GPA. I need to get a higher score on ACT. Right, wasn't going to happen, because I took the ACT three times. I got 19 every time because I focused on what I need to improve for. 

32:23
From the first one, which guy rocket, but then the other subject would fucking just go to the wayside, right, and I can never just put it, put it all together. I could combine all three of my best from my ACT. It probably would have been like a 23 or something, but I just can never put it all together for one fucking time, right? So with Oshkosh, even going to Oshkosh, they said, okay, with your GPA, you need to get at least a 23 ACT and then you might get in. So that was kind of hard. 

32:50
And then also, I did my research to know the difference between WCTC, the associate program, and four year degrees in criminal justice, right, and I liked what drove me was most of the tech college professors are either current cops or retired cops, right, you're getting that real life experience. And yeah, they have to teach off a textbook and curriculum, but they can also. They have the knowledge to be like okay, the textbooks is saying this is the textbook way, but this is how you can apply it in real life, or this is what happens in real life. This is what happens. Textbook can say this, but great, this is what fucking happens on the road. So this is how you apply it and go from there. 

33:30 - John (Host)
So, getting into your career, finishing up WCTC, what was it like for you? Kind of getting into, like no, because you still do the academy after WCTC. And then you kind of get put into like the first role because, like, at that point, you applied to departments. No, sorry, let me rephrase that question, because when you do the academy, the academy is for a specific city, right? No, so it depends. 

33:57 - George (Guest)
So I did my associate degree at WCTC, which was a great time. Their program is two and a half years and I made it two years. From my last semester I took 23 credits. 

34:09 - John (Host)
And is this? Is that all that time? Is that like, strictly like written material, you know, like all book learning? 

34:15 - George (Guest)
Yep. So it's still normal, somewhat normal college learning. You still you have your. The good thing is the associate program is like your last two years at a bachelor's degree right, you're strictly in your major classes. So like right from the get go, I had an intro to criminal justice, intro to security and even forensics, and then your typical gen ed math, english, whatever but typical book learning. And then what really helped me too was my last semester. They want you to do an internship as part of to get your degree. So you got to find a department and do an internship with and you paid or unpaid. 

34:51 - John (Host)
Huh, is that paid or unpaid? 

34:52 - George (Guest)
Unpaid, so it's a volunteer basis. It's unpaid. 

34:57 - John (Host)
Pds don't have money to pay their interns, which they don't need to be anyway. 

34:59 - George (Guest)
I mean, you're there to learn, you're there it's. They're giving you the privilege to come and see what being a cop is like. So you shouldn't get paid for it anyway, right, yeah. But if you want to do it, better than nothing, not about the money, no one goes into law enforcement for the money anyway yeah. So and then, well and behold, I got my internship at Tosa. So, like somewhat part of it I don't know if it's meant to be a Tosa or not, because I grew up in Tosa, right outside of there, shortlisting at New Browland, which was a great PD, but got my internship at Tosa, small world with that. I applied there the first time, didn't get it, and then one of the buddies that grew up next to me his dad, his best friend with the internship coordinator at Tosa, so that's how I got in, okay, so kind of kind of a very small world, right, have a small connection there. 

35:45
Yeah, Small connection. So got in, loved my time there, learned a lot, and so the internship class. All these other guys and girls are at different PDs and Tosa's a happening place. So I always had the fun stories and class. We meet every Friday at 1230 for an hour and it was either the guys that was at, it was me and another girl at West Dallas, so it would be West Dallas and Tosa had all the cool stories right. So that opened up my world a lot. And then go to Academy. That following fall and I put myself through. So Academy you can either get sponsored or you put yourself through back in the day. So I didn't apply to any prior departments because a lot of them require you to be 21. And I went through Academy and I was only 20. 

36:31 - John (Host)
Okay, so how do you get? Well, how do you get sponsored? 

36:35 - George (Guest)
If you were to get sponsored, so you get hired by a department and they put you on scholarship, essentially through Academy. So if I was 21, I could apply to PD and say hey, I don't have Academy yet, but I want to work for you. And then, if you do well enough in that process, they'll say Okay, we want you, we like you, we're going to put you through Academy and then you're going to start as a cop by us after you finish Academy. 

36:55 - John (Host)
Whereas you can just join and pay for your own Academy. 

36:57 - George (Guest)
Yep. So that's what I did, but partially because it was due to age and I wasn't even old enough to apply anywhere Besides New Brow and what's opened up when I started Academy. Then Academy is a written email or written submission, then you have a panel interview and still very competitive, and since I went to CTC, it was a lot of the same instructors from the associate program taught in Academy too, so it was the easy transition for me and then they had four open spots out of 200 and I was lucky enough to be one of the four they selected. Do you? 

37:34 - John (Host)
I'm assuming, I'm assuming it wasn't strictly luck. You say luck, but like what? What? What do you feel like made you stand out to be selected? 

37:41 - George (Guest)
Part of it. I think it's the, the passion that I have for right, starting from when I was four years old. It's that story, the passion I have always wanted to do, for part of it is showing my dedication in CTC during the associate program. Right, because starting from there that's all. A job interview, a world law enforcement world. It's a small world, especially law enforcement, right. You do well in your associate programs. Everyone knows everyone. So all my instructors are from Walkshop, pd, tosa, whatever else, so they all talk. So I did well, paid attention in class, actually got the best GPA in my life throughout college and especially last semester. So I graduated CTC with a three, six. First time in your life you passed Above a three zero. 

38:25 - John (Host)
So it's the world that you're studying stuff that you want. It's the first time in your life that somebody's teaching you something that you chose to learn not forced to learn Yup, yup, so that that's a big part of it. 

38:36 - George (Guest)
And then, uh, where, what? 

38:37 - John (Host)
did that prove to you, cause I mean to me. That says that like your issue was never school. 

38:42 - George (Guest)
It was just like. 

38:42 - John (Host)
You're capable of studying, you're capable of taking the knowledge and being tested on it. You just you hit it. The high school setting, yeah. 

38:50 - George (Guest)
I didn't. I didn't apply myself in high school as much being there's no excuses I just didn't apply myself as much as I should have I knew. Part of it is with how self aware I was, like I know what it is to be a cop. I thought I knew. I still don't fucking know, but half the time I still fake it. But I was like I knew and I had some teachers tell me you're never going to knowing I'm going to be a cop. They're like oh, if you thought that you're never going to use this. So then the teacher tells you that why the fuck are you going to listen? Right, especially as a 16 year old kid? Hey, you're never going to use this trigonometry. 

39:23 - John (Host)
But unless you want to study, waves. 

39:24 - George (Guest)
I'm like I'm definitely not going to do that. I'm not going to sit there and look at the ocean. I hate water so I'm not going to go study water. So part of it is just didn't apply myself as much as I should Like if I put sports and social life and all that shit. I had a high school. I was the kid that was studying. We had a test in high school and I was studying the class before. Just barely good enough to get by, right. 

39:50 - John (Host)
You know what a lot of high school kids do yeah so, yeah so, okay. So then, okay. So for Academy, you put yourself through. Do you ever get paid back from a department for, like, putting yourself through or anything? 

40:06 - George (Guest)
No, it's all out of pocket. So mom and then my uncle gave all the cousins 1500 a year, every one that graduated high school 1500. So that went right into a CD. I knew that at 18, I was like this is going right into a CD account for Academy. So that paid over 50% of it. That's awesome. So how long is Academy? When I went through, I was the last 540 hour class, so it's about 13 weeks. Now it's about six months, Okay, Because now it's about 720 hours, which is yeah. So it ended up to be four or five days a week for six months. For me. It was five days a week for about 13, 12, 13 weeks, Okay. 

40:48 - John (Host)
So then, how did you get the job in New Berlin? 

40:51 - George (Guest)
So I applied in September of 2015. That whole process took up until about January and March. I started in New Berlin March 3rd of 2016. But that was a whole process. So that process is normal application stuff. And then, if you move on from the application, you do a background packet, which was hell of a thing to do, was 21 questions or anything. All of life experience, the typical what's three good things, what's three bad things? 

41:24 - John (Host)
to lay up to. 

41:26 - George (Guest)
What's the time you've had to be a leader in a tough situation, or name a time of? I hate those interviews. 

41:31 - John (Host)
I think they're called star interview questions. I hate them. 

41:37 - George (Guest)
And then just some oddball life experience questions where it's like at 20 years old you just don't have it yet. So it was a lot of somewhat bullshitting answers and not skewing, but kind of like this situation barely fits. 

41:52 - John (Host)
So let's put it in there and make it sound pretty, but I'll dramatize it. 

41:56 - George (Guest)
Name a time you've been a leader in a difficult situation where you've had to emotionally lead someone. It's like I don't know how to emotionally lead myself to this day. So how the fuck do you expect me to lead someone else? So you fill that out and then you get onto the panel interview, which usually consists of the chief deputy chief, maybe a couple of sergeants and administrators, maybe a civilian employee like HR or something, that they ask you some of those same questions and they have their own like why New Berlin, why Toso, why this department specifically, and all that. So I did my interview. I didn't get it originally, but I was at towards the bottom of the list. But eventually, when the Spots opened up, they called, actually on my birthday, saying that getting a conditional offer and then I would start in two weeks pending background and medical, yeah, all the normal stuff. And speaking of which I thought I almost didn't get it because you get a TB test and so you're supposed to go back 72 hours later. 

43:01
My dumb ass slept through the alarm for the 72 hours later one and like if you miss it, you got to redo it. I cause like, hey, I missed my appointment. Can I just scoot in quicker? No, you got to get a whole new one. So I even hired officially at the PD. I got email to chief like hey, I overslept and missed this. And as I sent the email I was like, okay, well, that's done. Never getting that one. But he was like I just go do it again. It's an easy thing. So biggest thing is honestly right. I could have made up some bullshit like my dog, grandma died, whatever else, but it was just I overslept my alarm. I'm sorry, yeah, I'm sorry. 

43:37 - John (Host)
If he's a good person, he's going to realize okay, I'm not going to judge his kids job route all based off of this one thing. Let's give them an opportunity to prove otherwise. Oh, yeah, yeah. So the first couple of years in the force, how was it for you? Like you know, you had so many years building up to this career. You knew you wanted to do it for so long. Was it, in that sense, like everything you hoped for, was it? 

44:00 - George (Guest)
Oh yeah, it was more than everything I hoped for in a lot of very, very much learning. So you start and after you go through field training process right, that's about three or four months You're with a senior guy. They watch everything you do, they watch the way you walk. If you walk wrong you get yelled at right. So very stressful, but it was very exciting too. 

44:19
Right, I knew I was prepared for it because of the foundations I had laid before me with football coach and work ethic and knowing what you can control and just get 1% better every day. And that's what I tried to do. It was a lengthy process but it was a lot of fun. And then New Brown was a great PD. It just wasn't for me, for my personality style and the activity level I wanted. 

44:44
I started at TOSA as an intern there, so I knew the activity level they had to offer versus what New Brown has to offer. And it's nothing to do with nothing bad to do with them, it's just I knew what I wanted to be at TOSA. Eventually it was just New Brown hired me first, which I'm grateful for the time I've had there. I still have lifelong friends from there and the bonds I've made at that PD is still amazing. The toughest thing, though, was as a 20-year-old kid hired. Just turn 21 and you're starting as a cop. They give you a badge and a gun, and even oh no, actually I got hired before I turned 21. They gave me a gun. They're like well, you can't take it home yet, because in Wisconsin, you can't possess a handgun until you're 21. So I had to leave my gun at the PD for the first two weeks of it. 

45:31 - John (Host)
Ah, that's kind of funny. 

45:32 - George (Guest)
Yeah. 

45:33 - John (Host)
Ah wow, I never thought about that. 

45:35 - George (Guest)
So you can transport it to shoot at the range and whatnot. But I couldn't bring it home because I couldn't technically possess it. But since I was working as a cop, it was covered. 

45:43 - John (Host)
But as soon as you were 21, it was you. Yes, yeah, ok, ok. 

45:47 - George (Guest)
So it was just like that little two-week gap of like you can't bring it home yet, so I'll just leave it here, which is fine. I'd be my duty gun at work anyway, even to this day. Work is work and then whatever else. So it was tough, I would say, because a 21-year-old kid, they have a girlfriend but never been married. And then you're going to domestic violence situations and telling people how to fix their marriage and you have a 40-year-old dude who's been married for 15 years asking you what can I do to fix this? And you're sitting there like you've been married basically my entire life. So let's just and the typical cliché should I've always heard right control what you can if you can't walk away, whatever else. But that was a big struggle. And then I think the biggest thing was going from working at a bar in People's Park to being a cop in two weeks Completely different mindset and thought process you have to go through. Yeah. 

46:46 - John (Host)
It's fine. I just recently in a podcast I was on one of Rogan's podcast I forgot what you were talking about. They were saying something about cops. Cops shouldn't have to be counselors, they shouldn't have to be a health care professional. Cops should show up. They should enforce the law. They should ensure everybody's safe. They should make sure that if there's any violent offenders, that they're suppressed and that nobody around has any more chance of danger. And ultimately it's to impose the law. It's to make sure that the law is being followed. Cops shouldn't be expected to have all these extra mental health things that sometimes come on top of people. Look at you as an authority figure in every sense of the word. Not just the law, but also you tell me what to do. I'm struggling. I don't know how do you think for you. It sounds like that was a transition and quite expect that People would view you as mortgages. This guy's imposing the law on me, but he's an authority figure that might give me advice on something now. 

47:49 - George (Guest)
So I'm going to ask for it. Right, you always heard in college, you always hear cops wear many hats. So it's crazy. You got to wear the hat of being a fighter, maybe being in a gun battle one day, or being there and consoling a child that just lost a mother in a crash, or being there to fix someone's marriage, and now mental health crisis is spiking through the highest that we've seen it in society. So now you've got to try to play a psychologist, got to play a doctor, got to play a paramedic. You've got to be all these different things and it's a lot to learn, and in field training you only learn so much. You get 20 weeks to learn the very basics of all that. So it is a big change and it's a big struggle to change from a civilian mindset of I don't have to worry about this, but now all the eyes are on you Because the actions I take, if it's the wrong decision, it fucks up law enforcement across the country and maybe even the world. 

48:43
Right, that was probably one of the biggest challenges to overcome, because you have to wear so many hats. 

48:52
You have to go from showing up to a scene and being a dick to people to control them to then, once everything settled, to being compassionate and turning on a different hand in a matter of seconds. 

49:06
Yeah Right, and that's difficult for people to do, especially with the way our body responds to higher risk calls, whether it's the physiological effects or just mental effects of certain things that you have to deal with. You have to change it that quick and you don't get an hour to wind down to do it. You could be responding to an armed robbery, the dude with a gun in full pursuit and car chase, and then, as soon as you clear that you have to go, maybe save someone's life, go to CPR, go to a child abuse complaint. You have to change your mindset that quick. Where I think that's what a lot of people don't realize is you may see a cop at work or working and they look like a dick, but you don't know what two calls they just had to handle Beforehand. They're just trying to find a happy medium and get back to homeostasis, mentally and physically, because it is very taxing. 

50:00 - John (Host)
That theme that I've brought up in other episodes that I believe, and I think a lot of guys agree with it, is from early 20s to late 20s. I think a lot of guys go through their most change and it's like when men have to go from being voice to men. Early 20s you think you're a man, you're on top of the world, you're invincible, you're 21. You literally feel physically strong to going through a period of time. In your mid-20s you accept that the world is not about you and the world just moves on no matter what you do. You have to realize how you define your own purpose and path. By the time you're in your late 20s and stuff. 

50:34
But looking back, I think most 29-year-olds could look back at the 21-year-old itself and be like no matter how smart I was back then, I was never as smart as I am. 

50:42
I'm not as smart or as prepared as I am now. How does that for you now to look back and think about the amount of responsibility that you put on a 21-year-old officer when you put him in that uniform, give him a gun and a badge and make him perform this role in our society that is heavily relied and depended on and anybody that thinks that police could be defunded and not relied on is simply fucking Like I don't even know what the word I want to use it. They're ignorant to the world. They're not paying attention to the real world. Cops are needed, very much so in society, because we are monkeys that evolved to people that we need somebody to control us sometimes. But how do you look at that now, thinking like man, you were a 21-year-old kid Out there with a gun and a badge and trying to figure out how to be a better person and help the world, but at the same time, have all the stress thrown on you while you're going through your own growth. Can you talk about that? 

51:39 - George (Guest)
experience. So, looking back at it now, I had no business being a cop at 21. Just because of how far I've come, especially in the last three years with Brent, just the emotional stability and maturity-wise. When I was 21, I was the typical guy that emotions don't fucking matter, I don't have them, I just buried them down and bottled them up and put them away. It's a big challenge, I mean. I remember if girls piss me off or people piss me off, I just say adapt and overcome, or ignore and override, which eventually comes back to boil down and can't affect you later on in life. You don't feel it in the moment, but it really does. 

52:25
So I think the biggest thing and kind of the biggest wake-up call for me was I was exposed to a lot of violence very early in my career. So within the first seven months of my own, I was involved in an officer involved shooting or responsible for someone's death. So being a 22-year-old kid and having to look at my mom and grandma and my girlfriend at the time and be like this is what happened and I'm responsible for someone's death, it's the big responsibility, knowing that it was difficult at first because I had to look at them and they're full of fear, right. I mean mom, grandma, I'm the kid. They're raised and now he's involved in something that happens only 1% of cops very young. I had seven months on my own. I didn't even know how to be a cop yet, still getting that foundation, still learning how to battle the stress of being a cop mentally. Now you throw this onto it, right, and I'm not probation yet, so they can fire me for whatever reason they want. So that was a big hurdle. There was a lot of. I had to put on a tough shell a little bit for the parents, because they're terrified, right, I called them at 6 AM. Hey, I was just involved in a shooting. My chief and Sergeant are bringing me home. That's not normal, right? How many times do you go home? They don't even know I'm at home because I was on third shift, or I get home as they're waking up Nothing normal. I go right down to bed. Now you have a chief and Sergeant bringing you home, sitting in your living room, telling your parents hey, he was involved in a shooting. You can't talk to him about it until he gives his statement, or even until the case is done. You won't be able to find out what happened for the next 72 hours to possibly six months? Right, and as a son and as a person, I want to talk about it, but I can't until I give my statement right, because there's legalities that go along with it. Right, yeah, a lot of it. 

54:19
I acted the way I did because I focused on the use of force, things in academy and what's important, what's not right. There's some things in academy you learn that it's good to know, just in general, and then there's some things you focus on and for me, I picked up on these force stuff because that's the stuff that's going to get you into most trouble or save your life one day, right. And so for a background, for my shooting was a guy who did two on robberies within 10 minutes of each other. I was working in New Berlin. I remember walking into the PD that day and every Saturday in the city going off as I was walking in for a completely different incident. But I was just kind of eary hearing every Saturday as you walk in to your PD. I got there hour hour and a half early every day to read policies, reports, just to keep that learning, to be motivated, whatnot. And Sergeant Pokes this out and says get dressed now, because a woman tried committing suicide and was on fire walking down the middle of the road. So that was what I walked into right. Wow, this is the start of your shift, yep. So I rushing get dressed. And I don't know if those I was raised to be a little more spiritual, but I think it's just more instinct and self-awareness, right. So I remember putting on my vest that day and it went over my head, my stomach started to turn and butterflies and like going nuts, and I remember that I haven't had that feeling in high school sports, right. So I always I got that same feeling before I'd make a big play, whether it was a big catch in baseball or score a touchdown in football, like I always instinctually kind of knew what was, something was going to happen big. And so I put my vest on that day and got that feeling like, oh, something's going to happen right, and innocent me thinking, oh, maybe I'll have my first fight with someone or maybe I'll get my first car chase or foot pursuit right, because I haven't had been exposed to anything yet. 

56:05
And then the mutual aid request from West Dallas comes out, because the armed robbery happened in West Dallas for our K-9 that was working. Best K-9 team I've ever worked with was that day. So we get there, go to help them do the K-9 track for armed robbery due to who's already shot at a cop right Part of it. I didn't even know that. Our dispatch didn't tell us that at the moment. So I'm showing up to a hot scene and I show up and West Dallas sergeant's like what the fuck are you? I'm just a new seven month old cop. He goes what the fuck are you doing? You don't have a vest or a helmet on. We just got fucking shot at. I'm sitting there like oh OK, this is weird, I didn't know that. Granted, and before all this, most mind thing I ever dealt with was typical fist fights with buddies, right? Nothing crazy. 

56:52
grappling and wrestling around with people Not a gun yeah not a gun and let alone someone shooting at someone, and so we get there and I'm throwing our plate cure on it. More ballistic protection, and even the K-9 hand is like what the fuck are you putting that on for? I don't know, I just got screen bad. I'm just doing what I'm told. 

57:11 - John (Host)
So you're an old for well. 

57:13 - George (Guest)
You just don't even know. 

57:14 - John (Host)
You're trying to figure out the procedure, the steps of what you're supposed to do. 

57:17 - George (Guest)
It's the first K-9 track first time, being out of the city on a call the HALPA agency, and he's like all right, let me go talk to him, because they were that sergeant and him were friends. So they go talk. He's like oh yeah, there's a cell case and you can see all the bullet holes in the engine of the squad or like the skid marks off it. Ok, cool, so essentially we're going to go play hide and seek right now with a guy with a gun who's already shot at cops. So we do this K-9 track for hour, hour and a half and during that time we all start off super tactical, taking everything super slowly, and then at the end of it we're like, ok, he got away, so we're wrapping up. And then this dog, after hour and a half of tracking, mouth out, tired, tongue out, whatever else, we get back to a dumpster enclosure we ran by the first time because that's where the track took us. Then offside, now to know where that dog goes, as stiff as a board, hair standing up on the back of his neck and meanwhile a dog that's been running around for two hours to do that is fucking scary, right. And even the handler goes guys, he's fucking around here because his dog just changed right. That's what hammers look for and their dog is a behavior change. For a dog that's running around for the last hour and a half to go still mouth closed, neck, hair on the back of his neck standing up is wild. 

58:36
So we all get back into super tactical, mohawed in super focused. And then he's pointing at one or two. There are two dumpsters, one to the east and one to the west. So he's pointing at the west one. At that same time I'm covering our guy from a car we didn't clear, but I can have the dumpster and both of them in sight. And as they opened the dumpster the dude was laying in there with his gun on his chest like this, pointing at one cop and then pointing at the other cop on the other end and while yelling bang. At that same time hear shots ring out. So I shoot into the dumpster because I thought those cops just got shot. He just pointed and he'll bang. Luckily he didn't shoot because he could have killed a cop or two that day. He luckily decided not to and so in seven seconds I was in the biggest call in my life because that's how quick everything was from start to finish of the shots being ring out was seven seconds. 

59:34
Seven seconds between, like the officers opening identifying him him going bang and then all five of us realizing that, thinking that that one cop he shot and he winced it was because the shell got stuck in his neck so he was wincing from the heat of it and obviously getting a gun pointed at him, so he's wincing whatever else. Thinking he just got shots from seven Start to finish, seven seconds was the biggest decision I've ever made in my life to this day. 

01:00:03 - John (Host)
Did you shoot like were? 

01:00:05 - George (Guest)
you looking into it? No, so I was about 15 yards back and shot into and through the dumpster, so there's some justification to go along for that. Yeah, yeah. 

01:00:18 - John (Host)
We'd have to get into details. 

01:00:20 - George (Guest)
But yeah. So 22 years old Fucking hell dude. 22 years old barely know how to be a cop and now this happens. Seven seconds changes everything. 

01:00:31 - John (Host)
I mean your heart rate must have just been pounding out your chest prior to those seven seconds through those seven seconds. 

01:00:37 - George (Guest)
after those seven seconds, the whole time an hour and a half your heart rate probably run 130 because adrenaline's fucking going through the roof. You're looking for a guy who is violent, shot at cops already did two armed robberies Like this thing to do. That's going to go down easy, right. So then seven seconds change. And then I worked. Third shit. 

01:00:54
I was off the next day because I was going to my buddy's white water college graduation. I was going to go there and party it up that night, right. And then I have to text him that morning and say, oh, I can say his shit went down at work. I won't be there. That's all you can say. And he's like what? And it's when you're close buddies. And he's like what the fuck? You skipped my graduation for I was like I can't tell you why, I'll tell you eventually, but it's whatever. So being a 22 year old kid in that is that's like I knew what I did was right in my heart. Obviously, to this day there's no doubt about it. You shot at two cops, pointing a gun at all of us. It's pretty straightforward, but the emotional side of it was I remember going home, only being able to sleep for two hours and then just the feeling of wanting to cry just from the overwhelming of the emotion of it all. 

01:01:43 - John (Host)
But just couldn't. 

01:01:44 - George (Guest)
There would be no tears that far and it was just that feeling. I was like just do it already. But it probably won't let you, because adrenaline probably took me three days to come down from that adrenaline spike. 

01:01:57 - John (Host)
I mean, when you think of the moments after it happened and those days, is it just very broken apart pieces? Does it feel like your? Memory is just fragmented Because the amount of stress your body must have been hurt. 

01:02:13 - George (Guest)
So the last thing I remember from it is just putting my red dot on the rifle on the dumpster. Then the shooting portion of it is fuzzy. Sometimes it pieces of it come back together and then after I remember being able to do a brawl and get to me did you shoot? Yeah, I did too. Ok, whatever. And then him calling our sergeant letting us know Because for all we knew we missed because he was covered by a dumpster. So we had to sit behind a car for an hour and a half and get a bear cat to take us out, a fucking armored vehicle to come get us from the park line and take us out. Because we didn't know, because he could shoot through the dumpster just as much as we did. 

01:02:48 - John (Host)
Oh, but I thought the guys saw him. 

01:02:49 - George (Guest)
They did so they were backing out as they were shooting, and then the dumpsters closed again, so we couldn't. 

01:02:56 - John (Host)
So you guys had no idea what. For an hour and a half you didn't know if he was alive or dead, so you didn't actually so how did they and you weren't the only one that fired into the dumpster, no, five cops total. So did it take ballistics for them to find out it was Because? Did they use ballistics to figure out, was your bullet that killed? 

01:03:13 - George (Guest)
them. So they did do a ballistic report, but between five officers shooting there was too much to go over and our chief wouldn't tell us anyway. Just so they don't want us to know. They're like well, what if you miss? I was like a person I wouldn't care if I missed because I didn't see him. I'm just shooting into the area he was in. 

01:03:29 - John (Host)
Yes, but OK. So, if I'm understanding correctly, you and five other officers all kind of shared this event, because I don't want to say guilt, because when you're performing your job in a situation where somebody is physically violent, not just with a weapon, but a lethal weapon a lethal weapon that just takes and the weapon is lethal. So it's not that you guys didn't share guilt, but you guys shared responsibility for it. I should say that's maybe a better word. So was there? Did you guys talk as a group after about? 

01:04:13
this and were you the youngest one of them. 

01:04:16 - George (Guest)
Yep, I was the youngest one. Everyone else was five plus years on and three of the five were SWAT guys. So they're very straight and lay guys and they're lucky they were there because they just took over after the fact and ran it Well two resurgence, actually all three resurgence, and all attack guys and former Army guys. So they took over well and then yeah, I mean it was, we had an hour and a half just to kind of sit there and be with each other and not talking about it, obviously because that brings up different legality issues, but it was just to be there, check on each other and go from there. 

01:04:53 - John (Host)
Because I think what I'd doubt the biggest thing about the police law enforcement that you hear about is brotherhood. 

01:05:01
Brotherhood is such a massive backbone the entire thing, because it relies on people having each other's backs at a level that's more than just you're my co-worker, you're my brother. I'm assuming that was a night and day difference in how you probably were able to process going through this, even the days after, the weeks after, because you're still part of this brotherhood where and it's almost like if somebody killed somebody in war and then they're back home and then they're just dealing with those memories and the trauma of taking a life and even if it was justified and whatnot, they're still going to, if they're just dealing with it by themselves, but they don't ever have those brothers that they're kind of going through with it, as opposed to in your case, even if you were to quit the force and then all of a sudden have had to kind of deal with that and not have had them around. Being part of brotherhood in a place where you guys have each other's back, did that make the entire process easier to handle and easier to work through? 

01:05:57 - George (Guest)
Yep, yep, and his name is JJ, the guy from New Bril and that was with me and he's been my mentor in my career too. He started even before this incident. I'd always go up to him and pick his brain about stuff and I would say I didn't know you the shit out of him, because he'd always be typing. I'd be like, hey, I have a question about this, how do you do this, what do you think about this, how do you get in the canine? This, that, this, that. 

01:06:17
And he's like I was part of that annoying little fucking kid that's always asking you questions. And he says I never annoyed him, I think he's just being nice, but no. And then we really leaned on each other and we became super close. Still are he's like I said, he's one of my closest friends and we lean on each other all the time still talk to this day. And we became very close because, since he had a dog, we trained together twice a week and spent eight hours a day of five days eight hours a day of five days a week with each other on admin duty for three and a half months. So we became very close. We were. I don't know if we were close beforehand, but we were definitely much closer after that and we still lean on it. And then even the dudes from West Dallas I still see on calls or texts and whatnot, and still so close, always there, right, whether we talk or not, we always still have that little little bond of going through shit together. That will never, never go away, yeah. 

01:07:16 - John (Host)
So the force by you, I'm assuming some level of maturity, oh yeah, from the brotherhood, from it going through such a big event, something that you said 1% of officers go through, it could be an active shooting. Yeah, um, that like, how do you kind of, can you kind of talk about like that maturity, as opposed to the maturity they've gone through recently with Brent over like the last three years? 

01:07:38 - George (Guest)
Yeah, so, um, obviously, being involved in that so you incur makes you a different cop and a different person, because it Real life like oh shit, I could have lost my life that night, right. So it made me a different cop that day. So I would say the cop I was before then was probably more I don't know Soft's not the right word but kind of, I would say, maybe Ignorant to what this job actually entails and what it could be right, it was always the. You see the shitty videos of cops getting and shootings or cops getting killed and it's like, yeah, we know as part of it, but it's, it's halfway across the country, is never gonna happen to me or it's never whatever. Right, it's in a big city. Yeah, yeah, right, it's a more big city, more urban, like it's your bro and whatever thought. Granted, it was in the heart of West Alice when it happened, but still, west Alice isn't, isn't Milwaukee, isn't Chicago, is in New York, right. So just that mindset I think it changed more into, made me more into the warrior mindset of being police. We're gonna got me there quicker, most cops get there eventually, but I had seven months and then boom is right there in your face, right, and just knowing that we're here to take care of people. But your things can change that quick and it's Not getting complacent, not letting. Being a cop and having all these good things happen to you time after time after time Make you believe that it's never gonna happen. Because what most Things that happen to cops a lot of it is because of complacency. They don't keep people's hands out of their pockets or they don't control it as much as they did when they were younger. Cuz I'm experienced now. I'll see before it happens. Until till it happens, that is too late. 

01:09:19
Yeah, so it definitely made me a more Wear cop, to kind of the violence that Can happen in law enforcement, and more mature that way, and that's what I try to hand down when I am, I feel, training officer to is Just be ready for it and you have to start being ready for the worst case in the aero rate, I think. Before that I was prepping. Okay, I've never had a DV case, I've never had this case, I need to be prepared for that versus Preparing, preparing for the worst day possible, right. So I think it. That's the transition it made for me and the law enforcement is you have to prepare for that worst day and that most violent day it's ever gonna come in your life, right? So I think that's has changed my focus to that versus whatever else. 

01:10:07
And then Emotional part of that I think I Want to say then affect me too much. It's Still lingers some from time to time, right, but it kind of pushed me to be more emotionally mature because this can't linger, right, I can't let this Effect me today because it's in the past. I did the right decision. That's what helped help me get through this. I know I did the right decision. My heart, I protected myself and mainly the others involved that were more intimately involved with the violent guy and the dancer. Right, I saved them, I saved them, I saved them, I saved me, and so emotionally that kept me up. It's like I did the right thing. It's just now. 

01:10:52
It's gonna be the time of Dealing with it and having maybe a little bit of flashback for a little eerie of stuff. So probably for the first Six months to a year I couldn't look at dumpsters the same, okay, just because of what happened. Yeah, I, I Like going out to throw trash out or whatever else was. It gave me a weird feeling, kind of like a oh shit feeling every time. I saw one and then I eventually I Was the I'm the type of guy like when I have those challenges is full force, just to get over it, just Kind of expose yourself to it. 

01:11:29
And full exposure. So I made it have it every time. Not to just throw it in. Normal garbs can't go to a dumpster Not every dumpster gonna have a dude with a gun in it right. So I made that conscious decision to be like go Do it, right. Go fucking, don't pick a normal garbage. Can you're not scared of go to that dumpster and throw shit away, right? To just prove to myself that it's not every time. This is one fucking time, and may it probably never gonna happen again, right? So just go do it and don't be scared of it. So I forced myself to do that. 

01:12:00 - John (Host)
That's such a healthy approach because you know I think you'd want to you hear other people that might have gone about this by just kind of suppressing it down, yeah, okay, well, my, easy enough to just avoid, avoid garbage, can't you know big, big garbage dumpsters, you know? Instead, and just use the garbage bins all this like easy enough thing to, like a boy, just like not deal with it and kind of push it down and then let it be something that festers. You know, attacking it head-on is sure. Nope, I gotta remind my brain, recalibrate it to realize that there's nothing wrong with dumpsters, that's, that's a very healthy thing. 

01:12:30 - George (Guest)
It's great to hear that you. 

01:12:32 - John (Host)
You had the thought of mind by yourself to just do that. 

01:12:34 - George (Guest)
You know that's great yeah and then Part of it too is Mom and Grandma mentioned. You need to go talk to someone. It's like I don't at this point. No, I know what I did was right and it's just getting over that little hump and I did it myself. If I needed to, I definitely. Well, there's no Harmonia and not the Therapies for fucking pussies, whatever else. If you need it, go to it, if you don't need it, and then greatest, all All dependent on who you are and you have to know yourself if you need it or not. 

01:12:59
It's, and who kind of gives a fuck what other people think of it, right, yeah, so I think that's another thing that that incident helped is me getting over Thinking what up, caring what other people thought, right, like People's opinion me change because I'm responsible or someone's got who cares, then move on and fucking. They can be part of the past. But all my words were very supportive of it and and Support of me. They don't care that. To them it's their fucking Super Bowl story, right, and for me it's like it's still one of the most traumatizing things in my life, but it's in the past. It's like I said everything, I did the right thing and I know that in my heart. So it's One of those things I'm prepared for it happening in, but I don't want it to obviously yeah, yeah, yeah, you don't. 

01:13:46 - John (Host)
you don't want to have to go through a process of dealing with this again. I'm sure you're so keenly aware. Still, just the fact that this was such a Shitty thing, no matter how much you could process those feelings, you know that they were shitty at the time. Oh, yeah, no matter how right you know you could have been in the situation, you're still gonna be like, I'm still gonna question myself. I'm still gonna sit here and have self doubt, which it sucks when you like know you're right about something, but brain still throws stuff out at you. 

01:14:11
Yeah, um, yeah, yeah, like, why would you ever want to do that? You know, be, be, be in that situation again, yeah, um, but I have it to be like, at the same time, keenly aware that it's still my job, that if I have to be, I have to be. Oh, and like my, my brothers and arms still rely on me being there to do my job. If the time comes and their life is in danger, you know that I can't. I can't doubt or hesitate or like question what I'm gonna do, because my life and their life comes first in that situation. 

01:14:40 - George (Guest)
Oh, yep absolutely, and then that's led into so Brent, she's a major in psychology and she's therapists out at Rogers right now, I don't know kind of walk, but she's been a very big help. To right because I was still up until I met her was the emotions. I don't have them, fuck them. I had this huge guarded guard around my heart and wall, whatever else. I always say she shreds through it like a fucking hot knife through butter. She did, and I Always knew the first woman that was gonna do that it would be the one I married and I just always knew that for some reason I was like I have this wall up and no one's being able to shred it yet and she shredded great fucking through it. She says it was easy and I think she just says that, but like first date she did, or it was just like. So we started, we met on bumble and then started Seeing each other more, and then I think we always say like one day, if they got to hang out more, my, I'm not shy, but now, since being a cop, I'm more reserved when I meet new people and so it's a lot of like, yeah, kind of more, not super, can't conversative. But then I opened up and as a whole Whole new personality. She goes you well, you actually talk. I think what she fucking said to me when I opened up. 

01:15:53
Finally, and then Just a couple arguments and jealousy issues I've never had to deal with before because all my girlfriends prior they didn't like going out or they were at college and I wasn't there with them. So whenever I was going out together I got jealous because she's very talkative and conversative and whatnot, and that was a whole new world for me, right. And then I never thought myself of being a jealous person because I was never. I'm really not in other facets of it, but I think it was because I knew she was gonna be one of the emirates. So it was like I got a little protective and jealous and whatnot. So for sure it caused some issues because I was like, stop being a jealous little bitch and stop being a fucking pussy about it and try battling it up. And then it it turned into a bigger argument. 

01:16:36
And so then she opened me up to the world of if you're feeling this way, just tell me in the moment or tell me the next Day and we can talk it out. And so now, just over the last three years, just doing that has helped a lot and saved our relationship many times or I don't want to say save, but it's helped our relationship many times. And now our arguments last maybe two or three hours and we never go to bed mad at each other and we always talk it out and we tell each other everything and no secrets, and so I think that's the biggest, biggest thing in the last three years has been that is just talking about emotions and Telling her hey, this is fucking bothering me. I don't want to talk about it right now, but it's bothering me, just so you know. And then talking about it later. 

01:17:15
And when I was 21, even 24, 25, I would have never done that. I would have been like fuck, I'll go work it out, I'll go to the gym and Pull 600 pounds and get it out that way so in serious relationships, because you'd had serious relationships prior you. 

01:17:30
You wouldn't get into these types of conversations ever, like everything, would say, very surface level, yep, very surface level, and then I was all the Well, you know what fuck it's it's on me to deal with, it's my problem, not there where it's still it's still that case, it's still my problem. But I talk it out now and there's sometimes just Talking it out helps and then it helps. You realize this is we're actually really fucking stupid. Get over it and then move on, versus where I would internalize it by load up and then Forget about it and then it would happen again and then eventually every bottle has a fucking breaking point. They would just turn into toxic shit. 

01:18:05 - John (Host)
I think men, you know, like a lot of therapy stuff right, talks about, like Talk therapy was more made for women. Women like to talk and express more. I think there's benefit to men for it, without a doubt, but I think men, like we need for us, like things that work for mental health are different. Yeah, and while there's some crossover with women and how thought talk therapy can help because sometimes just talking, talking about shit Out loud helps and Talk about talking to, talking about to somebody who's not affiliated to your life through your friends or family or your mom's side or Whatever it's just a person is literally just there to listen. There's some benefit to it, without a doubt, even if you don't get any helpful advice back just being able to talk out loud. But the point ahead with this I just kind of lost for a second there. It's just right that Ultimately, like you hear a lot about, like you know men like aren't supposed to be vulnerable and like we don't communicate much, I'm like a lot of guys like choose not to communicate in relationships. But I do think that when you find somebody who you're like your confidants, they're your partner, for that's your life. I'm committing my life to them. They're willing to commit your life they're like to you. That At that point, I think when you have a wife, they are the one person you should be vulnerable with, yeah, and then that you could be vulnerable with all the people as well, but you should be vulnerable with your spouse, not all the time, obviously. That you know there's the whole thing about vulnerability. I think it gets tied up is like if you're being vulnerable, that you'd be an overly emotional, being overly expressive, and that meant aren't supposed to be overly, all that kind of crap. But it's just about the idea that, like, if you're having a bad day at some shit's going on, like talk about your feelings, because that's one person in your life that you should have. They should be able to talk about your feelings with and kind of have a little back and forth and Not have it be like anything negative from it. And I think that's like one of the biggest benefits of me about marriage. Oh yeah, is I do that? I do that with Kearney all the time. 

01:19:57
Now is just I talked her about stuff, things that I just wouldn't have talked about in the past. Yeah, or like I would have talked about it was just real service level. Now I'm like I talk about it and I say and I'm willing to say like the Cringy, the cringy, shitty thing about myself, like maybe I didn't want to say a lot, but I'll say to her because I'm like, I'm kind of like that sometimes she's like, well, if you think so, and yeah, you know, it's like she helps me be like, okay, I accept that sometimes. Like that I, because I had a massive jealousy issues and I was young and I would have big issues with it and I started out with my would Kearney like that a little bit and it was I the only way I felt with it, with hers, because we talked about it and it helped me mature so much because I was like I'm not willing to like lose a girl over the fact that I can't deal with shit that's going on in my own head. Yep, um. 

01:20:41
Now, with that being said, I think anybody that gives man shit about being jealous can go fuck themselves. Yeah, we are possessive by nature. That's how men are. Like you, wouldn't you find something that you care about? You, you protected at all costs? And in our modern world, that comes off as jealousy. But a hundred years ago to a hundred years ago, with things that come off as jealousy, came off as totally normal shit. Oh yeah, if that is your wife, that is your person like yeah, you didn't just let strange man talk to her. 

01:21:09 - George (Guest)
You know, like shit, like that. 

01:21:10 - John (Host)
Yeah, that was natural. There's nothing fucking wrong with it. No, nowadays people make men feel like shit when they're like, yeah, I don't want some random dude hitting on my wife. Oh, what are you insecure? No it has nothing to do with my security. That's something is everything to do with. 

01:21:24 - George (Guest)
Yeah, I'm protective and I'm gonna protect her. It's my role. So, yeah, he has no reason to it. 

01:21:28 - John (Host)
He doesn't want it, like it's literally unnecessary. If I don't want it and I want to stop it, that's my prerogative and like that is a natural fucking prerogative. 

01:21:37 - George (Guest)
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, so no, I and come, I think, yeah, you said it's the protective and kind of just possessive portion of how we are generated to operate and and then genetically disposed to protect women and protect what is ours in territory, and why not? It's just part of it, and then that's certainly mean you're jealous. It just means you're protecting what's yours, as your woman expects you to do too. 

01:22:01 - John (Host)
Yeah, right, yeah, but no, no, oh god. If you're jealous, it means that you look at your woman as an object that's yours, that others can't touch. Your seat, no it has nothing to do with that. No, like the world is a much more complex place than just for people like boiling down the shit, like that yeah, I know like to yep and do our best to kind of move past. 

01:22:20
Yeah, um so communication, you would say. Then it sounds like the biggest thing for you guys With the communication, on top of the fact that she is versatile in talking about mental health from a clinical point of view, that even when you guys communicate, she's also then able to make sure that communication isn't just frivolous, trivial communication, it's meaningful and that the communication is going towards somewhere that is ultimately solving something, especially in an argument. Yep yep. 

01:22:48 - George (Guest)
So it's her background, and some of the things she's had to overcome in her life too has made her a very good support system and a very intuitive person, right. And so a lot of our conversations are hey, I'm feeling this when I think one thing we do really well too is communicating what we need. Some things we ran into we still run into a lot of bigger things we ran into. We're both problem solvers, right. So cops are problem solvers. I show up, solve a problem, switch, I can move on. Same with her, and we both have type A personality. 

01:23:18
So we both had to lob at like, okay, they'll be venting, we'd be venting about something and we'd try to solve the problems, and we're like that's not what we fucking need. So I finally took about a year to realize okay, so are you telling me this because you want advice or do you want just to vent and rant? And so now we do a good job of asking that, or now we can kind of pick up on it from each other, because now we're at that level where we can kind of just read things. Sometimes we start to ask. 

01:23:46
But I think the biggest thing that we learned with each other is we just have to ask okay, are you venting or do you want to solve the problem? 

01:23:54
Because that was the biggest hiccup of she'd tell me something going on like, okay, we'll just do this and this and this and that, and she'd be that would just create a bigger issue because she just wants to vent and not hear problem solving. And then it'd be the same thing for me. I'm like whatever else I've vent about work or life or whatever else and she'd start trying to solve it and I'd be like, okay, you know what I'm done. And then it'd be argument or just piss at each other, walking around, no partner in the house, just glaring at each other for the next hour and it's like, okay, take a step back, I just wanted to vent, you were trying to problem solve and whatever else. So now a lot of times it's if we need to, we'll call and just be like, hey, I need to vent for five minutes. And then we just sit there and let go on our rant for five minutes, like, okay, bye, love, you see ya. 

01:24:36 - John (Host)
Even sometimes probably just like allowing a. If it's a bad day, it's a bad day, like a bad day doesn't mean that something's fundamentally wrong or that there's an issue that needs to be solved. That it's just a bad day, yeah, or I'm crappy at this moment. You're a crappy, yeah, like accepting that not every moment. That's even like be good to yeah. 

01:24:55
What kind of things do you feel like you're still kind of working towards with like getting better at, as far as whether it's like that emotional maturity for you or whether it's mental health it's? 

01:25:08 - George (Guest)
still a little bit confidence wise, like I'm very critical of myself and very hard on myself and that's part of what's pushed me to get so far in my life so far is because of that. But then I'm also a little confident. So I've always had a problem with speech. I've been in I was a speech pathology since like five years old and up until I think I middle school or something like that. But so I mumbled a lot and right and so public speaking was. I was fucking terrified of it growing and growing up, high school speeches, whatever else. So I think it's one of the big hiccups that still stick with me. And because now I'm in a team assistant, team leader, role on the spot team and instructing a lot more on the team and instructor at the PD and whatnot, so I think that old trauma and fear and kind of just it's not bullying but your friend's giving you a hard time for mumbling Still laughs with me when I get up to get instructed and whatnot. Right, because at first I want to done right, I want people to understand me and mumble, and then all I focus on is don't fucking mumble and don't sound like an idiot. Then guess what happens you mumble and sound like an idiot, right. So that's one thing I'm still kind of battling with and getting over. 

01:26:18
And then it's gotten much better. Like IDC was rough and started a development course for whatever they did the typical high school. All right, come up, you have two minutes, 30 seconds of prepare to do a two minute speech, right. And in the first one I completely froze because I realized I was mumbling and whatever else and then I just stood there for like 20 seconds. It was the most awkward 20 seconds of my life and it felt like an eternity. 

01:26:43
I recovered a little bit from it but then by the end of that class the presentation we did was on room clearing and shit, which I know, and it was much better. And part of it is just realizing they're putting you in these roles because they trust you and they know you and they know you know your shit. So just fucking roll with it. Who cares if you mumble once or twice and just kind of moving out from that? So that's, I think that's going to be an everlasting battle, because I still I mumble and I know that. So I think it's just rolling with the punches and knowing you're there for a reason, do you think it comes? 

01:27:15 - John (Host)
from like that fear with it. Does it come from like acceptance or status? Like if people, if people were to watch you give a speech and hear you mumble, do you think that you'd be worried that people will think less of you? Or do you think I had another way to put that? Like yeah, I guess, yeah, are you like worried about it from a status point of view? Are you kind of worried about it from like people would think less of you, or yeah? 

01:27:42 - George (Guest)
Maybe a little bit of both, maybe a little bit of like oh, and he's mumbling, so there's no one's talking about, and think less of you that way, or more probably more so. Like I've been made fun of it so much for my life, I'm sick of it. I just don't want it to fucking happen again, which is that's fine, like I have thick skin and I don't really care and I know it's. 

01:27:59 - John (Host)
So it's not just something that, like you, were you picked out on yourself for it's something. You've had people you know pick out on you or like, make jokes about that you just didn't like and now it's become something where you'd rather you want to actively work on it, because it does upset you a little you kind of get you a little. 

01:28:17 - George (Guest)
I'm just sick of it, or? 

01:28:18 - John (Host)
yeah. 

01:28:19 - George (Guest)
Everything in my entire life has been like that's probably the main thing. That stuck is mumble mouth or whatever, or so then it's like I just sick of it. And I know I can talk clearly and I do most of the time. It's just people nervous and it goes from there and sometimes my brain moves too fast or my mouth moves too fast for my brain. So then it just mumble mouth because you're talking too quick and then just realizing that in the moment and bouncing back of it and it is what it is. It's getting better. It's going to get better, continue to get better. It's the best it's ever been, especially when it comes up to public speaking and instructing and whatnot too. But it's lost my spot, but yeah, it'll get better. It's a continuing process. So I know it'll be better one day, and maybe not even an issue two or three years down the road from now. 

01:29:08 - John (Host)
But I mean, as long as I've known you have, never. It was never a thing that was a conscious thought to me that you had a mumbling issue. I've always heard you very clearly this entire conversation. I think you've been pretty good. There's been a couple of times where you've caught yourself. You set something a little fast and slow down and said it, but it happened, I think, once or twice. So I never even knew it was a thing that you had or had gone through. So you've obviously made improvements enough that, from a stranger's point of view, 1.10 years ago I had no idea that it was an issue you dealt with. Was it really bad when you were young? 

01:29:40 - George (Guest)
Yeah, so I had an underdeveloped jaw growing up and whatnot. So that's where it comes from. And then just part of why am I guess sometimes then I know part of it too is probably it's since I've always struggled with it and that's what I focused on most is probably a lot bigger deal than in my head, into myself, than it is for outside people, right? So when I talk to people, people may not even notice. It's just I notice and I know. So it's like just like when lifting something feels heavy and Kirk will tell you it looks a lot better than it feels. It's kind of. I think it's the same thing of. It's a bigger deal to me than it is to everyone else, and just tackling that it's an issue in of itself. But it's gotten a lot better and it's much better than it's ever been. So a lot to look back on and now, knowing that it's the best it's ever been it's just going to get better is fine. 

01:30:32 - John (Host)
So yeah, yeah, and it's, I'm sure, every time you put yourself in a situation where you got to give a speech and you just, yeah, you're just getting down much better at it? 

01:30:42 - George (Guest)
Yeah, and the nerves come from. Obviously, just talking to people is nerve wracking, no matter who you are. You'd be like Jerry Habanek from the gym Best instructor there ever is, but he still gets nervous every time he has to teach you. You never fucking know. Is he still good at it? Yeah, but yeah, no, he's, he's great at it. And then part of that thing another two is I'm an instructor for a reason and I know that I want to sound good and know what I'm talking about. But it's also. 

01:31:13
I grew up around teams and team sports and one of the struggles I still battle with is like seniority in teams, right, so the senior guys at the PD have like, okay, they know more than me. Maybe some guys do, some guys don't, but it's like they've done this for 20 years. I've done it for eight years. How am I going to tell them how to do something when they've done it probably 10 times more than me? And just getting over that little barrier of knowing you're up there for a reason and they're going to listen to you because you are respected at the PD and whatnot too. And it's tough because I give more respected senior guys that I respect obviously more too. So it's like they say something that's so different than me. I'm like, fuck, I should have thought of that or that's why they're better. But it's, it's not. It's just all relative right, and it's all the things, little battles. You pick up on your in your head and make sure it's making a bigger deal than it ever needs to be. 

01:32:00 - John (Host)
Well, cause we're all kind of going through imposter syndrome 24, seven to some level or not, and no matter what career, what you do, you know we're all just trying to like put our best foot forward every day and pretend like we know what we're doing as well as we can and some of us know very well in certain things. Some of us don't know as well as other things, but at the end of the day, like we are all, like we are all just little kids that grew up to be adults and now we're like we're specialized in this one career and somebody out there doesn't know the things I know and I am. I can teach them or you know, I could be the person that is the senior in this group now. I could be the person that problem solves for the other young engineers. And it's like cool to go from your early twenties to your late twenties, the thing a lot of us through that period go from being the ones that were being taught by the seniors to now we're like somewhere in between. We're starting to use some young people but you still have seniors above you that you're still learning from and you're starting to see like that progression of. 

01:32:56
It's cool to do one thing for a long period of time and be, uh, be, at a seniority level above others at it, because men, I think, desire the need for, um, mastery of skill. We desire the need for mastery of skill. It's why we do things like powerlifting or lifting, you know, outside of even work times, because then we want to go master skill in another way, um, which leads me to my next kind of like topic that I kind of want to dive into from here is how do you deal with stress from work when you do have tougher weeks, tougher week and tougher days, tougher nights? What kind of outlets do you have nowadays for stress, um, and how have they changed for you from three years to older years? 

01:33:41 - George (Guest)
So part of it too is, I think one of the my strengths is being able to control what I can right. So not bringing work home as much as I can right, it's hard not to. You're always, whether people want me or not you're always a cop in some sort of way, right. You always sit in a different area of a restaurant or whatever else. You're always thinking about certain things. One thing I've proud myself on is being able to control what I can right and not in knowing what happens at work is impersonal for all the fuck yous and I want to go die. Or if you never have a badge and a gun, I'll fuck you up. Like it's not personal, it's the uniform, right. I think I do a good job at recognizing that. Where it is a struggle in a lot of words, because people think it's a personal attack on them, it's not. It's just the uniform you wear, that's all it is, it's not the person. So in this controlling what I can, I go back and look at like, okay, this is what I did and this is what I had and this is the decision I made, there's nothing else I could really do. And then, if it's an external factor, it's like, okay, I can control how I respond to this. Right, that's one of the things I focus on is yeah, I had a shitty day at work. It does come, that's natural that happens. Am I going to sit there and boil in it and let it make me be this negative person for the next week, month day, whatever else? No, I'm like all right, shitty day, let it hit and then move on. Right, that's how I deal with it a lot. And what also helps is the gym. Right, I've been involved in weightlifting since 14, 15 years old. I was either working out after school at our gym or next level in high school as where I went. And then I found Kirk at a in Winters Edge at 18, the winter after high school, and I've been there ever since, and that's very good too, because Kirk keeps it as a very neutral and safe space. Right, I can talk about whatever the fuck I want there. I can talk to him about work, I can talk to guys like you about work or whatever the hell we talk about, whatever we talk about in investments or podcasts or whatever else. So it's just a safe space with a bunch of good people that allows me to express shit there if I need to. 

01:35:46
And then also just the lifting portion of it. Right, there's nothing for me and guys that are in the powerlifting world, there's nothing better if you're going through a bad day than getting under a fucking squat rack with 400 pounds on it and destroying it and be like that's therapeutic in and of itself. Or just moving right, just moving in general walking, running, stretching, just lifting in general. That's probably one of my biggest stress reliefs is doing that, and I know if I missed a gym for more than three or four days, I can feel kind of the stress and maybe anxiety or something else, just kind of building up Like I need to go do the movement or even if it's just walking around outside, just doing something to move to get rid of that. So I think that's part of the biggest escape for me is just lifting and moving and using that portion of it. 

01:36:31
Now started the journey of Jiu Jitsu, which is a whole different fucking game and a whole different world of fitness and cardio and learning everything and being more strategic with it, which is a challenge for me because I've never been the strategic type or the touch athlete. So because Jiu Jitsu is a lot of that right. You got to be a half touch and strategy like this person trying to do this to me. So now I have to sneak around and do this to them or whatever else. So that's the struggle for me, because I was always the. I was strong and powerful, so I just run head first and everything and that's I use my power. And now it's got to mix with touch and whatnot. So I love it. It's a never ending journey and that's another good escape, because it forces you to problem solve in the moment while some other fucking dudes breathing heavy on you and using their weight to try to tire you out. 

01:37:21 - John (Host)
Being gets you comfortable with being uncomfortable. Yup. 

01:37:24 - George (Guest)
Yeah, and that's one thing I picked up a lot on lately too whether it's David Gaggin's podcast, rogan Camhain's, just different podcasts I listen to is picking up on and doing things that make you uncomfortable, right? So one of those things I want to do Jiu Jitsu. For years probably six years ago I wanted to, but I wasn't ready to yet for whatever reason, because I was using fear and I'm hiding behind the fear of it. But now that I've done it, it's uncomfortable and it's very humbling and I love. I love it. Like I could go find a place where I could roll with all white belts. I just where I went. Like that, because you don't learn from that. I love rolling with the higher belts because you, you get your ass kicked and then you get humble and then you learn different things from them. 

01:38:06
But starting to expose myself more to the harder things like Jiu Jitsu, more cardio things I hate and I don't want to do cardio that day I force myself to do it because it's difficult. No one fucking likes it right. But whether I go run or walk or put a weight vest on and walk for 30 minutes and get bored of shit, but push yourself through it because it's uncomfortable for me and but it pays back. Yeah. Big divider, yeah. And so one thing I'm going to start doing in summer and I'm going to build a place for it, and we just bought a house. 

01:38:36
In September I'm going to build a place for it or find a place for it as ice baths, right, yeah, it's a trainer, whatever I want to do it, I've just never had the facilities to do it and I'm going to try to find a place to do it. Because just all the benefits of it it's difficult, right, who wants to go jump into a 40 degree fucking tub for two to three minutes at a time Just all the physiological effects it has, yeah, emotion-wise dopamine dumps, just intolerance of cold and heat and whatnot. All the other positives of it. But I mainly want to do it because of the challenge of it, like I'll have to go sit in 30 degree water for however long, and that's difficult to do, and that's when I'm excited to do the portion of it. 

01:39:16 - John (Host)
That's why I'm excited to do it now, because of all the other shit, but yeah yeah, you just want to challenge yourself, yeah, just something that's hard, and make yourself do it, despite wanting to not do it. Yeah, yeah, I think that's. A lot of guys in the department have good outlets for stress. Because this question Comes from a deeper question I'd like to get into with you, yeah, which is you know there's, there's a higher rate of Certain things like domestic abuse, wooden cops and stuff like that, because a lot of it is said because of the high levels of stress in the job. So then my question is on the comes from, maybe the idea that then are not enough cops doing things outside work that are helping them deal with stress, that stress builds up, I think. 

01:39:59
I think there's a higher incidence of drunk alcohol use, especially then, like retirees and stuff. The stress I mean plays a maze. There's a lot of hard issues with cops. Get the stress that you hear. A lot of cops retired and then have a hard issue and their job is all of a sudden the purpose is gone, but now they there's, their heart finally relaxes after years of. 

01:40:20 - George (Guest)
Dueling. This gives out traffic. 

01:40:21 - John (Host)
Stop after traffic, stop approaching window after window, but you know all that kind of crap that Do you do. You see that yourself and not that not enough cops have outlets and that more need outlets because they're dealing with a Job that's super, super hard to do with, super hard to get from a young age. If you do it your whole life, it becomes so immersed that you just have this responsibility. 

01:40:43 - George (Guest)
Yeah. So I think yeah, there's definitely a lot of cops that could use different outlets, whether it's something they enjoy hunting, hiking to get moving, whatever else. Difficult for me overall, because our PDS Fitness level is higher than most and most of guys I work out with or close with at the PDS. They're very active in and of themselves and we don't have a lot of overweight cops as you see in other agencies. But yes, we still have our Internal struggles with alcoholism and depression and anxiety. It's a lot more prevalent than we care to admit and that's part of the stigma, law enforcement, part of type a, personality and do just being guys, being guys how we're raised up, not being vulnerable and not Talking about emotions and being whatever. I'll just fuck, just suck it up, right. That's what we always hear. 

01:41:33 - John (Host)
It's not fighting up to your job. Yeah, yeah. 

01:41:37 - George (Guest)
So I think it's not more prevalent than we care to admit. It's just no one's gonna talk about it or tell you about it, right. And then it's tough because you can have those conversations with certain people that may need it, but the people that may need it aren't gonna talk about it. Right, it's a lot of the, a lot of the core guys I'm around are all very stable and they know when they need to talk and then we can talk about it or whatever else. And it's not a You're being a pussy about it, it's you're leaning on your brothers and your sisters in law enforcement to get over the shit you deal with, right? So my core group I don't deal with it as often, but I know overall in law enforcement it's a big issue and I think a lot of it needs to be pushed to be active and I think Over all and I know there's federal law you have to battle with this, I think every department in the country. 

01:42:24
To be a cop, you need to Maintain a certain level of physical fitness for health, for the community, for whatever else, and I know federal law, trump said. But I think if you can't do a certain, if you can't run a mile and a half and under 14 minutes of the cop and do a certain amount of push-ups and setups. You shouldn't be a cop because the community depends on you to do that. Your partner depends on you. Yeah, not only do I depend on you which is fine, whatever I depend on you, but more importantly, more important than me depending on you is Maybe you have to go to school shooting one day and that kid that's in the fucking room that's waiting for you to come save them. 

01:42:56
If you are not in shape to run up a flight of stairs on time to go save them, that's on you and you just let the whole community down or Someone. You have to run and catch a violent assailant or whatever else. It's on you to be able to do that. Yeah, right, and it's not. You shouldn't be 200 pounds overweight or 150 pounds overweight and can't fucking run up a flight of stairs or can't do 30 push-ups or Run a certain amount like that's. You're letting down and you're letting yourself time, you're letting your partners down, but most importantly, you're letting the community you are there to protect and serve down. 

01:43:29 - John (Host)
Yeah, it's even. 

01:43:32
I mean, and I'm sure now that you've done it Like I think every cop should know Jiu Jitsu. Oh yeah, because outside of like you should have physical fitness to do the job, because you have the job involves very physical levels of activity, but Having the ability to use it to would, I think, no man a lot of potential issues out. There were times there were men might you know An officer might not feel that they could apprehend somebody, but because they know you jiu jitsu and they can tell that this person obviously doesn't, they could have apprehended them very easily and I would never speak them any Any individual situations that I have no idea what you just might make a difference in the end of day. In some Cases out there were the decision have to be made in seconds but, like I'm guessing you would agree, at the end of the day a lot of cops would benefit Massively from knowing how to do jiu jitsu and control another human being's body with leverage Yep, leverage and manipulating joints, that's not to do the sport of jiu jitsu, right? 

01:44:24 - George (Guest)
you're not. The goal is into choke someone out and Arm bar someone is just the ability to manipulate someone's arm to a safe area where you can arrest them safely and you just to open that up. Its law enforcement is making that trend towards it, which is exciting. That's cool, and I wish I would have started a lot sooner so I could help move it forward. But, like Michigan, just started something where, if I remember right, they every cop has to be a blue belt within the first five years of their job in jiu jitsu. And it's just because of you are able to apprehend Resistive subjects that much safer for you and for them, right? We don't want to fight with people and we definitely don't want to fight with people and we don't want to hurt them, right, it's, we want to do it as safe as possible and you just to opens that world up, to being able to do it in a safer manner. 

01:45:11
And Also, with that you just use a great workout in of itself, right? If, if I wasn't so passionate about weightlifting, I did you just do five days a week and be in the best shape of my life just because of the Cardio and all the other shit. It involves strength, isometrics, everything like that. You could combine with just that simple thing and an hour a day out of your your work week, and or if you do it five days a week, five hours out of your hover, many hours in a week, it's not a lot to ask or even go once a week. One hour a week, isn't it make a ton of difference. And it builds up commons and officers and just their ability to handle certain situations right, because, like you said, the public depends on us to apprehend anyone we come across right and 95% of cops cannot do that. 

01:45:56
Yeah, sadly, and it shouldn't be that way and it's luckily it's trending in the right direction, especially at our department, our swat team. We started a role Do you just do before our full team days in the mornings and training, and it's opened up a lot of eyes to people and that's that's what Partially got me started or gave me the extra kick in the ass. Go start it other than me just thinking about it. And then Other guys are threatening to it and they want to go to an actual gym now and not just wait for once a month to do it. But even the guys that do it once a month on the team have gotten ten times better just from the five, six times We've done it. 

01:46:31
Yeah, I imagine, yeah and so Combine that, make that department wide. You're gonna get that many more cops that can apprehend someone safely, and especially females. Right, and there's nothing wrong with female cops they have a role in law enforcement and whatnot but it's especially for them with smaller figures and smaller frames. They need to know it in order to overcome and Fight with someone that's built like you or I or someone that's bigger than them, because nine times out of ten, everyone they encounter that may resist them is gonna be bigger than them. Yeah, yeah, and they have more weight to throw around, period. Yeah, and doing jets will help you overcome that, or give you the confidence at least. Maybe you're not gonna win, but you can hold on till backup gets there, right, yeah, yeah. 

01:47:12 - John (Host)
That's a good point right there, even to just the difference it might make to give you the extra few seconds for Somebody else to intervene and help. Yeah, literally, if you're, if you're, if you know just enough to roll with the person for an extra 10 seconds Just to like, stop them from reaching for the thing because they didn't just completely overpower you, get the gun or whatever. Like it's not even just that Somebody's gonna learn you just to just gonna tap out the somebody that they apprehended. But no, that learn is you just to give them extra five seconds that let somebody else come in and help them Now hold this person and restraining you properly. Yeah, yeah, and. And in your career it is sometimes a matter of the difference in seconds or Small decisions haven't be made in the moment that can change outcome. 

01:47:56 - George (Guest)
Yeah, and that's what we and like scenarios when our new officers start to and we fight with them when we fight make it much, much harder than a cat and much more tough than Kami scenario. As we tell them you just have to give it Fight. You don't have to win every fight, you just have to be able to hang on and hold out for a minute. Minute and a half cuz toast is. We're a big city but we're small enough where we're going to be there within a minute. So just Hold on for a minute. 

01:48:20
And some people don't realize Doing jets exposes you to being in uncomfortable positions for minutes at a time where, if you haven't been exposed to it, you get on your back and someone's laying on you. You're going to panic and freak out and you're gonna gas yourself out versus Someone who's in it. Knowing having someone who's 50 pounds heavier than on you for two minutes, you're like, okay, eventually they're gonna give, or I'm gonna get my little window and just wait it out, yeah, or just a little extra 10 seconds to let someone be there to intervene. You don't always have to win, it's just it exposes you to just being able to hang on for extra 10, 20, 30 seconds till backup gets there right, because if you're gonna find you ask for help, you're getting everyone and their mother until dudes apprehended or females apprehended or whatever is going on. If you ask for help, you're getting everyone till everything settled. So those extra 10 seconds could be a matter of life or death. 

01:49:09 - John (Host)
Yeah, which is crazy and, yeah, I'm glad to hear that it is being more adopted nowadays and out. 

01:49:17 - George (Guest)
Yeah, you know, maybe eventually someday it will might just be a straight up a crime, yeah then there's a Rumors that are you so forced board for the state's gonna make it Mandatory an academy and then make it like a mandatory thing to be a cop on scots and you have to have some foundation of it or the use of force training. Now they're gonna incorporate a bunch more Jujitsu in it just so they have the confidence of it, and then make it more and we teach use of force and take downs maybe once a year, which is nowhere near enough, not even close number. 

01:49:47 - John (Host)
Yeah, build muscle memory on the movement. 

01:49:49 - George (Guest)
Yeah, two hours once a year isn't? No, isn't shit? No, not at all. 

01:49:56 - John (Host)
Well, man, this is. This has been great. Oh yeah, I, I really appreciate your journey, like sharing your journey from kind of your childhood and what got you to be in a being an officer. I didn't know that, for you, being an officer was something you had wanted from such a young age. But also you know open up about what you went through within your first seven months on the force and you know Going through something that only 1% of officers go through when you've barely been an officer. That situation, I mean I appreciate you open up about it and talking about it because that's I think a lot of people Gonna find that very insightful. Yeah, because you don't get to often hear a cop's perspective on what they went through when they go through something like that. No, that it's, it's a, it's a side of the story. It's not often heard, so I appreciate being open about it talking about it I think a lot of people appreciate that. 

01:50:47
So, kind of, finish off the pockets. You have anything that you think you would like, whether you'd say to your younger self or maybe say to like other young officers or other young man that maybe are looking to even become officers, you know, if I yeah advice that you pass on. 

01:51:03 - George (Guest)
I would just say don't, don't let your fears hold you back. Get comfortable being uncomfortable and do the things that gets you out of your comfort zone and Just be self-aware and know yourself and know what you need to do to help yourself. There's no shame in needing your needing help and just kind of Do what you need to to make yourself better every day and just aim to get 1% better and whatever it is that you you need to do, that's because that's all you can do, because I'm assuming you agree. 

01:51:31 - John (Host)
Your experience is most, more often than not, the senior guys, no matter what your career is. If you ask them for help and if you think you're asking something stupid, they're glad to help you. They're glad that you're actually asking instead of just assuming, and they want to teach you how to do it properly. 

01:51:46 - George (Guest)
Yep, right, so they do that. All the other guys are there to help. And then, don't be scared to ask questions, right? You learn by asking questions and going on from there. And just Be confident and Don't be, don't let fear hold you back. 

01:52:03 - John (Host)
Oh, yeah, well, thank you again. And thank you guys for tuning in to another great episode of upturn stones here. If you guys liked this episode, please like and subscribe to the podcast on whichever platform you listen to and Look for more podcast dropping out this year. Otherwise, thank you guys for tuning in and have a great day. Thanks for having me, brother. Thank you, man. Yeah.