Latest / Author Hour / Treading Water: A New Orleans Cop's Untold Story of Hurricane Katrina with Chad Perez
Transcript
- speaker-0: Welcome to Author Hour. Today I am joined by author Chad Perez, who wrote Treading Water, a New Orleans police officer's memoir of survival and service during Hurricane Katrina, which is coming out October 20th. Chad, welcome to Author Hour. speaker-1: Thank you for having me. speaker-0: So let's begin at the opening of the book. The book opens on a chilling image, every car streaming west out of New Orleans and you driving east past the state trooper roadblock into an empty city because you wanted to be in the middle of it. Take me back to that drive. What was going through your head at that time? speaker-1: Yeah, so I was actually on approved vacation at that time. I'd I'd I left on Friday afternoon after finishing work. So the storm was brewing at the time. Wasn't, you know, there was not a bullseye in New Orleans at the time, but the storm was growing in the Gulf. So I was watching it from far away. I had some phone calls, communication with my supervisor who said, Look, you're on approved vacation. So, you know, I'm not gonna run your vacation. We can handle this, right? Just something inside of me told me like this is gonna be different. And you know, I've always been the type of person throughout my career. I've always wanted been the guy that's wanted to be the guy that's in the action, right? I wanted to be the guy chasing the bad guy, making the bigger ass, doing those things, right? and I guess it probably goes back to me being a child wanting to be like on the football field, the guy making the play, the guy throwing the the out winning out in in in baseball. So yeah, so the storm really blew up Sunday morning. I woke up and said, Look, I'm coming back. I had ridden out of town with some buddies of mine, so I didn't even have a car. So the buddies that were there said, Look, when I'm Said here, take my car, drive back, we're gonna head to Houston and evacuate. So I did that, got on the road, started heading back to the city, and you know, I was heading eastbound to the city, and it was bump of the bumper traffic, gridlocked, cars not moving, heading out. I was the only car on Interstate 10 heading into the city, which was pretty eerie, right? You know, it's gridlocked going out. I got pretty close to the city, city called Laplace, which is I guess probably about 30 miles outside of New Orleans. Hit a roadblock with state troopers. So when I pulled up, he was surprised to see a car heading to the city, right? When everybody's trying to get out. So I showed my ID, said, Look, I'm a police officer, I need to get back into work. Funny thing is I was dropping my buddies like $130,000 Mercedes at the time. wow. I'm a young young copy, right? This little sports Mercedes. He stepped back, looked at the vehicle, said, I said, look, I get it. this isn't my car. So I've got to get back to work. So he's like, All right, man, go ahead. So started wake making my way back to the city. So once I I I had to go some alternate routes to get into the city because everything they did contra flow with the is what they call it. So that's where at some point they opened both sides of the interstate, eastbound and westbound. And at this point they had both sides of the interstate heading westbound, up until that checkpoint that I got to that ran into. I mean, that's to get more vehicles out of the city, right? And get some of the flow of the people that are s left in the city out quicker. I'll start to go some alternate routes. But I'll tell you, when I once I got into the city, it was an eerie feel. You know, it was It was like a ghost town once so I parked my buddy's vehicle, got into my police unit that I had at his his apartment and then started making my way back to my house. I lived in St. Parish, which is just outside Orleans Parish. It's kind of the neighboring parish. So probably fifteen minutes from the city. And you know, I can tell you as I was driving, the only people I saw on the road were cops. So police cars with blue lights flashing. At that time kinda trying to be a d a deterrent. In a visible visible presence for the people that were s were leaving the city. So it was an eerie feeling. they they have an old saying the calm before the storm and that's really what it was like. speaker-0: So for the people who only know Katrina from the news, set the scene. What did the city feel like after those first few hours, but before the levies gave way? speaker-1: So I I went to my house, gathered some things, and and normally when as a police officer when you report the duty they tell look, bring three days worth of clothes, some snacks, right? 'Cause you're gonna go to the station, you're gonna stay there until the event passes. And it usually twenty four hours pass and you go home. So I did that. Got home, you know, when I was driving down my street to pack things. Most of the most of the homes in my neighborhood were boarded up. You know, you put boards wooden windboards over your windows so that, you know, flying debris doesn't break the window. And I debated myself, so you know what? If this storm hits the waves, I feel it will. Boarded up windows, it's not gonna stop flood water. So I didn't even bother with it. But I did just ever did every every storm, packed my little bag with three days of clothes. That's just like police T shirts, an extra pair of uniform pants, a baseball cap, some socks underwear, things like that. A couple of snacks, through some beach jerky, chips in there. I'm like, Yeah, I'll just go to the station and if it passes through, I'll come home tomorrow. So went back to the station. And I could tell you the night of the storm, unlike a lot of times where we have to sleep at the station and we stay overnight, and then we have to line up some office chairs and make a bed to sleep overnight. We actually had the opportunity to go stay at a hotel in downtown Dual. So we did that. You know, throughout the night, we were kind of hanging in around the lobby of the hotel, sitting in the hallways, just kind of talking and, you know, really, I don't say have a good time, but it was a bunch of police officers kinda hanging out together like we always do for storms, playing card games, things like that to pass the time. And at some point the storm came through overnight. I had gone to sleep, I guess shortly after midnight. And at some point the storm coming started coming through and it woke me up in the early morning hours, right? And I can tell you when I looked out the window, I've been through a lot of storms, a lot of hurricanes, but what I saw is something like I've never seen before. just the strength and the roar. you hear store you hear people talk about like this freight train sound, and that's what it was. It was just a like a freight train that was just keep kept coming and coming and coming, never did pass. You know, s stro road signs were were were falling and blowing down the street. Buildings, the side of buildings were kind of toppling and and bricks were falling. So it was it was very, very, very unusual, not like any storm we have been through. So the storm blew through in the early morning. I was sunrise came. Walked downstairs into lobby hotel and everybody was gathering around and we we walked outside. And at that time the there was like a mist. It was still raining, but it was not like a downpour, right? The winds were kind of starting to die down. And we walked outside and everybody was kind of talking like, man, we we we may have really dodged the bullet in. At the time I was working in an area of the city called the Sixth District, which is kind of they call it Central City. So it's north of downtown, Lake Panchatrain. is I'm sorry, it's south of downtown. Lake Pontchrend is north of the city. So we were on the down the the the southern side of the city and we walked outside it. There were down trees, power lines, kind of the sides of buildings fallen, some some houses that, you know, porches had fallen, but nothing we hadn't seen any before in a storm. speaker-0: You write that the real story of those five days has never been told, that it got buried under a couple of scandals and the politics that came after. What did the country get wrong about the New Orleans Police Department and what did you most need to correct with this book? speaker-1: Yeah, the country got a lot, a lot wrong. The news media got a lot wrong. the one of the big big missing pieces were was that, we were police officers working, but we were victims of the storms ourselves. And that's never been told, right? You know, there were a few isolated incidents that happened during the storm that kind of took over the political narrative and cast a a a broad brush around all the police officers that were there, which was not indicative of actually what happened. there were, eighty percent of the city sat underwater. My community in St. Genor Parish, the entire community, one hundred percent of the structures in that that that parish were underwater. My home sat in twenty feet of water for three weeks. So the police officers that showed up with basically the the clothes on their back that night to report to duty, come Monday, that's all they owned. That's all they had left, was what they brought with them to work. So that got lost in the narrative, right? police officers that had to do what they need, what they needed to do to survive. just like the citizens that got stranded, we had police officers that got stranded in their homes. Police officers were sent home on Sunday night and were told report to work Monday morning. At the time the city was trying to save overtime money. So instead of paying people to work overnight. They sent people home and said, Report Monday morning. Well, that was the height of the storm. So there was a lot of police officers that were trapped in their homes with the rise of flood waters. in the book I I I talk about a police officer had to shoot his way through the attic vent to get out of his roof to be rescued. a police officer that was rescued showed up to work soaking wet with his dog and his baggage, and that's what he showed up to work with, right? He had to swim out of his home. So those stories have have gotten lost, have never been told. So there's there's there's a survival aspect of what we went through. every every citizen that you saw sitting on the roof of their homes that got rescued, walking on the side of the interstate, that lost everything. The police officers were in the same boat, but they stayed, I should say the large majority of them stayed and served and served with honor because that that oath they took men's saw. So even though they lost everything, they tucked it away and went to work that week after the storm. speaker-0: Let's talk about those officers that stayed and the ones who didn't. So roughly 250 out of 1700 officers never showed or walked away. You don't let that go, but you write about the ones who left without celebration and without contempt. How did you decide how to handle those officers on the page? speaker-1: Yeah, I can t I can tell ya in the event as it was unfolding and you know, we were we we realized on, you know, Tuesday that there were people that was officers that were supposed to be there that never showed up. Come Wednesday and Thursday when police officers were leaving and just abandoning posts, you know, leaving us, there was a lot of a lot of contempt. There was a lot of of anger. You know, it was we were calling them cowards, you know. There there was a lot of talk about, you know. How could you leave? First, how could you abandon Yov? Mm-hmm. Secondly, you're supposed to serve the city. How do you leave the citizens? Right. And then how do you leave your fellow officers? we were there trying to survive. we had to break, literally break into a Walmart so that we had food to eat, water to drink, and that we had clothes to put on our back. think about that. we're in a major American city and the city had no provisions for us. By, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, we were still hoping that reinforcements from somewhere were gonna come and they never showed up until Saturday. You know, we went five days and the only reason we were survived was because we were able to find rations to survive, right? We were able to break in Walmart and get those things. Those police officers that abandoned left us in a ne time when you needed that support from one another. You needed to have each other's back, right? So, it was it was a feeling of abandonment and there was a lot of distrust at the time of that. I could tell you twenty one years later, a lot of life experiences my experiences through some a lot of life life experiences after. I would say the contempt part is no longer there. You know, I I I I look at people, they made decisions on their own for their own reasons. But there's still a level of of trust. And I can tell you, even to this day within the department, there's a divide. The people who stayed and the people who left. Not all the people who left were were fired. A good number of them were. But there were some that that were given some sustention suspension days, some that were never disciplined at all because of favoritism or whatever it may be. So that that that really caused a divide within the department for a long time. You know, but twenty one years later, I could take the contempt part for me personally is not that no longer there, but there is a kind of a distrust, could you trust that person, if you needed to. speaker-0: Yeah, that trust got broken. But speaking of those officers who did stay and reported for duty, they did almost unimaginable things. you mentioned the officer who swam out of his house and reported for duty with just his badge still soaking wet. When you think about the people who held that line alongside you, what characteristics do you most want readers to see? speaker-1: I would say, you hear that you hear the word hero gets thrown around too much just these days, right? It's such a watered down down title, right? they were heroes. And and but in the moment you didn't think about that, right? They were they were people that believed in the oath that they took, they wanted to help, they wanted to continue to serve the people. they sacrificed their own personal losses. And I say for that week, for weeks after, because they stayed in a city to serve. most police officers didn't get to their homes, didn't see their families for two, three, four weeks after. So, if I w if I was to describe, who what they embody, they embody service, they embody sacrifice and courage, you know, they They face things that no American police department has ever faced before or since. when not only were they responding to at the time the largest natural disasters country's ever seen, but they were victims of it as well. So they couldn't respond, handle things throughout the day and at the end of that shift go home. There was no home to go to. You know, we my partner and I slept in a a a car for three weeks. the police officers that were sleeping on the side of the roadway, sleeping on the sidewalk, in in our in our encampment at Walmart, they had to go get tents and set up in the parking lot to sleep and live on. So, they had no they had no way to process what was going on, right? All they could do is tuck it away and keep moving forward because they believed in what they had to do. so I would call them heroes. Absolutely one hundred percent. I don't know if that serve even does justice for them. they were more than that. they they they they served in in unimaginable conditions, faced with unimaginable challenges when there was no playbook to follow. speaker-0: There's a thread running through the whole book that when leadership at the top went silent, authority fell to whoever stayed and really improvised. What did those five days teach you about what leadership actually looks like? speaker-1: Yeah, one one of the one of the big things that came out of that were a ton of leadership lessons. during the event, the leadership at the top failed completely. It was nonexistent. From our perspective, where we were within that week of the storm, our leadership came from our local leadership within our police district. And I would say every every police unit in every district around the department, around the city at the time, they were held together and they were led by. the captains, the s lieutenants and the sergeants, those middle managers, right, within the organization that stepped up and led from the front in the the most critical times. You know, when when leadership fails, and I would say this for any organization, right? You know, I've gone on since since the this event after retiring to build an organization, a security services company, build it to four hundred people. One of the things I took from that was the strength of middle management. You know, as a leader, you can't be every place at one time. And a as a leader you have to be able to rely on those middle managers to pick up the parts and pieces during those critical times. I I I repeat a number of times how there was no playbook. There was no playbook. There was no standalone operation procedure on how to operate within a city to enforce laws and to rescue a hundred thousand people when you also have no resources, no base to operate from. No food, no water, and no home to go to. There's no platebook for that. Right. So a handful of leaders stepped up and improvised and, you know, made decisions. They were not afraid to make decisions, decisions that saved lives, you know, and really saved the city because there was nobody above them making those decisions. speaker-0: One of the things you've mentioned a few times that I want to touch on a little bit more is this idea of being both a first responder and a victim. So you grew up, as you mentioned, in St. Bernard Parish and you watched your own childhood street go under what 25 feet of water while you were out rescuing strangers. And so how did you carry being both the first responder and the victim of the same storm? speaker-1: It it was tough, and I've never I've never had to deal with anything like that before, right? So it was tough. as a police officer, you see you go through events, right, throughout your career, death, pe you see people at the lowest point of their life, right? You see tragedy, you see those things and you you you you compartmentalize it, right? But then you can escape from it, whether that's go home, whether it's take a weekend off, whatever it may be, to regroup. During the storm you had to compartmentalize things and tuck away and not think about it because you had to accomplish the next thing that was in front of you, right? Whether that's you're on the boat, you have to pull the next person off of the rooftop, you're driving around, you have to stop that next looter or the the criminal that was intent on robbing someone during the storm because they were able to stole steal a vehicle. Those type of things. You had to you have to focus on that, right? 'Cause if you didn't you could be injured. We had police officers that were shot, during the event. P police officers that were hurt during the event. You had to compartmentalize that. And, I I learned a lot about myself during that event, right? That, I could get by without the basic needs to survive, right? food, shelter, water, safety, security, right? 'Cause those things didn't exist. Mm-hmm. Yeah, the ration, you know, the ration to get those things. I I knew my home was probably a loss. I knew probably every family member of mine who lived in the same area, because I would say my my entire family lived in that area on both sides, my mom and my dad's family. I knew everyone lost everything. You know, I didn't think about it in the moment. You know, there there's there's some some parts in the book where, you know, later on in the week where that weight hits me. and it was it was extremely emotional once I did. And it was really, really heavy to deal with. You know, it's that's when the human side of things come into play. You know, when you compartmentalize things and you tuck things away, you know, almost have to function as emotionless, I don't want to say a robot because you're not, right? You're human. But you have to be able to function in those environments. But when that weight hits you and you realize that, like, you know, you are human. And that, you know, police officer sitting in a corner. Who lost everything, her home, her family's evacuated. She doesn't know when she's gonna see her husband, her kids, whatever. she's sitting in a corner of that parking lot, right? And eating a granola bar and drinking from a bottle of water. And she hasn't taken a shower in a week. She's a human, right? I don't still to this day, I don't know that there's a playbook to deal with that, right? And I think it takes a special kind of person to be able to deal with that. And maybe some of the ones that left couldn't deal with that, which is perfect and fine. But I don't know that there's a playbook to deal with that. And for me personally, There are some times throughout the book where I talk about later in the week and then some of my, journey a couple of weeks later to go see my family home and stuff like that, where that's when I that's when I was able to, you know, I don't want to say decompress, but let the gravity of what happened really kind of, you know, live through that, experience through that. But then once I passed through that, then it was time to go back to work because I had to, you know, Go back to the city to serve and go back to living in my car and in the Walmart parking lot for another week or two. Yeah. speaker-0: Wow. So in the book, y you're very honest that you went into Katrina, a hardened us versus them kind of cop. And then something changed. Someone completely different came out the other side of the storm. So what did change and how you saw the people you policed and your role as a first responder? speaker-1: Yeah, I would say that during the event, things were changing within me that I didn't realize. You know, it would be many, many, many years later till I was able to reckon recognize that, right? With that, what that transformation for me was. You know, going into it, I I kind of coined this thing else for a stand within the book. And that that actually comes from a a a a message, a pastor of mine later, years later when I got into church and and found my faith. That did a a a a message and a sermon on us first them, right? the divide in whether that's police officers to citizens, police officers to criminals, whether that's racial, whether that's socioeconomical, whatever that is, class, everything, right? It's there's this kind of narrative that is grown throughout this country of us first them, right? You you have to be us or you have to be them. There's no we, right? So, I talk about it in a an experience in my first day of the police academy, you know, as a young twenty one year old kid, sitting in a that academy class and an old captain walks in and says, Look to your left and look to your right. These are the people that are gonna be with you. You're gonna lose every relationship you have outside of this. These are the people you can trust. These are the only people you can do. Right. And at the time you're like, hoorah, right, yeah, this is great. Right. And you go through a career and you realize there's a certain truth to that, you know. While at the time you don't realize it's it's not healthy. There's a certain truth to that in in a number of ways, right? survival. I can tell you the streets of New Orleans are rough. the neighborhoods I worked at as an a narcotics detective, working gang and addiction and and and working SWAT team, doing warrants for murder suspects, right? The streets are rough. And you have to have some type of belief that, you know, these are the people I can trust. Because if not, you can't trust everyone on the street, right? You can get yourself hurt, you can get someone else hurt. So I get that aspect of it. During a storm, that that that fell. during the storm, that that that divide fell, Nobody I pulled up to to pull off of a roof or, you know, pick up on the side of the road or give water to, you know, looked at me as, you know, a rate differences in race or anything like that. You know, they looked at us police officer to get help, but you know We didn't we weren't spit and polished police officers, right? We were a ragtag looking bunch of people, right? We we had dirty t shirts, shorts, some of us didn't even have shoes, had flip flops on. So, you know, when they looked at us, they saw that we were experiencing the event with them. So that's coming out of that, you know, looking at the have and have nots within the city who could evacuate people that were left. People that were left were poor. People left for the large majority were African American, right? They didn't have a way to get out, so The people that were there that stayed and worked were all different races and colors, right? We're all different socioeconomic classes. Katrina didn't discriminate on who she took and what who she t what she took from people, right? She flooded every neighborhood, every structure. She didn't care what political class you were, anything, right? years later after leaving the department, once I found my faith and went through the sermon, I look back at my career. I looked at my time in Dark Katrina. I you know what? That speaks to that's that conversation that Captain had to us in Academy, my career up until Katrina. And then the changes that I went through naturally without even realizing I was going through it as a as as a result of the the event, you know, where I wanted to get to know the human side of people. Right. When you see people at their worst suffering, like, you know, whether they're a criminal, whatever it may be, right? They're humans. I really got into wanting to know people's story. The second half of my career coming out of Katrina, right? I I I wanted to know, okay, if you're if you have you sitting across from me, I'm interviewing you for a crime, whatever it might be, really, what led you down that rap path? How'd you get there? So when I when I s I didn't realize that was even happening until years later when I look back and there was a change for me coming out of Katrina. Mm-hmm. speaker-0: It's I imagine it's hard not to see everyone as just human when you've seen them be stripped of everything else. Exactly. Looking back two decades later, what would you want a young officer today to take from this story? speaker-1: Wow, that's a great question. I would say, you know, learn who you are as a person. Yeah. Learn, learn your strengths, learn your weaknesses. Do your best to surround yourself with people within the organization who don't have that ospherse mentality, number one, right? People you can trust, but people who don't lose that human side of what you're doing. Right. I'd also say, you know. Build relationships outside the department. Don't lose, that friend you went to high school with. Don't lose, the guy down the street you would hang out with on a Friday afternoon. Don't lose those things because it's so important. From from a working aspect, you know, I don't know that there's any country any department in the country, including the New Walls Police Department, that is prepared for an event like Katrina, if it were to happen again. I don't know that that playbook that was missing then has been built now. I highly doubt it. You know, so I would say learning what your own limits are for an event like that. Try to figure out why you're why you chose that as a career. the are you doing it for a paycheck? Doing it for a paycheck. You're probably not going to be the person that's there five days later after Katrina. are you doing it because you want to serve serve the community? Do a deep dive into why you joined law enforcement. You know, I think over the years where you know when you went when And I'd say the last decade or so, you know, as law enforcement's kind of evolved and, you know, the the days of people joining departments because it was generational and it was in their blood, whatever those things are, right? I think that's gone long gone. You know, but I I think the young officers stoning, I would say, don't lose who you are as a person. Don't align yourself with the pessimistic, disgruntled side of law enforcement, which there is a ton of. Yeah. Go into it the right reasons and never lose the human side of yourself, the people you work with, and the people you interact with. speaker-0: What a message. Wow. So looking at the making of this book, this book exists largely because of your wife, Liette. She's the one who told you the world needed to hear your story. What finally made you believe her? speaker-1: Yeah, I think, when when I I left when I left law enforcement two thousand twelve. I had a really I had a a story career, you could call it, I guess. You know, with some people have told me, you know, highly decorated. I've I've I've did a lot I've done a lot of things. I worked at the I worked in the most elite units within the department. You know, I was an innovator. I was I was proud of my career, but once I left I never spoke about my career. for for a number of different reasons. I was I was trying to move on to a different, stage in my life. at the time my son was when I when I left, my son was four years old. So he has no recollection of his dad as a as a police officer, right? You know, he doesn't remember my days on a SWAT team having to leave his birthday party to go 'cause some guy was barricaded in a house. We had to go do a hostage rescue thing. He doesn't remember any of that, right? You know, so I kinda tucked it away and went on on the life. And we would be, I don't know, at a family event, things like that. And every now and then some something would come up and I'd tell a little story about something. I'd tell a little story about not like intentional, because I never told stories. I never was like I never believed in being like the cop that goes hangs out the bar and tells war stories, right? Yeah. Right. That's that I I I I I don't like that. I never was that guy. I had a lot of them, but I never did it. And So I would tell stories to, a little thing here there to her and and to my father in law. And they would they would say, You've got to write a book. Man, that needs to be in a book. You've got to write a book. And after Tom Beer had passed, I was like, you know what? I think I'm gonna do it. And then I came home one day from work and she had I had a lot of awards and and medals and things like that and just put in a box. And she had all friends. And you know, I hadn't looked at him in years. Like years. Not that I was, you know, I I was I was proud of the work I did, you know, super proud, you know, and I just never I never talked about it. So I got a chance to read through those things and and I I was like, you know what? I'm all right, boy. speaker-0: Yeah. Are they still framed today? speaker-1: They are, yes. But Yeah. So it was it was what and once I started writing the book, I can tell you I went in with the intention of writing a book to tell the five days after Katrina with the true story of what happened. In the book, that is the largest part of the book, right? That is the media book. That's what the book's about. The book is about what happened on the ground in those five days. But when I finished it, it's so much more than that. so much more came out of that book. And I can tell you it that writing that book took me to places I didn't know I needed to go to. You know, and it was therapeutic. You know, I would I couldn't tell you how many times I'd write and have to get up and just walk away because it was so emotional that scene, right? Yeah. so it was it was a journey. speaker-0: So how did you and Scribe end up finding each other? And what made you trust us with something that is obviously so personal? speaker-1: I'll say, I was Googling, I was looking for some assistance. I've never published a book, right? And I knew how to write a police report. I had written plenty investigative reports, right? Very long, detailed reports. I had never written a book. I didn't know where to start. Like it. So I was okay, do I sit down and just start typing? So I just started looking at at at you know, publishers and how would I get this book published? What's it look like? And I came across Scribe. When I, started watching some of the videos and and doing some of my research, I really like this so this is the process for me. I can just sit there and have someone help me put this thing together, gather my thoughts, right? Because what where the book is now is not where the book was when I started writing it. And it was just a hodgepodge of memories, right? This happened and that happened. wait, this happened before that and this happened before that. So just going through that process, being able to put that together and have somebody help me put those events together into what it is today was was amazing. speaker-0: One of my favorite questions that we ask for the cop or the veteran or the first responder sitting on a story they've never told anyone, unsure how to write it all down, but feeling some kind of need to just get it out, what would you say to them? speaker-1: I'd say take action and get it and do it. I've got a saying that make something happen, if if I couldn't tell you how many countless times I've talked to people like, man, I could write a book about that. I could write a book about that. Or I could write a book. Like, do it. Prove it. Yeah, do it. Write it. You there's there's stories out there that need to be told. And don't think that You have to tell the story of you chasing the bad guy and catching him and what that's supposed to No, there's that's so much more to a police officer's career. Right. I tell I used to tell people all the time as in when I started my security services company, I would have police officers come talk to me about, what it looks like after leaving law enforcement. I'm like, you don't realize how many talents you have and you know how much experience and your real world experience as a police officer can translate outside of there. so when it comes to to telling a story and writing a book, don't think you have to get it perfect. get with somebody like Scribe that can help you put these thoughts together and then just get it out there. Get get your get your story out there. That this I I would say every police officer I've ever worked has a story, has a book in them that needs to be told. and and don't let and I'll say this, don't let the news media or whatever it is, the narrative about that career or that, you know, profession keep you from telling your story. You know, the the more you can get out there, I believe it, more it will change Americans' opinions on law enforcement and who police officers bring you are, not as the person wearing a uniform. Cause that was one of the big changes for me, right? When I realized police work is what I do. It's not who I am. Mm-hmm. Let them see the human side of who you are. And I think there's a story, our police officer. speaker-0: Treading Water is out when this episode comes out. Where should people go get it? And where should people keep up with you? speaker-1: Yeah, so you can you can get the free chapter and sign up for for updates at treadingwaterbook.com. I'm on all social media platforms, Chad J Perez on Instagram, Chad J Perez on Facebook. Love to connect the people, love to hear their their feedback. The book's available on Amazon or will be available on Amazon on October twentieth. You know, so I'm looking forward to getting the world out word out there. You know, let people know. What happened during Katrina, let them know the human side of what the first responders went through, and then let them read kind of what that story is of New Orleans, of the New Orleans Police Department, and what it was like to be a survivor of Katrina and and live life after. speaker-0: Well, Chad, thank you so much for the book, for this conversation, for staying in the eye of the storm. On behalf of everyone at Scribe, it is an honor to help get this story out to the people who need to hear it. Thank you for joining me on Author Hour. speaker-1: Thank you.