Latest / Blue Grit Podcast: The Voice of Texas Law Enforcement / #041- "Be Relentless" w/ Aaron Slater Part 1

Transcript

#041- "Be Relentless" w/ Aaron Slater Part 1 · Blue Grit Podcast: The Voice of Texas Law Enforcement

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: This episode is brought to you by TNPA Charities and the second annual TNPA play shoot, held November 2nd at the Elm Fork shooting range in Dallas, texas, benefiting the Texas peace off.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: And he goes later.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: What do you want to do with your life?
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: I just say I don't know, I have no idea he goes.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Why don't you become a cop?
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: There's anything in life that you want that will always be off.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: You go over them, around them, under them, right through them, but you accomplish what it is that you want.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: I said yes, sir, because that means you have to be relentless.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Hey, blue Grit, we are back this week.
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: Your host, clint Mere and Tyler Owen TO in the house.
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: We have a Texas legend on today.
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't go that far, aaron.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Slater with the.
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: Relentless Defender, apparel Welcome.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: Thank you guys.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: I appreciate being here.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, it's a pleasure.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: It's a pleasure having you on Before we kick off.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: we have a whole lot Slater.
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: Slater's been a great friend to us personally but he's been an open book with his organization to help and support.
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: When we called about the podcast, we'd been down there on his podcast and when we called kicking around this idea, there was no hesitation.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: There was no are you guys a competitor?
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: It was 100% immediately.
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: Bring your ass down here.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: Look at my studio.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: What can I do to help you?
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Probably in those words to get your ass down here.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: I'm an open book.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: It may have been verbatim.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, 100%, 100%.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: What can I do to support you?
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: What do you guys?
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: need.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: Come look at the studio.
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: Figure out what you get in Without Slater, without Joe King and Dallas podcast, without Tony God, when it kept fish cops podcast, we wouldn't be where we're at and we're not very far and we're a work in progress, but I'll give you a slater.
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: Aaron Slater's been an integral part of that.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: Welcome here, brother, glad, glad to have you on Well.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: thank you for having me again, absolutely, absolutely.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: So we kind of kick off the podcast as far as you know who you are as a person and you've got a large, large company and I really want to kind of dive or delve into how that got started.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: But, man, tell us about you.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Tell us, tell us who Aaron Slater is and where you grew up, and all that kind of good stuff.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: Who the hell is.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Aaron yeah.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: Well, here's what I get the most shit about is I was born in Montana and we're at Montana in Missoula.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Really yes.
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: I did not know that I love.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Montana.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: See, we did have something that we just found out Well, and what's interesting about it is I've been living here since I was in fifth grade.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: So I claim I'm a Texan.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Well, my family says otherwise.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: They say if you aren't born in Texas, then you're not a Texan.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: I said no, I'm just not a native Texan there you go.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: And, but ultimately, being born in Montana was never cool until a Yellowstone came out.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: And then I remind everybody that we
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: have a train station and you guys don't.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, absolutely.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: But but ultimately, born in Montana, moved to Denver, colorado, lived in Connecticut and then moved to Madrid, spain, and then, from Madrid, moved here in fifth grade.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: So please dive off into was you?
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Were you a military kid?
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, was it?
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: No, my father was in the minerals business, so he's a geologist where?
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: He works on and we we, we bounced around from there.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: My parents divorced when, when, when I was living in Spain and my mother became a single mother with four boys and we moved to Houston Texas essentially Stafford Texas, outside of Houston and essentially I was raised at that point from there.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: That's awesome.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: That's awesome.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: How was Spain growing up when you?
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: were when you were over there.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: And Spain was Legit.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was legit.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the the the first, the largest, I should say.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: The best memory I've ever had is going to the beaches and the Mediterranean and seeing topless women everywhere.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was kind of interesting for me, but but ultimately, spain is is phenomenal.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: I went to a school called the American school of Madrid and that's where I learned how to speak Spanish, being immersed into the culture of it.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: And, of course, when you're around nothing but Spanish speaking people, you pick it up pretty quick, especially when you're young.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you got to, you ain't going to eat if you don't.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: That's exactly right.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: That's cool.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's cool.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: You know I was in Stafford, became ingrained, became a Texan slowly, and you're not a Yankee.
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't call anybody from Montana, no, no.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no Yankees are on the East coast.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: There, you go, that's, that's northeast the uh.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: In fact, you would find that that a lot of Montana values are very similar to the Texas value 100%.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: I knew that because Yellowstone.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no exactly.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: See.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly right, yeah, exactly right, so graduated from Stafford High.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: So, uh, no, uh, I went to Dolos High School and uh, so the answer is I did not graduate.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: Um, I'm a high school dropout.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Uh, I had uh a lot of trouble growing up and and uh the ultimately I was in trouble with the police uh got, got some stuff and and ultimately, she's always been riding around in police cars.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: That's exactly right.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to join their team.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: I'm done.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: You can't beat them and uh.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: So, uh, uh.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: Essentially, I got in trouble, uh and uh.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: I've been out of my house since I was 16 years old and I've essentially lived on my own since I was 16.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: That's awesome.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome.
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: What a great story.
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: We have a bunch of folks not law enforcement, Uh, and I mean we have law enforcement a lot that listen, but we have a bunch of non law enforcement.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: We have a bunch of young people that listen to that, that right into the show.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: And what a cool story that, rather than being a hindrance or saying, yeah, I know I couldn't do it or things were tough, right, I didn't graduate from high school, don't a a very large, successful company as someone that struggled in a high school dropout.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: And here you sit today extremely successful, beautiful family, beautiful home.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: What a great testament for young people to to get to see and listen to yeah, thank you Absolutely.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Um, so obviously tough times.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: 16 years old, at what point did you, did you Go to law enforcement?
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: I mean what?
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: What point did you spark your law enforcement?
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Where do we're we working at that point in time in your life?
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: These guys are doing a great job.
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: I may join, yeah?
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: Well, the the story is is actually not a easy story.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: It's not a simple.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: I just want to be a cop.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: In fact, from my viewpoint, that was the last thing I wanted to do, and so, ultimately, what?
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: What happened with me is living on my own.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: I dropped out of high school in my senior year, and then the girlfriend I was with the time got pregnant, and so from there, I was 18 years old, having a baby and working trying to make ends meet.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: Yep, I was working full-time.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: When I'm saying working full-time 50, 60 hours a week, what were you doing in.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: So at that, at that point I was working at an amusement center, but I was a manager of that and and but again, this was back in 1995, 96, and I Can honestly remember making about as a manager like Not even a bit lower higher man, a higher level manager.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: I was only making Eight dollars an hour, which was big time back then.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe I'm a wage was 325, you know, but Doing that, and then I ended up moving into a town home, essentially with my daughter's mother, and Life was kind of hard, and when I say kind of absolutely hard, the and I just remember, you know, sitting there and trying to figure out what I'm gonna do in life and how I'm gonna do it, being 18 years old, and If you ever felt that time in your life and I'm sure we all have, all the listeners have you guys, have we just you sit there and you think and you say I don't know what else to do.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know what to do, and just the whole world's on top, you and the whole the pressures of everything is on top.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: You know, you have this family to support, this child to support, you know, but you can't do it because just where you're at in life and and it was just one of these days where I said you know what, I don't even want to go home.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: I don't want to go home right now, I don't want to walk through that door, I just want to clear my head of whatever it is that I'm clearing my head with.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: And so I went back to my old neighborhood where I grew up, where my mother lived.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: And so I just was said you know what?
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: Let me see, maybe I just need somebody to talk to.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: Whatever it is, I just need somebody to talk to.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: So I drove down the street where my mom live.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking maybe she's out checking the mail, or maybe she's you're hoping that she is something.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, and Of course she wasn't.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: And I kept driving down the road and and there was Down at the end of the road, on the left.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: It was a police officer that that lived there.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Since I have lived there and and let me back up because there's a story prior to that when I first moved out 16.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: I moved in with my friend's parents and they accept me in their house and and so from there I remember sitting there and the mother comes in and says hey, someone just knocked on the door, there's a police officer outside.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: And of course my first thought was oh shit, they found me something's wrong here, so I walk outside.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: When I walk outside, there's this police officer.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: Knew that guy that I just described, that lived down the road and His name was how, and.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: And I walked out and I just knew him by officer clarity, but I couldn't ever pronounce his name because whatever.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: And I just remember him turning around and looking at me and saying, how you doing?
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: I just said I'm fine, what's up, what's going on?
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: You gotta remember, I imagine a 16 year old kid, arms crossed, acting like I want the world and I'm in charge, right.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: And he says hey, I know that you're living over here, but it has nothing to do with that.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: What I want to tell you is if you ever need anything, call me.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: Wow, no kidding.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: And I said okay, and I kind of looked at it and I was what's the deal?
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: He goes nothing.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: Just if you ever need anything, I just want to tell you that I'm here for you.
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: You can call me no agenda, no angle right.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: What AC?
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: What do you work?
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: for at the metals, the metals police department damn, that's wild and so I Literally just said okay, and I kind of blew it off out of pride, that type of thing and he turned to think there was an agenda or something behind that, or I didn't know and I and it was just one of those Surprise things that I didn't have a thought.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: It was just one of those deals where I said Okay, and he turns around, he starts to walk off, he stops and he turns back to me goes Do you know my name?
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: And I tried to pronounce.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: I was like Claire clip.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: He goes no, it's just how, how, and we didn't have cell phones back then so you could just call the police department.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: Asked for me.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: Tell me that that you want to talk to me and I'll come by that's badass, damn.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: So he gets in his car, he drives off, and that was not at all the Interactions that I've had with police officers in the past.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah and so, again, let's fast forward to sit to where I'm at now and I'm driving down the road and pass my mother's house up and I keep driving down One the left-hand side.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: He's standing outside Grilling in front of his garage, on the driveway and as well as deals while I was driving by, he I kind of see him and I kind of see that he sees me.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: Well, what do I do?
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: I just kind of like act like I don't see him and I just kept driving it.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: And where you drive, you drive around the Corner, you go down the other side of the street and I got about halfway down the other side of the street.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: I just stopped.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: I Said, fuck it, why not?
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: I have nobody else, why not?
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: And that has been a couple of years at this point since he offered years.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: So I pulled into the driveway, came back around and I come back around him.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: What was interesting was you could see him almost knowing that I was coming back, because he'd already started walking about halfway down the driveway.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: And I pulled up and he just looks at me and we're and I'm kind of Still in my car.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: He goes, come on.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: So I said okay.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: So I get out of the car and I walk up there and he walks up by the grill, he opens up a lawn chair, he puts it down, he goes have a seat.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: So I'm like I have no idea what I'm doing here, but okay, so I sit down and he just asked you how do you like your hamburgers?
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: Of course, is it cooked right?
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, anything yeah and and so I just sat down and and he just started talking, and If you're met those guys that no matter what kind of mood you're in, no matter what kind of what's going on the world, they're just happy, they're just, you know, good people, they're just happy people, they're just Excited people and they, they just kind of change your mood just being around them.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: Yep, well, that's what this guy was and I'll probably stay there for about two and a half hours.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: I Didn't say maybe two sentences, I just listened to him talk and he was talking about, you know, war stories and whatever war stories you could create, you know, and but his war stories weren't really about the, the the violence it was about you know what he was able to do for people, what do you know that the the, the pleasure that he gave to the world, and you know that the Relationships that he built, and just you could see that we've happy.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: Everything he talked about was happy, about law enforcement, right, and, and it just intrigued me for that understanding of what he was getting out of it.
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: Probably not a lens you had ever considered absolutely not that through, absolutely not.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: So I go back home and but two and a half hours later, and it was just one of those reset buttons where I just said you know what, I can continue, I can figure this out right, and still had no Idea about want to be a police officer.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: I mean, that wasn't even part of my thought.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: And I would go over there about once every two, three months and do the same thing and, just you know, eat dinner with them and and I End up meeting his wife.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: His wife was great people and so, ultimately, life went on and you know, you know, I, you're still going through all those struggles.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: And when I was 20, um, I was sitting there one day and he just sat and asked me, just kind of a Change the entire tone of the entire conversation, and he goes later what do you want to do with your life?
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: I just said I don't know, I have no idea.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: He goes why don't you become a cop?
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: And I literally was like Hold on a second.
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: This guy how.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: You already know that I've been in trouble, that all that kind of stuff he goes.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: That's when you were juvenile.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: He goes.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: You understand that you can become a cop.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: And I said are you serious?
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: I said, but I don't think I would want to be a cop.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: He goes.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: Well, you seem to love Sitting here listening to me talking over that said you don't get it how your stories are not what intrigued me, it's how it makes you feel, because I always see you happy when you're talking about it.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: I see you know you're enthusiastic about when you're talking about it.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: That's what intrigues me about it.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: And he goes exactly Because you ever thought that you could get that same understanding, that same feeling from that, and I honestly internalized and I said I didn't, and I thought for a second and Just kind of let it sit and I said what?
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: do, I do.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: How do I do it?
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: He goes, we got to go to the police academy, explained everything, like we do in Texas, and I said, okay, because if you want I can take you down and show you how to do it and register and all that kind of stuff.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: I said yeah, yeah, I think, I think I would want to try it.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: So we do, we go down, he shows me how to register at the local college and they at the local college is police academy and I get a printout for the registration and it was like twenty six, twenty seven hundred dollars back then in 1997.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: It could have been two point six million dollars.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: There's no way I could have paid for that.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah there's absolutely no way.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: So I, I literally, and I didn't tell him that I just kind of Molded over and said, okay, cool, I've got the paper and I go home and I said, well, I've got to figure out how to make this happen.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: There's no way I can pay for it.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: So I, I, I end up calling my father and my father's very, very well off, if you can tell, based on the first upbringing that I had, the second upbringing, my mother with four boys, was completely night and day of living Okay.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: So I call him and I haven't talked to him in a long time at this point, and the conversation was Very, very short and very simple.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: I he picked up on us, a dad.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: He said Aaron.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: I said yeah.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: He says uh, what's?
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: going on I said, uh, well, I just I think I figured out what I want to do in life and I was calling to see if you could hold me.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: And he says, well, I hear you had a child.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: I said I did.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he goes.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: What's the name?
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: I said, well, it's Amanda, it's, it's her.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: But uh, he goes.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: Okay, that's a good, strong name.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: I said, yeah, he goes.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: So tell me, what do you want to do?
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: I said, well, uh, I think I want to be a police officer and I was going to see if you could pay for it and I pay you back as soon as I get a job in law enforcement.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: He paused for a second, it was quiet, I and he says why the fuck would you want to be a minimum wage trash man for the us government?
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: Damn.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: And I immediately got so angry, not because he called cops minimum wage trash men for the us government, but because he called the only mentor that.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah so I internalized that and I said somebody you probably looked up to more at the time than you did your dad, that I guess even to this day.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: And so I literally just said fuck you dad, and hung up the phone.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Wow, and at that moment I just said well, that wasn't for me.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: I'm moving forward and keep doing what I'm doing.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: So from that point I avoided how I started doing what I was doing already working, trying to raise a family, that type of stuff.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: And about three weeks later two weeks maybe driving and I pass a patrol car and I realize it's Hal driving.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: He makes a U and a road kills me, and so he walks up and he just looks in the window and he leans down.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: He goes what's going on?
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: I said nothing.
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: He said I thought we had a deal.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: I said it's not gonna happen, and he goes.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: What do you mean?
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: I says it's not gonna happen.
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: He says come by my house after when I get off work.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: I said, okay, so I do.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: And honestly, I went reluctantly because I didn't want to face it and I didn't want to talk about it.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: So I do and I go over there and this time there's no grill, there's no hamburgers being made, no food being made, it's just two lawn chairs out in the front driveway.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: You'll sit down and he talked to me like he's never talked to me before.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: It was very, a lot more stern, it was a lot more serious.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: And he just sits down and he says tell me what happened.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: And I remember, when he asked me, that I literally couldn't do anything but immediately just start bawling, crying.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: It was one of those deals where you had and everybody's been through it where you have, you know, you start building up this hope and you start building up this plan, you start building all this and then it just crashes down and that's what you feel immediately.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: So I started bawling, crying.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: I'm never crying from a man at that time and I had my head down and he goes and I had to explain everything.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: He goes hold on a second, so he gets up and he goes inside the house and he's in there for about 15 minutes.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: By that time I recovered and kind of composed myself and I'm sitting there like wondering what he's doing.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: He walks back out and he sits down and his wife's with him, lori, and she goes and sits down on his lap and she says you know, we love you, right?
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: I'll say, yeah, I'll go If we're gonna pay for your academy.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: To him so at that point I just started crying again and I never cried in front of a woman at this point, other than my mother growing up, and I felt stupid by doing it.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: And so I get my head down and she just kissed me on the forehead and she tells me that she loved me again and went inside.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: And so I'm just sitting there and he gave up on saying look at me.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: And I had my head down.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: He goes, look at me.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: So I'm wiping my tears off and I lean up and I look up and he goes do you want this?
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: I said I do and he said there's anything in life that you want.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: There will always be obstacles.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: You go over them, around them, under them, right, fucking through them, but you accomplish what it is that you want.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: I said, yes, sir, he goes.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: That means you have to be fucking relentless.
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: I said, no shit, that's where you're relentless.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: That's exactly where it came from.
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: Wow, speaking of crown in front of a man, wow.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: So I did, went to the academy.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: I had to work full time so I went to the night academy and so from that point, graduating the academy, he offered me a job essentially, and I see agency he worked for was the medals and-.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: I want to pause real quick.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of visualizing at this point.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: How old was Hal?
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, how old was he?
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: In his fifties.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: So did he have any kids?
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: He did.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of visualizing like a house that's built in the fifties style home with him and his wife.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: At that point in time I would think Meadows probably doesn't pay shit, I would think at very low salary compared to other departments.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: I started making $20,000 a year when I first started, so he wouldn't make it much more.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: He was a sergeant, I imagine.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: And to know you now, and I'm thankful that you and our friends and you've got a Danny.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: The package deal that you bring to the table is just unbelievable.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: And I'm going back to even not not so much that night with him, but the night that he came to you to what four years prior to this, and for the listeners out there that are been on the job for any point in time or any length of time, we've been there where we've had patrol cars parked in the neighborhood and we get the two o'clock in the morning, bang, bang, bang, knock on the door and we're like God damn, I'm off, leave me alone.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: I'm sitting in front of a man that runs a multi million dollar company that has the most passion.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: He's the end.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: You're also the most passionate person about law enforcement and because of this man, four years prior to you giving you this, that made twenty something dollars a year, stop for just a second and came over to check on you, and that relationship carried and built upon that and I look at you now as a very iconic figure within the law enforcement community across the nation.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: And it's because of that one cop at a small town place department near Houston, texas, and that, my friend, excuse my language is absolutely fucking remarkable.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: And I can tell you that in the story continues from that.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: But because of that incident, is was a defining moment that developed.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: Who I've lived by, Danny, can tell you that's my whole being is to to honor that.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: In fact, after he told me to be relentless, I told him I'll pay you back.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: I will pay you back.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: He said no, the way you're going to pay me back is whatever you do.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: Make it great.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: You make it great and I will be watching, but make it great.
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: Wow, well, in People, in times are hard.
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: You have to go get new tires on your truck and it's this or that.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: And for a guy back then making 20 grand To invest in someone, that's not blood.
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: A damn good chunk of money to invest in someone.
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: There's no, there's no greater love, commitment, display of support, then that I mean that's, that's cool, man.
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: And if it's funny, people talk about the cops are bad and cops this and there's, they don't have community policing.
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: That's the very essence of community policing 100%.
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: Most cops that have probably written you off as hoodlum.
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: Look at this hoodlum Sure Can't live at home because he's a dumb ass or whatever.
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: And rather than taking that close minded view, hell, I'll just go check on him, beat on the door and make him come out here and I'm just going to check on him like he's a human and I'm a human, and that's at the very core of that's community policing.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: Absolutely Well, and and when we get to my police officer officer career.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: That's what I my whole point in even being a police officer was to try to instill that, mentor that into other cops, Um, but I can tell you that that, uh, I owe literally everything in my career, even to this day, on that person.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: Wow, Mark, what's your opinion on that?
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: I think it's a good question.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: I think it's a good question.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: I think it's a good question.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: I think it's a good question.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: I think it's a good question, and I guess you've maintained that relationship.
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: Is he still in the area?
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: So I started with with the meadows only because he offered me a job.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: But what in the place that I really wanted to be at?
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: Um, when you grew up the way I grew up, with four boys in a household, I liked to fight.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: Okay, it's one of those things where just his nature and and there's competition involved and were just his nature and there's competition involved, and Myself or the, my three brothers, we never shot away from any fight because either we're fighting outside or fighting inside.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: There's fights, right, and so I wanted it.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: I was a very action driven type of human being and liked fast cars, those types of things.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: But I worked for the meadows initially and I always knew that that was going to be a stepping stone for me.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: And so, working at the meadows, I only worked over about 13 months and I was looking for that next agency at next agency.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: A lot of us do that in this business, yeah, and so I Was asking around again.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: I knew nothing about law enforcement.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Even when I got law enforcement, I was so new to me that I didn't know much else about what was going on the world law enforcement other than what I just knew.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: And I started asking everybody hey, where would you go?
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: Where would you go?
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: Where'd you go?
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: Everybody kept pointing me to Rosenberg police department.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: Rosenberg, rosenberg.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: Now I was thinking Rosenberg, that's like out in the country, you know it's a little bitty.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: And they're like no, if you, if you want to get into action, go to Rosenberg police department.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: So I started looking into it and, sure enough, I applied and I end up getting hired at Rosenberg and 100%, they were right.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: It was one of these agencies that you could like take a cookie cutter out of some major metropolitan, grab it and move it out and you're gonna do every single thing that you could possibly imagine doing it at any large agency, but isolated in the city.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: And so ultimately, I completely excelled at that agency because it met every single criteria that I wanted, with the exception of money.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: But I can tell you right now, when I first started, I was getting paid $20,000 a year.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: I Felt like a king.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they were paying me to do this, you know.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: And then, when I started with Rosenberg, I've maybe got about a $6,000 pay raise and I was like, wow, I, I mean, where's the mansions?
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: I can start buying and stuff, yeah, but but it I didn't care about that.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: I, I literally just wanted to come to work and I wanted to, to, to to do you know God's work and and and you know a lot of that is in the agency that I worked for, there was a lot of drugs, a lot of gangs, a Lot of you know that aspects and and I just I thrived on that, I loved it.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: I was there for about a year and a half and I got a phone call Early in the morning, about seven o'clock in the morning, and it was from the Meadows dispatch and she says, hey, slater night.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: And and at that time I was working night shift and I was just getting off and they said they said her, how does got an accident?
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: I said what happened?
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: They said, well, he was on a traffic stop and A lady came and hit the back of his car and it pinned him underneath his own patrol car and they they, of course Rescue got there.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: They end up life-flighting them and so ultimately, the goes to the hospital and I'm like, okay, what I had over there, you head over there.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: One of the most interesting things that I saw was when you get there, you see all these cops that that that come together Doesn't matter what patch, didn't matter what badge, didn't matter what color uniform, people just come out of the woodwork when an officer is injured.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: In fact, even in today's time and throughout my career, we question brotherhood.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: We is a brotherhood real?
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: Is it?
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: Is you know, is this, is this legitimate?
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: It is most definitely in times of need like that, and we see it in the funeral aspects, we see it in in in the emergency aspects, not necessarily in the day-to-day operations, but definitely in those times.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and when you see that and for me, I saw it and and and that was the first time I ever seen it in law enforcement and for the first time I said this is what family looks like.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: This is why a lot of us get involved in this and so he spent some time in the hospital and he had some serious internal injuries and then he was released to go back home, but again he was done medically and so they retired a medically.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: In about three months after that, in May of 2020, I get another phone call about three o'clock in the morning and he had a heart attack and everything shut down and ended up dying.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: So from there I, honestly, I was kind of just mad at the world.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: Mad at the world Even to the point where my, on my POV.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: Anybody that works me back then Wondered how I even got away with it.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: But even on my POV, on my license plate, it just had FTW and and I'd literally Just hated the world.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: It worked for me, though it worked for me as a person.
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: And from losing how specific or losing how I opened up all the other Tribulations or maybe a combination.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe a combination of things.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: This is 2000, may of 2000,.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: Okay and and so I Went to work mad.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: I went to work angry, lived angry, and I'm getting a divorce from my first, my first wife, and but I can tell you that that in Many ways it worked for me as a police officer in that environment, I can that.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: There wasn't any hesitation, I had very little fear of doing anything on the job and Ultimately it was one of those things.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: I just didn't care.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: I didn't care what happened to me, I didn't care what happened to anybody, and in many ways, but it worked for me to the extreme of, you know, they put, they would put me in the worst areas of the city and that type of thing, and I would.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: I would be the sweet guy, I'd be the clean guy, right, I'd go out there and I would be the one that rested all the dope dealers, all the gangbangers, that type of stuff, and I loved it.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: And I can tell you that one day I was sitting in front of a house in the hood and I just remember and you guys probably remember this, everyone we had to hand write reports, yeah.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you Didn't have one right there at the cat, at the, at the cusp started no three, so Okay, exactly right, we said the hand write reports, which sucked, by the way, because when you turn them in, your sergeant would read Write it all over and hand it back, and you have to write it but either way, I was right around them in the rain.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, but I was handwriting a report.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: And while I was handwriting a report, 715 in the morning, out of quarter, my eye I says little black lady walking out, walking from her house down, and imagine you know, a shotgun type shack, probably been there since the 30s, okay.
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: And I see her the corner of my.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: So I turn on a look and I rolled on the window and I said yes, ma'am, I Just remember her looking in and she says are you okay?
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: And I said yes, ma'am, fine.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: And she says Okay, would you like some coffee?
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: I said no ma'am, I'm fine, I don't drink coffee and she goes, okay.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: Well, if you need anything, I'll just be right up here on this porch.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: I Said okay, kind of brushing her off, and I rolled my window back up and I start writing my report again.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: And I don't know what it was, but something just said why not?
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: another angel came to check on you, right?
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: So I get out of the car, I walk up, she's sitting on the porch and she's probably 180 years old, with with could you could see the cataracts in her eyes.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know that she couldn't see very well, but so it took me all the way to get to her porch for her to notice I was there and I just remember her kind of like jumping up like yes, sir, and I said, ma'am, you know what, I'll drink some coffee.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: So she was, oh, and her excitement was to come out and break the chair and kind of brush out the chair for me, like I was somebody special to her, and she's sit down, sit down.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: So I do.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: And I go and sit down.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: She goes inside, watches inside.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: I'm waiting out there for about 10 minutes and she walks back out and she's holding this, this Porcelain cup.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: That Was huge but it had like coffee stains all on it.
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: I mean it, you, this must been handed down from generation to generation.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: And she hands it to me.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: She goes here, you go, and I look inside this coffee and I wouldn't I really wasn't a coffee drinker.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: Then I Look at it and it was so black, it was kind of syrupy, and so I didn't know what to do with it.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: I just knew that people drink this shit.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: So I go and I start sipping on it and it was the, to this day, was the most disgusting cup of coffee I've ever had in my entire life, right?
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: So I'm sitting there with this cup of coffee and awkward silence, and she says can I ask you a question?
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: I said yeah, absolutely.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: She goes.
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm born and raised here, born and raised right here in this house.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: I said okay.
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: She says why is it that police officers treat us all like we're criminals?
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: I Said what do you mean?
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: She goes well, just understand, I don't like the gang bangers, I don't like the drug dealers.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: In fact, I wish they had all go away.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: But when you guys come over, you treat us all like we're gang bangers and drug dealers, just because where we live.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: And I thought about it for a second and I said I had nothing else to say except for you know what?
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I'm sorry for that.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: And she goes no, no, no, not you, baby, you're one of the nice ones.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: When, in all reality, she was describing who I was and I said no, ma'am, I just want to say I'm sorry for that and I got so awkward that I didn't know what else to do except for act.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: Act like.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: I got a call and I said as clear.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: So I take the coffee and I put it down.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: I Said, ma'am, I gotta go.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: So I jump off the porch and I start walking and she goes, officer Slater, and I turn around and she says you know, everyone has my name.
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: If you want to talk about guilt on top of guilt, that's exactly what that was, and she had enough Care to even read my name tag.
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: That's the second person to check on you and ask you do you even know my name?
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: That's right, it's exactly right.
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: So she tells me her name the name was, I had to.
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: I said okay, miss Ida, I appreciate that.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: And so I get in the car and I drive off and I go.
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: When I sit in a parking lot and I just kind of reflect about that conversation and the one thing that kept on going in my head over and over and over again was Make it great.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: Whatever you do, make it great.
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: So at that very moment I said there's got to be something more to law enforcement than just hook in motherfuckers up and Going after the, the fucking wolf's society.
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: Now, there's an aspect of that and there's a huge aspect of that that we all love.
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: But at that moment, one thing that how he's always telling me and he was a training officer for me for a little while and he, he said wave at everybody.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: And I said do what he said wave at every single person.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: If they don't wave back, just put your hand underneath that car.
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: And said well then, fuck you then.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: But he said wave at everybody.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: And I said okay, well, I never took that understanding, I never really worked on it, until this defining moment, everything came together for me.
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: How old were you when you met Masada?
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: I was probably 23, 24, yeah and that's still Like all of us young cop in your early 20s.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: I want to drive fast and I sheds, put people in jail, not thinking about some of the other aspects that are as important and yeah, that's exactly right and and the One of the things that I do and I've tried to do ever since I've Really become that understanding as an FTO and then as a sergeant and lieutenant and Training and those types things is trying to steal that early on because A lot of cops don't get it yet.
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: I mean, a lot of cops go through their entire careers and don't get it.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: So from that understanding I would take officers and in the FTO program and I was an FTO and and I trained officers for quite a while- while, I was on patrol, but I would always get the officers during the last few phases because I was the guy that taught them how to become cops.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: Cuz remember my high school dropout, so I couldn't spell with the shit, I couldn't write with the shit, and so, ultimately, I was the guy that that taught him how to Be the police.
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: Be the police, okay.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: And so ultimately, um, I had a reputation.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: But after that understanding of something inside that that just said, no, you know what, there's something bigger than this.
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: They'd get in the car and and, and the first thing I would tell them is I like and of course, I already had this pre notion of what I am, what they're about to get into and everything.
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: And I said, hey, you know what, why you're here, where you with me, I want you to wave at everybody.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: And they were like oh shit, I'm like.
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: No, I'm serious.
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: We're going to throw candy too, or are we going to right?
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: And I said, no, just wave at everybody.
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: And I gave him the same spiel that that that was giving me, and uh, so I would drive them, uh, into the nicer areas of of the city and it was easy for them to wave, easy, easy for them to wave.
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: They wave, wave, wave, and um, so ultimately I would go and I'd start taking over to what we called the north of the tracks or La Colonia area and that type of stuff, and the whole demeanor would start changing.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: You'd start seeing them like stretch and cracking the knuckles.
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, just just their entire demeanor would change.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: And and I don't blame them because a lot of this is new to them, it was a new experience for me, that type of stuff as well.
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: But I remember we'd we'd be driving and uh, and and of course this isn't a specific story, it's more of a scenario of the, of the understanding of the totality of it but we'd be driving and we'd go on the north side and we'd be passing up people.
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: Not one time would he wave or not one time would she wave, or whatever the case might be and I would recognize this and imagine driving by an eight year old that's standing on the side of the road in the, in the, in their own driveway and just kind of watching.
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: An interesting thing about being a police car is that car is a billboard driving around.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: It's a marketing tool and nobody misses it.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: They see it from a mile away.
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: So when an eight year old boy is sitting there on his driveway and he sees what's coming and his parents have told him that we are the enemy and we don't even wave, that's a problem.
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: We confirmed what the parent told us.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: That's exactly right.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: So we would drive by and I would see us every now and then.
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: We all played these games as FTOs and I would sit there and stop the car and be like, boom, you just got shot, we're yet.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: And of course the panic on their face would be I don't know.
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: I said okay, we'll get out of the car.
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: And then what do we do?
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: Run down the stop sign, because that's the only place that you're going to figure out where you're at.
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: So they would do that and I would go down there and I pulled next to them and I'd say, all right, so we're yet.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: And they would say Avenue A and seven street.
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: I said okay.
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: I said you know, I get to Walnut in Houston, which is on the other side of that of the hood.
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: They say yeah, okay, I'll meet me over there and I drive off and I'd go wait and I'd sit there.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: It'd take about 30 minutes to walk from that part to that part and they would always merge out, walking like but the shit, right.
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: And I say get in the car.
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: They get in the car and say you okay, yeah, yeah, why, you talked to anybody?
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: No, you walked all the way from there to over here.
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: Nobody talked to you at all.
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: Police officer walking through the hood.
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: No, we said the damn word.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, somebody pulled up next to me and was like hey, sir, you okay, and I said what'd you say?
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I said I'm okay.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: Another person asked uh, did, did, do I need the police and I said no, I am the police, right?
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: I said so, they were checking on you.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Nobody hurt you.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: No, okay, so what do you get out of that, I don't know?
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: I said get out of the car.
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: They were like seriously, I said get out of the car, they'd get out.
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: I said, come here, I get out with them.
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: I'd walk them up.
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: I say, as I do, this is officer.
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: So I was about to ask you did you ever see me side of it again?
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: All the time I said this is officer.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: So I said and he loves coffee.
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: Tune in next week for part two.
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: I'm a huge believer that leadership isn't bar stars and stripes.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: Those are ranks.
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: Okay, leadership is the people that have been influenced within your department.
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: That may not necessarily be ranked, and I got fired in July of 2014.
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: And on January 10th of 2015, danny comes in and she had just checked the mail getting home from work and she's got our tax paperwork for our house and it's a property tax and we owed $6,566.
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: So that next morning I woke up, I went into my office, sat there and I put my headphones on, like I am right now, and I just sat there and I started drawing and, uh, and I came up with a design and it was that the gladiator with the blue line through it.
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: Right, all I put was a relentless bleed blue.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: So ultimately, um, I had sold a few shirts and then I kept pushing it.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: Every day he's a member going into the bathroom and she was in there curling her hair and uh.
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: I said, babe, she turns around and said, uh, I've got the money for the time.
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: Here's the understanding of things.
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: It was $6,566.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: Seven days, I mean $6,568.
• 47:40
  Speaker 5: Oh, great Breville from the palm of my hands, skin with it from the wind and sand from the valley where I used to live.
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: We have a lot getting started on the story.
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: I love this.
• 48:22
  Speaker 4: This is the place I just saw on the road and behaviorsbackground.
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: Hold on, hold on.
• 48:28
  Speaker 4: I'm only getting started.
• 48:30
  Speaker 4: I'm only getting started.
• 48:35
  Speaker 5: I'm bleeding out, but my fear is gone.
• 48:40
  Speaker 5: I'm hollowed out, but I carry on.
• 48:47
  Speaker 5: My bones don't lie.
• 48:51
  Speaker 5: They're broken, but they still got fine.
• 48:54
  Speaker 5: I'm only getting started.
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm only getting started my bones don't lie, they're broken, but they still got fine.
• 49:08
  Speaker 4: I'm only getting started.
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: I'm only getting started.