Former Blackwater: Morgan Lerette

“Blackwater” gets used as shorthand for everything people fear or fantasize about in modern war, but the real work was often simpler and darker: move a diplomat through Baghdad and make sure they come back alive. We sit down with Morgan Lorette, a former Blackwater contractor, and trace the whole path from Air National Guard Security Forces to Iraq convoy life, including the money, the culture shock, and the gut-level truth of what changes when you’re operating outside a normal military justice system.

We talk candidly about what Blackwater actually did for the State Department, why “combat Uber” is a more accurate label than Hollywood’s raid-and-rescue myth, and how protective security decisions got made when car bombs were common and seconds mattered. Morgan breaks down team dynamics, the mix of elite veterans with regular troops, and the uncomfortable reality that some people freeze while others go too far. We also get into contractor pay, bonuses, taxes, and why the paycheck can feel addictive, especially when lifestyle inflation, divorce, and debt start stacking up back home.

After the interview, we pivot to modern policing and accountability: a town hall clip that raises real First Amendment questions, a taser failure that shows why distance and hands-on skills matter, and a body-cam shooting in a nightlife district where split-second judgment has life-changing consequences. If you care about use of force, executive protection, police training, and the human cost of high-risk work, this one stays with you.

Subscribe for more long-form conversations, share this with a friend who needs the real version of these stories, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Transcript

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Viewer Advisory And Disclaimers

SPEAKER_06 0:01

The views and opinions you're about to hear are those of the hosts and guests alone. They don't represent any police department, agency, sponsor, or employer. Two cops one donut isn't responsible for anything said by guests or for any videos, clips, or content shown during the live stream. This show is intended for adult audiences only. We cover real incidents, we show graphic and sometimes disturbing footage, and we don't shy away from strong language or adult conversations. There may or may not also be alcohol involved. Viewer discretion is strongly advised. Everything you hear or see on the show is for entertainment and educational purposes. It is not legal advice and it's not tactical instruction. And it shouldn't be used for such. By continuing to watch, you're telling us that you understand, you accept all this. All right, well, now let's get into it.

Hosts Introduce The Blackwater Guest

SPEAKER_06 0:50

All right, welcome back. I'm your host, Sergeant Eric Levine, and my co-host, Banning Sweatland from Two Cops, One Donut. And our special guest today is from the one and only Blackwater, which is kind of a cool thing we're going to talk about today. Morgan, is it Loretti or is it Lorette?

SPEAKER_07 1:08

It's Lorette. Yeah. It's French Canadian. Don't tell anybody.

SPEAKER_06 1:12

Oh, me too. Levine. French Canadian. Hey. I can't. I can't tell you what I am. I'm just a weird. Banning is uh he's got a Texas porn name, so that's what we like to you know. I mean, banning. I mean, him. I I seems like this gets brought up a lot on the show, but we have Banning Sweatland, we've had on. We've had Houston Gas, another guy from Texas. Um, I feel like we're missing one more, Banning. Very intricate names, intriguing names, but yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:44

Jared, Jared French from Indiana.

SPEAKER_06 1:48

That's gotta be it. Oh shit. Um Wilson Farthouse, I think we had that guy on too. Um anyway. Uh glad to have you on. Uh, you reached out. Um, we kind of I think we crossed streams somewhere on a Air Force, uh, no, not an Air Force post. It was um some kid holding up a military guy's holding up a sign.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:11

He says, Um, quit saying that you almost joined special forces.

SPEAKER_07 2:16

No, quit quit saying you supported special forces.

SPEAKER_06 2:19

Is that what it was? Okay.

SPEAKER_07 2:21

So this is this is what I tell people is that if if you talk to somebody and they say I supported special forces, they're automatically a turd. Because anybody can say that they supported special forces. When I was in the army as an Intel officer, I supported special forces, which meant they went out and kicked in doors, they brought us intelligence, and then we would give them intelligence back to go find the next door to kick in. So I'm like, Oh, I totally supported those special forces guys.

SPEAKER_06 2:50

Love it. Yeah. Well, my my favorite line is to tell everybody that I am SF. And anybody that knows me and my sense of humor, that they all they they can see through the bullshit immediately. Um, but SF for those wondering is special forces. That's typically what that lingo means. Well, I just happened to fall in a career field in the Air Force that's called security forces. And we wear an SF on our sleeve. It's the real SF. Yeah, you know, and I people always ask, like, well, what kind of stuff do you do? I was like, um, well, basically, I stand at a gate. When you come through, I wave you forward, I make you stop, I grab your ID, I look at both sides. Now I get to use a fancy scanner. Uh, before I just had to be like, Yeah, it looks it looks legit, and then say, Thank you, sir. And if you were an officer, I salute you and you just tell me to F off while you drive past.

SPEAKER_07 3:43

And oh, you weren't you weren't in back in the day when it was just a sticker, were you? Like you it used to just be before 9-11. If you had a blue sticker, you saluted while you waved them in. If you had a uh yellow orange sticker, you were an NCO, and if you had a red sticker, you were enlisted. So it used to just be like look at the sticker and go.

SPEAKER_06 4:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 4:03

And now after a September 11th, you had to really, really look at that idea.

SPEAKER_06 4:08

Like your bouncer. They had the color code on there, it was a line. They changed it to like uh like if you looked at your your photo, right under the photo would be like a line that was colored of some sort. Um, yeah, I guarded nukes for the most part when I first started. But yeah, I'm I'm young. I probably the youngest one on this panel tonight. I'm 43. I'm 45. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

47-ish. Yeah, 47, I think. I'm stopping.

SPEAKER_06 4:39

What's funny is I like I know we kind of joke that we're trying to think of our age, but I I really have to think about it anymore.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

I just think about my wife's because she's 10 years younger.

SPEAKER_06 4:49

Yes. That well, my my wife is 10 10 days uh younger. So yeah, that's how we roll. That's because we have no memory. Um, I have a memory of a goldfish. If it's if it's um looking at the chat, uh I don't up the L rounds uh says what happened to SP. I loved uh near Luke Air Force Base, they were SPs, yeah. Um security police.

SPEAKER_07 5:17

Oh, I can actually tell you that. So it was security police, and I was actually out at Luke Air Force Base, so it was security police, and then they had security something else, and they decided to combine the two. So you're no longer security police and then security watch a plane. So they combined it to be security forces. Now, what they didn't tell me is when I joined up in 1999, they did not say you're not gonna do a lot of cop work, you are gonna do a lot of airplane watching. They really pushed the you're gonna be a cop thing, yes, aspect, and then and then they were like, Hey, there's a there's a plane over there, make sure nobody runs at it. From this is hundreds of yards away. This is not what I I thought because they they had um god, I can't remember what the other one was, what they combined it with, but it was essentially like the security, the infantry type stuff that they did.

SPEAKER_06 6:11

Yeah, you had security and you had police. That's that was the split, and then they combined the two, and um, and now oh my god, I'm telling you, like the law enforcement side of it is just it's just gone. Like, there's that's one of the reasons I joined. I was I was like, I want to be a cop, too young to be a cop. Let me join up and I can learn how to start being a cop. And then really what I learned was how to guard prairie dogs um out in Montana. So I laugh. And and so I'll tell you a little bit of my background, Morgan. And Banning was a Marine, so he was real military. Um, and then uh I I joined in 06. Um, so I joined during a time of war, thinking like, you know, I'm gonna get some get back on these fuckers after 9-11 and all that, just like a lot of young kids thought. And I needed something to pay for my college, and uh so did that, joined, wanted to be a cop. I knew I was gonna be a cop when I got out, so I was like, I'll join security forces. Air Force had the reputation for having the best cop um unit uh out of all the branches. So that's what I did. Um all geared up to go do some fun shit, and uh, I just stayed in Montana for four years active duty, and I I just got the shit sandwich of being stuck at a nuke base. And when you get a nuke base, you you only go to nuke bases, you're kind of just blacklisted. Uh, you get your security clearance, and and that's all you got to do. So, my four years of active duty, um, I just stayed in Montana at great uh what was it? Umstrom was the name. I thought I was going to Germany when I first got my thing. I was like, Melmstrom, yes, going to Germany. My buddy's like, that's fucking Montana, idiot. I was like, Oh, I'm dumb.

SPEAKER_07 7:53

So sitting there at Lackland Air Force Base being like, No way, I'm not trading with anybody, man. I got Germany.

SPEAKER_02 7:59

I know.

SPEAKER_06 8:00

Oh, so mad. I mean, I just glad like three-fourths of my guys did get stuck at Lackland. Like, that's where they're I was like, I gotta get out of here. So um, banning, give them a little bit of your background, sir.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Uh four years in Marine Corps, uh, directly after high school got in in '97. I got out just before the towers got hit. Uh I was in Marine Corps Security Force Company, which is no longer now it's part of we weren't we didn't have any specialized, but now we have Marshoc and all that. And uh Marine Corps Security Force Company was kind of, I guess, from what I'm gathering, was sucked up through it. Um and then right after that, as soon as I got out, an honorable discharge, got right into law enforcement here in North Texas. Or I'm in San Antonio right now. I apologize for the backdrop. Uh my wife didn't decide to come in and clean my office. This is the uh what is it, the Weston hotel or whatever down here in San Antonio. Anyway, I gotta go.

SPEAKER_06 8:51

Weston, yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

It's the only one that had availability. So uh that's my story. I'm sticking to it. Yeah, they have the ball-sized rooms. Yes. Uh law enforcement did everything under the under the sun, got into uh to canine really young into my career, did that for about nine years. Uh pretty much stayed patrol element uh throughout uh supervisory, all the way up to administrative role. Did 21, almost 22 years in law enforcement, and uh met Eric through a mutual friend and uh he asked me to be a part of this. I love what Eric's doing. Uh I support it 100%. And and here we are, man, and we get awesome guys like you on the show. So I'm a nobody, man. I'm just out here to to echo all the goodness and uh bring some good things to people that don't understand law enforcement. We're trying to bridge that gap. That's why Eric created this, and that's what we're all about, brother.

SPEAKER_06 9:41

Hell yeah. Well, Morgan, our background is nowhere near as fun and exciting as yours. So um I can you can you lead off? I want to lead off with that. I know we've just been bullshitting for the last 10 minutes, but um, I I like giving people a chance to to log on and see what we're doing. Uh, we are live on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, um, Facebook, and YouTube. So everybody that's on any of those platforms other than YouTube, if you really want to get in on the chat, please go over to our YouTube channel, Two Cops One Donut, and you can chit-chat with us. But Morgan, uh, I'm gonna leave the floor to you now, sir. Kind of give us uh your background and what led you into a life of service, if you will, and kind of take the road uh of your career. My

Morgan’s Origin Story And 9/11

SPEAKER_06 10:26

origin story, like Thanos.

SPEAKER_07 10:29

Uh so I I grew up in a small town in Arizona called Cottonwood, Arizona. And we were like, we were just we were just free range kids, man. So, you know, I grew up in a trailer park. It was it was spectacular. I loved it. The beauty of it is is like when you're when you're like the white trash kid, all your friends are the white trash kid too. So like you don't you don't really know that there's rich kids out there until you hit hit about high school. And um my dad is like, well, he was like the biggest abject loser, like in and out of jails and all the other stuff. So somewhere around 17, I was like, I'm gonna go the opposite way, man. I'm gonna become a cop. And just like you, I was 16 years old. I had to stop smoking weed, uh, which was kind of a bummer. And then and then I was like, Well, I'm gonna go become a police officer. I graduate high school, and I was like, Well, how do you become a police officer when you're 18? Well, you don't, is is the short answer. So I joined the Air National Guard thinking, okay, they'll give me training, they'll give me college, I get through training at Lackland Air Force Base. Still hate that place to this day, not a fan. Um, and as soon as I got I got done, like I started getting into college, I was doing a criminal justice degree. I was gonna be a cop man. And then September 11th happened, and they were like, Osama bin Laden has changed your plans, Morgan. And I was like, I was like, What a what a dick. So so I ended up getting activated for two straight years. It's funny because it's like it's it's so much luck of the draw. Like you said, you went to Malstrom Air Force Base and you were protecting nukes. We were an Air National Guard unit that like they just didn't have the active duty forces, so they started sending National Guard all over the place. So my first pump was to Oman. It was hell. We had a Burger King and we had like a beach, and there was all these dead, uh dead jellyfish on the beach every morning. So when we go to the beach, we'd pick them up and throw them at each other and hit them with the boogie boards. I stuck my buddy, I hit my buddy with a jellyfish like right underneath his armpit. It like stung in. It was great, man.

SPEAKER_06 12:34

Typical military games. Yeah, the only jellyfish I had were uh in the bottom of the bathtub.

SPEAKER_07 12:38

So yeah, so dude, September 11th. I do my first pump, and then they're like, hey, we're getting ready to go into Iraq. We need a team of 13. So I I volunteered. We go into Jordan, there's like the super secret base. Now everybody knows we're in Jordan, but uh we were we were pushing the SF guys into Jordan from Jordan in it and into Iraq. We had like the predator, the Hellfire Brimstone Predator drones. Uh, and then we went into Iraq during the ground offensive. The first night, like Nazareth's blowing up, like Jessica Lynch had just got capped, like kidnapped, and like it was it was crazy pants, and then two days later, dude, it was all over. And I went back to being security forces where I was like stopping people from driving onto an active runway. Like it was literally just doing just doing gate guard duty. And I was like, Is this it? Is this really it, man? Like, this is my war. So uh we finally got let off active duty. My buddy,

Volunteering For War And Early Deployments

SPEAKER_07 13:36

who was a recon Marine, he was in the National Guard for college money. Uh, became pretty close friends, and he's like, I'm gonna go work for this company called Blackwater. And I was like, Oh, those guys that just got hanged off the bridge in Iraq, and he's like, Yeah, yeah, you should come, bro. Yeah, and I was like, It's good to come. I don't think so. Like, I'm not I'm not nearly as cool as you. He was a force recon guy out at Okinawa. So he goes to Moyak, North Carolina, and they're like, You guys know anybody else that's dumb enough to do this job? And he's like, My buddy Morgan will do it. So I got a call literally, like three days after he got there. They're like, Hey, the Mike says you're good in the pocket. Uh, you want to come out? And I was like, I'm I'm security forces, like, I know it's SF, don't get me wrong. But it's it's security forces, and the guy's like, just come on out, you know, if you make it great. If you don't, not a big deal. And I went out there, it was two weeks of training, shoot, move, communicate, PT test. It was all pretty easy stuff. And next thing I know, like my Department of State security clearance came in and they were like, Go to Iraq. So I was next, it was like early July within I don't know, three and a half weeks. I was in Iraq working for Blackwater, and I was like, What in the flying hell am I doing here? This is spectacular. I love every bit of it.

SPEAKER_06 14:49

Bro, I gotta have you come into some of our freaking guard mounts and just inspire the men. I'm like, he was just one of us, boys. Look what he accomplished. I don't think anybody would believe it. Okay, so you I listen, this is this is every military guy. The first words out of your mouth was how much does it pay?

The Blackwater Offer And Big Money

SPEAKER_06 15:10

How much were they?

SPEAKER_07 15:10

Oh yeah, how much were they no? They said they said, uh, do you wanna do you want to work for Blackwater? And I said, No, not really. And he's like, What about for 500 bucks a day and a 10 bonus at the end? And I was like, I do, I do want to work for Blackwater.

SPEAKER_06 15:23

I didn't know I did, but now, yeah, you know, after some reflection and some time, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 15:28

So it's like, dude, it's like 15 grand a month back in 2004. And you know, I think I had just made E5, so like I was kind of rolling in it. Don't get me wrong.

SPEAKER_06 15:40

I didn't know I don't want to brag, but every time you knew my name.

SPEAKER_07 15:44

So so yeah, and then you got a 10 bonus, and then if you were there for Christmas, you got 3,000. You stay there for uh Thanksgiving, you got another 3,000. So if you did the whole thing like soup to nuts and you took one month off, it was like 200 grand. Um yeah, so so like like trailer park Morgan was like, I'm rich, I'm rich, yeah. Um, but dude, it was like it was it was it was just the weirdest. It was like Morgan and all these guys that were like SEALs and SF and like Army Rangers, and you name it, and then they're like, Oh, yeah, we got a security forces guy.

SPEAKER_06 16:22

I was like, Yeah, yeah, so okay, he's pretty good. You go through now, I've been around the block and I I've I've trained in a lot of things. Uh jujitsu is one of my favorite things that I've trained in. And one of the things that I learned very early in jujitsu and in sports in general, uh growing up being athletic, when you play around high caliber players, it brings your game up. Like, and so you jumping in as a security forces guy, which I love my security forces guys, don't get me wrong, but we're we are the base level of competency when it comes to anything tactical. Like you got some basic room clearing abilities, shoot and communicate, uh move and communicate, all that like it's very basic. It's like uh right there with an infantry guy, maybe. And I never did army, so I can't even not quite.

SPEAKER_07 17:12

Yeah, yeah. I can't even we can we could smell his breath from where we're standing.

SPEAKER_06 17:16

There we go. Good enough. I I could take that. So, in that you're you're there with the elite. If you've got some Navy, uh Navy SEAL guys there, some Delta Force or whatever the fuck they call themselves, Green Berets, you got all those guys there. Like, how quickly did it bring your game up before you ever seen anything real?

SPEAKER_07 17:36

Well, so the crazy part is that I gotta go back to a history lesson, but like there was no war pretty much since Vietnam, right? And then you had a little bit of desert storm, you had some Panama, you had some Somalia, but for the most part, you had this guy, this 20-year gap of guys that had trained and become like the best trained soldiers on the planet, and then they never got their war on. Now, on the one hand, it's like, holy crap, this guy's like a former ranger, former CEO, former SF. But on the other hand, like they didn't stay proficient, right? When you're not shooting all the time, you just kind of you you lose that. So we had a lot of guys in Moyac, North Carolina that just like they they were they were missing. We had one guy on the range and he kept missing it like 300 meters, and he's like, I think my I think my weapon's not zeroed, and like the guy gets down behind it, blinks the target three times, and is like it's fine, dude. Like zero, yeah. So so there I and there were some guys, but nobody had really gone to Iraq. We may have had a couple of guys that had gone to Afghanistan, but it was all these guys that had gotten out three, four, five years earlier that were like, This is my chance to go do war, let's go get our war on. So I was actually probably more proficient with a weapon than those guys tactically, they were absolutely way more proficient than I was, but you're not going in and clearing buildings and doing all that other stuff, you're protecting a diplomat, and that's something that nobody knew how to do. So we all had to kind of be trained in that. Now, once I got on ground and I started hanging out, literally, like the SEAL team six guys, the cat guys, uh like those guys, they definitely elevate you uh when you're on ground. But through through training, it was it like I I felt like a fish out of water, but I probably didn't look like a fish out of water. It helps that I was like yoked out on steroids, like that was at least you're honest with it.

SPEAKER_06 19:26

Yeah, I mean, you didn't have to uh piss test, so you'd be fine, right? Oh, you had to piss test, but they don't check for steroids. I was like, man, yeah, I got you.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

I mean completely different test panel.

SPEAKER_06 19:37

You're you're I don't get I I I think I want my soldiers to be juiced. Like, I I think I need you on all the gear. Honestly. I mean, you want your guy as is physically I don't know about trim.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

You gotta be careful with the trim, but uh well, I yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 19:52

I've never used any of that shit, so I don't know. But like war fighting, like if you're gonna be in that, you you need to be as fit as possible. Like, this this ain't a a pro sport where you know the playing field's got to be fair. I don't want it fair, I want every angle I could get. So I think I think that that would be uh be acceptable. Um so how much of what people think they know about Blackwater is actually true versus what Hollywood kind of showed?

What Blackwater Did Day To Day

SPEAKER_07 20:22

Dude, so a lot of it was really just combat Uber, right? So the mission. Oh damn it, I have to I have to go back in history again. So when we went into Iraq, we were like, we don't want to be occupiers, right? That's all George W. Bush would say. Oh, we're not there to occupy, we're not there to occupy. So we created this interim government, and then we gave that back to the Iraqis and said, now it's your country. We're here if you want us to be, but we'll leave, which is horsecraft, but they they still have a lot of oil. And they were like, you guys need to learn how to actually run a country. Because all the bath party guys, you hear about how the bath party got disbanded and they got rid of the military. Well, they also got rid of everybody that had run any government organization. So everything from how do you get oil out of the ground to how do you sell it onto the you know, the the international market to picking up trash, to like the day-to-day keep electricity on, all those guys were fired and they were all running, and they were all running, you know, to make IEDs and blow us up because they were pissed off. But they they started bringing in diplomats and they said, Okay, now we're gonna help you guys build. Well, the State Department has diplomatic security services, but none of those guys are combat. Like they're they're the guys that are gonna hang out with Hillary Clinton when she's at the State Department and take her to China, right? Like, like they're not for security, they're to stand there just in case to eat a bullet. So they they hire Blackwater and said, Can you protect these guys? And we're like, Yeah, we can do whatever, man. It doesn't matter. We we know how to do that. So we had everybody from like the FAA was sending people over. to teach them how to land planes, like setting up Excel spreadsheets. We went to the stock market that they created and it was like it was like chalk on a chalkboard. Like it looked like an old horse race from the 1930s. Oh shit like they're like oh sea biscuit is selling for three dollars and 22 cents right now. Um move the abacus. Yeah so so it was it was like everything it was absolutely everything. And our job was hey this guy wants to go from here to here and he's going to teach them how to I don't know do something and then bring him back. So it was literally just combat Uber just get the guy in get him there as fast as you can as safe as you can and get him home. Now the the downside of that not for me but the downside of that is we didn't have like the UCMJ. We didn't have like the chain of command we didn't have the rules and the regulations and the laws and all the other stuff so how are you going to get that person from point A to point B or B? You're going to do it violently and that's what we did. It was like oh you're in our way I'm going to smash you oh you're coming too close I'm going to shoot you like there was no there was no like uh evaluation or or like evolution of force it wasn't like okay now ask him to stop nice it was like ah got close shoot his car so you made your own rules of engagement all that yeah if there was a rules of engagement briefing I miss I've slept through it. Jesus like it was I mean it was literally like okay try not to piss these people off and you don't want to be a psycho because you want to be able to sleep at night but yeah if a car gets too close car bombs were big in 04 got bigger in 05 you know it was it was it was literally like it was mad max it was the weirdest thing ever like having the social mores and the rules of engagement and all those things not apply it's like I don't know it's like an an apotheosis it's like becoming a god in a war zone and you're like and then and then all the military guys think that you're out there hunting Osama bin Laden and you have to tell Mo Sam bin Laden's in Pakistan you know he's not actually in Iraq but um yeah it was it was like there was a lot of ego that went into going and working for Blackwater. It was pretty rad I'm not gonna lie to you. I bet there was a lot of ego um when you got there like what surprised you the most as as you're learning it all oh that uh that everybody at Blackwater in Moyak North Carolina was full of crap just full full of crap. Yeah so I was in the fourth class which means the first and the second class had you know maybe there was 40 people on ground ahead of me maybe 50 um all those guys are coming in and they're like here's what you do and here's how you do it and then it occurred to me you guys just got here like a week and a half ago like you have no idea what you're doing either. And then in Moyak there they told us don't worry we got all this armor and you guys are going to be so safe and it's gonna be great. And then they pick us up in a soft skin Peugeot SUV that has like plates welded on the side they give us an old sweaty vest like a plate carrier vest that just dude it smells like it smells like well it smells like the garbage pits it smells like you're out there stirring the turds right like it is not it is not good. Give us one round uh or or one magazine and they were like put that in your your M4 and we're just gonna go down the most bombed route in Baghdad it's not a big deal guy so and I was like you guys this was not on the brochure I didn't sign up for this you guys told me there was armor there's no armor and there was more armor as as we went through but like the first thing was most bombed route no armor one magazine oh and if the poop hits the fan there's a there's a um there's like a a a plate like a chest plate that's down by you could like hold that up by the window and be like no please stop it please yeah it was it was just 762 doesn't hit that hard you just before you gotta you gotta stretch you gotta make sure your elbows are locked out yeah you get a lock out yeah yeah and that works for grenades IEDs all that stuff that'd be fine yeah so and look that was the weirdest part is usually with the military you like you could go over there and there's a plan and people kind of know what they're doing and it just felt like we were making it up as we went from from day one all the way until I left like 18 months later.

No UCMJ And Brutal Force Choices

SPEAKER_06 26:30

Okay so you did it for about 18 months?

SPEAKER_07 26:32

Yeah okay now we the the whole thing that kind of stemmed this off was um that you had said you could tell the difference between former cops and former military uh guys working at Blackwater like what did you mean by that so I look security forces they train you in law enforcement even though you never use it but there's an escalation of force right like stop shout whatever I don't even remember it's like the five security forces yeah yeah don't cross the red line um with the cops that came over the they they had too many morals I'm gonna be honest like they they they had like way more morality than most of the guys and these are the cops that weren't like prior service most of the prior service cops were were you know just as crazy as we were but the ones that were like you had straight law enforcement yeah for the audience that understand you you had straight law enforcement no military background at all they signed up to do blackwater yeah yeah because they were like that sounds like good money and then and then they were like oh I left my job as a cop and now I don't have any money coming in now I have to be on Blackwater forever. But we can we can we can get into that later but the escalation of force is just different. So you know we call them tender hearts they'd be like oh why'd you shoot at that car oh from my vantage point it was coming up it wasn't coming up slow it was slower and you didn't have to and it was like dude military guys are like blast it's just time blast oh too close blast so and dude they loved you know writing reports and stuff we had when I got in the QRF we kind of had a standing order like if nobody saw it happen it didn't happen it's not a big deal don't bring it up and then you'd have the cop we had like one cop um and we ended up shooting so we're coming out of this we're coming out of this like roundabout and we're taking uh we're taking a left and this car is coming up on us and like three people engage this car like it's coming up on us and then one of those rounds skipped off the ground and hit an IP but we just drove off because we had no idea but somebody in the back was like who shot the Iraqi policeman and we're like and he's like no seriously like somebody shot the Iraqi policeman and we're like well he should have been standing there bro and he like he like wanted to have this big drawn out conversation and do a report on it and everything else and we're like no no that's not how this works bro like it's a war zone.

SPEAKER_06 29:02

Yeah like yeah it's a war zone it's different it is different I can I I can tell you the difference of law enforcement that went over great morals go over there they want to make some extra money for their kids two young kids at the house they put it aside they'd spend maybe two to four years total as a contractor over there uh throughout the changes of triple canopy everything else and then they come back and then they resume a patrol position and you almost have to uh retrain because what they're exposed to over there versus here in the United States holy shit you know what I'm saying and and and I know Morgan can can can expound on that big time but coming back here a lot of different rules a lot of different heartstrings you got to do everything the right way and I you know I knew guys before they went over and then when they came back completely different story man yeah we we we changed them as fast as we could don't get me wrong I mean we had to survive uh it it makes sense like I get it and I I would I I could admit if I were to go over there I would have the same problem. It would be very hard and difficult for me uh to deal with that but the military training in me understands that there's there's some natural um I don't know how to explain it but there's some natural like rules that just everybody knows you don't drive up too fast on a military convoy or anybody that looks like they're military. And if that's what you say but you aren't an Iraqi that's what I'm saying. They would learn that over time like that's the over the years of us being there eventually most of them figured that out otherwise the you know the warning rounds if you guys had time to even do that if that didn't get it through your head like I don't know what else to tell you.

SPEAKER_07 30:54

Well so every every day was like the Baghdad 500 man because a lot of these guys just didn't drive under Saddam Hussein. And as this is this is just rumor but what we were told is essentially like if you weren't a bath party member you didn't drive so all these people pulled off pulled their old jalopies out and they started driving around the roads and there's there's no laws like if you've driven in Europe it's like that if my bumper's in front of your bumper I'm allowed to get in front of you type driving stuff. And these guys like for some reason you could honk you could yell you could like you could throw stuff at them and you'd be like pointing at them like you need to stop and they'd be like like yes yes you and then on the back of our convoy it would be like stay back 500 meters or we'll use lethal force or we will kill you and these guys were like he's talking to somebody else

Convoy Reality And Escalation Of Force

SPEAKER_07 31:46

it's really it's really not a deal. It can't be me. So like in and we try to do the right thing right like like we would grab rocks we grab water bottles and stuff and there's videos on YouTube where like people would throw water bottles at a car to try to get them out of the way because if you're behind them with a siren on and honking with like literally an air horn they won't move they just sit there in front of you and then when you hit their car they're like why would you do that? It's like it's like bro there's not rules of the road here but there's rules of being around us and by God get the hell out of our way so it started off with like rocks and then water bottles and then I mean I don't know we piss in the water bottles and throw those at people for a while and then we got pin flares and then you a lot of pin flares got shot probably just because it was fun to watch reactions. But nothing will stop a car faster than taking like a a 556 round into your tire or into your radiator and that that would stop them almost every other time the the craziest part was they didn't care about rifles. So if I pointed my rifle at you they'd be like it's Tuesday this feels normal. Right? You pull out a pistol those guys react like because pistols were used for executing people so you throw you bring out a pistol and they're like holy crap symbology behind it. Yeah but a 240 Bravo they're sitting there like a fully automatic 240 Bravo in the back and they're like not a big deal.

SPEAKER_06 33:16

Yeah if anybody catches that reference where I said symbology I'll give you 10 extra points so uh we like to throw some some Easter eggs out there. Um okay so you get the cops out there you you obviously have to I don't you have to get them seasoned.

SPEAKER_07 33:36

We gotta do quick evolution like how long how long did that take typically probably getting towards their second contract they'd start turning into savages like us.

SPEAKER_06 33:47

How long is a contract typically six months?

SPEAKER_07 33:49

Yeah so you do your first six month pump and then it look it depended on where you were um a lot of the police officers I don't know I don't know if this is factually accurate but it felt like a lot of the police officers went to the places that were like not right under the flagpole they weren't the green zone right it was Kirkkuk it was Al Hilla it was some of these other places um where like where if it was Ramadi like Ramadi Fallujah those guys those were all just former pipe hitters um so you you kind of you know you don't you don't get to choose who you're who you're there with but you could always kind of choose where they go uh but yeah after after a few months they they'd start turning into savages we had a couple of guys that were former uh they were SWAT guys one was a canine guy the other guy was a SWAT guy up in like Minneapolis and I was like oh Minnesota it's pretty they're like Minneapolis and I was like I don't know what that means they're like let me tell you some stories about Minneapolis SWAT and I was like all right come on you're in you can get in the car you're fine I could not imagine uh now as far as police tactics and training how would that compare to like a security forces guy because I've been around some cops that are fucking squared away um you know SWAT guys especially uh like one of my SWAT guys I you and I talked offline about um his name was Dennis Elise for anybody that he was a legend uh on our department and um if anybody wants to see anything about Dennis he pitted a car with a bear cat car uh uh against orders which was epic so that's right he's got somebody he did blackwater um and we thought after he did the pit thing and he went through his investigation uh that that's where he was gonna go back to something like that uh but he didn't he ended up finding something here in the states but uh yeah I'm just curious how did they do with the training uh compared to other military branches I mean the the training wasn't that difficult what you did notice and this this wasn't just cops uh a lot of the people that went to Moyak they just they were in that window where they didn't get to use all their their cool training and stuff so uh when when we started walking the diamond right so you you start like this and then your principal's in the middle that looks a little dirty yeah I was gonna say um keep showing me what you got there sir um so so the principal's in the middle um and then and then you you post up two guys at the door and then one guy goes up there with the principal and we had this training exercise where I was outside the door and they were like the principal's been kidnapped so I'm like I'm like not the closest guy to the door there's two older guys that were former army rangers and they like in training their eyes got big and they were like and it was me and this other recon guy and he we'd just like storm through the door we go up there you know we kind of pie off we pie they they have like a gun to the principal's head so we pie it off and then one of them engages me shoots me right in the in the hand which if you had a lipstick round in the hand like it hurts it just yeah the knuckles the knuckles need ass in the neck i oh yeah so he drills me and then we open fire on him and then everybody's like oh that was really good oh that was great uh and then they're like what happened to the two guys that were closest to the door and we're looking over at these two old guys like yeah yeah you guys are cowards this is training this is Moyak North Carolina what the hell man um yeah we're not even shit yet yeah so I I think there's a lot of trepidation when people when when you realize like you're gonna have to be the guy that just says yes and goes and you have no idea like dude I couldn't have told you what that house looked like it turns out that you you run in and then there's a staircase at the top of the staircase a small landing and then there was like a couple of small rooms so we like we ended up clearing the whole thing but you know that the the guy I went with he went to Iraq during the ground offensive I was in Iraq on the ground offensive and apparently we didn't have that much to live for in training so we just went for it and these two old guys are like oh we didn't uh so what we ended up doing is we a lot of those guys ended up being um drivers like especially in the back vehicles because you want your lead vehicle to be like confrontational right you gotta you got a clear traffic after that everybody can follow you so the old guys uh go ahead and drive in the back just follow the guy in the front and then some of those guys was like dude I just I can't be out here in the red zone with you man and you they'd end up putting them into like the operations you know the head shed where it was like okay you guys can be the ones that say okay I want you to go over here and this is your route and this is your and we'd be like hey thanks we'd take it and then we just ignore it and go do whatever we wanted.

Building The Ideal Team And Who Freezes

SPEAKER_07 38:45

God how bad did that piss you off they're getting paid the same I mean I was there for the adventure so we went to Suimanaya we were um we were protecting the guys that were collecting evidence against Saddam Hussein and Kim Kalie like like like if there ever was a mission where I was like Blackwater did something good it was this one right so we would be going out to these mass graves we'd be talking to these town elders it would be on CNN within like 48 hours and they'd be like yeah there's this new evidence that you know he gassed all these Kurdish people killed all killed all the military age males back in like 1997 um so when we got up there we were supposed to be there for two weeks and next thing you know we're like eight weeks in and I was like dude this is Gilligan's Island like I can't do this I can't live in a hotel and lose my mind like I gotta like I came here to do something and we ended up having like a mini mutiny and I would say like 10 of us ended up leaving and they brought 10 people up which I didn't realize I thought we were just being like okay all my crap's in Baghdad I want to be down in Baghdad that's where like the running and gunning is and we come back to and we're like pariah they're like you guys had a mutiny against your leadership and I was like the guy that was sleeping in his room like oh we're gonna sleep in his room what do you mean like a mutiny like this sucked trying to earn our money over here but yeah dude like a lot of a lot of those guys were perfectly happy the older guys they were perfectly happy going to a place making all the money that they could ever make one of one guy had a sleep apnea machine oh my god he'd be getting on a helicopter and he'd be like his roller case behind him with a sleep apnea machine and I'd be like how the hell how the hell are you dragging a CPAP around on like a two-day flyaway mission man especially back then when they're beastly oh yeah yeah dude and I was like what is that he's like I I die in my sleep and I was like well it's probably not a probably not a bad thing you suck let nature take its course who stops breathing when they sleep oh well those dude I mean those guys were great because you needed people that were gonna go and do those like boring things but like younger 23 year old me I was like I didn't I didn't sign up for this like the money's great but this this sucks I'm gonna go home become a cop fuck yeah so you're doing protective services over there you're you're you're building the squads and teams right so if you were to build what was that banning asset protection yeah yeah yeah so let's say you're building what you would consider the bit the perfect squad uh how many in that squad and then what would they consist of would any of them be law enforcement uh yeah you know what dude some the law enforcement guys some of them were like spectacular drivers and they were spectacular like understanding the roads and yeah like I'm I'm like a a a savant when it comes to roads if I've seen it once like I'll I'll know how to get there um but a lot of these guys I realized later they were just they were just happy looking out the window being like oh there's a hummingbird did you see that it's pretty like they had no idea where we were going we would just show up and park and they'd be like oh we're here they don't know where north southeast west is at yeah so we dude like the those are the window licker guys they're great don't get me wrong they'll open the door they'll shoot a gun but they have no sense of direction so the cops were good there um you know the navy SEALs always thought that they kind of knew everything more than anybody else which look like that that's their reputation uh the SF guys were like tactically sound but like fat I'm just gonna be honest with you like a lot of them were just fact dudes really um but they would argue back back to you about like oh well if you like they they were argumentative um the best ones over there were like your your recon marines because you could literally be like I want you to do this and they'll do it and then be like now go stand over at that door for the next four hours and they'll do it. Like they just they're they're like lethal but at the same time they just yeah dude they'll they'll just do whatever is asked of them. Your your bargain basement infantry guys were also pretty good because they didn't have any ego that came with them. They were like hey this is all right whatever man you want me to stand here and look at this I'll do that um I would say you you gotta have the guy that's got the brain and we didn't have a lot of officers but I think if you could get some young junior military officers to be like running a team and then you get like two or three SF guys a couple of Navy SEALs a couple of rangers and like four recon guys and then one just fucking psycho dude you gotta have your one psycho you just do I hate to say it but like dude even on the QRF like wearing a necklace of ears yeah and he's going through divorce at the same time so he's he's there to pay child support dude like that's his that's his whole gig and do like even on the QRF we had one guy like we were We we got a lot of trigger time, but we had one guy that we were just like, oh bro, like I just saw that car fly off the elevated highway, Dukes Hazard style. Um, what happened? He's like, they were driving up on us pretty quick, so I just unloaded 100 rounds of 240 Bravo into them. It was a short burst. Yeah, he's like just a quick, quick uh, you know, get the machine guns talking. Like, like I mean, there were some I would say for as many psychos that we had, there was as many pacifists, right? The guys that were just like, we had one guy just before I got there, I think he was a former ranger, older dude. Uh they started taking indirect fire in one of the embassies that they went to, and he was in the car, and everybody's like, We don't have any cover to go to, at least get in the armored suburban. And the guy locked all the doors, and they're like pounding on the window. Oh, let me get, let me in, and he's like, he was in the head shed, he was the guy that handed out ammo uh after that. But yeah, dude, like for every psycho, there was probably the same amount of people that would just like freeze up, and you're like, dude, how the hell'd you

How The Military Treated Contractors

SPEAKER_07 45:10

get here?

SPEAKER_00 45:10

I got a question for you, Morgan. So when you were over there, let's say the first six months that you did over there, how many active military units did you guys run into? So I understand you guys. I mean, I I know it's a lot, but what what I'm what I'm asking is is how did the active guys treat y'all as you came through? Usually you guys were running quicker on your missions that you were doing, from my understanding. Okay, I've never done it. I was in during peacetime, during the late 90s. I got out just before before the towers got hit. But what were the active guys, MO treating you as you guys came through? Was it respect or was it let these guys go through because holy shit, we don't want the magnification? Um, I mean, how was that?

SPEAKER_07 45:55

This is this is this is a lot, there's a lot that goes into this. So, like the guys on the base all thought that we were like cag, right? Because we got our beards, we got long hair, we're wearing our hats, and we're flying in in little bird helicopters. Can you explain to people what cag is? CAG is like the army special forces, special, special, super duper special forces. Like they're the they're the next step up from SF in the army side, or or dev grew is SEAL team six. So so everybody thought that we were out there like like hunting bad guys, and I remember uh I flew, I had to go. We we had to protect um Michael Bolton. John Bolton, it was John Bolton. I always get him mixed up because so John Bolton is like the ambassador to the UN or something, and I thought it was Michael Bolton, like we were protecting the saxophone player, right? Yeah, yeah, and we get over there, and I was like, Where's the saxophone? Like, was it where's the USO tour? Like, what's going on? And they were like, No, it's it's uh it's John Bolton. He's very he's very important and stuff. Um, but dude, I'm hungover as sh as heck. And I fly into these little birds, and this, like, this this I think it was an E3, was like, Hey, how's the hunting? And I was like, dude, I'm too hungover for this right now. Do you have Gatorade? And he's like, He's like, Yeah, yeah, I get it, I get it. How's the hunting? And I was like, I protect diplomats, I'm here to protect a saxophone player, man. And like the last night was pretty rough, and he's like, But how's the hunting? And I was like, dude, it's good. The hunting is fine, it's great. We we love to hunt, it's amazing.

SPEAKER_06 47:31

Yeah, there's weird enough, there's a story about both of them together.

SPEAKER_00 47:36

Yeah, one with a strong mustache, one does not, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 47:42

Yeah, like like I I was I I was pretty sure it was the saxophone player, but yeah, uh, so so those guys were like like it was like this weird operator in his in his off time.

SPEAKER_01 47:53

Yeah, this is the song, Captain Morgan.

SPEAKER_07 47:59

I'm like, oh yeah. Uh so so those guys were good. The the actual like infantry units, they hated us uh because we didn't coordinate with anybody. It was like you get from point A to point B with this guy, uh I don't care where the army is, it doesn't matter to me. And look, dude, like I said, we did stuff violently. So if we went and ran a couple of cars off the road or we shot a car, all those guys see is hey, there was a Hum V was shooting at us, and they'd be pissed off at the army. So I uh there is some credence in the military not liking private contractors because we made life harder for them. We just absolutely did. Um, and then when you'd roll up on them, some of them were pretty cool, but I remember, dude, it was like probably my third run. We come out of the green zone and we take a left because you want to miss Haifa Street. Haifa Street's where all the Iranian IRGC guys were, they were building EFPs, and we're like, we just let them have that street, okay? And I was like, Oh, that's gonna work out good for us. Yeah, still 23 years later, it was working out great. Um, so so I took a left, and then you got to take a right so that we could start going north. And there's this there's a kid in the back of a Humvee with a 240 Bravo, and he's standing up in it, and the 240 Bravo is just like on a like a little pole. And I was like, I'm like, I'm driving the vehicle. We got the VS 17 panel, you know that we're Americans. I am white, dude. I'm like like the whitest guy ever. And I'm like, just go, what's we'll go around you? And he's like, which means stop. If you've ever been in the Middle East, this means stop. It also, yeah, it's it's how Italian women tell you about stuff, but it also means stop.

SPEAKER_06 49:37

It's it's the the pasta, it's stop like the prairie dogs where I was at, they didn't do that, so yeah, so the guy tells me to stop.

SPEAKER_07 49:46

I start trying to squeeze around him, he takes a 240 Bravo and goes points it right at me, and I was like, That armor's not gonna stop that 240 Bravo, so I think we'll just we'll just wait it out for you guys. Universal language, yeah. And then, dude, the brass, the military brass hated our guts because we just made fun of them all the time. They you're not in the chain. I was walking, I was walking into the US embassy, and I think Iraq won a soccer game or something, who knows? But there's all these tracers in the air, and you guys know it's like a tracer is three to one, four to one, depending on how you have it set up. And I'm just walking to go get some food, and this lieutenant colonel sitting there, and he's got his body armor on and his helmet. He looks like like freaking Super Mario Turtle, like all turtled in. And he's like, Where's your armor, son? It's raining lit out here, and I looked like it's a fucking movie, yeah. And I was like, What are you talking about? And he's like, he's like, What did he say? He said something like it's kind of crazy that they're shooting at us, and we're just standing here watching it. And dude, I just laughed in his face, and I was like, Whatever, dude. And I walked past, and he was like, I don't think he'd been called dude in a long time because he was not ready for that.

SPEAKER_06 50:55

Oh my god, you must have played that up every chance you have. I would have. I'm like, whatever you say, chief, it's captain. Fuck ever. Whatever you say, fella.

SPEAKER_07 51:08

I'm a I'm a colonel, I'm a GS 15E. If you go on and get all snooty with me, all right, bro.

SPEAKER_06 51:14

Right? Oh man, the money, the money difference is the amazing thing. Um, okay.

SPEAKER_07 51:21

So it, I mean, honestly, it'd like kind of to get back to it. It it really depended on the unit, right? But I will say when I went back as an army intelligence officer, huge mistake. I shouldn't have joined the army after Blackwater. But they sent me to the Army after the Air Force. Oh, well, I'll tell you in just a second. But um, I dude, I walked into our chow hall at this tiny JSS, which is where Saddam Hussein got hanged, literally the same JSS that we used to take evidence for the hanging of Saddam Hussein and Kim Kali. And I'm up there making a third of the money as a as a second or as a first lieutenant, and I'm pissed off all the time. And I walk in the chow hall and there's all these PMCs, and I was like, Oh, nice of them to let us know they're in our AO, like oh, and then I was like, Oh, that was me. Yeah, never mind, you guys are fine.

SPEAKER_06 52:08

Did you forget where you came from? Yeah, that's funny. Um,

Should Cops Leave For Contracting

SPEAKER_06 52:15

so for for any of the cops watching this and wondering, like, should I ever leave policing to go and do the contracting overseas? Like, what would you tell them?

SPEAKER_07 52:25

So I got a buddy, he's a cop. Um, and he had a really cool department where they would say, Okay, you can go do three months, and he'd give him like a leave of absence, he'd go do three months, he'd come back. Um, he did that for years. Like, it was like three months once a year, he was fine. His police department was cool with it. If that's what you're doing, that's the only way to do it. Because here's the thing is that the second that I left Iraq, there was no paycheck, there was no money, there was no nothing, there's no long-term benefits, there's no retirement, there's no nothing, man. Yeah, so so like it and I tell people in the military the same thing. Like, if you're gonna go over there and you're gonna do it for three or four years, uh, to make enough money to either like retire or pay your house off and you got something going on afterwards, go do it. But if you're just going over there being like, oh, the money's like, dude, the money's like dude, it's like the dragon, it's like an addiction. Like, I'm not gonna lie to you. Well, that and the the adrenaline is pretty fun, too. It's like it's like it's like heroin, it's like, dude, you're wanting it, man. Um, but if if you don't want to do it for like the next 10 to 15 years, don't start because when you come home, the first thing that's gonna happen is you're gonna get bored. Because where are all your buddies at?

SPEAKER_06 53:46

They're overseas, over there operating.

SPEAKER_07 53:48

All your buddies are there, and then you come home and it's just you, right? It's not like you like with the military, you go over as a unit, you come back as a unit. Like, that's not how it works. It's just you with your thoughts, and those are those are scary, dude.

SPEAKER_00 54:01

Believe me. That that and the contracts right now are a lot lower than what what they were, meaning every what everything costs now, they're much lower than what they were right after 9-11, correct?

SPEAKER_07 54:14

Yeah, the the money's not there. Um, I think the contract now for the Baghdad gig is right around the same pay as it was for me, a little bit less. But if you did inflation adjustment, my contract was like 940 bucks a day, and they're making 475, 500. Um, so the money's not there, but dude, there's other contracts out there. When I when I was at Blackwater, my buddy's like, same guy that got me into Blackwater, like, dude, I heard about a contract in Africa running diamonds, it's 1500 bucks a day. Let's do it. And I was like, okay, there's maybe there's a certain level of crazy that even I can't deal with running diamonds in Africa is there, like you you found it. Yeah. Um, so dude, I mean, there are contracts out there that'll pay you a thousand, fifteen hundred bucks a day. Uh, but you're getting paid for how dangerous they are. And if you got kids, like look, if you're single, you're 23, 24, 25, go do it if you want. Um, nobody told me Blackwater was gonna have the worst reputation on the planet, and then I wouldn't be able to put it on my resume, or else I probably would have taken that into account too. Um, but like that there's a difference between, and I wrote an article about this. There's a difference between having to go back and wanting to go back. So if I had to do it over again, I would say, look, I want to have $200,000 in the bank, I want to have enough money on top of that to pay for college, and then I'm out. And then if I got to that goal, I'd be able to say, Okay, I want to keep going back. Now, me, I was like, Don't worry, I need that Land Rover, I need to go blow all my money in Vegas. Like, let me let me blow all my cash. So, dude, like I had to go back after my first contract, right? So, if if you're just getting into the game, you gotta set that goal.

SPEAKER_00 55:58

And if you don't set that goal with your money, too. So, I mean, there's a lot of guys, and I know you know it, I'm preaching to the choir, but for the people that are watching that don't understand about it, there's a lot of guys that got in it, they weren't used to that influx of money, and their family that was at home was getting yeah, was getting that influx of money, and they started living within the means of the money that was coming in, and that's natural human nature. That's what people need to understand is so okay, we're gonna go get a platinum truck, we're gonna get this, we're gonna get a little bit bigger house, and then you know, you're you're looking at a sixteen hundred dollar mortgage payment, maybe a couple fifteen hundred dollar vehicles, and it's like, where's this going at? And it's and that was a lot of the dudes that the guy of the military or they got recruited in the in in uh law enforcement that went over there. It's this huge influx of money, and then they immediately adjusted, and then you're still in the same spot that you were in before.

SPEAKER_07 56:52

Yeah, and then and then your wife took your two kids and and started hanging out with a guy named Jerry, like, and now you're paying child support to Jerry that doesn't want to work.

Money Traps Taxes Debt And Divorce

SPEAKER_07 57:03

Like, dude, the horror stories are bad. Like, because when I got there, I think a lot of people made the assumption that it was tax-free, like the military, and it's not.

SPEAKER_06 57:11

I read it so oh, you got taxed on the money you made over there.

SPEAKER_07 57:16

So it's weird. You do if you do 330 days out of 365, then your first 85,000. This was back when I was there. So your first 85,000 is tax-free, so then you're only paying on 120,000. Now, a lot of the guys didn't spend that time and then absolutely didn't get didn't pay Uncle Cheddar. So I know guys that are you know two, three, four hundred thousand dollars in debt because they did it for 10 or 15 years, and the IRS never forgets. It's like a military, it's like an ex-wife, dude, never forgets. So those guys are still like, dude, there's guys in the game, they were at the got on the Gaza contract, they were in the game when I was in in 04 05, and it's 21 years later, and they're like, Yeah, I don't have anything going on, so and I owe my ex-wife 70,000 million dollars. Dude, it's it's crazy. But here's what I say the people that that decided to work for Blackwater back when I went work for them, it's not like we made the best life decisions before we got to Blackwater, and we sure as hell weren't making them after we got there. Like, let's be honest, nobody's like, Oh, I saw those guys get hanged off the bridge. That's a pretty cool job. We should try that.

SPEAKER_00 58:28

We should go over there, yeah. And I think it was about, and you know, regardless of the percentages, I say 80% of the dudes that went in there before the name change, obviously, before the triple canopy, you know, all the different name changes on there, they did that. I mean, they weren't used to the influx of money, and they they live their life. I mean, they're going over there risking their life, asset protection, moving specialized people from one side of the country to the other, and you're you're doing this and that, man, and you're getting all this money influx in, and and back home, it's being spent. Yeah, it is. I mean, it's it's I know so many dudes, I'm connected to so many people on LinkedIn that are like, I did this, this, and this. You know, one year I made $275,000 because I stayed over there, I did this, I did these other contracts. I was like, What do you got to show for? They're like, I got a couple M16s in there, and I'm like, It's like I gotta holy shit, man. Come on. I mean Harley. Yeah, yeah, or a Harley. You know, I mean it it is what it is. I mean, it's you're not used to that. You were never prepared. And I think, you know, hindsight looking back at that, if we could have done some financial preparing during that training uh and uh uh evaluation stage to see if you're gonna be sent over, I think we could have done that, man. Uh just to help our guys and gals that were going over there and doing this.

SPEAKER_06 59:43

I mean, shit, look at look at a fucking E1 today. They get done with boot camp and they get to their base, and the first thing they do is like, I'm gonna go get me a brand new charger.

SPEAKER_00 59:54

I'm gonna go get me a brand new I look at the APRs that these used new places are doing on them. I just want guys that are in right now, just E5, E6 that I can work with on LinkedIn, dude. They're at 17 to 20 percent on an APR note. Yeah, and they're look at what they're paying on that. I mean, it's just holy shit, dude. What are you doing? Did I do the same mistakes? I absolutely did, but now I'm trying to teach guys that are out there, hey, don't do this, don't do what I did when I was young and guy in the Marine Corps big time, right?

SPEAKER_06 1:00:25

You know, we blow through like and I know cops, they they they're 21, they turn 21 during the academy. They literally still live at home with their parents, like that's the thing. They get done with the police academy, and now they're making more money than they've ever made. Right. And same shit. I'm just like, what are you doing? Like they show up and they've got you know a brand new motorcycle and a brand new car. And I'm like, What well I live at home with mom, I don't have to I don't have all that.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:52

And I'm like, dude, you gotta start saving this for money. Well, that's where the school systems. I don't even need to segue on this, but that's where the school system, you know, the public school system is failing us. We have to learn the financial holy shit, man. If you go this, this, and this, do this with your money. Don't live above your means. I would have loved to have something like that, 18 to 21 years old. Do this and this and this. And my dad was trying to preach it to me. And I'm like, yeah, whatever. I'm gonna go to the club, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do that. What do you have to show for it after two weeks? No, you're you're waiting three days before your payday, eating ramen noodles, waiting for that payday kick in, and then boom, you're a king, and then it's gone. And it's like, oh, cops and military and contractors are the fucking same. And if you say they're not, you're bullshitting.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:41

Yeah, Morgan doesn't know your first wife.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:43

Well, yeah. Well, I'm surprised he doesn't.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:45

I thought everybody would he was like the the poster boy for the marine story.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:53

Well, well, let me just give this one real quick.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:56

So I was at uh Kings Bay Naval Sub base, and I'm sh I I've got three or four guys that are listening right now that were probably out there for this speech, but our uh master gunnery sergeant, E9, okay, you can either do sergeant major and master guns. He was Master Guns, he's from Louisiana, great dude. I'm not gonna say his name. But he brought me out there and he's like you know, at that time, I think it was Lance Corporal Sweatland uh got married over the weekend, and we want to congratulate him. And I, you know, there's 335 Marines out here right now, and all 335 would uh sleep with this woman on a weekend, but this is the dumb motherfucker that decided to marry her. And you know, it's mistakes, and and I 100% I eat that. I'm I'm writing a couple of books right now. I 100% own that, you know, and it's uh she saw me, she swooped me up, she saw the little tiny bit of money that I was making. And I even did an uh I was doing what's called Culligan Water Service on the weekends to even make more money, thinking that that would make the relationship better. You know, I did full-time Marine Corps and I was doing that on the side to even make more money. Uh it it was it was absolutely ridiculous. And we we get into these soaves, if you will, of of making money and spending money, and there's nothing to show for it. And I wish the financial stuff, even the little financial classes they have in the military, military and do d and the contractor. I I understand right now from what I'm telling from guys that are just getting into it, there is some financial stuff that they're covering, but it's very little. We've got to take care of our money, man.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:31

That's true. And I mean, to Blackwater's credit, they did bring a financial advisor in, and I I actually took advantage of it, and I had this guy as my financial advisor was set up some IRAs. I didn't even know what that was. I was like, IRA, isn't that the Irish people? They just like I don't I don't know what that means. Um but it you're you you're accurate, like a lot of those guys, and even me, you get in there, you get that money, and it's like, okay, I risked my life for this. And there's like almost this desire, this need to want to go and spend it as fast as you can, and then you're like, oh, I can make it. Thankfully, like my second contract, I kind of unscrewed myself. Um, but it it got pretty lean for you know, when I was finishing up college, it got pretty lean there when I hadn't had a paycheck in like two and a half years, and I had like a you know National Guard GI bill that was $780 a month. I was like, that doesn't pay my rent, right? Right.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:29

Yeah, the uh the ones what was the nicknames that they gave the girls that wanted uh to marry a military guy? It's like uh tricheratops, I think no, it was the uh dependopotamus, yeah. Dependopotomous, that was another one, or the dependent.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:45

Here's how stupid Benny was. Okay, so I was I just turned 19, got through all my training in Quantico, went down, got stationed in Kings Bay, Georgia, and got married. That was her third husband, and she was two days older than me. If that wasn't a red flag, and then she's like, hey, come out, you know, come come with me down here to Jacksonville, Florida, because there's a uh a boat coming in. I'm gonna tell my next fiance that you're the one and it's not him. And I'm like, oh baby, I feel special. You know we we we we live, laugh, and learn on these things, man. And I I look back at my younger self and I'm like, holy shit, you are a friggin' retard because of not not and I'm not talking, I'm talking about Marine Corps stuff. It's the Marine Corps way, and the Marine Corps at the time was not teaching any type of financial stuff at all. I mean, we we got very low pay on the enlisted side, and that was on me. I decided to go enlisted. My father was on the O side and uh he was in the Air Force, he did the right things in life, he was a fly boy, did amazing things F 4, uh F 16, A7D. Guy got to buy a whole bunch of things. But me, I decided to go enlisted, and I did not listen to any type of financial planning, the very little that I heard. And I went out there and I thought I knew everything. And when I got out military, I had nothing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:05

Shout out to uh Donut Shop. Uh he's in the house, he's saying, Yo, Morgan and the boys. What's up, brother?

SPEAKER_07 1:06:13

We gotta have a three-way one time, but not kinky, just like extra, extra kinky.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:18

Depends on how much they want to pay in the chat. I mean, you know, you guys pay some money in the chat. There's no shame in our game. So um,

Gear Talk From Garbage To Customized Kits

SPEAKER_06 1:06:27

okay. I gotta I this question was shot in, and people want to know. You kind of touched on it earlier, but like what gear were you carrying when you first started versus the gear that you earned your way up, like when you were at your peak operating?

SPEAKER_07 1:06:42

Uh, dude, the gear that they gave us was absolute garbage. I mean, it was it was trash, it was it was whatever the State Department made him do. So you had a a plate carrier group, they had a plate in the front, plate in the back, and then it was just like a bandolier essentially that would have went in the front where you keep your your your um magazines. So I think it was I think it could hold 10, but one was for a radio, so you'd hold eight. Uh, there's some early pictures of me that actually has that one on it. And then this guy, this is the beauty of of working overseas, is this guy like upgraded his stuff. He's got all junk drunk and was like, I need that new $800 kit. So I looked at him and was like, dude, that kit that you're wearing right there, that looks tasty. I'll give it, I'll give you 50 bucks for it. And the guy's like, done. So really, yeah. I had to like a nighthawk, I had a nighthawk vest, it would do um 12. It would do 12 mags, one was for a radio, so I could I could rock 10. And then you know, one of those pouches had to have Pop-Tarts in it for when you're hungover. Pop-tarts are like, I don't know, superfood. So you gotta have a little Pop-Tart pouch. Um, but dude, the gear that they would give us, like it just wasn't functional, depending on what you were in, right? Because when you're in a suburban and you got all that kit on, and the suburban's smaller, like it gets smaller and smaller the more the more um armor you put on it. So I ended up just taking something off of like a three-day assault pack with like a little bungee, and I put I sewed it onto my night, my nighthawk gear, and then I would hang my rifle down off of that for my right hand, and then it would make it really easy to transition right to left if I had to pull my my nine mil. Uh, safari drop, safari land drop leg holster was like my gig because when you're sitting there in a in a vehicle, having something on your hip just kind of sucks.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:29

Yeah, you jam, especially without that gear sitting on the side, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:32

Yeah, so watching it allow me to like rotate it over to the top of my thigh when I was driving, and then when I would stand up, I could rotate it back. So, but it was pretty like I was I'm a basic bitch, man. Oh, I do have um nope, don't show it, don't show it.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:49

Yeah, okay, it's just a site, okay. Making sure you gotta be careful when we're on live streams because you can't show certain things.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:56

No, I it's uh it's uh it's a like one of the original Seymour sites. This was the only thing I spent money on. It was like 550 bucks, and it's got an open reticle so you can you could keep both eyes open, like with the ACOGs, you gotta you gotta squint your eye like a pirate. So yeah, uh yeah, the the Seymour site was the only thing I really spent cash on. But dude, it and the gear was all over the place, right? We had like the dragon, what they call it, the dragon skin um gear that had like little pieces of of metal that overlap like dragon skin. Turns out yeah, it looked like scales, yeah, and people kept dying in it, so they got sued, and now they're oh really, yeah, that was not very good, but it cost you put you three, four thousand dollars back. Um, so I dude like like for me, I'm just like a basic guy, and you could we had guys that would like drive around with tourniquets on their arms and on their legs, they had a lot more to live for than I did, apparently. Like, come on, dude. Like, you look you look like a like a dipstick, like that's why you have tourniquets. Uh, the other thing, everybody would have their blowout kit on their back right, so that like because your blowout kit's not for you. Your blowout kit actually, your blowout kit's not for somebody else, it's for you, right? So when you're laying there bleeding, like everybody needed to have their blowout kit in the exact same spot so that we could grab it, we knew where it was. Yeah, uh, but other than that, man, it was it was like I was pretty basic. There was nothing crazy. Then 249. You know, I don't I never did the 240, but I always have the 249 with like the the hundred round drum that they that's made of uh mesh, so you could just touch it. You can just they called it the nut sack, it was great.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:35

Uh you're talking about the saw, right? Yeah, okay, and just so our listeners have no clue what we're talking about, it's a squad operated weapon. Um, this is something that we we got to touch and play with and and deploy in the Marine Corps. It was pretty fantastic weapon, man, as long as it was cleaned well. And uh yeah, so it's good stuff, man.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:57

Um, I'll give a shout out to Harrison. Harrison just dropped 10 memberships to our peeps. Uh, thank you very much, Harrison. Looking uh, looks like the Living Dead got one. I think I think she was in here chatting, and I'm looking to see if there's any I thought I saw another name. Uh show me the audit or show me audits got one. He's always in here chit-chatting, so shout out to him. And then Rumble got himself one. Uh, I saw a donut seems to know Rumble, so apparently they're boys. So shout out to you guys, appreciate it. Um, any of the money you guys donate to the page, it goes into the show. It doesn't go into me and Banning's pockets, I promise. Um, we ain't at that level, so definitely not. Yeah, it's not. Uh, one day we'll be able to pay the mods that help us out out of the kindness of their hearts. So yeah, we'll get there eventually. Um, you did mention something earlier, Morgan, that I know a lot of our listeners are gonna love. You mentioned having a a Marine on the team if you could make your perfect team. And a lot of our guys are Marines. One of our mods is former Marine, uh, Marine Blood. Um, then we got Mr. Billfold, also prior marine. Um, what do you guys call yourselves? Former a Marine? I don't know.

SPEAKER_07 1:12:12

Former, you have no former. Oh, yeah, no, you still have to be a Marines guy. Yeah, they don't they don't like to say not ex.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:19

Yeah, not ex Marine. I I catch myself because in the late 90s, early 2000s, they're like, it's okay to say former. I'm like, okay, cool, it's former. Uh, because you're not actively enlisted at the time. But now it's just like, once a marine, always a marine. I'm like, motherfucker, I am damn near 300 pounds, a little over six feet tall. I'm definitely not fit for duty duty right now. So I was they're like, oh, former Marine, you know, and it's it is what it is, man.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:45

Yeah, former Marine. Harrison said, so I'd be paying myself because he helps mod. Yeah, I was right. I'm pretty sure the mods can see about how much we make a month on here. It doesn't even cover the bills. Um I probably Morgan, I probably drop about I don't know, almost 1300 a month on this show. Jesus. I know he does. Yeah, I do. I put a lot of money into this thing. Um, hey, maybe one day it will pay itself. We'll see. Every once in a while it does all right. So um, okay. Next question. So we got through the uh the

Moments You Think You Will Die

SPEAKER_06 1:13:26

the gear. Somebody sent this one in. Um, oh, did you ever have a moment where you thought I'm probably not gonna make it home over there?

SPEAKER_07 1:13:34

Oh, yeah, dude. So I I died in my mind probably more than I was ever in danger, to be honest with you. Like the first the first the flight into Baghdad, you come in from Jordan, we're in this little Casa bird, which is a it's a cargo jet. But if you've ever seen people that are like jumping out of planes and stuff, like it a lot of those are casas. Um, and they they take you up to to elevation, and then they don't tell you anything, and they just start corkscrewing in, man, like like as fast and as hard as possible. There's video of it that I that I gotta find somewhere, but I dude, I thought we were burning in, like I thought we were dead. Like that's how fast and how violent they started corkscrewing in, and then they leveled off and we we we got there, and I was like, Oh, yeah, that's no, I'm is it just to avoid anti-aircraft stuff? Yeah, so if you come in straight, man, you're a tasty target for like an RPG. Like they they know your path. If you corkscrew in, they kind of they don't know your path until you're finally like almost right at the at the like tarmac, and then you level out and you you land. So that was the first time I thought I was gonna die. Uh, I would say like a month later, we did this, we did this uh this flight up to Erbil. So I get at a Blackhawk, never been on a Blackhawk before, right? I'm an Air Force guy, and not what I heard. We fly, we fly up, we fly up. Oh well, I do love it. So we we we start rising up over Baghdad and it starts shooting flares. And I was like, Oh, dude, we're getting targeted, we're gone, dude.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:10

I'm like, oh my god, we're and then we just fly off.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:13

And I was like, what the heck just happened there, man? So it turns out that when you fly over the burn pit, which is like half of Baghdad, it causes the flares to think that they're being uh that you're being attacked and it starts shooting flares.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:26

Is it the heat signature of it or something?

SPEAKER_07 1:15:28

It's I don't know if it's the heat or the smoke, but I talked to a pilot over there, and he's like, Yeah, dude, every time we flew over that thing, we'd shoot out like $70,000 worth of flares. So you're um, and then it like we we would get mortared every day. The first the first time that they got close, uh, like a mortar hits, and we're sitting in our little tent. Like it, I think it was like day two. We're sitting in our little tent, and one hits, and we're like, Oh, okay, so uh that wasn't too bad. The second one hits, and like everybody sits up in their bed and starts looking around. And all I'm thinking is, dude, you can't be the first one that runs out. You just can't, you can't be that guy. The third one hits, shakes the tent, like you can feel the percussion, like kind of mush your gut, and it was close. And this guy like leaps off his bed and runs out the tent to like the bunker, and everybody's like, pussy, and then we all ran after him because you just didn't want to be the first one, man. Um, but the thing is, is that I just didn't live like that, right? I didn't live thinking, Oh, this could have happened, you know. We got shot at, but it wasn't like they're shooting at Morgan. Uh, I it just wasn't one of those things where like I took it personal. So you could be driving on a route one day, and then the next day a car bomb blows up and it took out something, or we got hit by an IED or an EFP and Ramadi. Like, like it was it was just such luck of the draw, and I guess I'm lucky that I I just never really thought about it like that.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:54

Yeah, I remember them in training, they were because we had some pre-deployment training stuff where we never ended up going anywhere, but um they were talking about this one particular IED that would be like some sort of liquid metal, and it would go through the MRAPs, and then it then it would fuck you up inside, and nothing you could do about it, and they talked about it all the time, and I was terrified of that particular way to go because you're so stuck in a coffin.

SPEAKER_07 1:17:25

So I'll I'll explain it to you to the folks out there. So you you put explosives in something like this, something it could be this small, and what you do is on the front of it you put copper, you put like a malleable metal on the front. So your explosives on the back, this whole area of explosives, what it does is it takes that piece of copper and it pushes it out through the middle, and it forms a projectile or like a bullet, essentially, and it's going so fast and it's so hot that it'll go through any armor that you have. So, yeah, the EFPs that that's what the Iranians were doing on Haifa Street. And they're terrifying, don't get me wrong. But if I sat there and I worried about every every time I drove past like a piece of garbage that was an EFP, like I would I wouldn't have made it, man.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:12

Yeah, that's why I'm listening guys, everybody out there listening. I I I say this in law enforcement. You got guys that are geared for SWAT, like that, they have the mentality for that. I don't have it. Um, young me, yeah, in in my early 20s, probably but I didn't do it, so I can't say for sure. I would have done it, I tried it at least. And I might have got there and said, you know what, this ain't it. But you need guys that have that mind. Just like you said, you need psychos. You got you gotta have the guys that want to do that stuff because the ones that are there, like especially in SWAT, that are just there for the tab to say the rocker to say SWAT, like that's not the guy. You need somebody that's about the team, um, and and and being just a part of the team and not so much about saying that they're SWAT. Um, and that goes for a lot of stuff. So you're right. If if you worried about that shit, probably not the job for you. Uh, me personally, I would have been fucking freaked out about that in the camel spiders.

SPEAKER_07 1:19:20

So those those were the worst, I'll be honest with you. Those those those are those are they just they're just menaces, man. They look like aliens. So we found out in Oman um that they had a bunch of camel spiders. They'll chase you, and you're like, dude, why why is this thing chasing you? Well, it's not actually chasing you, it's trying to stay in your shadow. Yeah, and as you move, it's like, there goes my shadow, my nice cool shadow. I'm going after it. So you're like running away from this camel spider that's like this big, you could probably stomp on it, and you're like, it's coming at me, bro!

SPEAKER_06 1:19:54

Right? Yeah, I would have ran. No, thank you. And I it it turns out they're not even actually spiders, they're something else, but yeah, they're still freaky looking.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:04

I don't know if they are terrifying looking, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:06

And then, so were you ever a part of any of the um animal cage fighting over there that I heard so much about? Uh where they put like scorpions and and camel spiders against each other, y'all are over there betting and shit.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:19

Dude, it's but it's not that fun. So, yes, uh, that's that's the short answer. I'm like, I'm like the guy that's admitting to watching cock fighting right now. Um, so we had this we had this tank in Oman, and I think it was the fifth deadliest venomous snake. There was two of them that were in this big tank, it's like 50 gallon in the world, yeah, yeah. So I dude, I who who knows who picked these up, but you could walk into this little headquarters area, it's like a 50-gallon tank, they got the snake, and we'd bring in camel spiders and they'd have like the big huge scorpions, and we'd drop a camel spider in there, we'd be like, It's on, dude, it's on. And the camel spiders like coming up on it, trying to figure out what's going on, and the scorpions just sitting there. They don't, they don't care, dude. The camel spider were like, dude, it's gonna jump, it's gonna happen any second, and it gets too close, and the scorpion goes boom, done, dude. Game over. Yeah, it was it was it was like so anticlimactic. It was like, dude, that that's boring.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:15

Well, I mean, you what you were over there pre-cell phone, like like smartphone, right? Oh, yeah. So, oh yeah. Imagine going over there today. It probably wouldn't be nearly as bad with all the tech.

SPEAKER_07 1:21:31

We finally, I mean, Skype had just come out, um, so that helped a little bit. There was well, there was Von well, Vonage had come out, uh, but you didn't we didn't have enough internet to be able to really use it very often. So I still had like the cell phone that I bought the little cards for. And if you if you called past like 9 p.m., it was only like 40 cents a minute instead of like three bucks per minute. So but yeah, when I got with got back in 09, Skype was available. Skype was like pretty pretty easy to get. So it is is a lot better keeping keeping like close to your family. Um, that said, like, dude, you try to get bandwidth in a military base with a bunch of young GIs is not the easiest thing to do because they're all important. Yeah, they're just all on on whatever site they can get on.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:29

Yeah, I can't even remember what they used to be back then. Um, okay.

Lightning Round Movies MREs Lessons

SPEAKER_06 1:22:35

So somebody sent in with the a call, such a weird request. Um I like I like giving our listeners the chance to throw their questions up here and stuff. So one that I got in a private message off of TikTok says uh they want a lightning round. Okay, so I'm gonna ask you these questions and you just answer them uh as we as fast as you can. All right, okay. All right, my favorite rifle.

SPEAKER_07 1:23:04

Oh, M4. You shoot shoot what you're used to.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:07

Okay, best piece of gear you've ever carried.

SPEAKER_07 1:23:11

Uh definitely the Seymour side that I had.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:14

Okay. Worst piece of gear.

SPEAKER_07 1:23:17

Oh, worst piece of gear. Some brand. Some brand new gears. I mean, the gear back between 04 and 09 was so much different. Like, if I look at the gear that I had in 04, it was pretty good. Uh, when I went back in 09, like that stuff was just on a whole different level. So, pretty much anything the LBVs that they gave you in security forces. Uh I took that into the ground offensive, worst piece of gear ever. Just absolute trash.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:48

Okay, yeah, fair enough. Um, most overrated tactical trend.

SPEAKER_07 1:23:54

Uh, I think you be by far, dude. Like, yeah, like, dude, who are you really gonna go into a building and be like, I better pie off this door? No, you're just gonna go in and be like, hey, you got some pie?

SPEAKER_06 1:24:08

All right. Uh, you kind of already answered this one earlier. Better driver, cop or military.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:14

Uh, yeah, I I would I would take cop over military. This is my favorite question. Coffee or rippet? Oh, dude, I didn't drink either one of those when I was overseas, but I didn't drink coffee at all. I did have a few rippets.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:29

You can buy them at like the dollar store now, dude. You can buy them at the dollar store. Yeah. Worst are good. Worst and best MRE. Uh, best MRE is always chili, Mac. Worst was uh between the five fingers of death and the uh they had an omelet, like a chill.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:47

The omelet, yeah. Oh, it was so bad. That's what I was thinking too. Anything egg. No, thank you. Um, what movie, what one movie gets Iraq gets gets the closest to Iraq in reality?

SPEAKER_07 1:25:00

All right, I hate to say this, but uh the hurt locker got a hell of a lot closer than I thought it would. Just the desire to want to go back, not necessarily like the actual, you know, the guy that's like, I'm just gonna take off all my gear and I'm gonna um do this bomb. Like, but the mentality of like wanting to go back, that nailed it. Um, the Chris Chris Kyle movie was American Sniper. Oh, American Sniper, yeah. Yeah, that that some some of that movie hit hit pretty good too.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:30

Okay, and then the follow-up to that is what one got it completely wrong. Was there anyone that you watch and you're just like this is so full of shit?

SPEAKER_07 1:25:36

Oh, you know what was good? War was good. Uh is that the is that the the newest one? The Navy SEALs that got uh they got pinned down in Iraq during the ground offensive.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:47

Was that the one where they're riding the fucking horses?

SPEAKER_07 1:25:50

No, no, that was Afghanistan. It was uh it just came out like seven or eight months ago, and it's just these dudes in a building that get that got pinned down, uh, and they're for their navy seals. I don't think the name of it was I thought it was just like war or something like that.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:08

I usually watch every war movie. I did watch Spider-Man today, and it is the best Spider-Man that has ever been made, by the way. Uh, just so you know.

SPEAKER_07 1:26:17

Um, it is good. The worst one, um The Green Zone. I don't know if you guys remember that. It came out in like 04. Yes, yes, you know what else was good? Uh, the men who stare at goats. Oh, yeah, yeah. That was actually pretty good. Talking about the contractors and everybody that was going into Iraq. Right? Yeah, yeah. George Clooney.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:38

Yep, yep, you're right. Okay, and then the last question is one lesson from Iraq that still affects your life today.

SPEAKER_07 1:26:46

Oh uh, I would say I am dude, I'm a straight-up mercenary. Like, like, and I learned that from Blackwater. If there's a job that's gonna pay me more, that's gonna like I'm dude, I'm gone. Like, there is no a warfare, that's the name of the movie. There is no, there's like in corporate America is worse than the army. And at the end of the day, like they will discard you. Go make your money, and if there's a better opportunity, make more money, get the hell out of there.

SPEAKER_08 1:27:21

Don't be don't be like the boomers and are like, oh, I spent 47 years there, and all the gaming was a little was like a ten dollar gift certificate to Chili's.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:33

Yeah, Belford said you should see the shit they're making security forces wearing now. I've seen it. They keep trying to issue it to me. I'm like, no, I'm only here for 30 days. Keep it, don't need it. Um, my gear is way better anyway. Um, okay. And then uh I this is a question I I came up with while we've been talking, but um if if you were to take 10 patrol officers and 10 um we'll just go with security. Forces or infantry. I don't want to go with like the specialized unit, but if you were to take 10 of each um and bring them into Blackwater back in 04, who adapts faster and why?

SPEAKER_07 1:28:11

So when you say patrol officer, what a what I'm talking like City Street Patrol guy.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:16

Like let's let's take the elite. Let's go with the uh America's or what do they call themselves the finest NYPD? Let's go with a you know uh city copy, yeah, yeah, versus 100% security forces.

SPEAKER_07 1:28:30

I would I would yeah, just because you know how hard it is to train people up on like a 249 and a 240 Bravo, and like like ignor like at least security forces gets like some infantry tactics and training and some of those other things, and and those came in a lot more handy uh than a lot of the the police officer stuff. So I'm not talking crap, like dude, in NYPD, let's be honest here, those guys aren't like running gun. Now, if you if you said it like five people from New Orleans or like the Minneapolis guys, like those guys were pretty easy to integrate. Um, but dude, some of the some of the guys come in and they're like, I was a cop in Cottonwood, Arizona, and I was like, Oh, dude, you're not gonna make it.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:15

Like big city cop is different than small town cop, man. Yeah. Um, so Wade sent in a question. He said, Morgan, did you ever meet John McPhee? McFey.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:27

I mean, if he was a Blackwater guy, I mean, are you sure that's not like the the the guy that did the antivirus stuff? Was he that weirdo?

SPEAKER_06 1:29:35

McAfee.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:37

Um so so this is a question I get all the time. Everybody had a had a handle, right? Everybody's like, oh, what's your name? And they're like, I'm I'm goose fart. You're like, dude, which I dude, I never understood because I hated I hated like talking in code. These things are literally encrypted to the highest level. We don't have to worry about them getting our names. People like there's a bounty on Blackwater right now that's like $25,000. So if they get your name, they'll talk to your family. And I was like, who cares, dude? If they use your gamer tag, yeah. Well, dude, I was just like, I'm I'm Morgan. So they tried to give me like Murdoch and all these other kids, and I was like, dude, I'm not gonna answer to it from the A team. Yeah, I finally told them, like, yeah, you can call me like master and commander if you want to really get a hold of me on the radio, or just call me Morgan. Like, like, this is how stupid I thought it was. Revolution cause.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:28

I would have called you Dexter.

SPEAKER_07 1:30:29

Yeah, so basically it depends on their call sign, it depends on where they were. So, like in 04, most 05 was in Baghdad, late 05, I was in uh Kirkkuk. So it really just depends. The sheriff of Baghdad. I did not meet, I did not meet that guy. That guy, that guy's like, I was running super secret single man missions, and I was like, That's dude, that's not that's a lot of things.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:58

Oh, I he was that Rogan, yeah, right. That dude was psycho. That guy was that's the kind of guy you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:05

Yeah, straight up needs meds, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:31:09

He does jujitsu in tournaments and stuff, like dude. Here's what I'll say, Jason Bourne doesn't exist, man. I worked with the best of the best, and there's nobody that goes out there by themselves without support in the military, it just doesn't happen. Like I'm not, I'm not, I'm not saying the guy's lying, but dude, I'm having a hard time.

SPEAKER_06 1:31:31

I don't want to be on a live and all of a sudden you just see eyes peek up from behind me and I'm out. So uh you never know how crazy some people are. So I'm not trying to get any of that smoke. Um, KP Nation said, have any of you ran into stolen valor?

Stolen Valor Call Signs And Real Consequences

SPEAKER_06 1:31:46

If so, how do you deal with it? Um, I've ran into it a few times. I just ignored it. I didn't do anything about it. I don't care. If that's if if that's what you want to do. But I don't know. Morgan, you ever run across it?

SPEAKER_07 1:32:00

Uh you know, I I I don't take it as serious as some people. Some people uh get into the whole Blackwater stolen dollar.

SPEAKER_08 1:32:07

Oh, you didn't work for real blackwater, you were triple canopy.

SPEAKER_07 1:32:10

Oh no, like dude, who cares? Like, so so like from that standpoint, I don't care. Um, I do have a problem with some of the other authors. Like, I wrote my book, I wrote every word of my book, I stand behind every word. Uh, I do have a problem with some authors that have ghostwriters that have like taken their story and try to make it more sensational. I think that's usually what happens. It's not like the guy that's just unless you're Tim Kennedy and you're like, and then I threw 50 grenades into a like dude. Come on, you're full of crap. Um, so uh, dude, I like for the most part, I I don't care. But if I saw some dude in the airport that was trying to cut in the front of the line and he was all doinked up, I'd be like, All right, bro, you're funny. You're like now, you're affecting me, bro.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:53

Yeah, yeah, I guess, yeah, if if they were affecting me and I had something, yeah. Um, but then again, the other part of it is I don't have the perspective of guy of a guy who went overseas, saw my brothers get killed or injured or any of that. I've got I was fucking, you know, uh sitting conus and I didn't get to do anything fun.

SPEAKER_07 1:33:16

Um, so dude, there's enough people out there that call out the stolen valor guys. You don't you don't need another guy.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:23

Yeah, I I just I I feel like an imposter as it is. That's one of the for me, because you know, I signed up to do something, I feel like I didn't do anything. Um I don't mean I had to go over there and shoot and kill people, but I helped the mission somehow. I just felt like I didn't help anything. I just I was here and guarded prairie dogs. Nobody stole a nuke on my watch. You're welcome.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:45

There you go. People are commenting, KP Nation and uh Wade of Lacero, Don Shipley. Uh Don Shipley wouldn't be able to pick me out of a lineup, but I met that dude in Vegas many years ago. Great guy. This dude is out there on a war path with his wife, uh calling out Navy SEALs, man. Fake Navy SEALs.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:06

Oh, is that what he does?

SPEAKER_00 1:34:07

Yeah, Don Shipley. Dude, if you if if you haven't seen his channel, I mean it's it's entertaining. I probably have, I just don't recognize that. Oh my god, dude. His which is funny amazing.

SPEAKER_07 1:34:18

Dude, there's like a thousand Navy SEALs out there, and I met all of them, all eight thousand of them at a bar in San Diego in one weekend. I love it. Like, dude, like there, I there are so many people that that want to claim that.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:32

That oh, dude, it's it's ridiculous. I mean, I did these dudes will go and get tattoos. There, one of my favorite ones is a dude out of I believe it's a Louisiana from a Harley Davidson dealer, and he's out on some street that's really popular, and he's claiming Navy SEAL, this and that. And Don Shipley and his wife, and uh and two other Navy SEALs came with him down to whatever it's kind of like Sixth Street in Austin. It's this big bar, and they and they go out, and this dude's wearing a biker vest, and he's got the the trident, you know, the which everybody knows or watches the movies. And Don Shipley's like, uh, what's your name? And what Buds class did you go through? And Don Shipley, just like any other Navy SEAL legit guy, Eli Crane's a good friend of mine. He's a Navy SEAL, and he's a congressman out of Arizona now. And he you have access to the BUDS classes, and it's just simply the basic class that they go through, what number, who graduated from the class, who initiated the class. And you know, it's obviously a lot lower number. And Don Shipley calls these people out because these people are getting free housing, they're getting discounts on whatever, they're getting hired at a job. It's disgusting. I mean, if you know, and somebody that went through the Great Lakes and they do whatever through the Navy, and I'm not downgrading the Navy stuff, and then they don't make it or whatever, then they're coming out and they're claiming Navy SEAL. And they're getting employment, they're getting benefits from a private something for for veterans because of their claiming this, or they have a tattoo, and they're claiming they were whatever mission, and dude, is it's sick. And dogly outs these guys, man. It's awesome.

SPEAKER_07 1:36:18

I love we we had a lot of guys at Blackwater, like you it had to be looking back, but there's a lot of guys at Blackwater that were claiming this and that. One of them's doing seven years in jail right now because I helped the FBI uh go through and and it's not for stolen valor. He ended up saying he was a recon marine, and then ended up getting hooked in with a billionaire. And this billionaire is doing security for him. He's like, dude, the CIA needs money, and I'm in the CIA. Now, I didn't want to tell anybody this, but like there's some hostages down in Columbia, and if you just give me like $750,000, I'm gonna go save them. So he dude, he was taking this guy's money and going and spending it in Miami. The billionaire believed him, yeah. No, well, dude, but I mean, billionaires like I mean, and a lot of people they just don't they don't know, like they're not around the military. Uh, but I ended up getting a call from the FBI that was like, Hey, this guy said he was in Afghanistan, he's got this picture, and somebody said you were in it. And I was like, dude, it's not me. And then I look at it and I was like, damn it, it's gonna be hard. It's gonna be hard for me to get on the stand and say that's not me, right? Um, so yeah, I helped the FBI go through and be like, No, this guy's a liar. Like, he he I didn't realize that he was a he was fake force we come marine, fake everything else, but like, yeah, his name is Matt Marshall, so screw that guy.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:35

All right, I like it.

Book Plug Guns Girls And Greed

SPEAKER_06 1:37:37

Um, so you mentioned your book, you wrote a book, so you that's that's your Air Force side coming out. You knew how to write.

SPEAKER_07 1:37:46

I know, I know, yeah. Sadly, no, and dude, I kept telling people these stories, and they were like, just write a book, and I was like, nobody's gonna read this thing. But I sat down and just got pissed off, started writing stories, and then I sent it off to a guy that writes for the TV show SWAT and was like, dude, you gotta publish this thing. So I got a publisher, it's been out for about two years now. It's called Guns, Girls, and Greed. And it's literally like every every funny thing that happened, along with the stuff that like rips your guts out and like the overall effect. Being there for 18 months, dude, I came back and I was just not right in the head. Um, and and kind of what that sequence of coming back is like and and assimilating back into the military or into the civilian life. Um, but yeah, it's dude. I mean, what does it got? It's got 4.4 stars on Amazon right now, it's on Barnes and Noble. The audiobook was uh read by Jay Moore. Uh Jay Moore. Yeah, my media. He was on Saturday Night Live. Um, he was in Jerry McGuire. So he did he did the audio book, did a really good job. Um, but it's it's like if you want a real war book with real people that's really raw, like this is it. Like you want to hear about my dysentery, I'm gonna talk about dysentery. You want to hear how it feels like when your buddies burn in on a helicopter and they end up dying? I talk about it, dude. I talk about it all.

SPEAKER_06 1:39:09

Okay, nice. Uh, so this is Jay Moore for those wondering. I couldn't remember who the fuck he was. Now I remember. Uh, that's how did you get him?

SPEAKER_07 1:39:17

Just through the publisher, or no, so he read my book. My buddy got him the book, he read it cover to cover. He's like, dude, I'll read this for you. Like, it's that funny. This is the funniest.

SPEAKER_06 1:39:27

Yeah, he's like, This is I mean, like, dude, it makes sense because you and I like you guys don't know this, but we we start texting each other uh on social and then through cell phone and immediately are ripping it up together. Like, I was like, Oh fuck, we're gonna get along just fine because he's got the same sense of humor I got. So um, it's so much so that uh somebody decided to make a wonderful photo of us together.

SPEAKER_07 1:39:52

Yeah. Um, I didn't even use AI for this, I just flew out there.

SPEAKER_06 1:39:58

Yeah, let me let me pull that up. Give me one second here. I gotta pull up the grams uh because that's where it's at. Um somebody was joking around and uh got all serious. Called me, called me out. I did call you out. Let me see here. Not the best at navigating while I'm on the live. So um your Instagram handle is Blackwater Dude One. Blackwater Dude One.

SPEAKER_07 1:40:28

It's funny, the Blackwater guys were like, Oh, he calls himself the Blackwater Dude. And I was like, No, you're you're you're interpreting it wrong. When people say who's Morgan, you say, Oh, he's the Blackwater dude.

SPEAKER_06 1:40:37

The picture's gone.

unknown 1:40:39

Oh, dude.

SPEAKER_06 1:40:41

Was it just was it just on um it was a story? It was a story. Ah, the time ran out. That's why. Okay, no worries. Let me I wonder if it's saved on uh any it didn't. Oh well. Here's what it is, but okay.

Switching To Police Clips And Hot Takes

SPEAKER_06 1:40:59

Well, something else that we like to do on here, sir, um, is we like to one kind of review some of the uh hot uh take reels that we put out um that kind of have a subject and and just kind of discuss them. And then we also like to look at a little body cam videos and kind of talk through them like as they're developing. So, like, okay, here's what I'm seeing as an officer. Uh, it'd be kind of interesting to see yours as a special operator, and my TV's doing well.

SPEAKER_07 1:41:30

I supported I support I supported special forces.

SPEAKER_06 1:41:34

Right. I mean, and I am SF, so I mean I'm pretty much just tactical as they come. Uh okay, let me share the screen. Um shit, that's not right. Yeah, that is right. Okay. So we are over here on our two cops, one donut page. We're gonna go over to the shorts. Um, and I want to get the one that really pissed people off the most uh right away. So we're gonna go with this

Town Hall Clapping And First Amendment

SPEAKER_06 1:42:10

one. Now, the background on this is they were doing a uh town hall meeting, um, city council was there, and people were voicing their opinions on them potentially putting a new data center in their town. I don't know what town it is, um, but I'm going to open this. Is it possible to park in the wrong direction in a parking spot? It didn't play the right one. Alright, we're gonna go to the individual one. One second. Somewhere. I hate when this stuff doesn't work the way it's supposed to. Alright, this better fucking play it right this time. Alright, y'all ready? Here we go. Here we go.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:32

50 out of 10. It was very clear at the beginning that each person is given their two minutes, and we're trying to be respectful of that. Snapping, clapping, any other root comments, or anything, we will ask you to leave. You've been finally warned and we're done. And what benefit from this is it seems like you guys, and we're all remembering this come election. Do what's right.

SPEAKER_06 1:44:13

All right. So um, yeah. So now here we got a town hall meeting where officers are used to remove people. So I don't know what y'all learned when you became cops or uh even in the military, but the constitution is a pretty big thing, and you got First Amendment rights, especially when it comes to public forums like this. So I'm not gonna give my opinion. Banning, what do you think?

SPEAKER_00 1:44:43

Bottom line, if you had the First Amendment right to speak, speak. And and whatever your opinion is, I mean, it's uh who cares if somebody collapsed, you're you're giving your opinion out there, period. But don't use law enforcement to unless it's uh interrupting the microphone. I mean, that's that's the big thing. If somebody's doing something to interrupt somebody's speech pattern, remove that person temporarily until they understand allow people to do their you know their rights on, period.

SPEAKER_06 1:45:12

So there's a thing, and I not even a lot of cops don't know this. I didn't know it until I really started doing this podcast, but there's a thing called Roberts Rules of Order. And it's basically what they're allowed to govern these meetings with. So there's certain things that you can talk about or rules that you can set up during these town hall meetings. And one of them is if somebody is a disruption, but the courts have made it clear that a disruption has to either be something physical or something that is interrupting their conduct. And clapping at the end of a speech, I would say isn't interrupting anything. Morgan, what do you think?

SPEAKER_07 1:45:51

I mean, I saw the Spider-Man movie, and at the end people clapped and I wanted to punch them in the face. So I don't know. I don't know if that matters. No, I mean, look, I I will say in their defense, they were like, look, don't do it again, but then at the same time, they let everybody do it again. And then like the guys that were doing the hand thing, yeah, yeah. Like they're they're like, we're that's also distracting. Like these are people that are on a power trip, and yes, that's that's that's the problem, is that when you let these people get on that power trip, and then I mean, as a police officer, I'm not one, but I'd be like, dude, I'm not kicking this guy out. You'd a fart, man.

SPEAKER_06 1:46:31

Yeah, it and and that's kind of my point. That's what I wanted to get to. Is the officers were used as puppets, and unfortunately, you're responsible for your actions as a cop. I should I say unfortunately, that's not unfortunate. You shouldn't be allowed to I don't know why I said it that way. Um, that's what happens when my brain goes faster than my mouth. But you got to be responsible for your actions. So if you remove them, ultimately, I think that that is a violation of that person's rights. And now you should be stripped of your qualified immunity, as should be the city council member or mayor, whoever that was. And I did learn that the chief was in the room during this. Yeah. So it now it's a it's a cultural thing, and I understand there's some pressure there because that's your that's your employer if you're not a sheriff. If you're a a municipal cop and the the chief's in there, well, the city council and the mayor is your boss, right, in a sense. So but uh at the same time, like you've got to be able to look at something and go that doesn't they didn't fall under any sort of disruption. And you you lumped clapping with being rude. Like I don't like it's it's in the context.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:51

If you look at the bottom line, the people are your employer.

SPEAKER_06 1:47:55

Because if you don't have the people, what would they have done if everybody after she tried to say that bullshit stood up and clapped? Like I saw that in the comments. Everybody was saying, like, they should have all stood up and clapped. Oh dude, they should have done the slow clap, yeah. Yes, oh there's nothing they're gonna arrest us, arrest us all, you know. It's like the I am Spartacus. So that video, man, it blew up. Um, I think it had like 30,000 views within 24 hours. It was like it people really like that, pissed a lot of people off. Uh, as it should. So now the question is like us as cops, when we see that, like what banning, what are you gonna tell a rookie officer? Imagine if that's a bunch of rookie cops that are in there.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:40

It it's here's the deal it municipal or county, because I've worked both. You have to allow them to do whatever their rights express. If they cross upon that line, if I'm I'm their supervisor, I'm the one that's dealing as a supervisor. I may not be up there, but I'm the one that's doing the blockade. Hey, here's the deal. This person is exercising their rights. You're gonna have to go through me before you go to the officer that you want to remove the person or the deputy. And and and I wasn't a popular person because we've we've done the open town town hall stuff municipal and on the county side, and it's you know, no, just because a commissioner or a city council, commissioner being county, city council being municipal or city, and they're like, remove this person, like what law that did they violate? Yeah, you wouldn't remove them, come down here and remove them. Uh, but but this is an open forum to the public. Allow the public to speak. If you don't have the public, you have nothing. If you if you can't allow the public to speak, I'm sorry, you have nothing. And that's why I was not a friend uh to a lot of people, because you have to allow the public to speak. They're the ones that this is their community. If they're gathering together to Do something, allow them to speak. That's their right.

SPEAKER_06 1:50:04

Yeah. Um guys, if you're on Instagram or TikTok and you're in the messaging, it's it's harder for me to keep up with that uh because all the rest of them are in uh YouTube on this user interface that we have, but I do see there's a comment from Instagram that caught my eye. And uh his name is Steve Card. And Steve says, I used to work with Morgan. I am retired Ellie from a municipal PD. I worked in an insanely liberal city. They allow liberal activists to do whatever they want. So I don't know if you know that name.

SPEAKER_07 1:50:38

I I do, I do. He's he's a great dude. Uh okay. Yeah, he's he's he's the type of cop where I'm like, I'm glad guys like you are out there, not the guys that I used to pick on in high school.

SPEAKER_06 1:50:51

So one thing that well, the little twist on this whole video is the guy that was clapping one, he's a teacher, a high school teacher of some sort, I think is what it was. Um, and then the person he was clapping for was his wife. So I'm like, what the fuck are we doing? Um so yeah, my opinion, uh officers, like that's you can't do that. You can't violate somebody's rights like that.

SPEAKER_07 1:51:21

Um, yeah, but to what to what Banning was saying earlier, I think that's something that if you know, if you know it's gonna be a hot button topic, and data centers are, it's probably best to get your officers together beforehand and say, by the way, if this happens, this is what you do. And the council.

SPEAKER_06 1:51:38

Let the city council know. Like, we're not we're not your puppets. Yeah, it better be egregious and it better be clear. We'd be able to it can't be any of this gray area stuff, and that wasn't even gray area to me. That that's a no-brainer. You were looking for anything you could to keep the the opposite opinion out of there. Um, you were absolutely trying to control speech in that. So, yeah, I agree. I think that's the game plan. That's how we improve uh any law enforcement out there watching, like, make sure you're game planning. Because what is it, like 90% of the departments out there, like 10 or less officers? Hey, don't quote me on that percentage, but it's it's very low. Like, there's not very there's not that many big departments, a lot of them are small.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:22

So if you look at the data center stuff, and I'm not getting political on this, the rural areas of Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, New Mexico, these data centers are going in to rural areas, these these big counties that have low populations, and it's my inbox is inundated with this stuff. It's like, how can you stand idle sitting in a county on this and this and this? I don't know enough factual data to go up there and and stand at a microphone. If I did, I would. Um but they but they do it, it happens. Um, and they are some are are getting arrested for for BS stuff that they're and that I I can't even speak on that because I don't know, but you know, these data centers are going in a lot of places and and there's tax this and tax that. I don't I don't know enough information to come up here and be a qualified person to speak on that.

SPEAKER_06 1:53:20

Yeah. Um Rumble said they want they want to lord over their subjects like they're some sort of king and queen. Uh they need to remember that they work who they work for and that they will collect their blood money and move someplace with no data centers. Right. Yeah, not wrong. Um, okay, so let's

Taser Failure And Closing The Distance

SPEAKER_06 1:53:38

move on. I think we've we've eaten up that subject. Let's move on to the next video. I got it queued up this time. So hopefully it works properly. So this one is uh let me get the comment off of there. Morgan, uh, there's in law enforcement, uh, something we like to tell the rookies, at least where I'm at, is like, don't get dependent on your Batman belt. You need to be able to go hands-on. Okay. Uh, it's important because if you do get dependent on your toys, uh, get dependent on that Batman belt, things like this can happen. So let me hit play here. All right. So uh backstory is there was a big it's a bar scene, you know, entertainment district, whatever you want to call it. Fights broke out. That's why they have so many officers out there anyway, that it's just typical. I actually was a field sergeant in one of those areas, so I understand this stuff um better than most. And the officers were trying to break up a fight. You saw there was a lady that was unconscious, it ended up being that kid's mom, I think, or some somebody that was close to him. Uh and you see the officer using the new Taser 10 for any of those that know about that. Um, it has 10 shots and it shoots individual rounds. Did you you ever seen one of those, Morgan?

SPEAKER_07 1:55:38

No, no, it sounds awesome. I would, I would, I would let you shoot me with one.

SPEAKER_06 1:55:43

Yeah, come out. I will absolutely make that happen. So, but yeah, it shoots 10 probes, um, individual shots. So, you when you fire, you're you're intentionally trying to make your spread instead of depending on two of them shooting out at the same time and getting lucky.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:01

Like the old first gen X-26.

SPEAKER_06 1:56:05

Yeah, so this officer is, you know, you can see him, they dude takes a fighting stance, he's giving you all the indicators, and he's so close already. I I wouldn't you had four officers right there. I would have moved in. Somebody be in front of him to distract him, and the rest of them guys should have swarmed him. Uh, a little communication would have gone a long way, but he decided to go with the taser, which I'm okay with. Like the dude was squared up, he's ready to go, but it didn't work, and he stuck with it instead of abandoning it and and protecting himself. That's that's how I saw that. You guys got a different take. Morgan, you go first.

SPEAKER_07 1:56:48

No, I mean, look, people don't realize how quick it is to close the distance. Um, it if you've if you've ever been in like wrestling or jujitsu or any of those things, you you don't realize until you get into it, it's like five feet is not that's a step in a lunge. It's it's nothing. So you either gotta do one of two things. You either gotta go hot or you gotta back off. Yeah, he didn't either. He was like, I got this, I got this, bro. So yeah, it's like he's like he's like the the middle-aged lady with her mace. It's not gonna work most of the time, dude. Right? What do you got, Benny?

SPEAKER_00 1:57:24

I don't have anything on that. I mean, you're that close, you have to act now or pray that your write-up's not bad because you get knocked out, and it's it's unfortunate, but you have to, and uh, I've been unfortunately in in some of these scenarios to where if you don't act right then, eliminate that threat. You're gonna be on TikTok or whatever these reels are. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:57:50

I and I fortunately, I mean, I like to see the the bright side of everything, and and I I bet all three of us can can account for those hard lessons we've learned where we've gotten our bell rung. Uh, I've learned from all of those instances. So the positive that I look at this is you know, assuming his jaw didn't snap, uh, he's gonna come back and he'll be a hopefully safer officer in the future because of what he went through. Like and and he's not gonna be depending on that that taser or the pepper spray or the baton. He's gonna lean on trying to get better close-up training. Um, I think grappling is is the the number one thing that cops should be learning when it comes to anything, more than their firearm, more than uh the the other toys that are on their belt, more than driving. Um, because when when shit goes wrong and we get ourselves in trouble or we got to get ourselves out of trouble, like grappling is just the best way to go. Um, I lean towards weird.

SPEAKER_07 1:58:53

Yeah, the Romans used to do it naked, so like you get to do it with clothes on, it's fine.

SPEAKER_06 1:58:57

We're not even oiling up this time. So, I mean, when you train, it's a little different, but uh so I and I lean towards uh jujitsu. That's always gonna be my favorite for law enforcement because it's you're able to do things without you're able to do things under more control, I should say. Wrestling would probably be a close second. Uh people what about Krav McGraw? No, like no, it's not it's not law enforcement friendly.

SPEAKER_07 1:59:27

I would say boxing. Boxing actually teaches you space and distance and stepping and getting off the X, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:59:34

Yeah, I've been boxing the last three years, um, and I 100% agree. Uh I grappled for so long and avoided any sort of like striking arts, and I consider boxing an art. Um I just I just was I never got tired of the grappling. Like I did judo, did uh jujitsu, loved both of them, but started doing boxing the last three years. I love it. And just like you said, one of the you know mind-blowing moments was I'm like, man, I'm like unknowingly constantly just stepping offline, like just yeah, always working angles, and just like you said, yeah, that's why what do they call it? Sweet science or whatever they call it. Um, yeah, boxing's a great one. I don't like punching people in real life, guys. I I don't you'll hurt unless you got banning size hands.

SPEAKER_00 2:00:22

Well, I mean, here's the deal goes back to Mike Tyson back in the I think it's the early 90s. You have a plan until you get punched in the face.

SPEAKER_06 2:00:32

Yeah, everybody's got a plan until they're gonna be able to get it.

SPEAKER_00 2:00:33

Here's the deal you can be as badass as you want, you can go out and do asset moving, do this, do that, until you get punched in the face, what's your plan?

unknown 2:00:43

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 2:00:44

Yeah, because people react differently. It's a oh my god, their their guard goes down. And it's, I mean, seriously, if you cannot take a punch in the face, and and I have, I I've been a bitch learning it in the very beginning. Um, and to where you can actually learn on your painterceptors, you know, the punch in the face, dude, is is a serious deal.

SPEAKER_06 2:01:07

If you can't take the punch in the face, yeah, um lawful uh lawful acts 1955 said cops need to be better at managing distance and be more comfortable with the hands-on portion of the job, 100%.

SPEAKER_07 2:01:22

I like I like the comment for that. It's a check in the oil is just a bonus.

SPEAKER_06 2:01:26

That's yeah, for anybody who knows what checking the oil is. That's a little wrestler move. Man, some of them get brutal with that stuff. So I do a keto and we watch feet to determine distance. I've never done a keto. Um, and and this is where me and Mr. Bill Fold get along famously. Palm strikes are preferred over bare knuckle punch in my world, and I a hundred percent agree. Yeah, um, boss rootin basically made everybody very painfully uh aware of how good palm strikes are because he was knocking everybody out with with an open hand. They work, and it'll keep your hands healthy in the job. Um uh up the law, the El Ron said uh Krav Magaz very offensive, reliant on a lot of attacks, jujitsu is great defense and control.

SPEAKER_07 2:02:17

Yeah, that's why they they're different for Krav McGraw is just like grab the balls and yank. That's all yeah, that's all I remember from it.

SPEAKER_06 2:02:24

But yeah, dude, I mean it'll work so eyes and balls. That's really what it was. There's a great uh there's a famous video of uh some sort of militar special forces military guy against like uh another um country's special forces, and they go to fight, and they're all the guys are around and they they circle, and the there's only one strike even thrown, and it's him throwing his thumb into the dude's eye, and that was it. It was over, dropped him because there's a huge nerve center behind your eye. Um, and and yeah, it was it was the it's it's a crop magaw thing. So you can't do that in law enforcement, y'all, unless it's a deadly force situation.

SPEAKER_07 2:03:08

I hate that I hate to do this to you, but I gotta jam out, guys.

Morgan Signs Off And Where To Find Him

SPEAKER_06 2:03:11

Okay, no worries, brother. We appreciate having you on. Um, how can everybody find you and find your book?

SPEAKER_07 2:03:17

Oh, I'm the Blackwater dude. There you go. So I'm on TikTok, I'm on Instagram, uh kind of on X, but yeah, it's just Blackwater Dude, the number one, and then the book is the easiest way to get it, it's always Amazon, but you can get it anywhere. It's on Audible now. Um rave reviews for Jay Moore reading it. He screwed up a couple of the names of the cities, but we'll give him a pass. He never went overseas.

SPEAKER_06 2:03:42

Well, now that I know that it's on Audible, I'll definitely listen to it because I don't read. I don't read.

SPEAKER_07 2:03:47

It's it's a good road trip book. It's like nine hours of just poop jokes and then you know.

SPEAKER_06 2:03:53

All right. You mix it.

SPEAKER_07 2:03:54

If you're if you're former military, you'll get it. Like that's just all there is to it. You'll you you'll get it.

SPEAKER_06 2:03:59

I love it. Well, brother, we appreciate you uh staying on and uh blessing us with your story, and we'll catch you on the next. I we got to get you with uh donut shop and uh I can't remember who the other person was that was bullshitting with us. Yeah, so we'll get we'll get all of us on and we'll just we'll just shoot the shit, have some uh some drinks and see what we can come up with. But appreciate you being on. We're gonna stick around. I'm gonna stick on banning. I got some more videos we'll go through. Maybe we'll do some body cam stuff. So all right, brother.

SPEAKER_00 2:04:31

Thanks, brother. Appreciate you.

SPEAKER_06 2:04:35

Let me go here. There, he's off.

Petty Parking Tickets And Public Trust

SPEAKER_06 2:04:39

Okay. Um, yeah, I'm I'm in a good mood. I don't wanna I don't wanna stop yet. Uh let me oh, I hate when it does this. Anyway, um, okay, let's go to the next video. You're gonna like this one here, brother.

SPEAKER_00 2:04:57

He's a good dude, man. Thank you for that.

SPEAKER_06 2:04:59

Yeah, yeah. Morgan's cool. It is just we just linked up on social media. He reached out and he was like, Hey, would you be interested in having me on? I was like, what do you got? So talked about it. I was like, fuck yeah, let's go. I tried to you guys could tell. I was trying to move it towards policing the best I could, but it was fun. Either way, it was fun. It was a fun show.

SPEAKER_00 2:05:20

It's a different world, and people don't understand that whole world. They they get videos, they get the that 10%. Yep, yep. And we maybe after this we got 15%. You know what I mean? That's yeah, very small world.

SPEAKER_06 2:05:34

Did we do this one before? I don't remember if we did. This is the parking lot dude shows his badge off duty.

SPEAKER_00 2:05:41

Uh yes, we did on the live, I think last week.

SPEAKER_06 2:05:44

Did we?

SPEAKER_00 2:05:46

Yeah, so it was the one that the ladies speeding through the parking lot or whatever.

SPEAKER_06 2:05:50

Yeah, like an apartment complex. Yeah. Okay, then we won't cover that one again. I don't want to redo it. Um okay, let's share this tab instead. There we go. Okay. So backstory on this one is this uh this guy uh is some sort of car club dude, I think out of Canada, but he's in the States, and I believe this is Pennsylvania. Okay, okay, and he's uh he's parked in an angled parking spot. It looks like it's on a public roadway, if I if I'm not mistaken, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:06:22

Right.

SPEAKER_06 2:06:23

So um he backs into it, and they go off and they're walking the town, and then he's coming back to his car and sees this cop writing him a ticket. Um, and he's writing the ticket for being faced out. So I'm gonna play from there.

unknown 2:06:41

All right.

SPEAKER_08 2:06:44

Oh, no parking Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 30. Oh, you're about to park here. That's 3 a.m. 7 a.m. I wrote here for parking facing trap. Oh, I didn't know I couldn't do that. Well, think about it. When you pull out, you're gonna run right into this guy. He did it right. Everybody in the street did it right. How about the ticket? 10 US dollars for 25 Canadians of all the holy shit.

SPEAKER_06 2:07:37

First and foremost, I've never heard of that traffic law anywhere. Um, apparently we have it in Texas. Somebody had said in the comments on one of the social media platforms that it's in Austin. They have that in Austin somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 2:07:51

Well, in in Texas, I preach to the choir, but it's like if you park the wrong way on the oncoming street, you know, I'm talking about facing traffic on the right side of the road as you're approaching. That's against the law. But where he's parking at there, I've got an argument on that. I mean, that's that's holy.

SPEAKER_06 2:08:12

Either way, like the whole logic behind what he's saying doesn't make any sense to me that you're gonna go across traffic. When don't you go across traffic? If I'm stopped at a four-way and I have to make a turn, I still have to cross traffic. So what the fuck is the difference? 100%. At least if I'm facing out the cars that are coming towards me, you can see I can see them much better. Yeah, so uh I don't get that side of it. So whatever failed logic uh of reasoning you're trying to use on this, I don't agree. It's semantics, and then why? Why why are you writing it to begin with?

SPEAKER_00 2:08:50

Well, I think it's a it's it's probably a city ordinance on top of a state law, if I were to guess. Okay, still either way, this is really you're gonna you're gonna take your time to run the registration, run you know, this and this and this, you're gonna print your citation, you're gonna go up there and slap it on the window. What have we solved? Right. Yeah, that's that's the big thing is if we're gonna take taxpayer money, what have we solved? Right. What's the big what's the big win in this? Did we actually uh distract from crashes? Did we I mean what's what's the big picture on this? That that's where I have the problem.

SPEAKER_06 2:09:34

And then him being a cop and writing it, he more than likely ran the plate to see what it was. And it was a Canadian car. So you know they're not even from here. I'm going to have so much more grace for somebody that's outside of the state than I'm going to have for somebody that's in the state. Because if you're in the state, you should know.

unknown 2:09:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:09:52

If you're visiting, I'm not trying to again, this goes into the community relations stuff. I don't want somebody to come to Texas and have a bad taste in their mouth over some bullshit. So, you know, and I get it. Steve Wall said ten dollars is ten dollars. I get it. It is cheap, it's only ten bucks. But at the same time, like, how does it look on the outside looking in? To me, this is just Eric's opinion. I'm using Banning's line. This is Eric's opinion, is that uh it is a money grab because you saw a fancy car. It looks like a hater, it looks like a troll ticket. Like, uh thinks he's better than us driving this fancy car and not parking in the he bitched about him not being in the line. His tire was touching the white like that much. Would it have been a touchdown in football? Yeah, it'd have been a touchdown in football, but not by much. You'd had to use a replay on that one. 100%. So stupid. Oh my god, cops out there. Jesus. Is the juice worth the squeeze? Not on that. That money ain't going in your pot. You sure as shit ain't going to the police department. My drink's gone, I'm upset. Uh, so that shit pisses me off so much. I just don't get it. Uh, let me see what they're saying in the comments here. Lawful act said ten dollar fine that cost the city about a hundred dollars in labor hours to process. Yeah. See, that's another great point. At a minimum. Yeah, at a minimum.

SPEAKER_00 2:11:22

Um the dispatcher putting him out on the call, he's there, his his annual salary, and what he's explaining to this person on active calls that are waiting for patrol response.

SPEAKER_06 2:11:37

I and I like I said in the video, I back into every the spot. The only time I don't is when it's just significantly more inconvenient to try to back up. Um and and that's the other thing with this offense, air quotes, is if I didn't see it causing any sort of hazard, so if it's not parked so jacked up, like if it was parked jacked up and called. Causing a problem. That's one thing. And then the other thing would be is if he's he's trying to back into that position because it is angled and now it's causing traffic to back up. Right. Like if it's going to be a safety hazard because traffic's backing up. But that looked like it was in the middle of a town. So traffic's already going 30, 30 miles an hour-ish. So they slow down, they wait for you to back into the space, and then they're back on with their day. Like it's not that big a deal. So officers, you gotta think things through. And that guy's way too old to not be thinking that way. And I get it. Small town cops, man. I'm not I'm not bashing small town cops. You make up the 40. But and and I get that there's you know, you signed up because you wanted to do police work and there's not a lot going on sometimes for for a lot. Um it's not that small town cops never get to do some badass shit. They do, absolutely. But at the same time, like if there's not a lot to do and you're coming up with this stuff, come on now. I yeah, I I would want that car club to think of our town as a cool place to come visit. Not not as oh no, they're just out there to to hem us up because we have fancy cars. So I feel bad for that dude. I think that was a chintzy uh bullshit ticket there. Um we recovered that one. Um okay, this this was a this was a good one. This actually got way more traction than I thought it would. Um I think this one got this one across all platforms. It's sitting around 100,000 views, I think. Um let me share the screen here. And it all started because somebody asked me if I thought did I did I think this cop mishandled this firearm? And I'm like, well, I'm not really a firearms expert by any means, but let me see what we got here.

Did The Officer Mishandle The Gun

SPEAKER_06 2:13:57

So I'm gonna show you guys the video. Um AI, by the way, is getting a lot better at just making it up its own retro rifle shirts. So this is not a real retro rifle shirt, it just made up its own. I was I kind of like this one.

SPEAKER_02 2:14:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:14:12

Uh okay, let me hit play here. You tell me, did this officer mishandle this firearm? All right, let me start it off by saying I'm not a firearms actor. Okay, so I'm gonna go back if it will let me. I'm gonna go back, I'm gonna play it one more time because it is fast. Handle this firearm. Okay. So what I had said is that I didn't see him pointed at anybody. He didn't flag anybody, kept his finger off the trigger. Uh, he was keeping it pointed towards the wheel well, which he got the axle and the the the wheel itself right there, um, which is a good backstop. It's the bullet's not gonna travel through it. I'm not I don't know a whole lot about ricochet, but I I don't I don't see it coming back, um especially because cops use hollow points, so it's just gonna mush him up against it, may maybe spall that into the wheel wheel, but other than that, I he was a little aggressive with the slide, which I don't have an issue with either. You know, people say he was kind of doing a little John Wick style. I think when you're using somebody or when you're trying, you know, you've dealt with a lot of suspect guns and stuff, they're never taken care of. No, and uh, so sometimes it it's just sticky, and maybe that slide was a little sticky.

SPEAKER_00 2:15:55

Sometimes it locks back before it locks back, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_06 2:15:59

Yeah, and so you just use a little extra oomph behind it, and that's what I was like.

SPEAKER_00 2:16:04

What'd you see, Manny? Same thing. I mean, I I have no problems with it. I'm sure a lot of people did because they don't want to understand the firearms industry, but yeah, say anything negative about it.

SPEAKER_06 2:16:16

Yeah, just Memphis said we here in Mayberry. I love it, love the reference. Um but yeah, I I just I didn't have an issue with it. You know, there's there's the basic rules of firearms. You know, don't point at anybody you don't intend to shoot, keep your finger off the trigger. Um, always keep it pointed in a safe direction. Um what else we got? Uh, if you're trying to clear it, make sure visually and physically uh that it's clear. Um keep the slide locked back to the rear, magazines out of the weapon. Am I missing anything else? That's that's really it. Um yeah. That's just don't do that shit. Um, and I didn't see him do anything like that. And again, we don't know if the scene was secure yet. Uh he you don't want to be sitting there holding another firearm that you're not familiar with. You got nowhere to put it. Sure. And he had a guy on the ground there that his uh buddy was cuffing up, so I didn't see. I'm looking at the comments here. I don't see anybody else really chiming in, saying that they thought it was wrong. No lawful act said four firearm rules. You can violate one without disaster. More than that, danger is likely. Um might be able to violate one lawful. It depends on the rule. I don't know what he's talking about there. Uh the L Ron said, uh, don't lick it. Yeah, don't lick it, don't lick the firearm. That's always weird. Uh Lawful said, was it a SIG? Yeah, if it's a SIG, it'll just well, I'm not gonna say anything. I don't want SIG coming after me. Uh rumor is, or allegedly, that they just go off on their own.

unknown 2:17:56

Right.

SPEAKER_06 2:17:57

Um, I can say it that way.

SPEAKER_00 2:17:59

So I never tested it, so I'm not gonna go out there and say that that's true or not.

SPEAKER_06 2:18:05

Dude, so many people lost their shit over that video. Oh, yeah. It was insane. And so in the video itself was even tagged that this somebody needs to write this officer up and get him fired for mishandling this firearm. And I'm like, really? That that's what you want to fire somebody over?

unknown 2:18:23

Wow.

SPEAKER_06 2:18:24

Um, that's crazy. Okay, so we talked about the backing up one, the mishandling of the firearm. Um, I shared a lot of good cop stories this week. Um, I had uh I had a couple haters that got under my skin a little bit, I'll admit, saying, all you do is cop bash, all you do is cop bash. I don't think I ever cop bash. I'll put that out there. I think um I want accountability for uh very awesome power that we have, and we need to keep that in check at all times. And there's no better person to remind officers than another officer that you guys can't overstep. And when you do, this is what it looks like. And how do we learn from how do we get better? Uh for those that have followed us for a long time, you've realized I'm a stupid idealist and a uh optimistic person at heart. So I'm gonna keep doing that, but at the same time, we need to have good examples. Somebody actually put in the comments like, you can't keep calling a dog bad or kicking your dog, something to that effect. Can't keep kicking your dog and expect him to think that he's a good boy. Correct. Um, and I thought that was actually a really good analogy. So you you don't you don't want to sit there and just hate on cops to hate on cops. Like, if they do a good thing, even though that's a part of their job, you need to share it and you need to talk about it and explain why it's a good thing. You might inspire the next officer. You might inspire inspire the next future officer. So that's a good thing. Um I'm gonna share this one.

Turning Yourself In And Compassion Policing

SPEAKER_06 2:20:01

Okay, so this guy turns himself in. Okay. I thought this one really uh pulled at my heartstrings because I've dealt with this myself. Uh, not me having to turn myself in, but somebody turning themselves in uh to get clean. Self in for warranty has.

SPEAKER_05 2:20:21

It is somebody uh alcohol? Alcohol and so uh yeah, I was like a point four three three on everybody's level. Yeah, I'm gonna make some like you want to make a finding.

SPEAKER_04 2:21:04

Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_05 2:21:09

I appreciate you guys.

SPEAKER_06 2:21:12

Okay. So there's there's more to unpack on this than what meets the surface level. Like, first and foremost, those officers weren't they weren't just turn on, put your hands behind your back.

SPEAKER_02 2:21:27

Really?

SPEAKER_06 2:21:28

They they took the time to listen to his story. And they didn't have their hands on their guns. Shit, they weren't they they were chill. They just the whole time they were chill. I I felt like they cared. You know what I mean? The way that they were coming across was like they really cared. And so I love that. So you've got that side of it. Um, and this is when when we talk about emotional intelligence, I try it's a hard thing to teach, it's a hard thing to explain, but when you see it, you know it when you see it. And that's what we saw right there. That was emotional intelligence. So if I could ever give you guys a definition or an example, that was it. What do you got, Benny?

SPEAKER_00 2:22:09

No, same thing. I mean, it's like us as patrol officers, we've had a lot of people come up and say, I've got warrants, I can't deal with this anymore. Help me go to jail so I can take care of this. And it's unfortunately, I've dealt with that a lot. I know you have as well. In your career, it's like, okay, well, what's your warrant for? And this and that. No, it's for this, this, and this. And it doesn't matter if it's a running a stop sign, speeding, uh, you know, even unfortunately, child sport. It's like, okay, let's figure out what it is. Yeah. Find out is it extra dytable? Is it in our county? Can we do something to help this young man, young woman, whoever it is that's that's asking, and then you run it and you find out, and you're like, okay, we can help you out. We can do this, this, and this. Yeah. It's what we can do. I mean, if if it's a stop sign violation 200 miles away, but they're not willing to extradite, it's like, hey, I'm sorry, man. You're gonna have to go down to the reporting agency that's doing this because it's not showing up in our computer. It's you know, we we can't do anything for it because they won't extradite over it because it's in their jurisdiction. Yeah. I've had a lot of those. It's you know, uh, unfortunately, it's where it's at. You know, there's there's a certain thing that comes across the computer or what the dispatcher tells you on when you're running a person. Yeah. Can you do anything for them or not?

SPEAKER_06 2:23:45

Yeah, yeah. I I I really liked it. I thought it was a good example, and um and and that's kind of what I did for the for the week. Um or I should say I posted a bunch all at once. It was like four or five videos of cops just doing cool things. There was that one, there's one with them fixing a uh kid's bike. Um there was another one of let me see here. Uh so we had them fixing the bike. Um a toddler goes out in the middle of the road at night, had snuck out of the uh hotel room. Um so you had that one, and the officer found him, and then there was another one where there's a family having kind of like a picnic at the park, and the officer had drove up, came over and gave them like slushies and uh stickers. So it's just a lot of community outreach doing some good stuff. And officers, when you watch those, those are just ideas. Put them in the little idea bucket that you carry with you when you got some downtime and you're not having to handle calls. Those are all things that you can do. If you're kind of an introvert as an officer, and I get it, some officer it's weird to say there are some introverts as law enforcement. Uh, like that's ways to start creeping out of that that being introverted, um, doing things like that. Uh Wade said, I've turned myself in before. It does go a long way with cops told booking print uh give him a court date and let him go. See, yeah, that's awesome. Um lawful acid point four three three is lethal for most people. Might be the bottom that dude needed to hit to start bouncing up. Yeah, absolutely. I guess I didn't even look at what his alcohol level was. Yeah, that's a functioning alcoholic right there. Yeah, damn, crazy. Uh marine blood. You turned yourself in, Eric. You turned yourself into a great host. Aw. So sweet. So sweet. Um, yeah. Uh Mr. Billfold said, I dusted off my good popo playlist this week. It's pretty slim pickings, but it's there. Yeah, Mr. Billfold sends me some. So I've got them in the chamber. Um, I mix them in. I try to be pretty even. Uh, I have been a little more uh trying to hold cops accountable lately, so it was a good change of pace I needed to do. And uh I'm glad I did it. So I think I think it it did piss off a lot of people. It pissed off the uh we want to see the bad cops crowd. I'm like, oh, you can see plenty of that. I I got called a bootlicker quite a bit pushing those ones out. So they're not our main community guys. That's okay. Um,

Body Cam Shooting In A Crowd

SPEAKER_06 2:26:30

okay. Let's get into our let's get into our um, what do you call it? Body cam review stuff. Let's let's at least do one. Um let me pull this guy up. Uh shout out to police activity YouTube channel. That's where we are looking, share screen. Uh, anybody that knows what we do or doesn't know what we do here, basically we watch uh a body cam video that we've never seen before. And then we pretend that we are the cops in the video and break it down or break it down as it develops. So I'm going to biggie size this one. Don't eat up. Okay, there we go. And let me turn the volume down just a little bit because it's been loud in my ear. Here we go.

SPEAKER_11 2:27:24

You don't have to do any tricks on that scooter? Huh?

SPEAKER_12 2:27:33

Watch out for you. Whoa, we got you two.

SPEAKER_11 2:27:43

Yo, yo, yo, how we got shot.

SPEAKER_06 2:27:46

Oh shot. I didn't realize we were pulling out a gun already. I was just getting ready to say, okay, we got a fight breaking out in front of the cops.

SPEAKER_00 2:27:53

Yep.

SPEAKER_06 2:27:54

Um, that is crazy. Uh I'm gonna say, well, it just depends on the state you're in. In Florida, this is probably perfectly fine. Um in Texas, I think this is probably I don't think this would be bueno. This guy did come up and start the fight. It's still assault. Yeah, it's assault, but I don't know if that gives you the right to pull out a hand cannon. Um it just depends on what he sees. And there's so many unknowns right now. We don't know if this guy pulled out a gun because the guy that walked up and tried to fight him was threatening him with something else. We didn't see it. Um so alright. Uh so for me right now, I'm unassing my vehicle if I'm in it. That's the other thing. We don't know if the cops are actually in those cars or if they're just there to be barriers for cars so they can't build up a bunch of speed and run through people. Kind of looks like an entertainment district.

SPEAKER_10 2:28:55

So I'm gonna I'm actually gonna a little bit.

SPEAKER_11 2:29:00

I want to get that we got.

SPEAKER_10 2:29:30

Get down, get down, get down.

SPEAKER_06 2:29:33

Okay, so you're running up to a scene and there's somebody shooting a gun. This is the shitty part as a cop. Because what if that guy was defending himself? That that's a real possibility. And now you just shot a guy simply because he was firing a gun. Like that that's this is a hard one. This is this is a busy area or somewhat busy area. What do you got, Benny?

SPEAKER_00 2:30:06

No, same thing. I mean, it's all you all you can see is that responding officer is somebody's firing a gun. Yeah. You don't know if the other party has a gun, you don't know if they don't, and you're trying to end that threat right now.

SPEAKER_06 2:30:19

Yeah, you just see what looks like a threat, and somebody that's you know, maybe he's putting two and two together and seeing, like, okay, he's shooting in the direction of a person that I don't see has a gun. That could have been what's going through his mind, but it this is one of the decision-making things that you're gonna have to live with for the rest of your life. And you can get anybody that's dealt with adrenaline, like you can get wrapped up, you're not thinking clearly in situations like this sometimes. So they hear the shooting going on.

SPEAKER_09 2:31:17

Roll over, dude. Roll over. Get on your stomach. Get on your stomach. I can't roll, dude. Yes, you can. Get on your stomach. Get on your stomach.

SPEAKER_06 2:31:30

Alright, yeah, you gotta let the adrenaline kind of go through you here. I he got shot. Like, it doesn't mean he can roll over. He doesn't even, he's probably not even registering what you're telling him.

SPEAKER_00 2:31:42

No.

SPEAKER_06 2:31:43

So sometimes you just gotta make people do what you you're trying to get them to do. Now, I agree, you gotta get them secure. You gotta make sure there's no other weapons, and then you gotta go into first aid. You gotta secure the scene first and do first aid. Um, that's what I'm looking at from here. You got anything to add?

SPEAKER_00 2:31:59

No, 100%. That's what you covered.

SPEAKER_06 2:32:02

All right, let's uh let's keep going.

SPEAKER_09 2:32:04

Oh your fucking stomach! Oh bro!

SPEAKER_06 2:32:14

Now he's the guy that tried to do the fight, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:32:17

So I think he's the one that jumped on the scooter, am I not?

SPEAKER_06 2:32:23

I'll go back um when we get a second, because there's more in this video, but I think he was the one that tried to fight, like fist fight, and then another person, the other guy's the one that had the gun.

unknown 2:32:34

Right.

SPEAKER_06 2:32:35

I think. That's the type of response you want from an officer. Here's a gun, moves, moves towards the gunfire. That's a good officer. All right, I'm gonna go back. I wanna see. Okay, this is the guy that draws the gun. And then the dude in the white was the one that was trying to fight. It's hard to tell.

SPEAKER_00 2:34:01

After getting pushed off the scooter, he's like, you know what? I got some heat here.

SPEAKER_06 2:34:05

Yeah. Yeah. That's what that's how I saw that. But so yeah, that is a that's a shitty scenario to be in. Um, and it looks like they possibly shot the wrong person. Um, or that bad guy's the one that shot everybody. We don't know. I don't know what the uh what the final outcome of that was. Let me see what it says in the description. Um Albuquerque, New Mexico, on June 20th, 2026, confrontation proceeded between an unrelated incident when a 41-year-old reported being pepper sprayed uh and having his cell phone stolen during the altercation. Authorities said Grego later shared the video about that encounter on social media, and investigators believe he armed himself before returning to the area on July 3rd. Oh, this occurred on July 31st, maybe? Um, because of what happened before previously, just before midnight, Grigo was riding an electric scooter near Central Avenue and 3rd Street when he became involved in a verbal dispute with 40-year-old Juan Ortega. The argument quickly turned into a physical altercation after Ortega shoved Grigo, who then moved around a nearby barricade, pulled a handgun from his waistband, and opened fire. So we're right. That's the right person that shot. According to investigators, Grigo fired two shots within seconds of each other. Police say they the first bullet struck 38-year-old Richard Thyberg, so he was the bystander, who had become involved in the confrontation while the second hit Ortega. Officers assigned a patrol to the busy downtown nightlife district, heard the gunfire and immediately rushed towards the scene. As they closed in the encounter Grigo while the armed confrontation was still unfolding, officers repeatedly ordered him to stop before four officers fired their weapon, striking Grigo multiple times. Police later said one officer reported believing Grigo was advancing towards the wounded Ortega, who was already on the ground, creating what officers perceived to be an immediate deadly threat. Okay, so they thought they were in defense of somebody. Turns out they were in defense of the right person. Sure. Grigo was taken into custody and transported to a local hospital where he later died from his injuries. Investigators said he suffered six gunshot wounds. The shooting left four people injured. Ortega, Thyberg both survived their gunshot wounds, although Ortega later died afterwards from what police described as an apparent overdose unrelated to the shooting. A fourth victim, who was standing roughly a block away, was struck by a straight bullet that investigators believed may have been fired by an officer. Ooh. Yeah, though officials say ballistics and trajectory testing must be completed before the source can be confirmed. Detective also recovered a Glock 48 handgun at the scene, and investigators later learned the firearm had allegedly been stolen from a friend Grigo, a friend of Grigo before the shooting. This remains under review by the task force internal affairs.

SPEAKER_00 2:37:29

Crazy, crazy. Don't know everything, but I think most of it's on camera.

SPEAKER_06 2:37:34

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Um, shotguns and tattoos. I see she bounced. Sorry, I missed that. Uh good night. Um, yeah, and looking at the chat, looks like everybody, everybody's pretty much wrapped up what we already talked about.

SPEAKER_02 2:37:51

400.

SPEAKER_06 2:37:52

That's what I've got for tonight. That's what I thought it was a good show. I thought it was a good one.

SPEAKER_00 2:37:57

Oh, I did too.

SPEAKER_06 2:37:59

Yeah, Morgan was great. Great interview, fun to talk to, funny. Um, looking over at uh TikTok and Instagram, we had some people chime in over there. Appreciate you guys. Got some roses sent over on TikTok. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 2:38:14

I literally had a five-hour drive, got here, got my equipment upstairs, got it in the room, and we went live. So I apologize for any unprofessionalism on my side with the cameras and everything else, man. It's uh I was like, I'm not missing this. Here we go. And I I ran into construction. I finally got here to San Antonio, and I'm glad I was able to come out with you.

SPEAKER_06 2:38:38

Hell yeah, brother. This was uh this was a good one. So um for the donations tonight, Harrison and um what was the other guy? Um begins with an R. I can't scroll back and find it because it's gone. Uh Rumble. Rumble uh joined us and got a membership. So thank you guys very much. Morgan, thank you for joining us tonight. I know he's not here with us, but maybe he'll hear it. Uh, we will get this downloaded and get it uploaded to our Buzz Sprout so it hits Apple and Spotify and all the other uh cool spots so you can listen. Um once again, guys. Great show, great audience. Thanks everybody for chiming in and being a part of the community. I think that's what makes us so fun. Is we really do have a good community. Uh if you're listening in the interwebs and you're you're you're you're not participating in the the chatting, that is really part of the benefit of this show. Uh, I would love for you guys, whether you like police, hate police, anything like that, you want to see some some change or you really got something to say, man, just reach out to us, chat in the comments with us. Uh, and I promise we as long as you're somewhat somewhat on the realm of just trying to have a real conversation, we'll we're all about it.

unknown 2:39:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:39:55

So if you if you come in though and you're like, you know, FTP and you just keep repeating that we're self-proclaimed heroes, and you don't actually have a topic that you want to touch on, you just want to troll us. Like you can sit there and troll, but we're just not gonna chat with you. That's all. But uh all right,

Wrap Up Community Invite And Schedule

SPEAKER_06 2:40:14

guys. Uh, we got some great interviews coming Sunday nights, 8 p.m. Eastern. Join us uh and everybody have a good night.

SPEAKER_00 2:40:23

Appreciate y'all.