there's like five of us five or six of us in the school night at the time I was on SWAT I was one of the snipers so we put a plan together I went and got my sniper rifle out of a trunk on my cruiser I said here's the way it's gonna work guys I said you're all going to cross the water I'm gonna cover you with the sniper rifle and then when I'm doing you get through if you come up here take my rifle and cover me and my dog when you go through the water and that was pretty much every night I had my pretty sad cane High School you got your sniper rifle out half the time because you're so scared of alligators this is 56 Pinellas County Sheriff's Office podcast I'm Ricky Butler and I'm once again joined by my colleagues and co-hosts Laura Sullivan and Ashley Cooley we are all civilians in the communications and public education section of the Sheriff's Office and excited to bring you episode two I can't believe we're actually recording a second episode already and technically kind of a third because we had episode zero we did it was our tiny little episode speaking of which if you are listening for the first time I would encourage you to listen to episode zero for some important context like the who what where when why but briefly why 56 I'll cover this for the first couple all right so then you're on your own yeah then you all have to figure it out and be big kids but 56 is a 10 code and a 10 code is one of the two primary types of codes that law enforcement uses on the radio some that you're familiar with may be like 10 4 or 10 20. but 10 56 here at the Sheriff's Office means meet or meet up which is what we do with this podcast we meet members of the agency talk about who they are what they do and why and have a lot of fun along the way so that's what we're doing here with 56 that's what it means but um before we get into our excellent guest I think we owe everyone a big thank you for we owe everyone a big thank you for tuning in to listen to our first ever episode we had a great conversation with Detective Ron Chalmers of our Cold Case unit we've talked about uh his time at Reno the fact that he was never part of Reno 911 yeah we have the shorts but not the boots and of course we spent a bulk amount of that time talking about the incredible breakthroughs they've had on a couple cold cases one was a six or seven year old unidentified John Doe case and then the other was a 36 year old homicide uh from back in 1987. So if they solved both of those with genetic genealogy which is a really um I wouldn't say it's new but it's definitely an up-and-coming tool for law enforcement I think a lot of cold cases are going to be clear using genetic genealogy yeah so really interesting stuff we plan on talking to Ron some more because he was giving us some previews about some other cases they have so uh if you have not listened to episode one finish this one first and then go back and listen to learn about Ron and the Cold Case unit and the great work they do now I will say it is pretty like this is harder than I thought it was going to be like not like starting a podcast is is stressful because it's like there's a lot of parts and pieces we have the technical side covered but then you know getting the right people in here to perk people's interests and get them listening is is tough but we're starting strong uh and it's not that it's not going to be great guests but we have to get the hook we got to get people in so they know that no matter what we talk about it's going to be interesting it's going to be a fun conversation or it's like Laura likes to say it's like eavesdropping on a fun conversation we can make any conversation fun but we are especially excited uh for our guests we have a lot we have big shoes to fill trying to beat out uh Ron Chalmers but we have the Top Dog King the canines Sergeant Mike Killian joining us as our second guest on 56. and um I am really excited about this one but before we get into it Ashley has a question for all of us we have a a question that sort of levels the playing field to kind of get the conversation going and we're all going to answer it so Mike doesn't feel singled out so Ashley all right what is your question so it doesn't start as a question but I got a text message the other day and it said we play tennis tomorrow you win so it was a spam text message are you the type of person that interacts with Spam calls and spam text messages or no and why I rarely interact with anybody if I can avoid it so if I don't know them I'm not the one that's gonna gonna mess with them although it might be interesting it might be fun it is for some people that's why I'm asking I I never get those now I get like some link it's not like a question like that but if I did I would prop there's a really good chance I would mess with them I thought that sounds like you yeah because well I mean why not that's such an odd like I feel like these people that come up with these scams I mean obviously they're smarter than we are because we're working to earn our money and they're just scamming people right but tennis like today tennis yes and then I've also got one that was like hey Heather I met you at the party um I just wanted to check and see how you're doing very presumptuous of your name I know I I think at this point I've been so scared especially since I've started working here by all the don't fall for a scam right things that we that we put out that I wouldn't respond or in case I accidentally clicked on the link or something pushes her phone away if the table just kind of cows that's how I am with it like and then like if I don't know that number I don't answer I don't answer that phone like I won't do it but I know some people love to pick the phone up and mess with them yeah I mean that's the thing I mean we talked to to some of our residents that are more susceptible to scams and it's like listen if you don't know the number don't don't answer it if it's if it's somebody that you should be talking to maybe they'll leave a message yeah I mean that's even with now you know iPhones at least pop up you know scam probable yeah Android too yeah so I don't know how that world works well yeah this conversation yeah I'm just kind of depressed I don't get any of those kind of text messages I don't know I'll send you a few nobody wants to play spamming me so I can't even answer anybody so I got that going for myself nobody wants to play tennis with Mike I have too much aggravation in my life the fact that spam people I'd be like just shut up and go away honestly that's so even the phone calls you get with like car horns nope nope I mean I am yeah I mean you answer the phone and nobody talks it's like yeah done yes do you know anybody who does that who will mess with them Brennan Brennan Brennan in the shadows well I mean I mean like I said I would too if I you know it's just a lot of times you're not even looking at your phone if you get a text some right away sometimes and oh yeah by the time we get to it later not to mention you don't want to talk to a lot of people who are actually calling you for real that's right that's right actual co-workers and these friends and then what if I actually had to play tennis once I interacted I don't know if I'm up for that I don't know I'll meet you tomorrow yes that would be I would want to know what is the end game with a tennis but you want to win well no but I mean what it's like the money scam yeah like what do you I don't wait wait wait I think it's a racket oh nice nice sorry that was actually really better than mine that was that was good um but I I don't know I just yeah I do wonder I feel left out now because I don't get them really I'll get the ones that are like messed up like a it tries to look like you bank or something yeah which is pretty easy because I don't bank with yeah whoever it is yeah but that's good stuff yeah solid question it was there you go all right let's get into what get into what the paying customers want to hear all about Sergeant Mike Killian and before we get into it I have to share a a little personal tidbit oh yep and I and the kleenex you can tell yeah you can tell your Ricky story too if you want but since I'm driving yeah I figured but uh so I started here at the Sheriff's Office uh 10 years ago this month actually and um time flies and um you know when I started it was during a time that there was some transition happening with with how we handle our PR type Communications the sheriff was in the midst of making some changes and in addition to that we were trying to figure out you know social media I.E Facebook back then was what we had and it was new so it was like yeah Mike's like it's still pretty new it's in Myspace yeah so it was all you know it was all pretty new to law enforcement in general so trying to figure out how to use it is what I was tasked with in the midst of everything else and um you know up to that point we're using it to put out things that have happened they're reactionary it's you know a press conference it's a press release it's you know photos on an event that had happened but then we're like well you know we really need to try to be more kind of proactive and feature the men and women of the Sheriff's Office and talk about what we're doing and of course a very early stage is what we do today what Ashley does today but anyway um it is and I'm not I'm not saying this in a in a negative way from a negative perspective but it is very difficult as a civilian to work alongside law enforcement like it is is difficult um everyone was very welcoming very nice it's not that it's just you know there's a there's a a dividing line there that there's a you know law enforcement is complicated you have to understand it it's you have to live it you can't just take a test and then you know you understand so it was very difficult being the new guy making inroads trying to figure out how we want to generate content what we want it to be and Mike was the Corporal in canine at the time when I started and Mike was actually like sounds lame but he was like my first friend at pcso all right because because I don't think he understood what I was trying to do and I don't know if he still I don't know you may not still but Mike knew that that whatever we were trying to do was good for the sheriff's office so he was always very welcoming and accommodating and and let me come out to try to cover different things even though I didn't know what I was going to do with the content um and I just wanted to recognize you for that and say thank you because because we really um that that that was the basis of of everything we do is a relationship that we built with canine and we will always have a great relationship with canine uh NPR because of Mike and all the guys out there because guys and gals because listen well dogs it's it's not the people it's a dog yeah let's be real nobody really wants to see any of y'all they just want to see the dogs but anyway I just wanted to put that out there thank you Ricky I really appreciate that so you you should be sending Mike text messages about going to tennis yeah let me just tell you now I can't play tennis yeah I can't either maybe not let's do something easier something easier yeah a golf cart Rider there you go now you're talking golf cart ride so anyway just want to throw it out there you know we appreciate everything that you do for us thank you just start off with a nice suck up so we can have a good conversation so um Mike uh you've been in the world of law enforcement for 33 years that's correct yep 33 years that's as long as I've been alive now you're trying to hurt me and then I can cut them down so uh you've been uh you've done a little bit of everything yeah so you started you started your career uh at Pasco County uh up north of here um when you were 19 start at the jail that's correct yeah 19 years old and uh I desperately want to be a patrol deputy and the sheriff said not a chance pal you're going to the jail to learn how to grow up and learn work around inmates and when it first happened I was so upset I was like no I didn't sign up to work in a jail I want to be on a road and in hindsight years later I was like thank goodness he put me into jail 19 years old I had no idea what life was really about until I spent a year with inmates and you start understanding human behavior a lot better so I'm a big uh proponent of that starting people off into jail real young interesting and and I guess you know um there there's this and it's it doesn't you know really it's not a real thing but but there is that well I suppose it could vary agency to agency but there is this sort of stigma where you know law enforcement and Corrections are not on a Level Playing Field while we all know that they're both unique they both have unique challenges and and they both do important work and of course for us they're they're equal here at the sheriff's office but that is interesting because I I've heard that before and I guess that's more of a an old school mentality perhaps or it may vary by jurisdiction that they'll say Hey you know kid you need to start you need to start at the jail you need to learn how to talk to people well well for me personally it may be a much stronger Deputy it may be a much more efficient deputy and even when I went to training uh you know our Training Division our unit is are put together at the correctional side lost inside and I worked so well to Corrections people and I gave them respect that they deserved because I had worked in that facility with those facilities before so I know what a tough job they have where I think sometimes they don't get the respect they deserve right and again having done that been there I'd never want to go back there again because it's such a tough job it's like man I give them all the credit in the world in the jail yeah in the jail perspective is is important um so I I think you you think you had a fun story from your first day oh yes yeah so it's brand new and I went to the booking section and my fto was telling me how to do things and I'm following around again 19 years old I had no idea so we are working a drunk tank booking running around fingerprinting inmates and my fto showed me how to do that and this guy comes in and he was a nice fellow the guy was just drunk he was real friendly and I'm talking to him fingerprinting them and not realizing every time I fingerprinted his left hand so I've got his right hand on going finger to finger and he keeps Pat me on the back yeah you're such a nice guy I'm like oh great I think I'm doing a great job so uh about three hours about three hours later I uh my afternoon was up he goes hey dummy I'm like oh boy ain't no trouble this didn't take long three hours of the job right he was going to the bathroom and look at your back and I mean it was just cover like 10 hand prints fingerprints all over and we wore white shirts so that didn't help and I knew I haven't gotten at that point that inmate was not my buddy he was not being friendly he was just he knew that hand was covered in ink and he just started covering my shirt my white shirt and so that was that character building yeah learning experience you never let anybody patch on her back yeah that didn't happen again that very good lesson learned on that one that is that is awesome so how long did you spend uh working in the jail for one year one year one year one year like on the dot uh probably about just shy of one year like by days and then I was fortunate enough to get a phone call from the Citrus County Sheriff's Office they wanted me so okay said bye to Pasco and moved up to Citrus so you so you never you never ended up working the road in Pasco no no no got it straight to Citrus yeah good old Citrus County oh yes who uh who was the sheriff when you got hired Charles S Dean oh man Sheriff Dean I got to tell you something for you young whiffer Snappers because I happen to know uh Sheriff Dean he after he was done being Sheriff he went up to Tallahassee he was a Florida Senator Florida state senator for uh I think eight years I think in a full eight years and that man I have we have some mutual friends and that guy was when I got hired by him you had to meet him personally so I remember walking into his office and now my 20 year old kid so I'm really not far past 19 at this point and I walked in his office he had a massive office with gun cabinets everywhere all around his desk he had deer heads and stuff up and I'm like whoa and he's a large man he's like six four just a very intimidating felon I remember he interviewed me personally and I remember I felt so nervous that was probably the most nervous interview I'd ever been involved in it was he asked me questions that nowadays you're just kind of like he's like what church do you go to stuff like that like start thinking pal start thinking of something the local one here sir First Baptist Church is Citrus County and after hours I heard I did go to the First Baptist Church of Inverness there it is good oh yes he was he he is a character he and his Senate Office had deer heads and couldn't have gun cabinets in there but did you you knew exactly where you stood when you worked for him he did not skirt around things he was very direct and which made it really good it worked for him because you the expectations really are kind of like Circle Terry honestly oh 100 yeah you don't have to wonder where he's at nope which saves a lot of time absolutely so Citrus it's got to be a different place to work especially back then right we're talking 1991 now um but I was I was one for your winner yeah okay I'm leaving I don't want to do this podcast anymore we can catch the same references funny well I can't remember yeah I went off did you freelance stuff for 15 years but I'm still trying to talk Lauren to coming back to the road it's gonna happen I'm telling you I don't know I get to do all the fun stuff now and then just write about it without getting shot at I guess it's too too often too often yeah that's fantastic all right very very rural though very rural Air at the time I love saying that word sorry I won't use that again Ashley it's just difficult to say it's very conscious but at the time there was only four deputies working the streets so there's only four of us the whole County that was it four of us that's a big County how long the top speed from 1 he needed 94. if you need a backup up there 15 20 minutes to get it back up and that's on a good day if the other person's on a domestic or a DUI you're talking the other side of the counties you're talking half an hour about half an hour out so once again it kind of go back to my jail days I learned how to talk to people in the jail and working in a very [Music] how to talk to people you know you're there by yourself and you get these people who are drunk in their house and they're like I'm not going to jail you're like well it's got proper cause you're gonna have to go and it's a lot easier I found talking people into handcuffs and fighting people in the handcuffs and you learn that uh in a smaller agency like that it was it was I'm so grateful the experiences I had there because it was such a great place to work and I learned so much well that's gonna I mean that's gonna make you a better I mean on one side you you know have to wait a little bit for backup but you learn those skills and then if you find yourself in a larger agency yeah absolutely how many people did you say for the whole County four four yep but not on at any given moment at one time four of us wow oh yeah you appreciated backup there's no better sound than that siren coming when you need to help bet you got into some hairy situations up there oh yes yeah there are some days there were some days that you're just like what am I doing here um what was what was one of the worst ones yeah give us some um probably the worst one for me was a domestic where it seems like in law enforcement and again you learn these things as you go the calls that aren't hot calls turn into the nightmare calls for us right the the hot calls you know a person with a weapon or something like that everybody's got all four of us at the time we're going to something like that like hey send everybody all four of us but um this particular call domestic I was by myself and a guy at the suspect had already left the house allegedly according to the call taker um as I pulled up out front I quickly realized since again very uh open area probably about a five acre tract so I pulled down driveway and um the guy came running out ripping his shirt off screaming wanting to fight me I'm like oh this isn't good this isn't good and you know again get on your radio call for help but it's like yeah isn't that cute somebody's coming back I've seen a little while that's why I'm not a deputy I just lock the doors I mean he took off his shirt he meant business he wanted to really go so we uh he and I ended up underground fighting with one of their pepper spray was flying everywhere and you know a three four five minute fights a long time anyway so we're minutes into this fight now and we're it's kind of an even back and forth and his brother came running out of the house and he tried punching me while I was on the ground and again this is 1991. so uh his dad came running out with a VCR camera I'm not making this up Ricky the whole family they look like a channel 13 camera nowadays those really huge ones he's trying to video me he's yelling I got you on camera man you're going to jail so that's not a new thing oh no that was happened in 1991. yeah just bigger bigger cameras so bigger muscles isn't it weird how you go surreal moments you're looking at somebody going what a camera whoa look at the size that I'm fighting with this guy and uh so I actually had to pull my gun out and uh tell the brother to get back because he kept trying to punch me so I want to get this idea on the ground and I remember laying there and I was just like come on somebody get to me now all these people are outside all family they're all coming over and they're I remember one of our detectives was off duty at the time on his way to Inverness my Homosassa and he heard the call come out so Wally Griggs while we uh came that an old uh Crown Vic he has little bubble light on the dashboard I remember hearing the siren getting louder and louder I'm like oh thank God somebody's coming and I remember watching Wally drive through this five acre track like look like Dukes of hazardous flying that blue light's flying over the interior of the car all over the place and he jumped out and but that was I remember afterwards just laying on the ground every you know the other three guys got there we got the guy in custody I remember just laying there like man maybe this is not such a great idea law enforcement what am I doing here but that's that was a scary one that was probably one of the scariest ones for me like holy crap and yeah I mean you have to be restored I mean I guess you know I hear that now and I think well this is how a a story we're going to hear about in the news starts as far as a significant you know use of force right but it you know that's not the goal no nothing we just want to get get the guy in custody and yep absolutely absolutely wow yeah like I say it's always the ones that you know you don't realize you're like oh this would be an easy one I'll get out there take the reports if I can find a guy later on and you can just get out of your car and he's still there still there ready to go that's what made it so much fun coming here when I got here because the resources and I remember sitting in one of the first read-offs and I get an fto and they're like hey we're kind of short-handed tonight there's only 60 of us working I'm like aren't you cute only 60 of us working wait wait they're serious the whole agency is working and the jail guys are out right now wow so what else I mean I'm sure there's a lot of great great Citrus times and you you were in swat in Citrus yes I was on a SWAT team yeah I was on a SWAT team up there for 10 years 10 years and then three years here in Pinellas so uh we had some call outs were a little bit different back then we were everything was Dynamic entries and stuff like that now it's still a part-time obviously unit like yeah you're still a part-time team um we just were very active very active team barricaded subject suicidal subjects search warrants we executed all them for the Sheriff's Office So when you say it was you know more dynamic entry and things what does that mean uh nowadays we're much safer the way we do things I think it's much smarter the way we do and we call we do preach and holds here at most agencies not the nation now which means you've reached the front door of reach windows flashbangs and call it personality of the suspects out years ago we'd go three four o'clock in the morning breach the front door and basically go through like a banshees going through the house trying to clear the house find suspects and we found there's a lot of shootings involving stuff like that because people said they didn't know it was law enforcement preaching the front door at three o'clock in the morning right you know we're in Florida a lot of guns out there so right there's just a whole different world back then smarter way to do it yes there was a there was one you told me about from 96 a barricaded subject in a mobile home yes yeah oh yes yeah Waco under withlacoochie oh yeah yes this are you too old enough to know uh know about Waco well I know what it is okay I do not okay so that that happened a few years before his incident happened in 93 that was a standoff with the uh with a cult the Branch Davidians and law enforcement and they uh went to serve a warrant and I think uh four ATF guys and a few Branch Davidians were killed and that started a standoff that lasted like 51 days and ended with uh the cult people setting their Compound on fire and uh like 76 people died including a bunch of children in the fire so horrible big standoff big conflagration there was a there was a series was it it's on Netflix I think yeah come on Ashley sorry yeah all right just because you're playing tennis absolutely with strangers I'm I'm guessing you did not coin it that oh no no no no um the call came out again standard call back then we had these things called beepers uh nobody had a cell phone we actually got beeped and a number would come up SWAT call out so we got called dispatch and respond and uh so we're hoping we all get to the scene and I remember so many things happened on this call so many things stand out in my mind uh one of our guys he was a detective an undercovered attack so he has pickup truck and uh he decided it's a good idea to get changed to back the pickup truck and put a SWAT gear on in front of a lady's house and uh he was yeah in his underwear in the back of the truck and I remember we got more trouble for that portion of the call out than anything else with Sheriff Dean Sheriff Dean wow my buddy pasta if you're listening to this pasta I'd love you pal but a bad day for us buddy so uh that's awesome we go to the call out and it's a mobile home and it's on the Withlacoochee River and it's a mobile home elevated and this was a weird one because the guy again the subject was suicidal his wife had fled the house and uh called 9-1-1 Well normally standard protocol was you try to make contact by phone you know make negotiations speak to people and this gentleman was deaf he could not hear it what do you do in that situation well they had one of the uh Tello I can't remember it's called that's got a telephone where the words will come across the telephone little computer screen and he would not respond to that so after probably about three or four hours into it they decided it'd be a good idea to bring in a uh one of those large sign trucks they backed it up oh that's brilliant and they started typing on the side trucks trying to get this guy to respond answer your phone talk to us please and it went on a pipeout at this point eight or nine hours and uh I myself and probably about six of the guys were with me and I had the shield and we were hidden behind a truck on property by about I don't know 25 30 feet from the front door and it's pitch black there's again in Citrus counties there's no lights there's no street lights or anything and I see the front door open to the mobile home I'm like oh he's coming out he's going to give up he's had enough of this stuff and of course you're happy you're like I just want to get a power bar or something at this point so uh the door opens and you can see he's got a pistol on his hand I'm like oh he's not giving up so he's walking around it's almost as if he's looking for us and I remember thinking this I'm gonna have to shoot this guy this is going to be hard what I want to shoot if I don't have to and he never saw us hidden behind the truck and he kept walking around he went out to the back shed and our perimeter people are okay he's in the shed now well he got a can of gasoline a five gallon can of gasoline and walked back into the house again so we're all just kind of like waiting standing by like okay he's back in the house again and this is standard for SWAT calls it's like we're giving Intel to the command post okay we're back online we're offline okay here's what he's doing and all of a sudden the whole place went up in flames then he picks up the phone and he dials the number and he's denying one and he says uh you know what's getting kind of cold in here I think we're gonna have a little week going with the coochie tonight and he set the house on fire so the command is like hey get in there and save that guy so as we make try to reach the front door he starts firing rounds off at us and we quickly backed out of that area unfortunately he did pass away but that was another one of those days you're just like man what am I doing you're reflecting afterwards like man wow just set his house on fire yes and and the standard was to run into the burning building yes even like without a hostage or anything in there just what we do would you would you today is that what they would do today I like to think so yes I honestly yeah I mean it's it's our job that's what we do so we do so yeah that was just one of many and we were like I say very active team up there and it just it was the best experience ever being a cop up there it's interesting because on one hand you have you know four deputies at any given time but you obviously you have to still have the resources to to go do that sort of thing yeah and again Sheriff team was good to us resource wise as far as like equipment and stuff like that but uh what I found in a smaller organization is we were very tight-knit even on a SWAT team there was only 10 of us and I mean we have like 40 here I want to say again we have a great SWAT team here too also but I just felt in Citrus we were so tight-knit because we we all hung out together we all went to dinner together we all it's it was very tight-knit unique very big camaraderie yes how long were you with Citrus uh 14 years 14. okay and then SWAT for a lot of that yes 10 of those years yeah I pay attention I asked him the question helping you there will be a quiz at the end okay there's no fighting here today yeah um wow so a lot of the calls were barricaded type research weren't related yes yeah it was it was very I mean the drug obviously drugs are everywhere and including Citrus was that way up there also so we hit a lot of crack houses drug houses and it's very active it's not like a really like swampy kind of area I don't really no not really not sloppy it's it's now Homosassa when the floods start coming through it gets real swampy when the tides come in Crystal River yeah but uh you were there for one of the heart or oh the no-name storm right 1993 the no-name storm bad day for me yeah why do I got to talk about like bad stuff I wonder in your mind yes absolutely no the again young Deputy at this point I'm like 21 I want to say and I was three okay 51 I'll be 50. okay I'm 48. we we have to like squash these two little ones yes we're gonna destroy them let's go back come on I don't fight fair I didn't mean physically well you go there a lot of anger here having a cop now for 33 years there's a lot of built up in yeah but uh the Notre Dame storm so we had no idea no name storm we had no idea was coming through and I was on day shift and we started back then we were eight hour shifts what do you mean you had no idea it was coming we had no idea we all we knew was a rainstorm was coming through okay but it was like that unexpected oh right okay it was like one of those like disorganized things that just came and sat there right for three days yeah yeah that's correct no no name yeah at high time you had to run up to the weather station to ask the lookout what the weather was going to be today that was the Fire Tower actually sorry anyway keep going but uh so we a couple of us three of us go to the west side and we get dispatched to uh go out to Fort Island Beach to maybe evacuate some people from a mobile home park out there a travel trailer park and I'm everywhere out directing traffic getting all the motorhomes out and stuff and they're leaving and I'm looking down at my feet and I'm like huh water it's in my feet now that's kind of odd what would that Rob be fine so like 10 minutes later it's in my shins I'm like okay this is getting bad so I'm looking at the other guys they're looking at me like what do you think and I had just gotten a new Cruiser a nice new turkey and gave me like a 1991 Cruiser at that point which was a big deal two-year-old Cruiser is like whoa I'm living life right right Crown Vic son yes Crown Vics I'd love this oh they were great cars I do miss those but uh so we all decide hey this water is coming in too deep we got to save these cars too so we start driving out and as we're driving out all of a sudden I feel my car floating on the water I'm like oh no oh this is bad and I'm just drifting down uh Highway 44 west just like I'm on a boat I'm like oh you know weird things go through your head kind of sheriff needs to be so mad at me when he sees this car because salt water and finally my car comes to the ground it goes hits the ground and water's up over my hood now so I brought through my window I climb on top my light bar and I'm sitting on my light bar reflecting on my life choices at that point knowing I should have been a firefighter not so there's a motorhome that's broken down right in front of me probably about 50 feet in front of me and I'm looking at the motor home I think hope they're okay in there you know and the I'm not making this up the biggest snake I've ever seen in my life at the time is swimming across Highway 44 in front of my cruiser I got my gun out and I'm like negotiating with the snake I'm talking the snake please please just go get just go away I'm not in the mood for you pal and it was a water snake it was just so big and I remember thinking okay if the people in a motorhome in front of me I can't shoot this snake what am I going to do and that thing sat there probably literally probably about 30 seconds I joke around he was smiling at me you know how a snake looks I'm like he's smiling at me right now he's laughing at me right now sitting on top of my light bar and I look behind me and two other deputies are behind me on their light bars also so all three of us are just stuck and uh so he the snake moved on thank goodness and we sat there for about 45 minutes to one of our mechanics who had airboat one of our mechanics at a personal airboat he came driving out there in his boat and he's like get in so all three of us in shame got off our Cruisers and climbed into the Airboat and I remember he took us out to Highway 19. and guess who's sitting there uh oh sheriff oh no big 2500 Chevrolet pickup truck King Cab truck and yeah just had cowboy hat on like the perfect visual of this and I look like a drowned rat and he's like first thing he said it he goes you wrecked your car didn't you I said yes sir car's gone he's like and I'm shivering it was super cold out he's like get in my truck I said no Sheriff I'm good I'm good he goes get your ass in my truck I'm like okay so now I'm scared to death sitting in the sheriff's truck the entire day he made me ride around with him and the passenger and I can't I was scared just to be in a room with this guy what about the other guy exactly I don't care at that point is every man for himself in front of him and I did have the brand new car it's a two-year-old yes I mean I don't know I'm sure the mechanic the fleet guy was pretty mad too probably the those cars sat out there because of storm like you said lasted for so long they sat in the water for like four days until they could finally get the water recede and they went out and got them and they were all totaled obviously but there was a punishment oh um the car that I got was like a 19 I'm not exaggerating like 86 LTD and this car was so bad this car your feet burned so bad driving down the road because the the floorboard was all rotten out and I drove that car I was working Crystal River by the Barge Canal all night long I remember just thinking myself man if I just had that nice car still how happy I'd be and so it took me many years to get a car accident so you were punished for saving lives during a natural disaster I don't think they looked at it that way he probably could have saved the lives and the car probably yeah okay you're young yes oh yes so um what else did you do in Citrus whatever assignments Chad which if you had other assignments you weren't in too much trouble no no hard work hard work I truly believe in that and Sheriff Dean does also and so does Sheriff dossy the next Sheriff I worked for and and um so I quickly roasted the ranks I was fortunate I went to a street crimes unit I did that for a short time and then I went to burglary I was a burglary Detective uh did that for a while and then I went to narcotics and I have to tell you I was the worst narcotics detective in the history of the Sheriff's Office oh how was that I've been a deputy since I was 19. so I carry myself as a deputy you know you stand there with the right stance that's right hey how you doing would you like to sell me some crack cocaine sir you know they're like dude I wouldn't sell dope to you for anything oh my God so that was a quick stop for me in Narcotics people are buying drugs no no no no no wait but were you all scruffy then I had a beard yeah long hair beard all that stuff can we get a picture of that someday I promise you I got some photos at the house yes I will send them to you I'd like to see that yeah that was yeah send it to a standard mail I want you to check on that too send me a fax that's awesome so I left narcotics and I was actually fortunate enough to go to homicide I did that for three years and that was a lot of fun at the time I was single so homicide is a great job if you're single um you're out and about all the time you're crazy hours you're flying helicopters all over the State of Florida and it was an amazing experience it was amazing experience any fun homicide cases oh we had a couple we we yeah so how many so you got four Patrol guys on at any given time what was the detective situation uh we probably had let me think at the time no we were well top heavy come to think of it now when you really bring that up geez um there's probably about eight of us upstairs total eight of us detectives okay so it was wow but I mean not everybody was on call at once and stuff so it's still not yeah the county a lot of stuff going on it really was it was very very busy it was very busy um one of the ones that really stands out to me is uh we had a uh two brothers uh camping at the Barge Canal from Crystal River and uh another guy had stolen one of their gas tanks with their five gallon gas tanks in their campsite so they went and found him they held him down they took a shotgun and blew both his hands off for stealing what true story so uh the one brother had gotten out of prison Ricky has a question I can see I'm just trying to just give me a second blew both of his hands off at once they held him down on the ground one hand like like spread eagle so it's two shots yes okay so did they put a tourniquet I don't know they were not very sensitive she didn't bleed out so he didn't die how does it happen twice sorry uh we're gonna we're gonna move on so that's just unfortunately he was released in prison and I was in homicide at the time and uh we got a call of a missing person it turned into a homicide case we pretty obvious the guy was a drug deal with the victim and it was pretty obviously it killed them and we had informants and stuff like that so we uh we ended up going to trial and making a case on the guy and uh his confession which was never admitted because it was third party information was he put the victim in a wood Mulcher and so people really do that it's not just Fargo that's what we were told yeah that's what we were told so again back then records were not like they were nowadays there was no like okay let's scan all the uh the documents to find out any wood mulchers we have in Citrus County and we actually went hand looking for wood mulchers and and we went lots a lot and you know what are you looking for and now we're talking months later in this case right he ended up getting sentenced he was found guilty of a conspiracy commit murder and he went to prison for a long time wow so couldn't get him on the actual no and he was actually very nice to me he actually apologized at the end of trial like hey shook my hand and I'm like yeah watch the hands buddy reputation sorry so well so the the no evidence was found of the body so he's out in somebody's landscape now yeah the victim I believe he is okay I believe he is wow yep that wasn't that long ago and I mean I I don't know just in today and that would be all over the place yeah they have a homicide both of his hands got blown off by a separate shotgun shots like I don't know well that was a separate one so the right yeah right the two brothers did that to the one guy right now I know I'm just saying I'm like that's just but either one either personally for stealing yeah because he can't steal anymore yeah no hands pretty much that was their theory that was their theory he stole from us and we're going to punish you for it that's what that was our punishment I mean I don't know that's that's that's entertaining stuff though that's a that was homicide though that's a Netflix special right there oh yeah we always had interesting cases we always were traveling all over some places there there was another one and so in the in the last episode the cold case they really liked the uh the ruse that they used to get the DNA um there was one really interesting one where you also used a ruse and I like saying ruse much more than I like saying rural so I'm gonna say ruse a lot um yeah we had a home invasion a horrible human home invasion with an elderly woman who was assaulted I mean it was a very brutal assault and she was there by herself for hours she had pepper sprayer duct taped her it just it was awful it was one of the worst crime scenes that I've been to she survived it and she was a very strong woman she in her 70s and um so we're we're very passionate about catching these people who did it and we got some leads and worked a case and we worked a case for a couple days and I remember Sheriff dossey was our Sheriff at the time and Sheriff tossey was like these guys aren't getting away with this you're going to find these guys I don't care how many hours you have to work so it was all hands on deck and I remember one of my confidential informants called me and said hey just so you know so and so I just talked to his girlfriend and they're all leaving town she has a bunch of rings on her fingers and she's going to skip town with him I don't know what they did I'm like all right so the girls working at the Wendy's in Inverness and myself and my partner John plevo I'm a sergeant buffard went out there and I remember walking into the Wendy's and I could see her kind of kid cash register and she had a bunch of like six rings on her fingers I'm like okay and a lot of jewelry have been stolen from the victim during a home invasion so I asked the young lady I said can you come outside and talk to me real quick she's like oh yeah sure give me one second so she walks in the back and she comes outside and she's like uh what's going on I look at her hands he has no rings on her fingers now I'm like gee I'm not the smartest cop but uh something's going on here so I started talking to her about you know what's going on I said oh yeah I said I may ask you something probably about 10 15 minutes in a conversation I said um do you have any jewelry do you own any jewelry she's like oh no I don't have any jewelry at all I said okay I said so you haven't had rings on the last 24 hours she's like no I haven't so I remember looking at my sergeant and I said hey Booth I said you have a gold dust kit I remember him looking at me like I was an idiot he's like um I'm like you have a gold dust kid on in your car he's like no I don't have a gold dust kid I swing I think I got one so I went to my trunk got my first aid kit out and I got a bunch of alcohol swabs and I went through I said that was and I said um what this is this is a chemical that if you've had gold on your fingers in the past 24 hours it will come up on this it'll turn a certain color I said so you're telling me now you had no you have not worn any jewelry in 24 hours and she broke down she I definitely tricked her on that one she's like okay I got rings so he went recover the rings from the Wendy's and we ended up taking her boyfriend her brother and another another female in custody for the home invasion robbery and they got I want to say 25 years for that home invasion yeah Family Affair I was definitely rolling the dice on that one I was like okay let's see if we can play a game here and get this girl well I mean listen if you're dumb enough to have the rings on and then not yes for those who don't know not to spoil future ruses law enforcement does not carry a gold dust kid [Laughter] we can't test for platinum silver or diamonds rubies emeralds gold dust is not a standard issue not at all but those first aid kits work really good multi-purpose yes I love it I love it hey just got to be smart about it sometimes before after narcotics because I'm like if you were able to do that why couldn't I think I just I found my groove and again it kind of it was all the way back to the jail days I know it sounds funny but I feel like I've always had this comfortable Groove and and growing up I was not exactly a altar boy um you know really a couple issues a couple of run-ins with the law things but uh for some reason narcotics just never came comfortable to me it never came like that just never came comfortable but like in homicide burglary things like that it just that was my Niche I love that and which it's funny coming here because being with Pinellas County Sheriff's Office I went to training Patrol training and then canine and SWAT so everybody who I work with here is like oh here's the K9 guy you work with dogs all the time they don't know I had a separate life before right right and I always joke with my wife I'm like I think I did my career backwards I was a young man in homicide and burglary in my 40s I go to Canine like an idiot so it's like I should do this the other way Mike canine when you're a young man and then go to right homicide and burglary so a lot of great adventures in your pre-pcso life absolutely sounds like so that's a good segue though so let's talk about it so you come you come here yes um you said you did Patrol obviously uh you did training that's correct yep went to the training unit and then you ended you do canine yes best job in the agency best job in the agency and you know honestly I wasn't like think I'd ever do canine because again I was in my 40s I'm like okay that that's kind of past me but at the time I one of my hobbies was running marathons back then and I'd run seven marathons I was a very very good shape and I remember a couple of canine people coming up saying hey you should try out I'm like you know what you really think I'm too old that question always comes up like I don't know man I'm up there it's like just give it a shot and I'm proud to say I went out there and I smoked to try out physically I smoked a tryout and not to brag but humble brag but uh but it so I ended up getting a position and I found out quickly that that is the toughest position in the agency initially when it came out because I've been a success throughout my career I'd always been good at Dick's ever narcotics but everywhere else I had been you know SWAT and things like that I've always been very successful and then I found quickly that at four o'clock in the morning when it's cold out and you're wet trying to get a dog to go to the sit is not the easiest thing in the world and you know again getting there you're like how hard can this be it's a dog okay sit down man come on work them here and then you're like okay please for the love of God dog please listen to me and it was my canine school was four months of just stress so I went down to 158 pounds I got real skinny and I was all stress weight wow so let's get into canine but first like tell us about you know canine and how it's structured and how it works here at the Sheriff's Office sure right now we have 16 dogs and handlers here at the Sheriff's Office who are 24 7 operation I have two squads and I know everybody knows about our new Bloodhounds how exciting that is oh yeah they are these stars of the show nobody cares about our Shepherds anymore where's the puppies uh so again we're 24 7 operation I have two corporals and then the remainder of the units are canine handlers uh we train every Tuesday night at the kennels we have an amazing facility out of 118th Avenue and 34th Street and every Tuesday night we have our seven o'clock readoff and then we come into training 10 hour training night with all the handlers and it's a very perishable skill so we we train train with these dogs [Music] so and and then uh so the dogs um live with the handlers yes from the very beginning we get them as puppies and the way it works is if you're a brand new Handler you don't get to select your dog because brand new handlers they look at it all go oh what a cool looking dog and that dog could be the worst dog ever no Drive whatsoever so we don't let them pick the wrong we select the dog for them we pair them up after the tryout and then we introduce them to the family it's a long process what are you looking for in a dog a high drive prey drive and Hunt Drive uh what we do the big test that we do the most important test in K-9 or Canadian selection not other than Handler selection I'll get to that too in a minute but for the dog is the drive and what we do is we'll take like a screwdriver and we'll take the screwdriver and keep rubbing our hands on it and keep that human odor the skin cells on it and tease that dog like crazy like throw it up in the air and all that and then we'll take it and throw it into a high grass where the dog can see it but he can't see the tool yeah and we watched the dog fly out there the dog who flies out there looking for that tool the longer he he stays out there is the dog we want if he gets out there and he kind of walks he's excited for us and about 15-30 seconds into it walks away we're like put him away we don't want him not a chance I want the crazy dog yes the crazy dog yep we want that crazy dog who will not give up I don't care if he finds a screwdriver or not that's a we can learn he can learn that what I want is the drive to go find that screwdriver why a screwdriver as opposed to a toy because it's a less appealing thing yes okay absolutely to look for it even though it's not a fun chewy speaky thing we call them hard articles we use hard articles because on the street when we're tracking let's say we're tracking a suspect and he or she throws a gun down as we're going and way ahead of us I want that dog to be a head turn toward that hard object and let us know hey there's something there too so we always use hard articles to train them with yep um so training and I mean tell us you know talk about you you're on your third dog now yes I am so uh you've been doing it for a while how long now in Canada 15 years 15 years um how old are you then Ricky so now you're making me do math I'm a millennial I couldn't possibly um get your iPad out come on a bad kid yeah um so when you're talking about training I know because I've been around um canine a lot especially in the early days when you were torturing me and hazing me out there can we talk about that oh yes yeah okay do you want to come back you want to come back I just walked right into it damn um so talk about you know your experience and and because that'll kind of help us understand what the process is like for train to be a canine Deputy uh the training again it's midnight shift it's a midnight shift training and I gotta throw this out there the people who built our unit way before me the men and women who are here before me built an amazing unit our canine section I'm so proud of it because years past they built an amazing program we're just trying to keep up with what they built I truly mean that the pillars that we work on every day they are they are strong pillars so we just try not to disappoint them so when I got to Canine uh the the school is at night like I said and it is extremely physical it is mental stress and physical stress every knot Handler has Aflac it's pretty much mandatory because you are getting bit you need supplemental insurance you're going to get paid you're going to the hospital um the standard night was you get out you do obedience agility Bike Works search work building search article search and it's not only your dog don't forget you're also decoying for all the other people in school so you're taking running hits getting taken to the ground by these dogs all night long it is extremely physical and my first dog I don't even say his name because he can go away I didn't make it he didn't make it so but uh I went through school with him I made it 14 weeks it was 16 weeks school and they had watched him in week 14 and I remember thinking no no no I'll settle for him he's okay he's okay and they're like you do not want to settle for a mediocre dog the dog he was a good dog but he wasn't a great dog and again like I said before we don't settle for okay dogs or good dogs we want a great dog because how long of a career is that for 7 eight years having a dog who's just okay you know deputies know K unit whoever's on their way and if it's somebody who doesn't have a good reputation because their dog is okay how miserable is that for a career you want to be like no okay I'm on my way my K9 is on my way and they're going to catch this person for us um so that dog didn't make it which means I start off day one again in school it was like no but you know what back in that frozen lake back in that frozen lake alligators lake mcgorry is where we train full of alligators and I was many alligator stories I can sit here forever alligator stories because they're everywhere in our County but um this particular one I remember in cane High School I was probably about halfway through my first dog and there's a little Bridge of the Saint P compound we're going to Lake magory and to my right I saw this dinosaur an alligator on this it was probably about seven o'clock in the evening and he was sunning himself still and the thing this thing was again I know people exaggerate all the time he was probably about 11 foot and real wide I'm like oh look at that thing and I knew I was gonna be swimming later on in that water and uh so we're at the candles and the the trainer at the time so okay go get your dogs we're gonna go through the uh the bridge go swimming down the bridge and I'm like Frank dude there's a dinosaur over there he's in the water now can we please not swim over there tonight can we just go somewhere else not that many difference in Lake magori but I remember there was like five of us five or six of us in the school night at the time I was on Swan I was one of the snipers so we put a plan together I went and got my sniper rifle out of a truck on my cruiser I said here's the way it's gonna work guys I said you're all going to cross the water I'm going to cover you with a sniper rifle and then when I'm doing now you get through you come up here take my rifle and cover me and my dog when you go through the water and that was pretty much every night I had my pretty sad canine school you got your sniper rifle out half the time because you're so scared of alligators but yes yes but that one in particular like if I have tourists come and I want to guarantee to see big alligators that's where I take them absolutely yeah they're giant they're everywhere they're the nice thing is when you're out tracking with the dogs like you know at night you're going through a swamp you know waste deep water and you'll hear the loudest Splat like a bang it sounds like a splash boom and you're like oh there's another one you just gotta tell yourself ignore it ignore it ignore it keep going and that's common that night you're just like Splash I'm I'm always just unable to take my com's hat off so I'm just thinking about the call that we get after there are multiple shots fired from a high caliber rifle a canine training just training just training folks don't worry about it a dinosaur out of there because they always call it Pio right and say there's something going on oh no we're just having training hours training sounded pretty loud yeah shooting into the water because somebody would have it yeah that's I mean I'm with you I mean I wouldn't even I wouldn't even go in the water like sharks and alligators and snakes and things and I would not go in that Lake no I mean alligators don't bother me if I see them first like not at all like my dad used to be a Trapper that's right I go with them like it doesn't bother me but the when it's dark out and you have no idea to hear it you're like oh I know you're next to me somewhere pal and you should have all your own and still here 10 fingers ten toes but I mean the point is that if potentially someone you guys are tracking goes in there you still have to go in with it yeah absolutely that goes down again their selection too that's why I was saying earlier Handler selection is so important too whenever we hire a new recruit class how often do they say I say who wants to go to K9 90 race yeah oh I wanted UK everybody loves K9 sure but they have this image of oh I get the dog a dog all day and then they come to tryouts and they're like what are you talking about go through that Lake we make them swim through Lakes like Golf Course course lakes and things like that because we got to see that they're willing to go into water where there's some water moccasins there's alligators a lot of spiders um bad guys like you were saying actually they go places where they don't think we're going to follow them and most deputies won't follow them smartly then you have done canine handlers like ourselves who are like yeah let's get this guy you guys run into anything absolutely yeah absolutely so when I went with you guys out um for tryouts when you went through the March that was like so eye-opening for me that you know you guys go through things that you would never normally go through because that's where they're hiding so you think you're never going to go there I mean my jeans were ripped up everything sorry no no canine jeans now so if I would have been out there and it was 10 years ago he would have made me go too which segues right into the story Ricky ah the story we've been waiting we did yeah Ricky said all those I feel kind of bad he said all those kind things about me yeah but I've been giving you a hard time yeah how old are you again anyway um so Ricky came out and you know Ricky how friendly he is and talkative and introduce himself to everybody and after about five minutes or like so do me a favor he's like yeah I said put the suit on and you have the big we call them the marshmallow suits for the bite suits that's never been washed no never we that's we're proud of that we don't watch those things ever they smell really good we have a couple never so it's like total body cover so the dog can bite you yeah not total body coverage well your hands stick out your hands stick out and uh and your face obviously yeah we were safe we gave Ricky a helmet didn't we like the least important thing yeah I did have a hockey a hockey mask on so yourself I was I was pretty fairly comfortable you're going to be okay and my hands though I didn't steal anything oh Ricky she gets all geared up the guy got his hand shot off for stealing oh unprotected hands all right and we're back there we go all right with Mike Killians continue oh so um I've lost my train I thought see Ricky's in the smelly bites too oh yeah so tell Ricky we're like hey dude just take off running and he's like what we're like just run trust trust me yeah you're going to be fine hopefully it usually works out most of the time and he took off running we have a big canine feel with our search boxes and he's running full speed and we sent one of our German Shepherds I think on him and took Ricky down and I mean drug him like a ragdoll across the field and the reason I shared this story first of all he was brave enough or stupid enough to get in the suit I thought he's gonna say not a chance buddy I'm not getting in that suit I don't have to and uh I think he he kept coming back out after that so he's technically canine I mean honestly yeah well the thing is is the hands thing was a problem because I knew enough to know that the dogs go for Limbs and whatnot and I just have this vision of the dog like cartoon chewing up my arm to my hand that is so it's like oh just tuck your hands in and run this fast again so tonight you know when you're bored you go for a run later just tuck your hands in to your armpits like a T-Rex and try to see how fast you can run and then imagine being in a marshmallow suit that's that's what it was all right so we'll move on from that um what did you die I didn't I didn't and I still was a little traumatized yeah he was a little traumatized by the whole thing it's all right that's which he has that that wasn't normal okay yeah it's the twitch has had many causes over the years um all right so let's go back to you so you wash out your first dog and then let's talk about your actual first dog the main best dog in the world right there Mr Axel Foley Axel that sounds familiar oh yes Mr Axel was a amazing amazing dog and I know every canine Handler who's listening to this right I was like yeah right my dog's the best we all say that we all think we have the best dog but I have to say Axel except for his behavioral issues sometimes uh he he liked the bite Axel did enjoy biting no doubt about it everything and everyone we there were several deputies who still will not talk to me to this day um that those stories are way too long I'm thinking to tell you about about the gas pumps and yeah I like the gas pump one though okay you want to hear that one yeah all right absolutely I was pumping gas on midnight shift and at the time one of our undercover detectives in TSU uh was pulling up on pumping gas I had Axel out to take a break he's running around a gas pump so the detective gets out I won't use his name he uh he gets out to get gas and we're social hey how are you sir hey we're talking and all of a sudden for no reason Axel goes up and grabs him by the pants and starts dragging into the ground and he ripped his pants off off the pants off oh no that guy was so mad at me he didn't talk to me and then sadly that happens and then probably got a year later we're up in North County we're going to call with those same detectives and I got axle out of the car and he's like he's not gonna bite me he's down like nah he bit him no I'm like no I'm like I don't think he likes you I really don't think he likes you very much he remembered he remembered him but Axel was a tracking just an amazing dog tracking his disposition was not very good for everybody else but uh he was great he was fantastic he was a drug dog and a patrol dog and we had a lot of catches with him now Axel was trained a different way than how we train now much differently yeah so talk about that a little bit you know my first school with Axel was under compulsion which means when you train the dog okay Sid you tell a dog to sit under compulsion if he doesn't sit you're going to pop the lead on his choke chain and push his butt down to the ground forcing the dog to go to a sit and eventually they will conform even your highest Drive dogs will conform to that because the punishment um and they're good dogs they work out well that way but the problem is they become extremely uh aggressive under compulsion so probably about 10 or 12 years ago we we stole a way that we found at my there was a trainer down in Miami who came up and did some teaching for us and some glasses for us and he was doing this thing called the reward system which segued into uh different ideas for us and the reward system basically is reward the dog for good behavior when he does something you want him to do whether it's food or a tug toy put the dog in a Sit once they go to the sit you have like 1.5 seconds to say give the dog that reward and get the reward and they learn so much quicker that way it's called marker training also it kind of segues into marker training Mark the behavior you know you tell the dog like my dog now Eddie I say the word free high pitch free I'm free and as soon as he hears free he knows it's time to play so if I tell him sit as soon as he sits I'm like free and give him the tele toy and we have found the best way I explain it during canine demos is who's ever worked a really bad boss you go to work every day you're miserable you're like oh gosh I got to go to work today for this person blah blah and that's compulsion training you're there because you have to be there you're not happy about it but you're going to do it because you got to pay your bills versus going to work for someone you really enjoy working for you know you have a great time the lowest point right now isn't that nice I wasn't going to say anything but that that boss that you work for that you actually feel you have a buy-in that person makes you feel appreciated and rewards your for lack of a better term rewards your work I guess yeah Laura and I do the tug of toy every day but those are free I'll start running around the room oh those dogs the dogs we have now I mean they they bike just as hard when they're forced to bite someone but they're such well-behaved dogs now and they're focused I call them our subcontractors the dogs are a subcontractors they work for us we're in charge but they're happy dogs they're happy police dogs so is it just a a lack of of knowing any better when it comes to the difference in training I mean or are there agencies that still use compulsion there are some agencies around here that still use compulsion and I think we just evolve as law enforcement we learn better ways of doing things kind of like everything else in our jobs um you know think about the way we should train back in back in the 90s Ricky years ago the way we trained certain things we've gotten away from all those tactics we're like oh it's ridiculous why would you do that you know revolvers why would you carry your revolver you carry it automatic with all these extra rounds in it so it's the same thing with canine training and it you don't ever want to get stagnant with any of your training any of your ideas and that's one thing I've always prided myself on is new ideas and always trying to advance and do things differently um so I'm always open to new ideas and I've got some great trainers in the canine section that we have people who truly have a passion for training dogs and when they come up new ideas I'm like hey let's try it Go With It guys you're the experts do it and they come to your stuff with ideas and I'm like wow what a great idea and just we just keep growing getting better and better yeah and I think also um so the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office we run a canine school for the county so we train pretty much all the canine teams in the county with the exception of Saint Pete is that right that's correct Saint Pete yeah okay and we have Clearwater Largo Pinellas Park Tarpon Springs and US cool that's good I mean you know they they come to us I mean it's also an economies of scale thing but yes it's important because on hot calls we're all together anyway all the agencies we all work together something major goes on you're going to have canines from all over the place going and it's good that we train together we go to the same schools together and then we actually train a lot on Tuesdays and Wednesday nights together so we know our capabilities and dogs have personalities like human beings so you know what dog you want to use for certain calls like a dementia patient prior to our Bloodhounds uh dementia patient walks away and you don't want to use one of those dogs who likes to bite it's like you know put your dog away pal get this dog out that's our happy dog get that dog out to find this person so that's why it's really good to train together but because we use you know the reward system over compulsion though the dogs are generally oh absolutely all of our dogs are happy dogs now they are happy but I just yet certain dogs you're just like yeah he's a little too happy sometimes when it comes to the apprehensions all right so you have Axel then what uh Axel retires and uh becomes a stay-home dog when she was not happy about even a little bit he uh he ate my wife's Louie Louis Vuitton purse and it was I guess again I don't know much about purses it looks like a big duffel bag it did look like a big duffel bag and uh I didn't realize how much you'd leave Tom purses were until that night when she yelled at me a lot uh he was very upset that I left and took to my new dog Reggie with me and she called me she came home from work she's also in law enforcement works here at Sheriff's Office she came home and she found Axel had eaten the entire bag there was just little tiny shreds left of it he had digested the entire bag oh my yes like he was all right he didn't have to go to the vet no he was fine holy but the bag was not the bag I actually got on their website that's how I found how much those bags are which I was very upset with her then when I found out what those bags are and I guess they do only do like certain models certain years yeah I'm thinking like Walmart go and get yourself and welcome back and we're gonna replace it I was gonna be nice yes and then they didn't have that color bag and all that so it turned to big issues Mother's Day was not too far behind us I cried at Louis Vuitton buying her a new bag and I worked a lot over time that year all right so Reggie Reggie so Reggie he is our uh we called him the uh the Blondie Blondie he was our Slovakian dog when he worked here he uh he has a person of his own he had a lot of names Blondie dancing bear all kinds of things he looked just like dancing bear and he is a happy happy he is a happy happy dog I should say he uh he was also a patrol bomb dog and just a great dog unfortunate at that point or fortunately I had gotten promoted to Sergeant the canine unit at that point so poor Reggie's working life was cut short by sitting in the office with me doing spreadsheets right uh he can actually do a spreadsheeted to him for some help evaluations he always made suggestions for evaluations he said back to the desk and say where'd you put that in there nice um so he he was he was a great he is a great dog and he he a fantastic bomb dog but unfortunately for him he had a lot of Advent time which now he is retired and he runs the house he sits on the couch and enjoys himself every day of retirement do you have other dogs at home too none yes Leo dogs yes we have four dogs now we did have five one passed away so we have four um read Reggie of course my entire dog I have Eddie now my current police dog and then we have another dog named Casey and that's a long story behind that name Kate's um and then we have um uh Shadow sorry shadow shadow razorus he's a tiny little dog and he is he's always little ones the Napoleon syndrome three times every time my police dog Outback Eddie who stays with a back outside and again in a kennel when a shadow goes outside he chases Eddie and Eddie it looks like the biggest baby running from him yelping running away from him I'm like you're a police dog dude trying to act like it once in a while so yeah they it's we have quite the crew we're the Clampetts in the neighborhood there's no doubt about it here the clamp is so so but Reggie got some catches oh no he has some great catches yeah he did he did it's just unfortunately what I learned getting promoted is a lot of admin duties there's a lot of administrative time here as it's canine Sergeant because of the liability all the training records all the things go behind the scenes the purchasing the sergeant handles their budget I do all the budgeting and stuff like that so there's a lot of downtime paperwork wise and and and not only that K9 handlers are extremely competitive and they all have their areas so if there's six dog teams working the street and here comes the sergeant and a call comes out and that's their area there's an etiquette you don't want to be that person like hey uh I'm gonna pull rank here I'm gonna I'm gonna get my dog out that's that's not the thing to do you want to make your people very successful so you don't want to steal their calls so sure it makes it tough because you are interior eyed you're like oh I could get out right now I can catch this do it I'll be a cop again yes um you said Reggie only had one bite in his career one bite yes wow one bite and and that guy he was in a swamp and that guy was not giving up and he kept running and running and running and finally ended up sending Eddie Reggie Eddie Reggie Hotel Reggie yes uh said reggiano and he got an inner thigh bite on this guy and it was it was a yeah that guy was that guy almost fell back for that guy that night like listen you paid your prices so bites that's a good um that's a good question so one bite though I mean that doesn't that obviously doesn't sound like a lot but we don't really buy a whole lot of people less than 10 and I think that's a big misconception about absolutely law enforcement canines and you know certainly that has not always been the case um you know but you know we try to always be the the exception not the rule but I mean the dogs are trained to just find people they're not out there you know locating their locating tools what they're supposed to be a locating tool and if the person is a felon and they're not giving up and it meets the requirements we will send a dog but like I say rarely like you said Ricky does that happen and we keep fight ratios we're very accountable we that's why we select we're so it's so important selecting the right Personnel for this job too you don't want anybody with ego you don't want somebody who's just vindictive or sadistic or anything like that you want to have a good mild manner person who knows that dog is there if needed um and I'm very proud of the handlers we have right now we we stay right about 10 so one out of ten if we have to bite someone it's because we had to bite that person really we gave them every opportunity to give up and they didn't so shame on them yeah I mean most people I mean I'd say most I certainly would you know I got the dog okay I'm you know I'm coming out and that's what happens most of the time especially our repeat offenders if somebody is bitten by a dog normally it is painful there's no doubt trust me I have stitches everywhere um it's painful so if we have a repeat offender like I've had people under cars and St Pete and the guy's like I'm right here I'm under the car I'm like I know the dog's telling me and the person the person came out and he's like I'm not doing that again last time you guys got me the dog bit me and I'm never going through that again so most people are smart enough to say I'm no I give up absolutely so you know when you guys are out there you're you work a lot with flight we had a great um episode of partisan crime that highlighted that talk a little bit about that relationship and and how important it is and how it kind of works because what I'm really getting at too is we always like to make sure we share some tips and pointers for folks if they happen to see a dog out or hear the helicopter out so we'll talk about how you work first of all our relationship the flight unit has never been better great bunch of people out there hard working they we all have the same Mission they all want to do what we want to do is catch the bad guy now sometimes exactly a little competitive oh yes I listen to their flight recorder and they're so happy when they catch the bad guy before the canine does oh yeah they're very excited about it so it's competitive but it's a healthy competitiveness um we we train with them once in a while we'll actually meet on a Tuesday night and they'll get the flight section up and we'll lay out decoys and practice tracking while the flight unit calls it out their technology helps us so much the the infrared camera they have and we also wear these things called strobes on our vest that we turn on and they put down their night vision goggles and once our strobes are on the pilot can see exactly where even better than a flare unit they can see where we're at and the relationship is great so on a standard night if a suspect flees or we're looking for someone the dog is out the flight unit is going to be over top they're going to be flying over and they're basically watching us they're taking care of us making sure we're safe what we run into an awful lot and this is our PSA right now Ricky honestly um whenever we're out tracking it happens pretty much every track somebody will say they'll come out of their house because they will hear the helicopter and they're like are you looking for somebody and my sarcastic side wants to say no just taking the dog for a walk at three o'clock in the morning with the helicopter just of course I'd never say that but um but I'm like yeah go back in your house go back in your house why what's going on what are you looking for a lot of that and that hurts us in the canine world because now the dog is distracted the dog is like what's that over there um and so if you hear the helicopter up just understand if you I'll put you this way if it sounds like the helicopter is about to land on your roof that means there's a canine somewhere around your house looking for a suspect and and I know that natural instinct is to find out what's going on you want to find out if nothing else call the sheriff's office and ask the 582-6200 number and say what's going on am I safe is there something I need to work for is for but coming outside doesn't help us at all we've had some close calls of we call them spontaneous bites of citizens because they come outside walking around and and I I honestly I've had more guns pointed at me by civilians than I have that guys a lot of people get to hear a noise outside they grab their pistol they come running out looking to see what's going on in their backyard and I understand sure but there's a law enforcement officer legally in your backyard jumping fences trying to catch a bad guy and I can't tell you how many times I've been like whoa Sheriff's Office I got the flashlight pointed at myself like please don't shoot me please don't shoot me yeah um so yeah it's please stay inside so I guess while we're talking about tracks and whatnot um four-hour listeners how does how does a track work you know the and we can talk about The Bloodhounds a little in a little bit but sure you know Bloodhounds and the Shepherds and mouths are all a little bit different with how their noses work so when when they're tracking you know a lot of people think oh well you know it's like in the movies which is it is the case with The Bloodhounds but with a Shepherd or a mouth it's not like hey smell this shirt then go get them not at all no no they're going off the freshest odor like let's say it's a stolen Clark vehicle bailout we'll take the dog to the driver's door passenger door whichever that person fled from and we'll get the dog got a dog finds that odor and they're tracking that over the freshest odor to where the suspect is in a hide um you know in Pinellas County we're obviously very Urban not rural we have a lot of a lot of issues with like foot traffic people walking people out jogging stuff like that makes it very difficult to work through all that with these dogs um they're actually you know I wouldn't even say they're tracking dogs they're trailing dogs going off that odor and what they're doing is they're looking for ground surface you know like through grass and stuff like that the foliage is that's actually pushed down that that gives motor not to mention all the skin follicles falling off your skin as you're running and we have a thing called um uh fear scent and if your adrenaline's flowing you're running from the please you're scared you're nervous your adrenaline's low and you're dumping and more odor out of your body and the dogs realize that it's amazing watching them on a training track where they know it's training versus a hot call where the person's running a person's scared the dogs you can see their Drive is so much higher when it's an adrenaline dump like that with a bad guy I had always heard dogs can smell fear but I never knew it was actually true I truly believe it literally yeah we see it and some of it's us you know we're hyped up too yeah you know we're hiked up grabbing a dog put a harness on a dog let's go this Sirens are going on and they get that but every dog that I've worked I could see a huge difference my training track where they're like okay we got this boom boom boom boom um versus a hot call track where they're like just on it crazy on it different personalities Now The Bloodhounds like you were saying right they are they are sent discriminative big time you could take a pillowcase a article of clothing and give that dog that article clothing or that that pillowcase and find once they get that odor in their nose they discriminate that odor and they will find that track where it's at that air area and they will hit it up to 24 hours they can hit that track it is a game changer for Pinellas County Sheriff's Office these Bloodhounds are going to be so good for us no doubt about it they they don't bite they're friendly little guys of course they're still puppies now but they're not they're not bite dogs um they uh they just the drive they have to find that odor is amazing and I just spoke with the trainer up in Pasco where they're going to school yesterday and he said he has never seen better canines than the school he has going on right now so we're really excited All The Bloodhounds All The Bloodhounds yes and they're all they're all Brothers we're saying litter so it's kind of cool five brothers going to school together we got lucky we got really lucky yes wow that's cool it's a good group that is that's I mean that's the best tool we have is dogs yeah I think so for the pr side and for the getting getting down to business side and they work in all conditions yeah Fog rain doesn't matter they don't complain ever was there was that a dig at flight yeah I love the flight game but I gotta throw it out there so when they come on here I promise you and you had them as guests they're gonna throw a Jacob canines yeah sorry Ashley go ahead no um so when the dogs are tracking their anticipation like they're excited because they think that they're like playing some type of game more or less like it's not an aggression it's not a I can't wait to you know I want to get to the end I want to find it I want to find that the reward right it's very much like a game yes and I think sometimes people like public perception they're not thinking that that's that's what's happening right they're very excited I mean and I've seen Mike and our guys do a million canine demonstrations but it Mike is always you know the bad guy is you know will they train for example when you're training with them with apprehension which statistically they don't get to do very often when they're training for apparents and they're screaming and whatever and having a great time and the whole time the dog is like you know those tails are wagging yeah they are thinking this is the best day ever right we're going to Disney World again this is the best day ever so yeah from the outside it looks scary but they're that they've been taught that this is right if they were vicious dogs like we've seen in the past they would bite one spot and then move to another spot to another spot our dogs are biting whole dogs when they're forced to bite someone they'll grab one spot and they'll hold that spot because they're thinking that's my tongue toy yeah and we're playing they're not all over the place typewriting all over the place that's where you get real problems yeah so Eddie your last dog old Eddie you claim is your last current dog let's say yeah he is my last dog he is my current dog and my last dog my knees are not gonna put up with another dog I think unfortunately yeah a physical job you know I I am proud to say Eddie is the best of all three dogs he he has kind of got a little bit of personality of axles with the drive and he has a disposition of Reggie so he is like The Best of Both Worlds and he is a lot of fun you guys got to meet him before we started and you saw how crazy he is he's a high energy boy yeah yes he is Non-Stop and that's smart really smart uh I know I'm not gonna lie on top on the podcast I want to come back again one day so I'm not going to lie here tonight um he he's actually kind of dumb um is he as smart as he needs to be when I say he's dumb I'm joking around the reason I named him Ed um it's Eddie but uh from The Lion King Ed the hyena uh you remember the song hanging out all the time during canine School originally he was Eddie Murphy because my first dog was Axel Foley Beverly Hills Cop my next dog was Reggie Hammond for 48 hours I'm a big Eddie Murphy fan clearly so my third dog was Eddie Murphy but then through school I said you know what you're no Eddie Murphy you're Ed The Lion King you just said Ed the hyena is what you just said he is he's a just awesome though he was so much fun not too bright but he's great he's such a sweet dog he is a lover yeah no doubt about it he's a shepher Mal he's got the half German Shepherd half bench of Mel in them and bull side show so why do you use the the combination as opposed to just Malinois or just Chef right when we go to our vendors we look at all the dogs they have they have German Shepherds Belgian Malinois and Shepherd Mouse all three types and years past we were always real big on German Shepherds we're like all the Shepherds they're real stable they're a lot calmer than a mouse and we found throughout the years the chef and mouths are kind of like The Best of Both Worlds the Mal's again amazing dogs Belgian Malinois are amazing dogs but they're not in my opinion they're such high drive that they're very hard to control shepherds are great too but they're they're not they're that level of drive and every dog is different but we have found that the shepher males are kind of like The Best of Both Worlds we call them the 79 Ford F-150s they're kind of like crank up every single time it's just they they we really like to Chef a mouse a lot and that that's a trend I guess that's been I mean the last five to seven years something like that we've been picking those up we went from only Shepherds to oh yeah we eventually transition to Belgium malamas and then like you said the past three or four years every time we go to train or test dogs those Chef amounts just always impress us so much for their drive is it one parent is one one parent is the other or is it okay yep yes it is well no as opposed to like one Shepherd Malinois with another Shepherd and while in a while and they're puppies which would yeah got it let's get into like Center Morgans yeah all right so that's another one because I've listened to a million demos and I hear the questions too so um the how do you get a dog how does that work what's that process where do they come from uh the vendor we primarily use right now is up in um Ocala area PSD canines we go up there and we'll call First and say listen we have a need for let's say two dogs and the owner of the company invites us up okay come up on whatever day we'll go up there and he'll say I have 10 or 12 Dogs for you to look at and it's a full day we'll he'll get dogs out for us and the first thing we do is that one has that test I was telling you about earlier the hunt test and we'll take the screwdrivers we'll throw them to the field and we'll start narrowing down our search like some dogs you know you get them out and you're like oh put that one away we don't want to see that one the rest of the day just get rid of him right now and we'll narrow it down to maybe four or five dogs okay we like these four or five then we move on to the tracking portion and these dogs have no training so they have no idea what we want them to do and how are they uh 12 months generally about 12 months old are you sure no um the passports are handwritten so they could be nine months supply and demand we are seeing a much younger dog coming across uh from Europe um and all that really does is we have to slow down our training a little bit let's say they say they're 12 months they're actually 9 or 10 months old we'll just slow down to training with them not be so aggressive with it and they turn into great dogs just takes us a little bit longer to get to where we need to be with the dog um but then we do our tracking test and again they have no idea what we're doing with them they've never tracked anything before but they can't help it genetically they put their nose to the ground and what we're looking for is that crazy high drive they got to get to a tuck toy we'll take a tug toy we'll walk out 30 40 paces and tease them up while they're on harness and we're throwing a toy up in the air like hey you want this and they're spinning in circles like I gotta have that toy and then we just walk off get out of the pitcher and the Handler will take the dog and place them on task like just not even say anything just let them go and the dogs who keep their nose down and actually go straight to that tug tour without seeing where it's at in the grass that's a dog we like so we go to that portion then we go to Environmental once we've narrowed it down let's say we need two dogs down to four dogs okay these four we love let's see who's environmentally strong the vendor that we use has a huge uh Barn an enclosed barn and he has all kinds of um uh things set up or inside the barn like chains buckets things like that slick floors and very Noy a lot of noise like right on chain Stone things on the ground and we'll get the dog has to go down a hallway excuse me down the hallway um to the very end where we're at with like a uh a sleeve let's say well the sleeve on and then they know how to bite that they know that's fun so we'll be actually throwing things down in front of them loud noises rattling chains in the air and the dogs who don't need throwing buckets down underground and jump over buckets all these things we're doing to see if they're going to crack like whoa this is uncomfortable I don't like this at all and the dogs are the strongest with us the ones we pick that have the strongest environmental now if it doesn't work out we generally we see once we get the dogs um first thing we do is take them to the vet once we select the two let's say the two dogs we take them to the vet and once they pass the vet for their hips their shoulders their teeth all that then we take them out and just start working with them and see how they do at any point during that canine school they start doing something we don't like they start going backwards or we're like oh there's an issue with that dog he doesn't like whatever fill in a blank we're looking you know what let's not take a chance let's just send this one back we'll start over another new one and a vendor has always been really good with us they have that contract we have a really good working relationship we just call them and say hey how many dogs you have left oh don't worry they'll say hey the three you really like they're still here so we'll get back up there as quick as we can to get that dog from another agency gets them before we get them so that's pretty much it and how much are the dogs 11 500 as of today and another you were talking about Europe we don't the dogs are from overseas that's correct yes all the dogs we get are European dogs they come from all over Poland we have dogs from Poland Italy France uh Hungary I can consider all day long and people always ask why do they speak English are they all speak English because I I am not smart enough to learn all those languages so yeah they all they all learn English and the reason we get up in Europe I'm sure there's amazing vendors here in the United States that breed dogs we have just found the companies we work with right now are so good at what they do in Europe and they're so easy to work with as far as like return policies and things like that but we're never going to say oh I'll never buy an American vendor dog we just we gotta find one we really like as of right now all the European dogs the vendors have been really good with us I mean The Bloodhounds are American though they are Kentucky Litchfield Kentucky yes but I mean also you know Europeans are a little more hardcore about breeding dogs I mean they're they're working dogs over there absolutely yes they breed their dogs actually we had a guy come from Germany probably about close to 15 years ago and he was watching one of our dogs from Germany and he had that German accent he's like where did that dog come from and the dog we got the dog from Germany and he goes that dog should not be here he goes we don't send you good dogs like that yeah okay so we got one of them then yes we he got through he got through that dog and he was a great dog too but there's always some something that they don't like about the dog in Europe that's why they send the United States where they because it's a sport in New York they they work those dogs like crazy and it's yeah that's a whole nother story for another podcast like the slightly damaged floor models or the pretty much yeah I didn't want to say it but Eddie is pigeon toed he doesn't know it so let's not hurt [Music] but a sport arena he would look bad with the pigeon toes in America I don't care about your pigeon toe do catch bad guys that's what I want you to do right but in a sport over there in a ring they'd be like look at that dog the way he's standing that he points off for that stuff like that whereas Eddie's always a winner with us he's a lover so what I mean what else about canine what's next for canine is there anything y'all are working on that's exciting always I mean oh yeah dogs are always excited you know me and my ADHD I'm always trying to push for new things I have ideas and right now the big thing is for us is our facility is over 20 years old and I think we've kind of outgrown it a little bit and what I'm working on right now is is not right like happening right now but next 10 15 years hopefully we'll have a bigger facility and we're really shooting for is into our training facility because right now everything you do oh yeah yeah everything we do is outside so during the summer you can imagine what it's like on training nights pouring down rain things like that or even during the day if we're training in the afternoon to summer heat makes it very difficult so the next my vision for the canine unit when I'm gone I just like to set the stones for to begin is an indoor training section and expand our kennels because right now our kennels our facility has like 10 runs where we can house dogs in case an emergency and we have 16 dogs right so we've kind of our readoff room has 12 seats we have 16 handlers so before we got to stand in a read-off so it's it's in a few plans in the future I would like to see it happen hopefully it will happen cool yeah good stuff so you talked about you touched on the fact that your wife works here so that's got to be a fun Dynamic at home absolutely let's have something to talk about yeah so she is a uh she's Lieutenant right North County so shift Commander she outranks you she does outrank you she does she always did but probably I'm not gonna argue that my wife out ranks me so I don't know what you expect yep so so how is that I mean you'd think that you know if you do the same job as your spouse like oh that's you know there's there's less explanation needed right absolutely actually we're therapists for each other too quite honestly you know she gets home she works nights also and we'll get home and we'll debrief we'll sit there and talk about stuff and just kind of it's you know obviously I married my best friend there's no doubt about it so that makes it a lot easier too but we have like a um yeah anyway but uh no it's it's been great 21 years of marriage another cop and I always tell people in the classes that I teach I do a lot of teaching outside I'm like whatever you do do not come to the Sheriff's Office to try to find love and all that stuff and of course I'm sitting up there going but my wife is a deputy sheriff so don't listen to what I'm saying don't listen to me at all but it's yeah it's really good we a lot of yeah it's it's I have zero complaints with my wife being a cop and it's it's it does like you said Ricky makes it a lot easier explaining things when you do have a rough night you see something horrible and both of us have seen things that you're like you get home and all you want to do is cry and there's somebody there for you you're just gonna get you get it you get it 100 yeah you guys have a lot of confidence in each other's abilities and you know you told me one story about uh she gave you a task to do when you were working a different agency we have a lot of faith in each other we kind of like complement each other I'm more the Tactical side of things and she's definitely very smart and very calculated and just very good at what she does um but at the time I got a call that a friend of hers from Clearwater Police Department his car was broken into and his service weapon was stolen along with his taser and His Radio and all his equipment so she came home and it probably been a day or two and she said I need you to do me a favor she goes go find his equipment tonight just like that just like that go find his stuff please go find his stuff tonight it was in Dunedin area so I'm back to my old CID days my old uh burglary days and I'm like okay this is where the guy lives so I'm going to go that area obviously statistically speaking the juvenile broke into this guy's car because that's what happens so I parked my cruiser with Axel and I parked it way down the street off salon and I walked to wooded area and I just stood there for like I don't know two hours I'm standing in this wooded area I'm just waiting for the right thing to happen just waiting for somebody to come out on foot walking around because these kids are out doing these things at night and here comes this guy and this girl come walking down the street they're Bebop and I jump out of the woods I'm like hey they're like a sheriff's office how you guys doing tonight and you guys all know me I I'm very I pride myself on being social I'm not kind of cop was like show me your hands all the time and stuff like that I'm like how's it going and they're like oh you scared us I'm like oh I'm sorry so we start talking and I'm like you got to be careful out here walking around at night I said I heard there's guns out here and stuff people with guns running around and so the guy's looking at me you can tell he wants to say something to me and I'm like maybe he's my suspect and so he tells his girlfriend hey just keep going I'll meet you back to the house so she walks away he goes hey man I know what you're doing I said what am I doing you should look at that cop stuff what cops gun that got stolen I said how do you know that because I know who did it I'm like really so I uh got a pretty good rapport with him started talking to him and I ended up uh giving him 20 bucks quite honestly no you did I gave him 20 bucks right out of my pocket because it was give me Intel I don't care and he was not a confidential former that was just a citizen contact that I I was so happy this guy was giving me a lead I'm like hey pal here's a 20 for you could have kept it for a Louis Vuitton wow so uh he told me the saucepan of course he said the kid's name who stole the stuff and I was very familiar with him because we had dealt with him 100 times oh hey it was the best 20 bucks I spent alone you have information talk to Sergeant Killian about it it might it might turn into money because I carry my checkbook with me Ricky but did you take Apple pay yeah what what is that I don't like apples I'm an orange guy so so we ended up activating all a bunch of detectives and stuff and we sat on the house and uh the detectors responded out we ended up doing a traffic stop on his girlfriend at like three o'clock in the morning and we got her in custody and and we ended up going to the house and where the parents lived we made contact and they gave us consent to go in and we got the kid and we located the firearm and the I want to see his portable radio so fast forward about 6 30 in the morning I usually get off at six in the morning and my wife she's calling me and she's worried you know it's late what's going on and back then we'd have PC ads he couldn't see what was going on so she called me she was what are you doing I said oh I'm just standing here with a Smith Wesson 40 caliber in my hand it belongs to Clearwater Police Department she's like no way she goes you're kidding me I said I got it so it's it that was that was a fun that was a good one for me that was a fun one that was one of those nights you go home like I got something good done tonight right I got something good down and that's and I think policing we've forgotten some of that kind of stuff and policing where we count on DNA touch DNA and we've lost our ability to really talk to people like get out and beat the bushes and that's that's what policing is talking to people getting out of your car and not just driving through neighborhoods because had those kids been walking down the street and I didn't just drove past them I'm never going to get anything out of that you've got to get out and walk and now the way I did it was a little off I guess you could say you know standing in the woods but it doesn't work um because like the Gold Dust test kit exactly and that's the way I've always been thank goodness successful in law enforcement is talking to people and getting out and I know we call it community policing but it's really just policing getting out and actually having contacts with people and and not acting like a jerk and actually being decent to people makes a huge difference and um I try to teach all of our new recruits that be civil with people don't be don't be nasty even if they're nasty to you maybe they're just having a bad day and there's there will come a point if you have to do something put hands on or whatever you get to that position that's fine but don't go looking to be a jerk I know that sounds terrible but I think we've all seen law enforce in some agencies where officers and deputies get out and they they actually caused the issue to happen right right and you're not going to get anywhere with that so that's a good I mean and as we're kind of winding down you've been a cop for over 30 years you've been in training you've done a lot of different things and just like the equipment and the resources have changed just the whole state of law enforcement has changed you know what if you were gonna if you were gonna well you do address new recruits and you talk to new new recruits but you know what do you share with them as far as how law enforcement has changed over the years and and how they can be successful absolutely and I really believe in de-escalation techniques believe it or not you know I like fighting too you know Jiu Jitsu on my own time and stuff like that and where I'm going with that is a properly trained Deputy can be competent that when you have to go Hands-On with somebody I tell recruits this but it's so much easier having your your game on to make it to be you can de-escalate then because you're confident with yourself and you're if you carry yourself and train to what you're supposed to mentally and physically in life you could be a much better deputy sheriff because you don't have to act you don't have to act like you're tougher than what you are and I think a lot of cops are insecure at themselves I hate to say that but I think a lot of cops are they can't fight very well so they go straight to a taser or they try to uh like in the jail they they um they like yell at you like man back off man back off and all they're doing is we call it fronting in the jail I think a lot of cops get out of their cars with their real tight shirts on and they're like hey get over here show me your hands get your hands on your pocket all that kind of stuff and that doesn't need to be done I think we can get our job done like hey man come here you know I always joke with people like uh when I do a traffic stop I go up and I get a driver's license and my thing is I come back and there's no warrants I'm like hey good news the FBI is not looking for you tonight that always makes people laugh they're like oh okay that's good news I'm like yeah you don't need to go up me like all that Gruff nastiness right um You can be a lot nicer person if you know how to take care of yourself and you train well mentally and physically if you do that you don't have to be a jerk to people because it's back to being people we're all people absolutely absolutely good stuff thank you for having me well so before we let you go we do always like to make sure we give everybody an opportunity so you know when we were we were talking with Detective Chalmers it was like obviously you're working cold cases is there anything you want to share with the public as far as you know canine's perspective whether it's we talked about obviously what to do if you you hear the helicopter overhead to see the dog in the yard or you know things like that but what about you know what is it that keeps you all out working the most is there anything you can you want to share with the public as far as today yeah PSA please first of all lock your doors lock your doors your car and I and I'm a deputy sheriff and my night's off I'll be laying in bed I'm sure everyone's sitting in this room has done this you're in your bed and I when I get out of my truck I hit that door lock like 19 times and I check the door handle and yep and I lay in bed I'm like I know I did it but let me just go check one more time so I can sleep tonight and I will physically go out there and check it one more time like okay now I can go to sleep for sure so what we see all night long is unlock car doors and again we're all human beings so we forget things but especially if you own a firearm I mean gun ownership it's a responsibility it is a responsibility if you want a gun you're responsible for that gun don't lead your car overnight take it out of your car lock your doors up um you know so many guns are out there on the street right now from unlocked cars and you know people don't have their serial numbers they're guns it's like right that when you buy that purchase that firearm write the serial number down put that serial number into say your gun safe in your house or are you just gonna store it so that if it is unfortunately stolen at least we can track that gun whereas you know if you don't have a serial number we check out with somebody with that gun we run it in the system and it's not stolen here you go they get their gun back so lock your cars write down your serial numbers to your guns and and that that's the best I got for you I'm just now I was common sense I you know we talk about it people ask what's the number one crime well it's property crime and then it's unlocked car burglaries and then 85 about of the unlock of the car burglaries are because the car's unlocked and 100 preventable crime 100 and and on top of that I know we got to go soon but no I just got a text this is a this is an Apple Watch I don't like that kind of stuff you don't need Apple watches I got a nice watch right here it tells the time just fine Ricky anyway um you know your your car's out in the park in the garage or excuse me in the driveway if you've got a remote control on your your car it's unlocked they had access to your house now we've had Burgers home burgers that started out as car Burgers turned to residential burgers were occupied um you know you're sleeping and you're thinking you're safe and the bad guys out there pushing the button to your garage door and now they're inside your house that's another thing to think about again um it's just it's a chore I know it's a chore and a lot of people say well it's ridiculous they're stealing they're breaking these cars well they're doing it right so let's do something to fight back a little bit because we can't be everywhere at one time so if you do your part too to lock your car up and you got the dogs out there running the helicopter flying Frank's coming out and you just lock the door and save some resources absolutely and we got a really good chance of catching them yeah well we certainly with canine out there between that and the helicopter yep absolutely canine yeah absolutely the helicopter is very nice though I'll say it's nice they get the good video of what you do absolutely they do yeah sometimes not such a pretty video I have fallen off offenses and I have been I have tripped over parking blocks and I'll pull their video and they're laughing at me the whole time up in the helicopter and they're like you okay I'm like okay and you can't believe you lock the window to yourself I'm like I'm okay oh this hurts in my 50s what am I doing once again back in the beginning I should have been a firefighter I could be at the firehouse right now watching TV oh well uh you heard it here from uh Sergeant Killian lock your doors thanks Mike for coming on and joining us we appreciate the conversation and the storytelling that's what it's all about you know for our listeners you're welcome uh for our listeners we want to hear from you all we want feedback I would love to get to a place where we can take some questions or or lead some conversations with requests from our listeners so you can reach out to us on at let's 56 at pcsonet.com that's lets56 pcsonet.com hey you took my line you want to do it I always say that no no it's too late you've done it well I that's l-e-t-s-5-6 pcs.com but she's not a serious person she's laughing at the end trying to do it Ashley do you have anything else any parting words I do not man I was hoping for that I was hoping for the blank story nope not this time can you text me will you text me you're gonna get so many times can we can we put can we put his number out to the public on this I just put it out there yes he needs tax okay pickleball scuba diving I'm going to Chili's damn it he does text though I do texts so he he plays this old man game but he's he's pretty hip absolutely it's been around for like 22 years now so testing it yeah 22. it was really hard it was really hard time you knew it that back when the flip phones were like to do see you had to hit the right one two three yeah that was too hard we're spoiled we are yeah for sure all right everyone thanks for listening we'll see you next time [Music]