And so it is what it is. So, So let's fast forward a little bit. We'll kind of we'll switch topics. You and I've worked together before. We've worked, you know, a couple different cases and and, having some good times. You know, no need to really get into that. But, I will say that, you've never seen a breach of a door from a flying karate kick, that you have not done a search warrant or an undercover investigation with Mike Berry. That was probably one of the most awesome breaches I've ever seen in my life. And, it had an impact on some of our guys. You know, but, And then we work together on a lot of different other cases that you guys would lean on, you know, the secret services resources. For, you know, cell phone tracking and other investigative measures that we would help you guys with. A lot of people, even in the Galveston County area, have no idea of you know, my involvement in some of these cases because, you know, as well as I do is, like, we would come in in the middle of the night, we would assist you guys, and then we're kinda out. Yeah. You know, we would would help y'all get what y'all need, and we didn't want any type of recognition. Some of these things I've never spoke up publicly on, you know, there was multiple cases that we helped you guys with, you know, homicides attempted murders, other homicides with other jurisdictions in Galveston County, you know, our our thing was at the time is that, you know, we we essentially help you catch them, but you clean them. Yeah. You know, and then we move on and and and don't want our name mentioned in the media. And so there were tons and tons of those that, you know, I can recall, being the case agent for all of Galveston County, and it was beautiful for me, because I grew up there. I knew you guys, you know, even as a child, and then I'm working with y'all later on in life in different aspect. And, I'll never forget that. You know, I learned a lot. I wanna talk about a couple more things. One of the things I wanna talk to you about is it's obvious that some of these things have had a an adverse effect or negative effect on you. Myself included, other law enforcement I don't think that that law enforcement officers get the support that they need from multiple different levels. From whether it be their command staff, whether it be, whatever municipality, or jurisdiction that they work for at the at the local state or federal level. You know, Brent Cooley, who's a good friend of mine. You know, Brent, he likes to refer to this as the slow drip where law enforcement is is, exposed to a tremendous amount of stress, a tremendous amount of you know, things that the the general public never get the experience. And and it's there's a reason why. But the constant stress and anxiety, dealing with people at their worst moments seeing the most horrific things that that someone could even imagine have a tremendous effect on us. Mhmm. And so what what do you think about that? How do you feel about that? Have you experienced that? What can be done better? Well, first of all, let me say this. I'm old school as you well know, and I need to say this because when I was coming up, And it still might be now, but when I was coming up, you don't show your emotions. Yeah. You keep it in. I remember the first time I ever saw a dead body. Mhmm. You know, it was an MBA motor vehicle accident and motor motorcycle, and this lady was riding on the back of motorcycle. And something happened. I can't remember. I was on patrol at the time. Probably this might have been seventy six. But you know, they have some road signs that this sign might have multiple signs on it. Yeah. So it kinda goes up in a y. Yeah. Somehow, something happened to where they got over this way. They decaptor. Okay. And that was the first time I'd ever seen a body. And I had no idea what to do. Now, I'd been on the road in the field for about a year. And I think to myself what the public was thinking because I actually kinda was going around like, what what do I? What the fuck do I do? I don't, you know, I don't know what to do. Yeah. And, you know, back in those days, you had a sergeants, patrol sergeants that, you know, they could give me they're just waiting for their retirement. Yeah. You know, Anyways, that had an effect on me. And in fact, I had forgotten about it. More and more has come out of my head. In the past three years than anything. And I mean, Yes. It has had an impact on me. During the time the forty three years that I was a cop, Thirty eight of it is all investigations. Mhmm. I was only on patrol for about four or five years. Blessed fortunate, however you wanna be. So in a nineteen eighty eight, No, sir. Eighty nine. I was offered a position to be a part time job. To be an ME investigator. Yeah. And the time that I took it, I happened to be police chief. At the time at Santa Fe. So I took the job and I kept that job for thirty two years. So with that forty three, inside that forty three, I have thirty two years. So that's why I, you know, I say, man, I've done I can't even count. I know well over a thousand bodies. And now natural. That's Right. You know, fatal at this at the other. Well, since I retired, you know, for those that are in law enforcement or have been. I volunteered to, you know, retire. I mean, I was I was working in in in charging narcotics at the time, and I was just burnt. I've been doing this for forty three years. And I was, you know, I was getting older. I was sixty two at the time. Maybe sixty three. So I walked in the captain's office one day, and I said, hey, I'm just gonna turn my papers in. He said, well, I don't know if he should do that. He said, if you talk to the sheriff and I said, No. I figured you'd tell him. You know? No. He need to go talk to him. So I went down there and I talked to him and basically he I didn't know the transition that was happening at that time. My captain was being promoted to major. And other changes were taken place. So they offered the sheriff one to offer me the cat was positioned over CID. And I'm telling you, Mike, I was really ready to go. But then I thought, you know, I was divorced for twenty years. Mhmm. And I focused on my career during that time, my career and my kids. And, I said, can I think about it? He said you got till tomorrow morning. Okay. So I thought, you know, he's gonna be sheriff, you know, another two years in this term. Yeah. I can stick it out for two years at Katon's rank. Help my retirement. So, you know, I decided after six months, I said I'm out. I'm done. I don't want I I wanna be out there, but I'm burned out. So I left. The end of April two thousand and eighteen, I was this. The next day, I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with myself. Yeah. I was lost. Single. Lost. I didn't know what I was gonna do questioning your purpose, questioning my purpose, my identity, And it even continued on really up until probably a year ago. Yeah. I mean, I'm I still battled with it a little bit. I think we all do. And and that's I loved my job. I loved what I did. Yeah. And and that's the thing too is We all have this tremendous sense to serve. Right? And when you've done it, for a very long time. I had not even close to forty three years. You know, to this day, I still question whether what I'm doing is right. I know what I'm doing is right because that's what I feel like god's put me in a position to do. Because I truly do not feel that there's going to be anybody more passionate than I to do what I do. Mhmm. Now there's other people out there, but I I just know that I'm willing to go the entire linked to make sure that what I do is done right. Yep. And it's done to protect people. I'm a natural born protector. That's just the way that I've made. I and and, you know, the older I get, the more I see society trying to change me, you can't say that, Mike. You can't do this, Mike. People are not gonna appreciate your honesty. And the older I get, the more I say the world needs men like us. And, I will admit admittedly there's been times where I've hold back when I probably shouldn't have. I've always been the guy in the room that is not afraid to say what other people or most people are thinking. They just don't have the courage to say it. But at some point, it becomes a blessing and a curse to be, you know, the protector of people. Because of the trauma that you that you suffer. Right? And so you know, one of the things that I'm I'm adamantly, talking about is mental health. Mhmm. We're men. Right? Yes. And like I said earlier, and what we're talking about now is the slow drip. The impact that a trauma field life has on on men and women in this space, whether it be, you know, secret service, FBI, you know, local law enforcement state law enforcement military, Nothing against our military men and women. Mhmm. Because they absolutely deserve everything that we can give them. They absolutely deserve the best. But the I I I frequently think that we do a disservice to the men and women at the local level that are dealing with our society that are in that are in uniform. We don't do a good job of making sure that their mental health is intact and that they have the resources that they need. You know, we can cite, incident after incident after incident, in your career. Let's just talk about your career alone. At what point having dealt with all of these traumatic events in your life, did anybody ever come to you and say, hey, you know what, Mike? I think you need to go to therapy and talk to someone about your mental health, you know. It it did anybody ever come and and and offer that to you? I mean, outside of just a friend being a friend. Hey, we need to talk. You're kinda off. No worries. They never did. Nobody officially in an official capacity ever came to you. The only time that was ordered was when I was involved in a shooting. And and that was really to cover their ass. Pretty beyond probably. Yeah. Yeah. That that pretty much, it was one of several shootings that I was involved in and and I told the person that ordered me. I said I will not talk to a counselor unless they're retired law enforcement or have been involved in the shooting. Mhmm. I'm not gonna sit there and talk to anybody else about that because they nobody else will understand. They can't relate. No. They can't relate. They cannot relate. And you know that. And every the audience that are in law enforcement or or military, they know the same thing. The military is definitely not taken care of Yeah. Especially right now. Yeah. So I I wanted to comment about that Yeah. What you said a while ago. The the military I mean, Twenty two a day. Mhmm. You know, look, the first time I put a pistol in my mouth was about five days after I retired. The devil over here and god over here. And thank you. I went with this one. Right. But then there was another time. You know, and I was in a very, very, very dark place. I had no I I'm like, okay, I've got all this money. You know, it's a good retirement. I've got all this money. I'm by myself. I have nobody to share this with. I'm not anymore what I was. It's over. Yeah. And then the thing started coming back. I'll I'll tell you another quick one real quick. This is when I was on patrol and I had forgotten about this until about nine months ago. And it just popped back into my head. I was driving down Highway six one night on patrol. This is back when it was just four lanes, no emergency lane on Highway six. And, I just happened at two two o'clock in the morning, two thirty. And I happened to see in the rearview mirror just this bright light. And I looked at it and it was like an explosion. And fire. What's the focus? Josh? I turn around and I haul ass up to this and what what had happened was. A pickup truck with three kids. We're driving down Highway six. A car was backing out from a house. They tried to avoid the wreck and or they jerked the wheel, went across hit a culprit and exploded. When I got on the scene, they were still screaming. Oh, man. And I'm guilty of flames. Totally indigo to flames. And I could not help them. They all die that night. Yes. Yeah. What year was that? That would have been seventy six, seventy seven. That was for the for the audience, that was a year before was born. Yeah. I hear that a lot too. Yeah. But, I mean, you have to look at this, man. I mean, for forty three years, you had experienced trauma. In forty three years, not a single individual at a command staff level had come to you to check on your well-being? No. What if we change that dynamic? What if we required, someone in the command staff to just check on people. Mhmm. And this doesn't just apply to law enforcement. This applies to society. You know, we talk about, extreme violence or the rise in violence in, in our schools, in our shopping malls, in our grocery stores, those individuals that goes back to what I said earlier is behavior patterns tell you everything that you need to know about these individuals. There hasn't been a shooter yet or a person who's inflicted that much violence on someone that they did not exhibit some type of sign or symptom of pre attack behavior. I'm willing to bet that if we went back and we looked at Riley Ann sawyer's mother, and her stepfather. One of them because I truly believe that she was coerced into that particular type of behavior I agree. Which led to the death of her child. And I truly believe that if she could go back and change it now, she probably would. But I believe and this is just my speculation that If you go back and look at the behaviors of the stepfather, there was some type of concerning behavior that was never addressed. You don't wake up one day and impose your will on a two year old child to the point where you kill her. There are boundaries inherently that we that the majority of us have. There are some people that are just complete psychopaths, and maybe that's what he was. I don't know. But we've gotta change the dynamic in the United States where we're starting to take care of each other. Not just law enforcement, just we have to take care of each other. We have to be able to be Riley Anne sawyer's grandmother to know intuitively something is wrong. I haven't talked to my daughter. I haven't seen my granddaughter. You've got a child that looks like my grandchild that is being broadcast on TV. I recognize that shirt. If you have all of those things telling you something wrong, there's probably something wrong. Yeah. Listen to it. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And, you know, in the space in which I'm in, you know, we we primarily focus on schools, but we do you know, workplace violence for various different verticals and industries and, you know, whatnot, the behaviors of the individuals who cause the harm are always going to tell you what's wrong. No no fucking camera, no access control, no lock on some bullshit fucking door that these people are trying to sell. Sorry about my language, but it is what it is. That shit's not going to stop anything.
