Latest / Heroes Behind the Badge / Sheriff Mike Neal — The Walmart Shooting and What He Brought Home | Part 2

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Sheriff Mike Neal — The Walmart Shooting and What He Brought Home | Part 2 · Heroes Behind the Badge

0:00
What's the most memorable experience
0:03
after that incident?
0:05
Oh, wow.
0:06
Man, there's so many.
0:09
You know, there's so many.
0:10
I think probably Bobby
0:14
Paudert coming to the scene
0:17
and hugging me.
0:20
I'd say that one
0:21
probably stands out the most.
0:25
Part two picks up where part one left off
0:28
with Mike Neal 16 years
0:29
later, still carrying May 20th.
0:33
So I want to go back just
0:35
like Craig just went back.
0:37
Let's talk about your
0:38
wife and this anniversary.
0:40
So all of this story
0:41
that we're talking about,
0:44
this just happened May 20th.
0:46
You get married on May 20th.
0:48
What did Chief Paudert and some other
0:51
folks ever say to you about you deciding
0:54
to get married on that same day?
0:58
We're only two years in and I haven't
1:00
heard anything from the chief and a lot
1:03
of people don't realize
1:04
that that's my anniversary.
1:07
We had a false anniversary set in August,
1:12
but we had actually kind of eloped if you
1:15
will, on May 20th and
1:18
we kind of kept it quiet.
1:20
I didn't do it to offend anyone.
1:23
I did it for me to try to help me cope
1:26
through the day,
1:27
honestly, to bring some joy.
1:31
I finally found someone in my life that
1:35
gives me the support that I need,
1:42
the soft spot to come home to.
1:50
Did she ever give you any pushback about
1:53
that and say why that date?
1:56
She laughed and she said, well, you'll
1:58
make sure you won't miss our anniversary.
2:00
That's for sure.
2:01
But no, she understood.
2:05
She got it.
2:08
She's pretty special.
2:11
Tell us about her.
2:14
We've known each other for, oh, probably
2:18
about 15 years and across paths
2:22
throughout the years, but I got divorced
2:26
in 19 and then she got divorced
2:29
and they just all kind of clicked and
2:31
fell together timing was right.
2:34
It's been a life changing event.
2:37
I never understood how good a marriage
2:40
could be until you get the right one.
2:43
And this one's the right one.
2:45
That's awesome.
2:46
And you needed that in your life.
2:48
You needed that.
2:49
Absolutely.
2:50
She stood right there with me all last
2:53
week, the police week.
2:55
That support is invaluable.
2:58
I promise you, it's an amazing thing.
3:01
So when she stood there by you at the
3:03
museum, how proud was she?
3:06
Probably more proud than me.
3:10
Yeah, she's super proud of her husband.
3:14
I have to ask, what was her feeling like
3:19
when she first saw that truck with dozens
3:22
of bullet holes through the windshield,
3:23
knowing that you were
3:24
on the other side of it?
3:25
That had to hit her hard.
3:28
It did.
3:29
And it got me too,
3:32
but I think it humbled her
3:35
to actually see the truck.
3:36
She's seen pictures of it, but that last
3:38
week was the first time that she saw it
3:41
in person, that got to see
3:44
just how bad it really was.
3:47
Seeing it in person is a lot different
3:48
from seeing pictures or
3:49
videos of it, that's for sure.
3:51
I'm so glad that you thought to put that
3:55
truck in that museum.
3:57
At that luncheon when you mentioned it to
4:00
me, I'm like, this story is incredible,
4:03
but a truck in a museum,
4:06
I hadn't seen the truck.
4:07
I didn't know how many bullet holes there
4:08
were in it or anything else.
4:10
But I am so glad that you had that vision
4:15
and that it came to life.
4:17
And by the way, the people that installed
4:19
our exhibits in the National Law
4:21
Enforcement Museum told me that putting
4:23
that truck up on that pedestal in the
4:26
museum was the hardest
4:27
part of building that museum.
4:30
It was even tougher than putting the
4:32
helicopter there
4:33
hanging from the rafters.
4:36
I think they used it for something to
4:38
lift it up, didn't they,
4:39
or something like that?
4:41
Oh, incredible.
4:42
But what a statement it makes, right?
4:45
To me, I'm seeing
4:46
this as a civilian again.
4:47
I've never been a cop,
4:48
never worn the badge.
4:50
But to think what you all have to deal
4:52
with at times, right?
4:54
I mean, it can be a very normal, boring
4:57
day most of the time, and then boom,
5:01
within seconds, you're in the middle of a
5:03
shootout with people that have no respect
5:06
for the laws of this country or the men
5:09
and women who serve in law enforcement.
5:11
And it's just amazing to me that officers
5:14
are willing to do what you did that day
5:18
and that that truck tells that story to
5:21
the American people, right?
5:22
That our officers are willing to assume
5:25
these risks, life and death moments, for
5:28
the safety of others.
5:30
And so that gets me to my question, which
5:32
is, okay, you hear about these two
5:35
killers that are on the loose, you're
5:37
miles and miles away.
5:39
It would have been easy, I think, for you
5:40
as a wildlife officer to kind of let
5:43
other people take
5:44
charge and deal with it.
5:46
But you took it on your own to end this
5:49
mayhem and this murderous rampage.
5:52
I mean, what is going through your mind
5:54
when you heard that call go out and you
5:56
decided I'm gonna be the one to stop it?
6:00
You know, it goes back farther than that.
6:03
I had always had the burn in me.
6:05
I've always, for lack of better words,
6:08
felt something coming
6:10
within inside my soul, honestly.
6:14
And it led up to that day.
6:16
The doors throughout my
6:18
careers that opened and closed
6:21
are pretty phenomenal to
6:23
lead to the May 20th shooting.
6:25
There was no reason for me to be there.
6:27
Just like you said, I was a game warden
6:29
of, I had no business even being there.
6:33
But it was, I was used as
6:36
an instrument, honestly.
6:37
That's the best way I can put it.
6:39
That was a guardian angel that was taking
6:41
control and putting me where I needed to
6:42
be to stop a bad situation.
6:45
But when that call went
6:46
out, two officers down,
6:49
it was put out, it was an MS-13 gang.
6:52
It was a hit on the
6:53
drug interdiction team.
6:56
It was a really bad deal.
6:58
And it was inside me like a fire.
7:00
I had to be there.
7:03
I'm one of those kind of guys, I guess
7:05
true leaders are born with it.
7:09
It's something that's in you.
7:11
You don't really, I'm sure you can bring
7:13
it out in any person, but for the ones
7:16
that it's inside them or the cops that
7:18
are out here doing it every day.
7:20
They're putting their life
7:21
online for complete strangers.
7:23
And this was kind of one of those deals.
7:26
That call went out.
7:27
I knew I had to be there because I know I
7:29
know what I'm doing.
7:30
I don't know if you know what you're
7:31
doing, but I know I do.
7:33
Let me go first.
7:34
You know, so I'll go through the door
7:35
first, move out of the way.
7:37
I'm that kind of guy.
7:38
I always have been, played football my
7:40
entire, high school
7:42
growing up, headhunter.
7:44
You were a linebacker.
7:46
I was a middle
7:47
linebacker in a defensive end.
7:49
Yes, sir.
7:50
I was one of those, if I hit
7:51
you harder, it don't hurt me.
7:53
Yeah, I hit people, but getting out of
7:56
that, I'm getting a little old, my bones
7:58
break anymore, it hurts.
7:59
So I still get invites as sheriff.
8:02
Went up in the hospital about a year ago,
8:03
I have a fight, broke
8:04
my hand, but it happens.
8:07
But that day-
8:08
Yeah, go ahead.
8:09
No, no, yeah, that day I
8:12
had to be there, you know?
8:13
And I could not get there fast enough.
8:16
And if you stop and really listen to the
8:18
story and how things
8:19
went, I got there too quick.
8:23
That old game of fish truck run 140 and I
8:26
had her stretched out.
8:27
What I'd done is I'd called my sergeant.
8:30
I told him a little bit of a white lie.
8:32
I said, "Hey, sergeant, I know what's up.
8:34
I'm pretty close.
8:35
Can I come help?"
8:36
Well, I was game warden close.
8:39
And I don't know if you see game wardens,
8:40
you never see game
8:41
wardens, that's how close I was.
8:43
I was over an hour away.
8:45
And he said, "Yeah, get up
8:46
here as fast as you can."
8:47
And I was like,
8:48
"Green light, here we go."
8:50
You just gave me permission to run lights
8:51
and sirens as fast as I can.
8:53
And that's what I did.
8:55
But when I got into town, I was running
8:58
out of gas in my truck.
9:01
It was one of those moments, hey,
9:04
it's where God kind of grabbed me and
9:05
said like, "Hey, stupid, slow down.
9:08
Hang on just a second, you
9:09
pull the reins back a little bit."
9:11
And I pulled into the gas station and I
9:14
didn't even know where I was at.
9:17
It was a gut punch is what I needed, but
9:19
like a squirrel, something shiny over
9:22
here, something shiny over there.
9:24
I'm that kind of guy.
9:26
But I pulled in that gas station, I was
9:27
getting gas and I'd stopped at the
9:30
Horizon Shell Gas Station at the 275 mile
9:33
marker, had no idea.
9:35
And as I'm gassing up that truck, I
9:36
realized where I'm at.
9:38
And I see two officers down.
9:40
I was right there at the crime scene.
9:42
It was right in front of me.
9:44
And it was a humbling moment.
9:46
There was also a moment of,
9:49
this is real.
9:51
This isn't training, this is real life.
9:55
This is what you've prepared for.
9:58
Get your mind right and get in the fight.
10:02
And when I pulled out of that gas
10:03
station, I drove over that overpass to
10:05
look down on that crime scene.
10:07
And I'm gonna tell you, it put a fire, a
10:10
burn in my soul that
10:11
I've never felt before.
10:14
And I get adrenaline running right now,
10:18
just thinking about it.
10:19
And I remember
10:21
thinking, we gotta fix this.
10:24
Cops were fixers.
10:25
That's what we are.
10:26
As a cop, you're there to fix something.
10:29
When you're called to the
10:30
scene, you had to fix something.
10:34
And I remember you through your rifle
10:38
across your chest and you slung your
10:42
rifle and left that gas station and you
10:46
decided you were
10:47
going to go into the hunt.
10:50
Yeah, I was hunting.
10:51
Well, a game war is a hunter.
10:52
He hunts people.
10:54
He hunts the hunter.
10:55
He's the ultimate
10:56
hunter, a game war, yes.
10:58
And I'd honestly put that
10:59
rifle on 40 minutes before.
11:03
When I pulled over on the side of the
11:05
road and got the green light to go, I
11:07
started preparing myself
11:08
and I put an old vest on.
11:10
I didn't have my good vest on because
11:11
that morning I got up and it was hot and
11:14
I didn't want to wear it.
11:16
I thought, I don't need that.
11:17
And I left it at the house.
11:19
But luckily I have enough equipment in my
11:21
truck for everybody.
11:22
And I put one of my old vest on and I
11:24
pulled that rifle down and I slung it,
11:26
hung it right here, started driving.
11:29
And when I left that gas
11:30
station, you're exactly right.
11:32
It was time to fix this.
11:37
And as I was waiting, man, I had my hand
11:40
on my rifle the whole time.
11:42
I'm hunting.
11:43
I'm looking for a
11:44
stolen white church van.
11:45
That's what they put it out as, that's
11:48
what I was looking for.
11:51
Yeah, crazy.
11:52
And I'll tell you what, and I just wanna
11:54
say it just flat out straight as it is.
11:58
You went on the hunt and you dispatched
12:01
two pieces of shit to the greatest depths
12:05
of hell, just where they believe, just
12:08
where we all believe they deserve it and
12:10
where they definitely will live the rest
12:14
of their evil lives.
12:16
Yeah, their evil will not torment anyone
12:19
else here on Earth, that's for sure.
12:20
You know, Mike, I'm confused though.
12:23
You mentioned you were an hour away when
12:25
you first got the call.
12:27
I assume that was the two cops that had
12:29
been shot and killed.
12:32
And apparently nobody knew exactly where
12:35
these murderers had gone at that point.
12:37
There was a couple hours
12:38
where they kind of were,
12:41
disappeared and now
12:43
everybody's looking for them.
12:44
Is that when you
12:45
decided to get to the chase?
12:49
And why, I'm just aghast really that if
12:52
you were able to get there, from an hour
12:55
away, why weren't other
12:56
officers already on the scene?
12:58
Why hadn't they
12:59
already dealt with these two?
13:00
What was the delay?
13:02
Well, it's the same in every one of these
13:05
mass incidences you see across the US, no
13:08
matter which one, if it's Pulse Nightclub
13:10
or the Sikh Temple shooting or the
13:14
bombing in San Bernardino.
13:17
The biggest breakdown in law
13:18
enforcement is communication.
13:21
And incorrect communication and
13:23
information is the death of a cop, is
13:26
what it boils down to.
13:27
That's what gets cops killed.
13:30
And that was a breakdown that day.
13:32
The information that they were putting
13:34
out is you're looking for
13:35
a stolen white church van
13:39
with a house of God and
13:40
prayer written on the side of it.
13:42
So you figure, picture that in your mind.
13:44
What do you see?
13:46
Well, those 15 passenger forward vans
13:48
with a house of God and
13:49
prayer written on the side, right?
13:51
That's what you think of as a church van.
13:54
What we were looking for was a dirty
13:56
white piece of crap
13:58
wore out Plymouth Voyager.
14:01
Nothing of the sorts that we were told.
14:04
So everybody's out hunting a church van
14:08
where this little van is
14:10
sneaking around through town.
14:11
Nobody's paying any attention to it.
14:14
And they're hiding in
14:15
the Walmart parking lot.
14:17
They were there twice,
14:18
not just once, but twice.
14:20
They were there right after the shooting
14:23
where the boy went in.
14:24
He was in there for
14:25
15, 20 minutes shopping.
14:27
The dad was outside and a patrol unit
14:30
drives right by, never seizing because
14:33
that's not what he's looking for.
14:35
That's not the
14:36
information that he was given.
14:38
If you would have said, you're looking
14:40
for a piece of crap, trashy little white
14:42
van, yeah, we'd have found it quicker.
14:45
But we're looking for a church van with a
14:48
house of God and prayer
14:49
written on the side of it.
14:51
And it all falls back.
14:54
The breakdown where it
14:55
happened was in the 911 system.
14:58
If we would have stopped and had the
15:03
fortitude to thought to
15:05
check the calls, the 911 calls,
15:09
investigate those a little deeper,
15:12
they didn't really have time to do that.
15:15
We're Monday morning
15:16
quarterbacking this — really bad.
15:17
And I'm not trying to
15:19
say they did stuff wrong.
15:21
Don't get me wrong here.
15:23
I'm just saying things if we could have
15:25
done would have been different.
15:27
But the guy describes the van is just a
15:33
plain white van in the 911 call.
15:37
And what happens is the dispatchers run
15:40
the plates and it comes back to the house
15:43
of God and prayer and a van.
15:45
So they start putting
15:46
out the information.
15:48
You're looking for a van, house of God
15:51
and prayer on the side of it.
15:53
So that's where everything
15:55
went really wrong for us.
15:59
And at what point did it evolve though?
16:00
Where did it go from that
16:01
white van to the actual van?
16:04
It didn't until they
16:06
started shooting officers again.
16:08
In the Walmart.
16:09
In the Walmart parking lot.
16:11
So when W.A.
16:13
Wren and Sheriff Dick Busby pull in and I
16:17
had conversations with them, they didn't
16:19
know this was a van either.
16:21
This van turns out off of row 12 where
16:25
another 911 call had called in and just
16:27
said, "Hey, there's a
16:28
dude acting weird on row 12.
16:31
He's putting aluminum
16:31
foil on these windows."
16:34
And it kind of sparked the attention.
16:35
Wait a minute, what are they doing?
16:37
They're putting sunscreens up.
16:38
That's what they were trying to do.
16:39
They were trying to
16:39
blend in in the Walmart.
16:41
That was the second time they were there.
16:44
So when the sheriff and the chief deputy
16:46
pull in, this van goes to pull out,
16:48
there's not a green arrow above them
16:50
going, "Hey, here's your bad guys.
16:53
These are your bad guys."
16:54
And they just pull up in a head-on
16:55
traffic stop and are shot immediately.
16:58
And luckily for me, I'm on the
17:01
other end of the parking lot.
17:03
I hear the 911 call come out.
17:06
Suspects are spotted in row 12 as I'm
17:08
driving by Walmart, perfect timing.
17:11
Here we go again with the
17:12
doors opening and closing for me.
17:15
And I pulled in at the parking lot.
17:17
So as I turn right in front of
17:18
the doors, the gunfire starts.
17:20
So there is a green arrow or a red arrow
17:23
for me pointing at the van.
17:25
These are the bad guys.
17:26
Here they are right in front of you.
17:28
And you cranked up your truck.
17:31
How fast were you going when you zipped
17:32
across that Walmart parking lot and
17:35
rammed into their van and you're firing
17:38
through your windshield?
17:40
I honestly could not tell
17:42
you how fast I was going.
17:43
State police estimates with damages to
17:46
the vehicles and the surveillance videos
17:49
at about 55 miles an hour.
17:51
I didn't care how fast I was going.
17:53
I was just trying to
17:54
get up and amongst it.
17:56
Wow, and you got there quickly and you
17:59
made a crisis decision
18:01
to ram their vehicle.
18:02
That probably saved the sheriff and
18:04
deputy or under sheriff.
18:06
Yeah, you know, it did.
18:07
It took the fire away from them.
18:08
You know, in our training at Game and
18:10
Fish, they taught us to
18:11
shoot through our windshield.
18:12
So I knew going into that moment that,
18:16
hey, I'm going to shoot
18:16
through this windshield.
18:18
I don't have time to roll up, get out,
18:20
you know, and engage.
18:22
Why not just go ahead and start shooting
18:24
through the windshield?
18:25
So in my mind, I see the driver with the
18:29
door open and he's shooting in between
18:31
the A pillar and the door.
18:33
So I thought, I'm going to roll up, get
18:35
close enough and I'm going to pop him
18:36
through this windshield.
18:38
And I guess he heard me.
18:40
You see him on the video.
18:41
He kind of looks back behind him and gets
18:44
in the van starts backing up.
18:46
He wasn't retreating.
18:47
I don't believe that.
18:48
I believe he was trying to get turned
18:49
around for a head-on
18:51
confrontation with me.
18:53
What he didn't expect was me to hit him.
18:56
So when he gets in the van starts backing
18:58
up, I transitioned to,
19:00
okay, I'm going to ram you.
19:02
You know, I'm going to stop this vehicle.
19:03
You're not getting
19:04
out of this parking lot.
19:05
We're not going into a mobile
19:06
firefight risking more lives.
19:10
So that's when I made
19:11
the decision to hit them.
19:12
And, you know, they're
19:14
backing straight up towards me.
19:15
I thought I'm just going to ram you as
19:17
hard as I can and,
19:19
you know, go from there.
19:20
There at the last second
19:21
that they had kind of turns
19:24
and, you know, Michael Bay, he ruined me.
19:27
He thought I'm going
19:28
to run into this dude.
19:29
He's going to roll over and blow up.
19:31
Cause that's what
19:31
Michael Bay's taught us.
19:33
You know, you've been in the movie.
19:34
You know how it works.
19:35
In the movies.
19:36
Yeah.
19:36
I thought I'm going to ram you or you'll
19:38
roll over and blow up.
19:39
Well, he didn't.
19:41
It was immediate.
19:42
You know, he, driver turns around with a,
19:46
what I know now as a Taurus judge,
19:49
it looked like an RPG when you're looking
19:52
down my angry eye of it.
19:53
And that's where I engaged my first two
19:56
rounds to the front windshield.
20:00
Here again,
20:02
the guardian angel.
20:04
I hit the steering wheel, bent the
20:07
steering wheel on my truck with my body
20:09
and was thrown into the air conditioner
20:11
control system, which
20:13
dead center of the truck.
20:17
And that's where I fired my first two
20:19
rounds, dead center of the windshield.
20:22
That's where the two rounds
20:23
struck the driver in the face.
20:24
I knew the fight was over with and I
20:26
started taking the incoming rounds.
20:28
Well, what he was trying to do is shoot
20:30
the driver's compartment
20:31
where I should have been sitting.
20:35
And luckily for me, I'm dead center in
20:37
the truck and the angles, all the bullets
20:40
are kind of coming at
20:40
an angle across my body.
20:43
So that's why I didn't
20:44
take a full head on bullet.
20:47
I took shrapnel and I had a jacket, piece
20:51
of the jacket of the metal in my hip,
20:54
but the rest of it was just shrapnel and
20:56
plastic and glass and just crap flying
20:59
through the truck, taking 12 rounds of AK
21:02
through the windshield.
21:03
You can imagine how much crap was flying.
21:05
I put 30 rounds of 223
21:06
back through the windshield.
21:08
So there was a lot of particles flying
21:11
through the truck for seven days.
21:13
Lot of blasting, man, that's
21:15
just some crazy, crazy shit.
21:17
But I'll tell you what,
21:19
after all of that, Mike,
21:22
what's the most memorable experience
21:25
after that incident as far as somebody
21:28
that said something to you, called you,
21:32
wrote you a letter, approached you,
21:36
what's the most memorable thing?
21:37
Oh, wow,
21:38
man, there's so many.
21:42
There's so many, I think probably Bobby
21:46
Paudert coming to the scene
21:48
and hugging me.
21:52
I'd say that one
21:53
probably stands out the most.
21:56
Just at that same day,
21:57
right after the incident.
21:59
Yeah, yeah, it was right after that.
22:03
And now my memories blurred, like I said
22:06
earlier, but I don't remember if it was
22:08
before I went to the
22:09
hospital or after I got back.
22:11
I think it was after I got back from the
22:12
hospital because once they released me,
22:17
it was a few hours after the shooting,
22:19
they cleaned me up, so
22:20
I glued my head back up.
22:24
The wife at the time, I
22:25
told her, I said, "Hey,
22:27
run me up to Walmart, I need to get some
22:29
stuff out of my truck."
22:32
I wasn't thinking, I wasn't gonna be able
22:34
to get anywhere near that truck.
22:36
I remember pulling up on that scene and
22:38
the reality set in
22:40
real quick of this is bad.
22:43
Of my thought patterns, well, I'm gonna
22:46
get fired for this one for sure.
22:47
I just shot two people in Walmart parking
22:49
lot, broad daylight,
22:50
this isn't gonna go well.
22:53
And when I walked up on scene, I remember
22:55
it was like the record stopped and
22:57
everybody turned around and looked at me
22:59
and I thought, yep, I'm
23:01
going to jail, here we go.
23:04
But everybody turned around and looked at
23:05
you because they were all going, wow.
23:09
I didn't see it that way at the time, but
23:11
yeah, I thought this is bad.
23:16
Mike, what are you most proud of?
23:17
What are you most proud of in your life?
23:22
Oh, well, you know, my
23:24
family is what I'm most proud of.
23:30
Family, yeah, and I am proud that I was
23:34
able to rise to the occasion, you know,
23:36
because in these critical incidents,
23:38
you're gonna do one of two things.
23:39
You're either gonna fall to your level of
23:41
training or you're gonna
23:42
rise to your level of training.
23:43
You know, that's on you.
23:45
You gotta be the decider of that.
23:47
Luckily for me, I was able to rise to my
23:50
level of training and it's not
23:52
been a one and done situation.
23:54
I've been in multiple situations where,
23:57
you second guess yourself sometimes you
23:59
think, dang, could I do it again?
24:02
I think I could do it again, but could I?
24:05
I've been tried and true,
24:07
you know, quite a few times.
24:08
Matter of fact, there's a t-shirt at Tent
24:10
City that said, send me on it.
24:14
I didn't buy it.
24:15
I was like, no,
24:16
I've been to Tent City.
24:17
You don't want these stuff anymore.
24:18
They already sent you, yes.
24:20
I still go, but yeah,
24:23
let's let some of these
24:23
younger guys do it now.
24:26
Mike, as we get ready to close, an
24:30
amazing story, but I've gotta ask you, so
24:32
many officers that have been in officer
24:35
involved shootings that have maybe had to
24:37
take the life of another
24:39
human being as you did,
24:42
they deservedly so, but nevertheless,
24:44
it's still always with you that you had
24:47
to take another human life and you
24:49
referred to that earlier.
24:51
A lot of those officers
24:52
quit the profession, right?
24:53
They don't wanna go back.
24:54
They can't go back.
24:56
You did.
24:57
And you not only went back, but here you
24:59
are, what, 16 years later, and now you're
25:03
a sheriff and you've still got many more
25:05
years probably in you in the law
25:07
enforcement profession.
25:09
Why did you make that
25:10
decision to go back?
25:12
You know, I had a buddy that was with me
25:14
through a lot of that
25:15
and we were doing training.
25:18
And he told me, cause I
25:19
was considering getting out.
25:22
And he said, look, he said, the story
25:24
that you have is powerful.
25:26
And he said, you're helping a lot of
25:28
other cops and cops wanna hear from cops.
25:31
They don't wanna hear from
25:32
has-beens or things like that.
25:34
And that really motivated me.
25:37
Okay, you know, if I wanna continue my
25:39
story and continue helping other
25:41
officers, you gotta stay in the game.
25:44
You know, you gotta stay relevant.
25:45
You gotta stay part of it.
25:47
And that's what kept me
25:48
going for a long time, honestly.
25:51
You know, I wanna make sure that I can do
25:54
everything I can to help
25:56
save officers as long as I can.
26:00
You know, as long as somebody wants to
26:02
hear the story, I'm gonna tell it.
26:05
And that's been the
26:06
driving factor for years.
26:08
Love it.
26:09
Last question.
26:11
When people see your truck in the
26:13
National Law Enforcement Museum and hear
26:16
that story, when they see the names of
26:19
Brandon Paudert and Bill Evans on the
26:22
National Law
26:23
Enforcement Officers Memorial,
26:25
what would you like people to take away
26:27
from that experience?
26:29
That's somebody's brother,
26:33
son, father.
26:35
Those aren't just names.
26:37
Every one of those names,
26:38
those are not just names.
26:40
Those are lives.
26:41
Those are people's family.
26:42
But these guys, these are real people.
26:46
These are real people that put their
26:48
lives out there to save other lives.
26:51
And don't ever forget that.
26:53
Don't just walk by.
26:55
Yeah, there's a name,
26:56
there's a name, there's a name.
26:58
Every one of those names have a story of
27:01
a lifetime attached to them.
27:03
And if it touches you, read up on them.
27:08
They're all on the website.
27:09
Most of them are, I'm sure.
27:12
Go on there, pull that
27:13
name up, read their story.
27:15
Find out what really
27:17
went on in their lives.
27:19
And your story, Mike, is an inspiration
27:21
for many, many people and
27:23
will be for years to come.
27:25
I hope so.
27:26
I hope it helps a lot of people.
27:28
That's for sure.
27:29
And I thank you guys.
27:31
Y'all have been, you two guys
27:33
have been a major part of this.
27:35
And I appreciate
27:36
everything y'all have done for me.
27:38
That's for sure.
27:39
You're the man, baby.
27:41
Yeah, it's been our honor and our
27:44
pleasure to get to know Mike Neal.
27:46
And I'm so glad we got to share your
27:48
story here today with our audience.
27:51
Mike, there's a inscription on the
27:53
National Law
27:54
Enforcement Officers Memorial.
27:55
And I know you've seen it many times.
27:58
It says, "It is not how these officers
28:00
died "that made them heroes.
28:02
"It is how they lived."
28:04
And I think that's such an important
28:06
sentiment that, okay, we're gonna always
28:09
honor people like Bill
28:11
Evans and Brandon Paudert.
28:14
They're gonna live forever because we're
28:16
gonna continue to see their names on a
28:18
national monument and we're gonna go
28:20
across the street to the National Law
28:22
Enforcement Museum and hear
28:23
their stories and see your truck.
28:27
And know that there are men and women
28:29
among us who are willing to risk their
28:32
lives, put their lives at risk for the
28:34
safety and the protection of others.
28:37
And that's such an important part of that
28:39
National Law Enforcement Officers
28:40
Memorial and that museum experience.
28:43
And I hope if you haven't already visited
28:45
the memorial and the
28:46
museum, I hope you will do so.
28:49
Thank you, Bill. Thank you, Chris, for being a member of
28:49
our audience because it is inspirational.
28:53
It will change you the way you look at
28:55
your own life to know that there are men
28:57
and women that have laid
28:58
down their lives for others.
29:00
And Mike, I think your story is the
29:02
epitome of law
29:04
enforcement and what it means to me.
29:07
The men and women whose courage and
29:09
compassion for others
29:16
is a moment that is just so
29:18
amazing to even think about.
29:20
This is the conclusion of Heroes Behind
29:24
the Badge, today's podcast.
29:26
It is produced by Citizens Behind the
29:29
Badge, the leading voice of the American
29:32
people in support of law enforcement.
29:34
And I hope you go to our website,
29:36
behindthebadge.org and you'll hear
29:40
stories like Mike Neal's, you'll hear
29:42
stories of the men and women who've made
29:44
the ultimate sacrifice and you'll learn
29:47
how you can support the men and women in
29:49
law enforcement by becoming a supporter
29:53
of Citizens Behind the Badge.
29:56
So Mike Neal, thank you, my friend.
29:58
It's been an honor and
29:58
a pleasure as always.
30:00
Yes, sir, thank y'all so much.
30:02
(Upbeat Music)