Latest / The Week in Bible Prophecy / What 36 Years as a Cop Did to His Faith | The Week in Bible Prophecy
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- 0:02Speaker 1: The Week in Bible Prophecy, a Prophecy Watchers podcast.
- 0:09Speaker 2: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the program today. Manu Gonzalez here
- 0:12Speaker 2: in studio, and I have with me a good friend,
- 0:15Speaker 2: Michael Doyle. And Mike has written a book called Compton
- 0:20Speaker 2: Don't Surf. And to me, he was a member of
- 0:24Speaker 2: our church where I pastored in Lake Tahoe. And of course,
- 0:27Speaker 2: you know, him and I got to be good friends
- 0:29Speaker 2: while I was pastoring there. But now he's come out
- 0:31Speaker 2: with this book, which I think is very, very fascinating.
- 0:34Speaker 2: We had long talks about what his life was like
- 0:36Speaker 2: and what it means to be a Christian and different things.
- 0:38Speaker 2: And so I think that what he has written here
- 0:41Speaker 2: is a very powerful testimony, especially in all of what
- 0:43Speaker 2: we're seeing today in our culture about the whole law
- 0:46Speaker 2: enforcement and police. And over the last few years, it's
- 0:49Speaker 2: kind of been quite crazy. So, Mike, welcome to the program.
- 0:53Speaker 1: Thank you, Mondo.
- 0:55Speaker 2: So what I like to do here at the beginning,
- 0:57Speaker 2: just for people, is you got this book, Compton Don't Surf. Compton,
- 1:02Speaker 2: like the city of Compton. There it is. And I
- 1:05Speaker 2: remember being in the 80s and 90s hearing about Compton
- 1:10Speaker 2: and some of the rap music, which I know you love.
- 1:12Speaker 2: And so give us a little background about you and
- 1:19Speaker 2: where you came from. And Compton Don't Surf, explain the
- 1:21Speaker 2: title for us.
- 1:23Speaker 1: Well, I grew up in a... Predominantly, well, it was
- 1:27Speaker 1: all white suburbia area. We had a Catholic neighborhood. As
- 1:32Speaker 1: a matter of fact, we had 12 Catholic boys just
- 1:36Speaker 1: in one cul-de-sac in my area. And we all surfed.
- 1:41Speaker 1: We all played sports. And I just grew up swimming
- 1:44Speaker 1: and surfing and worked for Disneyland.
- 1:48Speaker 2: And this is all in Southern California, right?
- 1:50Speaker 1: In Southern California. And then I went to Cal Poly,
- 1:54Speaker 1: San Luis Obispo. And again, you know, was played water polo,
- 1:57Speaker 1: swam and surfed a lot. And then, yeah, did his
- 2:02Speaker 1: brief stint in the army before I went back on
- 2:04Speaker 1: the reserves. And I was kind of looking for a job.
- 2:08Speaker 1: And my brother said, well, why don't you become a
- 2:11Speaker 1: police officer? And I've had always held the police officers
- 2:16Speaker 1: at highest esteem. And whenever a police officer came around,
- 2:20Speaker 1: I was very respectful of them. And I always noticed
- 2:25Speaker 1: people treated them with a lot of respect and that
- 2:28Speaker 1: they were here to help us. So I became a
- 2:30Speaker 1: police officer. And back in the early 80s, in 82,
- 2:36Speaker 1: we didn't have the internet. And my friend said, well,
- 2:39Speaker 1: why don't you come to Compton with me? I'm also
- 2:43Speaker 1: going there. And- They're, you know, they're looking for police officers.
- 2:48Speaker 1: So not knowing what Compton was all about or L.A.,
- 2:55Speaker 1: what L.A. was about, because I was a South Southern
- 2:58Speaker 1: Orange County kid. I wasn't an L.A.
- 3:01Speaker 2: Kid.
- 3:03Speaker 1: I elected, I said, oh, sure, that sounds like a
- 3:06Speaker 1: great time. And, of course, you know, they very quickly
- 3:13Speaker 1: hired me. Because I had a college education and I
- 3:16Speaker 1: was also in the service and I showed up for work.
- 3:21Speaker 1: And that's where the story begins. And it's just turned
- 3:26Speaker 1: my world upside down. And I said it all like
- 3:30Speaker 1: in the back of the book. Yeah. And in the
- 3:33Speaker 1: back of the book, I said in big letters, I
- 3:37Speaker 1: wasn't prepared for the violent streets of Compton. I must
- 3:41Speaker 1: change to survive. And that's what I go into is
- 3:47Speaker 1: how I negatively changed to survive seeing the trauma and
- 3:55Speaker 1: the horrors of working in a ghetto.
- 3:58Speaker 2: You know, the stuff that you bring forth, I mean,
- 4:01Speaker 2: obviously your style of writing is very engaging. And just
- 4:05Speaker 2: the stories, I'm just sitting here like, This is unbelievable.
- 4:10Speaker 2: Is this real? I mean, is this America? Where is
- 4:13Speaker 2: this at? And to me, I found it interesting, again,
- 4:17Speaker 2: the way that you weave, and maybe you can give
- 4:20Speaker 2: us a little bit more of a background in that
- 4:26Speaker 2: your life prior and then your life in, you've got
- 4:29Speaker 2: two completely different worlds. And you mentioned the ghetto versus,
- 4:35Speaker 2: you know, I don't know, whatever the the middle class
- 4:38Speaker 2: or white class, whatever that is, you know, in the
- 4:40Speaker 2: different places, but totally different world. And you're coming in
- 4:45Speaker 2: to talk about the demographics as well, not just of
- 4:48Speaker 2: the area, but also of the police department.
- 4:51Speaker 1: Well, the demographics of the police department were was about 60, 40,
- 4:55Speaker 1: 60 percent African-American and 40 percent white and some Hispanics.
- 5:01Speaker 1: So it was mangled in there and stuff. And you're
- 5:04Speaker 1: absolutely right. I mean, just getting to the police station,
- 5:08Speaker 1: I was involved in numerous shootings just getting to work.
- 5:13Speaker 1: And that's something you don't normally see as you go there.
- 5:16Speaker 1: And I talk about it, just going there for my
- 5:19Speaker 1: ride along to see if I even want to join
- 5:22Speaker 1: this thing, this police department. Remember, we didn't have... We
- 5:27Speaker 1: didn't have maps on our mobile phones. People drew you
- 5:31Speaker 1: a little line and said, take this freeway, then take
- 5:34Speaker 1: this off ramp, keep going. You'll see the police department
- 5:37Speaker 1: on your left.
- 5:38Speaker 3: They didn't tell me that I was going basically into
- 5:41Speaker 3: a war zone and that I describe it as I
- 5:44Speaker 3: was driving along and I'm stopped at stoplights and people
- 5:48Speaker 3: are yelling at me and screaming and I'm hearing gunshots and,
- 5:54Speaker 3: you know, Like I wrote in the book, when I
- 5:57Speaker 3: finally made it to the police department, I felt like
- 6:00Speaker 3: I had just.
- 6:01Speaker 1: Run the gauntlet and I had made it. But it
- 6:07Speaker 1: was very exciting. And that was the thing that lured
- 6:11Speaker 1: me there was it was very exciting. And of course,
- 6:15Speaker 1: my good friend was already working there. So that that helped, too.
- 6:19Speaker 2: So so you were roughly what, mid 20s at this time?
- 6:24Speaker 1: Yes, I was.
- 6:25Speaker 2: 23.
- 6:26Speaker 1: 23.
- 6:26Speaker 2: So fresh out of college.
- 6:30Speaker 1: Yeah, fresh out of college. But, you know, like I
- 6:38Speaker 1: wrote in the book in my sleeve, you know, if
- 6:44Speaker 1: I could just read just a tiny bit, it said,
- 6:48Speaker 1: you know, engines roaring, sirens blaring, tires squealing. I try
- 6:52Speaker 1: to remain calm as we blast through the Debris strewn
- 6:57Speaker 1: streets of Compton The vehicle stops The wanted gang member
- 7:00Speaker 1: leaps from the vehicle And runs towards the government housing
- 7:04Speaker 1: projects I jump out and begin the chase He suddenly
- 7:07Speaker 1: turns and fires a shot at me From his cheap
- 7:10Speaker 1: little pistol I grab my. 44 caliber gun And while
- 7:15Speaker 1: on a dead run Fire shovel shots at him He
- 7:19Speaker 1: misses I miss He drops a gun After hearing my
- 7:23Speaker 1: gun go off Lighting a cigarette and reloading at my
- 7:26Speaker 1: patrol vehicle, I reflect on what a blonde-haired, blue-eyed surfer
- 7:32Speaker 1: is doing in the ghetto chasing and shooting at gang
- 7:35Speaker 1: members in the projects.
- 7:37Speaker 2: In the projects.
- 7:40Speaker 1: Yeah, and so that was the other thing is how
- 7:43Speaker 1: it physically and mentally changed me. I was a two-sport
- 7:51Speaker 1: athlete in college, water polo and swimming. Then at the army,
- 7:57Speaker 1: I won every physical award. When I went to the academy,
- 8:01Speaker 1: I won the physical fitness award. Within six months, I
- 8:08Speaker 1: was smoking, smoking. And when people hear that, they're like, you?
- 8:15Speaker 1: I go, yeah, yeah, I was smoking. And then of
- 8:19Speaker 1: course the drinking came after that.
- 8:21Speaker 2: So let's talk about that because, so you come in,
- 8:23Speaker 2: as you just mentioned, you're, You're just a young kid
- 8:27Speaker 2: just enjoying life. And then you get put into this.
- 8:30Speaker 2: And now because of the nature of the work and
- 8:34Speaker 2: the area and all that, it begins to change you.
- 8:39Speaker 2: And so talk about that because obviously you're a believer.
- 8:43Speaker 2: You're a Christian. At the time, were you a Christian
- 8:46Speaker 2: at the time? Explain that for people. I was.
- 8:48Speaker 1: And we were going to, of course, always go into church.
- 8:55Speaker 1: At that time, I had left the Catholic Church and
- 8:58Speaker 1: went more of a Baptist church. And so I was
- 9:03Speaker 1: pretty solid. And as I went there, in the 80s,
- 9:10Speaker 1: everybody at the police department smoked. We had a lot
- 9:13Speaker 1: of Vietnam veterans coming back. Everybody was military. Everybody smoked
- 9:19Speaker 1: in briefing. And I was like, oh, my gosh, you know,
- 9:23Speaker 1: how are these guys going to chase people? They're smoking.
- 9:26Speaker 1: And until I started going to homicide scenes and really
- 9:32Speaker 1: grisly ones, and they started smoking to actually mask the
- 9:37Speaker 1: smell of the body. Oh, wow. And then they also
- 9:43Speaker 1: taught me a technique to put Vicks Vapor Rub under
- 9:46Speaker 1: my nose to do this. But while on training, I
- 9:51Speaker 1: went to a very grisly one that I wrote in
- 9:55Speaker 1: the book where my training officer who was special forces
- 9:59Speaker 1: army and and he smoked. And I wrote about that, too,
- 10:05Speaker 1: when my first cigarette was, he handed it to me
- 10:10Speaker 1: after there was a family, a guy had killed his
- 10:15Speaker 1: entire family as we were going through the house and
- 10:18Speaker 1: then killed himself. And he said, you know, do you smoke?
- 10:22Speaker 1: And I go, no, but hey, I could use one.
- 10:26Speaker 1: And then I talk about that, how I started smoking.
- 10:29Speaker 1: And of course, what happens when you never smoke? Well,
- 10:33Speaker 1: you become dizzy. And I started getting dizzy. And so
- 10:38Speaker 1: I tossed it out the window and then it came
- 10:41Speaker 1: back through the window and actually ended up in his
- 10:44Speaker 1: crotch and started burning his pants. And I was fighting
- 10:50Speaker 1: because the guy was huge. The guy was one of
- 10:53Speaker 1: the biggest human beings I'd seen. And I thought he's
- 10:57Speaker 1: going to kill me. I was just a skinny little
- 10:59Speaker 1: white kid, you know, that surfed.
- 11:04Speaker 2: When did you start really start seeing the hardening happen
- 11:10Speaker 2: or the kind of the destruction of innocence that you
- 11:15Speaker 2: had prior to that? Because obviously you're coming into like
- 11:17Speaker 2: what you already described. What stands out to you as
- 11:20Speaker 2: one of the things that really changed your world, especially
- 11:24Speaker 2: in the beginning?
- 11:25Speaker 1: I think looking at, and this is why it's important
- 11:29Speaker 1: to understand police officers, we see victims like at the moment,
- 11:36Speaker 1: at the scene. And after seeing victim after victim after victim,
- 11:41Speaker 1: shooting victims, assault victims, rape victims, after seeing that, you
- 11:49Speaker 1: start getting really hardened. And then when you do catch
- 11:54Speaker 1: the suspect, cause we'd go look for them. When you
- 11:57Speaker 1: do catch the suspect, you know, you're upset, you're human.
- 12:02Speaker 1: You're not a robot. You just saw a victim and now,
- 12:07Speaker 1: you know, you catch the suspect and you know, they're predators.
- 12:12Speaker 1: And once you catch the, the, the, the, the suspect,
- 12:16Speaker 1: Sometimes it's hard to turn off your anger. And I
- 12:20Speaker 1: remember going to a lot of scenes where officers had
- 12:25Speaker 1: been killed. And even later on when I was with Fresno,
- 12:29Speaker 1: multiple officers killed at one scene. Or I went to
- 12:33Speaker 1: a mass murder scene in Fresno where, you know, he
- 12:37Speaker 1: had killed seven of his kids and two of his
- 12:40Speaker 1: own daughters. You know, it's hard not to... It's hard...
- 12:47Speaker 1: not to be hardened. And I started seeing myself getting
- 12:52Speaker 1: hardened because I actually started saying, I really don't want
- 12:58Speaker 1: to be a Christian because I don't want to feel that.
- 13:01Speaker 1: I don't want to feel anguish. I don't want to
- 13:04Speaker 1: feel like, you know, turn the other cheek. I didn't
- 13:06Speaker 1: want to feel that love your enemies. I didn't want
- 13:09Speaker 1: to love my enemy. And I wanted to hate my enemy.
- 13:13Speaker 1: And I always wanted to be Just mean and aggressive
- 13:20Speaker 1: because I didn't want to be the nice guy who
- 13:24Speaker 1: got killed because I let my guard down.
- 13:27Speaker 2: You know, that's to me super important as I was reading,
- 13:31Speaker 2: and certainly as you and I have talked over the years,
- 13:35Speaker 2: the challenge of how does a Christian who is, like
- 13:40Speaker 2: you just said, we have all these commandments about showing
- 13:42Speaker 2: mercy and kindness and love to those that are wicked.
- 13:47Speaker 2: How does that work in practical ways on the force
- 13:52Speaker 2: going out? Because I think somebody like that, what you
- 13:54Speaker 2: just described, who's willing to obviously murder many people, including
- 13:58Speaker 2: his family, those people, you know, bullies only understand bigger bullies.
- 14:06Speaker 1: Correct.
- 14:07Speaker 2: And so you have to, I'm glad you brought up
- 14:10Speaker 2: that Christianity was challenged. You had this challenge there between
- 14:17Speaker 2: what God would want of you or what the Bible says,
- 14:21Speaker 2: but how do we make that in reality when I
- 14:24Speaker 2: have to come up to this bully who's just murdered
- 14:26Speaker 2: people and I got to take him down or he's
- 14:29Speaker 2: resisting or whatever, and just unpack that a little bit
- 14:33Speaker 2: for us because, and how did you deal with it?
- 14:36Speaker 1: You hit the nail on the head and that's fantastic
- 14:41Speaker 1: understanding what you just said. And that's the conflict. That's
- 14:45Speaker 1: the huge conflict that police officers face right now is
- 14:49Speaker 1: you see victim after victim, and then you're supposed to
- 14:53Speaker 1: show compassion or you're supposed to suddenly turn it off.
- 14:57Speaker 1: And I tell people we're not robots. We're human. We
- 15:01Speaker 1: have human emotions. We have, you know, we can try
- 15:05Speaker 1: and suppress it as much as we can. But, you know,
- 15:09Speaker 1: when there's a predator out there and we're searching that
- 15:12Speaker 1: predator and We need to have the mindset that it's
- 15:20Speaker 1: not compassion. We're hunting him. We're going after him. That's
- 15:25Speaker 1: what tears us up, Mondo. That's why I started drinking.
- 15:30Speaker 1: We drink a lot after work. They call it choir practice.
- 15:35Speaker 1: We didn't have psychologists back there back then. Our psychologist
- 15:42Speaker 1: was ourselves when we sat around the police cars. I mean,
- 15:46Speaker 1: police are personal cars and drank beer and and talked
- 15:50Speaker 1: about things. We'd be in a shooting with a suspect
- 15:55Speaker 1: and we had no one really to turn to at
- 15:58Speaker 1: that time. We would we'd go to a park that
- 16:02Speaker 1: we knew was secure. And, you know, we would drink
- 16:05Speaker 1: and we'd talk about it and stuff. It's it's. the
- 16:09Speaker 1: biggest conflict of police officers are faced with now. How
- 16:15Speaker 1: do you suppress this type of stuff? I couldn't come
- 16:18Speaker 1: home and tell Bonnie what I had seen that day
- 16:21Speaker 1: or what just took place on my shift. There's no
- 16:25Speaker 1: one to talk to. And other than other police officers,
- 16:30Speaker 1: a lot of the police officers that some funerals that
- 16:34Speaker 1: I was going to were Christians and they had, let
- 16:39Speaker 1: their guard down. They had used compassion on the suspect
- 16:43Speaker 1: and the suspect killed them. And I remember always going,
- 16:49Speaker 1: while I'm in law enforcement, I don't want to be
- 16:51Speaker 1: a Christian. I don't want to have compassion. I want
- 16:55Speaker 1: to be as hard and as tough as I possibly
- 16:57Speaker 1: can because I want to survive. It wasn't until my
- 17:03Speaker 1: friends started saying, you know, you've changed. You've You're a
- 17:09Speaker 1: different personality. It's like you have no remorse when you, like,
- 17:15Speaker 1: arrest people. And you're heavy-handed. And that's when I started seeing, yeah,
- 17:24Speaker 1: I need a change. But the biggest change was my neighbor,
- 17:29Speaker 1: who was a Christian, they would hand me a tape
- 17:33Speaker 1: of Firefighters for Christ. And it was a cassette tape.
- 17:37Speaker 1: And it was Bob Vernon from LAPD who talked like
- 17:42Speaker 1: a police officer. He was, he was a police officer,
- 17:45Speaker 1: but related man to man. And I started listening to
- 17:50Speaker 1: those tapes on the way to work. And that drastically
- 17:56Speaker 1: changed me. Like I, I need to get back. I
- 17:59Speaker 1: need to get back to the Lord. Yeah.
- 18:02Speaker 2: And that's good that you have, you know, obviously you,
- 18:05Speaker 2: other Christian police officers in similar situations that are also
- 18:10Speaker 2: dealing with this. You know, when we look at our,
- 18:13Speaker 2: when we look at the world over the past, you know, five, six,
- 18:16Speaker 2: seven years, you know, we've seen the, all the stuff
- 18:20Speaker 2: that happened in COVID, the riots, and of course the
- 18:23Speaker 2: anti-police movement, et cetera. And, you know, if you were
- 18:27Speaker 2: to speak to the typical person or the average person,
- 18:33Speaker 2: you know, being where you were, all of us, many
- 18:38Speaker 2: of us out here, we're in our comfortable chairs, whatever,
- 18:41Speaker 2: and then we see something on television. You know, you
- 18:43Speaker 2: see something with ice right now. You know, ice shot somebody.
- 18:47Speaker 2: And then it's really easy for me to make a
- 18:50Speaker 2: judgment sitting in my chair, in my nice comfy chair
- 18:53Speaker 2: with nobody around. You know, what do you want people,
- 18:58Speaker 2: help us understand and what would you want from, what
- 19:00Speaker 2: message would you give for people out there that what
- 19:03Speaker 2: might give an instant reaction to, you know, again, maybe what,
- 19:08Speaker 2: what the media presents as an, Oh, somebody there, they
- 19:11Speaker 2: are shooting somebody again. Well, what's, what's the right way
- 19:14Speaker 2: for me to evaluate that?
- 19:17Speaker 1: The best way to evaluate that is take a breath,
- 19:22Speaker 1: know that the media has an agenda and that not everything,
- 19:27Speaker 1: what you're seeing is really what happened. I've been on,
- 19:32Speaker 1: many tactical units, including the SWAT team, but I've bought
- 19:40Speaker 1: dope undercover. I've been on numerous high profile incidents and
- 19:48Speaker 1: the media is so far away from what it really
- 19:55Speaker 1: was and what really happened. And oftentimes what you're seeing
- 20:00Speaker 1: is a short clip of what took place afterwards. Like
- 20:05Speaker 1: for instance, you brought up the ice shooting and then
- 20:07Speaker 1: it wasn't until They start rewinding the camera back a
- 20:11Speaker 1: little bit and they go, oh, that's why. Oh, that's
- 20:16Speaker 1: what happened. But see, they don't show the entire video
- 20:20Speaker 1: or the entire clip. Most, and I got to give
- 20:24Speaker 1: the Christian nation, I'll call them, kudos because they really
- 20:30Speaker 1: back law enforcement and they really back the military and
- 20:33Speaker 1: they understand. They understand us. They understand that that we
- 20:39Speaker 1: have just an incredible job to do. It's a small
- 20:45Speaker 1: segment that gets a lot of airtime. And so what
- 20:50Speaker 1: I'd want them to know is when you hear a newscast,
- 20:55Speaker 1: hold your opinion and investigate it a little bit more.
- 21:00Speaker 1: I mean, we do make mistakes. There's no doubt about it,
- 21:03Speaker 1: but we're human. But no police officer ever And my
- 21:09Speaker 1: entire 36 years really wanted to shoot somebody. Nobody ever
- 21:14Speaker 1: wanted to. It was last straw and they go through
- 21:17Speaker 1: so much trauma when they pull their weapons and fire
- 21:21Speaker 1: at someone.
- 21:24Speaker 2: Yeah. And this is, this is the typical thing where, again,
- 21:27Speaker 2: the media is looking for clicks or views. And like
- 21:30Speaker 2: you said, you know, you could go pick out the
- 21:34Speaker 2: worst person in any category and And then they take
- 21:37Speaker 2: that person and they say that this is what is
- 21:40Speaker 2: typified of all of the people in that particular category.
- 21:43Speaker 2: And that's just, again, that's just false thinking. But what
- 21:47Speaker 2: I found was the emotions that react. And I saw
- 21:53Speaker 2: this with the media and I saw somebody react and
- 21:56Speaker 2: they're like, oh, there they go again. And I was like, well,
- 21:59Speaker 2: that's interesting. And it was interesting in my own mind
- 22:02Speaker 2: that the emotion of that person I was like, oh,
- 22:06Speaker 2: oh no, what happened? Like, you know, did I do something?
- 22:09Speaker 2: And then, like you said, then they showed the body
- 22:11Speaker 2: cam and you're like, if that person would have waited
- 22:15Speaker 2: and said, well, let's wait and see the full story
- 22:18Speaker 2: before we give a reaction or a comment. Or, because
- 22:21Speaker 2: I think people put in their heart like, oh, there
- 22:23Speaker 2: they go again. When in reality, once the information came out,
- 22:27Speaker 2: you're like, oh, I missed the context. Yeah, context is
- 22:29Speaker 2: super important. You have a chapter, you know, called losing
- 22:34Speaker 2: faith in there. And, you know, describe that because there's
- 22:39Speaker 2: two things that I see happening at once. Once is
- 22:42Speaker 2: your own spiritual journey as you, and you talked, you know,
- 22:45Speaker 2: about the firefighters for Christ, which began to help you.
- 22:50Speaker 2: But then also, you know, how do you, how do you,
- 22:53Speaker 2: do you lose faith like in humanity? Cause you're seeing
- 22:58Speaker 2: the depravity of humanity. And how do you, how do you,
- 23:01Speaker 2: did you ever come back to the, to the point
- 23:03Speaker 2: of having a little bit of compassion? Are you safe
- 23:05Speaker 2: compassion for later or what?
- 23:08Speaker 1: That's very interesting. Good question. As far as absolutely losing
- 23:14Speaker 1: faith in humanity, when you're seeing this day in and
- 23:18Speaker 1: day out, there wasn't any easy day. It was just
- 23:24Speaker 1: a war zone. And that's why my friends really wanted
- 23:29Speaker 1: me to write the book. I didn't want to write
- 23:31Speaker 1: this book. It brought up too many scars. I'm sorry,
- 23:35Speaker 1: opened too many wounds. I didn't really want it to,
- 23:39Speaker 1: but they go, no, Mike, you have a story because
- 23:42Speaker 1: you weren't from LA. You were just an innocent white
- 23:46Speaker 1: kid who surfed, ended up in the ghetto and just
- 23:50Speaker 1: in the projects. And you need to write about how
- 23:56Speaker 1: it changed you and how you changed, how you changed back.
- 24:01Speaker 1: But Absolutely losing faith in humanity. And then the other
- 24:06Speaker 1: part was I've convinced myself I couldn't feel compassion to people.
- 24:15Speaker 1: I had to remain tough and hardened because I could
- 24:21Speaker 1: process just the horrific events that were going on and
- 24:28Speaker 1: that I was seeing and that I was going to.
- 24:31Speaker 1: dead police officers, you know, rape victims and just horrific crimes,
- 24:39Speaker 1: crimes that were going on. But when I said losing faith,
- 24:43Speaker 1: and I did, of course, I did. And I made
- 24:46Speaker 1: that point clear that I didn't reject Christ. I just
- 24:51Speaker 1: lost faith that, yeah, I don't think religion's got it correct.
- 24:57Speaker 1: It's that's for somebody else. That's for other people. but
- 25:01Speaker 1: it's not for me right now. And I shelved it.
- 25:04Speaker 1: And that's what I did. I just put it on
- 25:06Speaker 1: a shelf and said, when I'm, when I'm done, I'll
- 25:10Speaker 1: come back and grab it. So it was my way
- 25:16Speaker 1: of carpent.
- 25:18Speaker 2: Compartmentalizing.
- 25:18Speaker 1: Yeah. Thank you. That was the word just so that
- 25:24Speaker 1: I could handle this stuff. Yeah.
- 25:26Speaker 2: I mean, and so as you're, you know, 36 years,
- 25:29Speaker 2: long time, And so you're seeing yourself change. People are
- 25:33Speaker 2: making people are noticing, you know, the change, the hardness
- 25:36Speaker 2: that you need to just simply to do the job.
- 25:39Speaker 2: How did you handle that coming home? I mean, did
- 25:44Speaker 2: that transfer over? Were you able to turn it off?
- 25:46Speaker 2: Were you able to show compassion to the family, to
- 25:48Speaker 2: the wife, to others? Or did you find that difficult?
- 25:51Speaker 1: Oh, it's extremely difficult. I couldn't discuss this with anybody.
- 25:55Speaker 1: You know, I as my sister recalls, it's funny, your friends.
- 26:01Speaker 1: And your family members all point to certain incidents that
- 26:06Speaker 1: take place. And they go, yeah, we knew you were
- 26:08Speaker 1: having a problem. I'm like, oh, I didn't realize I
- 26:12Speaker 1: was having a problem. And she said, oh, yeah, they
- 26:15Speaker 1: were having a birthday party for my, you know, and
- 26:19Speaker 1: at my house, my wife was there and everything. And
- 26:21Speaker 1: I stepped outside and I was having a cigarette. My
- 26:25Speaker 1: sister goes, you know, what's going on? And I said, well,
- 26:32Speaker 1: this just took place. It was a guy who had
- 26:37Speaker 1: killed his family, a different family, but two of his kids.
- 26:42Speaker 1: And I go, you know, I spent hours on that.
- 26:45Speaker 1: I mean, some of these, you know, scenes, you spend
- 26:48Speaker 1: hours and you spend hours looking at the victims. And
- 26:54Speaker 1: then you can't come home. And I couldn't come home
- 26:56Speaker 1: and tell my wife, hey, this just took place. I
- 27:01Speaker 1: could go and just like any other police officer who's
- 27:04Speaker 1: going to be watching this could go into one horrific
- 27:07Speaker 1: event after another, after another, after another. It stays with you.
- 27:13Speaker 1: I was in Hawaii and I sat down at a
- 27:15Speaker 1: table with a friend of mine who was a police
- 27:19Speaker 1: officer and he's recalling incidents 30 years earlier. I mean,
- 27:26Speaker 1: we have this for the rest of our lives. All
- 27:28Speaker 1: this memory, you know, When I drove around Fresno, I
- 27:34Speaker 1: used to drive around and go, oh, yeah, there was
- 27:38Speaker 1: a homicider there. Oh, yeah, we shot that guy over there.
- 27:41Speaker 1: And just pointing to intersections and housing areas and stuff.
- 27:47Speaker 1: And my wife's like, how do you drive around a
- 27:49Speaker 1: town now? And I go, that's why we're always on alert.
- 27:56Speaker 1: We know what happens. So, no. No. It was very difficult.
- 28:02Speaker 1: And now they have psychologists that you can talk to.
- 28:07Speaker 1: Fresno PD actually had a chaplain. So you could go
- 28:13Speaker 1: down there and talk to a chaplain. That's huge. I mean,
- 28:17Speaker 1: and that was very controversial. We actually had a chaplain's
- 28:22Speaker 1: office at the police department, and that was groundbreaking. So
- 28:27Speaker 1: police officers should go down there and actually... sit and
- 28:30Speaker 1: talk to the chaplain. Except one of our chaplains, who
- 28:36Speaker 1: later became a police officer, was still preaching, but he
- 28:41Speaker 1: was also a police officer, killed his lover's husband, tried
- 28:47Speaker 1: to blame it on another police officer, and he went
- 28:51Speaker 1: off to prison for 22 years for murder. So it
- 28:55Speaker 1: changed him too.
- 28:57Speaker 2: Yeah, changed him too.
- 28:58Speaker 1: Yep.
- 28:59Speaker 2: That seems to be the challenge is being changed too much, right?
- 29:05Speaker 2: And so again, you know, just the Compton Don't Surf,
- 29:11Speaker 2: Mike Doyle, get it on Amazon so people can check
- 29:16Speaker 2: it out. Again, you'll find it extremely fascinating and engaging.
- 29:21Speaker 2: And you have a lot of humor in there, which
- 29:23Speaker 2: is very, very good as well. And let's go back
- 29:26Speaker 2: for a moment. So here you are living... You know,
- 29:29Speaker 2: you're working. Was there any time at all that maybe
- 29:35Speaker 2: you had somebody who you arrested or whatever, and you
- 29:38Speaker 2: came in with a certain hardness? but yet that gave you,
- 29:42Speaker 2: did you have anybody that you felt like, okay, this
- 29:46Speaker 2: person is truly sorry. And then you felt, okay, there
- 29:52Speaker 2: is a hope for redemption for this person. Or did
- 29:55Speaker 2: you just close it off?
- 29:58Speaker 1: No, for the most part, close it off. But there
- 30:02Speaker 1: were several times, there were several times that I would
- 30:07Speaker 1: arrest somebody and then I would help out his family.
- 30:11Speaker 2: Okay.
- 30:12Speaker 1: And so race funds and police officers are very giving.
- 30:17Speaker 1: I know that doesn't sound right, but police officers are
- 30:21Speaker 1: amazing as far as giving up their own funds. I've
- 30:24Speaker 1: seen multiple times where police officers just give cash out
- 30:30Speaker 1: of their own pockets to help families. Look, this kid
- 30:34Speaker 1: didn't have a bed. Oh, look, this kid doesn't have
- 30:36Speaker 1: a Christmas present. Or, hey, his dad just went to
- 30:39Speaker 1: prison or his family just went in the hospital. And
- 30:43Speaker 1: we would supply the family with Christmas gifts. We do
- 30:48Speaker 1: have that type of compassion. And there was one incident
- 30:53Speaker 1: where I did arrest somebody And I did give him
- 30:56Speaker 1: a break and I did get enough donations to house
- 31:02Speaker 1: to buy beds because their family didn't have beds. So
- 31:07Speaker 1: all the police officers chipped in and we got them
- 31:10Speaker 1: actual beds. And then we went to a store that
- 31:13Speaker 1: we knew the owner and he gave us a good
- 31:15Speaker 1: deal on the beds. So there is a great deal
- 31:20Speaker 1: of compassion, but it is few and far between. especially
- 31:25Speaker 1: against the suspects.
- 31:27Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And this is why it's important because again,
- 31:31Speaker 2: as you mentioned, there's some that are obviously very dedicated
- 31:37Speaker 2: to supporting law enforcement, which as you just described, you know,
- 31:42Speaker 2: in the whole rage of the anti-police movement or defund
- 31:46Speaker 2: the police here, you're telling stories about how the police
- 31:50Speaker 2: are getting together to help families, you know, and a
- 31:53Speaker 2: lot of that is left out where there is a
- 31:56Speaker 2: reality of this balance. Again, to me, it's only supernatural
- 32:01Speaker 2: that you could have the ability to balance this out
- 32:05Speaker 2: when you're dealing with stuff like this. It really is
- 32:07Speaker 2: a calling. You know, in this, here you are now,
- 32:14Speaker 2: of course, you're writing about it. You're thinking it back
- 32:16Speaker 2: over 36 years. How is your understanding of forgiveness, how
- 32:24Speaker 2: was it shaped from all the way before through the
- 32:27Speaker 2: 36 years and then even now? I mean, how long
- 32:29Speaker 2: have you been retired?
- 32:31Speaker 1: I've been retired for 10 years now. Okay. Well, it's
- 32:35Speaker 1: funny you talk about forgiveness because, and you were a
- 32:39Speaker 1: great person to talk with because we could just, you
- 32:46Speaker 1: could really relate. Yeah, I am so thankful. I really am.
- 32:52Speaker 1: I pray every night and I just ask for forgiveness.
- 33:00Speaker 1: You've talked to me at length about forgiveness because I
- 33:05Speaker 1: go to those verses where it says, love your enemies.
- 33:08Speaker 1: And I've told you straight up, yeah, I can't do that.
- 33:13Speaker 1: I'm not wired that way.
- 33:16Speaker 2: And I.
- 33:19Speaker 1: I'm more of like the crusader who know we're going
- 33:22Speaker 1: to go to war and we're going to go fight.
- 33:26Speaker 1: I'm kind of wired that way. But I think daily
- 33:33Speaker 1: devotionals have really helped. And it's really helped clamp down
- 33:38Speaker 1: a lot of the anger. Not only anger with the suspect,
- 33:45Speaker 1: anger at the communities that back the suspects. You know,
- 33:50Speaker 1: it's not backing the police officers. It's just a lot
- 33:56Speaker 1: of anger. And I think a lot of police officers
- 33:58Speaker 1: have that anger. And if I don't read daily devotionals
- 34:03Speaker 1: to try and clamp that down and, you know, tamp
- 34:07Speaker 1: it down, I'm sorry, tamp it down, then it just
- 34:12Speaker 1: starts going spiral. You know, you just start going down
- 34:16Speaker 1: this hill. And that was the other thing I pointed
- 34:20Speaker 1: out in the book is the amount of police suicides,
- 34:24Speaker 1: the amount of police suicides is just astronomical. I mean,
- 34:28Speaker 1: not only are police officers shot and killed at an
- 34:32Speaker 1: alarming rate in this country, but people forget that the
- 34:38Speaker 1: suicides are just as equally horrible. And we were dealing
- 34:45Speaker 1: with that too. I mean, come to work and Oh,
- 34:48Speaker 1: so-and-so killed himself. What? You know, how do you, now
- 34:54Speaker 1: how do you do it, right? How do you deal
- 34:57Speaker 1: with that? So I would say ultimately devotionals and having
- 35:06Speaker 1: a church family. But even when I go to church,
- 35:09Speaker 1: other than the Tahoe Community Church, because we like shooting.
- 35:15Speaker 1: But a lot of the other churches, they have no
- 35:17Speaker 1: understanding on what really goes on.
- 35:22Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's, you know, of course, our church
- 35:24Speaker 2: up there, pretty small. But yet you would think that,
- 35:30Speaker 2: and I don't know, maybe some do, some don't. But
- 35:33Speaker 2: the idea of any large church would have a specific
- 35:37Speaker 2: ministry that would be dedicated to law enforcement, you know,
- 35:41Speaker 2: or military or whatever. Just because that's a whole different world.
- 35:44Speaker 2: I mean, I've never been in the military, never done
- 35:46Speaker 2: any of that. And so my only experience has been,
- 35:49Speaker 2: you know, through pastoring and different things and getting exposed.
- 35:52Speaker 2: Of course, your book is very helpful. You know, even
- 35:55Speaker 2: some of the stories that you and I talked about,
- 35:59Speaker 2: reading the book was like, oh man, we never talked
- 36:01Speaker 2: about this. And it just opened up. It opened up.
- 36:05Speaker 2: I wish I would have had the book, honestly, before.
- 36:10Speaker 2: And then been able to chat because to say, okay,
- 36:15Speaker 2: now I'm just getting a very bigger glimpse into truly
- 36:21Speaker 2: what you're coming to the table with and trying to
- 36:25Speaker 2: puzzle through. Of course, as anything, education, I would love
- 36:29Speaker 2: to be more educated about the whole situation, about what
- 36:32Speaker 2: it was like. And certainly that probably would have helped me, again,
- 36:37Speaker 2: chat with you in a better way, a more intelligent way,
- 36:38Speaker 2: I would say. You know, for those, you know, you
- 36:43Speaker 2: dedicated the book to Kevin Burrell and James McDonald. And
- 36:46Speaker 2: so talk about that dedication and then, again, to their
- 36:53Speaker 2: memory and how that shaped you.
- 36:57Speaker 1: Kevin, which was the black officer that was killed, and
- 37:02Speaker 1: James was the white officer, they were partners. Kevin was
- 37:06Speaker 1: just an amazing person. An amazing kid. Grew up around
- 37:13Speaker 1: the police department. Just had a positive outlook on everything.
- 37:21Speaker 1: Quite different than mine, my attitude. And James McDonald did also.
- 37:27Speaker 1: I didn't know him as well, but I knew Kevin better.
- 37:32Speaker 1: That again is... I went down for the funeral and
- 37:37Speaker 1: of course... met with all my friends. And it shapes
- 37:43Speaker 1: you in that, for me, in a negative way. It reconfirmed,
- 37:50Speaker 1: don't be compassionate with anyone. It means this is for real.
- 37:55Speaker 1: You could die out on the street. And I remember
- 37:58Speaker 1: having conversations with my partners going, whatever happens, you never
- 38:04Speaker 1: let me lay on that pavement. I don't care how
- 38:08Speaker 1: dead I am. You scoop me up, throw me in
- 38:12Speaker 1: the backseat of a police car, and take me to
- 38:14Speaker 1: the hospital. Somehow, someway, pronounce me at the hospital, but
- 38:21Speaker 1: do not leave me on a pavement. And we would
- 38:24Speaker 1: have pacts between friends saying, I got you. I got you.
- 38:31Speaker 1: And if I die, this is my wife and my kids.
- 38:38Speaker 1: and things like that. So it changes you. And to me,
- 38:46Speaker 1: it changed me in a negative light in that it
- 38:51Speaker 1: was horrific, but in a positive light to reaffirm my
- 38:56Speaker 1: faith and make sure that I was still in the
- 39:02Speaker 1: Lord's fold and that I had recommitted my life to
- 39:06Speaker 1: Christ and that I had asked for forgiveness and repented.
- 39:13Speaker 1: So I think in a positive way, that's how it
- 39:18Speaker 1: affected me. In a negative way, it was like, okay,
- 39:22Speaker 1: you know, this is for real. These are my friends
- 39:26Speaker 1: dying out there.
- 39:27Speaker 2: It's sobering. And, you know, the Bible says a lot
- 39:32Speaker 2: about respecting elders, respecting those that have gone before us,
- 39:39Speaker 2: and those that, again, that are still alive. In fact,
- 39:41Speaker 2: in the Old Testament, you know, if a gray-haired man walks,
- 39:45Speaker 2: comes into the room, everybody's supposed to stand up. You know,
- 39:48Speaker 2: it's very, very serious about respecting those that are older
- 39:52Speaker 2: and wiser than us. And so with that theme, here
- 39:57Speaker 2: you are, you know, 52, something like that. You're, you know,
- 40:02Speaker 2: 52 years old.
- 40:04Speaker 1: Well, you know, I'm almost 70.
- 40:06Speaker 2: You're almost 70. Okay. You're almost 70, but you're a
- 40:09Speaker 2: great tennis player. I know that. So, so what do
- 40:14Speaker 2: you say then? You know, there's people that are coming up.
- 40:17Speaker 2: What do you say to the young people? The 23-year-old Mike,
- 40:21Speaker 2: you know, or those that are considering, hey, I want
- 40:23Speaker 2: to be a police officer. My dad was in law
- 40:25Speaker 2: enforcement or whatever. I want to go and I want
- 40:27Speaker 2: to protect people. What do you say with all of
- 40:30Speaker 2: your wisdom and your experience? What do you say to
- 40:34Speaker 2: that person, you know, just in the sense of the job,
- 40:38Speaker 2: but secondly, from a spiritual perspective, how that they don't,
- 40:42Speaker 2: how they can protect their own soul in the process?
- 40:45Speaker 1: Well, first they have to use their resources. If they're
- 40:47Speaker 1: going to go in there, know that you're going to change.
- 40:52Speaker 1: Know that change is inevitable. It will happen. You will
- 40:56Speaker 1: not be the same person going into the police academy
- 40:59Speaker 1: because the police academy is book, book learning. You do
- 41:05Speaker 1: some fun scenarios. You get to shoot. And it's nothing
- 41:10Speaker 1: like what happens the minute you hit the streets. It's college.
- 41:15Speaker 1: And suddenly you get into a patrol car with a
- 41:19Speaker 1: training officer who's normally very bitter and been around for
- 41:26Speaker 1: a long time and has seen a lot of rookies
- 41:29Speaker 1: come and go. Like when I was a training officer,
- 41:32Speaker 1: a lot of the officers go in there with such
- 41:36Speaker 1: an idyllic view of how they're going to help people.
- 41:39Speaker 1: And so did I, and so did everybody that I
- 41:41Speaker 1: went to the academy with. And then you go into
- 41:44Speaker 1: police and you realize this isn't for me. This is
- 41:50Speaker 1: a life I really don't want. And the honest ones will,
- 41:55Speaker 1: like my friend's son, he goes, you should join the
- 42:00Speaker 1: police department. He goes, I don't want the life you had.
- 42:02Speaker 1: I don't want to see what you saw. I don't
- 42:05Speaker 1: want to have the life. What I would tell them
- 42:08Speaker 1: is use the resources. The resources like the chaplaincy that
- 42:12Speaker 1: they have at police departments now. The psychologists that are
- 42:18Speaker 1: there right now that are available to them. Like I
- 42:23Speaker 1: tell my own son, who is a police officer, which
- 42:27Speaker 1: I tried to discourage as much as I could, but
- 42:32Speaker 1: it wasn't until he started working shifts and seeing some
- 42:35Speaker 1: horrendous stuff that He goes, oh, now I know what
- 42:38Speaker 1: now I actually would say now I know why you're
- 42:41Speaker 1: cranky all the time. And now I know why you
- 42:46Speaker 1: were never, never around. You're always on call outs. You're
- 42:51Speaker 1: always on on stuff and. And know that it's going
- 42:55Speaker 1: to affect the family. Just be aware and then have
- 43:00Speaker 1: people that you can talk with. I honestly don't think
- 43:04Speaker 1: it's healthy to talk to your wife. about some of
- 43:07Speaker 1: the horrific scenes that you've seen. That's a little too
- 43:10Speaker 1: much for someone to absorb. But there are resources available now.
- 43:17Speaker 1: There's resources available now that weren't available back then.
- 43:22Speaker 2: You know, talk about that too, because you brought up,
- 43:24Speaker 2: you know, going and seeing the psychologist. And I should
- 43:26Speaker 2: have mentioned this earlier, but, you know, in your own journey,
- 43:29Speaker 2: you went in to get a master's of psychology. I mean,
- 43:33Speaker 2: you pursued that. And what led you there and how
- 43:36Speaker 2: did that help you in your, again, just in processing everything?
- 43:40Speaker 1: Well, I realized that I was in a medical unit
- 43:44Speaker 1: and my commander was a psychologist. And so I talked
- 43:48Speaker 1: with him and keep talking with him. And then I thought,
- 43:51Speaker 1: you know, he goes, you really ought to become one.
- 43:54Speaker 1: You really ought to study psychology so that you can
- 43:58Speaker 1: help other police officers. And so I went. to Pepperdine
- 44:03Speaker 1: and I was getting my master's degree in psychology. And
- 44:07Speaker 1: I wrote about this in the book and they, one
- 44:11Speaker 1: day they asked, okay, relate a story that really changed you.
- 44:17Speaker 1: And I told a story and it shocked the class.
- 44:22Speaker 1: I mean, these are people who are becoming psychologists. They're
- 44:26Speaker 1: in their master's degree and the psychologist and the psychologist said, well,
- 44:31Speaker 1: That is the most horrific story I think I've ever heard.
- 44:34Speaker 1: Please don't tell any more. And I go like, well,
- 44:38Speaker 1: aren't we studying psychology? And he said, yes, but we
- 44:42Speaker 1: don't want to hear stories like that anymore. And there
- 44:45Speaker 1: was a couple of girls that had to leave the
- 44:48Speaker 1: room and one was kind of crying. And I said, well,
- 44:52Speaker 1: that was like my first week as a police officer.
- 44:56Speaker 1: And they were like, no way. we're not set up
- 45:00Speaker 1: for that. We, these people can't, can't understand that lifestyle can,
- 45:06Speaker 1: can't absorb that. And so the people who we, I
- 45:11Speaker 1: thought was going to help ended up saying, it's just
- 45:15Speaker 1: too violent. It's just too grisly. We don't want to
- 45:19Speaker 1: hear about this anymore. So it was, it was difficult. Yeah.
- 45:26Speaker 2: I mean, I imagine that As you mentioned, I'm sure
- 45:29Speaker 2: the psychologists in the departments or whatever, you know, they're
- 45:35Speaker 2: special because they are dealing, you know, specialists maybe even
- 45:40Speaker 2: in that regard.
- 45:40Speaker 1: They are. And so are the chaplains too. But it's
- 45:46Speaker 1: absolutely not necessary. I was afraid to go to some
- 45:50Speaker 1: of my pastors because if I started talking, they would think, Oh,
- 45:58Speaker 1: my gosh. I have a, I don't know, a congregant
- 46:03Speaker 1: that is kind of, he's going off the rails. But
- 46:11Speaker 1: it's not really necessary to be a police chaplain, but
- 46:15Speaker 1: be like yourself. Hey, let's go golf. Let's talk. Or, hey,
- 46:21Speaker 1: let's play tennis. Hey, let's talk.
- 46:25Speaker 2: Yeah, be an activist. I know in our conversations, which, again,
- 46:32Speaker 2: you know, there's theological truth of, you know, forgiveness and
- 46:37Speaker 2: restoration and grace and mercy and compassion. And those are
- 46:40Speaker 2: all real theological things that obviously God commands us to do.
- 46:46Speaker 2: And those are the ideal. And what was interesting, again,
- 46:52Speaker 2: in my own conversations with you is, is you know
- 46:57Speaker 2: you have these hard and fast black and white truths
- 47:01Speaker 2: and then you sharing some of the stories and going
- 47:06Speaker 2: and for me as a pastor going how do i
- 47:09Speaker 2: get in his world and understand the dynamics rather than
- 47:13Speaker 2: just saying well you know it doesn't matter what the
- 47:15Speaker 2: story is you need to forgive i mean that to
- 47:17Speaker 2: me that's just that's just i'm i don't know unloving
- 47:20Speaker 2: unkind whatever it's just it's uncompassionate from a pastoral perspective
- 47:23Speaker 2: but to say you know, and I always felt like
- 47:25Speaker 2: the Lord say, you know, get into Mike's world and understand, yes,
- 47:29Speaker 2: the truths are there, but understand, try to understand where
- 47:32Speaker 2: he's coming from and how he's wrestling and putting those
- 47:35Speaker 2: into practice. It's way different than me. And I felt that,
- 47:40Speaker 2: you know, even in the book, you described this process
- 47:43Speaker 2: and journey and, you know, kind of, kind of in closing,
- 47:46Speaker 2: closing us out here, you know, you wrote this book,
- 47:51Speaker 2: the book, maybe wrap it up for the audience in,
- 47:55Speaker 2: in what do you want them to walk away with
- 47:58Speaker 2: from the book?
- 47:59Speaker 1: The biggest thing is an understanding of what police officers
- 48:05Speaker 1: see every day and what they go through. And that
- 48:10Speaker 1: even seeing horrific crimes like, like that one, one guy
- 48:15Speaker 1: who killed seven of his children and, and then, and
- 48:19Speaker 1: two of his own daughters. So seven grandchildren, that was
- 48:24Speaker 1: a horrific mass murder. I was there 15 hours a
- 48:29Speaker 1: day for three days. So you're there going, seeing that
- 48:34Speaker 1: for 15 hours, going to scenes where several police officers
- 48:40Speaker 1: had been gunned down and, and had been killed. Again,
- 48:44Speaker 1: I was there for, you know, 15 hours, 16 hours
- 48:48Speaker 1: a day running, running, not helping run the operation. And,
- 48:53Speaker 1: Horrific plane crashes where victims are everywhere. I remember one
- 49:01Speaker 1: in Fresno where I was actually walking around and I
- 49:08Speaker 1: saw a plane crash. And I was the only one there.
- 49:13Speaker 1: And I was actually at 2.30 in the morning running
- 49:17Speaker 1: around the plane crash trying to find the victims. amongst
- 49:21Speaker 1: the burning plane. And I'm trying to find the victim
- 49:26Speaker 1: and the victims. And then you have to deal with
- 49:31Speaker 1: the aftermath. You have to deal with the families. My biggest,
- 49:36Speaker 1: what I want to get at, What I want people
- 49:40Speaker 1: to get from this is an understanding that these officers,
- 49:45Speaker 1: and there's a reason why there's such a huge shortage
- 49:48Speaker 1: of officers right now. No one's signing up anymore. It's
- 49:53Speaker 1: just people are saying, I don't want to live that life.
- 49:59Speaker 1: I don't want to do that. But to help the
- 50:02Speaker 1: police officers and, you know, pray for them. And know
- 50:08Speaker 1: that they're going through horrific events every night.
- 50:11Speaker 2: Yeah, amen to that. And I think that's what I
- 50:14Speaker 2: see is, you know, the largest, I mean, the greatest
- 50:18Speaker 2: majority of law enforcement is there for the right reason.
- 50:22Speaker 2: And yeah, there's always a couple of bad apples in everything,
- 50:26Speaker 2: but don't allow those bad apples to basically categorize all
- 50:30Speaker 2: the rest of them because all these people who are
- 50:32Speaker 2: out there risking their own lives, you're seeing your friends,
- 50:35Speaker 2: your partners perish in the job. all the wicked and evilness.
- 50:40Speaker 2: And the goal is, you mentioned this in the book,
- 50:43Speaker 2: is to protect people from wolves, from predators. And that
- 50:47Speaker 2: really is the goal. And so Mike, I really appreciate
- 50:50Speaker 2: your time. So glad you wrote the book. And for
- 50:53Speaker 2: those listening, go to Amazon, go to amazon.com. You can
- 50:56Speaker 2: see again, Michael Doyle, Compton don't surf like the city
- 51:00Speaker 2: of Compton doesn't surf like Mike did in his life.
- 51:03Speaker 2: And so check out the book again, great Christmas present
- 51:06Speaker 2: for others. I think This could be an encouragement to, again,
- 51:10Speaker 2: all law enforcement families or anybody that needs to understand.
- 51:13Speaker 2: But I imagine even your fellow police officers would love
- 51:17Speaker 2: to just have to see their story because they're going
- 51:20Speaker 2: to identify with their story being shared in so many ways.
- 51:22Speaker 2: So thank you, everybody, for listening today for this program. Again,
- 51:26Speaker 2: it's been it's been good and we will catch you
- 51:28Speaker 2: next time.