Shawn Ryan Show - #16 Chief Hallgrimson - Guilty of Assault After Rescuing Baby from Murderer

Episode Date: December 2, 2021

Chief of Police Greenwood, MO Greg Hallgrimson contacted me over 2 years via email to let me know how much a video I made on social anxiety helped him. After reading his email and googling his name I found out what a hero this man is and invited him on the show. The email is linked below for everyone to read. Chief Hallgrimson saved a 6 month old baby girl from being murdered by her father and then was charged with assault. He has lost not only his position as Chief of Police but also his entire career, his retirement, and his identity. He is now seeking employment. If you would like to contact him, his email is linked below along with all of his awards and his support page. Please sign his petition. Greg's Email and Support Page: [e-mail] https://www.facebook.com/groups/962002557970022/?ref=share https://www.change.org/p/the-the-court-whom-it-may-concern-show-we-stand-behind-greg-hallgrimson?signed=true Email from Greg to Shawn: https://static.bashcrash.io/016/hallgrimson_1.png https://static.bashcrash.io/016/hallgrimson_2.png Awards: https://static.bashcrash.io/016/IMG_0325.jpg https://static.bashcrash.io/016/IMG_0326.jpg https://static.bashcrash.io/016/IMG_0327.jpg https://static.bashcrash.io/016/IMG_0328.jpg https://static.bashcrash.io/016/IMG_0329.jpg https://static.bashcrash.io/016/IMG_0330.jpg https://static.bashcrash.io/016/IMG_0331.jpg https://static.bashcrash.io/016/IMG_0332.jpg https://static.bashcrash.io/016/IMG_0333.jpg https://static.bashcrash.io/016/IMG_0334.jpg https://static.bashcrash.io/016/IMG_0335.jpg Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website - https://www.shawnryanshow.com Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/VigilanceElite TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnryanshow Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/shawnryan762 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Rebel Ice Cream. With less than one gram of sugar in most pints, a delicious scoop of Rebel can help you feel better about almost anything. Like ignoring your mom's friend request for months, then pretending you never got it when she confronts you. Rebel Ice Cream. Feel better. Visit rebelcremory.com to find a store near you. We would never want to deny any one of all the rich and creamy goodness found in every

carton. Bluebell wouldn't have it any other way. and SUVs has the capability you need and technology and features you want, like the all-new 2023 Hyundai Powseh and Hyundai Tucson. This holiday season gets into a vehicle that will give you confidence with Hyundai owner assurance America's best 10-year 100,000-mile warranty. Visit us online at WoodhouseHondayOfOmaHaw.com hoth.com. Let's move into December 17th, 2018, when you save that little girl. Tonight, the baby's father is charged with domestic assault.

Police say they didn't know about the child until the father walked in saying he drowned as six-month-old. I want you to be very descriptive. I want you to talk about every little detail that you saw, the felt, what you were feeling, what your mindset was, all that kind of stuff. It looked like the soul was gone. There was no soul behind his eyes, and that's exactly how you looked when I ran past and going down the hall and going to that call. It's just different kind of evil. The child's father, Jonathan Zickarelli,

said he planned to kill his daughter for over 24 hours. He said he came down here to this pond, got out of his car, walked down here at least three different times trying to determine if he could kill his child right before he put her in the water and watched her sing. So you get out of the car, you're running down to the pond. Yeah. And the first thing you see is a six-month-old baby girl face down and a pond who was murdered by her father.

I can see the back of her head. That's an image of still there. Little curls on her hair. Police say it took them around five to six minutes from the time the father confessed to when they pulled the six month old out of the pond here off Doc Henry just south of Cherokee. Chief Halgonson said she wasn't moving that she looked like a little porcelain doll just floating on the surface. The next memory that I've got is me being basically punched, kicked, choked, yelled at, screamed

at by my lieutenant and other officers trying to get me off the guy. I hope at some point, you know, eight or nine years down the road, I'll get to meet her. I would love that. I hope you get to meet her too. Welcome back to the Sean Ryan Show. This episode, 016, is exactly why I do what I do here at Vigilance Elite. He's a local hero and he's in desperate need of all of our support. I want to start off as always by saying thank you to Patreon and all the patrons for the

support that you've given me in Vigilance Elite to produce these shows. These stories would never be heard if it wasn't for you guys. If you haven't left us a review on iTunes, please go down to the description, hit the link, and leave us a review on iTunes. Leave us one word that's all we need. We really appreciate it. Thank you. The gentleman who's our next guest found us from a social anxiety video I posted several years ago. You can read that email it's attached along with all

of his awards that he's received throughout his career and his support page and his email address. He's a local hero who saved a six-month-old baby from being murdered by her father. Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, please welcome Chief Greg Halbremson to the Sean Ryan show. Chief Hal Grimson, welcome to the show, man. Thank you. I've been trying to get you out here forever, but we had some court stuff. We had to wait to settle down for it to get you out here, to get your story in. So just to kick it off, I want to start it up by telling the audience a little bit about you.

So basically, you saved a six-month-old baby girl from being drowned by her father and a pond, and then got a little rough with her father who tried to kill his daughter, and you're stripped, you're bad, you're gun, you're a chief of police at the time. Basically, I don't know if it's the city, the county, or the department, basically tossed out on your ass with no support. And that's the end of your law enforcement career, long, law enforcement career. So me and you've talked a couple times and I try to get you on the show.

Finally, I've got you here. The last conversation we had, the last text conversation we had was you were saying, I just want to be a protector. I've always been this. That's all I want to do. That's what I'm good at. Now you're selling, no, you're not selling, you're working in the service department

at a car dealership in Oklahoma. Right. So I said, why don't you come on the show? I don't know how many people are gonna watch it. I can never, you know, I can't control that. Usually we have a really good dealership. So if anybody watching is looking to hire a former police chief hero, somebody like yourself, your email

address, Greg's email address is in the description and you can reach out to them there. Or if you just want to support. So moving on before that day, everybody that comes on the show gets a little, a little something. Most people, anyways. But, there you go. Little keepsake for ya. Do I open this? Yeah, go ahead, open it up.

Look at that. So my wife, my wife doesn't know about the Vigilance Elite Gummi Bears, but she, no doubt is probably gonna fight me to the death for for these. That's awesome. Wow. I'll give you a couple extra. Whoa. Well, in a hand. That's a private stash. Yeah, that's awesome.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thanks for coming out. I'm glad to be here. It's been a long time coming. And I'm really humbled to be here for sure.

Well, I'm ready to dive in, man. Are you nervous? I am. Yeah, I sure am. Well, if it helps you at all, everybody that's been on this show says the exact same thing how nervous they are and to be honest with you I get just as nervous, you know, I don't like being in the limelight Always get a little anxious and then once it goes on once the show kind of rolls on you'll get more comfortable be fine and

And you look kind of nervous in that restaurant last night, too Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, this is a I mean this has been going on since what I think the first time I had contact with you was in early 2019, January, February, March, something like that. So it's been building for a couple of years now and to have it finally come around and happen. It's a really big thing for me. So I'm really, I'm very happy to be here, but yeah, nervous as hell. Yeah. Well, don't be turn nervous. You know how many people sat in that chair that have saved a six-month-old girl from being murdered by their father?

No. All right, none of them. So, yeah. So, you know, there's that. Yeah, there is. Yeah, well, So, you know, there's that. Yeah, there is. Well, yeah, it's difficult to be in the line line. That's a tough thing. Yeah, I know. But, all right, moving on. So, we met initially from an email. Right.

And I actually read that email before you got here, so the audience can hear it. And you talked about some of the struggles you were overcoming and you were even humble in that email. You were saying that you didn't even tell me what you did. I had to Google it. You dropped that little, if you want to know more you can Google my name. So sure, shit, shit I Google your name and I was like oh man and so we kind of connected and I've been going back and forth over the past what two years do I think maybe a little bit longer and and and now here we are today but

you brought up a couple of different incidents that you've dealt with being a law enforcement officer, and I wanted to kind of bring that up because when we get into what happened on that day back in December of 18th. You had in December 17th or 2018. December 17th of 2018. Yeah, December 17th. December 18th of 2018. 17th of 2018. Yeah. Just 10 to 8 in the morning too.

I'm just gonna quit. But, but I kind of want to paint a picture. That's not, I don't think that's a rare occurrence. No. You know, for somebody like you. And how long have you been in law enforcement? You know, I started, I. And how long have you been in law enforcement? You know, I started, I actually started my career in 99.

Had a super bad experience with the agency I was with and got out of it and then got back in it in late 2003. So I was in it from 2003 to, you know, just before 2019 started. So the better part of 20 years. And that's, I mean, would you say things like that are daily occurrence? In my career what I saw every day all up through the ranks and as a chief even it wasn't necessarily a daily occurrence but it was most definitely something that could occur

any day every single day. You'd brought up in any email fighting for your life in the middle of the highway? Yeah, that happened more than I ever wanted to do this for certain. And I had that actually, I'd forgotten. Like I said, I couldn't find that email, so I kind of forgot about some of this a little bit.

But yeah, there was a few occurrences like that that happened to me when I was with my first agency. And I wasn't the only officer that ever had to deal with that, and I'm sure there's been thousands of officers since that have, but all through the Academy, I went to the Law Enforcement Training Center in Kansas, and for the Academy, and they taught you through there. They kept talking about the Warrior mindset, you know, you're adrenaline, you know, the dump, everything, and until a person experiences it, you just don't. And none of that clicks because it's just words on paper until it happens to you. And

you know, when you've got a guy a lot bigger than you are, and I was a decent sized guy, but when you've got somebody that's bigger than you, and you're just, you're not only having to fight that person, but you have to fight that person to stay away from the weapons that you possess, so that they can't use those against you. There's a lot that goes into that, and it's definitely, I would compare it with

Sliding in the mud toward a hundred foot drop and just trying to grab anything you can to keep it from happening That's that probably a really good comparison. Yeah Well Real quick So I have a paid a thing called, which is basically a subscription account. And basically what we do there is we have a bunch of behind the scenes type footage. We do video teleconferencing with our subscribers. And basically what our subscribers on Patreon do is they are the ones that support the show. They're the reason that it happens and that that we're able to put all this together, all the equipment, the salaries, everything.

And so one thing I promise them is I give them a heads up on who's coming on the show before, a couple days before they get here, and I pick a question or two that they have for the guest. So this question is from Nate Hills and he just says, in your opinion, do you think police officers get sufficient training to do the job these days? No, not even close. No, most academies are usually about three and a half months long. And when you throw into the mix that you've got one individual that you expect to go out and do all these things in, it's not going to matter if it's an officer working for a rural

city, you know, of 1800 people or a metropolitan city, you know, with several hundred thousand. The training is just not there in the academies at all. And having been through two different states and seeing the different training in the two different states, some states definitely need it way more than others. And there should really be some kind of a nationally mandated training that they have to go through, whether it's developed by, you know, an allegiance of chiefs of police or sheriffs or whatever it is,

the training has to be up to, it has to be up to lot. Right on. I've heard that from several different police officers. A bit. Yeah, sounds like they need to up the funding and not decrease the funding, which is... Well, and I was fortunate enough, when I was a chief, that the city that I was achieved for, most of the government for that city and the citizens for that city were very pro police. And I was able to take my officers out

and just do extensive training almost every single week. And I never really got bucked at, by except maybe a couple of board members. They couldn't understand why we were spending the money we were to train officers. I'm confident on who those two guys voted for. Yeah. Do you think it's tough question? Do you think there are a handful of officers out, the do let the authority go to their head and they take advantage of it. Absolutely.

I would go so far as to say, at some point, especially in a young career, that's going to happen to probably 40% or greater. That many. going to happen to probably 40% or greater? I believe so. Yeah, based on my experiences with the officers that I was privileged enough to work with over the years and seeing things. Yeah, and I'm not 100% sure what you mean by taking advantage of, but in my mind, I call it badge Happy, where they pin that badge on and then they feel like they're the shit.

And they don't take no for an answer and they're delegating law. And in their own mind, they've kind of got a little bit of a God complex. You know, you're going to do this because I said so. You know, that type of thing. And that puts law enforcement in a bad light and that's another place where We're training would would be a big plus really. Yeah. Oh, I think so. Yeah. What kind of training? Well, you know nowhere in the academy training that I received or the continuing education hours that I went through and there

There's a lot at least seven hundred continuing education hours that I went through. And there's a lot, at least 700 continuing education hours that I went through. No where in any of that did I ever hear the word humble. And I think being humble is something that has to go with that badge, it has to. It gives it value. Interesting. Would you say you said younger in the career or early on in a young officer's career,

do most people grow out of that? Oh, I think so. Yeah, I mean, there's, I think there's going to be a few that probably never will and it's just not the right place for them. And I believe they'll be weeded out. One thing I've definitely learned about law enforcement is, when somebody gets in that doesn't belong, they're weeded out. They, whether it's by their fellow officers or administration, you know, or citizens,

they end up getting weeded out eventually. But yeah, it's just the people in the first couple of years of their career, they don't have the experience yet to learn, you know, what the compassion part is all about. Okay. Right on. Well, let's take just a real quick break. And when we come back, I want to go into some of the worst things that you've seen as a police officer to kind of pay the picture of what you guys are dealing with every day.

Sure. I want to take a minute to tell you about Vigilance Elite Patreon. Patreon support is what makes this show possible and gives me the ability to bring these one-of-a-kind stories to the public. gives me the ability to bring these one-of-a-kind stories to the public. Go to patreon.com, slash vigilance, elite, and support the Sean Ryan Show today. Alright, we're back from our 30-second break there. But what are some of the worst things that you've seen? What are some of the worst scenes that you've rolled up on as a law enforcement officer?

Well, I mean, obviously not Counton, you know, the child in the pond, as a sergeant, um, I would show up on a scene, uh, in one in my mind right now, it's just, it's a fatality accident. Pretty much any officer, uh, has to, has to work a fatality accident at one, at some point or another, at least, at least be a part of one of one, a part of an investigation on one. And I worked at Fatality Action. I was the first one on the scene.

It was right at the edge of my city limits when I was a sergeant. I was actually at the time when the call came out. And I heard where the restaurant was located compared to where the crash occurred. I heard the crunch from the crash. So I was already up and leaving the table when I got the call.

I was first on the scene, on the scene for about 16 minutes by myself, waiting on other officers to get their deputy's things like that. And it ended up being a three car accident and what had happened was one vehicle in a Toyota 400 ran of stop sign out into a 65 mile an hour four lane intersection hit one vehicle

knocked it into another one and when I got on scene there was a young Hispanic male walking around and same fine I thought he was a witness and so I grabbed him stood him to the side told him don't leave you know I thought he was a witness. And so I grabbed him and stood him to the side, told him don't leave. I wanted to get a statement from him at some point when I was done dealing with the people. Went and dealt with the first vehicle.

It was a 16 year old that had passed away already. Ended up being somebody that was good friends with my kids. So, man, kind of familiar with her. And then the other vehicle was a family. Mom and dad were both injured, dad was unconscious, but anyways, I assessed everything, got back on with dispatch. Eventually, got coverings put over the 16 year old. Public doesn't need to see that. And then went over to the Hispanic mail. Once MS, you know, emergency medical services showed up,

I went back over to the Hispanic mail, start talking to him. Turned out, he was the operator of the total four runner that had caused accident that actually blew the stop sign and hit these vehicles. And so, immediately there was a deputy that showed up on scene. He was very adamant that this was in, his jurisdiction not mine.

I said, okay, here he is. I've smelt alcohol on him. This is the driver and the cause of this accident. He's in your custody now. There was no fuel sobriety testing done by that deputy or anything else in long story short. That individual ended up with a $75 fine for running a stops on. That was it. You got to be shitting me. No. No. So that was a bad one. But.

That's infuriating. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I agree. One of my officers, when I was a sergeant, damn good officer. Really good man. He had a child pass away while he was giving him CPR. I remember it was an eight-year-old boy having a asthma attack and the inhaler was with the parents. It couldn't be found. They weren't on scene. They were elsewhere. I'll just leave it at that.

But what were they doing? Partying. Partying? Yeah. But that officer ended up getting sued by the parents for wrongful death. So I mean, it's the world that law enforcement has to deal with is pretty incredible when you dig in deep. And there's a huge amount of officers out there that just, and I know anybody in a profession like this, Fire Department, hell, even social working,

like we spoke about, knows how to compartmentalize. They've learned it somehow and they just do it. And so you just go through your career and try your best not to open those boxes. I can definitely relate to that. You get real good at it. Oh yeah. I'm telling it catches up with you. Exactly. But you know I the worst of people. The worst of people and you deal with the worst people on their worst days. And that I'm assuming is damn near daily occurrence sometimes probably three, four, maybe five, six times a day.

Yeah, well I know in my career I was never just randomly invited to a birthday party. So I mean it's, no it's, my, when I was a chief my lieutenant for him, he, wonderful man, really good guy. He, to say, we have a front seat to the greatest show on earth. And that's obviously just a way to look at it to make it seem much smaller than it is, you know, and change it into something that's acceptable. You know, there's a lot of good days, but even the good days are going to involve a domestic violent situation or a fatality accident or a two-year-old getting mulled by a pit bull. I mean, you're going to have good days in law enforcement, don't give me wrong.

It's a wonderful career and I wish to get out of it still in it. But every good day is a bad day too. Yeah. Let's move into December 17th, 2018, when you saved that little girl. Yeah. So I want you to be very descriptive. I want you to talk about every little detail that you saw,

that you felt, what you were feeling, what your mindset was, all that kind of stuff. So let's just start at the very beginning. What were you doing? What was the call? Yeah, on December 17th, the 20th, I was sitting in my office doing payroll for my officers. And I heard my corporal down the hall, my corporal, my lieutenant, another officer wall in my lieutenant's office, I believe. I heard my corporal scream for me. And I tell by the tone of his voice, it was something really serious.

So I got up and ran out the hall. And as soon as I entered into the hallway, he said something to the effect of, there's a baby drowning in a pond on Duck Henry Road. We ran out. As I was running down the hall to the right, it was my lieutenant's office, the doorway and the door was open from the hallway into his office.

And I saw a man sitting in a chair and restrained. He just had that million miles there. And my brain associated, hey, this is a suspect in this somehow. Somehow when we got in the parking lot, we're getting into our cruisers to go. I believe my lieutenant had told me, or my corporal told me that's the father. He drowned his baby. And so we knew exactly where the pond was. You know, I got to tell you, in my career, I've never experienced running hot to a call where you didn't have to hit the

brakes. I mean, hitting the brakes, swarming, getting out of traffic, getting into other traffic. Wrong way, whatever you got to do to get to a call. Didn't experience any of that on this. It was like the streets just parted. The cars were out of the way before we ever had to get to them. We got to that call faster than I've ever gotten to a call. As soon as I arrived, I built out of my car, ran down the bank into the water. My corporal was right

there with me. He ended up in the water. He ended up having the baby in his hands and he couldn't get anything to happen. He turned the baby to me, we dug all kinds of mud, endurance stuff out of our throat, out of our eyes, cleared our eyes up. Milley turned her over, started again, you know, just doing compressions on her from the back. This was in Kansas City, Missouri. Greenwood just, yeah, just in Jackson County, same county as Kansas City, Missouri. Yeah, greenwood just, yeah, just the injection county, same county as Kansas City, Missouri. Suburb, Kansas City. Yeah.

In the middle of December. Right. Right. December 17th. So what, what was the temperature? That day, I believe it was in the low 20s. There was ice that we had to break to get in the pond right there by the back.

We had to break ice to get to the water. Yeah, we broke through ice as we entered the pond. So was she under? She was face down floating. And she wasn't under the ice. There wasn't ice as far out as she was. It was just around the bank, around the edges. We crossed the water was pretty cold, but...

So you get out of the car, you're running down to the pond. And the first thing you see is a six-month-old baby girl face down in a pond who was murdered by her father. Yeah, exactly. I can see the back of her head. That's an image of still there. A little curable on her hair. I'm not sure, you know, my corporal and I never really had a chance to talk about it afterward. To this day, him and I really haven't sat down and had any kind of discussion about it. But I'll get to that part later, but we, I believed at that point before we ever touched the baby.

I believe that this was a hoax because of the color of the baby. It was just pure white, like a porcelain doll. I really felt like it was just some guy that had a real bad mental illness problem and believed that he threw a baby in the pond and he didn't. But it turned out to be a real baby. As soon as we put hands on it we knew that. It was really frantic. My corporal at that time had two little children, a little girl and I believe a little boy. And you know, so he was still a pretty new father. My kids were grown, gone, you know, that sort of thing. But I know it had a lot of effect on him at that point.

I could definitely see that. But when we went up on the bank with the baby and my cripple held the baby out, and we're yelling at each other, and I can't hear him. And I would imagine he probably couldn't hear me. It just nothing soaked in. We're just going off of just pure actions.

More his parents than anything else. At that point, but I reached down, the baby's throwing and dug out. An enormous amount of mud and dirt and grass. And we turned her over, and I had her long, long ways on my forearm. Started compressions again. And at some point, you know, she just, she let out a whimper. And she was, she was coming to you.

And as we turned to run back up the bank with her to my, my corpals vehicle, because he left his vehicle running. and I wanted to get her in the heat as quick as possible as we turned to run back to that vehicle. Sorry. When I turned, I saw the look on his face. And I know that he just he was ready to fall apart just like I was. But we got up to the car, got the baby and in the passenger-front seat, got the heat blowing on her, it's hard as we could. I stripped down out of the rest of my uniform on the side of the road and wrapped her in it, trying to get her warm.

It seemed like every minute went by, she got a little more coherent. She started moving her hands and looking around, you can see the movement in her eyes, finally, you know, things that we weren't seeing at first that was really scary on us, because at that point we had no idea how long she'd been in that pond. In my mind, I didn't even know if the father had driven from the pond to the police department or if he had walked, I didn't know.

So the morco here, she became the better we felt, you know, and then I started, I kept talking to her, trying to get her attention, get her to look at me. I wasn't even worried about hearing or anything like that. I just wanted her to just be more coherent, and come to you more and start acting like a baby should. Then I started calling her Goose, and I don't know why, but started calling her Goose and nicknamed her that, but she finally

started looking at us. She was looking around the car. And then a guy had pulled up that lived close by a citizen and one of everything was okay. I asked him if he had any blankets or anything in the car we could use. And he said, nobody, live right down the street, he'll go get some. And so he took off and went back to his house to get some, which, you know, the people in that area, that's the way they are. But the fire department showed up with their bus, their ambulance.

When they finally came over to custody, I almost didn't want to give the baby to them. Almost felt like that she needed to stay with me. But that's not how it works. So they got around the bus, started working with her. Five or six minutes went by, I would guess, you know, that she was on that bus. And I couldn't even tell you what my corporal was doing at that time. For all I know, he might have been on the bus. There's a lot of things going through your head, you know, at that point. So you don't, you kind of lose touch with what's going on around you, at least to my case.

But my corporal, I remember my corporal approached me and he said, they're telling me that she's going to be okay, she's going to be stable. She's suffering from severe hypothermia and she'll be okay. Something just, you know, clicked in my head back to the suspect, the father, sitting in my lieutenant's office unrestrained as I ran past. That image went right back in my head. And I got back in my police car and ran hot straight back down to the police department. Before we go back into that.

Yeah. Before we go back into that, what's this little girl's name? Hmm. I don't know. I really couldn't tell you. I honestly couldn't. I don't know her name.

And I, to be honest with you, and I know this isn't going to sound very good at this moment. Right now, I don't want to know where to. But I hope at some point, you know, eight or nine years down the road, I'll get to meter. I would love that. I hope you get to meter too. The report says that she was underwater for an estimated, I think, eight to ten minutes before he guys got there. That's a long time and it is. It is. And underwater. You know, my corporal, I think he's been promoted since then,

but my corporal, he's probably one of the best guys I ever trained. Probably one of the best guys I ever worked with. And one of the things that him and I did talk about when we got back to the police department after everything was over with, you know, he said the baby's body temperature was measured at 86.7 degrees, I believe. I know it was either 86.7 or 87.6. Either way, it's extremely low. I'm not taking anything away from my corporal or myself in any

means, but I'm telling you, if that child's body temperature wasn't what it was, we would never have been able to savor. So we were just an after effect. Her organ slowing down the way they did because of her body temperature is a big part of what saved that child's life. Definitely. Damn, man. Let's him have his shit.

Yeah. But. Is there anything else that happened on scene that you want to talk about? On scene Now you know, I just You know, I've had to tell a story a couple times, but I'd do it from a very Foreign distance if that makes sense to you. Yeah, so the closer I get to the story the tougher it is to tell a story a couple times, but I'd do it from a very foreign distance, if that makes sense to you. So the closer I get to the story, the tougher it is to tell. But it just, on scene, the memory of the guy pulling up and asking to help, that's just

one of those people around that city. The support that the citizens gave me afterwards was a big reflection of that too. Back to the story, what happened was when I entered into the police department parking lot, when you enter the building there was an outer door that you go into and then you're in a little floorier area. You've got two different doors you can go through. There's one that goes, if you go straight through, that door takes you in a hallway, goes to our squad room, evidence room, my office, another office. If you take an immediate left and go through that door straight into my lieutenant's office,

which is where the suspect was. So the only way to get into either one of those doors is what the four digit code. By policy, those doors have to be shut, which that code's always activated no matter what when they're shut. When I got out of my police car, ran through the parking lot, I remember grabbing that door to the outer four-year,

the public entrance. I yanked it open, entered that foyer. I don't remember putting a code in. I don't remember opening the door. The next memory that I've got is me being basically punched, kicked, choked, yelled at, screamed at by my lieutenant and other officers trying to get me off the guy.

I remember seeing the guy on the floor underneath me and it was very easy for me to figure out what I did. You know, that kind of a picture, you don't mistake what you just did to somebody. And I didn't, I immediately called my, well actually my city clerk, great woman, she, she heard some of the ruckus from City Hall, they're connected to the police department. And she came over and was screaming, wanting to know what's going on is everybody okay. And I said, yeah, yeah, it's okay.

I was in a pretty bad state at that point. And I just said, I resigned. I quit. She said, no. Oh, we're not gonna let you. And I shut myself in my office and stayed in there for about 20 minutes, trying to get myself calmed down.

And then I called my mayor, Levi Lieber, good man. I told him I was going to resign. I said, I resigned, I quit. I resigned my post. And he didn't know what had happened. He had zero idea. And he said, it's a chief, no, never. And he wouldn't let me. So that's gonna be blubs with. So that was big. That sounds like a hell of a team. Yeah.

You wanna take a break? Yeah, let's say a break. You want to take a break? Yeah, we're safe to break. I hope you're enjoying the Sean Ryan show. Let me take a minute to tell you about Vigilance Elite Patreon. Our Patreon community receives exclusive behind the scenes content from the Sean Ryan show.

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We got a stiff drink. Nomad out a little bit. And uh, but or we left off, but basically it sounds like the mayor, the clerk. It sounds like everybody kind of had your back, or was behind it. Yeah, they definitely did. In a way that I never really saw coming. My mayor demanded that I be,

because by the policies that I developed myself, a person that was involved, an officer that was involved in a critical incident such as that one, if there were anything that happened that would be in question at all or up for investigation, they had to go on paid administrative leave or unpaid administrative leave. That's what's had to be made by the mayor or the Board of Alderman in the mayor, but I

Was put on administrative leave paid administrative leave And I can't really be accurate with how long but I would say it's probably good two months. Maybe a little bit longer Talk to my mayor every day. Every single day, the man called me. Wanted to know, you know, make sure things were good. What my mind was, kept talking to me about other problems in the city, you know, things going on.

He wanted to make sure that my guys were doing what I wanted them to do to keep the city running the way I wanted it to run. I was, I mean, I don't want to pay the picture of myself that's not accurate. I was a big fish and a little pond. That's what I was and that's how I look at that. But, yeah, they stood behind me. And then my city clerk, my core clerk,

the utilities lady, I mean, they were all texting me, calling me a few times a week, checking on me, seeing how things were going. One of the policies that had been put in place was they came into effect immediately after that happened. I had written a policy with the help of my captain Hawkins, which was probably the best cop I've ever met in my life.

But that policy stated, as an officer, if you're involved in a critical incident, immediately you have to be disassociated from that incident, from your duty. The counselor has to be called, you have to, you know, I don't remember now what I had in the policy, I think it was within eight hours, you had to be in a session with the counselor. Somebody unassociated from the department, unassociated with that event,

had to come in and run the show So obviously if it was just an officer that was involved or you know corporal sergeant whatever I'd still be running that show without any problems and no hiccups but because I was involved My captain had to come in and run the show. He was off duty that day completely un-envolved So he came in and ran the show. He was off duty that day completely un-involved. So he came in and ran the show, ran the department in my absence. He said everything up himself for us to go see the council or myself and the endocorporal in separate sessions. So by gosh, ma'am, that happened. The guy walked into the police department, the father walked in the PD 108 in the

morning. Somewhere around 1 o'clock in the afternoon, we already had our opponent set for like 5 and 530 that evening with the counselor. And so we did that dinner counseling sessions. I ended up continuing going back to that counselor because he was actually an ex-police officer himself. So it was kind of easy to talk to the guy, but you know, it's just kind of a side note, and I get away from the story just for a second, but I mean, if there's

police departments out there, especially rural ones that don't have a policy like that in effect, my guy get it on the books. That was detrimental, especially for myself and my corporal. But it was detrimental for my department and the liability on my department for us to be taken out of that picture completely. That helped everybody go on with their business and keep being cops for the rest of that day and got us some immediate attention to the trauma that we just experienced. That's good. Yeah, it was a good thing.

And you know, my captain and I spent a lot of time and I know, God, I know looking back my officers probably thought, you know, chief and captain, they probably go out and drink after work, they probably hanging out all the time. To this day, I've never been to his house. Ever, I've known the man, God since, well, in law enforcement, I've known him since 2004. He started working for me in what I think 2016.

But I've never been to his house. He'd never been to mind other than to come and pick up my cruiser. But him and I was sitting just hash things out, what if, what if, what if, you know. And that helped develop a lot of good training and a lot of good policies. So you don't remember exactly what happened when you tuned the father up who tried to drown his or who did drown his daughter. But what did you, it sounds like you completely shut that out. I remember. Yeah.

So what did you see, how bad was it when you came to? It was the dump that I was having, the adrenaline dump that I was having when I came to you. I had people there to hold me up. And if I didn't, I'd been on the ground. It was very sudden. And I still had just this this this this this rage. You You know, I know looking back and having seen the body camera footage, I know personally what would have happened if those officers weren't there to get me off. But my mindset when my conscious came back to me immediately wasn't wasn't really on the father. You know, he was, of course, he's injured, you know, he's got some blood on his face and

stuff. And the million miles, Miles Teridan never went away. I mean, it never left that man. He, it looked like the soul was gone. There was no soul behind his eyes and that's exactly how he looked when I ran past him, going down the hall to go to that call. It's just different kind of evil. It's the best way for me to put it.

And I recognize that when I, when my memory came back to me, that's one of the first things I remember was in my head just thinking, man, that's a brand new kind of evil. I haven't seen that. And you know, man, that's a brand new kind of evil hive and seeing that. And then everything just came to mind, the realization of what I just done to my career, what I just did to myself,

what I did in my department. But he wasn't seriously injured or anything? No, as far as I know, no broken bones. You know, he some, some, some, uh, lasterations and things to his face and, uh, maybe some bruised ribs and things like that. But, uh, nothing, nothing permanent, no dismemberment or anything. All right.

So, you're, you know, I mean, you just... I assaulted the man. Yeah, I mean, you just assaulted the men. Yeah, I mean, you saw, well, I mean, your emotions. I mean, that's a lot to take in. And then to see the men that did it right after you saved this girl, you know, I mean, I don't think there's a whole lot of people out there that could have held

that together to begin with. But so you're on two months leave when then what happened? I was on leave for a couple months and then I had an FOP attorney and they they need to work on their game. But what's an FOP attorney? Federal order police, fraternal order police, like a union attorney. Okay. Provided to me by the FOP and you know, I told you it was a very good attorney and I

won't mention his name or anything like that. I'll just say that it didn't work out for me. But as soon as we learned that it was going federal, which was right about the end of that two months of my paid leave, I had FBI agents show up at my door at my home. And I, to backtrack a little, so that happened on December 17th of 2018, on December 23rd, which was the Friday after that,

that happened on a Tuesday. On that Friday, I had surgery on my right shoulder from lifting weights. I ended up tearing up my shoulder pretty bad and had to have a couple surgeries on it. So I was down with that also. And so anyways, go for it a couple months. I'm still in a brace and stuff on my shoulder. And FBI shows up in my door and serves me with an indictment for a civil right violation against the father. The two FBI agents that came to my door were extremely professional, good people I would say. They were compassionate and I appreciate them for the job they did.

And I know that's what they were doing, we're supposed to their job. But getting that federal indictment opened my eyes up to the fact that, man, what's the smallest thing you can do in law enforcement as an officer or as a rank or as a chief even and not be put under a federal indictment? You know, because to me the the punishment outweighed that they act a lot. And I know things don't have to be fair and and you know I violated my oath that I took. I understand that. I understood that from the moment that I came to you.

And I have to live with that for the rest of my life, because I was, and still am, extremely serious about that oath. But, you know, the first thing I did when I got that indictment, I was trying to figure out what to do. I first person I spoke with was my mayor. And ended up talking to the actual union rep from the county and ended up getting the name of an attorney.

A federal attorney, I got in touch with him. He was actually a prosecutor for the Justice Department at one time. Got in touch with him and retained him. Went in, talked to him, told him my story. And he was the right choice for sure. Damn good man. Glad I've got him.

But it's looking back on this entire thing and thinking about the two you know, the, was it two and a half years, you know, since it happened. You know, I farms a structure. You know, I taught pistol combat tactics, rifle combat tactics, patrol rifle structure, a structure for active shooter, response to active shooter. And a few other things in this, you know, as always in the back of my mind,

my retirement gig was gonna be to go around and train law enforcement. And you know, a federal indictment, you can't be in position of firearms. You can't even, can't even own them. So the day after I got that indictment what I ended up doing was going to the local gun store. It sold, sold both my Daniel defense rifles. My Mark 18, well you have my Mark 18 and my D.D. MR7 or 7-R and then my SIG 320, 365, a couple of 1911, Springfields I had sold everything.

Sold it all. Sold it all. Got a receipt. So I'd have something to turn in this proof. I'm not saying I'm the best rule follower that there is, but in that case at that that time, I felt like following the rules is exactly what I needed to do. And I know I had the option to, you know,

sell them to friends, or have somebody do safe keeping for me. But at that point, I felt like the best thing to do was to do something that was on paper that I had to receive for, had paperwork for, and they could be checked into really easy for them, for the US Justice Department. So that's how I did that. But it was almost like, and I'm going to kiss them slack from my kids for saying this, but it was almost like I went back home after selling the guns.

You know, it was like, oh my kids had just left home for the first time. It was rough. Yeah. Because you know, guns are pretty things. Yeah. But, yeah. So there are some life changes that take a lot of getting used to, and I'm not used to them at all yet.

You know, it's... Who, who's the one that decided that who is behind all this this bid push to indict you? The the federal prosecutor and to be honest with you Sean I'd have to look at the paper to tell you what his name is. I when I read through those I don't look at the headings. I just I just look at the content and that's it, but yeah, the federal prosecutor's for the Justice Department in Kansas City, yeah. You know, and I'm not saying that they're bad people or that they get their head screwed on wrong or anything like that was whatever what I'm saying is, man, you know, there's black and white and there's gray. And the best officers I've ever seen on the planet, the best law enforcement, people federal down to a town of 200 people. The best law enforcement I've ever seen,

nowhere that gray is, and no to look at that gray, to make a decision. I don't feel like that was done. I think it sounds like, you know, there's a time to give a slap on a wrist and there's a time to throw the fucking book at ya. Right. And these guys threw the book at ya for saving a six month old baby.

Yeah. Yeah. Are they still there or? They are. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah? They are. Yeah, they are. Yeah. It was a really strange thing. We went to the Justice Forum at the Federal Courthouse a couple of different times, my attorney and I, for a couple of meetings that we had to do with them.

I had to get a PO, which in this sense is a pre-trial officer but it's a PO is a PO is. I was fortunate enough that the one I got in Kansas City was great. She knew her job very well. She told me exactly what I need to do when I need to do it and I followed those rules and I never had any problems at all. She came out and did her first house check with me because under her federal indictment so they I had to check in once a week with the PO to let them know hey you know I'm still alive still in this area I haven't left if I wanted to travel outside of I think it was three different counties there around me if

I wanted to travel outside of that area think it was three different counties there around me. If I wanted to travel outside of that area, I had to call and get permission to do that. You know, it changed the jobs. I had to notify them. And those are things that a free person is not used to doing. And that's just, you know, it sinks in when you go to bed at night. But she did her job well. She was great. I have no complaints whatsoever about her. She's a pretty decent person when she came out and did with the house check.

I had a stairwell that went down to my basement. My basement was my man cave head, all my awards and crap, all my old chief used to call it, a love me wall. So I had my love me wall down there, and all my junk. She spent some time looking over those things, and when she was done looking at those things,

she was done with her house check, and that was the only one that I ever had to deal with, you know, while I lived in that area. Later on, I ended up moving, and they had to come out and do a house check, but that was in a different residence altogether. You know, I can't complain about the Justice Department because I realize if I go black and white, they're doing their job. To me, they're going after something that they probably shouldn't have, but I know in the end they're doing their job. When law enforcement started getting a really bad light, and I mean by bad light, good

shootings, good arrests were being made, but being seen as bad and publicized through the media, I got scared and my attorney got scared. I initiated a phone call with my attorney and I said, look, I'm not sure about this, you know, doing a jury trial on this is scary at this moment because of the way law enforcement is being looked at. He agreed and so we approached the Justice Department with a plea. And the plea basically was, plea guilty to this, it exchange for so much time

and probation. It would be something that my life wouldn't be altered too much from his current state. However, you know, there's nothing set in stone on that. The Justice Department agreed to it as you saw. But the judge does, he has the option to throw out my plea and take it to trial or to instill a harsh repunishment. And out of everything that I've heard about it so far,

and you got to understand by this time, and I'm sure I'm not the only person that's experienced something like this, but by this time, any time that the new information comes forward to me about my case on the federal level. It's like throwing clothes in the washing machine. It just gets mixed together. It's just more shit thrown into the mix. The last thing during the plea hearing after it, the last thing I knew of, and I think you saw it in the paperwork that I gave you,

they're also called for restitution for the father. For me to pay restitution to that man out of my pocket. That's tough to swallow, that's rough. That one I'm not really sure if my brains ever gonna get wrapped around that. That's just me. It's Man, you know, that's like You know, that's like giving a bully a gold star for a day, you know, it didn't make sense to me I don't think it makes sense to anybody, but probably those prosecutors. Right. Yeah, they per they are You know, yeah, I don't think there's anybody that's

going to see this. That's going to understand why they would, why that would, why that would even be a thing. You know, wow. So where does it stand? Where is everything right now? So right now, in the first week of December, I've got a sensing hearing that I have to appear for. I don't know the time off top of my head right now, but anyways, I have a sensing hearing that I have to appear for. And that's where I'm going to find out the end result of what's actually going to happen,

what's going to be set in stone. I'm really nervous about that because I just, with some of the things I've seen so far, nothing has gone anywhere near the way I thought it would. And I always try and look at things as how I would do it, how I would handle it or what decision I would make in it, and it just doesn't apply to this, because there's already decisions made that I never would have made. It's just, you know, there's some comfort to things in my mind about it.

But I don't know, I don't even know what the best case scenario is now to be honest with you. If it gets thrown out, if the judges such a throwed out throw out my plea, then we would throw my plea and we go to trial. If we go to trial, I mean, hell, it took the just for my two and a half years to get here. Yeah.

You know, how long will it be until the trial? You know, and why still be on this pre-trial thing, you know, or a pre-sentencing officer? You know what? I still have questions about it. I still don't know what the outcomes are. Until December happens, I just won't know. If it goes to trial, my personal feeling is,

they can't find 12 people to put on a jury. They're going to agree that I'm guilty. I just don't see where that would happen. To me, out of 12, there's going to be a parent, there's going to be somebody that, there's going to be somebody that has a brother or sister as a law enforcement officer. And they're going to look at this and go, you know what? You see a baby come back to life that was drowned by his own father. And all you do is a soul to man. Who did it? Yeah. Yeah.

It's... It's... So I just don't... I don't know where it's gonna go, but that's definitely a worry of mine. You know? I'm trying to build a... Trying to get my future going. Trying to make things work out for me and in my new wife and...

You know, this is just a cloud. You know, just hangs right over the top. Where is the father now? So about a month ago, I saw that he was sentenced to 15 years, but it's to my understanding that he is currently in a mental health institution, which the hitting that I saw, the hit, the, it said that he was since the 15 years in, I want to say Jackson County Jill. But. Sorry, I didn't interrupt. If I remember right last night, you said you were possibly on

the hook for 20 years. And this guy got 15 years? No, 12. He had me on 12, yeah, yeah, possibly 12 for me. Yeah, he got, so he got 15 years. So if you punch somebody who drowned their six month old baby, you're getting it 12 years. But if you decide you want to drown your six-month-old baby, all you have to do

is add another three years. Yeah, that's the math. But I got to add to that to be fair to myself. I acted under the color of law. And I didn't, going into this, I had no experience with the federal side as far as sentence and things like that. And they have guidelines that they follow.

And basically, if you do this, it's this many points and this, this many points. And then if you confess or you plead guilty, then it's this many points taken away. Well, they go through this point system and that's how they figure out what kind of time that you're going to do. It's pretty interesting and scary as hell because it makes zero sense to me. And I'm not an idiot but man that made zero sense to me. But I mean there is still there's a good possibility that you know the judge could say you know what you two years confinement to do you some good let's put you there you know or he could put me in a

mental health institution you know. Do you have a gauge on that judge? I don't. No. No, I don't. He's been practicing for a long long time and he seems like he's a very sharp man. But my plea hearing is the only experience that I have with him, so I just don't have any kind of a gauge on him yet. All right. Well, I don't want to go into, I mean, we spoke last night about how much this is damaged your life afterwards and with previous relationships and family. I don't want to make you go back into that. I think we have exactly what we need for the audience. You know, I said at the beginning, you know, what you were here for. I want you to say, you know, why you came here and what do you want to get out of this interview

to the people that are watching? Um, okay. There's two things that I hope this accomplishes. Um, well, three, I mean, I got to meet you, so that's one, your star, so. But the two things are, you know, first and foremost, there's a woman on Facebook that reached out to me from Ohio,

our name is Charlene, and she started this support group on Facebook, she reached out to me one day and just said, hey, do you mind if I do this? It's none, nocturus sucks off, you know, have had it. And I was like, almost 1,000 people on that support page now, and then recently she started a petition. This is all out of the goodness of her heart. It was, it's an amazing thing,

but there's close to 400 people in that petition now, I think. I don't know that the support page or the petition would do any good on the federal side. They might look at something like that and just kind of giggle to themselves. I don't know, but those things are out there. And I'd love to see both grow.

We'll link that below in the description. And then the other thing is, obviously I've still got a lot of friends in law enforcement. And there's a lot of people that have made contact with me that just started their careers. I couldn't, I could show you after this the messages, but I've had people contact me from South Africa, from Australia, from all over the world.

Languages I don't understand. And one of them, I really like to show you just so you can tell me maybe you know what language it is. But it kind of almost looks Russian, but I'm not sure. But anyways, I've had people contact me from all over the world, giving me support in messages and as so humbling, it's unreal. Then they, it's good to know that there's that many people

on the planet that have good hearts because when you watch the news or something now, it's just scary. It just gets worse every day. But what I'd like to accomplish, the second thing is law enforcement is on duty now and he's to understand the administration and their bosses, the board members, you know, the commissioners, they all have got to understand that mental health is not only something law enforcement has to deal with on duty, they have to deal with it themselves in their own body, at home, with their families. And that's not being recognized, and it needs to be, it really does.

I've got my battles, I know plenty of other officers that have their own battles that are as bad or worse than mine. And they, in less they do the seven free visits, they get through their job with a council that's never, ever been in law enforcement probably most likely never held a gun in their life you know what are they going to get out of it you know they're not going to get anything and that that needs to change that really does so i'm hoping somewhere somehow somebody somebody pays

attention to that and at least does something for their own guys and at least does something for their own guys. Well, I'll bring up the fourth thing then. The fourth thing is you want your look at for employment to be a protector. And so if somebody out there knows of a position that would be perfect for you, your email is in the description. Do you wanna say your email?

It's very simple, but I mean, they're going to be able to spell it unless they look at it in the description Yeah, the last name was it pissed me off pretty bad in kindergarten. It was rough All right, and then one last question. Do you know where this girl is now? The last I heard she went through a foster program and one thing I didn't talk about when I told the story immediately after that incident at the police department with the father happened after I got pulled off of them and everything one of the very first things that happened was we sent officers over to the local grade school to take the other two children from that family

into protective custody. So there were three kids all together. The other two were older, obviously, they're in grade school. Took them into protective custody. To my knowledge, they all entered the foster program and then they all ended up with a distant aunt that from what I understood is taking very good care of them. And the parents don't have, I don't believe they have visitation. It's as far as I know.

I'm confident the father doesn't at least. And I didn't talk about the mother. I'm going to probably keep it that way. That's probably best. All right. Well, I think you're a hero and everybody's eyes, other than these two federal prosecutors in Kansas City.

And I hope when we release that you feel that way and that something good comes to us. And I hope when we release that you feel that way, and that something good comes to us. And man, I really hope that I know you're gonna cross paths with that little girl at some point in time again. And that'll be cool to hear about. But I just wanna tell you chief, it But I just want to tell you chief, it was a real honor to have you here, sitting in that chair and to get your interview.

Like I said, it was like, I've been trying to get you on here for a long time now and finally got you here. And I'm really glad that you were able to tell your piece. So thank you for coming. Oh, I appreciate the opportunity, absolutely. I have looked forward to this for a long, long time and I hope it would happen. And I'm really pleased with the way things went.

This is a far better experience, even than I'd hope for. So I appreciate it very much. Good. Best of luck, brother. Thank you, cheers. Cheers. Celebrate the Black Friday sales event at Woodhouse Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram in Blair. Step into a new Jeep that you can count on.

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Real sense of day jub-oos sprinkled on our PTSD. So things are going well, I guess. Every Monday through Friday, Charlie Sykes speaks with guests about the latest stories from Inside Washington and around the world. You document in a very compelling way. All of the positive things have come out of this, but it also feels like we have this massive hangover. No shouting or grandstanding. Principles over partisanship. The Bullwalk Podcast. Wherever you listen.

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