Latest / Harder Than Life / Your School Isn't Safe—Here's Why | Andrew Pollack

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Your School Isn't Safe—Here's Why | Andrew Pollack · Harder Than Life

• 0:01
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• 0:30
  My daughter was murdered. With that, a big part of your life is gone. She was on the third floor. She was a senior. The shooter came into the building. Teacher locked her out so she couldn't get back in. The shooter came in. She covered this girl. This girl's name was Kara. The guy shot through my daughter and killed the girl underneath her, too, nine times.
• 0:53
  Kids should be safe in school. It's that freaking simple. That should be something that we all agree on. But we don't, though. After every shooting, all they do is focus on gun control, and that doesn't solve anything. If you could say one sentence directly to parents, what would it be? It's 2026, parents. You need to have armed security at the school. See if they have a single point of entry. See about the plan that they have in place. If you don't, you're rolling the dice every day, man.
• 1:22
  Most likely, nothing's ever going to happen. You know what I mean? But if something does happen and there's no police there, it's on you. I'm not going to argue with any parent that, okay, you pick your school. I'm going to pick the school where my kid's going to come home at the end of the day.
• 1:37
  This is not a comfortable episode and is not supposed to be. Andrew is the father of Meadow Pollock, who was murdered in the Parkland school shooting. Instead of retreating into grief, he spent years pushing for real school safety. Stay tuned. So welcome to the Heart of Life podcast. It's an honor to meet you, and I wish it was under better circumstances. But before we talk solutions,
• 2:05
  What's the one thing about losing your beautiful daughter that people still don't understand even after all these years? You lose a big part of yourself when a child gets killed and you're never the same, to be happy, to enjoy life.
• 2:23
  You know, you see different things, but a big part of me is gone since my daughter's been killed. You know, a lot of people say she was lost. You know, it's really not the right word. If something if you lose something, you could find it. You know, my daughter was murdered. And with that, a big part of your life is gone. You would never get it back. And you'd give anything to change places. Yeah.
• 2:53
  from my readings, this was a hero. Is that the way that, that you see it? She tried to, why don't you tell, we didn't, we just dove right into it. Yeah. She was on the third floor. She was a senior and, uh,
• 3:10
  The shooter came into the building. Nobody knew anything that was going on. It was a lot of chaos. My daughter's teacher, 90 rounds went off on the first floor and my daughter was on the third floor. And because the fire alarm went off, my daughter's teacher thought it would be smart to put her out into the hallway because she heard the fire alarm. That's their brains, they're trained. You hear the fire alarm,
• 3:39
  you go, you open the doors and you let your kids out. So that's what she did. Not all the teachers did that. There's other teachers that knew what was going on in that school and locked their kids into the rooms and they all survived. But my daughter's teacher put her out into the hallway where she got shot a few times.
• 4:00
  And then she crawled to this other doorway and the bathroom doors were locked because kids were vaping. So they had the bathroom doors locked. And then the teacher locked her out so she couldn't get back in. The shooter came in, she covered one of this girl. This girl's name was Kara. She covered her and the guy shot through my daughter and killed the girl underneath her too. Nine times she was shot on the third floor.
• 4:28
  Andrew, I'm so sorry. What's the emotion that still surprises you the most? Is it anger, grief, disbelief that this keeps happening? I'm angry. You know, I wasn't that political before this happened, but I did a deep dive into it. I wrote a book. I don't know if you know. It's called Why Meadow Died.
• 4:47
  I dug into all the failures and behind every failure, there was a Democrat. You know, every policy behind every policy and every whoever was a leader, they were a Democrat in Broward. And these policies were brought to Broward. Of leniency, of not holding kids accountable. And it mastercised into this.
• 5:12
  community of being unsafe. You know, it didn't just build overnight. The superintendent came from Chicago. He brought these policies of not arresting kids, not suspending, not expelling these policies. And it led to that massacre. It wasn't the whole, it's not the whole reason, but it was a good part of it that this kid was never held accountable and was allowed to go
• 5:41
  Yeah, I'm a, before we hit record, I'm a father and this hits home, man. There was an issue at my daughter's school and she texted me and it's like, I was ready to go scorched earth. So what lie or misconception do parents tell themselves that everybody should be on the lookout for and that perhaps you told yourself before this happened?
• 6:05
  Well, I didn't. I thought my kid, you know, Parkland, Florida, rated number one city, safest city in the state of Florida.
• 6:14
  So I didn't think I had to worry about my daughter going to school, what was going on, until after. I didn't know who the school board members were, what their policies were at the school. I thought, hey, I'm sending my daughter. I live in Parkland. I'm paying all these big taxes. It's a beautiful community. It's got, like I said, safer school. I thought my kid was going to be safe, my child, at the school. And it turned out that it was just a big,
• 6:41
  clusterfuck. You know, the whole school was just shit. You know, everyone who ran it, the policies, the law enforcement agency there, you know, everything that they did was leading up to these kids getting, having a problem at the school, whether it was a fight, whether it was, you know, their phone getting robbed, whether it was drugs in the school or what happened with my daughter, the worst thing, a shooting. All these policies led up to something like this happening.
• 7:11
  So, Andrew, could the lie be that it can't happen? It won't happen to me. Well, that's... You ask any parent, you know what I mean? When after it happened, everyone says, I can't believe it. I can't believe it happened. That's what drives me crazy now. You know, in 2026...
• 7:29
  You know, I put it on the parents now. You know what I mean? Like you see the school, like I don't, I don't keep track of everyone. My memory is shot, but there was a couple of shootings in Minneapolis or somewhere up there. Right. And they don't have police at the school.
• 7:44
  I go, really? Like you said, you're sending your child. It's 2026. And you think it's OK to send your child to a school without police? Like, I don't know where your daughter goes to school. If she's in Florida, they got police. I got a bill passed after my daughter was killed. There has to be a police officer for every 500 students in the school.
• 8:05
  That state of Florida? Yeah. And there's other states. They don't follow what we did in Florida. You know, we did so much. We changed a lot in Florida to make the kids safer. But there's kids and parents in this country that are sending their kids to school without a single point of entry and with no law enforcement.
• 8:25
  And how could you say, you know, and then they go, oh, my God, I can't believe something happened. You know, they picked these places, these cowards. So, you know, listen, I feel bad for these people. You know, their kids are killed. But parents need to know better now. You know what I mean? Don't you think? It's 2026. 2026.
• 8:41
  Who sends their kid to a school? You know, you can't... You know, there's nuts out there in the world. You can't send your kid to a school where they don't take security serious. And the same thing goes to a place of worship. You know, these Jews getting killed in places. I go...
• 8:58
  Really? Like, you ain't going to my shul. If you go to my shul where I go, you're leaving in a body bag. I made it clear, everyone at the shul most. You know, we do a lot for security where I go. These other temples, you know, I travel the country, you know, they have security. The guy's sitting on his ass, on his iPhone. You know, the police car, the guy's in his police car, sitting in the car outside. You know, there's a lot of things I see.
• 9:26
  And you really have to be proactive in this world of this craziness that's going on, not just against Jews, but with schools everywhere. Anyway, we're all soft targets. Man, 10 minutes in, we went frigging. Politicians, parents, Jews. Yeah, I get into the accountability a little deeper here in a second. But I want to ask you a personal question. It's when people say I can't imagine or it's horrible. What do you wish they'd say instead?
• 9:57
  It don't bother me, you know what I mean, anymore. You know, when people say that to me, I'm pretty calloused. So, you know, when I do these things, it takes me back. These podcasts, it takes me back to the day more when my daughter was killed, but...
• 10:13
  You know, people don't know how to ask those hard questions. And for me, it don't matter. You know, anyone, they could say whatever they want. My daughter's already dead. There's nothing worse that could ever happen to me. Yeah. So those words don't bother me. And I get it. You know, it's not an easy situation.
• 10:33
  So one of my houses is in Detroit. I'm in Detroit. The Oxford shooting happened here. It was horrible. And I still have the screenshot of the shooter saying what he was going to do the next day.
• 10:48
  Um, what did you, do you think that there's anything that has to do with like, we can censor social media so quickly and AI can check it. What responsibility does social media have in this, in your opinion?
• 11:03
  Well, they shouldn't post these people's pictures. You know, they're animals. You know, you give them notoriety. It's just is a bad thing, you know, giving them notoriety. And I think Oxford, they did. Was that at which school was that at? I'm trying to remember. Yeah. And it was was it a Catholic school or was it a public school? Public school. Hold on. Let me be specific. What happened is the shooter posted that he was going to school the next day to cause harm.
• 11:30
  Yeah. And they did nothing. I'm asking this question because we're going to set up the next question because it's really to talk about responsibility. Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills. But it turns out...
• 11:53
  That's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms. Well, if you do that in Florida, you're going to jail.
• 12:13
  You know, if you make a threat of a mass shooting, you're going, it's a felony in Florida. We take it serious. We have these hotlines. You know what I mean? In Broward County, the sheriff, every sheriff in the state of Florida takes that very serious since Parkland and since we've changed all the laws. So, you know, a lot of these states...
• 12:37
  They just need to follow what we did. Not saying it can't happen in Florida, but we had very good leadership in Florida. We had Governor Scott at the time of the shooting, and then he transitioned to Senator, and then we had Governor DeSantis.
• 12:52
  And we've done so many things in Florida to make the public safer. And they don't like Texas, Texas shooting the same year as Parkland in Santa Fe. They killed 10 kids in a school and they didn't do they haven't done. And they still had Uvalde, you know, the cops didn't go in the same bullshit like Parkland.
• 13:15
  But they didn't do, they don't make the changes. These states, they still don't have police officers, single point of entries, you know, fences, security. There's so many things you could do. And not everything is a lot of money, you know, for these schools to fix stuff. Before we really get into the responsibility, how much of this also has to do with the fact that teachers...
• 13:38
  are underpaid. Police officers are underpaid. Have you, is that taken in any, any part of your security procedures and plans? I don't know. The cop that let my daughter get killed, right. That worked for Broward. He retired. He's getting 110,000 a year pension.
• 13:56
  I don't think that's underpaid. You know, that's not not all cops. You know, there's some departments that they're not making good money, but there's then don't you know, some departments, they're making good money. You know, they're getting hired. You know, they're making my son's coming out of law school and he's making what starting cops are making. And he went he's got a doctorate.
• 14:17
  So not all police jobs are underpaid. Teachers are probably underpaid. I'd agree. You know, they're making, they're not making the right, but that shouldn't, that has nothing to do with safety for our kids. You know, what's goes on. I argue that it's going to go over like a fricking.
• 14:34
  But, but I'd argue that it's, it's a, these are the people that are teaching our students, but I'm going to say it anyways, Andrew is it's about emotional intelligence and just IQ, like why in a million, and I'm sure it was a valid reason, but why in a million years did you lock the door on a student?
• 14:52
  Yeah. Well, she and why would she after she heard 90 rounds, she let her out. And then she got a million dollars in a lawsuit, this teacher, because she got grazed. She got a million dollars in a lawsuit for opening the door. There was another teacher that I still talk with had a higher IQ. She heard the rounds going off. She locked the door.
• 15:16
  And then she put her kids all in a safe spot. That's what, you know, in the classroom. You know, this teacher just didn't have the IQ to think of what to do or the training or she didn't take the training serious. You know, a lot of times law enforcement needs to be included with the training, you know, to make it right for these teachers. Right.
• 15:38
  Yeah, I mean, it's unfortunate that we have to have that conversation, but we do. This is society, you know. By the way, I've had a conversation with my daughter about every scenario, whether it be, you know, someone breaking into our house, an issue at school, someone passes her a joint. We've had these conversations. So she's not surprised. Some people never been...
• 16:04
  in stressful situations, so you never know how you're going to react. But let's get real uncomfortable. What responsibility do parents avoid because it's easier to blame these politicians? Well, that's the worst excuse ever. Especially, like me, I could say I didn't know any better. But now after what we've been through, it's eight years now going on, it'll be. Parents take, I give them responsibility now.
• 16:33
  I put it on the parents. I don't put it. It's not the politician's kid. It's your kid. So you need to know what's going on at your child's school. It's 2026. Do they have police there? Do they have a single point of entry? Do they have fencing? Do they have any type of emergency response system in place? Do they have the proper training if something goes wrong? What policies do they have with their kids in the schools about letting these nut job kids in the schools with them?
• 17:01
  It's on the parents. You can't put it off on politicians. I know a lot. Maybe you'd want to, but you can't anymore. It's 2026, bro. If you got a kid, it's on you. It's your kid. It's not the politicians. It's great advice. I always say losers assigned blame, winners fix problems. Yeah, you got it. Why do we as parents demand safety everywhere else in life? Airports, concerts, sports, but we accept this in schools.
• 17:28
  I think it's changing a lot, man. Public schools are losing a huge amount of students because they're going, they're looking and seeing schools that take it serious. One of the biggest problems now in schools is vaping. You know, kids are vaping in the THC, tobacco, you know, they're vaping like crazy. Yeah.
• 17:50
  They're going to these public schools that don't take any precautions. And then they're looking at a private school that has everything. And now you get, you know, the voucher program. Have you heard about that in Florida? No, tell me. So it's amazing. So with Governor DeSantis and the legislature that we have in Florida, instead of your money, you know, it always had to go towards your public school.
• 18:15
  you know, your taxes for public schools. Now you get that money, your tax credit, and you could put it towards the private school. Oh, cool.
• 18:23
  So say you were in Florida and you're sending your daughter to a school, whatever it is, it's probably St. Thomas or Pinecrest. It's a lot of money, but at least you'll get some of that money back. It doesn't go to the public schools. So that's huge right now in Florida and the public schools. You know, it's about competition. Where does a parent want their kid to go? They want best security, better education.
• 18:47
  So if the public schools don't pick up their game, they're losing students. There's probably somewhere you can look it up. By the corner, public schools are taking a beating in Florida.
• 19:01
  Andrew, I'm just having trouble wrapping my head around this. Even though I'm a parent and I'm concerned about this, it's just wild that all I ever think about is I want her to learn. I want her to, to, to be a good person and, and learn emotional intelligence and learn how to deal with people. And, and, and it's just like,
• 19:19
  really, I got to look at, should I be going to a school board meeting or what should these parents be doing besides looking at what you've talked about as single point of entry, police presence? What should they be doing? You could go to, it'd be nice to go to a school board meeting and know what county are you in in Florida? Could you tell me? I'm in Broward. What count? Can you tell me the town? My daughter goes to school in Michigan though. I'm in Michigan right now. Gotcha. Gotcha.
• 19:47
  Yeah, Michigan could have those policies. We got rid of those leniency policies in Broward. I'll talk to them about that soon. But you need to go to a school board meeting, you know, or there's, you know, what's really great? A great organization you should look into that that'll help you. There's you ever hear of Moms for Liberty?
• 20:05
  No, well, you're educating me on everything. That's why I'm loving it. Dad's for Liberty, Mom's for Liberty. It's a very conservative group, and you should look into it. I tell everybody, you'll probably have a chapter near where you live. It's like a PTA, but it's for conservative parents. And I would look into a group like that in your neighborhood, and then your parents could help you, get you up to speed at what's going on in the school if you want to keep your kid in the school or you want to move him.
• 20:34
  But that's a very important group. They get behind school boards. You know, the school board is very important when you have kids in the school. It's more important than, like, who's in the White House if you have kids in the school district. But a group like that, I highly recommend getting involved with. I'll check it out. What does being a good, quote-unquote, good parent actually require today that didn't 20 years ago?
• 21:04
  Well, we didn't have all that social media bullshit, right? That is like, these kids are like, kids are addicted. Like, I'm bad enough. I try not to do it. But you know what I mean? It's addicting. It's like heroin, these phones, you know. And you got to, like, whoever thought you had to, like, when we were growing up, or me, I'm older than you, your parents just set you out there. And that's it, man. You did what you wanted. You go make money, go work, go hang out with your friends, go drink.
• 21:32
  And everything was pretty simple. I grew up in the 80s. I had the greatest freaking childhood you could ever imagine. These kids now, you know, they're all on their phones, social media. They're not socializing like they should be.
• 21:46
  So I guess social media is probably the biggest thing parents have to monitor now. And these addictions to them too, right? The kids sitting on their phones. It's terrible, man. It's tough because you remember when we were... I'm not that much younger than you, by the way. I grew up in the 80s as well, but it was...
• 22:11
  Yo, we drank out of garden hoses. We came home when the streetlights were on. Yeah, we had fun. We went and played freaking outside and had fun. And now, like you said, they just sit on their phones. And if somebody had a problem with you, you got a fist fight. Yeah, and then you were friends after you spoke about it, and that was it. You got it out of your system, but you had fun. You went out.
• 22:33
  You know what I mean? We had fraternities in high school that were great, you know, growing up. But Long Island, you know, like I learned businesses. I, you know, I had a paper route when I was 12 and then I had another business. So I don't know. I don't know where the thing's going with this social media stuff, but it is definitely not good for society. And that's probably the biggest threat parents have now with these freaking computers.
• 22:57
  Where I was going with that is that you know if you're popular or not. And they ostracize you from the group chats. And they make fun of you. And then you get screenshots. It's tough, man. It wasn't like what you're doing. I think there's a kid that actually committed suicide in Florida. They're changing some type of law. Like with AI. He had like a girlfriend that was AI.
• 23:22
  Oh, and it was something happened. And they're making some bill in Florida for these kids with the AI. AI is crazy. You see all this shit. That's a big problem. You don't know what the hell is real or fake anymore. Well, I'm surprised that you haven't gone down the path, the path of the child trafficking. That's horrible. What I've been reading about lately, how they'll they'll.
• 23:45
  you'll befriend you. It's just, it's just crazy. These conversations that we have to have with our children. It's yeah. We didn't have it. We didn't have that. None of that. We never worried about it. You know, I was, I was so poor when I grew up, it was the only place that I got fricking food was their free lunch at school. So I love to go. I never missed a day at school. So I think it just, we need to be, that's why it's called harder than life, man. It just, you got to become harder than life or life will become hard on you.
• 24:14
  Well, the problem is, you see, we had it tougher when we grew up. This is what I see when I talk to my friends and, you know, with our kids. We felt like we had to do that much more for our kids. We did so much more coddling these freaking kids that we have a generation of soft kids. Not all of them, you know what I mean? But they're not like what we...
• 24:35
  you know, what we went through, you know what I mean? And I had a great child. I had parents. They were great. They supported me, you know, but then you throw into the loop. You know, I was always taking them places, always trying to, you know, entertain them. And what my parent was like, all right, there's your bicycle. There's your fishing pole. You know, go out fishing. You know, I'll see you go crabbing, do all that shit. You know, we were constantly, I think, coddling these kids, and it made it actually worse this generation.
• 25:04
  I see it with other parents too. You know, I speak to them. They got the same shit. Their kids aren't like the way what we could do. So I don't know. I think that that's part of the problem too with our generation. We overdid it. You nailed it though, man. You had a paper route of 12. So did I. And that caught me. And I had to lie because you had to be 13 in Michigan. But I needed money. So I got a paper route. And that was what...
• 25:34
  It made me a man. I figured out entrepreneurship. I'm telling you, man. You had your little book, right, with the addresses, who tipped what. I had actually – I did –
• 25:43
  In the morning before school, I delivered a newspaper called The Daily News in Long Island. And then when I came home, I had Newsday, the afternoon paper. I was crushing it, man. I had money. Yeah, I had morning. And then I came home, I had another one. And then, you know, my father always told me to own my own business. So I always had my own businesses since then.
• 26:05
  So, but that was the start of it. You know what I mean? They didn't, you know, they get out there, you know, my parents, it was snowing out there, man. They weren't out there with me. You know what I mean? I had to get up 12 years old, go deliver the papers on my 10 speed, you know, with a scarf on delivering the newspapers. Then I did it when I came home and then it just, you know, I just kept having my own businesses.
• 26:26
  You just had flashbacks. I just had flashbacks that you just gave me. I remember when I took over, I had four street blocks in Detroit. And they weren't real long, but they were four blocks. And it wasn't – this was about maybe a quarter of a mile. And I had 40 – I inherited 40 customers when I took over my paper route. And I –
• 26:48
  went to about 120. I went out and I sold. Nice. Yeah, of course. And they paid us a little stipend. And so I realized real quick, sales was where it was. That was it, man. And then that led you up. You're probably successful now. I don't know what you do, but you probably have another company or something besides this, right? I do okay. But I love doing this stuff and creating awareness on this, man. So let's get back into the system failures without hiding behind the politics. You know, I think...
• 27:18
  Anything that we point one side, I think everybody's culpable. And we need to really look at this stuff. So if schools were legally liable the way businesses are, how fast would things change? Oh, it would change, you know, that sovereign immunity, you know, even with law enforcement. We had that one cop that was at the school didn't go in the building. You know, I still have him on a civil case, but he won a case. The DA had him arrested.
• 27:48
  And he wasn't his duty. He didn't have to go in the building and save those kids. I thought the DA did a bad job in Broward. And, you know, what's worse, too, is even if you go further, you go to insurance companies. You know, insurance companies, think about this. If security companies, insurance companies should give discounts.
• 28:11
  for people that take security more serious. You know, it would be great for the industry. Like if you say you're paying so much for your insurance, right? And then they said, oh, you have this type of software or you have this type of fencing or you have four police officers. Okay, we'll lower your insurance rates.
• 28:30
  That's where we can hold people accountable too. And the schools, I don't know, other states aren't doing what we did in Florida. Florida is doing a great job of keeping our kids safe. But that's, you know, I know you don't like the politics of it, but we got the right politics in Florida where they take it serious. You know, and after Parkland, they did so many things. They opened, there was a commission they put in place.
• 28:56
  That looked in what these other states don't do. Florida put a commission into place that started when this kid was born that killed my daughter. Right. And they followed him all the way through the shooting. What went wrong. And then they and they dissected the day of the shooting before how everything led up to it.
• 29:18
  And now and we made the changes. If you don't look into what happened, it's hard to make changes. You know, if you just if you just scream gun control right after every shooting, that doesn't solve anything. So Florida, we did a lot making the changes because we dissected it. And also people, a lot of people don't know this. Governor DeSantis put a grand jury investigation into everything.
• 29:44
  And a lot of people were arrested and lost their jobs. Really? So we held them accountable. Oh, yeah. So the superintendent was arrested.
• 29:54
  of Broward County. He lost his job, but they paid him out millions. He won a hearing, right? In Broward. So he got out of the case and then the state appealed it. And now he's, he's still indicted. Now the sheriff lost his job. I don't know if you know that. No, the sheriff made the news. At least I didn't hear about it. Yeah. That was pretty big news. The sheriff lost his job. Six years.
• 30:19
  Six of the deputies lost their jobs, right? And the lawyer for the school district was fired also. So is gun control the safety solution that gets attacked the most? I would say that most of the times they think it's the guns all the time, you know, that they're going to get rid of the 300 million guns that we have on the streets and that's going to solve everything.
• 30:43
  Or background checks. You know, background checks only work if you arrest criminals, right? If you have a record. If you have leniency policies in place, like this kid, he trespassed at the school who killed my daughter. He trespassed at the school and wasn't arrested. The police was at the shooter's house over 40 years.
• 31:07
  times and he was never arrested. He punched his mother's teeth out. We have the bills never arrested. So when there's liberal policies in place, like you read about all these DAs letting people out, not holding them accountable, they don't get a background and then they're able to purchase firearms legally because they never were arrested. That was one of the problems with the person, the thing that killed my daughter.
• 31:32
  I had Steve Gruber on and I, I threw a radical idea by him and he said that there's no way the NRA would let it happen. And I actually thought about it this morning before I was going to interview you and I had a better articulation of it. So you know how we have air tags for our luggage? Yeah. So why can't we just have the gun makers put air tags inside of guns and through AI, we can say, okay, okay,
• 32:01
  I, if you look, I carry a gun right here, sitting right here. I always have it on me and I have no problems putting a chip and I earn air tag on it. And if I come in close contact with a school, it says, is this a normal Kelly Siegel route? Right.
• 32:21
  And if I have three or more guns and I come in contact with a school, it should immediately throw up a local flag that says, hey, you might want to stop Kelly. Why can't we just do that? Granted, I made it very arbitrary, but Steve Gruber said, absolutely no way. I think they had...
• 32:39
  They have gun detection for stuff like that anyway. Do they? Oh, yeah. They got detection. I know if you're carrying. There's stuff out there without an air tag that'll know if you're coming to the school. They'll know what side hip it's on. I wish I could do that, but I'm in D.C., so I can't carry in D.C. I'll end up in jail. My son will have to bail me out. How many guns did the shooter have on him?
• 33:04
  I only think he had one gun. He had a gun at his mother. So his mother...
• 33:11
  You don't know this story. I'm going to tell you about his parents, too. So he was adopted, right? And he was a nut. He came from some crackhead mother, right, on drugs. They got the baby. It was a crackhead baby, okay? He had to be bolted down on the school bus. You know, they had to seatbelt him in a harness because he'd try and bite kids on the school bus. Wouldn't you know that same mother gets pregnant
• 33:40
  two, three years later with another crack baby kid, and they take that kid also. That just tells you how sick these parents were. So they took two of the kids from a crackhead mother and brought them to that neighborhood where I was sending my daughter to school.
• 33:59
  Nobody. People don't know that. You know what I mean? She was in her fifties. The kid was such a nut. And then she goes and adopts another kid from the same crackhead mother who's, I think she's, she's probably dead by now. Who knows? I don't know. Andrew, absolutely weird question, but what would your position be on sterilization? Oh, these, well,
• 34:20
  I own a public assistance. If you're on public assistance or if you've already had a child taken from you, I mean, it's it's it sounds anti-United States, doesn't it? But not really, because I own a ranch right in Oregon. If we have something that's bad, we kill it. You know what I'm saying? If say there's a cow.
• 34:44
  We got cows, right? And goats. If the mother's bad. I didn't say kill it, but I just said sterilized. Well, we cull. So it's different. We cull it. You know, it's almost the same thing. If it's bad, say it's a bad mom. It has a baby one year and it doesn't feed it, right? Doesn't take care of it. We don't keep that cow around anymore. We get rid of it.
• 35:07
  Or if something's constantly getting, you know. So I'm all for it. You know, it's easy to fix society of a lot of this stuff, but we're not doing it. You know, there's no mental asylums anymore. It's a big problem. Whenever these mentally ill people have a problem, they take them to the emergency room. There's no place to take them anymore. And then they're let out back on the street to kill, stab, or whatever else they're going to do.
• 35:35
  This kid threatened threatened to shoot people, threatened to kill himself, killed the neighbor's cat. And yet they mainstreamed them back in the school. Where are you going to put all these people? It's insane to me. Yeah, it's a problem. And we've talked about all this stuff in plain language. What safety measures actually work? Not theoretically, but in real schools right now.
• 35:59
  You know, I have a company. I sent it to you. It's xpons.com. We're doing emergency response. I'm here working, trying to work with the government to give them, to donate an app for them to change how emergency response actually is. We're going to give it to them for free. But.
• 36:18
  An emergency app is great to have. We're going to have cameras that link law enforcement to phones within seconds. You know, if there's an emergency, say you're in a mall and you don't know. Half the time you're in a mall, do you even know the address? If you call 911 or a hotel, you never know where you are. So we're going to be able to link law enforcement to your cell phone. They'll use it as a camera, a mapping, and they'll be able to talk to you.
• 36:47
  instead of just calling on your cell phone to a 911 call center. So we're trying to help change emergency response with the government. But right off the bat, you know, parents should go check their schools. It has to be a single point of entry. You know, there shouldn't be side doors where people could walk in. You need police at the schools.
• 37:11
  And you need law enforcement to work with the school on emergency response. There should be a plan in place. God forbid something happens. They know what to do. And law enforcement should be involved with that plan.
• 37:26
  Are you facing resistance with that app? Because you said you're trying to give it away. Oh, just we're in the first, the process of it. We just developed it and we're making a lot of leeway. If I charged triple for it, I'd have a better shot, you know, with the government. I could charge them and I'd probably have a better shot of getting it done.
• 37:45
  But we're here, I'm working with different entities in the government to try and help them with this app, especially after that those guards got killed. You know, they could have been linked to law enforcement, those national guardsmen that got killed here. So we could link army, police, everybody, where their cell phone would, they could show exactly the shooter, you know, exactly when it happened. Like if it was at Brown, they just had that shooting at Brown University.
• 38:11
  they would have had a picture of everything and mapping right to where the shooting was. So that's one of the things I'm working on right now. That's why I'm here in DC. My main job is in IT, cybersecurity, AI. And we have...
• 38:27
  technology already that takes over phones whenever we can't, somebody can't explain us something. So this is simple and easy and affordable. And it's, so I hope that we cut this up and, and shove it everywhere. So everybody makes awareness.
• 38:45
  of this. And I, and I want to talk a little politics a little more because we're in an unprecedented time where people are just like, they throw your hands up. Like when we know there's corruption right now, you can just see it. I mean, Elon Musk, whether you're right or left, he said, I can cut the federal budget in half right now.
• 39:07
  because he saw it if that's the case then someone probably yeah he talks about these ngos he talks so what specific measure it feels like apathy is set in is what i'm getting at with politicians so what specific pressure do these politicians actually respond to is it the noise is it podcasts like this is it numbers is it money or is it the fear of losing elections i think it's
• 39:33
  It's power and being held accountable. You know, look, you know, we've got to hold these people accountable that break the law. And that's where it boils down to accountability. And in the government, it just looks like there's so much widespread spending, like just what they came up with in Minnesota with the Somalians. Could you imagine what's going on in California?
• 39:58
  or where you live in Michigan, it's the same shit. I'm worried about Michigan. Yeah, it's the same thing. Who's running Michigan? And it could be Republicans too. It's everybody. Yeah, it's all of them. They're scant. But I guess, I don't know, Elon, they probably threatened him, somebody. He don't want to stop the gravy train. There's probably some people making a lot of money there. But we got to pay our taxes right at the end of the year, and look where it's going to.
• 40:27
  You know, really, with all these other countries, you know, everyone's, I think, getting fed up with it.
• 40:33
  I'm fed up with it, you know, and I've been pretty political. I have friends all in D.C., but, you know, I'm not even about the politics right now. I'm just about making the public safer. Of course, I'm conservative. You know what I mean? It's harder for me to deal with the Democrats. You know, they're usually on the gun control wagon. They can't see past that. But I'm all for making the public safety, you know, safer. That's why I have my company, what I'm doing. And that's what I focus on.
• 41:05
  Yeah. Don't let me start on that. What's one thing parents could do this month that would force political movement?
• 41:12
  Oh, they'd have to go, like I said before, to get involved with that group because you can't do it alone. You know, I battled alone. We had some school board races in Florida. We came up short. But you need groups like that. Moms for Liberty, Dads for Liberty. Get involved locally because they're running the school board races. Forget about...
• 41:35
  Big politics, you know, if you got kids and you want to make a difference in your community, because the cancer starts in a community at the school board level. You know, next thing you know, they're indoctrinating your kids, you know, they're letting boys in the girls bathroom. They're letting boys and girls sports, you know, and that all starts at the school board level, you know, because you don't know who you're. You don't know your kids school board, do you?
• 42:01
  Exactly. I didn't know either. You know what I mean? I didn't know when my most parents don't know. But you know who's in the White House. You know who the vice president is. The school board dictates your kids' education. Right. And the policies. So it's very important for parents to get involved locally. And like I said, look at...
• 42:20
  Today, you'll look and see if you got one of those groups, chapters where you live, and you'll see it. You probably like getting involved a little bit. Don't get me started on the curriculum, man. Jeez, they're teaching these kids something that – because I'm always helping my daughter with her homework. And I'm looking, and I'm like –
• 42:37
  why are they teaching you this? You're never, and I understand the deductive logic and the thinking that they're trying to do, but I saw some math problems. I'm like, are you kidding me? When are you ever going to use this? And it's, but we had it too. Algebra. Remember? Yeah.
• 42:53
  Right. Did we have to learn algebra, geometry? I barely even made it to that class. But, you know, they're doing that. But worse is some of the DEI that these kids, some of the books. Yeah, that's even worse. Florida, not in Florida. It ain't happening in Florida. Michigan, it's going to happen.
• 43:14
  Why, in your opinion, to enlighten me, why, what is the benefit of letting boys and girls' bathrooms, girls and boys, what are they trying to accomplish in your opinion?
• 43:26
  I think they're just really the white heterosexual male has been under. It's been like a war zone for them. They've been beaten down for how many years? You know, I think I think it's just the target. I think it's the Democrats just power. You know, it's the same thing with the border. You know, they're going to get their Democrat votes.
• 43:46
  If they left the border open, 20 million coming in, they're all going to end up voting Democrat. It's the same thing with this DEI stuff. You know, they're all really liberal. It's a very liberal policy. So and I don't get it, man. Who would want this? Who would want their daughter going up against guys in sports or a guy in the locker room? But but it's happening, you know. But I think, you know, that woke stuff's going is going out the window. Look what happened. Did you see what happened to Hilton?
• 44:17
  Oh, they posted the Hilton Hotels. There was a Hilton Hotel, I think, in Minnesota.
• 44:24
  And they denied access to all the ICE agents. Oh, yeah. I don't think it was Hilton. It was. No, it was Hilton. It was. I know it's Hilton. Yeah. I did see the press release come out where they said, we don't know what happened, of course. Yeah. But check out the stock when you get off what happened to it. Oh, really? Yeah. I was just wondering. I was following it. You know, I had some people short it.
• 44:48
  I just think that everybody in this world, if you hit them in the pocketbook, that's where this is all said and done. It's all about the, in life, it's all about the Benjamins, you know, no matter what party, it's going to be the Benjamins, like Venezuela. Yeah.
• 45:04
  Jesus, we're going to have some awful, we're going to have to hit, uh, stop the recorder to have a real conversation. Cause you're, you're, you have a lot to say and I enjoy it. So if a parent is listening right now and feels helpless, what is their first non-negotiable step after this episode ends?
• 45:23
  I would go to the school and see how secure it is after you drop your child off. And then I would talk to the law enforcement agent there. Hopefully they have one. If they don't, it's on them. Like I said, it's 2026 parents. You need to have security, armed security at the school. If you don't, what I call it is you're rolling the dice every day. That's what I call it. You want it most likely nothing's ever going to happen. You know what I mean? It's going to be fine.
• 45:53
  And there's no police there. It's on you. You lost the odds like I did. And a lot of other parents. How do they get more police officers? Like, because that's a municipality. How do you how do the schools ask the city for more police officers? And get a school board. It comes from the school board budgeting leadership and the parents. The parents. Listen, the parents have the power to vote these people in. Right. Right.
• 46:19
  So you vote the person in that's saying we're going to get law enforcement there. You got to have power of the parents. That's why these chapters, these organizations that help school boards and run the right people that are like minded, like yourself, like minded, you put them in office in the school board and then you have a voice at the school board. If you don't, you're going to get someone that's a nut, some liberal leftist that's in the school board that's going to indoctrinate our kids.
• 46:49
  Queen Carvania stood haloed by the morning sun. An army hung on her every word. My champions, I have sold my chariot on Carvana. It was a lovely SUV, an inexplicably queenly offer. They're even coming to the castle to collect it. Tonight we feast. An offer you can feast on. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pick up these mail. Bye.
• 47:20
  You call me like-minded. Let me be very crystal clear about what I believe. And I think everybody in this world believes our kids should be safe in school. It's that fricking simple. And if a Democrat or Republican, anybody wants to debate me on that, hit me up, come on the show and we'll talk about it because that should be something that we all agree on. Right. We don't though. I'm doing it since my daughter's killed, man, since she was murdered.
• 47:49
  They go, they spew after every shooting, all they do is focus on gun control. And that doesn't solve anything. You know, and, you know, there's a bunch of other things why I'm so...
• 48:03
  right wing, but that's okay. I, I, uh, I respect everyone's opinion, but if they just, if they're, you know, conversations great with everyone, you know, left, right, I don't care. I'll talk to anybody. I'll talk to any parent, you know, if they want it, like you said, it's about making the kids safe, but most of the time they can't get past, uh,
• 48:23
  you know, what's right from gun control. They can't separate it. You know what I mean? Even some parents stole that their kids were killed when my daughter was killed. They went so far left, they lost track of all the failures that happened. You know, here's these failures right in their face and all this they could spew is that he got access to a rifle, you know? They don't see it, you know? They don't see the failures.
• 48:52
  I know I read somewhere that you named your daughter after a metal soprano of the Sopranos. What was the draw to that? Because from New York or tell me about that. Yeah, I knew New York. I grew up with old guys like that, you know, that was still keep in touch. And it was just a beautiful name, you know, and it...
• 49:13
  Everywhere I go now, I see metal lane, metal building. You know, her name is everywhere. When you're driving around, you just see metal all over the place. And it was unique, just like her. You know, she was an amazing, my amazing baby daughter. It was most like she was most like me more than my sons. You know, she was she would have got anything she wanted in life. I'm so sorry. What's where can we find that book? Yeah.
• 49:41
  Well, it's probably on Amazon. You know, why metal died. If you really want to know what's going on in the schools, I dissected it. I did my own investigation. There's a bunch of interviews I did in there with the school district, the policies. You know, you're in Michigan right now and they have these policies there.
• 50:02
  that don't hold kids accountable. You know, it's a big problem. Black, white, Spanish, Asian. If you don't hold kids accountable, you set them up for failure in life. You know, kids need a good slap on the wrist when they do something wrong. And a lot of these leftist policies, they took that out of the schools. That's why there's a lot of assaults going on. Teachers are leaving their profession. It's all because of these type of policies in the schools.
• 50:29
  Andrew, if you could say one sentence directly to parents who are still passive, who are still sitting on their hands, what would it be? I would tell them that don't leave it in, like you said, the politician's hands or the school district's hands or the law enforcement's hands to realize, to know if your child's safe or not. You owe it to your kids. You love them. They're more precious than anything on the planet. You do anything for them.
• 50:55
  Go spend a little time, go to the school, see what's going on with security, see if they have police, see if they have a single point of entry, see about the plan that they have in place. They frisked the kid that shot my daughter. They frisked him every morning before school. You think they told the parents? I knew that some nut was going to the school with my daughter that they had to frisk.
• 51:19
  But they gave him, you know, a lot of the special needs, the special needs kids. And that could be a whole episode, too. They give they could give a special needs kids more rights than enough than the 1500 kids going to the school. You know what I mean? He gets more rights than them.
• 51:37
  you know, for anything, you know. So this kid was special needs. He was getting, he already threatened to shoot people, rape people, and they were frisking him because they thought he would carry a weapon, but they never told us. So back to your question is, it's on the parents. Don't think, don't put it on the school or the politicians or the police. Go there, find out about what's in place for your children and get involved. If you really want to get involved, go with that Moms for Liberty.
• 52:07
  I love that. I think that I keep hearing this thing in my head that just going on as being having difficult conversations, stop being comfortable. And, you know, just because it's controversial doesn't mean it shouldn't be discussed. Yeah.
• 52:24
  What's controversial when it comes to safety, the gun control stuff? It shouldn't really be controversial. I'll talk to any parent. I'll tell them, okay, you send your kid to the school that says there's a big sign, no gun zone, right? And the doors are open.
• 52:40
  And there's no law enforcement there. That's where you could send your child to school. I'm going to send mine where the teachers are armed because I know there's never been a school shooting where teachers are able to go through training and get armed and have a single point of entry with training in place. That's where I want. That's where the safest...
• 52:58
  That's where the kids are going to be the safest with a school like that. And if they want to argue about it, I'm not going to argue with any parent that, okay, you pick your school. I'm going to pick the school where my kid's going to come home at the end of the day.
• 53:12
  All right, my friend, Andrew, thank you. Not for just for being here, but for having the courage to turn pain into action and refuse to let this conversation stay comfortable. We talked about some great things. I want to leave everyone listening to this with a reminder. This isn't theoretical for me. I have an 11th grade daughter in public school. When we talk about school safety, this isn't politics. It's not headlines. It's not statistics. It's our kids.
• 53:39
  If you're a parent listening, this conversation isn't meant to scare you. It's meant to wake you up. Responsibility doesn't start in Washington. It starts at home, in our communities, and with the questions we're willing to ask and the pressure we're willing to apply. If this episode moved you, challenged you, or made you uncomfortable, please share it. These conversations only matter if they're shared.
• 54:04
  and spread. Make sure you follow the Harder Than Life podcast, subscribe to YouTube, and help us keep bringing real conversations that actually lead to change, not noise. I'm Kelly Siegel. This is Harder Than Life. Stay aware, stay accountable, and take care of your people.
• 54:21
  Please rate and share this podcast. I'm active on all social platforms and love to hear from my Segal supporters. Each and every episode is sponsored by my company, National Technology Management, the easiest and best IT company to do business with, delivering peace of mind with technology every day, even simplifying cybersecurity. Visit TrustNTM.com for more info. Until next week, be harder than life.