Latest / Heroes Behind the Badge / He Survived a Shotgun Ambush Then the System Failed Him - Part 2

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He Survived a Shotgun Ambush Then the System Failed Him - Part 2 · Heroes Behind the Badge

0:12
Paul Boomer: Welcome back to Heroes Behind the Badge.
0:14
In the last episode, you heard Tom Weitzel's Story of Survival, how Gang
0:18
members Shotgun Blast nearly ended his career and his life during a
0:22
routine parking violation stop in 1987.
0:25
Tom's Bulletproof vest saved him that night.
0:27
He returned to duty, rose through the ranks and became chief of police.
0:32
But the gang member who shot him, he walked free.
0:34
The statute of limitations expired before he could be charged.
0:38
In this episode, were talking about Tom's fight to change the system
0:42
that failed him, his advocacy for federal prosecution of line of duty,
0:46
death cases, and why he believes.
0:48
Every officer in America deserves justice.
0:52
This is heroes behind the badge.
0:53
Part two, Fighting for Justice.
0:55
Bill Erfurth: you were leading by example and I'm sure ultimately
0:58
the morale there was quite good.
1:02
you're telling a story about you.
1:04
How they came to you and said, put your paperwork in if you
1:09
want to become the chief.
1:10
We have a, person on our advisory council.
1:13
He was a deputy chief on a department, and, they decided
1:18
that they were gonna do a search.
1:20
Outside, like a lot of places do.
1:22
And he basically said, I've nearly died blood, sweat, and tears for
1:28
this agency for countless years.
1:30
I've got every - you know, every accomplishment, every award.
1:34
And if I'm not good enough and you gotta find somebody
1:36
else, then find somebody else.
1:37
And you know what?
1:38
He just retired.
1:39
Boom.
1:40
It was insulting.
1:41
It was insulting for him.
1:42
It was probably insulting for you,
1:43
Tom Weitzel: and I was in the position of acting chief, so I would
1:46
probably would've gone back to deputy chief or operations lieutenant.
1:49
And, but I, was serious.
1:51
I'm like, I'm not, you're not offending me if you don't, if you don't know my
1:54
skills and know what, and here if you don't want me as your chief, that's okay.
1:59
I, it wasn't, I wasn't gonna go behind a rock and cry, and literally the next day
2:06
they came and said, yeah, you are the guy we want, let's negotiate an employment
2:10
contract so you could stay here.
2:13
And they kept me there for 13 years till I retired.
2:15
Craig Floyd: I love it.
2:16
So Tom.
2:18
Bill Erfurth: Go ahead, Craig.
2:19
Craig Floyd: I was just gonna say, I, we started this organization,
2:24
citizens Behind the Badge, in part because of, wholly because of the
2:29
defund and defame, the police movement.
2:32
But one of the problems that we were trying to solve and continue to work
2:36
on is the recruitment and retention problem within law enforcement that
2:41
was created by the Defund movement.
2:44
Your story, I think, is inspiring in many ways because not only did
2:48
you go back on the job after nearly dying, for your community, but three
2:53
of your sons are now police officers.
2:57
and, so many officers I've talked to, recently during the defund
3:02
movement especially have said.
3:04
They would not encourage their children to become law enforcement
3:08
officers because of the climate today.
3:11
the, degradation of law enforcement, the, potential, civil and, criminal, penalties
3:19
they may face for simply doing their job.
3:22
But with all of that as background, and you live through the defund movement,
3:26
your three sons are now police officers.
3:28
so number one, how did your wife feel about that?
3:32
And number two, why would you encourage your sons to become a
3:37
law enforcement officer today?
3:40
Tom Weitzel: My wife, I'll start with that.
3:42
she wishes they could have gone.
3:43
My wife's an accountant, she would always say, couldn't
3:46
one of them be an accountant?
3:47
There you go.
3:49
and I had two that always wanted to be policemen.
3:52
They wanted to follow in my footsteps.
3:54
They really did.
3:55
They currently, all suburban Chicago police officers here, they've all
4:00
been on 10 years or more, and.
4:03
I encourage them.
4:04
That's true.
4:04
'cause when they were little kids, I brought 'em to every
4:07
police event our department had.
4:09
if we had a, what we would call a Turkey shoot or we had a
4:13
Christmas with Santa, the police, I always had my kids come with me.
4:16
So they were, she used to that culture and they were used to police officers.
4:21
My third son wanted to be a teacher.
4:24
He just randomly tested with a suburban police department and got
4:29
an offer, and then he took that job and now he's a sergeant on
4:32
that department and he loves it.
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But I, my wife would, to this day, she would like them to do
4:39
something else because it's hard.
4:42
It was hard to go through that to fund the police movement because.
4:45
My son went, their departments went from being revered to people
4:49
would put signs out on their lawn.
4:51
They, used to put signs, we support the police.
4:54
And then the yard signs were defund the police and defame the police.
4:58
And they would put all kinds of anti-police rhetoric and they
5:03
weren't used to seeing that.
5:04
And it really affected them.
5:06
And as how difficult recruiting and retention is, they were.
5:12
Individuals were coming into profession that never wanted to be
5:15
police officers or they were getting what I consider lower caliber.
5:19
'cause what happened here in Illinois is they lowered the police entry standards
5:23
because they were having so difficult time recruiting officers after the defund,
5:28
the police movement and the George Floyd murder in Minneapolis, they, what, when I
5:34
left Riverside, the last exam that we gave for police officer, 10 people showed up.
5:41
10 years before that, we had 350 for the written exam.
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So it had plummeted.
5:49
But I always told my kids, this is the best profession.
5:51
It's the most honorable profession.
5:53
You will enjoy it, you will love it.
5:55
There will be times you hate.
5:57
There will be times that are really good, but it is a honest
6:00
profession and honorable.
6:02
And you know what?
6:03
They bought into that and they still buy into it.
6:05
And I'm asked today, I asked the other day, somebody said
6:09
to me, Tom, would you still.
6:11
Today, recommend that all of your sons go into policing, and I said I would.
6:16
I'm not one.
6:17
I am absolutely 100% behind this profession and I would support my
6:23
sons going into this profession now.
6:26
And I also encourage other people that are still looking for a really
6:30
honorable profession to still come in.
6:32
'cause we need new blood.
6:34
when I left this chief, we need new officers coming in to the profession
6:39
that have the skills we need.
6:41
Bill Erfurth: Tom, give us a little inside story in the Wezel house when
6:46
your first son decided he was gonna become a cop, and, what the dynamics
6:51
were in that household and how did he get the other two brothers to follow,
6:58
or what was the reaction overall?
7:00
Tom Weitzel: So my first son took the first job.
7:03
He could, you get out of college, you're, testing.
7:06
He was working, but he was testing.
7:07
So he took a town in the south suburbs, hired him, called University Park.
7:13
He stayed there about six months because, he wanted to move on
7:17
to a department that was larger.
7:20
and had more, opportunities for advancement and he ended up going
7:25
through two departments, a department in Illinois called, suburban La Grange
7:29
Park, and then he ended up in North Riverside, which was next to where I work.
7:34
Different community though, and.
7:37
He loved it and he would come home and just tell my other sons about
7:41
how fantastic it was and how, he, they were making arrests every night.
7:47
'cause that's, what he thought his job was.
7:50
and they were, the community supported law enforcement.
7:54
he had a really good department.
7:56
The structure was good.
7:57
They had a lot of opportunities.
7:59
So he never said a bad word about it.
8:02
And that really.
8:03
My other, my two other sons, my middle son, youngest son, they, would listen
8:08
to that because at then they were living at home and they would listen to that.
8:12
And, I think it, I think my oldest son Alex, played a huge
8:15
influence on my other two sons.
8:18
Bill Erfurth: Excellent, excellent.
8:19
And then now, today, as things have evolved, and like you're saying,
8:23
there used to be the 'supports your police' signs and the lawn, and now
8:27
they're, Protesting against the police.
8:31
It's the defund, defame the police.
8:33
And I think you've got a story to tell us that your kids now are actually involved
8:38
in What we've seen, so oftentimes on the news now is there's a, an ice facility
8:44
outside of Chicago there and they have had protests going on a daily basis.
8:49
And it's been something that your three kids now have to deal with.
8:54
Tom Weitzel: Yeah.
8:54
So that is, the ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois.
8:58
Just minutes from where two of my sons work and the smaller agencies
9:03
have these mutual aid packs.
9:05
And what happens is when they have these big protests, they're,
9:08
they don't have enough officers to handle it, even with ICE themselves.
9:12
And it sometimes they had, border patrols still there.
9:15
They would have to call on the Cook County Sheriff's, police, state police and local
9:19
police to assist them in skirmish lines.
9:22
And, controlling, Protests.
9:26
So my, I have sons that have been there on a regular basis
9:29
and it is brutal Over there.
9:32
The officers are being targeted, they're being, injured on a regular basis.
9:38
They're having bottles and bricks chucked at them.
9:40
They're having.
9:42
dog feces wrapped up in plastic bags thrown at the officers.
9:46
They're having bottles for urine thrown, and it's all staged.
9:51
My sons will tell me that every time they do this, they wait until
9:55
the media gets there and then the confrontation takes place.
10:00
The confrontation, if the media is not there covering it.
10:03
All it is yelling and screaming.
10:05
Once the news stations and the print media shows up, then the surge is
10:10
on to get in the facility where the confrontation takes place.
10:14
So it's very staged for media attention.
10:19
Bill Erfurth: So staged, so disingenuous.
10:22
the other thing too is, we're treating all these people with such kid gloves.
10:28
this is a funny story.
10:29
I was in the gym the other day and it was, we were literally talking
10:32
about this, ice facility outside of Chicago there in Illinois, and one
10:36
of the guys in the gym said to me.
10:39
Why aren't you?
10:39
Why aren't the cops just blasting the balls off of them with the water cannons?
10:43
Why don't they use the water cannons anymore?
10:45
And I said, man, I would love to see that.
10:48
I would love to see the water cannons, it's the kid gloves.
10:51
Oh, we gotta treat 'em so well, blah, blah, blah.
10:53
These little babies, the thing of it is, if they'd have blast their
10:57
ass with the water cannons one day.
10:59
That would be the only day we'd ever hear about that.
11:02
because it would be over.
11:04
Tom Weitzel: Yeah.
11:04
they're allowed, just recently allowed to use less than lethal weapons.
11:08
And here's the thing with that, like that's what they're designed for.
11:11
They're less than lethal.
11:12
In fact, many of these activists that are at this Broadview facility,
11:15
they've been preaching that for years, that police should use
11:18
other tools than their firearms.
11:20
now they've been able to use a pepper ball.
11:24
Guns, stun guns, sometimes some type of mac or a chemical agent and
11:30
the newspapers here in the Chicago metropolitan area are blasting the police
11:34
for using the less than lethal options.
11:37
And I was, I commented the other day, somebody interviewed me.
11:40
I said that, I said, these are the weapons that you designed for
11:44
police to use less than lethal.
11:47
It's what they're meant for.
11:49
It's what you've been advocating for.
11:50
Now they're being used and now you're slamming the police saying
11:53
they should not be using them.
11:55
Like what, do you think that the police officer's job is to sit there
11:58
and get the crap beat out of 'em?
12:00
'cause it isn't, that's not in their job title.
12:02
They're allowed to defend themselves.
12:04
They, it's, it, you don't have to be attacked to defend yourself.
12:08
my situation, you don't have to be shot to shoot back.
12:13
there's this notion out there that you have to be stabbed or shot, or you have to
12:17
be attacked first before you can respond.
12:19
And that is not the legal standard in Illinois.
12:22
Bill Erfurth: Good for you, Tom.
12:23
Good for you for saying that.
12:25
For standing up and voicing that loud and clear.
12:30
I, would just like to see, like in the mornings when all those idiots
12:33
show up, just, greet 'em with a wave of tear gas every day and just
12:37
say, good morning motherfuckers,
12:41
Craig Floyd: What they're doing.
12:42
This attitude that cops, can't use force of any kind, is resulting
12:49
in, serious threats to the lives of police officers who are now
12:53
hesitant to use force when necessary.
12:56
Even less than lethal force, let alone lethal force.
13:00
But sometimes if you don't react, within seconds, your life.
13:05
Could be taken by these criminal, animals out there that are, it
13:10
could care less about a cop's life.
13:12
They don't even care about their own lives.
13:14
Tom, I know we're getting near the inter, this interview, but a couple quick points.
13:19
One, thank you.
13:20
I understand you're an ambassador now for the National Law Enforcement
13:23
Officer's Memorial Fund and I started that program way back when, when.
13:29
I was still with the Memorial Fund and I'm so thankful for people like yourself,
13:34
seasoned veterans of law enforcement, people that have great integrity, great
13:39
reputations now, talking about the importance of the memorial, the importance
13:44
of the National Law Enforcement Museum, the importance of Destination Zero,
13:49
our safety program, trying to promote the safety and wellness for officers.
13:53
So thank you, sir for that.
13:55
I wanted to have that opportunity to thank you myself.
13:58
But last question I had for you is, I understand you have a bit of a
14:04
personal crusade going on right now where you're trying to get the federal,
14:09
prosecutors to take over line of duty death cases when it comes to law
14:14
enforcement, as opposed to leaving it up to the state and local jurisdictions.
14:19
I, I'd just like you to talk about that.
14:21
What's your thinking behind that type of change in the way we
14:24
deal with line of duty deaths?
14:27
Tom Weitzel: It's my, first of all, it's my honor to serve as
14:29
an ambassador for the memorial.
14:31
No question about that.
14:33
And the individuals I work most with, I love and, my direct supervisor,
14:38
Matt Garcia, is superior individual that I work with at the, the memorial.
14:44
So what I've been trying to do for 15 years is I saw over the years
14:49
that all police investigations, when there's a police.
14:52
Line of duty death aren't handled the same way.
14:55
And in fact, in many rural areas and small communities who don't have the resources
15:01
and don't request a lot of assistance from either their state police or federal
15:05
partners, those investigations are not conducted and evidence is not collected
15:11
universally throughout the United States.
15:13
And I believe that, some of those cases, are, there's missteps.
15:18
There's, Evidence missed, there's leads missed.
15:22
There's, a, local politicians who serve as state's attorneys who don't really
15:28
push, for prosecution in the right manner.
15:33
I'm a huge believer in that we need to have uniformity in that.
15:37
So I was pushing this federal legislation that would make the murder of a
15:42
police officer in the line of duty.
15:44
A federal crime and investigated by federal agencies similar to
15:50
what I theorized was the FAA has this thing called a GO team.
15:54
So when an airplane crash happens, the FAA immediately.
15:59
Dispatch is this go team that comes with experts in everything, Boeing engines,
16:05
gas, the, manufacture, everything.
16:08
So I, I envisioned a GO team when a police officer's killed in the line of duty that
16:13
this go team would come with the federal prosecutor, FBI, secret service, a TF.
16:19
Evidence collection people from FBI and they would work
16:23
with the local law enforcement.
16:25
we wouldn't X them out of it, but we would work together and then the
16:29
prosecution would be at the federal level.
16:31
So there's no politics involved you that survivors families and I really
16:37
have become a advocate working with the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial
16:41
Fund, ambassador for family - victims families need to be heard, and you need
16:46
to trust the investigation of your loved one that was murdered in the line of duty.
16:51
You need to trust that investigation.
16:53
You need to trust the department knows what they're doing and that the
16:56
prosecution knows what they're doing and you go for the full extent of the law.
17:00
I'm not a person that believes there should be any.
17:03
Parole or early release for any police officer, the offender
17:08
that shoots and kills a police officer or stabs them or whatever.
17:11
You should serve 100% of your time, if not get the death penalty.
17:16
I have been criticized for some of that, but that's my belief.
17:19
I think that needs to be uniformed as far as.
17:23
A federal statute, so that I've been fighting for that for 15 years.
17:28
the only administration to acknowledge me is the Trump administration.
17:32
I reached out to, the Biden administration twice.
17:37
I've reached out to the, federal prosecutor's office.
17:43
they have never gotten back to me in previous administration, my own
17:46
state, federal, Tammy Duckworth, for example, or, Mr. Durbin, I have
17:56
emailed them, called their office, wrote them letters that I keep.
17:59
This all, never ever a response from them, even an acknowledgement that,
18:04
Hey, maybe I could work with you and look into if this doesn't work, we
18:07
could come up with a modification.
18:09
Never had a response.
18:11
Bill Erfurth: Tom, you're a hundred percent right on
18:13
that a hundred percent right?
18:15
And quite frankly, if it were to go federal, you could then move forward with
18:22
the death penalty in all 50 states, right?
18:25
Because you don't have the death penalty otherwise.
18:27
And, you know your point and what you're talking about, you
18:32
and Craig should get together.
18:34
Tom, you should put this op-ed together.
18:36
Craig can help you get that published and we can help you, even
18:41
bring that in front of Congress.
18:42
So I, think that's something we should follow up on.
18:45
Sure.
18:45
Craig Floyd: I love that idea.
18:47
And, we are advocating for a piece of legislation that's been in Congress the
18:52
last, couple of congresses at least.
18:55
it's called the Thin Blue Line Act.
18:57
And basically this would allow for.
19:01
More circumstances where the death penalty for killing a law
19:05
enforcement officer would be in play.
19:08
And to Bill's point, there are many states, most states in this nation,
19:14
who have eliminated the death penalty and have never imposed the death
19:18
penalty in decades and never will.
19:21
but if, in fact, this was made a federal crime.
19:25
To Bill's point, it would be eligible for the death penalty.
19:31
Tom, let's plan on working together, seeing what we can do.
19:34
I love the idea of an op-ed that would make the case and
19:38
explain why this would be a good, change, something that is needed.
19:44
Why, and, we can certainly help, amplify that message.
19:49
thank you sir. once again, I think we, nailed it.
19:53
Dennis and Bill, we call our show Heroes Behind the Badge.
19:57
I think we've got heroes in our midst.
20:01
Tom.
20:02
Dennis Collins: He's not a hero, but I would disagree with him.
20:04
Bill Erfurth: Tom, you got me fired up today.
20:05
You got me on a roll a couple of times.
20:08
Dennis Collins: Yeah.
20:08
You, really, I don't know of anybody that we've had as a guest that embodies what
20:13
Citizens Behind the Badge is all about.
20:16
Tom is like perfect.
20:19
what courage?
20:21
you take a stand and you stand up for what's right.
20:25
we appreciate you telling your story.
20:27
your story's not just about.
20:30
That night that changed your life.
20:32
It's about what you chose and it was your choice, what to do afterwards, how
20:37
you fought for others, and how you've continued to serve long after you
20:42
retired the badge because of your fight.
20:45
Officers across Illinois are safer because of your persistence.
20:51
The law is stronger because of your voice.
20:54
Which we heard today loud and clear because of your voice,
20:58
family spacing, that worst day of their lives are not alone.
21:03
So Tom, Weitzell, thank you for telling your story.
21:06
Thank you for representing for police.
21:09
Thank you for showing all of us what commitment looks like
21:14
long after the sirens fade.
21:16
We appreciate it.
21:17
Tom Weitzel: Thank you.
21:18
I'm honored.
21:19
Dennis Collins: And let me remind our listeners.
21:22
Heroes Behind The Badge is a podcast brought to you by
21:25
Citizens Behind the Badge.
21:27
Citizens Behind the Badge is the leading voice of the American people in support
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of the men and women of law enforcement.
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You can get involved and if you liked anything, Tom Wezel said today and
21:40
there was a whole lot to like his stand and his theory on policing.
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That's it for this episode of Heroes Behind the Badge.
22:36
We look forward to seeing you again.
22:38
We'll give you a nice warm welcome back very soon on the new episodes
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of Heroes Behind the Badge.