Latest / Murders to Music: Crime Scene to Music Scene (Streamline Events and Entertainment) / Snapshot: True Heros, Tennis Shoes and Ashes: What Stays After the Flames

Transcript

Snapshot: True Heros, Tennis Shoes and Ashes: What Stays After the Flames · Murders to Music: Crime Scene to Music Scene (Streamline Events and Entertainment)

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, this is a Murders to Music Snapshot.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: I'm going to tell a story about a case that occurred a few years ago, but I'm going to be very sensitive when I tell this because this is a case that was truly tragic, truly affected a lot of people's lives, and not in a good way, and I won't go into a ton of detail.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: But what I do want to talk about is my experience with this case, which was very limited.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: I want to say that the police officers involved in this case were absolutely heroes.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: They absolutely did the right thing.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: I saw more heroism in this one investigation, in this one case, than I saw collectively in my 21 years of law enforcement, and I want to say that to the men and women who know about this case or who was involved in this case I truly am honored to have worked beside you for so many years.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: You, guys and girls, are absolute heroes.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: The long and the short of the case is this A domestic violence situation erupted and the mother and father had two young girls, 11 and 13.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: The father took the two young girls out of the house and left with them, leaving the mother behind.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Within a short period of time, the father sent a threatening text message to the mother indicating that he intended to harm the girls.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Within a short period of time, patrol officers located a suspect vehicle and, upon approach, gunfire erupted from the suspect vehicle towards the police officers.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Gunfire erupted from the suspect vehicle towards the police officers.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: The police officer returned fire from inside of his moving vehicle and about that time the suspect vehicle went up in flames.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: At the end of the day, the father killed the two girls and set the car on fire.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Now, everybody involved in this case was affected in a different way for different reasons, but what happened next is nothing short of heroism.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Police officers responded this is all caught on camera.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Police officers responded A burning vehicle filled with partially full gas cans.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Police officers busted out windows and climbed into that burning car to rescue the two young ladies that were in the vehicle.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: The two young ladies were pulled out of the car but ultimately did not survive the injuries inflicted upon them by their father.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: And then detectives got called on this case and one of the things in law enforcement that we don't really you don't understand until you've been there is the impact that a case like this will have on you or firefighters, and seeing this for five minutes and then, moving on to the next call, we have the pleasure of either being directly involved in this and when I say pleasure, you know I don't mean it being directly involved in the critical incident or being involved in the aftermath.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: And in this case we walked around this crime scene for about 18 hours.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: 18 hours of sifting through the ashes and three deceased human beings and dealing with and allowing that to soak in the people.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: The shock, the smell, all of that soaking in to our senses.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: That is what people don't understand.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: That is the true cost of the job that detectives and police officers do.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: We get this bad rap because we're out writing tickets or whatever defund the police or the protest or whatever other bullshit is going on.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: What people don't understand is the absolute true cost on the human being, on our souls, that it takes to do this job.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: The police officers who are directly involved in this are absolute heroes, the absolute best of the best.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: The police officer that climbed into that burning car.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: I will never forget what that image looked like on the video that I watched.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: On the video, because I have the pleasure of not being there when there's radiating thousands of degree heat out of that vehicle.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: I was at home asleep, not even knowing this was going on, but somewhere in a town not far away in my town, this was unfolding.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: Then we get called for the aftermath.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: When I walked up on that crime scene, I saw the suspect sitting in the driver's seat and out of all of the people that I've ever dealt with in my career, this was pure evil.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: I had to stop myself from pulling my gun out and shooting his corpse as he sat in that seat.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: I have never been filled with more anger or rage or frustration or just pissed off in my entire career.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: When you see evil, you know it.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: This man in his scorched, burned body was pure evil.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: The way that his skin tightened up and his neck stretched back.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: He was pure evil Charcoal black.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: But then what really hit me is, as I walked towards the rear of the car, I see the tarps that lay over the young women.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: At 11 and 13 years old.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: I remember their shoes sticking out from beneath the tarp At least one of them, one set of shoes and I remember thinking my kids have shoes just like that and my two boys are 11 and 13.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: And for years I fought so hard not to envision my kids in a crime scene, but in this case it was just unbearable and I couldn't.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: I imagined my children laying there as we stepped over and around this crime scene for hours To the detective whose job it was to work this crime scene.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: You're an absolute saint.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: We have a love-hate relationship he and I, but we work really really well together on major crimes and, sir, you did an amazing job and I honor you for what you did on this case.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: It was those little things like the tennis shoes or that smell that affected me for years.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: It was those things that every time I see a pair of white little lace-up, simple shoes, that brings me back to that scene.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Or when I smell that certain smell in the air driving down the road and somebody's got a campfire going or they're burning trash and I have that same smell.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: You know the smell that was in the parking lot that night.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: When I smell that, it takes me right back to that pure evil sitting there.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: It's these types of things that affect us and get into our psyche and these are the reasons why therapy is so important in our lives.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: These are the reasons why it's so important to thank that cop to wrap your arms around them, to love on them.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: I'm not the only one and we're not the only ones that have experienced this.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: This is experienced every single day across our nation that have experienced this.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: This is experienced every single day across our nation.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: And until you have had the experience of the crime scene and the critical incident or the pleasure of trying to connect the dots and solve this puzzle for the victim's families, then you don't truly understand.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: But it's these types of things that get into our psyche, get into our mind, shut down our nervous system, cause us to go and fight, flight and freeze and really screw up our worlds.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: I was going to say F up our worlds, but I didn't because I wanted to be nice.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: It truly screws us up and, um, there's help.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: You know there's people out there listening to this that have experienced the same types of things and maybe I'm hitting a nerve right now or maybe you're like man.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: I haven't resolved that, but I know that it can be resolved and I know from experience.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: You know I wouldn't be talking about this unless this has been cleared and resolved and that nine-year-old or 11-year-old and 13-year-old and their white tennis shoes and the smell of gasoline and charred remains.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: If that was still affecting me then I wouldn't be talking about this right now.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: But I bring it to you because through therapy, through hard work, this has been cleared and I no longer have the emotional baggage that was once tied to this circumstance and these series of events.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: I am not a hero in this case.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: I did nothing more than investigate.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: In the aftermath, the true heroes were on scene, felt the heat, heard the screams, smelled the smells.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Those are the true heroes in this case and those heroes are surrounded by you every single day when you're out there on the streets.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: These are the ones who work hard so we can sleep peaceful on our bed at nights.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: At nights, it's the impact of the shoes, of the smells, of the circumstances, case after case after case after case, that affects law enforcement, and that is why PTSD is real.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, this has been a Murders to Music Snapshot.